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He wanted her. He wanted her now, and badly enough that he hadn’t been able to ease into the moment or prolong the waiting. Despite the warning bells that were shrilling frantically in that part of her brain that was still functioning, there was no real choice left to her.
She kissed him back, opening herself fully to him, and he immediately took advantage of her lack of resistance and moved in even closer, his biceps tensing against her breasts. Liquid fire flashed through her. She could taste him, Julia thought disjointedly, and even that was different from the way she remembered it—he tasted ripe and dark, like cherries flamed in brandy, burning their way down her throat and exploding sweetly as they reached the pit of her stomach. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she felt her fingers fumbling at the buttons of his shirt, impatiently opening them. Her hands slid possessively against his skin, and she felt the faint ridge of scar tissue that followed the line of a bottom rib.
Another woman would have to ask him how he’d gotten that, Julia thought fiercely. Another woman could question him for years and still never know Cord the way she did. Once she’d lain in bed beside him, touching every mark on his body with gentle fingers and recalling the circumstances of each while he’d watched her, a faint smile playing on his lips as she went through the litany—falling from the oak tree when he was nine; getting a fishhook in his shoulder when he was teaching a tourist how to cast; being hit by a piece of flying debris when, as a member of the community’s volunteer fire department, he’d arrived at the blaze that had leveled the old box factory in town just as an ancient propane tank had exploded.
She knew him—every inch of him, Julia thought. He was hers and no one else’s, and not having him had been like existing in hell for two years. She arched her body to his and his grip around her tightened convulsively. His mouth moved to the corner of her lips, and she could feel his lashes flicking against the line of her cheekbone.
“Right about now I usually wake up,” he whispered hoarsely, his breath warm on her upper lip. His words were muffled against her skin. “Every time I do it’s like dying. Tell me it was the same for you.”
The scar on his ribs was from a stray round he’d caught the year before they’d separated. He’d been instrumental in tracking down the Donner “family,” a chillingly twisted group of serial killers who in the end had chosen to die in a violent confrontation with the authorities rather than surrender. Her fingertips passed over it gently, like a blind woman touching her own features in a reaffirmation of something she’d always known.
“It was the same for—”
The words died in her throat. Past the scar on his ribs her searching fingers had found another—a raised weal that snaked down from the side of his torso to the top of his hip. It felt ugly. It felt unfamiliar. She had no idea how he’d gotten it or when it had happened. All she knew was that it had to be less than two years old.
It had to be less than two years old, because two years ago their life together had come to an abrupt end. Two years ago she’d sent him away, knowing that it was the last acceptable option she had.
He still loved her. He still wanted her. But he’d made some kind of a life for himself that didn’t include her—the proof was right here, under her fingertips.
She still loved him. She would never love anyone the way she loved him. And the only thing of value she had left to give him—the last token of love she could place before him—was his freedom.
“I felt the same way, Cord.” She drew slightly away from him, bringing her hand up to his mouth and tracing the line of his bottom lip. His gaze darkened with desire. “We were fabulous in bed together and you were right—there’s no way I could kiss you without feeling anything. But…”
She hesitated, avoiding his eyes and imprinting every minuscule detail of his mouth on her memory. “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that it wouldn’t be fair for me to let you believe we could rebuild a relationship, based only on a childhood hero worship that I outgrew long ago and the fact that we both like fu—”
“Don’t.” Cord’s hands fell from her to his sides. He took a step back, his eyes narrowed to black slits. “That was never what we did in bed together. We made love.”
He rubbed the side of his jaw wearily, still watching her intently. “Honey, I was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks who taught you how to lie, remember? You got good at it, but not that good. It doesn’t take a detective’s badge to see that your life’s fallen apart just as badly as mine has, and for the same reason. We belong together. And this time I’m not leaving until I find out why that terrifies you so much.”
She only had to hold herself together for another minute or two, Julia told herself shakily. She met his gaze with her own, the sunlight turning the hazel in her eyes to a clear bronze, the rich chestnut glints in her hair contrasting with the lack of color in her face. “I’m not the stubborn one, Cord—you are. I’ll work with you on this case, but that’s all. We’re temporary partners, and nothing more.”
High in the sky above them a windblown cloud passed over the sun, and its shadow raced across the tops of the pines, the porch of the house, Cord’s features. Something flickered behind his eyes for the briefest of instants.
“Sometimes you almost convince me,” he said softly. “Maybe I’m not as stubborn as you think.”
Then he turned, striding along the overgrown path toward the house. Julia deliberately didn’t watch him go, but instead turned her face to the lake. She hugged her arms across her body, her hands so tightly clenched that her nails, short and blunt, pressed into her palms. The light cotton sweater was no protection against the breeze that came in off the lake, but the freshness soothed the hot, burning sensation behind her eyes.
She’d been wrong to feel even the slightest antagonism toward the woman she’d fantasized about over the last two years—that blue-eyed, blond, tennis-playing Californian that she’d feared would take her place in Cord’s heart. Whoever he eventually made a life with, and whatever she looked like, Julia thought painfully, the woman who would one day make Cord forget he wasn’t her enemy.
“I’ll never know you, but one day you’ll learn about me.” Tears blurring her vision, she forced the nearly inaudible words past numb lips, her gaze fixed on the whitecaps near the middle of the lake where the water was choppier. “You’ll wonder what kind of a woman could let him go. You’ll think I couldn’t have loved him—but you’ll be wrong. You’ll be so wrong….”
She’d missed her period, and she hadn’t been able to tell him. She’d told herself it was because she wanted to be sure before giving him the news, but when the home pregnancy test showed positive she’d been glad that she’d waited until he was out of the apartment before taking it. Hunched over like an old woman, she’d sat down on the edge of the bathtub and started to shake.
It was what they wanted, she’d told herself, staring at the pink-tinted stick in front of her as if it was a snake about to strike. Wasn’t it what they’d wanted—a family of their own someday? Two boys, two girls, and Cord had always joked that he’d teach the boys how to be as good a cook as their father if she’d show the girls how she caught five lake trout to everyone else’s one.
He would be the perfect father-to-be, worrying about her health, indulging her quirks and cravings, attending Lamaze classes with her. Finally the day would arrive when he bundled her into the car, drove like crazy to the hospital, and she gave birth to their baby—a tiny, perfect, fragile human being that they would be responsible for.
And she wouldn’t be up to the task, she’d thought with cold certainty. Of all people, she knew how swiftly tragedy could strike, how no amount of precaution could totally insure a child’s safety. The world was a dangerous place, and more often than not its victims were the innocent, the defenseless—
The children that she hadn’t been able to save.
She’d taken each failure personally—the instances of abuse that she had been informed of too late, the Have You Seen This Child? photos that eventually faded and curled on bulletin boards and telephone poles around the city, the confused bereavement of parents who berated themselves and each other with a barrage of if onlys—if only I hadn’t let go of her hand, if only we hadn’t let him sit in the front seat, if only we’d taken her with us, if only we’d kept him at home…if only we could have kept our child safe.
What it all came down to was if only they’d known, they would have done things differently, Julia had thought. But she did know. And, having that knowledge, what had she been thinking of by making a child with Cord—a child that would be born into such a capriciously violent world?
When she’d eventually learned that her pregnancy result had been an error, she’d felt as if she’d been given a second chance to avert a tragedy, and more than ever she’d been glad she hadn’t told Cord anything yet. She’d left the doctor’s office and had sat in a nearby park until afternoon grayed into dusk. When she’d finally risen from the park bench, her limbs stiff from the hours of frozen immobility, she’d known what she had to do. Her job was to save the children she could, and even at that there were dozens who slipped through the cracks. But she could ensure that no child of hers and Cord’s would ever be lost through her inadequacy.
She would send him away. She would tell him any lie it took to make him leave her, but the one thing she would never tell him was the truth. If he ever knew her fear he would try to make things right for her, and because losing him would break her heart Julia was afraid she might weaken enough to listen to the lies she knew he would tell her. He would tell her that a life without children wouldn’t devastate him, he would tell her that he wouldn’t ache for the feel of a baby’s fist holding his, he would tell her that he wouldn’t envy the friends of his who were fathers themselves.
And he might even believe it himself for a while. But as the years passed the sense of loss would grow in him, because more than any man she knew, Cord wanted children of his own. And no matter how much he loved her, he would always know that but for her he could have had them….
“You’ll never know me,” Julia whispered. Back at the house King barked playfully on the porch, and a flock of mourning doves flew fussily into the trees. “But one day you might learn that there was a woman before you in his life. Don’t let that worry you.”
Their children would look like Cord. They would grow up beside the Pacific. They would be tennis players like their mother.
“I let him go because I love him so. I always have.” Blinking the tears from her eyes, she started up the path toward the house. Then she turned and looked one last time at the blue lake, the far shore, the distant horizon. “I always will,” she whispered to herself.
Chapter 5
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Her spine ramrod-straight, Julia stood beside Cord’s immobile bulk and stared unseeingly ahead. The job of a police officer was no picnic. The hours were grueling, the respect often nonexistent and the danger ever-present, but when an officer was killed there was always a good turnout at the funeral. It was one of the few benefits of being a cop, she thought, her black-gloved fist clenched tightly around the shoulder strap of her purse. She’d known how Paul and Sheila had scraped along on his salary when he’d been a rookie, how for years they’d celebrated Christmas the day after or the day before because Paul had always been working on December the twenty-fifth, and how Sheila had lain awake nights when Paul had been working a case, wondering if this would be the night when her cell phone rang.
But now that he was dead and especially since the job had claimed Sheila, as well, his fellow officers, many of them in dress uniform, had gathered to show the world that however scant the material rewards of their career were, the profession and those who chose it were worthy of the highest honor. It was all about solidarity, Julia told herself tightly. The grim-faced men and women around her were there to bid farewell to one of their own, knowing full well that the next funeral could be theirs.
It had been a touchingly beautiful service. But here at the graveside under a cloudlessly perfect blue sky nothing could blunt the terribly symbolic sight of the token shovelful of earth falling onto the two polished mahogany coffins that were even now being lowered into the ground. Sheila’s mother, Betty Wilson, was sobbing quietly a few feet away, her frail figure flanked by friends and relatives, and most of the other mourners’ faces were distorted by grief.
Who in this crowd had betrayed them? Which grieving face hid a lying heart?
“How are you holding up?” As people began to move away from the graveside, Cord took her arm and met her watery gaze. “If you think you can manage it, I’d like to stick around for a while and talk to a few people. But if you’d like to leave—”
“Someone here isn’t who they seem, Cord. Someone here was no friend to Paul or Sheila,” Julia cut in flatly. “I know that as well as you do, and of course we’ll stay and find out what we can. Stop treating me like I’m a basket case.”
“You remind me of a sweet little girl I once knew who told me she could recognize poison ivy without my help,” Cord said dryly. “Oh, yeah—that was you. Still as prickly as ever, aren’t you? I only thought you might feel out of place here now that you aren’t on the force anymore.”
“Oh.” Julia was nonplussed. “I thought you were worried that I might…” Her words trailed off, and a faint color mounted her too-pale cheeks.
“Worried you might what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you might wonder if I could handle an emotional situation like this without a—a crutch.” She looked at her hands, unconsciously twisting the strap of her purse. “Without needing a drink,” she said quietly.
“Do you?” His question held no condemnation. When she didn’t answer his hand gently cupped her chin and tipped her face back so that their eyes met. “Do you need a drink to face something like this?”
“Once, I would have,” she said simply, looking into his gravely sympathetic face. “And for the rest of my life I’ll be aware that it’s a trap I could fall into again if I let myself.”
In the strong sunlight, dappled by the overarching elm boughs, his eyes darkened, the thick lashes throwing sharp shadows onto his high cheekbones. “Were you going through this when we were together?”
The conversation, personal as it had been from the start, was straying into forbidden territory as far as she was concerned, Julia thought. She withdrew from his grasp and shook her head.
“No. There was an incident at work that…”
She closed her eyes as the familiar images flashed through her mind like a home movie from hell—the narrow ledge of the office building, the stalled traffic far below, the hopeless and hate-filled expression of the man holding the child—
She drew a deep breath and forced her eyes open. The day was still perfect, the peaceful park-like setting around her a watercolor-like blur of soft greens and the gray of weathered stone as her vision wavered and cleared. “I was stressed out and I chose the wrong way to handle it. It had nothing to do with us.”
Her tone was deliberately final in an effort to shore up the barrier between them—a barrier that had somehow dangerously weakened in the last few minutes. He’d always been able to slip under her defenses, Julia thought nervously. It was one of the reasons she’d been relieved yesterday when he’d decided to make his base of operations a motel room in town rather than the lake house with her. He’d said it was more convenient that way, but they’d both known that living under the same roof, however temporarily, would be too emotionally distracting at a time when they needed to focus on working smoothly together.
She looked past him to a nearby group of mourners—fellow officers of Paul, she realized, recognizing one or two—and then her own edginess vanished as she took in the uncomfortable expressions on the group of faces and saw the reason for them.
“Good Lord, isn’t that—” she began, but Cord, following her glance, finished her thought.
“Dean Tascoe, damn him. And it looks like he’s spoiling for a fight.” His lips thinned and he scanned the area swiftly. “Betty must have left already, thank God, but even so, I’m not about to stand by and let Paul and Sheila’s funeral be turned into a free-for-all by that bastard. Emotions are running high enough as it is.”
Turning on his heel and striding purposefully across the lawn, he was already several yards away from her before Julia gathered her wits together and hurried after him. Ahead of her, Cord’s back was rigid with anger, the broad shoulders set stiffly under the somber and well-cut suit jacket. His hair, as glossy as a raven’s wing, gleamed with blue-black highlights under the buttery afternoon sunlight.
Tascoe had chosen the wrong place to air any grievances he might feel he had, she thought apprehensively. Cord had dealt with the man in the past and had made no secret of the fact that he considered him a disgrace to the uniform he’d once worn. To have him attempting to sully this solemn occasion was intolerable.
“Hey, Chief—long time no see.” Breaking off from the heated discussion he’d been having with an attractive but angry-looking woman—Paul’s partner, Cindy Lopez, Julia realized with belated recognition—the stocky ex-cop fixed a grave expression on his heavy features. “Hell of a note, isn’t it? The thin blue line just got a little thinner, but we all know that comes with the territory. To take out Durant’s lady too, though…”
He shrugged meaty shoulders. “Well, I guess we’re agreed that when this scumbag gets caught, the odds are pretty damn good he’s going to suffer a fatal accident long before he gets the chance to go before some bleeding-heart jury and tell them how misunderstood he is, right, folks? We know how to handle cop killers—all of us except for Chatchie here.” He shot a disgusted look at Lopez, and her lips tightened.
“Tascoe, I just lost the best partner anyone could have, so don’t tell me I wouldn’t know what to do if I found his killer,” she said, her dark brown eyes hard with contempt. “I’d read the bastard his rights, cuff him and expect justice to take its course—because that’s the way Paul would have handled it. I swore to uphold the law, not take it into my own hands.”
“You sound pretty cool for someone whose partner just got whacked, chiquita. I thought you people were supposed to be hot-blooded,” Tascoe drawled insinuatingly. “Or do you just reserve all that passion for your girlfriend? Now, that’s one hell of a waste.”
“Your kind of policework got you kicked off the force, Tascoe.” Stepping in front of the other man, Cord gave him a tight smile, his eyes glittering like chips of black ice. “Too bad you still haven’t figured out we’re supposed to be the good guys. If you came here to pay your respects to a decent cop and his wife, you’re going the wrong way about it.”
“He’s right, Dean. Don’t start anything.”
For the first time Julia noticed the thin, middle-aged blonde standing beside the burly ex-cop. Her face, like the faces of many there, bore traces of tears but Julia had the distinct impression that in her case grief was a constant companion rather than a reaction to today’s funeral. She tugged again at Tascoe’s arm.
“Please, Dean. Let’s go home.”
To Julia’s surprise, instead of shaking her off impatiently, Tascoe looked down at the woman with uncharacteristic gentleness. He patted her hand awkwardly.
“Don’t worry, Jackie. I know you’ve got to work with these people, and I’ve said what I came to say, anyway.” He raised his gaze to Cord, still standing in front of him. “I’ve got to admit, Chief, when I learned it was you who blew the whistle on me I was hoping for a long time that I’d run into you in a dark alley some night. But that’s all water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned—you did what you thought you had to do, and I’m on easy street these days. I’ve got my own investigation agency now. If you’re ever looking to change jobs, give me a call.”
He fished a dog-eared business card out of the breast pocket of his blue suit and handed it to a silent Cord, but as he did, his glance fell on Julia, and the slightly bloodshot eyes widened in recognition. Then, curiously, his glance slid uncomfortably away from her and back to Cord again. He addressed him with insincere enthusiasm.
“Hey, you two lovebirds made up! I’ll tell you, Chief—this little girl just fell completely apart when you dumped—”
“Not one more word, Tascoe.”
Cord’s voice barely carried, but its very lack of emphasis was a threat in itself. If he was forced to take on Dean Tascoe he wouldn’t even break a sweat, Julia thought with a flicker of gratification that she instantly suppressed. Although clearly the other man had once been formidably muscled, much of his bulk had turned to fat, and despite his bullying manner it was obvious that he knew he’d pushed Cord to a dangerous limit. He gave an unconvincing shrug.
“No offense, Chief. I just thought—”
“Calling me Chief is offensive, Tascoe.” Cord sounded suddenly weary. “But today all I want is to say goodbye to my two best friends in peace. Just go.”
“We’re going.” The blond woman Tascoe looked pasty and ill, and her voice was thready. “I—I’m sorry about your friends. What happened to them was—was terrible. Terrible. Especially since there was a—a child involved.” The thin hand on Tascoe’s sleeve trembled visibly.
Tascoe bent his balding head once more to his companion, and again Julia was struck by the complete change in his personality as he did so. His arm around her, he nodded to Cord, ignoring Cindy Lopez and the others, and led the distraught Jackie away.
“I can’t believe he used to be a cop.” Darting a disgusted look at his retreating figure, Cindy raked strong fingers through a swath of shining hair and then patted her pockets. “I don’t want anyone ragging on me for this,” she said belligerently, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and scowling. She lit one with a quick nervous gesture and took a deep drag. “I’m trying to quit, but having to deal with that yahoo right after a funeral is too much.”
“Jerks like that aren’t worth it, Cin.” A slender, almost fragile-seeming woman in the group spoke up, her voice attractively husky. Chestnut hair curved in elegant feathers around the delicate bones of her face and her arched brows knitted together as the other woman drew agitatedly on the cigarette. “Why don’t we go home and I’ll brew up some matе? We can have it out on the balcony.”
Her clear green gaze rested on Cindy with a mixture of love and concern that seemed oddly familiar to Julia. With dawning comprehension, she realized that it was the same look that she’d seen in Sheila’s eyes when the stress of the job had gotten to Paul. The knowledge took her aback, but only for a moment. Although she hadn’t guessed at Cindy’s lifestyle when she’d met her after Cord had transferred out two years ago, Paul certainly would have known shortly after being partnered with her. He’d counted her among his friends, and that was good enough for Julia. Lopez sighed.
“I know, Erica.” She frowned and looked at Cord. “Dammit, he was grilling me for details like some stringer for the National Enquirer—asking me whether Paul was shot and then stabbed, or stabbed and then shot, wanting to know exactly where Sheila’s body had been found, what she’d been wearing…” Her voice shook. “Hell, after everything I’ve seen at work you’d think I’d be handling this better.”
“He used to be my partner. I’m not handling it too well, either,” Cord said bleakly. “Being a cop doesn’t mean you stop feeling—unless you want to end up like Dean Tascoe.”
He squinted through the elm branches at the cloudless sky, his hands shoved negligently in the pockets of his trousers, his jacket open. Against the crisp white of his shirt Julia glimpsed the worn brown leather of his shoulder holster, and at the sight a small jolt of fear ran through her. He’d come armed. What was he expecting to happen here, of all places?
“It seems all wrong, somehow, doesn’t it?” Cindy’s friend Erica looked at the perfect sky as Cord had and sketched a small, graceful gesture that encompassed the beautifully landscaped grounds, the freshly leafed trees, the golden sunlight bathing the scene. “If this was an opera the heavens would be splitting open with thunder and lightning, the sky would be dark, and we’d be rending our clothes and cursing the gods.”
“This is my only decent pantsuit,” Lopez said with a lopsided smile. “But that cursing the gods thing sounds good to me. Erica designs stage costumes,” she added to Julia with a note of pride in her voice. “She gets a little Wagnerian once in a while, but this time she’s right. I’d feel better if I could just be doing something.”
As they’d been speaking, the crowd around them had gradually thinned. Lopez’s frustrated comment brought forth a ragged and dispirited chorus of agreement from the few remaining officers clustered nearby, and one by one, men and women in uniform shook hands or clasped each other in brief, wordless hugs before heading toward the high and ornate iron gates enclosing the area. Beyond the gates, parked cars lined both sides of the winding, graveled drive that entered the cemetery.
“I guess we should be heading out, too, Cord,” Lopez said heavily. “Although tonight I don’t think a nice hot cup of matе’s going to cut it.” She shot a defiantly guilty look at Erica that under different circumstances might have brought a smile to Julia’s lips. “I’ve got a date with an almost full bottle of Scotch that I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Right now I feel like Noah.”
There was a heartbeat of silence after her words, and then her appalled gaze found and held Julia’s. Her color rose under the smooth tan of her cheeks.
“God—sorry, Julia. I didn’t intend to—I mean, I know it’s probably something you’d rather…” She raked her hair back, her expression contrite and her words trailing away. “Me and my big mouth,” she mumbled.
Great, Julia thought dully. Her only consolation these last two years had been that at least the people she’d once worked with had no idea of how completely her life had disintegrated. Now it seemed that her personal problems and weaknesses had been common knowledge right from the start. It was humiliating, and shameful, and…
…and strangely liberating, she thought with a slight sense of shock. She wouldn’t have to watch what she said or concoct any elaborate excuses—make that lies, she told herself—in the event that she found herself in a social situation. It felt as if a weighty load had been lifted from her shoulders—a weight that she never would have had the nerve to shrug off without Cindy’s faux pas.
Although she had been able to tell Cord, she realized, surprised.
“Please don’t think that Paul violated any confidences—” Cindy stammered, but Julia cut across her apologies.
“I know he didn’t. I thought it was such a terrible secret that I didn’t tell anyone about it.”
Seeing the stricken look in the expressive brown eyes watching her, she laid her hand tentatively on Lopez’s arm. The disconcerting thought came to her that it had been a long time since she’d reached out to comfort another person.
“Cindy—it’s okay. I’m not upset.” She attempted a grin. “I’m certainly not about to run off to the nearest bar and knock back a dozen tequila shooters because of this.”
It was time to change the topic, she thought, wishing all of a sudden that she was back at the lake, alone in the big house with no one but King to intrude upon her solitude. But the German shepherd was with Lizbet at Mary Whitefield’s house, where he would stay until all danger to the child had passed.
“You must have your own theory as to who targeted Paul and Sheila.” She directed her comment to Lopez, but she was conscious of Cord beside her. “I know neither of us has any official standing in this matter, but maybe the very fact that we aren’t as close to the investigation as you are might help us see a pattern here.”
“I think I see the pattern,” Lopez began, but then she broke off, darting a quick glance over her shoulder at a cluster of overall-clad workers standing by the discreet, foot-high chain that surrounded the rectangles of fresh earth a few dozen yards away. Julia followed her glance. Just beyond the two new graves the rolling landscape took a slight rise, and from somewhere out of sight she could hear the rumbling noise of a piece of machinery idling. It sounded like construction equipment, more suited to the side of a highway than to this pastoral setting.
Cord had heard it, too. Julia saw the pain that flashed across his features without understanding the reason for it. A second later she understood.
