Just as she was about to push at his shoulders, he moved back. And still she scrambled out from underneath him, barely giving him time to stand.
As soon as she was on the vertical, she was reminded that there had been no condom and she moved quickly to the bathroom, shutting herself in. There was a roll of toilet paper on the sink counter and she unraveled some around her fin, wadded it up, and tucked it between her thighs.
Out in the hall, she walked stiffly into the kitchen. She’d worn a thong with her leggings and put that on quick to hold things in place. She felt better when she was fully dressed, and it was only then that she went back to the sitting room.
She would rather have left without saying a word.
Then again, she had expected him to come out. And the fact that he didn’t made her uneasy, although that was part of the long list of things she didn’t want to examine too closely.
Coming back to the archway, she looked at him. He was where she’d left him, sitting on the sofa, his hair a mess. He’d done his jeans back up, thank God.
She remembered walking in on him the other night, those tattoos out on display for an audience he had not anticipated.
“I know,” he said roughly. “You don’t have to repeat it.”
“What.”
“Just one night. Only once.” He exhaled as if he were smoking, except there was nothing lit in his hand, no haze in the air. “We did that last time we had sex.”
Anne felt like she should apologize, but come on. They were two consenting adults, and he was right. That was exactly what she was going to tell him.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
His laugh was sharp. “Yeah.”
Anne turned away. “Take care of yourself.”
She headed for the door, expecting to be called back at any moment. But he let her go—and as she stepped out into the cold, she told herself that was what she wanted.
“It is, damn it,” she muttered as she got into her Subaru.
Behind the wheel, she sat and stared out the windshield. A pain behind her sternum had her do an internal myocardial infarction inventory, but there was no nausea, left-arm pain, or dizziness. So she wasn’t having a heart attack.
She just hurt in a place that had been silent for a very long time. But that didn’t change anything. What had just happened between them was rooted in the past, in ten months ago, in a fire that had long ago been extinguished, not even the embers burning.
It had been . . . a physical release of all that emotion stirred up by the rescue call.
No implications further than that.
Starting the car and putting it in reverse, she found poetic justice in pulling out of his driveway backward—as if she could unmake the decision to go into that dark apartment with Danny. She didn’t remember the trip home. One second she was K-turning in front of the duplex. The next, she was parking at her house.
Letting herself inside, she was so glad she had Soot to look after. Otherwise, she was liable to pace around and clean something that was already clean.
Soot got up in his crate as she came in, his bony tail rattling the links.
“Hey, big man.” Crouching down, she let him out. “How about a piddle?”
She expected him to go immediately to the back door. Instead, he took his big head and rubbed it on her hand, her torso, the outside of her leg. Putting her arm around him, she gave him the space to circle. And circle. And circle.
Under her palm, his short fur was smooth and warm, and she loved the feel of him pushing into her.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” she said hoarsely.
chapter
22
Midmorning the following day, Anne left the office and went downtown to the registry of deeds. Parking between a Chevy Equinox and a truck that had rusted lace around its wheel wells, she got out and walked up to a building that was right out of the seventies. Floor after floor of individual windows were covered by a superfluous lattice of grungy concrete that was about as attractive as those plaid suits with huge lapels had been.
If it hadn’t been for the set of steps, she would have had no clue where the entrance was.
As she walked into a lobby that was as well-appointed as a Greyhound terminal, she could smell old mold and ancient nicotine. Then again, the fake wood paneling had no doubt been an original installation and the stuff was porous when it came to scents, a jealous guard of dubious treasure.
The registry was on the first floor, and she pushed open a heavy door marked with the city seal and block roman lettering that was flaking off. On the far side, she got a load of the fry-station equivalent of civil servants. The two receptionists, a man and a woman, were seated behind a partition that was like a bank’s, with cutouts to pass papers through and twin computers, and the pair of them looked as if they were along the lines of that not-really-oak paneling: Mr. and Mrs. Anachronism were both in their sixties, with polyester uniforms and the same hair style of a perm pushed back off the face and sprayed into place.
Anne went over to the woman. Because girl power.
“Hi, I’d like to do a records search.” She smiled to seem warm. Nice. Nonthreatening. “It’s on six parcels of property downtown? I have the addresses, but when I tried to get a log-in online, I was denied.”
“Did you call the help line?”
The phone started to ring, and the man next door picked up after three, no, four . . . wait, five rings. “Hello. Help line.”
Anne glanced at him as he doodled on a pad. Looked back at the woman. “Well, it sounds like those calls get answered here.”
“Did you call the help line?”
Is this like a video game where you have to get to the next level? Anne wondered.
“Yes, I did. And I was told to come down here.”
The receptionist over on the phone said in a bored voice, “You’ll have to come down here and get one issued. Our server is down.”
“So that’s why I’m here,” Anne said. “Except if your server’s not working, how will it help to get a log-in?”
The woman took a piece of paper off a stack and slid it across the counter. “Fill this out.”
Anne glanced down. “Can I just go through a physical search?”
“Fine.” The form was retracted and an old-fashioned ledger was pushed across at her. “Sign in. And I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”
After filling in her name and address, Anne flashed her ID, and the receptionist hit a buzzer that released a locked gate over on the right.
“Here is the map. We’re here for questions.”
But I’d have to fill out a form, right? Anne thought. Or call your buddy.
With a nod, she took the piece of paper and walked through. The deed room was lit bright as an OR and had a tall ceiling that was useless, as the rows of metal file cabinets only went up to chin height. There was a long desk with three computers on it, but she never did get a log-in sorted. Besides, she preferred to do things by hand—
Between one blink and the next, she got an image of her fingers clawing into Danny’s shoulder as he churned on top of her.
Exhaustion, a parting gift from her night of not sleeping, bear-hugged her. But she’d already spent enough time trying to frame what she’d done into any kind of rational framework of no-big-deal. At least Danny hadn’t tried to call or text. She needed space.
On that theory, she should move to Canada.
Right, time to look at the map and go on the hunt.
A number of desks with chairs were in the middle of the room, and she claimed one by putting her bag and her coat on it. As she got out her notes, she thought of her new boss’s pep talk. Someone had died in at least two of those old warehouse fires. And hell, she had been permanently changed.
So there were crimes to solve here.
There was still something worth fighting to protect. And in this case, it was justice.
? ? ?
“Sorry I’m running a little late.”
As Danny got up from a sofa that was too soft, he put his hand out to a fifty-year-old woman with thick gray hair and a shapeless brown dress that reminded him of the tarp he had over the chopped wood out at the farm.
“It’s okay,” he said.