“You’re right.” His hands were frozen on the belt, and she disengaged herself and stepped back. “You’re a nice guy, Ray, and that’s deadly. Nice guys want the house, the picket fence. The wife and kids.”
He didn’t know whether or not to be insulted, or regretful, or just relieved for the air between them. He retreated to the bar, a mirrored counter set against one wall and shimmering with soft lights. “Maybe. Once,” he said.
“But oh, those circumstances, right?” She sat on the arm of the couch and dangled her feet, watching him the way a cat does, intent, fixed. “So tell me about them. I’ll stay here, far, far away, and you can tell me the entire heartbreaking saga.”
“I think you should go to bed. It’s late.”
“I told you, I won’t sleep tonight.” She eyed him. “Not without a little help. And we’ve already decided that’s not going to happen. So . . . tell me a story. I like sad stories.” She shot him a mischievous smile. “But I bet you already knew that.” She slipped onto the couch proper, stretched out, and lay back against the armrest. “Once upon a time, there was a man named Ray. And Ray fell in love with an evil witch named Nancy.” She circled a hand in the air, indicating him to continue.
“Not a witch.”
“No?” She closed her eyes and crossed her hands over her chest like a corpse laid out for viewing. “What, then?”
It was uncanny to see her like that. Dead even in life. To distract himself, he answered her. “A girl who spent her life around cops. And didn’t want to marry another one.”
“So why did she?”
And suddenly he was telling her the whole depressing tale. The ballad of Nancy and Ray.
He told her how he’d promised Nancy he was going to law school. How he’d talked her into coming home to Nashville, where he could go at night. How they had a big cop wedding with law enforcement all over the place.
“Even the crooks took the day off,” he said, quoting her father.
But then he needed a job to pay for law school, so the sarge pulled some strings and got him working security for TJ Maxx. But it was shitty hours, lousy pay. Worse than cops made, if she could believe it. Chasing skinny little teenagers all over the parking lot. Nancy’s father, her brother were both cops. Joining up was a natural. And it was temporary. He swore it up and down. Just until he got that law degree.
“But Ray, he liked being a cop,” Gillian said, her voice sleepy.
He paused. Recalled that familiar smell from today. Envisioned the squad room, the case meetings, the reports, the court appearances. The feeling that he was doing something decent, something important. Keeping the wolves away from the sheep. “Yeah, he liked it.”
“People don’t usually quit the things they enjoy.”
And then he was making his confession, telling Gillian how he went from three classes in law school to two classes to no classes. How the temporary became permanent, and how Nancy . . . well, “unhappy” wasn’t the word for it. Fights, threats, misery. She got pregnant and swore she’d stay; then she lost the baby, and it seemed as if nothing could hold her.
And then one day, he looked around. His partner was divorced, most of the guys he knew were divorced. They drank beer by themselves, played pool by themselves, sat at home and got drunk alone. Then there was Bob Denton. Same job as Ray, but been married two, maybe three times. Couple of kids out in California he never saw. Lived in a crappy little apartment in Antioch. One night after shift, he went out, had a drink with the guys like he did every night, went home, shot the back of his head off.
Ray mimed the action. “Bam, just like that.”
Gillian unfolded herself and sat up. She looked at him.
“The only people who showed up at the funeral were other cops.”
He still remembered how scared he’d been. How sick inside to think of himself so alone.
“So you quit.”
“You can always get a new job. Not so easy to replace your family.”
Gillian thought about all the exes in his life. “Then where’s your happy ending?”
He laughed, a self-deprecating twist of his mouth. “Yeah, funny thing that. Six months after I quit, Nancy left.”
“See? I told you she was a witch.”
“Not a witch. She just didn’t want to be married to me anymore.”
“Oh, I find that hard to believe,” she teased.
“Well . . . you met Peter.”
“That nebbish who came to your house?”
“She’d been sleeping with him for months. She was pregnant. And this time, it sure as hell wasn’t mine.”
Gillian watched him struggle with the admission. With the embarrassment and the anger. She remembered the viciousness of the ribbing today. Who gives up his career for love? Most men would say wives were a dime a dozen. Hell, even she’d say it. Give up the thing she believed in most? Never. Who would ask that of anyone they truly loved?
Then again, how would she know? She’d never been put to the test. Never loved that hard, never let it mean that much. That kind of love wasn’t in the cards. Not for her. She wasn’t planning on living long enough.
Morning came faster than Gillian expected. She woke on the couch, exactly where she’d fallen asleep the night before. Only someone had slipped a blanket over her. It was warm under the blanket, and soft. She didn’t have to strain too much to figure out who’d covered her.
She sat up slowly, her neck stiff from the headrest. Ray was asleep in a chair at the door, his hands wrapped around his gun. Her steadfast sentry, making sure she couldn’t escape. She stretched, watched him sleep for a few minutes. The picture made her smile a little. And yearn. What would it have been like to be with him last night? To feel that hard, muscled body wrapped around hers? Would she have felt safe? Protected? Was that even possible?
Of course, he’d been right. She would have been using him. And guys like Ray, the nice ones, the decent ones, they deserved more.
He looked peaceful in sleep. Peaceful but strong. A rock of a man, like a sculpture. She tiptoed off the couch and found her camera. The lighting sucked, but that might be a good thing. If she could manipulate the shadows, she could sculpt his face even more.
But she hadn’t clicked off many shots when he suddenly spoke, his eyes still closed. “That better not be you trying to sneak around me.” His voice was deep and firm, and it sank into her like the sun after a cold night.
She kept the camera focused, watched him through the lens. “And if it is?”
He cracked open one eye. “I’ll have to shoot you.”
“With a camera?”
He straightened. “I make no promises.”
She lowered the camera, and they faced each other. She found herself grinning. “Morning.”
“Back at you.” He stood, holstered the weapon, and opened the suite door. “Problems?” he said to Mallory, who was still outside.
“All clear,” the guard said. “Got a replacement coming? I’m off in fifteen.”
“He’ll be here. Tell him to check in; then you can go.”
Gillian called for coffee, and ten minutes after the changing of the guard, it arrived, and she was drowning herself in caffeine and sugar.
Ray came out of his room, fresh from a shower wearing khakis and a long-sleeved white shirt, both of which he filled out nicely. Too nicely. She dipped her gaze away from his long, muscular legs and focused on her coffee. Felt Ray’s eyes on her as she doctored her cup.
“What?”
He shrugged and wandered over. “Nothing.”
“Come on. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Not at you, short stack, at your coffee.” He poured himself a cup and took a sip.
“What’s wrong with my coffee?”
“Nothing if you’re five and like milk shakes.”
She scoffed at his own cup. “Oh, let me guess, big strong man likes it black?”
“And tough little cookie likes it all sugared up.”
Well, hell, who was he calling little?
“Better than the pencil shavings you drink.”
He tried to look insulted. “Pencil shavings?”
“You heard me. Like someone steeped the dregs of a pencil sharpener in hot water.”
Now he did look insulted. “This is pure ambrosia. The way God meant coffee to be drunk.”
She grunted. “Well, then, maybe me and God have a little talking to do.”
He laughed, and it nearly stopped her breath the way the smile lit up his face. “Now that’s an argument I’d like to hear,” he said.
She grinned back at him. “Don’t think I’d win?”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t take any bets.”
She gulped the coffee, letting the hot, sweet drink warm her whole body. Or maybe it wasn’t the coffee.
He poured himself another cup, gazed at her with a soft light in his eyes. “So . . . we should go over your schedule. Your plans for today.”
“Plans?”
“Yeah. Plans. The show at the museum opens to the public today. You
planning
on being there?”
Oh, poor guy. Just when she thought he got her, inside and out. “I never plan,” she told him. He looked at her, and she tossed off his skepticism. “I don’t.”
He sat back in his chair, examining her. “You’re a big important artist. People like you always have a schedule to keep.”
“People like me?”
“Celebrities.”
“Oh, them.”
“So . . . the museum. You going today?”
“I think I’ve had enough red guck thrown at me. So, no, probably not. But who knows? I don’t have a calendar or one of those berry things. Like I said, I don’t plan. I don’t look ahead.”
She waited for him to ask why, was already parsing out the required explanation, the “live in the moment” crap she pawned off on most people. But he didn’t ask.
Didn’t need to know? Didn’t want to know? Either way, it irritated her.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“I already know why,” he said quietly, his look deep, his face sober with wisdom.
She stared at him, suddenly spooked by his silent insight. No one knew that much about her.
“Short-term memory loss,” he said after a long moment, then lost the battle to keep his face straight.
She threw a pack of sugar at him.
“Because you’re weird, that’s why,” he said, fending off the packet. “What about meetings, gallery openings, stuff like that?”
“Maddie handles it.”
“Maddie.”
“Yeah, Maddie. Remember her?”
“Fine. I’ll talk to Maddie.” He rose and walked toward her door.
“She won’t be there,” Gillian sang out.
“Why not?”
“She just won’t.”
He paused, turned to her. “How do you know?”
She didn’t want to get into this with him. Some instinct told her this was something he definitely wouldn’t understand. Especially after their . . . disagreement . . . the night before. “I just do.”
He leaned against the wall beside Maddie’s door. “What’s the big mystery?”
“No mystery.”
“So . . .”
She sighed. He wanted it, she’d give it to him. “I told you, I never sleep alone after Harley.”
Understanding dawned on his face. And it wasn’t pretty. “So she, what, she stays away? Facilitates your evening?” He crossed his arms, narrowed his eyes. “Does she line the men up, too?”
“Jesus, did it look like I needed help lining them up? No, I do the choosing. And last night, stupid me, I chose you.”
“Well, you weren’t alone. Not for a minute.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said dryly. “Me and my blankie. Maddie understands, okay? Something you don’t.”
“Oh, I understand just fine,” he snapped, and plunged into Maddie’s room. “She keep an appointment book?”
She heard him crashing around. “I don’t think she’s going to appreciate you mucking around in her things,” she called from where she was sitting.
He didn’t answer. She listened, and suddenly only stillness came back at her. “Ray?” She frowned down at her milky coffee, waiting for him to say something or come back to the living room. Neither happened.
Curious, she left her coffee and went into Maddie’s room. Ray was standing over Maddie’s open suitcase on the bed. A bunch of papers were clenched in his fists, and he was scowling at them.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
He tore through the pages. “I knew she was hiding something.”
“For God’s sake, what?”
She ripped a sheaf of paper out of his hand, and the block letters screamed up at her:
YOU WON’T FORGET ME.
I WON’T LET YOU.
FREAK.
YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD.
She looked through the others. There were five, no, six of them, all with similar threatening themes. A bolt of something—half fear, half excitement—stabbed her. “Where did you find these?”
“Maddie’s suitcase. A little hate mail from your socalled friend.” “Don’t be ridiculous. Maddie would never—” “Never what?” They whirled in time to find Maddie in the doorway.