Tom shifted awkwardly. He returned Jesse’s grin halfheartedly. He didn’t like the vibes that he was feeling between Jesse and Lee. As long as he’d known them, they’d always been easy in each other’s company. Now there was a definite strain between them and he wished he wasn’t here to witness it. He wondered if the investigation was to blame. Maybe Lee had been getting on Jesse’s case to turn up some hard evidence or a concrete lead, he thought. That wasn’t like Lee, he knew, but maybe this serial killer was getting to them all. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
Jesse finally broke the long silence in the room.
“I guess I’ll be heading off,” he said. “Maybe we should talk things through tomorrow, Lee. I don’t seem to be getting too far on my own.”
Lee nodded. “Sure. Maybe we can come up with some kind of theory if we look at it all from a fresh angle,” she said. Jesse thought about that, nodded several times.
“Worth a try” he said. Then, with a vague wave of the hand, he let himself out and closed the door behind him.
Tom Legros looked at the closed door after Jesse had gone, then looked at Lee. She appeared to be intently interested in something on her desktop. He cleared his throat nervously, not knowing whether to say anything or not. Then decided, the hell with it. He’d known them both long enough to ask.
“Uh … something wrong between you and Jesse, Sheriff?”
Her eyes flicked up to meet his instantly and he saw a quick flash of anger there.
“Just make that call, okay?” she said crisply and he backed off, making a defensive gesture with both hands in front of him.
“Sure, Sheriff. Whatever you say,” he replied mildly.
Maybe he hadn’t known them both as long as he thought.
FIFTY
I
t was one of those nights, unfortunately rare, when the view from Hazie’s was nothing short of spectacular.
The lights of Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley stretched out in all directions below them as Abby and Jesse sat in a window seat. Closer to hand, the flashing yellow strobes and glaring headlights of the grading machines cast a weird, flickering light over the snow and among the bare trunks and limbs of the aspens.
It was all very beautiful and very romantic, Jesse thought. And he wished to God he was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
He toyed awkwardly with his fork, forcing himself to meet Abby’s eyes across the table. He could see the hurt there. Some of it, he felt, was genuine. Maybe all. Maybe not. And that was the trouble. With Abby, he never knew. Never had known. Never would know. Abby was a consummate actress and could play on a person’s emotions like a virtuoso on a violin.
“So …” she said at length, drawing a long, uneven breath. “The other night? What was that?”
And of course, he knew it would come to this. The other night had been spectacular. It had been amazing. And, he knew, it hadn’t been one hundred percent physical. There was an emotional bond still there. He knew it and so did she. But he could never be sure with her as to just how much was there. You couldn’t simply wipe out the past they’d had together, he thought morosely. Maybe if they’d split in a violent, bitter confrontation, maybe if one of them had been unfaithful, maybe then you could wipe out what had been between them.
But it hadn’t been that way at all. They’d simply drifted, unaware that their life paths were slowly and inexorably diverging. They’d bickered. They’d quarreled, sure. But there had never been any one final showdown between them. It was simply a case that most of what had brought them together had evaporated like mist on a clear morning.
Most of it. Leaving some of it still there. And that was the some that was making him feel so damn guilty right now. He knew he’d never be able to put it into words. Abby could always tie him in knots when it came to words. But he tried anyway.
“The other night”—he looked for the right words, didn’t find them—“shouldn’t have happened. That’s all.”
She shook her head, the blond hair gleaming in the subdued light inside the restaurant.
“No, Jess, that’s not all. That’s not all by a long shot. It should have happened and that’s why it did happen. It was terrific, Jess. Tell me that it wasn’t.”
And he couldn’t, of course. It had been terrific. Hell, if they could harness what they’d had the other night, he thought, the energy problems of the world could be solved.
“It was sex, Abby, that’s all. Just sex,” he said quietly. But the blond head was shaking again. She laughed, but without any real amusement.
“Oh no, Jess. It wasn’t just ‘sex.’ Tell me you’ve ever had better sex than that. Go ahead and tell me, honestly, and I’ll walk away right now.”
Once again, he couldn’t speak. He hesitated, letting his eyes drop to the fork he was turning over and over in his hands, and she seized her advantage.
“Is it better than that with Lee, Jess? Tell me it is.”
His eyes shot up to meet hers at that. He was angry and she knew instantly that she’d made a mistake.
“That’s nothing to talk about here!” he snapped. She weighed her next move for an instant. She’d been wrong to bring Lee into it, she knew. But she sensed she’d compound the error now if she retreated. Instead, she made her voice low and intimate and sad. There was a part of her that was sitting a little to one side, watching her and judging. It approved of the way she was handling things so far.
“Isn’t it, Jess?” she made a helpless little gesture, then put her hand gently over the top of his, stopping the incessant twirling of the fork. “I’m talking about our future here. I’m talking about saving what we once had. Putting it back together again. And Lee’s a part of that, Jess, you have to realize.”
“I don’t want to talk about her,” he said stubbornly, his jaw set in a rigid line. The truth was, he didn’t know the truth. He was frightened that if he did get drawn into discussing his relationship with Lee, if he did examine it too closely, he might find there was nothing there other than a natural reaction to loneliness.
Damn it! He thought, and in a sudden, explosive movement, bent the fork double. None of this had been a problem up until he and Abby had spent the night together. Her voice continued now, low and calm. Full of reason.
“Jesse, you can’t throw the other night away as just sex. You don’t have sex like that unless there’s something else behind it. We’re good with each other, Jess, we always have been.”
Their waitress loomed up beside the table, smile fixed to her face, pad and pen poised ready in hand. They’d ordered drinks earlier and asked her to give them a few minutes. She interrupted breezily now.
“You folks about ready to order?” she asked.
Abby’s head snapped around, annoyed, the blond hair swirling momentarily over her face, then swinging clear again as she shook her head in a short reverse movement.
“No!” she snapped angrily and the girl backed away, smiling still but mentally cursing people who delayed their orders. The later the order, the later the meal. Then the dessert. Then the coffee. Then, when the waitress should have been joining her friends downtown for a drink and a game of pool, she and the others were still here cleaning up and putting things away.
Abby looked back at Jesse, the sad, wistful look back on her face. But in that one instant, she had blown it.
Sad and wistful. Angry and abrupt. Sad and wistful again-all in the space of a second or so. That was Abby as he remembered her. And he knew that, even though there were currents of real attraction between them, he could never trust her enough to really know how deeply those currents ran, how true the feeling was. Life with Abby, he knew, would be a continuing cycle of uncertainty and doubt.
And if he chose that cycle now, he would never see Lee again. He set the mutilated fork down, his hands finally still, took a deep breath and said, “No, Abby.”
She cocked her head to one side quizzically, a half smile, half frown on her face. “No what, Jess? What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean no, it will never work between us. No,” he said finally.
The half smile vanished, her lips opened slightly and he could see the tears gathering in her eyes. She shook her head slightly, unbelieving.
“Are you going to make me beg, Jess? All right, I’ll beg if you want,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of hers, shook his head slowly in a wide, sweeping motion.
“No, Abby. Don’t beg. Just accept. The answer is no.”
He knew this was the only way. Knew he couldn’t become entangled in a discussion of the matter. Just make it clean and definite. Just keep saying no.
“Jesse… surely we can talk about this … I love you, Jess. I realize that now. I love you,” she said. He looked at her again and the tears had welled up now and were flowing down her perfect face. She ignored them. Maybe she didn’t even realize they were there.
She was beautiful and vulnerable and hurt and he didn’t hate her and he hated to see her this way. He wanted to soften things, to console her. But he knew if he did he would be drawn back into her silken web.
He knew the best answer was to tell her that he didn’t love her, even if that wasn’t totally true. He did, in a corner of his heart, still love her a little. It would be better to deny that now but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face those eyes and all that had been between the two of them and say “I don’t love you, Abby.” It would be too cruel. He steeled himself, said nothing.
They faced each other. He was stone-faced, holding himself together with an enormous effort. She was collapsing in front of his eyes, the tears streaming freely until she noticed them at last.
She fumbled for a handkerchief, then saw the crisp linen napkin folded next to her cutlery, grabbed it and wiped her eyes with it.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry. He actually took a breath and went to say it, then stopped, said nothing. She dabbed at her eyes, head down, hiding the tears from him and the other diners in the room. Fortunately, he thought, the restaurant wasn’t too full tonight. The silence between them stretched until it seemed to have gone on forever. Finally, head still down, she pushed her chair back and rose hurriedly.
“Ladies’ room,” she said huskily. He stood as she picked up her purse and hurried toward the door that led to the restrooms, still holding the napkin and still with her head and shoulders down. Jesse sat down again, exhausted.
“Jesus,” he said quietly, staring morosely out at the lights of Yampa Valley. Fog was beginning to roll in over the mountain and the lights to the northwest were slowly winking out behind it.
The waitress rematerialized, hefted their wine bottle out of the ice bucket and examined it. There was just under half left. She filled his glass, then Abby’s, leaving barely three-quarters of an inch in the bottom of the bottle.
“You folks care to order another?” she prompted. Jesse looked up at her, registering her presence for the first time.
“I don’t know,” he said briefly.
He grabbed at his glass, took a deep swig of the wine, feeling the alcohol bite deep inside him. The girl shrugged and moved away again. Damn fool of a job, she thought. She only came here for the skiing. The way things were shaping up here, she could tell she wasn’t going to get away early for that pool game. And damn it, she thought, tonight was the night that cute guy from the hot-air balloon company had said he was going to be there.
M
urphy had been watching them from the bar, nursing the one can of Coors
Light as
they’d made their way through the bottle of wine. He’d recognized the tall deputy immediately, of course. He’d seen enough of him around the mountain and on television in the past few days not to.
The girl had taken a few minutes longer. She was familiar, of course, but from where?
Then he realized she was the reporter from the Channel 6 feature that he’d watched a few nights before. The one who’d told the world what a bang-up job the sheriff’s department of Routt County were doing on the Mountain Murderer investigation. He’d felt a quick knot of anger in his gut as he recognized her. Then the anger was replaced by a growing resolution. He’d come up here tonight to pick a target. He’d had no one in mind but he thought it should be a woman. After all, he’d stalked a woman last time on the gondola and if it hadn’t been for that fucking interfering lift attendant, he would have gotten her.
Tonight, he’d planned to leave another victim in the gondola. How wonderful, he mused, if it could be Abby Parker-Taft—the name came back to him from the superimposed title that had been on-screen below her on the TV report.
Before he could manage that, however, he’d have to get rid of the deputy.
He pondered the situation for a few minutes. He could simply wait and ride the gondola down with them when they finished dinner. That way he wouldn’t even need the protective coloration he’d stolen from the apartment that morning. Once in the gondola cabin, he’d need only a few seconds for a head shot from the Walther. That would settle the deputy’s hash, but getting those few seconds might be tricky. Parker didn’t look like the sort of man you’d catch napping. He was a cop, and cops were suspicious sons of bitches, always watching you, always waiting for you to step out of line. Reluctantly, he decided it was too risky.