“Hmmm. Sounds like you might be human. Have you had that checked?”
That makes me smile, because I know he feels a lot more than he lets on. He smiles back, far too comfortable with all this, and leans back in the booth to watch me squirm.
McNarie brings two more beers. Tomasetti passes him a couple of bills and slides a Killian’s across the table to me.
“You came down pretty hard on Mose tonight,” I say.
“He deserved it.”
“You lost your temper with a kid. That’s not like you.”
“That’s exactly like me.” He tips the bottle and takes a drink. “I wanted to knock his fucking block off.”
“Maybe I’m not the only one who has some emotional stake in this case.”
Something flashes in his eyes, some dark emotion I can’t quite identify. A warning, telling me not to go there. “My kids were girls,” he says after a moment. “Younger, but still…”
The statement shocks me. In all the months I’ve known Tomasetti, he’s never broached the subject of his family. What little I know, I’ve had to pry out of him. It happened back when he was with the Cleveland Division of Police. There was a home invasion. His wife and two young daughters were raped, murdered, and then burned when the house was torched—all this the result of a career criminal seeking revenge. I know Tomasetti spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, but he got through it. He holds his emotional cards close to his chest. Keeps the rest of it locked down tight, off-limits even to those he trusts.
What happened to his family is always in the backwaters of my mind. Only now do I realize that dealing with these Amish kids has brought that part of his past to the forefront, too. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I know that. I didn’t mean to dredge—”
“You didn’t,” he says easily. “It’s bound to come up from time to time.”
I don’t know what to say. Copping out, I take another drink of beer, look down at the bottle in my hands.
“Donna would have been eleven this year. Kelly would have been ten.” He shrugs. “When I saw Mose in the loft with Salome, I wanted to take his head off.”
“You were a father.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “It seems like a lifetime ago. But I still think about it. What it was like. What happened to them. I still miss them every day.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that was.”
He shifts in the booth, and I know he’s ready to move on to another subject. Any other subject. “So how is Salome going to fare as far as the Amish? I mean being pregnant and unmarried. That’s got to be frowned upon.”
“Fornication is a pretty serious offense,” I tell him. “But the Amish won’t turn her away. That’s not to say it’ll be easy for her. Salome will have to confess her mistake while kneeling before the congregation.” I shrug. “Of course, there will be gossip. There always is. But the Amish will support her and her baby.”
“That’s something,” he says.
“Sometimes I think that’s the best we can hope for.”
CHAPTER 13
The blast of the phone yanks me from the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. Even before I’m fully awake, I’m keenly aware of Tomasetti lying next to me, his body warm and solid against mine. He doesn’t move, but I know he’s awake. We’re both light sleepers. Disoriented, I look around, shove the hair from my eyes. The face of the alarm clock tells me it’s just after 3:00 A.M. We’ve been asleep less than an hour.
I grab the phone. “Yeah,” I croak.
“Chief, sorry to wake you, but I got a ten-seventy out at the Hartzler place.”
That’s the code for a fire. I sit up. “Anyone hurt?”
“Ed Hartzler is missing.”
“Shit.” I fumble for my robe, shrug into it. “Fire department en route?”
“I called them straight away.”
“I’m ten-seven-six.”
Dropping the phone into its cradle, I rush to the closet, fling open the door, yank the light cord.
“What is it?”
I turn and see Tomasetti’s silhouette. In the dim light slanting into the room from the closet, I see him walking toward me. A small thrill races down my spine when I realize he’s still naked. We’ve been together like this a dozen times now, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing him without his clothes.
Stupidly, I avert my gaze, turn back to the closet. “Fire,” I say.
He comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. Bending, he kisses me on the neck. “Does the chief of police show up for every fire?”
I turn toward him, still intent on getting to the scene. But before I realize what I’m going to do, I lean into him, press my mouth to his. As if of their own accord, my arms go around his neck. He kisses me back, and my head begins to spin. God, I think, and pull away. “It’s an Amish farm.” Still stunned from the kiss, I blink at him. “We’ve got one missing.”