Some Like It Lethal (35 page)

I touched his mouth with one finger and let his concerns go unacknowledged. It was my turn to be serious. "Why didn't you tell me you had taken that gun away from Rawlins?"

He sighed. "It wasn't my place. He had to tell his mother first, and it was their decision to talk to you about it, not mine. I thought maybe your sister would want to keep it quiet."

"Libby? Quiet?"

He smiled, and I kissed him. I tasted champagne along with something definitely more potent. I don't know when Detective Bloom left, but if he had stayed to watch us, he would certainly have turned away by the time we broke our kiss.

I eased a curl of hair off Michael's forehead. "Come inside and meet my friends. You'll like some of them."

"I left my tuxedo hanging in the closet. Let's go home." Michael put my shoe back on my foot and tucked me into the front seat of his car.

On the way out of town, I broke the news about Spike.

"I'm gonna stop now," he said, sounding dangerous again. "If nobody's at the vet's office, we'll break in."

"We're not going to break in anywhere, ever. We'll call first thing in the morning. He's being well taken care of. Dr. Gilley is excellent."

"How can you stand not knowing if he's alive or dead?"

"I think I'd know if he were dead."

"You've got a psychic connection with a dog?"

"He's not a dog, he's Spike. He's our first baby."

Michael glanced over at me and let his gaze slide down my body. "That's a very fetching dress, you know. But how come it makes me think about how naked you are underneath it?"

Of all the compliments I'd enjoyed that evening, this was the one that made my toes tingle. I began to strip off my long gloves. "You know, we've never had the health discussion."

"The what? Oh, Jesus."

I folded the gloves and laid them demurely in my lap. "After Todd died, I had all the tests, just to be sure he hadn't brought home anything horrible. And I'm perfectly healthy."

"I can see that," he agreed. "Okay, I had to take out a life insurance policy when I expanded Gas 'n' Grub last month. I passed the physical—blood tests and everything. My cholesterol isn't too bad either."

"Michael, will you pull over, please?"

"What?"

I pointed. "There's a parking lot."

He peered out through the windshield. "It's The Home Depot. It's closed."

"I know. Just pull into the parking lot, will you?"

A minute later, the car came to a stop and he asked with concern, "Are you okay?" Then, "What are you doing?"

I had kicked off my shoes again and wrestled around for a minute. At last I handed him my panties.

He stared at them, and then at me. "What are you doing?"

I pulled him out from under the steering wheel and halfway across the seat. I undid his tie, tugged it off
and threw it onto the backseat. His shirt was unbuttoned in a flash, and he was laughing, but his hands were on me.

"Wait a minute." His mouth was against mine. "I thought you wanted to go away someplace romantic?"

"Unfasten my dress. Here, feel the hooks?"

"I'll tear it!"

"Just the top few and I'll wiggle out."

"You're crazy."

"No, I'm just not wasting any more time."

He tried kissing me for a while as a diversionary tactic, but then it became evident that he was just as ready as I was, maybe more, and things really went to hell. We were wrestling and he was growling, and pretty soon I was out of the dress and straddling him on the seat. I liked the shape of him, and he wanted to taste every inch of me within reach.

"Wait." He was out of breath and I could feel his pulse racing beneath my hand. "A tuxedo isn't the only thing I'm not wearing."

"It's okay. I think it doesn't count in a car."

"Is that like calories from cake you eat standing up?" He held my face in his hands, smiling and making sure I was intent.

"Michael," I whispered. "I love you."

Chapter 21

In the middle of the night, too energized to sleep and too physically spent to make love again, we talked quietly in my bed about Tim Naftzinger.

"I don't know what to do," I confided.

"You're sure he killed Strawcutter?"

"Yes, I've known it for a day or more, but tonight he told me himself. He only meant to stop Rush. He was protecting Emma."

"But if Emma blacked out and can't remember what happened, there's nobody who can corroborate his story."

"Exactly. Can he possibly be acquitted?"

"Doubtful. And you don't think he should go to jail," Michael said, slowly tracing my lower lip with one finger. "Do you?"

I sighed, glad I had shared my dilemma, but feeling no closer to reaching a decision. "It's not black and white, is it?"

"Usually, yes."

"But not this time. Tim isn't a violent man. Far from it."

"What do you want to do?"

I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at him in the candlelight. "I don't know. All along, I just wanted Emma to be cleared of Rush's murder. In a few hours, Ben Bloom will hear that she can't have
killed Rush. Her arm hasn't healed as well as she pretends, and she couldn't have swung the polo mallet."

"So Emma can come out of hiding today?"

"Very likely, yes. But that leaves the murder unsolved, as far as the police are concerned."

"So what else is new in law enforcement?"

"But it's so— I feel torn. On one side are Rush and Gussie. On the other is Tim's daughter. She's such a wonderful girl, but so vulnerable. First her mother is taken away, and now this. Tim has tried his best, of course. He's a sweet and gentle man, a good father."

I studied Michael's face, lined and bruised from years of hard experience and so often shuttered to keep the world from guessing what he had done and seen in life. His misspent youth was gone and in its place was the thing I'd fallen in love with—a bittersweet sort of hope for a future born out of the ashes. I asked, "Could a gentle man like Tim survive in prison?"

He touched my throat very lightly, but did not answer.

My heart swelled. I couldn't make sense of the tangled motives anymore, but I knew there was one person who was guilty. "This is all Hadley's fault." My voice trembled. "Maybe he didn't swing the murder weapon, but he set it all up like dominoes. He turned people against each other, used their weaknesses and fears for his own gain. Growing up, we always thought he was a scamp. But now I see he's grown into a monster. He deserves . . ."

"What do you think he deserves?"

"Something terrible." I closed my eyes as if to shut out the thought. "I should feel guilty for wanting him punished more than Tim. Maybe you've lured me to the dark side."

"I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "This calls for street justice, doesn't it? If the police have their way, Emma will be free, but Tim will suffer every day of his life. And Merrie, the innocent one—well, I don't want to imagine."

"What about Rush Strawcutter? What about his justice?"

I slid against him and put my head on his chest. "I don't know. When my—when Todd's— killer was caught, it didn't make me feel any better. Michael, please tell me what to do."

"I can't, and you know it." He stroked my hair. "Maybe tomorrow things will be clearer."

We slept in a warm tangle that felt as natural to me as if we'd been together all our lives. In the morning, he woke first and made quick and quiet love to me before I was fully conscious. Then he covered me up, kissed me and slid out of bed. I heard the shower start, but I lay in the bedclothes, half dreaming, half brooding.

What to do? If I caved in to my instincts and allowed the police to forget about Tim, was I setting down the same path of corruption Hadley had traveled? I wanted to do the right thing, but Merrie's face kept swimming up from the bottom of my swirling mind.

And I thought of Todd, weirdly enough. Here, at last, I was cleaving to another man and allowing the forces of his life to wrap around mine. Was I letting Michael's moral code dictate my own, or was I allowing mine to evolve into something more complex than simple rules of law? Was I wrong? Was it hubris to think I could make the choice?

I thought I heard a door slam downstairs and it woke me up completely. I lay still and listened.

Definitely voices. Definitely coming up the stairs.

I sat up in the bed and groped for something to wear.

Libby and Emma burst into the bedroom in time to see me snatch the sheet against my breasts, hair in a tangle and my lips no doubt swollen from the most passionate of nights.

"Well, well!" Emma poked her head in first with a wide grin on her face. "How bad was the fall from your pedestal, Sis?"

"Oh, my goodness!" Libby waltzed past Emma into the room and looked around in mock dismay. "What happened here last night? There is a magnificent dress thrown over the sofa downstairs, and other unmentionable clothes are scattered from the back porch all the way up the staircase." She picked up one of Michael's socks from the floor and dangled it as Exhibit X.

"Do you two have any definition
of privacy
at all?" I asked.

"We wondered about the etiquette of calling on you this morning," Emma said, still in the hallway. "Do we have to wait until next week for you and the love machine to take a refueling break?"

"Why don't you just come back next month?"

Her grin broadened. "I don't think you want to wait that long. We brought you something."

"Spike!"

Emma carried my puppy into the room. He squirmed and whimpered, but he was alive, firmly encased in a white plaster cast that covered the entire rear half of his body. His front half had been partially
and unevenly clipped so that his hair stuck out at all angles, and his left eye was swollen as if he'd won a prizefight.

I burst into tears and gathered him up. He licked my face so frantically that he eventually peed on the sheets, which meant his body cast wasn't completely sealed.

"Nice," Libby observed. She climbed into the bed beside me, avoiding the wet spot. "Next time, why don't you just adopt one of my kids? They'd be less messy."

"Is he okay? Will he be able to walk?"

"He's probably going to limp." Emma sat on my other side and scratched Spike's head. "Which will be the least of his appearance woes. He's incredibly ugly, isn't he? Oh, and he bit Dr. Gilley on the way out."

"The first thing I'm going to do today is find an obedience class."

"Well, the vet doesn't hold any grudges. He said to bring Spike back in two weeks for a checkup and to make an appointment for him to be neutered."

At that moment, Michael came out of the bathroom rubbing his head with a towel and demonstrating that he had not been subjected to the sort of emasculation soon to be suffered by Spike.

He caused a minor miracle, however, by striking both my sisters completely mute.

He stopped buffing his head and transferred the towel elsewhere. "We're changing the locks," he said.

"Look who's home!" I cried.

He came over and gently took the dog from me. "Hey, buddy!"

Spike happily chewed on his nose.

"How come he doesn't pee on you?" I asked.

"Mutual respect. Hey, Em. Glad to be a free woman?"

"Your cousin is a pig. And I think he's running some kind of half-assed gambling operation. But he's such an idiot that he's going to get busted soon."

"Yes, I know. We'll just let it happen, and you'll never have to see him again. In fact, I can guarantee that, if you want."

"That's okay. You seem to have him suitably terrorized already."

"How's the arm?"

"My arm? Fine." She flexed it, but I noticed she didn't raise it very high. "Great. See? No problems."

Libby said, "The police have decided she's not a stone-cold killer."

"Yeah, this morning's papers say the cops have determined I'm no longer a suspect."

"Question is," Libby said, "who did kill Rush? Have you figured it out, Nora?"

Michael looked at me. So did Emma. Libby blinked expectantly.

"No," I said. "I haven't."

"What a disappointment. I guess you're not much of a detective, after all."

Emma continued to study me. She said, "The police are sure it wasn't me. I bet I have you to thank for that."

The right time would come to tell Emma everything I knew. She would be relieved to hear she had not caused Rush's death. But she would be devastated to learn Tim had been bent on rescuing her when Rush died. I needed to be alone with her when she learned the truth. For now, I said, "None of it was your fault, Em."

"Certainly not," Libby said. "But that means there's still a criminal on the loose! A woman is hardly safe anywhere anymore, is she?"

"And some criminals aren't safe from you," Emma said. "Tell Nora about Doctor Discipline."