“Shit. They’re using her to try to set me up, and she’s playing along. I wonder if the DUI charge is even real.”
“It isn’t,” Reid said. “After I found out she was related to Dawn Rule, I tracked down the cop who supposedly arrested her, Earl Anderson. I showed him my old FBI identification and told him I was investigating some possible official misconduct. He couldn’t talk fast enough. Said he warned them about it, that he didn’t want to be a part of it, that he’d always liked you. He said he agreed to do it because Rule and Kingman promised him a promotion as soon as it was over.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “They’ll stoop to anything, won’t they?”
“Maybe, but in their defense, they think you committed three murders.”
Four now, I thought to myself. Four. Plus I had somebody’s face melted.
“What are you going to do about it?” Reid said.
“I’m not sure, but thank you. I mean it. You did a great job.”
“Appreciate the business,” Reid said. “Let me know if you ever need me again.”
“I will,” I said.
“I heard a rumor that you and Grace split up,” he said.
“I’ll get her back,” I said. “I just need some time.”
“She’s out of your league.”
“I know, but I’m going to get her back, anyway. I miss her.”
“You never know, do you?” Dan said.
“Beg your pardon?”
“How things will happen, how they’ll turn out. You just never know.”
“You’re right about that, my friend. Absolutely right.”
CHAPTER 61
I signed the paperwork to move into the furnished apartment on Friday and hired a small moving company to take my things out of storage and haul them to the apartment. I simply couldn’t do it with the sling, and I paid them with some of Pappy’s cash. I received phone calls and texts from Katherine all that day, but I ignored them until Saturday afternoon, when I replied to a text with: I’m in my new place. Can you come New Year’s Eve and help warm things up? I don’t have any plans.
Casual? she wrote.
Very.
Should I plan on staying?
Sure. Let’s get drunk together and celebrate. I’ll pick up some champagne.
Wouldn’t miss it, she wrote.
I gave her the address and asked her to show up around eight.
On Monday, New Year’s Eve, not long before Katherine was scheduled to arrive, I bought some takeout from an excellent Chinese place that was only a few blocks from my apartment and put it in the oven to keep it warm. I’d also bought four bottles of expensive champagne the day before, all on Pappy’s dime. I opened one of them after I put the food in the oven and put it in a bucket that was half-filled with ice and water.
Katherine showed up right on time and walked in wearing tight blue jeans that were rolled up a few inches above her ankles. She had on a light sweater, horizontally striped in navy blue and white. Over it she wore a short tan jacket with the sleeves rolled up. On her feet were navy-blue pumps with four-inch spiked heels. As always, sexual allure oozed from her like sap from a maple tree.
“You look great,” I said when she walked in.
She kissed me on the cheek. “What happened to your arm?”
“I have a friend in Sevierville who likes to ride horses. He invited me, so I went. Got thrown off.”
“Is anything broken?”
“My collarbone and a rib. You’ll have to be gentle tonight if you stay.”
“Oh, I’m planning to stay, and I can be gentle. I can be anything you want me to be.”
She looked around the apartment. I’d lit candles and placed them on a couple of tables and on the gas fireplace mantel. “This is nice. A little impersonal, maybe, but nice.”
“I don’t have a lot of personal things left,” I said. “Pretty much everything I owned was destroyed when Mom’s house was bombed.”
She reached up and touched my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s not talk about sad things,” I said. “It’s New Year’s Eve. I have great Chinese food, and I have even better champagne.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“I guess just help me get the food plated. I’m not very handy right now.”
We set about getting the food out of the oven, and I poured champagne. As we sat down at the table, I offered a toast. “To learning from the past and moving toward the future.”
“Cheers,” she said, and we both drank some champagne.
“That’s good,” she said. “That might be the best champagne I’ve ever tasted.”
“I like it, too. Drink up. Maybe we’ll get drunk and dance naked around the apartment.”
She took another drink from the glass, and I refilled it immediately. “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself? I mean, I know the basics, I guess. I know you’ll graduate with a master’s in criminal justice in May and then you’re going to law school in the fall. I know you’re beautiful and charming and the best lover, by far, I’ve ever been with, but I want you to tell me about Katherine. Where is Katherine from? Where does she see herself going? What makes her happy? What makes her sad? What’s her definition of beauty?”
“No politics,” she said. “No religion.”
“Later. Another time. Where are you from?”
“Chattanooga,” she said. “My dad was an FBI agent. When I was young, we moved around a lot, but by the time I was in the fifth grade, they sent him to Chattanooga, and that’s where I went to middle school and high school.”
“He and your mother still married? I know a lot of FBI marriages don’t work out.”
“They’re still married, in a manner of speaking. He died of an aortic aneurysm when I was a sophomore in college.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay. He had a great life. He loved being an FBI agent, fighting the bad guys. And he went quickly. The aneurysm popped and he died immediately. He didn’t suffer.”
“So your mom is where? Still in Chattanooga?”
“Right, she’s a prosecutor there.”
“Assistant district attorney?”
“She is. She handles mostly sex crimes, and she’s good at it.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“One of each. My brother is a boring banker in Nashville, and my sister is married with two kids in Chattanooga. She and my mother are very close.”
“Are you the youngest?”
She nodded. “I’m the baby. My sister is close to my mother, but I was the apple of my daddy’s eye.”
“I bet you were,” I said as I kept refilling her glass and mine, but I was sipping and she was drinking hard. The bottle emptied quickly, and I opened another.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she said as I came back to the table.
“I just want to have a good time,” I said. “I need to loosen up a little. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to.”
She picked up her glass, which I’d just filled, and drained it.