“In an idiot sort of way.” She sampled the latte. “Good latte.”
“I’ve been practicing. The eggs are great.”
“They’d be better with some thyme.”
“Thyme’s on the list.” He tapped his temple. “So how did you spend your evening?”
She set down the latte, looked into his eyes. “I have a confession to make.”
“At least you could let me interrogate you first. I can already see you’ve stolen one of my shirts. There’ll be consequences.”
She laid a hand over his. “I’m going to apologize first. I was rude and intrusive.”
“Did you find my stash of porn?”
“You have a stash of porn?”
He stared back, face deliberately blank. “Of what?”
She let out a half laugh. “God, you really are so damn appealing. I was restless after you left. I’m going to say something else because it hit me. With anyone else, I’d have gone home. I’d have said to myself, Well, that was fun, left you a chirpy note, and gone home. Party at CiCi’s. But I didn’t, and I’m really going to have to think about that. I never even considered leaving.”
“I asked you not to.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she insisted. “With anyone else, it wouldn’t have mattered. I majored in one-night stands in college.”
“Long time ago, Simone.”
“Yes, but I have to think about why, when I was restless and alone in a house that’s not mine, I didn’t even consider leaving. But being restless, I thought I could sketch. Some of you, and maybe a mermaid for your bathroom wall. Only I didn’t have a sketch pad with me. So I went into your office to look for a pad.”
“Oh.” The shutters came down over those interesting green eyes. “Okay.”
“You closed the door.”
“I didn’t lock it,” he pointed out. “I didn’t say: Don’t go in there if you know what’s good for you.”
“God. You’re so steady, so solid.” Not feeling as steady, she pushed her hands through her hair. “I saw the legal pads in the closet—no door there.”
“I’d just have to open and close it. What’s the point?”
“Then I saw your work. Those big rolling boards. I realize some of what’s on them is official. What? Crime scene photos and reports.”
“Yeah. Since you’re not a suspect, we can let that slide. But I’m sorry you saw some of that.”
“It’s what you see. The dead and destroyed, the bodies, the people who kill. You look right at it, because somebody has to. Isn’t that right? Don’t say it’s part of the job, Reed.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t say that.”
“It is part of the job, the job I choose to do. It’s part of my life. It’s a kind of … mission, if that doesn’t sound too lame.”
“Not in the least.”
“I won’t stop until I take her down. If the feds beat me to it, that’s fine. Either way, it closes out. When it does?” He reached over, brushed her hair back from her face. “I take down the boards. I file it all away.”
“Can you?”
He sat back with his coffee. “What happened that night’s part of us, and always will be. But it doesn’t, and it can’t, define us. Not you or me, or who you and I are going to be together. We need—however hackneyed the word—closure. And some fucking justice.”
“Yes.” She let out a breath. “We, none of us, ever had either.”
“I’m going to work to get both. Then I’ll think about Patricia Hobart sitting in a cell for the rest of her life, and I’ll be good with it. Better than.”
“You’re made that way. That’s how it is for you. The good guys go after the bad guys.”
“That’s how it should be. What are you doing, Simone? You’re creating a memorial. You’re working on the heart and the soul, honoring the dead, comforting those they left behind. That’s a job, too, but it’s not just a job. That’s your mission.”
“I’m pretty late in getting to it.”
“So what?”
“You’re awfully good for me,” she stated. “That scares the crap out of me.”
“I’m going to get even better for you, so you’ll either get used to it or live scared.” He picked up their plates, took them to the sink.
“Will you talk to me about your work? Like, how you believe Patricia Hobart’s going to try to kill one of the survivors who’s moved south. The two in Florida are top of your list.”
“It’s what I think, and mostly a hunch. The problem is hundreds of people survived. She’s got a lot to choose from. I will talk to you about it, and you’ll talk to me about your work. But not tonight.
“Did you check in with CiCi?”
“I did. You got a woo and a hoo.”
“She’ll probably never make hot, sweet love with me now.” He turned around. “I guess I have to settle for you.”
She cocked her head. “There’s a gorgeous Italian cellist in Florence named Dante with whom I made hot, sweet love many times. And could again. But since I’m not in Florence, I guess I have to settle for you.”
“That’s a solid snap back. I did promise you more sex.”
“You did.”
“I’m a man of my word.”
He held out a hand. She took it.
Reed managed a couple hours of sleep before a bright, blustery dawn. He told Simone to sleep and stay as long as she wanted before he headed out with a to-go cup of coffee and an I-had-a-lot-of-sex spring to his step.
He walked, despite the icy patches and slick mud, because he wanted to survey storm damage. He saw plenty of downed branches and hefty limbs—but no trees as unlucky as Curt’s.
Needed some cleanup, he decided. He’d have to buy a chain saw, and be careful not to kill himself or others with it. The water might have been bright blue, but it rolled with some violence, white horses galloping.
He spotted a crew of three surveying damage on some of the rentals, stopped to check.
Shingles blown off here and there, plenty of storm debris, and as one of the crew told him, a muddy, bitching hell of a mess, since rain poured in again after the ice.
He found a crumbled bike on the road, but no blood or sign of the passenger. He hauled it up to take with him. Somebody’s flag—pink with a flying white horse—lay tattered and soaked in a puddle. That he left behind.
Some, already out clearing their yards, paused to call out to him, asked how he’d fared in his first nor’easter on the island.
He didn’t say he’d spent most of it in bed with a beautiful woman.
But he thought it.
He left the crumpled bike outside the Sunrise when he went in to get a refill for his coffee, and caught up with the news there.
Branches and limbs, a collapsed dock, some low-lying flooding. But the big news centered on the Wagman/Seabold incident. Though pressed for details, Reed demurred.
Gossiping about arrests in a café set a bad tone.
He carted the bike to the station, found Donna and Leon already doing some gossiping of their own.
“Where’d you find young Quentin Hobbs’s bike?” Donna demanded.
“About a mile out of the village. How do you know it’s Quentin Hobbs’s bike?”
“I’ve got eyes. And his mother, who’s as ditzy as a drunk cancan dancer, just called in saying how somebody stole her boy’s bike during the storm.”
“A drunk cancan dancer?”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Not drunk or sober.”
“Take my word. And I said back to her, Did your boy secure that bike in the shed, did he chain it, which he did not, as he takes after his mother and never does either. That bike took flight, that’s what happened.”
“I’m with Donna,” Leon said. “Nobody’s going to steal the kid’s bike. And nobody’s going out in the teeth of a storm to steal it for certain.”
“It’s trash now. You can tell her we recovered it.”
“She’ll probably demand you dust it for fingerprints and launch an investigation.”
“She’ll be disappointed. Leon, I’d appreciate it if you’d go over to the clinic, where I have Rick Wagman handcuffed to a bed, check on his condi tion. If he’s cleared, you can bring him back, lock him up. He’s already been charged and read his rights.”