The Boy With The Painful Tattoo: Holmes & Moriarity 3 (17 page)

I said bitterly, “You’re right about that.
We
might actually last.”

J.X. winced, like the words somehow hit him. “Poor Kit.” He leaned forward, pushing me back and thoroughly kissing me. He finished by kissing the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry that asshole hurt you so much.”

“It’s okay. I’m over it,” I said uncomfortably.

He kissed me again, softly, tenderly.

I said, “If you want to meet my parents, we can…I don’t know. Have them up to stay with us. I mean, at different times, because they hate each other and can’t be in the same building. Or industrial complex. So be careful what you wish for. But I’ll put something together. I didn’t realize you cared. And I’m horrified you think whatever it is you’ve been thinking.”

He studied me gravely and I gazed back at him with equal seriousness.

I reached up to tuck a strand of shiny dark hair behind his ear. “I love you,” I said. “I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t. Selling my home. Moving across the state? You have to know me that well.” I gave him a smile that was probably three parts grimace and one part total self-consciousness. “It scares the hell out of me how much I love you.”

His smile seemed to stop the breath in my chest. He looked so
happy.

“Is that true?”

“True. Truly. Truly true.”

His laugh was relieved and easy. “Because I know this all happened faster than you were ready for. I know you agreed without completely realizing what you had agreed to. And I did deliberately take advantage of that.”

I made a face. “I could have said no at any point. I didn’t. I’m here because I want to be here with you.”

“You don’t have to be scared, Kit, because I’m never going to hurt you. Never going to let you down.”

He meant it too. He said it with complete sincerity and it made my eyes sting because J.X. really was an idealist in a lot of ways. But we all hurt the people we love sometimes. We all let each other down sooner or later. Which is why contrition and forgiveness played a part in any relationship. Trying not to hurt each other, trying not to let each other down in the big things, that was as much as anyone could aim for.

I smiled and said, “I know.”

“I’m not a player. I’ve never been a player,” he said. “Look at my parents. They’ve been together forever.”

“True,” I said. I added mournfully, “But then again, look how your first marriage turned out.”

Retaliation was swift and completely enjoyable.

We took time to have a nice lunch at the hotel before we finally hit the road. J.X. once again volunteered to drive, and I was happy to leave it to him.

“I had a feeling that second drive was going to be too much for your back,” he said.

Somehow when J.X. mentioned my bad back, I didn’t feel defensive as I had when Jerry brought it up. Which was funny because being the robust, virile type, it would have been reasonable for J.X. to expect—or at least wish for—the same macho behaviors out of me. But not only did he not make me feel guilty, he was easy-going about the migraines and the bad back and the various little aches and pains I entertained. He was genuinely kind.

And kindness was probably about as promising an indicator in a potential partner as you could hope for.

J.X. turned on the CD player and, as Jack Johnson once more launched into “You and Your Heart,” smiled at me. The littlest things seemed to reassure him, make him happy.

I shook my head, but I could see my smiling reflection in the side window.

During the drive J.X. talked mostly about the convention. He’d had a busy and productive weekend. I listened absently. I was thinking about Ladas. Had he managed to pick my trail up after Paso Robles? Was he following our car right now? Or was he waiting for us back in San Francisco? I had no doubt that sooner or later he was going to pop up again. But to what end? What the hell did he want?

I didn’t see how he could believe I had possession of the coins. On the other hand, Ingrid Edwards had thought it was a possibility. Unless she had some other reason for getting inside my house. But what other reason? The whole thing was so bizarre.

I sighed.

J.X. broke off what he was saying to ask, “Is your back hurting? You want to stop and stretch your legs?”

“Not yet. I can wait till Wooster when we stop to pick up my china.”

“Something’s bothering you. You’ve been frowning for the last twenty miles.”

“This relates to another pain in the ass.”

J.X. gave a half laugh. “What’s that?”

“Well, I don’t want to alarm you. I don’t want to alarm myself. But I think there’s a possibility I might have acquired a stalker.”

The car swerved, righted itself. J.X. said, “A stalker as in…”

“As in, if he isn’t, I’m going to feel horrible—as well as self-obsessed—for saying any of this.” I proceeded to give him the whole account of my so-called relationship with Jerry Knight.

J.X. heard me out in silence. Up to the point where he said in flabbergasted tones, “You let him inside the
house
?”

“Sort of. Yes. I’m not sure how it happened really. It’s not like me.”

“That’s an understatement. You. The guy who wanted me to tell everyone you’re now officially a recluse.
You
invited him into the house? When you were there alone? When anything could have happened to you and I wouldn’t have known for
days
that anything was wrong?”

“I kind of wish you wouldn’t put it like that. Anyway, when I let him in the first time I wasn’t afrai—” I stopped but we both heard the word I had tried not to say.

J.X. said quietly, too calmly, “What did he do that made you afraid?”

“Nothing. That was the wrong word. I’m a little uneasy, that’s all. And that’s probably mostly to do with all the other stuff happening. Beck Ladas.
That
guy, I’m afraid of.”

J.X. said in that same ultra-restrained tone, “What did Knight do to make you so uneasy?”

“It’s not any one thing. It’s…”

“A pattern of behavior,” he finished bleakly.

“Yeah. That’s it. Any one of those encounters would be harmless, normal. But when you string them all together… But then I’m also probably influenced by what Emmaline told me. And that’s really unfair because she’s not sure Jerry was the kid involved—in fact, she can’t even remember the entire story.”

“You know how people get into trouble, Kit?” J.X. asked.

It was rhetorical. We’d had this discussion before in the context of writing realistic crime fiction, but I answered anyway. “They ignore their instincts.”

“Correct. When the average citizen is confronted with a dangerous situation, he ignores the instinct telling him to flee or fight. He doesn’t want to overreact and look foolish or make a scene and be embarrassed or be rude. He takes too long to process what’s happening. The predator already has a plan. The victim is running to catch up from the very beginning.”

“I know.” That lecturing tone put my back up. But then I glanced at his hands on the steering wheel and saw that J.X. was gripping so tightly his knuckles were white. I remembered that he had firsthand knowledge of the awful things people could do to each other. Plus a writer’s imagination. Probably the worst of both worlds.

I said, “Between the move and finding a body in the basement, I was off-balance. That’s the only explanation I have.”

“You don’t have to explain.” As if he hadn’t been gasping a request for an explanation a couple of minutes earlier. “I should have cancelled that damn conference. I knew it wasn’t fair leaving you to deal with everything.”

“Come on,” I said awkwardly. “Other than finding a notorious art thief dead in the basement—”

“But the next time Jerry Knight rings the doorbell, he’s going to be talking to me.”

I spluttered a laugh of protest. J.X. threw me another of those grim looks. “I’m serious. You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Kit.”

“Neither do you, seeing that you haven’t met him yet.”

Irritatingly, he did not answer.

* * * * *

We reached Wooster about three.

Ma’s Diner was of the old-fashioned truck stop variety. A low, rambling white-washed building from the 1940s, surrounded by cacti and some thirsty-looking scrub oaks. A row of dusty pickups were lined up in front of a hitching post. Several big rigs were parked in front and in back of the building.

We pulled under the meager shade of the scrawny oaks and got out. The air smelled hot and dusty.

“Not much to see,” J.X. remarked as we walked around the building.

I had to agree. While the place wasn’t bustling on a Tuesday afternoon, it was busy enough. It wouldn’t be easy to break into anyone’s vehicle without being spotted, let alone break into a padlocked big rig truck. Even parked behind the building, it was hard to see how anyone could have gotten into the back of the moving van, emptied out a crate of china—that
had
to have been a noisy process—and replaced its contents with a dead body. And no one the wiser?

Especially given the long row of picture windows along the back of the building.

Had Movers and Shakers been part of the plan after all?

“Let’s go inside and ask around,” J.X. said. He spoke with the assurance of a guy used to having all his questions answered. I wanted to point out that he didn’t have a badge anymore, but I’d have been talking to the thin, dry air.

It was cool and noisy inside the diner. A jukebox played western music. Big ceiling fans shuffled French fry-scented air around the long rooms. A couple of cowboys sat at the lunch counter, eating pie and chatting with a waitress old enough to be Ma herself. The main room had plenty of roomy booths, a number of them filled by weary-looking men wearing baseball caps and T-shirts with slogans such as
Mother Trucker
and
18 Wheeler Heart Stealer
.

The adjoining dining room, which looked out over the back parking lot, was empty of customers and roped off.

I met J.X.’s gaze. “I guess that explains that. Plus it’s noisy as hell in here. You can’t hear anything from outside.”

“But no one could anticipate the back room would be empty. You can’t see through those windows from outside unless you walked right up to them.”

“You’re presupposing there was a plan.”

J.X. asked, “What do you presuppose?”

“If there was a plan, it was the worst plan in the world. Which makes me think there was no plan. This person or persons unknown were just winging it.”

He frowned. The concept of “winging it” was alien to his nature. Alien to mine too, but like that other Holmes fellow said:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
.

No one could have come up with a plan that bad. Therefore, there was no plan. There was only confusion and chaos. Which meant…what? I didn’t know. But desperate people scrambling to save themselves was always a dangerous situation.

J.X. suggested we get something cold to drink, so we ordered the “world famous” chocolate ice cream sodas and drank them sitting at one of the gray Formica tables. Always a stickler for details, before the aged waitress walked away, J.X. confirmed that the back dining room was only open on weekends.

“Well, that’s a couple of questions answered,” I said.

He nodded.

“Did you like being a cop?” I asked, tearing the paper wrapper off my straw.

J.X.’s brows rose in surprise. “Yeah, at first I did. I liked thinking I was making the world a better place, a safer place.”

“But?”

His mouth twisted. “It changes you. You get jaded. You see the worst of people. And not just the public, unfortunately.”

“But you liked working with Izzie Jones?”

“Oh yeah. Izzie was the best partner you could ask for.” He smiled reminiscently.

“Public servant. That’s a tricky concept.”

“It is. Yes. Unfortunately, not everyone attracted to law enforcement gets it.” He was still smiling, though his gaze was curious. “What brought this on? You’ve never asked about my LEO background before.”

“Not even when we first met?”

He shook his head, and now the curve of his mouth was definitely wry. “Definitely not then. You did
not
want to talk that weekend.”

I winced inwardly. “I know why I latched onto you at that conference, but what the hell were
you
thinking?”

His attention seemed to be entirely on scooping the ice cream out of the fizzy soda. He said, “That I wanted you. More than I’d ever wanted anything or anyone in my life.”

I didn’t know what to say. He looked up, laughed at my expression, but it was a short laugh.

“You were still a cop. Your book wasn’t out yet.
You
weren’t even out yet.” He met my gaze and I said, “I was paying that much attention.”

J.X. nodded, conceding a point to me. He said, “The first time I saw you, you were sitting on a panel. You and Mindy Newburgh and a couple of upcoming bad boys. The debate was whether cozies or noir fiction was the more unrealistic. You were a little bit smashed, but you were skewering those hardboiled guys, and even though I was on their side, I kept laughing at every damn thing you said. So afterwards I followed you to the bar and I picked you up.”

“Excuse me. I think I picked
you
up,” I said.

“Exactly. And over the course of that weekend, I fell in love with you.”

“More fool you,” I said quietly.

“Hey.” He nudged my foot with his own. “It all worked out in the end.”

I smiled. “Indeed it did. Thanks largely to our no returns and no exchanges policy.”

J.X. just shook his head.

After the ice cream sodas, we continued into Wooster and picked up my china at Dolls and Doodads. The helium-voiced Cindy Spann turned out to be a very tall, very thin woman in pink overalls. She helped J.X. carry the boxes of my remaining china to the car, thanked us—without any hint of irony—for our business and directed us back to the main highway.

After the revelations of the truck stop diner, I was out of chit chat. J.X. seemed to be in a reflective mood, so the next few miles passed in silence until he turned on the radio. Nine hours is a long drive. It’s a long time to be stuck in a confined space with another person. J.X. and I had never spent nine hours in a car before. But I didn’t mind the silence. It felt comfortable. I thought that perhaps that was one of the first tests of a relationship: the realization that you were still happy to be with someone even when you didn’t have anything to say to him.