Darker Than Midnight. Maggie Shayne
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“All right,” she said. “All right.”
She relaxed against the pillows and held the troubled man, soothing his quaking shoulders, until he went still, and she knew he was deeply asleep.
And then, even though the warmth of the fire was seeping into her, chasing the chill from deep in her bones, soothing her muscles, making her feel sleepy, and even though she hadn’t had a hot-looking man—even a skinny one like this—in her arms in what seemed like an eternity, she eased herself away from him, out from under the covers, and got up to her feet. She stood there a moment, staring down at him as he slept.
A fellow cop, in deep trouble, either real or imagined, had just saved her life. She owed the man. Owed him enough to let him stay the night, let him get warm. Maybe even enough not to turn him in for breaking and entering, or mention his presence here until she had figured out who he was and what was going on with him. She did not, however, owe him so much that she needed to become a naive idiot in order to repay him. She went up to her bedroom and spent the next half hour patiently cleaning and drying her weapon. When she put it back together, she loaded it with a fresh, dry clip. She took the bullets out of the other clip, dried it thoroughly and set it aside. She’d toss the bullets. They might fire, but they might not, and she didn’t ever want to be in a predicament where she couldn’t be sure her gun would work. She’d buy some more ammo tomorrow.
She went back downstairs, took her pillow from the comforter and her coat from the hook by the door. She wrapped the coat around herself, rested the pillow against the wall and leaned against it, near the fire, in a spot where she could have a full view of her houseguest.
It wasn’t a very exciting show. He slept like the dead.
Ethan had turned off his pager after work at his wife’s request. They were having dinner with her parents that evening. It was important, she said, and that thing going off in the middle of a conversation was just rude.
He’d indulged her. He always indulged Victoria. And there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her parents. They thought the world of him.
So he’d spent the evening at the Richardsons’ endless and elegant dining room table beneath a crystal chandelier. Their newest pretty maid, Lorraine, served them in her crisp black-and-white uniform. It was nice, the life Randall and Jennifer Richardson shared. A life into which they’d welcomed him with open arms.
They treated him far better than his own father ever had.
So the least he could do was turn off the damn pager.
Of course, it turned out to be the one night he shouldn’t have done so.
By the time he and Victoria returned home, the hospital had left six messages on his voice mail. He saw the light blinking even as he helped Victoria out of her coat, the fur soft against his palms. It was rabbit. She’d wanted mink. Maybe next year.
“Oh, honey, must you?” she asked, pursing her lips when she saw his eyes on the telephone. “It’s been such a beautiful evening. I was hoping we could end it together.”
He slid his hand around her nape, his fingers tickled by the touch of her short brown hair, and kissed her forehead. “There’s nothing I’d like more,” he told her. “But I’d better at least check, okay?”
Sighing, she nodded, hugged him close, then turned and hurried through the house, lifting her shapely calves in between steps to tug off her stiletto heels. “I’m going to run a bath, love.”
“I’ll be right up.” He watched her go toward the stairs as he punched the button for messages.
Their contents stunned him. He closed his eyes, lowered his head. “Oh, God,” he muttered.
Victoria paused halfway up the stairs. He heard her steps cease, heard her whisper, “Darling? I couldn’t hear. What is it?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes. “It’s River.”
Her hand flew to her lips.
“He’s…he’s dead, baby.”
“Oh, Ethan!” Victoria ran back down the stairs and flung herself into her husband’s arms, wrapping her own tight around his neck. He let the phone fall to the floor and held her, felt her body jerking softly with her sobs. “How? Why?”
“Looks like an accident. Apparently, he fell in the bathroom. Hit his skull.”
She shook her head where it rested against his shoulder. He felt her tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. “Poor River. God, poor River.”
Ethan nodded. “At least…at least he’s not suffering anymore,” he told her.
She sniffled. “Maybe…maybe he and Steph can both rest in peace now. Maybe…maybe they’ll find each other again—somewhere.”
“God, I hope so,” he said.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Do you have to go in?”
He shook his head. “In the morning. There will be an inquest, an autopsy. But in the morning.” He turned her to the side, put his arm around her shoulders and held her close beside him as he started up the stairs.
“I miss them,” she said. “The four of us, we used to be so close. We haven’t had friends like them since—since Stephanie…”
“I know. I miss them, too.”
She lowered her head to his shoulder. “Why do you suppose such terrible things happen to such wonderful people?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”
Jax had no intention of closing her eyes, but at some point she must have, because when she opened them again, the sun was beaming in through the living room windows and the steady, if distant, call of the alarm clock was chirping away in the upstairs bedroom. The fire had died down, though the mound of glowing hot coals still threw off a lot of heat. The makeshift bed on the floor was empty, and the blanket that had been over the stranger was tucked snugly around her instead. The shoes he’d left on the hearthstone to dry were gone. So, she realized, were his clothes.
Her sweatpants, and the nightshirt she’d loaned him, were folded and stacked atop the bedding. He’d kept the socks and the hooded sweatshirt. She was glad of it. He’d freeze his ass off outside without so much as a jacket.
She searched the house, just for the hell of it, even though she knew the man was long gone. He hadn’t even told her his name.
Jax wanted to know who he was, and what he was running from. She really ought to report his presence to Frankie when she saw her this morning, she thought. But she hadn’t made up her mind to do so. Having her own private mystery to solve was invigorating, and something deep inside her was telling her to hold off, to learn a little more before blowing the stranger’s cover. The memory of the way he’d held her, of the sight of him nude by firelight, may have contributed to that notion, but not a lot. She wasn’t a guy, after all.
She gathered up the blankets and pillows, and the still-damp towels, and carried the pile upstairs, hanging the towels on the racks in the bathroom, and making up the bed. Then she grabbed some clean clothes, clothes suitable for work in a small-town police department, or at least clothes she hoped were suitable. She wasn’t on duty, so she couldn’t really show up in her uniform. So she picked out a pair of navy trousers with a neat crease, a white cotton button-down blouse and a navy blazer. She tucked the clothes into a bag, along with fresh undergarments, her shoulder holster and her .45, then was ready to head over to her parents’ place for breakfast and a shower.
As she stepped out onto the porch, a noise made her jump a little, but a quick look under the porch told her it was only the big dog, downing the entire bowl of dog food she’d left for him. “You’re a noisy eater,” she quipped, and glanced at his backside. “Figures. You’re a male.”
He stopped eating when