With Malice

by Rachel Lee

  "I know that," he said. "I'm a lawyer, remember? I just want to know if you want me to board a plane for Tampa with you tonight."

  Karen hesitated. For the first time in her life as a cop, she actually hesitated to arrange the arrest of a guilty man. Something about her own ethics was beginning to stink to high heaven, and she was feeling less and less like she ought to be casting stones.

  "You're not a flight risk," she said after a moment, clinging to the dregs of her job. "And at this point, no one but me knows you were involved in any way. So we'll get to that part later."

  Jerry gave a short nod. "Fair enough. I'm going to my apartment to call my wife. Grant knows where to reach me when you need me. Good night."

  Karen watched him walk away, arguing with herself over what she had just done. Then, jumping up, she said to Grant, "Excuse me a moment," and ran after Jerry.

  He hadn't even made it to the foyer of the house before he turned in response to the sound of her footsteps. "Change your mind?" he asked ironically.

  "No." She halted two feet away. "I'll need to talk to you tomorrow. About exactly what you saw when you found the bodies."

  His face darkened. "Believe me, it's branded on my brain. What time?"

  "Early."

  "I'll call your hotel around eight, then. Good night."

  She stood there for a moment, watching him disappear in the direction of the foyer. Grant's watchdog, she thought. And for that alone she liked him.

  This case was a pile of shit that she had a feeling was only going to grow deeper. Squaring her shoulders, she went back onto the patio, to Grant.

  The twilight had deepened considerably, bringing the world to the cusp of night. Traffic could still be heard—apparently it was a sound that was never gone around here—but it had grown quieter, less annoyed. Fewer horns honked. Somehow, in the past hour or so, it had found a comfortable rhythm, like a horse hitting its stride. Far away, a siren wailed.

  "So where do we go from here?" Grant asked her as she once again sat.

  "I don't know," she answered honestly. "I'll need to talk to Jerry tomorrow and see what, if any, additional information he can give me about the crime scene as he found it. I'm going to have to charge him, you know."

  Grant nodded slowly, saying nothing.

  He had to think she was going to charge Jerry, even if she wouldn't. She had to keep the pressure on. That was her job. She wanted to apologize but couldn't. Knew it would be wrong to apologize for doing her job, the job she had sworn to do, just as he had sworn his own oath of office.

  Those oaths lay between them now, his still pristine, despite Jerry, hers beginning to look a bit…marred.

  All of a sudden it burst out of her, shocking her. "This case is going to make me hate myself."

  His attention fixed on her, making her feel as if everything else in the world had vanished from his awareness. His intensity thickened the air around them, and it left her unable to breathe.

  "No," he said.

  "No?" She could barely expand her constricted chest to release that one word.

  "No, you're not going to hate yourself. Not because of this case, not because of Jerry, and certainly not because of me. You're going to do what you have to do and let the chips fall where they may. I don't want you weighing anything else in your thoughts about this case."

  She stared at him, wondering whether to believe him, part of her fearing he was manipulating her, part of her knowing he wasn't that kind of man. Don't let him be that kind of man.

  "There are times," he said, his voice as tight as piano wire, "when we have no other choice. When there is no option but to do the right thing whatever the cost. I've been forgetting that lately, getting confused between conflicting loyalties and values. But I don't want you forgetting it. I want you to find the murderer of Abby and Stacy. I need you to find the son of a bitch. And if that means my career goes down in flames, I don't give a damn. Find that demon and put him away for the rest of his natural life."

  "Jerry…"

  He shook his head. "Jerry acted without thinking, and he's confessed to it. I'll make sure he has the best lawyer in the country, but he chose to own up to his mistake, and there's nothing I can do now except get him through this somehow."

  She waited, holding her breath now, suspecting that more was on the way. She was right.

  "The thing is, Karen," he said, stabbing his finger at the table for emphasis as she had seen him do so often when making an impassioned statement, "the thing is, I don't want you drawn into this political mire. Enough good people have been hurt already, and I put Jerry among them. Do you think I want to watch you sacrifice your ethics? Can you possibly think I want any job that much? So much that I'd be willing to use people's lives and consciences as stepping stones?"

  She didn't want to think that, no, but some part of her stubbornly insisted she needed to be wary. She couldn't even explain to herself why she was suddenly so sick of being cautious.

  He leaned forward. "I'd rather go down in flames than lay waste to one more life."

  "But…your daughters."

  He sighed heavily, letting go of the intensity, leaning back and passing a hand over his face. When he looked at her again, even in the almost-night, the sorrow on his face was evident.

  "I can't protect them anymore," he said. "The word is out about Stacy. It's going to get even uglier when Jerry's confession and arrest come out. It's going to get so ugly that short of taking them away to the depths of the Amazon rain forest for the next six months, I won't be able to entirely protect them. Somehow I'm going to have to help them deal with all this."

  He sighed again, this time more quietly. "I wish I believed the media would let my wife's death alone. But they won't. They'll go back to it just because it's so juicy that two women I've been involved with have died. And they'll dig around until the dirty stuff is out on the front page. Belle and Cathy Suzanne are just going to have to deal with it somehow, and I'm going to have to help them. I'm just glad they weren't in school today and won't be tomorrow."

  "Why not?"

  "Some kind of sore throat, Art says. Nothing major, apparently. The doctor recommended Tylenol and another day at home."

  "I'm glad it's nothing major."

  "Me, too. But if they had to get sick, they couldn't have picked a better time. I may even have Art keep them out another day or two. Give this mess time to settle down a bit."

  A pang told her she was getting too involved. She ignored the warning. "I'm sorry, Grant. I'm truly sorry for your daughters."

  "Just find the killer, Karen. That's all I ask. It's obvious now that whoever it is wants to destroy me, too. I don't care for myself, but I care for my girls."

  Karen nodded, wishing she felt even one inch closer to solving this case.

  "I'm sorry," he said a few seconds later.

  "Sorry?"

  "For disappointing you."

  Her throat squeezed tight, too tight to speak, even if she had known what to say.

  "It's okay," he said, misreading her. "You don't have to accept the apology. You don't have to forgive me or excuse me. God knows I'm finding it harder and harder to excuse myself."

  The ache in Karen's throat now filled her entire body. She didn't want him to feel that way. At this point she couldn't find it in herself to condemn him for anything. Instinctively, almost needily, she reached out and took his hand. "Don't beat yourself up," she said, her voice husky with emotion. "Don't."

  His fingers wrapped around hers, holding tightly. Their eyes locked. The world stopped. Karen hovered on the brink of something she couldn't name, a feeling that if she could just take one step, she would soar rather than fall crashing to the ground. But she dared not move.

  Instead, he moved. He rose from his chair, and with a gentle tug on her hand, brought her to her feet with him.

  "I should tell you to go," he said. But even as he spoke, he was drawing her closer and closer, until only the merest sliver of the night stood bet
ween them. Until his breath feathered her cheek and his body heat warmed her.

  "I should tell you to go," he said again, "but I can't. I'm so damn lonely. Everyone I most care about is in a mess because of me, because I had the nerve to want to be president. God forgive me, because I can't forgive myself."

  She waited, aching in every cell, though whether with sorrow or something else, she wasn't sure.

  An inch. A half inch. No more. So close that the collision of worlds could no longer be halted. Her head tipped back as if by command of someone else. His head lowered, his eyes never closing.

  Lips met.

  It was as if her entire body sighed, having found at last what it had waited for so long. Yessssss.

  * * *

  As the kiss parted, he looked into her eyes. In the near darkness, they shone almost totally green, like twin emeralds beckoning him on. His voice was a mere whisper.

  "Karen."

  She was looking up at him, and then, for an instant, past him. A smile creased her face.

  "Shh," she said, lifting a finger to point at the sky. "Look."

  He followed the line of her finger, for a moment not sure what she had seen. Then a golden-white flash flickered across the sky.

  "See it?" she whispered.

  "Yes. A falling star." He paused. "Like me."

  He felt her fingers tighten on his shoulder. "Don't. I won't let you."

  Another meteor flashed past. "I believe in signs," he said. "Call me superstitious."

  "Then try this," she said, steel in her voice. "Stop looking at how quickly they wink out and think about how magical it is that we get to see them at all."

  "True. Still…"

  "What?"

  He watched her eyes as if he'd never seen them before, for that was how he felt. These were softer eyes than he'd met a few weeks ago. Eyes he could get used to seeing first thing in the morning. Eyes he could trust talking to over dinner, or in the last moments before sleep came.

  And it would never be.

  She was a cop, and he was a senator whose career was about to crash and burn. Over a murder. Over Jerry's mistake. Over this woman's investigation. Over the press and their insatiable appetite for ugliness. Over his own hubris at the belief that he could run for president and, at the same time, protect his daughters from scandal. His was a life story that should have been written in Greek.

  And she was a cop.

  And the kiss had felt so…

  "Grant?"

  "Yes?"

  "Just for a few moments…let it go. And kiss me again."

  Yes. He felt the almost painful grip of her hand on his shoulder, not letting him slip away into his reverie, not letting him sink under the waves of his own thoughts and fears and regrets. Yes.

  He sought her lips, letting his own trail them, slowly, softly, never closing his eyes. Sinking into the depths of hers.

  He felt the tip of her tongue trailing over his lips, wetting them slightly. His breath quickened, and in the night air, a chill flickered down his back and out along every nerve, goose bumps rising, his nipples stiffening inside his shirt, his knees softening, until he was clinging to her, clinging to the kiss, clinging to the moment, clinging to whatever meaning life held, in this instant, in this flicker of a falling star, in this brief, shining moment when all that mattered was the quiet, soft caress of her tongue on his lips.

  Her eyes went out of focus, and he felt a trickle on his cheek. She saw it, too, and broke the kiss. The very tip of a finger reached up and wiped the tear away.

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "Yes," he answered.

  She touched the finger to her lips, then to his. He tasted the salty fluid of his own tear, shared with the lingering taste of her kiss. She let out a shiver.

  "It's cold."

  "Yes," he said. "Let's go inside."

  "No," she answered, glancing over at the mist rising off the pool. "It's heated, right?"

  "Yes, it is."

  She stepped back, her eyes never leaving his, and slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Creamy Irish skin seemed to glow in the darkness. Her hands worked with practiced ease, unfastening another button, and another, and now the pale gold nylon of her bra came into view. He found himself fighting for balance as she finally pulled the bottom of her blouse from her slacks and shrugged it off.

  "Well?" she asked.

  "Beauty."

  "Undress, Grant Lawrence. Swim with me."

  "Yes."

  He pulled off his tie as she unbuttoned her slacks and let them slowly slide over full hips and down, revealing slim, firm thighs, the dimples of her knees, the smooth curves of her calves. He began to fumble with his buttons, drawn on by the siren song of her silent smile. Another meteor arced across the sky, and it seemed to mate itself with the tumble of her bra to the pool deck. Her breasts were full, round, chocolate-brown nipples stiffening in the cool air. Now the night air washed over his own torso, his shirt having somehow found its way off and down his arms.

  He reached for his belt buckle and stopped.

  "What?" she asked, stepping closer, so that her warm breasts barely brushed his skin. "Grant?"

  "It's…the knee. It's not…"

  She touched her fingertip to his lips. "Shhhhhh."

  She reached down and unfastened his belt, then his trousers. Sinking to her knees, she pulled them down. He closed his eyes, waiting for the horrified gasp. Instead, he felt her lips on the raised spider web of white skin at the bottom of his thigh. No one—not Georgie, not Stacy, no one—had ever kissed him there before.

  A flash of memory, the screech of brakes, his father's muttered "Mary help us" waking him from sleep in the back seat, an instant before the oncoming truck turned everything to blackness. The horror of coming to, the smell of gasoline and oil and fear, and the coppery smell of blood, the white shards of bone poking out of his leg, the blinding, awful pain.

  All of it washed away in the tender, seeking, needing, patient touch of her lips. He gasped.

  "Does it hurt?" she asked.

  "Not anymore."

  He didn't remember stepping into the pool. Instead, he felt the warmth rising over his skin, her hand in his, until they stood face to face, the water lapping at their shoulders. Her hands were so soft, finding every nerve ending, gliding, pulling him closer. Their lips met again, parting fully this time, tongues dancing with increasing urgency. His fingers explored the smooth skin of her back, the narrow taper of her waist, the swell of her hips, the fullness of her breasts, the stiff nubs of her nipples. His tongue found her throat, and she gasped as he drew a tiny fold of tender skin between his lips.

  Her nails dug into his back, dragging down lean, firm muscles, then stopped at his buttocks.

  "Grant?"

  "Yes?"

  By way of answer, she lifted her legs and tipped backward slightly, then pulled herself onto him. Her ankles crossed at his buttocks and locked her to him.

  "This," she said.

  "Yes."

  The heated water seemed to envelop them in a cocoon against the cold darkness of the night. Their hips began to undulate together, a slow, easy rhythm. He felt his breath quicken as her fingers entwined with his, and she let herself float back, until their arms were extended.

  Her eyes opened, looking up into the stars, and in that instant her face radiated more light than all the stars in the heavens.

  "Yes," she whispered to another shooting star.

  "Yes," he answered.

  Her warmth and the warmth of the water melded in his senses, until the night was filled with her. Her beauty, arcing across the sky. Her wetness welcoming him. Her breath in the quiet kiss of the wind. Her lips in the trickle of moisture over his face and shoulders. Her scent in the sweetness of fresh blooms. Her quiet gasps in the lapping of the water against the sides of the pool.

  He could sink into this woman forever, he thought as he drove himself deeper into her, his own need rising with hers in the motion of their hips, until he cast his
head back and he heard a low, growling sigh as their muscles fluttered in unison. His sigh. Her sigh. Their sigh.

  Electricity seemed to crackle along every nerve, until he felt as if every muscle in his body spasmed in rhythm with hers. Another meteor streaked over. Another. Another.

  Until he was beyond knowing.

  * * *

  Karen laid her face on his shoulder, her arms tight around him, their legs entangled as they sat on the bottom step of the pool. The water fluttered at her throat, and she could still feel his lips, his teeth, his tongue. The world had seemingly taken forever to come back into focus, and now she heard his breathing.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  He chuckled. "That would be the understatement of the century."

  She smiled. "Well, the century's still new."

  He turned to face her, his eyes intense. "A lot of things feel new right now."

  Yes, she thought, they do. There was, she knew, some reason why she ought to feel afraid or ashamed or anxious. But she couldn't for the life of her think of it in that moment. Deep within her, aftershocks still fluttered. It had been forever since she had felt this alive, and she was not about to surrender this feeling to return to a life of the dead. Not now. Later. But not now.

  She heard her voice murmur something. His answering. The words didn't matter. What mattered was the way his skin felt against hers, the slight tickle of the hairs on his legs and chest floating across her breasts and thighs. She sought his lips again, sipping, grazing, nipping, her fingers clinging to his back.

  The world was far away, beyond the mist rising around them, distant, fuzzy, out of focus. The world was here, in the way the stubble on his chin scraped over her cheek, in the way his strong hands supported her buttocks, holding her effortlessly close. The world was the taste of his lips and the soft smile in his eyes.

  This was the world. No need to hunt for clues or evidence. No need to see how the pieces fit together or wonder what it all meant. A world to be experienced. Taken in. Savored.

  His fingertips were pruned, and for some reason she found herself entranced by every tiny wrinkle and trying to smooth them with her tongue, her lips, her cheek, her hands. A giggle escaped her. Or him. She realized her own fingertips were crinkled, and now she tried to fit their fingers together, like a jigsaw puzzle, looking for just the perfect combination where his rises fell into her hollows, and vice versa. Finally she touched her left ring finger to the same finger on his left hand, and they fit.