by Lisa Jackson
“God, Becca,” he finally muttered as he could stand the torment no more. Flipping her onto her stomach and holding her bare breasts in both hands, he slid into her and made love as if he’d never stop. She closed her eyes as she clenched around him, her spasms echoing his as he collapsed, sweating and breathing hard.
“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered against her ear.
She could barely breathe, couldn’t think, as she held him close, enveloped in a warm shawl of afterglow, lost in sensation.
It seemed like eons later when he lifted up on one elbow and the low rumble of his voice asked, “Is it pizza time?”
She turned to him and guided his head so that he kissed her, sucked at her breast and began rubbing his hands over the small of her back and the slope of her rump. “Not yet,” she murmured.
They made love again, more slowly this time, and Becca was slightly amazed at how much she wanted him, how languid and lovely she felt in his embrace, how wild and sensuous she could become without a whit of reserve. When finally they both stirred, dressed, and headed downstairs, it was hours later.
“I believe that pizza might be cold,” Becca said.
“That’s what microwaves are for.”
“Just so you know, that wasn’t a complaint.”
He shot her a warm look as he placed several pieces of pepperoni pizza in the microwave. Becca’s gaze fell on a dog bowl shoved by the back porch, something she’d missed earlier. He must have guessed what she was thinking because he said, “My lab, Booker T., died last year.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Becca said, heartfelt.
“He was old.”
“I have a dog. A mutt. Ringo. He’s kind of…my sanity meter. As long as Ringo’s around, everything else can be a problem and it’ll still be okay.”
Hudson glanced at the empty bowls. “I suppose I should put them away.”
“When you’re ready, you will.”
When the pizza was hot, they took their plates and sat down at the banquette in the corner, a scarred version that was surprisingly comfortable with gold cushions.
“I’ve always liked this place,” she said, looking out the window toward the barn, visible beneath the security lights. How many times had she and Hudson made love in the hay loft?
“Yeah…” He sounded pensive, as if his thoughts had traveled down the same path. “I told you I have a new foreman? My old one, Grandy, was with my parents for years. He was so much a part of this place, it’s a whole new world without him.”
“Did he retire?”
“He’s got personal stuff going on, so he suggested someone else to help me.” Hudson shrugged. “Hasn’t quite been the same. I’m hoping he’ll be back soon.”
“Personal stuff encompasses a lot of things,” Becca observed, thinking about her own issues as she bit into a pizza.
“His son is raising kids alone, broke his leg or something, and Grandy’s granddaughter’s pregnant. The whole family thinks the father’s a loser. She might be moving in with him. It sounded messy.”
“A baby?” Becca asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“Grandy’s stepping in to help. Not the ideal way to bring a new life into the world, without any kind of stability.”
“She’s keeping it?”
“I think that’s the plan, but there doesn’t seem to be any solid decision-making going on.”
She swallowed and looked away, wondering if she’d ever be able to tell him about the baby they’d almost had, wondering what kind of effect it would have, if any, at this late date, wondering if he would be glad the decision had been taken from them.
The conversation turned away from the tricky subject and Hudson gave her an oversized jacket and they walked through the rain and darkness to the barn where Hudson switched on the light and Becca was greeted by the smells of dry hay and old leather mingled with the warm scents of horses. She was introduced to three mares, Christmas, Tallulah, and Boston, an Appaloosa who seemed heavy with foal. “This is really more of a hobby than anything else, I guess,” Hudson admitted. She knew, though he didn’t say so, that he’d made his money elsewhere. That this farm was a dream he’d turned into a reality.
“You’ve never been married, have you?” Becca said as the horses snuffled in their mangers and she petted Boston’s soft nose. Tallulah, the bay, nickered softly for attention and Hudson scratched her between her dark ears.
“Nope.” He shot her a look. “Would you do it again?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Ben and I, we…just weren’t suited to each other.”
“What was wrong?”
“What wasn’t.”
“Mmmm…”
“I don’t know why I married him,” she said, not wanting to sound completely bitter. “I wanted the dream, I guess. A husband. A family. Children. After we were married he would always tell everyone we didn’t want children, when he knew good and well that I did. I never knew what to say in front of people. I couldn’t really respond by saying, ‘No, my husband’s wrong. I do want kids. He’s lying. He just doesn’t want kids.’ I couldn’t figure out how to put that in words without starting a huge argument, so I said nothing. And then he got involved with someone else and he died in her arms. And she was pregnant when he died. So she has a baby now.” Becca stuffed her hands in the deep pockets of his jacket. She could feel him looking at her, but she couldn’t meet his gaze.
“You still want the dream?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but I don’t really expect it to happen.”
He seemed to want to ask her more questions, but in the end he let the conversation shift back to safer topics and entertained her with a story about how Tallulah had scraped him off her back using tree boughs and how he’d had to trudge home on a sore ankle only to find the mare waiting expectantly at her stall for her next meal, completely unrepentant.
Hudson snapped off the lights. As they returned to the house, skimming puddles and ducking against the rain, he said, “It’s strange, but all this stuff about Jessie seems to have brought us together again.”
“Yeah.” She half laughed. “Fairly ironic,” she said over the patter of the rain hitting the roof of the porch as they walked up the steps.
The phone was ringing as they walked back inside and Hudson let the answering machine pick up.
“This is Detective McNally,” a deep male voice said. “I’d still like that face-to-face meeting with you, Walker. Call me back.” He finished by leaving his number.
“Guess there’s no way out of it,” Hudson said, frowning as he stared at the phone.
“Maybe he has more information.”
“More likely he wants some.” But Hudson returned the call, catching McNally and agreeing to meet the detective the next day at a diner a couple of miles from the police station.
“An informal meeting, whatever the hell that means,” he said, reaching into the fridge for another beer. “Want to come with me?”
“Hell, no. But I’m sure my name’s on that list somewhere, too, so…”
“Then it’s a date,” he said.
She laughed as she exchanged his jacket for her coat in the front hallway. “You, me, and Detective McNally.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”
Chapter Thirteen
“How long does it take to draw a picture?” Gretchen kvetched as she and Mac drove to the Dandelion Diner, where they were to meet Hudson Walker. McNally was behind the wheel, squinting against sunlight that bounced off the wet pavement. “Facial reconstruction on a computer can’t be that hard. It’s just a matter of dimension, measurement of the bones, right? I mean, if that’s your area of expertise, why the hell does it take so long? Who are these techs anyway?”
Mac grunted, passing an RV that was edging into his lane. He halfway agreed with his partner but hated being subjected to her monologue. It was as if the woman couldn’t keep an idea inside her head. Once formed, it ran right past her lips and there was no stopping it.
She had no governor. She just spewed.
And it was a pain in the ass.
“If we knew those bones were your little girlfriend, then we could take this investigation to the next level. And waiting for the damn DNA results is Chinese water torture. Unless you’re sleeping with one of the lab techs, nobody gives a shit about a rush order. Even then it’s fifty-fifty.”
“You know from experience?” Mac asked mildly as he stopped for a red light and the RV, driven by an older woman in a trucker’s cap, pulled alongside.
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell. Your complacency scares me, McNally. When did that happen?”
Twenty years ago, he thought. And it wasn’t complacency. It was cautiousness and diligence and awareness. But there was no way he was going to convince Gretchen she might not be employing her best investigative skills. She had all the answers already. No use in him wasting his breath.
As the light turned green and some idiot in a Ford Focus ran the light, crossing in front of him, he hit the brakes. Gretchen swore. “For the love of Christ, we oughtta pull that moron over!”
“The traffic guys’ll get him,” he said, gunning it to get in front of the RV, then whipping the cruiser into the gravel lot of the diner.
Inside, the Dandelion was painted bright yellow and the booths were covered in green plastic. Mac slid into one and Gretchen sat down opposite him as a waitress offered coffee, turned over the cups already on the table, and filled them each with a stream of steaming liquid. “I’ll give ya a minute,” she said around a wad of gum. “Specials are written on the board.” She indicated a chalkboard hung near the counter, then wandered off to a table of four men in their sixties.
Mac stared through the window to the outside lot.
“What do you ask them—these ‘friends’ of Jessie Brentwood’s?” she queried sarcastically as she picked up a plastic-encased menu and scanned it. “What kind of investigation is this? I should probably know.”
He felt irritation flare and tamped it back down. “Don’t piss me off.”
“What? I can’t ask questions?”
“You know the drill. Don’t act like you’re an idiot.”
“You’re a piece of shit, McNally. You act like the Lone Ranger. No, worse, you wouldn’t even trust Tonto. You seem to think that this case is yours and no one else’s.”
It has been. For twenty years.
He didn’t have time for this. It was annoying as hell to be saddled with her. But it won’t be for long, he reminded himself. His partner would get restless and move on. With that thought in mind, he decided to be more conciliatory. “We just talk. About what was up twenty years ago. Cover the same ground. See if anything else pops up, something they might have forgotten they’re supposed to keep secret.”
“Like they’re part of a conspiracy? All in it together.”
“Not quite.”
“And this guy is one of the ones you call the ‘Preppy Pricks.’”
Mac nodded. As men they didn’t seem as privileged or entitled as they’d been as teenagers, but he wasn’t able to completely forget their behavior when they were younger.
“Do you write off this meal?” Gretchen asked, flipping the menu over. “The department doesn’t pay for it.” She gave him a look and he realized she was asking. As if anyone would give him special treatment.
“The department doesn’t pay for much.”
It was her turn to grunt an assent.
Mac watched a blue Jetta pull in and park. Seconds later a woman climbed from the driver’s side. Mac felt his gut tighten, but he showed no emotion. Rebecca Ryan, now Sutcliff. He recognized her instantly and remembered his last conversation with her as if it were that morning.
“I didn’t talk to her before she left,” Becca had said to him, seated on the front steps of the high school. She’d been nervous talking to a cop, her hands clasped in front of her, almost as if she’d been praying, her book bag on the step beside her, and she’d glanced into the parking lot. Her hair had been long and a light enough brown to appear almost blond, her eyes hazel and wide. It was her profile that reminded him of Jessie Brentwood, whom he’d only seen pictures of, though full on, Becca’s face was rounder, appearing more innocent whereas Jessie appeared to have secrets filling her head, a wicked little smile teasing her lips, her eyes a shade of green and gold that reminded him of a restless ocean.
He’d quizzed her up and down, backward and forward about Jessie, but Becca Ryan had known little, basically nothing. She’d run with Jessie’s crowd and that was it.
“I didn’t ask her to come here,” he said now, his gaze following Becca’s entrance into the diner.
“She’s one of ’em?” Gretchen asked, her head swiveling with interest.
“Yeah. Rebecca Sutcliff. She must be meeting Hudson Walker.” Has Sutcliff, now a widow, somehow hooked up with Jessie Brentwood’s ex?
At that moment a large, beat-up pickup wheeled into the lot and parked next to the Jetta. Mac tore his gaze away from the approaching Becca to witness Hudson slam the door to his truck and stride toward the diner’s front entrance.
How long had they been an item? he wondered.
Becca waited for Hudson, but they didn’t so much as touch as they entered the diner. Mac was shifting his thoughts on how he planned this interview to go when Gretchen took the bull by the horns and gestured toward a nearby table. “Let’s move over here.” She grabbed her cup of coffee, slid from the booth, and shifted to a chair. Mac would have agreed that the table was a better choice than the intimacy of a booth, but her ever-constant decision-making—never so much as waggling an eyebrow at him for direction or corroboration—really bugged the hell out of him.
It was evident Walker and Becca Sutcliff were together and, Mac guessed from the looks they passed between them, definitely a couple. He made quick introductions all around, then they sat and the waitress poured a couple more cups of coffee while a busboy swabbed at their recently vacated table.
Becca’s hair was scraped into a ponytail. She wore a black-and-white plaid scarf around the neck of her leather coat, and the way she pulled the scarf from her neck was nothing short of sinuous, at least in Mac’s opinion. He remembered very clearly how she’d been as a teenager: wide-eyed, skinny, skittish, and smart enough to keep her thoughts to herself. He hadn’t put together that Hudson Walker might be more interested in her than his own girlfriend, Jessie Brentwood, but then maybe that was just conjecture on his part now.
Hudson Walker had filled out over the years and had earned a few more lines around the corners of his eyes, as if he squinted in the sun a lot. He was dressed down, jeans and shirt, lightweight jacket—a far cry from Christopher Delacroix III’s tailor-made wool suit. The man’s tie had probably cost more than Mac took home in a week.
Hudson took a seat across from Mac’s. He gazed across at Gretchen, who was sizing him up but good. “You’re Hudson Walker,” she said. “The vic’s boyfriend from twenty years ago?”
“The ‘vic’ being Jessie Brentwood? You’re saying you identified her body?” Hudson asked, turning to Mac.
“Still unconfirmed,” Mac said. “We’re waiting for DNA.”
Hudson swivelled his gaze to Gretchen. “I dated Jessie, yeah.”
Walker was weightier since high school, more in demeanor than actual pounds. And Mac understood before the man said a word that Hudson Walker had no intention of helping him any more now than he had when he was younger.
“You wanted to see me,” he said in a tone that let Mac know just how he felt about that.
Mac opened his mouth, but Gretchen jumped in again. “Everybody said Jessie Brentwood ran away, but then those bones showed up.”
“But you’re still not certain they belong to Jessie, so maybe this is a little premature.”
Mac said, “I think it’s just an exercise—confirmation. We’ve gone through all the missing persons files. We’ll find those remains belong to Jezebel Brentwood.”
Becca drew in a quic
k breath. Her skin was pale. In fact, she looked out-and-out sick.
“You all right?” Mac asked.
Hudson turned to her. “Becca?”
“I’m fine.”
“Was it something I said?” Gretchen asked wryly.
Mac cringed. His partner had no class. “Are you sure you’re—”
“Excuse me.” Becca suddenly scraped back her chair and headed toward the women’s room, which was clearly marked at the end of the row of booths.
Hudson half rose from his chair but let her go.
“She always scare so easily?” Gretchen asked in mild surprise.
Hudson’s gaze shifted to Mac’s partner, and Mac had to fight to keep his lips from twitching with amusement. Gretchen was pissing Hudson off but good. One of her favorite tactics, though what good it would do in this case, he had no idea. Before Hudson and Gretchen could go to the next level, Mac said, “I’d like to just run over the sequence of events before Jessie Brentwood disappeared.”
“You just said you don’t know if the remains are even Jessie.”
“Slow days at the department,” Gretchen said. “We’re up to our asses in cold cases instead of current events.” She took a sip from her cup, scowled, and added cream. “Crime’s on a downswing. What can I say?”
“It’s no secret I thought something happened to her twenty years ago,” Mac cut in. “You were one of the last people to see her.”
Hudson hesitated a moment. Mac could almost see when he made the decision to tamp down his annoyance and just get on with it. “We had a fight,” he stated rotely. “She didn’t think I was being honest with her. I didn’t think she was being honest with me. We were both right.”
“And what were you lying about?” Gretchen asked.
“More like omissions of the truth. We were in a high school romance that had run its course.”
