“Do you know what you want?”
“I was thinking maybe we could split a vegetarian pizza.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The waiter arrived, a middle aged man in a crisp white apron with a black tie. Marco placed their order and the waiter moved away. Peyton leaned back in her chair and sipped at her drink. “You seem pensive. What’s on your mind?”
Marco played with the condensation on his water glass. “Something Dr. Ferguson said.”
“What?”
With a heavy sigh, he glanced up at her. Candlelight danced in the hollows of his face. “He thinks we need to do more things like this and less of what we usually do.”
Peyton frowned. “I’m not following you.”
“He thinks we shouldn’t...um…”
“What? Just say it, Marco.”
“Sleep together anymore until we work out our other problems, have the conversations most couples have.”
“I see. Like what?”
“You know, religion, politics, money, our expectations for the future.”
“And no sex?”
Marco bit his bottom lip. “No.”
“But that’s what we do well.”
“I know.”
“Really well.”
“I know.” He looked down. “What if he’s right, Peyton? What if we mask our problems with sex? What if we use it to keep from having real discussions? What if that’s all we have?”
“That can’t be true. We were partners for eight years. We shared everything.”
“But partners, that was one thing. This is more. This is being partners and lovers and trying to build a life together. What if we can’t be both at the same time? What if we can only be one thing at a time?”
“Do you believe that?” She leaned forward. Her heart was pounding.
“I don’t want to believe it, no, but I can’t deny that we haven’t exactly spent a lot of time talking about the future, about what we both want. And every time we try, we get in trouble.”
She considered that, then she reached for her wine and took a gulp. “Okay. So no sex. For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded. “There’s something else we might try.”
“I’m listening.”
“Margaret has been married twenty-nine years. She and her husband have this technique that she says makes all the difference in the world for them.”
“All right. What is it?”
Peyton explained what Margaret had told her. After she was finished, Marco sat still, watching her contemplatively. “Our problems aren’t towels behind the door,” he said.
“I know that. It was just an example. Isn’t it worth a shot though?”
“I guess.”
“You go first. What’s something that drives you crazy about me?”
“Nothing.”
Peyton rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Marco, nothing? We both know that’s a lie.”
He scratched at his forehead, then drew a deep breath. “I hate the way you collect strays. It scares me and I wish you’d stop doing it.”
Peyton held out her hand. “Now, see, there’s something we can discuss.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“Roll play why you think I do that. Put yourself in my position.”
Marco shook his head, looking around the restaurant. “I have no idea, Peyton.”
“Just try.”
Marco looked back at her and blew out air. “Okay, um, I guess you do it because you can’t stand to see people or animals suffer. You feel you have to help them.” He braced his chin on his hand. “But it’s more than that. It’s a compulsion with you.”
Peyton felt a shiver race up her spine as his blue eyes bore into hers. She was no longer sure this was a good idea. Sex was less intimate than this.
Marco’s gaze narrowed on her. “You fear abandonment. You know what it feels like to have someone leave you and you don’t want other people to feel that.”
Tears burned in Peyton’s eyes.
Marco swallowed hard and reached for his water glass, taking a swallow. “It’s in your nature and you can’t change that.” His fingers tightened on the glass. “I don’t know if this is a good idea, Peyton.”
She took another gulp of wine. “It has us talking. Let’s keep going.”
“Okay. Your turn. What’s something you hate about me?”
“I hate the way you run away when we have problems.”
He held her gaze. “Why do you think I do it?”
“I really don’t know. I know what I feel. I feel like you doubt me, like you doubt my love for you.”
“You’re supposed to put yourself in my place.”
Peyton swallowed hard. “Your feelings are too intense and they scare you.”
He reached over and took her hand. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Peyton. And everything I feel is such a conflict. I don’t want to control you and yet I find myself wanting to keep you from doing things that scare me. I can’t seem to balance anything where you’re concerned. If I lost you, I don’t think I could stand it, but at the same time, being with you makes me feel so damn vulnerable.”
“So what do we do?”
He gave her an uncomfortable smile. “Well, at least we’re talking. That’s something we haven’t been doing.”
She squeezed his hand, then released it when the pizza arrived. They ate in silence, both of them deep in thought. She didn’t necessarily like that he believed she had issues with abandonment, but at the same time, he did have a point.
After dinner was over, he walked her out to her car.
Even though they’d shared things that made both of them feel vulnerable, she didn’t want the night to end. She leaned against the passenger door of her Prius and looked up at him. She loved every angle of his face, every expression in his eyes, the way his lips tilted upward when he smiled at her. She wanted to press her body against his, feel his arms around her, hear the beat of his heart.
He reached out and ran his fingers along her jaw. She felt her pulse pick up speed, felt her breath quicken. Just like that he could have her wanting him, needing him. Why couldn’t they just forget all this other baggage and just go with what felt right?
Because he’d run away again and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She couldn’t let him break her heart again that way. Before she trusted him completely, she had to be sure he wasn’t going to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
“I’d better go,” she told him, but she didn’t move.
“Yeah,” he said, his fingers trailing down her throat to where her pulse pounded in the hollow between her collar bones. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. Peyton gasped and that’s all it took.
He crushed her against him and deepened the kiss. Peyton wrapped her arms around his neck and angled her head, granting him access, urging him on. They strained together, want and need replacing rational thought.
A discreet cough brought them apart and Peyton leaned against the car, panting, her heart thundering in her ears. A man and woman walked their dog up the street, giving them arch looks.
“No sex, huh?” Peyton said to lighten the mood.
Marco’s eyes were dilated, but he barked out a laugh, raking a hand through his dark hair. “Right. No sex.”
“Well, that’s...um...something.”
“Right. Something.”
“I’d better go.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea.”
She squeezed past him and hurried around the back of the car, unlocking her door with the remote. Pulling it open, she looked over at him. “Thank you for dinner.”
“My pleasure. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, tomorrow.” She started to get into the Prius, but stopped and glanced up at him. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“Do you?” he asked incredulously.
She laughed. “Sure. Why not. Sexual frustration is bound to break dow
n some walls, force some issues to the foreground, and then bam, we’ll really have something by then.
Marco laughed with her. “Whatever you say, Brooks, whatever you say.”
CHAPTER 5
He sat at the end of the Millennium Bridge, huddled in his coat, his ball cap pulled down low over his wild mane of hair. His back was against the clear safety glass, his knees pulled up to his chest. He was sitting at the part of the bridge where the homeless gathered to beg as the working class circled around the walkway to reach the Thames Walk. It was dusk, just after work had let out, before the dinner crowd would begin leaving Bankside.
Only a few people meandered along the Wibbly Wobbly, snapping pictures of London Bridge, the Globe Theatre, and the Thames. The lights lining the bridge had just come on and he could hear the bells of St. Paul’s cathedral tolling 6:00PM.
His heart sank when the American girl ran up the walkway onto the bridge. He’d noticed her, sitting along the Thames Walk with her boyfriend, lounging in the lawn just in front of the Tate Modern. Her boyfriend had been snapping pictures of her for the last half hour.
He’d thought to walk away, but as long as they stayed on the Thames Walk, as long as she stayed with her boyfriend, she’d be safe.
There she is. That’s the one.
He closed his eyes and pressed his head hard against his knees. “Leave her alone.”
She’s blonde like the others. Look at that hair.
He peeked at her from beneath the brim of his ball cap. Her blond hair flowed out over her jacket, sweeping across her face in the wind from the river. She pulled it back, laughing as she raced to a spot on the bridge overlooking the Thames Walk.
“Here?” she called down to the young man.
He lifted his head just a bit more to see the boyfriend standing in the middle of the walk, aiming the camera at her. “A little more this way,” he motioned, sending her farther away from him. “Get up on the edge.”
Their American accents were unmistakable. Their youth undeniable. He wanted to call a warning to them, shout for her to run, but it was already too late. Once he picked the girl out, she was dead. He would hunt her down. And if she went back to the boyfriend, the young man was dead too. He wasn’t the target, but he would be eliminated to get the girl.
“Please leave her alone. She’s American.”
All the better. Fresh meat.
He pressed his head hard into his knees, closing his eyes. “Someone will see. Someone will hear. This is a bad place to do it.”
Here is fine. It has to be now. It has to be this one. She’s going to die. She’s going to die now.
“No more,” he moaned, rocking himself back and forth. “Please no more.”
He got no answer, but he didn’t dare lift his head, didn’t dare watch. He couldn’t watch anymore. He couldn’t see the death, the pain, the fear. No more.
Her scream made him jerk, but he didn’t lift his head, tightening his hold on his knees.
Then came the howl.
* * *
Marco set the coffee cup at Jake’s elbow and took a seat in the chair beside his desk, hooking the cane over the back of it.
Jake looked into the coffee cup, then gave Marco a frown. “What nasty job do you have for me today?” he asked. “Headless corpse? Eviscerated choirboy? I know. A hooker with her eyes gouged out?”
Marco gave him a grimace. “Hooker with her eyes gouged out?”
“Killers keep souvenirs. Maybe he shellacked them and wears them around his neck.”
“Holy shit, Ryder, that’s sick.”
“It could be testicles, if that makes you feel better.”
Marco reared away from him. “How the hell would that make me feel better?”
Jake grinned and took a sip of his coffee. “What fresh hell are you bringing me along with the coffee, Adonis?”
Best to tell it quick, like ripping off a bandage. “Derek Renshaw took the Morris case.”
Jake went still.
“Ryder?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Derek Renshaw’s representing Ryan Morris.”
“How? He represented Will Cook.”
“I know.”
“Isn’t that conflict of interest?”
“In what way? They’re two separate cases. He’s defending both of them.”
“You want me to be cross examined by the man who tried to get my wife’s killer off?”
“No, I want you to testify against the man who held a gun to your head.”
Jake rose to his feet and paced away, then he came back and gripped the back of his chair. “This is asking too much, Adonis.”
“I know. Devan’s coming today to prep you. Actually, he’s here, napping in my office.”
Jake frowned. “What?”
“It’s a long story.”
Jake let out a bark of laughter. “You’re Peyton.”
“What?”
“She’s gotten to you and you’ve become her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You have a secretary who doesn’t work, yet still gets paid, and you’ve given your office to a sleep deprived ADA that you don’t even like. Did someone shellac your testicles and use them for a necklace?”
Marco’s face grew grim. “I could break you, Ryder.”
“But you won’t ‘cause you’ve gone all warm and fuzzy on us.”
Marco rose to his feet and Jake scampered back. “Don’t screw with me.”
Jake smiled. “Relax, Adonis. I was never scared of you in the first place. You’re just a big, ol’ teddy bear.”
“Is this helping you?”
“What?”
“Coming at me like this. Is this going to help you face down Derek Renshaw tomorrow?”
Jake’s expression sobered. “No, this is just sport.”
Cho came around the corner of Jake’s cubicle. “Hey, Captain, I need you to pick out what color and style of pocket handkerchief you want to wear to the wedding. Maria’s wanting pink to go with the bridesmaid’s dress, but you can pick the pattern.”
Jake burst into laughter and Marco closed his eyes.
* * *
Margaret stuck her head inside Peyton’s office. “I’ve got Senator Lange’s assistant on the line. His name’s Paul Richmond.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” she said, reaching for the phone in its cradle. She pushed the flashing button. “Mr. Richmond, this is Special Agent Peyton Brooks with the FBI.”
“Yes, Agent Brooks, your assistant identified herself. I understand you’d like to talk to Senator Lange about a cold case you’re working in San Francisco.”
“Yes, is there any way I can speak to Senator Lange directly?”
“I’m afraid he’s in D.C. right now, being a senator and all. I’ll let him know you called when he checks in here and ask him to get back to you.”
“That would be excellent. You have my direct number?”
“Yes, Agent Brooks, your assistant gave it to me.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly, but I can’t promise to have the answer.”
“I understand.” She leaned back in her chair and adjusted one of the vases on her desk. “Does Senator Lange always send condolences letters when someone dies in your state?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I have a condolence letter for a Lance Corporal Isaac Daws. He died in a Las Vegas hotel room.”
“Ah, I see, well, he was a member of our armed services, Agent Brooks. Senator Lange is a great supporter of our military and he would have felt terribly that he died in our state, so I’m not surprised if his family received a letter of condolence from our office.”
Peyton picked up the text messages and studied them. “Is the name Isaac Daws familiar to you, Mr. Richmond?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I seem to remember an unfortunate case in the news, but it was quite a few years ago. The young man was a military service member,
but I believe he died of a drug overdose.”
“Right. Do you keep a record of who Senator Lange meets?”
“That would be impossible, Agent Brooks. Senator Lange is very involved in the community. He does a great many meet and greets.”
“What about formal meetings in his office?”
“Well, of course, we keep a record of that.”
“How far back would that record go, Mr. Richmond?”
“Since Senator Lange was elected into office, 11 years ago.”
“Can you send me those records?”
“Not without a warrant, Agent Brooks.”
Of course not. Peyton sighed. “Can you search those records and see if Senator Lange ever met with Isaac Daws?”
“That I can do. Should I call you at the phone number your assistant gave me?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Very good, Agent Brooks. I’ll try to get back to you within the next few days.”
“Thank you, Mr. Richmond, and please relay my information to your boss.”
“Done, Agent Brooks. Have a nice day.”
“You too, Mr. Richmond.” She disconnected the call and replaced the phone in its cradle, just as Margaret poked her head inside again. “Sarge asked for the team to assemble in the conference room as soon as you’re done with your call.”
Peyton felt her heart sink. If they got a new case, that would mean Daws would go back in the cold file, but she knew that Rosa never called them together unless she had something for them.
Bambi poked her head inside the room next to Margaret, her hair perfectly contained in a long blond ponytail, her suit fitting her like a second skin. “Did you hear? We’ve got a case. What do you think it’ll be this time? I’ve been hoping for a vampire.”
Peyton pushed herself to her feet. “An alien in a grass skirt.”
“Grass skirt? Why would an alien wear a grass skirt?”
“Because he doesn’t like polyester.”
Bambi peeled off into laughter and Peyton gave Margaret a wink. Margaret smiled and returned to her desk. As they walked toward the conference room, Bambi put her arm through Peyton’s.
“I hear you had a visitor last night.”
“Huh?”
“Downstairs. Tall, dark, and...gor-geous!”
Werewolves in London (Peyton Brooks, FBI Book 3) Page 7
