Hidden Fire, Kobo (35 page)

The atmosphere seemed more casual now.
She found the courage to voice the question that had been bugging her since
they arrived. "Are you allowed to tell me more about why you're having
this meeting here? It can't be because Chief Laughlin had to attend a wedding."

Randy and Kovak glanced out the window,
as if they thought Chief Laughlin might be listening.

"He was getting some strange vibes,"
Kovak said. "Seemed every time we'd start to make a little headway,
someone would remind him we were in over our heads. That the bigger agencies
should handle the big cases and we should take care of our normal Pine Hills
problems."

"Like a man getting murdered in Pine
Hills isn't a Pine Hills problem?" she said. "Who's making those
calls?"

"They come from the town council,"
Randy said. "The chief thinks someone has his or her own reasons for
wanting us off the murder case beyond us needing support from county for the
forensics. Whoever he or she is, they seem to know when we've been working on
the case and they've been less than subtle about telling the chief to pull us
off."

Kovak nodded in agreement. "And, for
the record, the chief
does
have a wedding to go to. Randy's on vacation
and I'm taking comp time for the overtime I wasn't supposed to be working last
week. Gone fishing, if anyone asks. But we get to work more or less
uninterrupted and we're not going to run into other LEOs."

"Leos? Like lions?" she asked.

"Law enforcement officers,"
Kovak explained. He rolled his eyes in Randy's direction. "Shi—sheesh big
guy, don't you tell her anything?"

Sarah rolled her eyes, mimicking Kovak's
expression. "He thinks keeping me in the dark about his job is protecting
me, although it doesn't seem to be working, does it?"

Randy shot her an exasperated look. "You're
here, aren't you?"

She found his leg under the table and
rubbed it gently with her foot. "Yes. And except for your unorthodox taste
in pictures, it's been fascinating."

The men attacked their computers again.
She chewed her lip, trying to make some sense of what she'd seen and heard.
Everything was as tangled as the skeins of yarn in Maggie's knitting basket
after Othello, her cat, got into it. "So you think if you work on the
murder, you might find something that connects it to the town council? That's way
out there."

Randy slipped one hand under the table
and put her leg in his lap. "It might be the smuggling. We think they're
tied together."

"Murder and smuggling in the Pine
Hills town council," she mused. "That's …
really
out there,
all right."

"Does seem farfetched," Randy
said, massaging her calf through her jeans. "How are you doing, Mister
Gorilla?"

"Got a machine at the number for
Ingraham's charter company. Left a message that I'm interested in a trip. Found
a Freddie Voorhees. He's a drug dealer, all right."

"Drugs
and
diamonds? This is
getting crazy," Sarah said.

Kovak gave a huge grin. "Voorhees
sells pharmaceuticals. Legal drug dealer. He's worked for half a dozen
companies over the last ten years. Moves around a lot. No wants, no warrants,
no record. I think I'll pay the guy a call on the way back. Ask a few
questions." He shot Randy a knowing look. "Let you two get back to
having fun."

Randy slid her leg to the floor and gave
her a sheepish grin. The one that made her want to jump into his arms. She
inched her head forward, her mouth going dry. In response, his eyelids went to
half mast, pure bedroom.

"Sounds good," Randy said, not
taking his eyes off her. "We should probably get out of here before they
make us buy lunch."

She licked her lips. "Are we still
going down the coast?" she asked.

"Later," he said, his voice
rough.

"Take it easy, you two," Kovak
said. "Or do I need a bucket of ice water?"

In her peripheral vision, she saw Kovak
packing his papers and laptop. "And I'm on my way," he said.

Randy turned off the road into a pullout
overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Trying to navigate the coast highway and enjoy
the view were mutually exclusive and he was ready for a break. He stepped out,
sucking the briny smell of the ocean into his lungs. He leaned against the
hood, watching the surf crash over the rocks, instantly transfixed by the rhythm
of the waves. Sarah sidled up beside him, sliding her arm around his waist. She
leaned her head against his chest.

"You feeling all right?" she
asked.

"Fine," he said.

"You wouldn't admit it if you weren't,
would you? The way you had to eat every bit of that salsa at breakfast. You had
to know it would aggravate your stomach."

"Doesn't bother me that much,"
he said. "A little heartburn. No big deal." He stared out to sea. "When
a cop transfers to a new division, guess what's the first thing he asks."

She looked up at him. "I don't know.
Where do you keep the bullets?"

He tousled her hair. "No, it's 'Where
do you keep the antacids?' It's an occupational hazard."

"Will you promise me one thing?"
she asked.

The moon if she asked. "Name it."

"See a doctor when we get back."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "All
right. But it's a waste of time."

They stood awhile longer. The smells of
the sea and of Sarah blended, relaxing him.

"You're quiet," she said.

"Thinking." A pelican plunged into
the surf. Randy waited, watching until it bobbed to the surface. At the water's
edge, shorebirds darted back and forth along the beach.

"About?"

"It's complicated."

She pulled away. "Which is your way
of avoiding a conversation. I thought we were going to talk more." She stuffed
her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stared out to sea.

"I know. But I have to sort things
out in my head before they come out my mouth. That habit's too ingrained to
break easily, at least when it's job-related."

She tilted her head and looked up at him,
a half-smile on her lips. "Good to know you're more spontaneous with your
words in other departments."

"And sometimes I don't think you
need words." He whirled her around, hoisted her onto the hood of his truck
and kissed her. Toenail-deep kisses. Delving for answers to questions as old
and unfathomable as the ocean behind him. As if his life depended on the
answers. And while he was drowning in the kiss, he wondered if it did.

"I love you, Sarah," he
whispered when he finally needed to breathe. "I'm new to this … this
balancing of job and life. Until I met you, my life was my job."

She blinked those stone blue eyes at him.
"So you understand how important my job, my shop, is to me."

He nodded. "But you know how to
shift gears from one to the other. I don't know if I can do that. There's
always a part of me that's going to be on duty."

"And I understand that. It's part of
the package." Her eyes saddened. "The part I'm trying to come to
grips with."

"Sounds like we each have something
to work on. I'm game. You?"

"Kiss me like that again and I'll
think about it."

He did.

The atmosphere in the truck lightened as
they continued south.

"Do you and Kovak work like you did
this morning all the time?" Sarah asked. "He takes a lot of pot
shots, doesn't he?"

Randy laughed. "He was being kind,
probably in deference to you and the chief being there."

"And you?"

"Oh, I was being
very
kind."

She smiled. "Good. Because I'd hate
to think you can't give as good as you get."

What would she think if she was present
at a crime scene and heard the way cops talked? Would she accept that they
needed humor to see them through the darkness? Or would she think they were
cold, uncaring brutes? "No need to worry there. I can hold my own."

She shifted in her seat, twisting to face
him. "I had fun," she said softly, as if it embarrassed her to admit
it. "It was fascinating to see you all in action. And I felt like I fit
in, kind of."

"You more than fit in, Sarah. You
were an asset to the team." He punched her playfully on the arm. "But
don't go getting ideas about stealing my job."

"No danger of that," she said
with a laugh. "But I like sharing, even if it's only a part of what you
do."

"We'll be in Arcata in half an hour,"
he said. "I'm going to stop on campus. If you want to come along, you're
welcome. Or I can stop at the motel first and you can relax while I do my
thing."

"I'll stay with you," she said.
"The school has a great art department with an extensive ceramics program.
Maybe I can poke around, ask questions. See their gallery. I might find a clue
or two."

"Slow down, woman. A couple of hours
brainstorming doesn't make you a detective."

She glared at him. "But that's my
area of expertise."

"We'll see," he said.

Her gaze grew wary. "Now that your
meeting is over, are you vacationing, or vacationing with work on the side, or
just plain working?"

"Depends where this afternoon takes
me," he said. And for the first time in as long as he'd been a cop, he
wished it would be a dead end. That he could shove the whole mess onto all the
other departments and let them do their jobs, which would let him spend four
more days with nothing but Sarah to think about.

"All right." Her smile
surprised him.

"I didn't expect you to accept that
so easily," he admitted.

"The way I see it, if you're
vacationing, we'll have a great time. If you're doing the vacation with an
investigation on the side, I can be part of it. And if this ends up being four
days of work for you, I can scout artists for my shop, do some sightseeing. As
a matter of fact, the school has another gallery in Eureka. Old Town should be
fun."

"You're okay with being on your own?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "Why
shouldn't I be?"

Right. What was he thinking? Her big
thing was independence. She probably didn't feel like half the lights in the
world went out when they were apart, the way he did.

"We're sharing a room, right?"
she said. "You're not going to work 24/7 like in Pine Hills, are you? It'll
be a test. What it's like to share you with your job, but not all at once."

His spirits lifted as his brain finally
clicked into gear. Here, outside his jurisdiction, even if he was working, it
wouldn't be official and definitely not around the clock. He'd be done in time
for dinner at a decent hour every evening. And nights … his body responded to
that thought with a dramatic shift in blood flow.

Business first
. He steered the truck along the edge of
campus onto Harpst Street and found the Student and Business Services Building.
After parking in a lot that said "General Parking", he headed for the
structure.

Sarah tugged on his sleeve. "Wait a
second." She pointed to a cluster of buildings behind them. "The
sculpture and ceramics labs are right over there. You can do your cop stuff and
I can look around."

Much as he liked having Sarah nearby,
logic said he'd get more information from Rachel Michaelis in the campus police
department if he kept it cop to cop, so he agreed.

"Call when you're ready," she
said. "I have a feeling there will be enough to hold my interest while you're
working." She tilted her face up, an open invitation to a lingering
goodbye. He brushed his lips across her forehead instead.

"If I kiss you for real, I'm not
going to be able to walk into that building," he said.

"Suit yourself. See you later."

He hung back, watching her walk away, her
stride purposeful, her hips swinging enough to make him want to get through his
meeting with Rachel Michaelis and into the vacation portion of the trip.

* * * * *

Sarah changed from jeans to a long green
skirt and added a coordinating jungle print faux-wrap top. She caught Randy's
eye in the mirror as she adjusted the top. His eyes weren't on hers, though. A
bit too low for that. "I swore I packed my green scarf," she said,
turning and pushing past him to check her suitcase.

"I like it better without,"
Randy said, running his fingers along the deep V of the neckline, along the
tops of her breasts.

She slapped his hand away. "You
would. You're a man." She dumped the contents of the bag on the bed. "Ha!
Here you are, you sneaky thing." She stuffed everything else in the
dresser drawer, then went back to the mirror and wrapped the silk scarf around
her neck.

"I still like it better without,"
he said.

"Image is everything," she
said. "I'm representing a classy boutique. I have to look the part."