John lay on the bed and listened to the wind drive snow against the windows. Next to him, Kate slept with the quiet motionlessness of an exhausted child. This wasn’t the right time for him to be thinking about Nancy, but he was. For a long time after her murder, he’d been able to feel her. Not a physical presence, but more of an imprint on his psyche. At some point in the last months, he’d lost that. He could no longer conjure her face or the scent of her perfume. She’d become a memory.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. For two years, living had been about grief and misery and rage. It had been about wallowing and self-loathing. It had been about punishment. And then it had been about revenge. He’d stopped caring. About his job. His friends and relationships. He stopped caring about himself. Then along came this last-chance case, and Kate with her troubled eyes and pretty smile and secrets nearly as dark as his own. Somehow, he’d been thrust back into the land of the living. Not an easy transition for a man teetering on the brink of self-destruction. He still had a long road ahead, but this was a start.
He should have known there would be guilt. There always was. Because he was alive and Nancy and the girls were dead. Because life went on without them. Because he’d moved on. Sleeping with Kate would bring complications, too. He was in no frame of mind to be taking on a relationship with a woman. He wasn’t very good at making people happy. Eventually, expectations would come into play. He knew they were expectations he couldn’t or wouldn’t meet.
Sliding from the bed, he stepped into his jeans and left the bedroom. He grabbed his coat and keys, then headed for the Tahoe. He didn’t know why he was running away. Maybe because being close to someone took a hell of a lot more guts than being alone.
Around him the night was so quiet he could hear the patter of falling snow. He hadn’t smoked in almost six months, but at this moment he needed a cigarette with the intensity of an addict looking for a fix. Opening the passenger door, he plucked a pack of Marlboros from the glove compartment and lit up. He’d just taken that first heady puff when the front door squeaked open.
“You going to smoke that all by yourself?”
He turned to see Kate standing on the porch in a fuzzy robe and wool-lined mocks. She shouldn’t have looked sexy with her hair mussed and her body lost in the robe, but she did.
“I didn’t want to smell up the house,” he said.
“I could crack a window.”
She did and they sat at the kitchen table and passed the cigarette back and forth until it was gone.
“I feel like I’ve corrupted you,” John said.
“I hate to ruin whatever image you’ve drawn of me in your head, but that wasn’t my first smoke.”
He studied her, liking the way her hair fell into her eyes, and the way she swept it back with her hand. At that moment, he figured he liked just about everything about her. “So who did corrupt you?”
She grinned. “I have this friend by the name of Gina Colorosa. We went through the academy together.”
“Ah, those wild academy days.” Suddenly, he wanted to know everything about her. “How did Gina manage to corrupt a nice Amish girl?”
“If I tell you everything, you’ll have to arrest me.”
“I like Gina already.”
As if remembering, she smiled, then sobered. “I didn’t fit in here, especially after the bishop put me under the bann.” She shrugged. “I was young enough to convince myself it didn’t matter. I was angry and defiant. I saved enough money for a bus ride and moved to Columbus when I turned eighteen.”
“That had to have been a tough transition.”
She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Talk about a fish out of water. All I had to my name was two hundred dollars. I wore the dresses my mother made. I cut the hem, but . . .” She shook her head. “You can imagine. Anyway, I was broke. No job. No place to live. Didn’t know a soul. I was basically living on the street when I met Gina.”
“How did you meet her?”
“It wasn’t love at first sight.” Her eyes flicked down, then went back to his. “It was cold. I needed a place to sleep. She didn’t lock her car.”
“You slept in her car?”
“She got in to go to work the next morning and there I was.” Her lips curved into a wry smile. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“So did she call the cops, or what?”
“Threatened to. But I must have looked pretty harmless because she took me into her apartment. Fed me. The next thing I know, I have a place to live.” Another smile, amused this time. “Gina did all the bad things I’d been warned about. Smoking. Drinking. Cussing. She seemed very worldly to me. I don’t know how or why, but we hit it off.”