his kitchen.
He got a can of Coke from the fridge, popped it. Guzzled it where he stood.
“I also know you’re irritated with me,” she continued. She heard her tone—prim as her first-grade teacher’s—and wasn’t entirely displeased. “But this isn’t the time to be childish.”
His bleary eyes narrowed over the can. He flicked up his middle finger. “That,” he told her, “was childish.”
“You want to fight, I’ll pencil you in for later. This is official, and I need you to pay attention.”
He dropped into a chair, gave her a careless, get-on-with-it wave.
She could see the resentment, the fatigue and, she noted, some pain lurking in his eyes. But coddling wasn’t on the agenda.
“I have reason to believe the connection I have with the arsonist goes back much further than we initially thought.”
He downed more Coke. “So?”
“I’m pursuing the theory based on some of the conversations I’ve had with him, including the one early this morning.”
His hand tightened on the can enough to leave impressions. “So, he gave you a wake-up call and you decided to spread the wealth and get me out of bed.”
“Bo.”
“Fuck it.” He said it wearily, without heat, as he pushed himself out of the chair and went to a cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Motrin, poured a few in his palm, tossed them into his mouth like candy.
“It’s hurting.”
He gave her a steely stare as he washed down pills with Coke. “No, I just like Motrin and Classic Coke. Breakfast of frigging champions.”
Something sank in her stomach. “You really are angry with me.”
“I’m angry with you, with men and women, small children and all manner of flora and fauna on the planet Earth, possibly in the universe, where I believe other life exists, because I got about five minutes’ sleep and my entire body hurts like a mother.”
She’d noted the bruises, in addition to the bandaged arm. Bruises, scrapes, nicks—she’d found a number on herself as well. His were worse, no doubt. His were worse because he’d taken the brunt to shield her.
She’d intended to be quick, brisk, give him the gist without going into detail. Now, looking at his sulky eyes, his bed hair, his poor battered body, she changed her mind.
Even her strict first-grade teacher had kissed it better when she scraped her knee on the playground.
“Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get you something to eat, an ice pack. That knee’s pretty banged up.”
“I’m not hungry. There’s a bag of frozen peas in there.”
Having suffered through her share of sprains and bruises, she understood what the peas were for. Retrieving them from the freezer, she walked over to lay them over his knee herself.
“I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m sorry about your truck. I’m even sorry I swiped at you for telling my father something I wasn’t ready to tell him myself.”
She sat, propped her elbows on the table, pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Bo, I’m so damn sorry.”
“Don’t do that. If you cry you’re going to ruin a perfectly good mad.”
“I’m not going to cry.” But it was a nasty internal war to keep her word. “It’s bad to worse, Bo. And you’re in this because of me.”
“How much worse?”
“I have to make a call.” She drew out her phone. “This is going to take a little longer than I planned. Is it okay if I get one of those?” she asked, nodding toward his Coke.
“Go ahead.”
“O’Donnell?” She rose as she spoke. “I’m going to be another half hour. Running a little behind.” She opened the fridge. There were Diet Pepsis mixed in with his Classic Cokes. Ones she knew Bo had bought for her.
Tears stung again, made her feel ridiculous.
“No, I won’t. See you in thirty.”
She disconnected, sat again. Opening the can, she looked at Bo. “A few years ago, I was seeing someone. We’d been seeing each other, exclusively, for a few months. Closer to four, I guess. He wasn’t my usual type. A little slick, a lot demanding. I wanted a change, and he was it. Status type, drove a Mercedes, wore Italian suits, drank the right wines. We saw a lot of movies with subtitles that I’m dead sure he didn’t enjoy any more than I did. I liked being with him because I got to be a girl.”
“And other times you’re what? A poodle?”
“Girly,” she corrected. “Fussy female, accommodating.” She shrugged a little, and still felt silly about it. “Change of pace for me. I let him pick the restaurants, make the plans. It was a brief relief. In my line you’ve got to be on your toes, and you can’t be girly. You’ve got to see a lot of things, do a lot of things . . . Well. Maybe I wanted the contrast.”
“Can we pause it here? You think this guy’s the one who’s been calling you?”
“No. It’s not impossible, but no, I don’t. He’s a financial planner who got a manicure twice a month. He lives in New York now. In any case, he was beginning to get under my skin some. I let it slide because . . . I’m not entirely sure, and it doesn’t matter. The night I caught my first case as a detective with the unit we had a little argument. He hit me.”
“Whoa.” Bo set his can on the table. “What?”
“Wait.” Get it all out, she told herself. The whole humiliating ball of it. “I thought it was an accident, which is what he claimed. It was one of those dramatic moving around, gesturing, and I moved toward him from behind, his hand came back. It could’ve been an accident, and I accepted it as such. Until the next time.”
There were no sleepy mists in his eyes now. They were pure, hard green. “He hit you again.”
“This was different. He made these elaborate dinner plans, and I was clueless. Fancy French place, champagne, flowers, the works. He tells me he’s been promoted. And transferring to New York. I’m happy for him—it’s kind of a jolt, but what are you going to do? Plus . . .”
She paused, sighed out a breath. “Plus, some part of me was thinking, Boy, this sure makes it easy on me. No dramatic breakup scene.”
“And you say that with guilt because?”
“It seems cold, I guess. Hey, the boyfriend I’m getting a little tired of is moving out of state. Lucky me! But while I’m trying to pretend I’m not a little relieved, he says he wants me to go to New York with him, and even then it takes me a few minutes to get he means move there. That’s not going to happen, and I’m trying to tell him why I can’t. Won’t.”
“Okay, the guy you’ve been seeing a few months wants you to pull up stakes, leave your home, your family, your job because he gets a transfer.” He drank with one hand, jabbed a finger at her with the other. “See, I told you there was life beyond our big blue ball. Obviously this guy was spawned on Planet No Way In Hell.”
It made her laugh a little. “Well, it gets worse. Suddenly he’s flashing this meteor-sized diamond ring, telling me we’re getting married, moving to New York.”
She closed her eyes because the sensations she’d experienced then came right back. “I’m sucker punched, I swear. This came out of nowhere for me, and while I’m trying to tell him thanks but no thanks, the waiter’s bringing champagne over, people are applauding, and the damn ring’s on my finger.”
“Ambush.”
“Yeah.” She blew out a breath, grateful he understood. “I couldn’t get into it there, in front of the whole damn restaurant, so I waited until we got back to my place. Let’s say he didn’t take it well. He blasted me good. I’d humiliated him, lying bitch, stupid and blah blah. I stopped feeling sorry for him and blasted back. And he nailed me. Said he was going to teach me who was in charge, and when he came up for the follow-through, I took him down, bruised his balls and kicked him out.”
“I’m going to say congratulations, and add that from what you’ve just told me, he’s a top contender for what’s going on now.”
He wasn’t going to make her feel guilty, Reena realized. Or stup
id or weak. It was an interesting experience to share a nasty and humiliating experience with a man who wouldn’t let her feel soiled or humiliated.
The race going on inside her heart kicked into another gear.
“I don’t think so, but I think he’s connected. The next morning, early, my captain and O’Donnell are at the door. Turns out that somebody torched Luke’s Mercedes, a few hours after he crawled out my door. He was pointing the finger at me for it. It didn’t stick. For one thing Gina had come over, stayed the night, and was still there. For another, they believed me.”
She could see by his face he was keeping pace with her, but she filled in the last details anyway. “The method used wasn’t exactly like last night, Bo, but there are strong similarities. And when the fire-starter called me this morning, he alluded to it.”
“This Luke asshole could have torched his own car to take another jab at you. He could be doing this now for more payback.”
“Possible, except . . . Last night, when he called, he said something else. Didn’t click in, not completely. Everything happened pretty quick after, and it didn’t gel for me until this morning. He said I should think back over the men I’ve been with, right back to the first.”
“And?”
“The first was Josh. Josh was killed in a fire, long before I met Luke.”
“Smoking in bed.”
“I never believed it.” Even now, her voice caught. “I had to accept it, but I never believed it. Three men now, three I’ve been involved with, that I know of, have been connected to serious fires. One of them’s dead. I’m not going to consider it a coincidence. Not now.”
He rose, limped to the fridge, got out another Coke. “Because now you’re thinking Josh was murdered.”
“Yes, I do. And I think the use of fire’s been deliberate all along, because anyone who knew me knew I was studying and working toward becoming an arson investigator. Ever since . . .”
“Ever since the fire at your restaurant,” he finished.
“Jesus. Pastorelli.” It made her stomach cramp. “It all started that day. Everything started that day.” She let out a breath. “All right, I’m going to check this out. Meanwhile, can you take some time off?”
“What for?”
“Bo, Josh is dead. Luke moved to New York, and I broke things off with him in any case. You’re right next door. He could try for your house next, or for you.”
“Or you.”
“Take a couple of weeks, take a vacation, give us time to shut this down.”
“Sure. Where do you want to go?”
Her hands balled into fists on the table. “I’m the fuse. I go, he stops, waits for me to come back.”
“The way I see it, we’re both the fuse. Unless you plan on taking up with some other guy while I’m off somewhere water-skiing. I value my skin, Reena, what’s left of it. But I’m not running off and waiting for you to send me an all clear. I don’t work that way.”
“This isn’t the time to be such a damn man.”
“Until I grow breasts, I’m stuck being a man.”
“You’ll distract me. Worrying about you will distract me. If something happened to you—” She broke off as her throat slammed shut.
“If I said that to you, you’d tell me you can take care of yourself, that you’re not stupid or reckless.” He raised his eyebrows when she said nothing. “Why don’t we skip the part where I say it back to you, we both toss around the same arguments.”
The good nature faded from his eyes, turned them that chilly green. “The son of a bitch came at me, Reena. He blew up my goddamn truck. You think I’m walking away?”
“Please. Just a few days then. Three days. Give me three days to . . .” Her voice began to hitch.
“No. Don’t cry. It’s hitting below the belt, and it won’t work.”
“I don’t use tears to get my way, you stupid ass.” She dashed at them with the backs of her hands. “I can put you in protective custody.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t you see, I can’t handle this.” She pushed away from the table, stalked to the window over the sink, stared out.
“I can see you’re not handling something.”
“I don’t know what to do.” She pressed her fist between her breasts as her heart shuddered. “I don’t know how to be. I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“No, no! Are you blind, are you stupid?” she demanded as she whirled around to him. “I can handle the case. You work it, you just work it. It’s a puzzle and all the pieces are there. It’s just finding them and putting them in the right place. But this? I can’t . . . I can’t handle this.” She thumped her fist between her breasts. “I’m . . . I’m . . . ”
“Asthmatic?” he said when she just stood there wheezing.
She stunned them both by grabbing a mug off the counter and hurling it against the wall. “You blithering idiot, I’m in love with you.”
He held up a hand as if to ward off another mug, though hers were empty. “Minute, okay. Just a minute.”
“Oh, screw this.” She started to charge out, but he grabbed her hand, locked her down.
“I said wait a damn minute.”
“I hope you have a seizure, and it makes you stumble all around the room so you cut your feet to ribbons on broken glass.”
“Love comes in many forms,” he muttered.
“Don’t make fun of me. You started this. All I did was walk out my own back door one day.”
“I’m not making fun of you. I’m trying to catch my breath.” His hand stayed firm on hers, and he stayed planted in the chair with a bag of frozen peas defrosting over his bruised knee.
“When you say you’re in love with me, is that upper- or lowercase L? Don’t you hit me,” he warned when he saw her other hand fist.
“I have no intention of resorting to physical force.” But it had been a close one. Now she forced her hand, her arm, then her body to relax. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let go of my hand.”
“Fine. Then I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go storming out of here so I have to get up and limp after you, perhaps have a seizure and cut my feet to ribbons on broken glass.”
Her lips twitched. “See? Damn it, that’s got to be why this happened to me. You’re no pushover, Goodnight, but you make yourself so damn affable it’s easy to think you’re pushable. And you’re accommodating, right up to a line you’ve drawn in your head. It would probably take dynamite to blast you over that line once you’ve drawn it. My mother was right. She’s always right.”
On a sigh, she walked to his broom closet, got out the broom and dustpan. “You’re like my father.”
“I am not.”
She smiled and began to sweep up the shards. “I never got really serious about anyone before you because they never made the cut. They never measured up for me to the one man I admire most. My father.”
“You’re right. We’re exactly alike. Separated at birth.”
“It was lowercase, and that was disconcerting enough. Then this morning, you opened the door and it was a big, fat, shiny capital L. And look at you. Your hair’s all stupid.”
He lifted a hand in response, felt it. Grimaced. “Shit.”
“And your underwear’s falling apart.”
He hitched at the ragged waistband. “It’s got plenty of wear in it yet.”
“You’re all bruised up and scowly. And it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry about the mug.”
“Your brother mentioned you guys throw things. I’ve been in love with you since approximately ten-thirty P.M., May ninth, 1992.”
Her smile stayed soft as she dumped the shards in his trash can. “No, you haven’t.”
“Easy for you to say. It was lowercase,” he continued while she replaced the broom. “With a lot of fantasy sparkling over it. Took on a different kind of glow after I actually met you, but it was the lowercase deal.”
“I know. I’m going to be late,?
?? she said when she looked at her watch. “I’m going to have a couple of cops assigned to you until—”
“It grew up.”
She dropped her hand, said nothing.
“It grew up, Reena, so I guess we’re both going to have to figure out how to handle it.”
She stepped to him, laid her cheek on the top of his head. She felt, actually felt her heart settle. “This is the strangest