by Nora Roberts
“You should keep going,” Jed said quietly. “Get the rest of it out.”
“All right, fine. You muscle your way into my apartment flinging accusations. Why? Because I was handy, and because you didn’t like the way things were moving between us. You didn’t even consider that you might be wrong, you just attacked. You scared the bloody hell out of me, and worse . . .” She pressed her lips together and turned away. “You humiliated me, because I just took it. I just stood there trembling and crying. I didn’t even fight back.” Now that she’d admitted it, she felt calmer and faced him again. “I hate that most of all.”
He understood that all too well. “You’d have been crazy to take me on in the mood I was in.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the point.” He felt anger stirring again, viciously self-directed. “For Christ’s sake, Dora, you were facing a maniac who had you by better than fifty pounds. What were you going to do, wrestle me to the ground?”
“I know self-defense,” she said, lifting her chin. “I could have done something.”
“You did.” He remembered the way her terrified tears had defused him. “You’re crazy if you let yourself be embarrassed because you were afraid.”
“I don’t think insulting me is going to smooth the waters, Skimmerhorn.” She lifted a hand to push back her hair. It wasn’t her usual casual gesture, Jed noted. It was a weary one. “Look, I’ve had a rough day—”
She broke off when he took her hand. Even as she stiffened, he gently straightened her arm. She’d pushed up the sleeves of her jacket to work. There was a light trail of bruises on her forearms, marks he knew would match the press of his fingers.
“I can keep saying I’m sorry.” His eyes were eloquent. “That doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.” He released her, tucked his hands away in his pockets. “I can’t tell you I’ve never put bruises on a woman before, because I have. But it was always in the line of duty, never personal. I hurt you. And I don’t know how to make it up to you.”
He started for the steps.
“Jed.” There was a sigh in her voice. “Wait a minute.” Sucker, she admitted, and flipped open the top of the box. The robe was nearly identical to hers, but for the color. She smoothed a finger down the deep-green terrycloth lapel.
“They didn’t have a white one.” He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt more foolish in his life. “You wear a lot of bright colors, so . . .”
“It’s nice. I didn’t say I was forgiving you.”
“Okay.”
“I’djust prefer if we could put things back on some reasonable level. I’m not comfortable feuding with the neighbors.”
“You’ve got a right to set the rules.”
She smiled a little. “You must really be suffering to hand over that kind of power.”
“You’ve never been a man buying women’s lingerie. You don’t know about suffering.” He wanted to touch her, but knew better. “I am sorry, Dora.”
“I know. Really, I do. I was nearly as mad at myself as I was at you this morning. Before I could cool off we had some trouble in the shop. So when you came back, I was ready for blood.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Shoplifting.” Her eyes hardened again. “This morning, not long after you left to buy a hair shirt.”
He didn’t smile. “Are you sure it was all there last night when you closed up?”
That stiffened her spine. “I know my stock, Skimmerhorn.”
“You said you got in a few minutes before I did last night.”
“Yes, what does—”
“You were upset when I left you. You were still upset this morning. I don’t suppose you’d have noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
“If anything was missing from upstairs. Let’s go take a look now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Somebody was in my place last night.”
She caught herself before she spoke, but he saw the doubt on her face.
“I’m not saying that to excuse my behavior, but somebody was in my place,” he said again, struggling to keep his voice calm. “Cops see things civilians don’t. I had an idea that it might have been some of Speck’s men, dropping around to hassle me, but it could have been something else. Somebody looking for some trinkets.”
“What about the alarm system. Those burglary-proof locks you put in?”
“Nothing’s burglary-proof.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes briefly as he took her hand and pulled her up the stairs. “Well, that certainly makes me feel better. A minute ago I was happy being furious at a shoplifter. Now you’ve got me worried that I had some cat burglar prowling around my apartment.”
“Let’s just check it out. Got your keys?”
“It’s not locked.” His look made her bristle. “Look, ace, the outside door’s locked, and I was right downstairs. Besides . . .” She shoved open the door. “Nobody’s been in here.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He bent down to examine the lock, saw no obvious signs of tampering. “Did you leave this unlocked when you went out last night?”
“Maybe.” She was beginning to sulk. “I don’t remember.”
“Keep any cash in the house?”
“Some.” She crossed to the kneehole desk and opened a drawer. “It’s right where it’s supposed to be. And so is everything else.”
“You haven’t looked.”
“I know what’s in here, Jed.”
He scanned the room himself, skimming, identifying knickknacks as skillfully as he would faces in a mugbook. “What happened to the painting? The one over the couch?”
“The abstract? My mother thought she liked it, so I took it over so she could live with it awhile.” She gestured to the two portraits that replaced it. “I thought I’d like having those two for company. But I was wrong. They’re entirely too somber and disapproving, but I haven’t had the chance to—”
“Jewelry?”
“Sure, I have jewelry. Okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes and headed back to the bedroom. She opened a camphorwood-and-ebony chest that sat on a lowboy. “It looks like it’s all here. It’s a little tougher to remember, because I lend Lea pieces, and she lends me . . .” She took out a velvet pouch and shook out a pair of emerald earrings. “If anybody was going to riffle through here, they’d go for these. They’re the real thing.”
“Nice,” he said after a cursory glance. It didn’t surprise him that she had enough jewelry to adorn a dozen women. Dora enjoyed quantity. Nor did it surprise him that her bedroom was as crowded and homey as her living room. Or as subtly feminine. “Some bed.”
“I like it. It’s a Louis the Fifteenth reproduction. I bought it from a hotel in San Francisco. I couldn’t resist that headboard.”
It was high, covered with deep blue brocade and gently curved at the top. She’d added a lushly quilted satin spread and an army of fussy pillows.
“I like to sit up late and read with a fire going.” She closed the jewelry box. “One of the things that sold me on this building was the size of the rooms, and that I could have a fireplace in my bedroom. It’s—as my father would say—the cat’s meow.” She grinned. “Sorry, Captain, it doesn’t look like I have a crime to report.”
He should have been relieved. But he couldn’t ignore the tickle at the back of his neck. “Why don’t you give me a list of the stolen goods? We—Brent can have some men check out the pawnshops.”
“I’ve already reported it.”
“Let me help.” This time he went with the urge to touch her, to see if she’d back away. But when he ran a hand down her arm, she only smiled.
So he was forgiven, he thought. Just that simply.
“All right. It wouldn’t be smart to turn down the services of a police captain over a simple shoplifting. Let me—” She started forward, but he didn’t move with her or aside. All she accomplished was to come a step closer. Her heart stuttered in her chest with an emotion that had nothing to do
with fear. Nothing at all. “The list’s downstairs.”
“I think you should know, you were right.”
“That’s always good to know. What was I right about this time?”
“I was tangled up about what was happening between us.”
“Oh.” It came out shaky; she couldn’t help it. “What was happening between us?”
His eyes darkened. She thought of the cobalt glass on display in the shop. “I was wanting you. I was wondering what it would be like to undress you, and to touch you, and to feel you under me. I was wondering if your skin tasted like it smelled.”
She stared at him while her stomach muscles danced. “Is that what was happening?”
“On my end. It was making me a little crazy.”
“And it’s better now?”
He shook his head. “Worse. Now I can imagine doing all those things in that bed. If you want to pay me back solid for last night, all you have to do is tell me you’re not interested.”
She let out the air that had backed up in her lungs. “Interested” wasn’t precisely the word she would have chosen. “I think . . .” On a weak laugh, she pushed both hands through her hair. “I think I’m going to say I’m going to consider your offer carefully, and get back to you on it.”
“You know where to find me.”
“Yeah, I do.”
He hadn’t expected to fluster her, but he was enjoying it. “You want to have dinner? We could . . . discuss the terms.”
The quick, wild fluttering of her heart made her feel very young, and very foolish. “I can’t. I have a date—with my nephew.” She picked up a silver-backed brush from her bureau, set it down again. “He’s at that stage where he detests girls, so every now and again I take him out to the movies or the arcade. A kind of guys’ night out.”
“You’re a girl.”
“Not to Richie.” She picked up the brush again, twisting the handle through her hands. “I don’t mind sitting through ninety minutes of Zombie Mercenaries from Hell—that makes me one of the guys.”
“If you say so.” He flicked a glance down to her nervous hands and grinned. “We’ll try guys’ night out later, then.”
“Sure. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I think I can work it into my schedule.” Gently, he took the brush from her restless fingers and laid it aside. “Why don’t we go get that list?”
When they’d passed safely out of the bedroom, Dora let out a small, relieved breath. She was definitely going to think this over—as soon as some of the blood returned to her head.
“Got your keys downstairs?” Jed asked her when they stepped into the hall.
“What—oh, yeah.”
“Good.” He turned the lock before shutting the door.
* * *
DiCarlo might have enjoyed his luxurious suite at the Ritz-Carlton, with its soft, king-sized bed, a fully stocked honor bar, excellent room service and masseuse on call.
He might have enjoyed it—if he’d had the painting in his possession.
Instead he fumed.
Without the man in apartment two’s ill-timed arrival, DiCarlo figured he would have had the painting—or known its whereabouts.
He hesitated to call Finley. There was nothing to report for the night’s work but failure, and he still had until January the second. Coming up empty for one night played hell with his schedule, but in reality it was only a delay, not a disaster.
He chewed another nut and washed it down with the Beaujolais left over from his lunch. It baffled him that the man knew his apartment had been searched. Leaning back, DiCarlo went over his moves of the night before step by step. He hadn’t disturbed anything. He’d resisted taking even easily fenceable merchandise from the two apartments. What he’d taken from the store below would be attributed to simple shoplifting.
Since the man suspected the woman next door had entered his apartment, his plans didn’t change.
All he had to do was go back in, DiCarlo decided. He’d do exactly what he had planned to do the night before—exactly. Only this time he would go in knowing he’d kill the woman when he’d finished.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
The temperature had dipped to a brisk fourteen degrees under a dazzling night sky splattered with icy stars and sliced by a thin, frosty moon. The shops along South Street were locked up tightly, and traffic was light. Occasionally someone stepped out of one of the restaurants, huddled inside a warm coat, and made a dash for a car or the subway. Then the street would be quiet again, with only the splash from the streetlamps to light the way.
DiCarlo spotted the police cruiser on his first circle of the block. His hands tightened on the wheel as he turned the corner to ride along the river. He hadn’t counted on outside interference. Cops were usually too busy to stake out a building because of a possible minor break-in and a little shoplifting.
So, maybe the lady was boffing the chief of police, DiCarlo mused. Or maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, it was only one more detail. And one more reason to take the shapely Miss Conroy out when he was finished with her.
To calm himself, he tooled around aimlessly for ten minutes, switching the radio off and running through various scenarios in his head. By the time he’d circled around to South again, DiCarlo had his plan formulated. He pulled to the curb in front of the black-and-white. Taking his Philadelphia street map out of the glove box, he climbed out of the car. DiCarlo knew the cop would see only a well-dressed man in a rental car, obviously lost.
“Got a problem there, buddy?” The uniform rolled down his window. The air inside smelled of coffee and pastrami.
“I sure do.” Playing his part, DiCarlo grinned sheepishly. “I was glad to see you pulled over here, Officer. I don’t know where I made the wrong turn, but I feel like I’ve been driving around in circles.”
“Thought I saw you drive by before. We’ll see if we can set you straight. Where you trying to get to?”
“Fifteenth and Walnut?” DiCarlo pushed the map inside the window. “I found it on here, fine. Finding it in the car’s been something else.”
“No problem. You just want to go down here to Fifth and make a left. You’ll run right into Walnut at Independence Square, make another left.” He reached for a pen. “Let me show you.”
“I appreciate it, Officer.” Smiling, DiCarlo pressed his silenced pistol against the uniform’s breast. Their eyes met for less than a heartbeat. There were two muffled pops. The cop’s body jerked, slumped. Meticulously, DiCarlo checked the pulse, and when he found none, quietly opened the driver’s door with his gloved hands, straightened the body into a sitting position. He rolled up the window, locked the door, then strolled back to his own car.
He was beginning to understand why his cousin Guido got such a kick out of murder.
* * *
Dora was disappointed that Richie hadn’t taken her up on her invitation to sleep over. It seemed he’d had a better offer, so she’d dropped him off at a friend’s after the movies.
She wished now that she’d swung back by Lea and John’s and picked up the other kids for the night. A nice noisy pajama party would have calmed her nerves. The simple fact was, she didn’t want to be alone.
No, she corrected, the complicated fact was, she didn’t want to be alone and a few easy steps away from Jed Skimmerhorn. No matter how attractive and charming he’d been that afternoon, she couldn’t let herself forget that he was a man capable of wild bursts of temper.
She believed—and accepted—his apology absolutely. She even understood a portion of his motivation. That didn’t negate the fact that he was a crate of dynamite set with a very short fuse. She didn’t want to be in harm’s way when and if he exploded again.
Then again, she had a temper of her own. She might have had a longer fuse, but pound for pound she’d gauge her explosive quality equal to his.
Maybe that was just what he needed, she reflected. A woman who would stand up to him, fight back, win as often as she lost.
If he had someone who understood the need to kick inanimate objects now and again, it might help him open up. It might help him squeeze out the poison in the wounds that troubled him. It might—
