His Partner's Wife (10 page)

If so, she didn't show it. "What will you do now?"
she asked.

"Search your house more carefully. Focus on
fingerprints, trace evidence. Keep hoping we can find a neighbor, a delivery
truck driver—
somebody
—who saw a vehicle parked in front of your house or in the
driveway. In other words, boring police work."

She nodded. The knot slipped and tendrils curled against her
neck. "When can I go home again?"

His gut instincts rebelled violently at the idea. Logic
didn't support his unhappiness, however. Whatever had happened in Stuart's
study had nothing to do with Natalie. The killer had had time to do whatever
he'd gone there to do. Why would he come back?

"A couple of days, maybe," he said reluctantly.
"Then, if you're comfortable going home, I don't see why you can't."

She nodded. "What else can I do? Drift around town
taking turns being a guest at all my friends' houses? Put the house on the
market? Even if I were going to do that, I'd have to go through Stuart's things
first, have a garage sale—" she made a face "—probably a huge
bonfire. Of course I have to go home."

His brows drew together.

Natalie laughed. "You don't like admitting I'm right,
do you?"

"You know you can stay here as long as you need
to."

"Yeah." She smiled. "But
you
know I
can't."

He did. A few days here would be okay in the court of public
opinion; people would figure he was helping her out for Stuart's sake. Any
longer than that, whispers would start. John remembered his own brief
discomfiture when he'd had to admit that his fingerprints would be all over Natalie's
house. For her sake, he didn't want any whispers or lewd jokes.

"We'll get done with the house in the next couple of
days," he promised. "In the meantime, I can take you over tomorrow to
get clothes and anything else you need."

She nodded.

A moment of silence developed. John became newly conscious
of the quiet and darkness beyond the lighted kitchen. Knowing everyone else was
asleep made this conversation feel more intimate, as if they were married or
something. If he moved his leg, his knee would bump hers. Their shoulders
almost touched. Her hair was loose, her face scrubbed clean, the toes curled
around the rungs of the stool bare. She was wearing a nightgown and robe, for
Pete's sake. Here he was, smelling of beer and tobacco smoke from the bars he'd
prowled, his jaw scratchy from a day's growth, his eyes likely bloodshot and
his tiredness acute enough to have him swaying as he abruptly swiveled and
stood.

He grabbed the edge of the counter. "Time to hit the
sack."

She did just what he was hoping to avoid. She slid from the
bar stool and touched him. "Are you all right?"

Her hand felt good on his bare forearm, below his rolled-up
shirtsleeve. Warm, soft and, in some indefinable way, womanly. He despised
himself for the shot of heat that steadying touch sent through him.

He couldn't insult her by backing away. All he could do was
wait until her hand dropped to her side. He sounded a little hoarse to his own
ears when he said, "Just light-headed for a minute. A good night's sleep
will cure me."

Natalie's fingers curled into fists at her side.
"Yes." This smile looked forced and her gaze slipped from his.
"Of course. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept you up talking."

"No apologies. I'm the one who dumped my troubles on
you. Actually, talking helped me unwind." He managed a crooked imitation
of a smile. "Maybe that's why I'm so tired now. I talked so damn
much."

To his relief, her expression relaxed. "I'll have to
try it sometime. But not," she said with a breath of laughter, when he
started to open his mouth, "tonight. I'll see you in the morning, John.
Thank you for … well, everything." Startling him, she rose on tiptoe and
brushed the lightest of kisses on his cheek. Then, with a whisk of the robe,
she passed him and left the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the tiled floor.

He stood frozen in her wake, conscious of the faint scent
she'd left behind, something flowery that suited her.

Voice harsh and low, he said, "Damn, damn, damn."

Chapter
5

«
^
»

"
T
his is a bad idea
." Geoff Baxter reluctantly backed onto Natalie's porch,
broad face set in a scowl. He had expressed the same sentiment a dozen times
already. He didn't think it was safe for her to move back into the house, he
had said. More than once. What if the killer returned? Aside from which, she'd
be sullying a crime scene. She was in the way. She…

Mercifully, John had interrupted at that point.

Right now, if Geoff hadn't been standing with his head
thrust pugnaciously forward, Natalie would have been tempted to thank him one
more time—briskly—and shut the door in his face. As it was, the door would
break his nose.

John stood a step behind his partner, expressionless. Except
when he was talking to his children, his face had pretty much looked like that
for the past three days. Which was one reason Natalie had been determined to go
home. Obviously, that evening when she impulsively kissed his cheek, she had
stepped over some boundary that defined their friendship. She'd felt the
constraint ever since.

The two men had insisted on accompanying her, hovering like
nervous parents over a reckless toddler as she put away fresh milk and eggs and
carried her own bag upstairs just to prove to them and herself that she could
walk past the study door without flinching.

It was closed, sealed with yellow "Do Not Cross"
tape. As was the door to the garage.

"We think we're done with the study," John had
explained, "but let's give it another day or two to be sure."

At which point, Geoff had shaken his head morosely.
"Damn it, you shouldn't be back in the house until we're finished with
it."

With eroding patience, Natalie had said flippantly,
"You guessed! I did plan to peel that tape back and sneak in there
tonight. You know, I always shake out the floor mats from my car in the study.
And then, of course, I have to vacuum and wipe every single surface clean.
Gracious, why don't I just get the shampooer out of the garage and do the
carpet in there while I'm at it?"

Geoff had flushed dangerously, while John had given her a
look he most likely reserved for one of his kids when they misbehaved in
public.

She'd thrown up her hands and exhaled in a rush. "I'm
sorry! But you've said yourself there are no fingerprints in the kitchen or my
bedroom or bathroom. Nobody laid a hand on the remote control or the toaster.
You're done with the main part of the house."

Geoff had opened his mouth.

She swept on. "You've told me what not to do. Ask my
fifth-grade teacher. I've always been obedient."

John had looked as if he was trying not to smile.

"So don't fuss!" she said now.

"Fuss!" Sweat beaded Geoff Baxter's receding
forehead. "We're friends! Aren't friends supposed to worry?"

John laid an arm across his partner's shoulder and firmly
turned him toward the street.

He gave Natalie one last, rivetingly intense look.
"Call if you need me," he said, and steered his cursing partner from
the porch and across the lawn—which really needed mowing now—to their dark blue
sedan at the curb.

Natalie took a deep breath, closed the door and locked it.
Alone at last.

"Thank goodness," she said aloud, but without
quite the fervency she'd tried to tell herself she felt. Hastily she raised her
voice again. "Sasha! Kitty, kitty. Those noisy men are gone. Come here,
kitty, kitty. I'll open you a nice can of Fancy Feast."

No sign of the cat until Natalie reached the kitchen, when
Sasha materialized by her food bowl.

"Oh, sweetie." Natalie plopped onto the kitchen
floor and gathered the long-haired black cat into her arms. Sasha wasn't a
particularly cuddly cat, preferring to choose her own time and place, but this
time she submitted with good grace, even purring in her quiet, restrained way.

"You missed me," Natalie mumbled, gaining a
mouthful of hair. Absurdly, tears pricked at her eyes and she gave the cat a
squeeze.

Sasha looked up, round eyes molten copper, and abruptly butted
her nose against Natalie's.

"You did!" She gave a sniff. "I'm so sorry I
haven't been here, sweetie. It must have been scary."

Her half-Persian refugee from the animal shelter agreed in
her tiny chirp that yes, she was scared of all those big, bad men. Leaping from
Natalie's lap, she indicated that a particularly tasty treat would make her
feel ever so much better.

Natalie laughed and blinked away the dampness. Ridiculous to
cry just because she was glad to be home and glad she'd been missed. As she opened
the can and served trout to the cat, she almost wished she hadn't paid for a
housecleaning service to take care of the fingerprint powder and the dirty
footprints on the carpet. It might have been good for her mental health to have
something vigorous to do.

She'd make dinner, she decided on an upsurge of energy. Not
the scrambled eggs and toast she'd planned, but a real, honest-to-goodness
meal, the kind that usually seemed like too much trouble. Hungarian goulash.

A chuck steak she'd put in the fridge would work, and she
unearthed the other ingredients. While the meat browned, she diced green pepper
and onion and took spices from the cupboard.

Once the goulash was simmering, Natalie turned on the
television news.
Her
murder—not a good way to put it, she thought queasily—had
been covered by the Seattle stations on the local news, even though Seattle
should have had enough murders of its own to keep journalists busy. But, just
her luck, this one had seemed to appeal to them. A woman who worked for a newspaper—never
mind that she sold ads instead of writing hard-hitting features—had come home
after work to find a dead body in her house.

"Although the police deny they've reached conclusions,
we're told that there is no sign that murderer or victim were attempting
burglary," they had avidly reported. "How and why did a stranger end
up dead on the upstairs floor of this newspaperwoman's home?"

After half an hour, she could relax. None of the networks
had anything new to work with. Local news was followed by national, focused on
an earthquake in China, Mid-East peace talks, which never seemed to bring
peace, and the president's veto of controversial gun-control legislation. Maybe
feeling so cynical was a sign of impending middle age, Natalie feared, sighing
as she turned off the television.

She put noodles on and wondered what she would do with the
remainder of her evening. Usually weekday evenings were filled with a scramble
to keep the house clean and her clothes ready to wear. But she'd done all her
laundry at John's house, and the maid service had taken care of the parts of
the house she was allowed in. She could have mowed earlier and put dinner back,
but it was too late to think of that now.

During dinner, Natalie gave herself a stern lecture. For
heaven's sake, she was a woman of many interests! She wasn't such a wimp that
she was going to let that … that invasion of her home turn her into a nervous
wreck.

After putting leftovers away and loading the dishwasher,
Natalie marched right upstairs to her sewing room to see how much damage Sasha
had done to the fabric and pattern pieces that had been laid out. The yellow
crime scene tape stretched across the door frame checked her briefly. It was
jarring, even bizarre, an image from TV cop shows transplanted to her upstairs
hall. Never mind that it reminded her of what lay beyond the closed door—of
what
had
lain beyond that door.

With a shiver, Natalie hurried into her sewing room. She
pulled this door closed just far enough to shut out her view across the hall,
leaving it ajar in case the phone rang, or…

Admit it, she thought ruefully. What she really wanted was
to be sure she would hear footsteps, or a creak from down below, that she'd
have some warning. Somehow up here she felt more vulnerable.

"Don't be silly," she said aloud.