As he sat with a plate on his lap in the living room, he picked around the sweaty mess with his fork . . . separating the “noodles” from the watery sauce and the cheese that somehow managed to be crumbly even after it had melted.
Across the way, Anne was in an armchair, and everyone else was in the kitchen at the table. Deandra had insisted that people eat inside even though it was one of the last warm nights of the year. Then again, Danny had the feeling she was showing off her furniture—which was why she’d insisted Anne and he go in here.
Jack entered with a second plateful and sat down next to Danny. “Man. What a meal.”
“Do not tell me you like this stuff?”
“Oh, no. I’m just starved. The ‘man’ was for what’s doing in there.”
Anne’s head nodded in that direction. “Awkward?”
“You could fry an egg on Deandra’s forehead, and meanwhile Moose is hammering beer, Deshaun has his coat on like he’s already out the door, and Duff and T.J. look like they want to kill themselves.”
Danny kept his wince to himself on that one. “I don’t get why Moose puts up with it.”
“Have you seen the way she’s built?” The man glanced at Anne. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Anne smiled. “And she was not built like that at the wedding.”
“Too right.” Jack methodically took forkfuls and put them in his mouth, chewing only once before the swallow like he was on Fear Factor. “So what are you working on at Fire and Safety, Anne? I like arson investigation. It’s fun.”
“Only you would put it like that.”
Danny gave up and put his plate down on the coffee table. At this point, he was hankering for a cigarette, but there was no way he was giving Jack a chance to sweet-talk his Anne.
Not that Anne was his. And not that Jack was sweet.
Anne started to talk about the warehouse fires, and Danny watched everything about her under the guise of paying attention to what she was saying. He didn’t hear a word. He watched her lips move. Her breathing. The way she fiddled with the thumb of her prosthesis.
Her legs as they crossed and uncrossed.
All he could think of was getting inside of her again. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair and he didn’t care. Except this time, he wanted her totally naked. And, like, not on his couch for a quickie that she no doubt was determined to pretend hadn’t happened.
He wanted memorable that lasted a lifetime.
From out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone lingering just outside the room.
Deandra was in the shadows, and she was staring at him in the same way he’d been looking at Anne.
* * *
The funny thing about Jack was that he was so easy to talk to.
Anne had to force herself to stop speaking. “Anyway, yeah, so I went up and saw Ripkin and he was bizarre.”
“What do you mean, bizarre?”
Even though she’d been addressing Jack, Danny was the one she was really aware of, and given the intense way he was looking at her, she decided it was best not to go into too many specifics. Especially about the threat against her mother.
He was liable to do something stupid. Like go up to Ripkin and throw him out his office window: One thing you could be sure of when it came to Danny Maguire? He stood up against what was wrong, no matter what it cost him.
“Ripkin’s used to getting his way,” she said. “He’s a successful businessman, and I think he believes the world and everyone in it is his for the taking. But it was nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Did he come on to you?” Danny asked in a low voice.
“Not in the slightest.” Anne shrugged. “He just did a lot of posturing, none of which impressed me.”
Jack put his clean plate down—which made him worthy of a medal, as far as she was concerned. The lasagna had been like an MRE.
“You know, I have a case you might be interested in.” The guy sat back on the enormous white couch that was big as a river barge. “You talked about finding a lot of office equipment in those fires? Well, we served an arrest warrant on a guy with previous offenses and gun felonies, and found an entire room full of cords, chargers, and parts of monitors and computers, as if he’d been storing a Best Buy’s worth of phones and PCs there, but had had to move them quick. He was obviously a black market dealer, and here’s the thing. The warrant took us a week to serve because we had to go looking for him. The timing is interesting, is all. I mean you’re talking about office equipment in these fires—and he’s been up on so many charges over the past two years that I wonder if he didn’t burn evidence a number of times.”
Anne was unaware of having sat up straight until she nearly slipped off the slick cushion. “I want to talk to him. And see the case file.”
“You got it.” The guy took out his phone. “Come to our HQ Monday morning. I’ll show you everything, and then you can work your channels to interrogate him.”
“That’s great. Thanks, Jack.”
“My pleasure. I’ll text you tomorrow after I get it all set up.”
Danny got to his feet. “Hey, Anne, come help me with the pan out in the garage? I think we can get it out.”
“Sure. No problem.”
As she followed him into the kitchen with her plate, she felt like she was walking into a brick wall. The vibe was tense at the table, Duff and T.J. playing eyeball ping-pong, Deandra sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, Moose cracking open another beer. Deshaun was getting up with that coat of his on.
“We going back out?” Moose said with all the hope and anticipation of someone about to be called up from the DMV line.
“There’s dessert, you know,” Deandra said. “But fine. It’s not like you ate anything.”
“I’ve got to go,” Deshaun interjected. “Thanks for dinner.”
Duff stood up and T.J. was a split second behind. “We’ve got to head, too. Sorry. But we’re on shift tomorrow, which was why we weren’t drinking.”
“Aw come on, you guys can stay a little longer.” Moose looked back and forth between them. “You got to stay. It’s frickin’ eight o’clock.”
But there was no stopping the tide, and Anne was glad to be on the forefront of the evac, even if she was arguably heading deeper into their territory instead of away from it.
She and Danny were quiet as they walked back to the garage, and as she entered its cool confines, he stayed by the open bay and lit a cigarette with his Bic. The sun had long since set, and it was dark out, but the lighting from the house silhouetted him, making him seem even bigger.
As he exhaled over his shoulder, she went over to Moose’s tool zoo. Working through the tangle, she started to make piles of screwdrivers, wrenches, vises.
“You’re a huge help, you know.”
She looked over at him. “I’m glad you asked me. It feels good to be doing something with my hands. Hand.”
“Yeah.”
“Deandra is a god-awful cook.”
“Moose could stand to lose some pounds.”
“He’ll be lucky if that’s the only thing she takes off of him.” Anne shook her head. “I knew they were making a mistake at that wedding. I just didn’t expect it to get this bad this soon.”
“It’s their bed. They gotta lie in it.” He turned his cigarette around and stared at the lit tip. “Listen, I got a favor to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“Talking about hands and all. I could use an extra set out at the farm tomorrow. I don’t have many good working days left on the property, and I could finish what I started if I had another hauler for the debris, another person on the saw.”
Anne followed his example and inspected the star-shaped tip a Phillips head. The idea of being outdoors, conquering a tangle of brush, having something with an easy start and finish was exactly what she needed. But Danny was always a complication.
“I’d really appreciate it,” he said.
She thought of her mother. Sundays were church, lunch with her girlfriends, and usually a movie and tea. Lots of people, public places, busy, busy. There was a chance that she might feel compelled to stay home to be polite, though.
“Can I bring Soot?” Anne asked abruptly.
chapter
35