Amanda's Blue Marine (14 page)

“We can track down where he got that piece of crap,” Kelly said disgustedly. “Taxidermists, research labs. And the origin of the shoelace, no matter how old it is.”

Mandy nodded silently, amazed at how calm she felt now that he was with her.

Kelly then read the note slowly several times and dropped it into another evidence bag. He folded both bags and put them in his pocket. He stripped off the gloves and dropped them in her trash basket.

"He was close enough to slip that into my purse," Mandy said shakily. "How did he get that close and why didn't I see him?"

"He could have done it anywhere," Kelly said. "A public gathering with a lot of people coming and going is a good choice. Much easier than getting to you at home. There's too much security in these expensive digs and he would know that. You must have been near him some time that night when he could put that stuff in your bag unobserved. He's getting bolder, to do this. He's not getting the reaction he wants yet so he's trying harder to provoke it."

Mandy shivered and Kelly realized he was telling her too much.

"The forensics team will go over evidence," Kelly said conversationally, "but you have to tell me where you've been recently. I want all the details."

They talked about her movements and Kelly was making a time line in his little notebook when his cell phone rang and he pulled it out quickly. When he saw who was calling he got up and walked into the entry hall.

"I'm sorry, Janet," Mandy heard him say. "I meant to get back to you but I had to take care of something right away."

There was a pause and then he said, "I can't do it tonight but I'll call you tomorrow. I'm sorry but you know how these things go. Right. Talk to you then."

Mandy saw him hit the "Off" button on the phone before he put it back in his pocket.

Apparently he didn't want to chance any further calls from Detective Grady or anyone else.

Mandy closed her eyes, trying not to entertain the image of him climbing out of Janet Grady's sweaty sheets to deal with the hysterical summons of Amanda Redfield, Helpless Victim and Dimwit Deadweight. How did her frantic phone call compare with the supreme competence and dark sexual allure of fearless Detective Janet? Mandy's face burned with humiliation. How could this get any worse? He had interrupted his hot date with Grady, his dinner companion at Pirro's and at the MD fundraiser, to listen to Mandy whimper about her latest crisis.

She felt like a fool.

"What is it?" he said when he returned, reading her forlorn expression.

"I shouldn't have called you here," Mandy said. "You wanted the squad car cops outside to handle it and I insisted that you come here personally on your day off. I'm sorry."

He took her hands and led her to sit on the sofa. "Listen to me," he said. "You did exactly the right thing. I told you to call me if there was any kind of a problem and this," he pointed to his pocket, "is a problem. I would have come here anyway. I just thought that the squad car was close and they'd get up here faster."

"My mess is taking over your life," Mandy said miserably. "And I am handling everything so badly."

"What do you mean?" he said. "Anyone would be upset by this wacko haunting them. No one expects you to be calm and collected in this situation. Why are you handling everything badly?"

She shook her head. He didn't know that she was jealous of his colleague Grady. He didn't know that Mandy wanted his attention devoted only to her.

She put her hands over her face and then began to shake, the tremors increasing until she wrapped her arms around her torso in an attempt to stop them.

"I feel cold," she whispered.

He nodded. "That's adrenaline," he said. "You were all geared up for a fight after you found that little surprise. You need to calm down."

He looked around quickly and then pulled his heavy sweater over his head, holding it out to her.

"Put this on," he said.

“You’re always giving me your clothes,” she said, gesturing helplessly. Her inability to dress herself properly had to be a metaphor for something, but what? She couldn’t cope with life, deal with reality, handle her changing world?

“You’re always shivering, Amanda,” he replied simply.

Mandy accepted the sweater gratefully, snuggling into the wool which was warm from his body and inhaling his scent deeply. He went into the next room and came back with a lap blanket and one of the pillows from her bed.

"Stretch out and relax," he said, helping her to settle on the pillow and drawing the quilt over her legs. "Nothing bad is going to happen now. He has to make it past me to get to you and I'm not going anywhere." He went to the living room wall and turned down the air conditioning, saying, “You don’t need this.” He looked toward the kitchen area and asked, "Do you have any liquor?"

She shrugged. "There's some in the cabinet there." She gestured toward the credenza which separated the two rooms. He crouched in front of it and she heard glass tinkling as he shifted items around on the shelves.

"You've got a pretty spare stash here, Amanda," he finally said in an amused tone. "Not much for lapping up the sauce, are you? Some of these sticky bottles are actually dusty."

"Tom keeps a few more in that box," Mandy said, pointing. "It has a lock."

Kelly turned the key and the door swung open. "What's he expecting?" Kelly asked. "The return of Prohibition?"

"That thing is climate controlled or something. He says the scotch evaporates otherwise."

"Not in my house," Kelly said dryly. He pulled out a bottle and poured several fingers of amber liquid into a kitchen tumbler. He brought it over to her and said, "For you."

She shook her head. "I can't drink. I'm a freak. I can't handle it at all and get drunk immediately."

"That's good news, because Uncle Brendan's prescription is for you to go to sleep. A flyweight like you will be in dreamland very quickly. When did you have dinner?”

The liquor spread warmth through Mandy's belly as he piled wrapped, prefab logs from the storage bin into the fireplace and used scraps of paper and kindling to get a blaze going. He had been wearing only a T shirt under the sweater he gave her and now the shirt rode up and bunched and gathered as he bent and crouched at his task. She enjoyed the view as she drank. She watched him through slitted eyes, admiring the play of muscles across his back and in his upper arms as the shirt writhed across his torso like a snake.

Why doesn't he just take it off? she wondered drowsily. Just take it all off, the jeans and everything else. And then she thought, I must be drunk already.

He came to her side and took the glass out of her hand. He put it on her coffee table and then sat on the floor next to the couch. She stared at the back of his head in the silence and then reached out to touch it.

"You have such nice hair," she said.

"Thanks," he said shortly. They both listened as the fire crackled and gathered momentum.

"Wavy and silky. Just curly enough, but not frizzy. Who in your family has hair like this?" She was stroking it as she talked.

He moved a few inches out of her range.

"My father," he said. "I look just like him." It was clear from his tone that he did not cherish the resemblance.

"You, Red. Just you." He turned to look at her and even in her state of reduced comprehension she could see the tenderness in his gaze.

"You care about me, don't you?" she blurted, as if the revelation had just come to her.

He didn't answer.

"You wanted this job babysitting me for career enhancement...advancement... whatever." She stopped and regrouped, determined to get her point across to him. "You took it on at the last minute to kiss Manning's butt and get ahead and you figured you'd endure whatever you had to endure to make it work. Even when you found out the target was a woman rather than a guy, it didn't bother you, it was all in a day's work." She stopped again. This was long speech for a drunken woman who was half asleep. She took a breath and added, "You just didn't think you would care about me, but you do."

He nodded slowly, his throat working. "Yes, I do." She won't remember this, he thought. She's bombed and she won't remember it.

"I’m glad," she said. She leaned forward abruptly and slipped her hand inside the stretched out neck of his old T shirt. "You have a ring of sunburn right there. I can see it. Can I touch it?"

“No.”

She ignored him and ran her hand down his neck to his collarbone and then inside the shirt to his shoulder. “Your skin is soft. The muscle under it is hard but your skin feels just like velvet.”

He willed himself not to respond and rose quickly. He dropped into the armchair next to the fireplace, putting a safe distance between them.

"You're tanked, Amanda. I am begging you to go to sleep." He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He was tired too.

When he looked back at her again he realized that she had obeyed him.

* * * * *

Kelly sat in the chair for the rest of the night, drifting off several times but never really relaxing. He thought about going into the bedroom to lay down on the bed but he wanted to be where he could see Amanda. Near dawn he woke to find a dying fire and gray light seeping in at the windows of her living room. He lit a cigarette and looked at her sleeping on the couch, bundled up in the sweater his grandmother had knit in a cottage in the Aran Islands. Her long hair was splayed out on the pillow and her lips were parted as if she were about to speak.

Where the hell was this crackpot terrorizing her? They had to find him soon. She wouldn't be able to take much more of this. Her previous princess life had not prepared her to deal with the harsh reality of a crazed stalker.

Her expression was wiped free of care as she slept a few feet away from him. It reflected the innocence that he found irresistible. He had come to realize it was part of her detachment from the realities driving most people, the need to work hard and earn money and live within restrictions. Everything had been done for her since childhood and so she lacked experience in dealing with the real world. Kelly had seen it before with the rich people he met on his job. They might be billionaires but they were unable to write a check or get the car washed or withdraw fifty dollars from an ATM. Mandy was somewhat more connected because she had a career and dealt with the public daily, but she didn't NEED to do any of it and that made all the difference. If she had decided to stay home and play solitaire she would still have had everything she wanted without lifting a finger, just like she had this luxurious apartment which she had received as a gift and the sports car which she rarely even bothered to drive.

"What are you doing here?" She gazed around the room and he saw her face change as her memory returned. She winced and put her hand to her temple.

Kelly burst out laughing and pointed his finger at her. "Gotcha! I want you to know that I was very offended by that comment."

She started giggling and then grabbed her head again. "God. I always knew there was a reason I didn't drink."