Body of Evidence

by Stella Cameron

  A shower sounded good, not that the relief would last long on this steaming night.

  Something fell outside. He heard the sound, like a branch hitting the wall or a door. Tomorrow he would be cleaning up around here.

  Tearing at the sheet, he freed himself and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. The monkey had climbed on his back again.

  More debris smacked at an outside wall. Finn shook his head, went into the bathroom and stood with cold water sluicing down on him. It felt like heaven.

  He still liked this house where his parents had been so happy, and had made their kids feel safe and carefree. How long Finn would stay depended on how things worked out. He’d made some moves on a real estate deal. Thinking about it, he grinned. His competition was Orville Lachance, but the owner had been an old friend of Tom Duhon’s and didn’t like Lachance much. If the deal went through…and if there was something else to hold him, he might stay for a long time, even for good.

  A big white Egyptian cotton towel awaited him when he stepped out of the shower, and he punished his skin with it, enjoying every moment.

  He thought of his sister, and his good mood sagged. Moggeridge hadn’t been home or made contact since Finn arrived back, but Eileen said the man just showed up when he felt like it, stayed a few days, then ducked out to spend the rest of his time off in New Orleans or wherever he could do what he liked best: drink and spread himself around the whores, any whores.

  Back in the bedroom, Finn thought about what he would do next. Definitely not get back into bed and wait for another rerun of his most hated movie.

  He pulled on jeans, and went along the landing and downstairs. By the time he hit the kitchen, lightning had started slicing the sky again…like spikes heading down. Unconsciously, he held his wrist. Nobody had ever figured out why Bo tried to kill him. Their commanding officer, who’d pulled the trigger and saved Finn’s life that night, reckoned it was because everyone knew Finn was the best Ranger they had, and Bo couldn’t take being second best anymore.

  Finn didn’t believe that. Bo had snapped, nothing more sinister than that.

  But sometimes, on nights like this one, when the memories were all so clear, Finn wondered again if the devils that hung around would be satisfied if he’d made that hole between the other man’s eyes himself.

  The rat-tat-tat he heard had to be the screen on the front door, banging in the wind. He turned back, and went to open the front door and stop the noise.

  He only opened the door a crack and managed to snag the flapping screen. Pulling it shut was easy enough. Frowning, he peered at the catch, which he could see by the yellowing bulb outside. A darn good catch. Tom Duhon never did anything halfway or used cheap stuff. Finn remembered closing that screen tight and hearing the latch click home before he went to bed.

  The wind was strong; it could have caught the thing and smacked it open.

  He shut himself in again. The wind roared now.

  Finn waited—in the dark, which was his habit. He’d learned that he had the advantage in the dark. The screen door didn’t fly open again.

  Slowly, he approached the kitchen. Sometimes he should remind himself that he was just a man; regardless of his training and experience, he was human and could get jumpy.

  At the foot of the stairs, opposite what had been his mother’s favorite room because of all the sun that came in, a passageway led to a side door. When they were kids, he and Eileen used that so they could go straight into the laundry room and get rid of any mud.

  Finn started to walk across the passage to get to the kitchen. He changed his mind, without knowing why, and hung back. Crouching, the back of his head against the wall, he slowly rolled his face until he could just see the side door. Then he knew what had stopped him. Once again the screen was open, and it allowed a grayish pall to penetrate the window.

  So the wind was knocking the old house around. It could take it even if he couldn’t.

  A face, pressed to the window, showed white and feature-less—some sort of cap pulled over the ears. He felt his muscles harden, felt the slight smile that came with the anticipation of danger.

  “Bring it on,” he murmured. “I was feelin’ lonely. Come on in and entertain me.”

  The face moved away, to the right, toward the back of the house. He could go wait at the kitchen door or follow the creep from the side. The side approach appealed more.

  On the balls of his bare feet, Finn slipped along the wall, reached the door and released the bolt with the silent care of a man who knew what he was doing. He turned the handle and opened it gently inward. This joker didn’t believe in shutting screens after him. Finn thanked his own attention to detail for the oiled hinges and used two fingers to push himself just enough space to peer to the right.

  His quarry had only gone a few feet and stood huddled to the wall, bent over and unmoving.

  Finn took three steps and wrapped his arms around the man from behind. He clamped a big hand over the guy’s face, ignored the kicking heels that connected with his shins, and made sure there wasn’t a gun.

  He spun the intruder around and slammed him against the wall so hard the closest window rattled. “You’ve got about ten seconds to tell me your name and what the hell you think you’re doin…. Aw, hell. Emma.” He continued to hold her against the wall, but only to make sure she didn’t do what she was trying to do: collapse on the ground.

  14

  “It’s my fault,” she said. If she ever felt normal again, she would be amazed. “I was comin’ to see you, then I lost my nerve and spent ages fussin’ about it. Then I decided I would stop here on my way up the road.”

  “Inside,” he said, half dragging her. “What the hell are you doin’ walkin’ around in a storm like this? Didn’t anyone tell you not to be outside and under trees in electrical storms?” Some people didn’t have the sense they’d been born with, and tonight he was in no mood for fools.

  Unceremoniously propelled into a small, dark passageway, the one she’d tried to look into, Emma quelled an impulse to tell him to drop dead. It was his house, and she’d probably unnerved him by walking around the outside.

  “What time is it?” he asked. He shoved his gun into the waist of his jeans, noting that Emma didn’t seem surprised to see it this time.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Rain sluiced from her coat onto the floor. “One in the mornin’, maybe. I went to Orville’s house and got a few things before comin’ up here to go to Mom and Dad’s. Then I knew I had to talk to you.”

  “I’m flattered.” What was it with him tonight? He couldn’t even manage to be civil.

  She didn’t know if she liked the way he’d said that. “I decided to do it much earlier, while I was at Secrets, but then I lost my nerve.”

  “So you already said. I must be pretty scary.” Truth was, he wanted her to believe in him. “There hasn’t been time for the locks to be fixed up there at your folks’ place, and I surely haven’t closed that pantry wall the way it needs to be.”

  “I’m not afraid to be there now I know to be real careful.” And now she had her Bobcat in her bag. This was the first time she’d taken the weapon from its hiding place since she’d last fired it at a range.

  It made her legs wobble just thinking about it.

  Finn didn’t answer, just stared at her, and for a sickening moment she feared he could see through her coat and bag to the gun.

  “Look,” she said with a conciliatory smile, “we’re both still breathin’, so how about givin’ me a break, and I’ll go get in my Lexus and not bother you again?”

  “Where’s the Lexus?” He hadn’t seen it from the front door.

  “Up by the road. Your driveway is steep, so I thought…oh, forget it. I didn’t think a thing through. We’re not all as together as you are, Finn Duhon.”

  He actually laughed, and that made her angry. “Glad to amuse you,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  Letting her go was the las
t thing he intended to do. “No way.”

  “I need to leave,” she said, and all her carefully gathered courage turned to futile anger. “You’ve got to know I wouldn’t come if I had anyone else to turn to.”

  Ouch. “I thought you had your friends at Secrets?”

  “Damn, you’re flip,” she said. “But I’ve got the message. I need to do a lot more thinkin’ before I act on anythin’. And I’ve got to learn how to judge character better. I’m mortified, and I hope that makes you happy. No, I don’t. I hope you’ll feel like a heel when I’m gone.”

  He already did.

  They stood in that little passageway with her back against a wall—again—and him, half-naked and overpowering, glaring down at her from whatever ridiculous height he was. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” she said, and could have kicked herself for saying something so idiotic. “That sounded stupid. I’m not exactly feelin’ cool-headed, but you’ve got no call to treat me like a criminal with designs on sneakin’ in and jumpin’ you.”

  He gave her enough time to consider what she’d just said.

  “I’m not havin’ a good night,” he said, when he figured the innuendo had gone over her head. But he stepped away. Not much, but a little. “Why did you come, Emma? I shouldn’t be givin’ you a hard time just because I’m havin’ one.”

  “Like lonely people sometimes do, I’ve read more into our brief relationship than I should have,” she told him. “A couple of days’ acquaintance and I’m here to drop my problems in your lap. So I’m the fool. Can we forget it?”

  “How much more do you think you read into the relationship than there really is?” he said, and that tone was in his voice, the lower timbre that went with sexual suggestion. “Could be you’ve got the situation just right, couldn’t it?”

  She crossed her arms over the voluminous raincoat she wore, with her tote bag safely dry beneath. Typical. Was there a man anywhere who didn’t find a sexy hint in almost anything a woman said? “I took you for someone I could call a friend. I thought I could maybe turn to you because I’ve got a big decision to make and you’d try to help me decide what to do without making me feel inadequate.”

  He found and disentangled one of her hands. “C’mon. I’m havin’ a brandy, how about you?” He was glad when she allowed herself to be led.

  “A little bit would be nice.”

  He took her into a room furnished with comfortable-looking chintz chairs and a couch, and furniture that would be highly polished if it got a good dusting. “Let me take your coat.” She unbuttoned the navy trench coat and turned for him to lift it from her shoulders. He popped the woolen hat from her head and began to lift her heavy tote bag, but she stopped him and took it off herself.

  Seeing her here in this house Finn still thought of as home felt good. Too bad he was such a jerk that he’d probably alienated her big-time. She’d caught him seriously tired and seriously off guard, and he hadn’t recovered fast enough.

  Emma smiled and envisioned herself in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt, and with her hair in flattened-out waves. Lovely. “Everyone at Secrets will be very happy to see Eileen,” she said. “I asked, and they were real enthusiastic.”

  “You were nice to do that for Eileen,” he said. But she was too nice for him. “I hope she gets a kick out of bein’ there with you.”

  “It is a lot of fun sometimes,” Emma said, sucking in her bottom lip. “I’d be embarrassed for folks on the outside to see the way we cut up, but it’s good for us. You should have seen Holly Chandall’s group butt buster exercise—whooee, I’m still sore.”

  “Mmm.” Finn grinned. “I’ll bet that would be worth seein’. Invite me over next time you decide to practice.”

  “Dream on, you Peepin’ Tom.”

  “Aw, honey, I don’t intend to peep. I was thinkin’ of walk-in’ right in and takin’ a ringside seat.”

  They both laughed, and even a little silly banter felt good.

  Emma remembered Aaron. “Your nephew delivered some flowers earlier,” she said. “To Angela’s place. He’s a nice boy. He really looks like you.”

  “He looks like my father,” Finn said. A little twist of the stomach reminded him—again—how little he’d done toward getting at the truth about his father’s death.

  He set Emma’s things aside and poured two brandies from one of several bottles on a brass inlaid trolley. “Sit down wherever looks good,” he said, and when she did, he gave her a glass.

  Just the smell of the brandy made her giddy, in a nice way. She noticed Finn had a way of turning his left side away some. It wouldn’t be possible to miss seeing at least parts of a vicious scar across his back and shoulders, but he obviously didn’t want to make anything of it.

  Emma felt certain that if he wasn’t hot—which he clearly was—he would cover up.

  Finn kicked a big upholstered footstool close to her legs and sat down. “First, I am your friend. I know that strictly speaking we haven’t done any talkin’ until the last few days. But I’d like to point out that you and I have shared more in that time than a lot of people do in a lifetime. We’ve had a chance to see each other at our best and worst. More or less.”

  “I guess,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  “You can come to me when you need someone to listen. Any old time, Emma. And I won’t laugh and try to sway you when I shouldn’t—not much, anyway.” He chuckled. “This is kinda funny. I meant what I said when I talked about watching you in school. You were the blond, brainy princess who didn’t seem to need anyone. I wanted you to need me, or at least to talk to me, but back then I didn’t have the guts to approach you. I wanted to carry your books and all that dumb stuff.”

  “You’re old-fashioned.” She ducked her head. “I think kids had quit doing that even then, and I’d probably have run away if you’d tried. But I still wish you had.”

  All the time he talked, she watched his mouth, and when he stopped, she looked at his eyes. At close quarters, his naked torso gleamed faintly. The black hair on his chest looked soft, sleek, and she needed willpower not to stare at his defined abs. Finn had shoulders that…he really had shoulders.

  One thing a smart woman who had decided to divorce her husband didn’t do was forget her vulnerability. And she didn’t put herself in any positions where she would give her soon to be ex-spouse ammunition against her. She had to be careful not to misread signals from a man like Finn, who made it too easy to want him, or to go too far, too fast.

  So far she was batting zero in the common sense department.

  But Finn did more than attract her, he reached her in some intimate way, intimate like the slightest touch was a caress—and she liked him a lot, too. None of it should be happening so soon.

  He smiled, and she had no doubt he had noticed how she looked at him. “Know something?” he said. “Since the first moment I set eyes on you that afternoon, I’ve had this funny feelin’ we were meant to meet again.” He bowed his head and looked up at her. “That’s not something for a man to say to a married woman. Forget I did.”

  “There wasn’t anyone else I wanted to see tonight,” she said quietly. “I know it’s dangerous, but I’m drawn to you, and it’s not the way you think.”

  He turned the corners of his mouth down. “Well, darn it, and I was gettin’ hopeful.”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “Good.” He raised his eyebrows. “And why is it so terrible to be drawn to me?”

  “I’ll get this right yet,” she told him. “I don’t think you’ll turn me away because I’ve got troubles. And I do have troubles. Nothin’ so terrible in some ways, but I’ve got to make a decision, and I’m afraid of rushin’ into somethin’ without thinkin’ about it enough first.” She shifted forward until their legs touched. “Is it okay for me to come to you like this? Not exactly like this, but to come to you because I feel comfortable with you?” If being aware of every breath he took was comfortable. Y
ou’re in over your head, Emma.

  “It’s really okay,” he said. He had always wished he expressed himself better. “Sharin’ in a death binds people together. It feels like you were put on a special watch, maybe given a trust. Don’t feel awkward. Drink some of your brandy.”

  She did, and it burned wonderfully all the way down. Emma drank some more, and then she finished her glass.

  Finn drained his own drink and poured two more for them. Emma noted that hers was very small!

  “I just thought of something,” she said. “It could be that it’s because we don’t have a history that I thought of coming to you. There’s nothing personal to get in the way.”

  He would like to change that. Finn saw the way she rolled the glass between her palms. A thoughtful woman, could be too thoughtful. He wanted a chance to know her better, which meant, since she wasn’t available, he still hadn’t learned to choose women wisely.

  She was going to do it, Emma thought. She was going to tell him all about Orville and what she’d decided to do, and ask if he could help her decide what steps to take and when. All she had to do was start talking, then show him the envelope.

  “Just a moment,” she said, getting out her cell phone. She called Orville’s cell. Oh, he really hated it if she called him when he was at one of his meetings. She gave a little laugh but choked it off when he picked up. “Hi there, handsome,” she said, looking into Finn’s face. “I just wanted to thank you for thinkin’ of me and sendin’ the beautiful flowers. You know how I love red roses.” If he said he had not sent her roses—or the hateful funeral flowers—she would be glad.

  She could be a little bit tipsy already.

  Orville took long enough to answer, long enough to back up her theory that he knew nothing about those flowers. Someone else had sent them and wanted her to think they were from him.

  “Well, cher, I’m glad you’re enjoyin’ them. You should have fresh roses all the time. I’ll have to think of it more often. Aren’t you in bed yet?”