Sleight of Hand (21 page)

Drake wasn't too surprised to hear this.  The woman was in a fragile state before they arrived to burst her delusions.  Silence as Miller scrutinized him.  She was dressed in a conservative charcoal grey suit, her blonde hair pulled back into a tight roll at the nape of her neck.

What was he supposed to say?  He wished Jimmy was here, he was much better at playing Miller's games than Drake was.  

"I'm sorry to hear that," he ventured.

"You look awful," she continued, her eyes raking him over, head to toe.  "I think you need more time off."

Drake straightened, despite the protest from his aching leg.  "I'm fine."

"So fine that you forgot your meeting with Dr. White this morning?"

Aw hell.  What the hell was wrong with him?  First behaving like a baboon with Hart last night, now blowing off an appointment with the man who held his future as a cop in his hands?

"Sorry," he muttered, his gaze focused on the view of Our Lady of Sorrows through the window behind her.  

"I heard about what happened with Hart and Spanos.  You know, DJ, you were one of my best detectives before you met that woman."

He wanted to protest that Hart had nothing to do with the state he was in, but knew it was a lie.  Hart had everything to do with the state he was in.  Last night after he'd fled her house and returned home, he'd been unable to concentrate on the re-opened cases, had tried to paint, but the pigment turned to mud in his hands.  

He'd been unable to do anything except a few frenzied sketches of Hart and Marion Kent surrounded by the faces of Tanya Kent, Regina Eades, Adam Cleary, and Sophia Frantz.  As if somehow four dead victims and two women who had survived their worst nightmares were linked together.

"I'll re-schedule with White," he said, hating the idea.  The shrink would have a field day with what happened between him and Hart last night.

"I already did.  He'll see you at one this afternoon."

"We've got–"

"Let Dolan handle anything you have scheduled.  I understand how important these cases are to you, but we're talking your career here.  Either White certifies you fit for duty by next week, or we're going to have to discuss more permanent arrangements."

She meant disability.  Like he was nuts or something.  Drake remembered the red haze of fury and fear that had blindsided him last night with Hart and then again at her house and wondered if maybe Miller wasn't on the right track.

He blew his breath out, sagged against the back of the chair, not caring that she noticed.  What would he be if he couldn't be a cop?

Guilt twisted inside him.  Hart was facing the same problem and instead of a sympathetic ear or comforting embrace, what had he offered her?  An out of control lout.  How could he face her again, even to apologize?  How could he face anyone if they drummed him off the force?

<><><>

"I thought you said this was finished."  Senator George Ulrich hung up his cell phone with a bang and turned to his son.

"It is.  Dr. Hart is on leave, Sterling told me last night.  Dad, why are you getting so upset–you know Virginia's done nothing wrong.  I think it's wrong to push Hart too far, it'll only put her on the defensive."  Paul Ulrich began to butter his croissant.

His father yanked the roll away from him and hurled it against the dining room wall.  "How many times do I have to tell you!  All it takes is the appearance of impropriety.  Damn it, Paul, I'm in the fight of my life here.  Welsch's campaign is gaining momentum, even right here in my hometown."

"And my son might be dying!"  Paul said.  

The Senator stared at his son, surprised by the  outburst.  Had Paul picked now to finally grow a backbone?  

"You've gotten rid of Hart," his son continued, "your problem's solved, so just go back to your campaign, Dad.  Leave us alone, that's what you're good at."

"Paul, you know I'd lay down my life for Charlie–you know that.  If there was anything I could do to help him, I'd move heaven and earth to get it for him.  He's my only living grandchild.  My chance at a legacy–"

"I thought I was your chance for a legacy.  Isn't that what you've been grooming me for all these years?"

"Son, you're a damned fine lawyer.  You are.  But you just don't have what it takes for the political life.  You'd have to leave Virginia and Charlie and the new baby behind–for months at a time.  Missed birthdays, holidays, school plays.  Could you do that to them?"

"No.  No I couldn't, I wouldn't want to."  

The Senator assumed as much.  Paul didn't have what it took to get the job done.  Never would.  Couldn't even get rid of one irritating bitch.   It was Scott Thayer, Paul's assistant, who had taken care of gathering the background on Hart, putting a bug in Judge Franklin's ear–and a hefty campaign contribution into his pocket.  "It seems the good doctor is still a thorn in our side.  That was Thayer.  She's convinced her boyfriend to look into Virginia's previous CYF investigation."

"Those files are confidential–he can't get to them.  Besides, Children and Youth said Virginia is innocent, so what does it matter?  He'll just tell Hart that she was wrong."

George Ulrich shook his head.  How could he have raised such a naive man?  It was Paul's mother's fault, she'd coddled the boy too much, protected him from the realities of life.  "Even so, it's still not something we want on the eleven o'clock news, now is it?  Thayer's bringing Richard King here later."  

He didn't add that he'd instructed Thayer to dig up more dirt on Hart and to spread the rumors about King's affair with Virginia.  A long dead affair, that he could handle, especially if it added to the public perception of Hart as unstable and unreliable.  He had to erase any doubt of Virginia's innocence before the primaries.

"Richard?  Why?"

"He was married to Hart.  He'll know her weak spots.  Then we can finish this once and for all."

Paul got to his feet, frowning.  "You deal with King.  I have to get to the hospital and see my wife and son."

<><><>

"Hart, I need to talk to you."

Cassie spun around at the sound of Tony Spanos' voice.  The Neanderthal patrolman was the last thing she needed.  This corridor outside the Blarney Stone's restrooms was where he'd cornered her when they first met.

"What do you want?" she asked, planting her feet and facing him straight on.

To her surprise he stopped and looked down at the floor.  "I got something–look, we got off on the wrong foot, and I was thinking about what happened, and I just wanted–"  When he looked up his face was flushed.  "It wasn't you–it was Drake I was mad at," he went on.  "I should've never taken it out on you.  Anyway, what happened with Morris, I just wanted to apologize.  That should've never happened, I should've been watching what Johnson did more closely."

It wasn't elegant, but it was more of an apology than she'd ever expected to hear from Spanos.  Maybe he wasn't such a Neanderthal after all.

"Drake told me about what happened last summer with Pamela," she told him.  "I can understand why you'd be upset."

Spanos straightened to his full height, his broad shoulders almost brushing the walls of the narrow corridor.  "Pamela–she was really something.  I don't know what Drake told you about her and me, but we really clicked, I thought we had something going but then he came along–" He shrugged.  "I don't know what women see in a jerk like him.  If you know about what he did to Pamela, using her and throwing her away like she was nothing, how come you stay with him?"

Spanos' version of Pamela's death sounded very different than Drake's.  Cassie could understand why he blamed Drake for her suicide.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry for how I acted toward you.  Maybe someday, we could–"

The door to the back room opened and Drake emerged.  Both men bristled, the waves of antipathy palpable in the narrow confines of the corridor.

"What's going on?" Drake asked, his gaze skimming over Cassie to rest on Spanos as if the other cop was a threat.

The two men were squared off, fists clenched at their side.  Idiots.  It would serve them right if she left them to slug it out on their own.

But then she wouldn't have the chance to apologize to Drake.  And the longer she left that go, the harder it would be.

"Nothing," Cassie said.

"We were just talking.  You got a problem with that?" Spanos took a step toward Drake.

Drake's face hardened into a blank slate.  Without another word, he spun on his heel and returned to the back room.

"Like I said." Spanos nodded to the closed door.  "Complete jerk."  Cassie could hear the sounds of pool balls being hit forcefully, clack, clack clack like the ricochet of bullets.  "So, we square, doc?"

She nodded and put her hand on the brass doorknob.  Spanos shook his head once more at the foolish ways of women and returned to the main room.  Cassie took a deep breath.  Grace and poise, she coached herself.  Then wrinkled her nose–the words were as foreign to her as the lunar surface.  At least she could study the moon, even if from afar.  How did you learn to be charming, alluring?

She turned the knob and went in.  The back room was large enough to hold two old fashioned billiard tables, a battered leather couch, and a juke box currently belting Stevie Ray Vaughan.  A sign on the wall said the maximum capacity of the oak paneled room was thirty but it felt crowded with her and Drake as its sole occupants.

<><><>

"You two done with your
tete a tete
?" Drake lined up a double bank shot and gave the cue ball a powerful slam.  

He barely noticed when it hit its mark, sinking the three ball into the corner and going on to hurtle the four ball against the far bank and into the side pocket.  He was much too occupied with squelching the surge of jealousy and anger that had ambushed him when he'd seen Hart with Spanos.  This morning he wanted nothing more than the opportunity to apologize.  Now this riot of emotion threatened to overcome his carefully rehearsed speech.

"Nice shot," she said, moving into the periphery of his vision and suddenly he couldn't focus on the cue ball in front of him.

Drake grunted, moving away from her intoxicating, infuriating presence and hit an easy power shot, line driving the seven across the table and into the side pocket.  Who cared about the rotation or the beautiful bank shot he'd so carefully set up for the five ball?  Fuck the rules.

It wasn't like Hart ever followed them, so why should he?

Then he remembered last night.  When he was the one who'd broken every rule of decent conduct.  He stood, gripping the stick with sweaty hands and turned to face her.

"You here to see me or chat up Spanos?" Ouch, that hadn't been what he wanted to say.  She colored, a pale crimson that shaded her cheekbones ever so slightly, but a red flag to Drake.  He had to tread lightly or he would lose her.  He took a breath, trying to swallow the bilious anger that had sparked in him.

She turned her face up, meeting his eyes, and he could see he'd hurt her again.  "I came to apologize.  For last night," she said, her voice barely audible over the crooning of Stevie Ray.  "I should never have run away like that.  I'm sorry."

Drake blinked, completely undone by her words.  The anger vanished, replaced with shame.  The pool cue slid from his hands, falling to the floor with a clatter.

"You're sorry?"  He cleared his throat and tried again.  "I acted like a barbarian.  I should have never–" he stumbled.  This had been so easy when he rehearsed it in the shower this morning.  Without her large brown eyes soaking up every word, staring at him, seeing through him, knowing him for the lout he was.

She frowned, and Drake knew he'd blown it.  

"You thought I was upset about the sex?" she asked.  

He winced at her bluntness.  Leave it to Hart to not mince words.  He nodded.  

"The sex was fine.  In case you hadn't noticed I've been trying to get you to jump my bones for days.  I was irritated by the timing–at first.  But then I had other things to distract me."  She grinned up at him, taking his hand in hers and tracing a finger over his palm.

Her touch made Drake's heart race.  She brought his wrist to her lips and kissed the throbbing pulse point there.  Her eyes remained locked onto his.  

"Then why–" He tugged his hand from her and looked away.  "I thought maybe I'd forced you–like Richard.  Done something to hurt you."

"It wasn't you.  It was me.  I don't know what triggered it.  Honestly, it wasn't anything you did.  I just had this flash of Richard and I got scared."  She gave a short, derisive laugh.  "Actually it was a full-blown panic attack.  Couldn't breathe, felt like I was being smothered, head pounding, hyperventilating–the whole nine yards.  Guess you didn't know you were getting involved with a crazy woman, did you?"

She turned away from him, leaning over the pool table, spinning the cue ball against the velvet.  But Drake wasn't fooled by her casual tone.  Hart was extremely poor at hiding her emotions, especially from him.  He saw the color in her face rise, the tension hunch her shoulders, the muscle spasm in her jaw, marring that exquisite profile.

She'd described almost the same symptoms he'd had at her house and at the station parking lot yesterday.  Was that what it was, a panic attack?  Maybe they were both crazy.

Then he smiled.  If so, there was no one he'd rather share a bed at Western Psych with.  He moved toward her, encircling her waist, pulling her back against him.  She fit just right, his chin resting on the top of her head, cushioned by masses of dark curls.  He sighed.  The scent of springtime filled each breath as he lay his cheek against her hair.

"I guess we're both a couple of fools," he whispered.  She nodded and turned within his arms.

She reached up, fisting her fingers in his hair and dragging his face down to hers.  The kiss was long and deep, a tantalizing appetizer.  Drake knew she had much more to offer, and he was greedy to savor all of her.

What was wrong with him, avoiding this for so long? 

They parted for air.  Hart hiked her hips onto the table.  She reached for the buttons of her denim shirt and with a wicked grin, began to slowly undo them.  Drake reached out to speed the process, but she batted his fingers away.