Halfway to Half Way (15 page)

 

 

He said, "The more time that passes without a stop on Jarek's vehicle, the more worried I am about Kimmie Sue's continued good health."

 

 

"So you do think he's involved." She'd dunked another celery stalk when David wasn't looking. Now he was coaching himself: breathe in, breathe out.

 

 

"They're, uh, they're both persons of interest."
And at the moment, not a fraction as interesting as what your tongue's doing…

 

 

"I love it when you cop-talk." Her teeth severed the celery like Ginzu knives. "From what you've told me, I think Kimmie Sue's visit was a surprise. Mothers dream their daughters will hook up with captains of industry, not guys named Rocco."

 

 

She paused to dispense with the celery. "Since guys named Rocco already have a lot to overcome and usually for good reason, he decided to rip off his never-to-be mother-in-law. He cased the house on the sly, dropped off Kimmie Sue to shop or something and was tossing the place when Bev came home."

 

 

Hannah spread her hands. "At that point, he had two choices."

 

 

David nodded, wincing inwardly. Once that decision was made, if Bev hadn't been wearing her murder weapon, the killer would have used whatever else was handy. A recent homicide downstate involved a drug dealer who bludgeoned a deadbeat customer to death with a tree stump.

 

 

"Rocco grabbed his loot," Hannah said, "picked up Kimmie Sue and left town. They made it to Joplin before the storms forced them to stop. I assume Kimmie Sue isn't a morning person, or they'd have been halfway across Oklahoma when Marlin reached her on her cell phone."

 

 

She sat back and crossed her arms. "If Kimmie Sue—" She rolled her eyes. "Jeez, what were her parents
thinking?
If they'd had a boy, they'd have probably named him Rocco."

 

 

David chuckled and Hannah continued. "Whatever.
Kim
Beauford couldn't have known it was Marlin—all your phones block the name and number on Caller ID. Rocco had to bring her back, but just because they checked into the Wishing Well doesn't mean he unpacked the Jeep. Kimmie—Kim—might not have realized they were blowing town after the walk-through, until Rocco blew past the city limits."

 

 

David shook his head in amazement. "Not bad, Detective Garvey. If constituents wouldn't accuse me of nepotism, I might be tempted to put you on the department payroll."

 

 

"Then I'm right?"

 

 

"Well, that remains to be seen. I will say, you and Marlin think a lot alike."

 

 

She made a face, as though uncertain whether she'd been complimented or insulted. Comparisons with the chief of detectives had that effect on people.

 

 

"Same as I told Luke, all we can do is hang tight until those two and their vehicle are located."

 

 

Hannah tensed. A cracker she'd intended to slip to Malcolm the Mooch disintegrated in her hand. Glancing down at him, she stammered, "N-New rule, Malc. No more table food."

 

 

The mutt glared at David, as though he was a bad influence. He'd tried to be, with zero success. Table scraps in the dogs' bowls, not hand-fed on the sly, was David's house rule, not Hannah's.

 

 

The poor dumb dog whimpered and nudged Hannah's elbow with his nose, his heart obviously as broken as the cracker she was brushing off on a napkin. David said, "How new is this rule?"

 

 

"I, uh, pretty much since you were changing clothes." Still leaning forward, still chafing her hands over the napkin, she inquired, "So, you talked to Luke…recently?"

 

 

David sensed a change, aside from subject matter and the peculiar edge in Hannah's voice. Guilt about cutting off Malcolm's stealth panhandling, he supposed. "Luke called the house as I was leaving to come out here. He is
not
happy with me, but he'll just have to get over it."

 

 

Hannah sat back. She pushed her hair behind an ear, flipped it free again, then sighed. "It was a crazy idea, I guess. Totally inappropriate."

 

 

"Exactly what I said, right before I told him flat-out no."

 

 

"You did?" Her eyes widened, then narrowed. "When was this?"

 

 

"About a month ago, when Luke brought it up."

 

 

"Oh, yeah? And in all this time, you never said a word to me about it."

 

 

Confused, David said, "Why would I?"

 

 

She shot back, "Why
wouldn't
you?" A mirthless chuckle, then, "I already know the answer, but c'mon. Fess up."

 

 

David's mouth opened, then closed. A mental review of the previous thirty seconds didn't clarify a damned thing.

 

 

"Because I said no. Hell, I even spelled it. Then I forgot about it, till Luke pestered me on the phone again tonight."

 

 

Her face flushed as red as the apple peels. Clenching her teeth, she repeated, "You turned him down. A month ago."

 

 

"Of course I did. Even without Bev's murder taking priority, I can't think of a dumber way to waste a Friday night."

 

 

Slowly, Hannah tipped her head. The gears turning inside were visible. She said, "What are you talking about?" at the same time David said, "Why are you so ticked off all of a sudden?"

 

 

Their eyes met and held. "You first," he said.

 

 

"Uh-uh. You started it."

 

 

Started what?
David blew out a breath. "Luke wanted me to help judge a toddler's beauty contest tomorrow night to get out the mom vote. I said no, and forgot about it. I didn't know till he called tonight that he'd signed me up for it, anyway. I told him to take a flying leap off a water tower and pray Jesus he landed on that concrete head of his."

 

 

Braced for a chapter and verse on whatever sin he'd committed, he gestured,
Your turn.

 

 

Her color having returned to near-normal, she said, "Get out the mom vote, huh? Sheesh. The winner's maybe. All the losers' mothers wouldn't have been real fond of you." She glanced at the microwave clock, gasped, "Ye gods, will you look at the time?" and hopped off the bar stool.

 

 

"Hey." David grabbed a fistful of her Bulls jersey before it got away. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

 

 

Bowing back into his arms, she traced a fingertip down his cheek and trailed it along his jaw, his neck, the band of his undershirt. "No. I'm remembering what tends to happen after we've had a snack…talked awhile…relaxed…"

 

 

Her touch, the look in her eyes, and that low, sultry voice had an immediate effect. "We, uh, clean up the mess we made of the kitchen?"

 

 

"Sometimes."

 

 

"Make sure the doors are locked, then douse the lights?"

 

 

"Usually."

 

 

"Snuggle up in bed and drift off to sleep?"

 

 

"That, too." Hannah brushed her lips against his. "Eventually." The tip of her tongue flicked out, tasting sweet and hot and peanut-buttery. The images it conjured scrolled through David's memory, heightening his arousal.

 

 

Lost in her kiss, he was vaguely aware of her twisting in his arms, pulling them both upward, then to the floor. Her hair tumbling over his face smelled like crushed strawberries and he cupped her breast, feeling it swell at his touch. Her mouth never leaving his, she skimmed her hand across his chest, his belly, delving deeper, then her fingers closed around him, stroking, driving him out of his mind.

 

 

Falling back, panting, David struggled for control, missing her mouth on his, groaning as her tongue licked up the length of him and her lips parted to take him. The primal pounding ache for release near the breaking point, he freed himself and rolled her on her back.

 

 

He tugged off her pajama pants, then his sweats, eager to give, to feel her trembling rise to tremors.

 

 

Shuddering, she cried out, "Now,
now,
" and when he slid inside her, the world exploded in bright, blinding white light, then faded to black.

 

 

* * *

An annoying clattering sound woke David—it was his pager vibrating like a wind-up toy on the nightstand. In the dusty gray light seeping in through the windows, he squinted at the glowing LED screen, grunted, then turned it right side up. The blurry numerals gradually coalesced into Marlin Andrik's phone extension at the Outhouse. A digital ASAP message, not a hit-the-gas-and-haul-ass one.

 

 

David slid from the bed, careful not to disturb Hannah, and clueless as to how or when they'd gotten there. He was naked from the waist down, a mite weak in the knees, and the left one had a bruise as big as a Kennedy half dollar.

 

 

If he was any happier, satisfied, and in love with the most amazing woman the Lord ever created, he'd just flap his wings and fly back to town.

 

 

After gathering the clothes he'd worn and those he'd brought with him the night before, he kissed Hannah's sleep-warm brow. He'd grab a quick shower at his house and trade the pickup for his county car.

 

 

In the breakfast room, Rambo and Malcolm had their noses pressed to the French doors, united in the urgent need to pee before their bladders burst.

 

 

"Quiet," David whispered, then let them out. A combined two hundred pounds scrambling across a wooden plank deck was anything but. He backtracked to peek in at Hannah. Grinning, he allowed that a hydrogen bomb in the backyard wouldn't rouse her for another hour or three.

 

 

He retrieved his sweatpants from the floor and pulled them on. Operating a motor vehicle barefoot was a misdemeanor. Wearing boots with sweats ought to be a felony. He folded Hannah's discarded pj bottoms on a bar stool, then loaded the coffeemaker and set it to start the brew cycle at eight.

 

 

David was giving the counters a swipe with the dishrag, when he paused and looked toward the bedroom.

 

 

"Not that I'm complaining," he said softly, as though Hannah were standing there, "but best as I can recall, you never did tell me what tripped that redheaded temper of yours last night."

 

 

 

9

I
n Realtor parlance, a neighborhood described as
established
often pertains to houses built when a spacious closet was an arm-span wide, and families whiled away summer evenings on the front porch, not in front of the TV.

 

 

Apart from its lifetime-guaranteed siding, the green AstroTurf glued to the porch, and a new storm door, the house where Chlorine Moody lived hadn't changed much in the decades since World War II.

 

 

A concrete driveway on the bungalow's kitchen side accessed the detached, single-car garage. Its heavy kick door had been replaced by a solid steel one with an automatic opener. Otherwise, what money Mrs. Moody lavished on her property's exterior was earmarked for upkeep and security, not beautification.

 

 

Behind that block of MacMillan Street, the property owner who'd fenced his yard first and without regard to easements and boundary lines had set the standard followed by neighbors to the opposite end of the block.

 

 

An uprooted hodgepodge of temporary enclosures, dirt piles and construction equipment impeded the view of the alley. For that Delbert was grateful, since broad daylight on a Friday morning wasn't an optimum time for trespassing on private property.

 

 

The exception to that rule was a mission that couldn't be undertaken after dark, on account of needing to see what the hell you're doing while you were doing it. Not to mention, when you were working with an operative such as Leo Schnur, who couldn't be trusted not to shine a dingdanged flashlight straight at somebody's window.

 

 

Amateurs, Delbert grumbled to himself, and glanced back over his shoulder. The same long-sleeved, one-piece coveralls that hung on him like Columbo's raincoat had Leo looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy with an untreated thyroid condition.

 

 

"Jehosophat, Schnur. Will you hurry up?"

 

 

"The hurry, I am," Leo wheezed. "The up I cannot any faster."

 

 

The alleyway's slope to street level wasn't much of a hill for a climber, unless he was a hundred pounds overweight, had a canvas bag full of equipment slung over his shoulder and was dumb enough to wear a pair of wingtips for a mission called Operation Tomb Raider.

 

 

A designation Leo wasn't aware of. Or what it entailed.

 

 

Keeping details on a strict need-to-know basis was critical. The less Leo knew, the less he could argue about—and the less inclined he'd be to panic, turn tail and waddle back to Valhalla Springs.

 

 

Delbert pulled down the bill on his cap, in the event a neighbor looked out to see what his idiot dog was yapping at in the alley. Flipping open his metal clipboard case, he gandered at the top page. A masterpiece, if he didn't say so himself.

 

 

The city's blue-inked logo and letterhead had been cut off a notice swiped from the public works' department's bulletin board. Pasted on a clean sheet of paper fed into a color photocopier loaded with watermarked stationery produced a dozen blank, almost perfect replicas of Sanity's official letterhead.

 

 

It probably wasn't used for work orders, but the one Delbert composed on the computer, then printed, looked gimcrackin' bona fide to him.

 

 

Beneath it was a handwritten list of dos and don'ts for removing and preserving hazardous materials. He was refreshing his memory on the finer, more potentially fatal points when Leo scuffled up beside him. "A bad feeling, I am getting," he said. He mopped his face with a monogrammed handkerchief. "Ach, the bad feeling I had before we got here."