Shocking Pink (39 page)

He looked her dead in the eye. In his, she saw herself, her thoughts, her suspicions about Martha. Nick Raphael was smart. He, like she, had put two and two together.

If he hadn’t come to the same conclusion as she, with the certainty she had, he had toyed with it. He wondered. But he wasn’t going to take it any further than that.

Andie crossed the porch, stopping in front of him. She lifted her face to his. “Just you and me, Nick.”

He reached into his jacket pocket for his keys. “The house, all to ourselves.”

She took the keys from his hands and unlocked the door. She drew him into the house, to his bedroom. She removed his clothes, and he hers. Then they made love, there on his bed, bathed in the early evening and the quiet. In the wonder of their being together.

And when, at climax, she cried out his name and that she loved him, she wasn’t scared at all.

In fact, saying the words, what was in her heart, at that moment, felt right. Like the most right thing in the whole world.

M
orning light spilled through the cracks between the blinds and across the bed. Andie moaned, deep in her throat, and rolled onto her side, snuggling against Nick’s back, completely content.

She opened her eyes, taking in the sun, becoming aware of the sound of a bird singing outside the window. She smiled, thinking the sweet song appropriate. Saturday had come and gone. They’d left the house exactly twice—once to go to Nick’s brother’s restaurant for food, and once to rent movies they both could enjoy, an action flick with heart for him, a romance with a who-done-it to solve for her. The rest of the time, they had stayed here, in bed, making love.

Now, it was Sunday. Andie’s smile faded slightly. She couldn’t put off Raven any longer. Her friend would be home this morning; the Sunday paper, coffee and croissants were a ritual for her. Though Andie hated leaving this warm cocoon, she knew she would find no better time for what she had to say to her friend.

Take a risk, Andie. Go with your heart.

She pressed a trail of kisses and nibbles along Nick’s shoulders. He stirred; she sensed his smile. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she whispered.

He rolled onto his back, though he didn’t open his eyes. She had been right—he was smiling. “Morning to you.”

She lay across his chest, liking the feel of her breasts pressed against his skin. “Sleep well?”

“Mmm. Dreaming of you.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” She kissed him then drew away. “There’s somewhere I have to go this morning.”

He opened his eyes then, all traces of sleep instantly gone. She searched his gaze, wondering how he could awaken so quickly, wondering if it came from years of being a cop, of being expected to be alert no matter what time a call came in.

“What’s up?” he asked.

She moved her hand and grinned. “You are.”

“Vixen.”

“Insatiable vixen,” she corrected.

“Stay with me.” He shifted to his right, half pinning her beneath him. “I promise to play nice.”

She kissed him again, feeling her resolution waver. “I have to do this now, today, before I lose my nerve. Wait for me?”

“Only if you bring back doughnuts.” He grinned. “From the Krispy Kreme, on Fourth.”

Andie returned his smile. “Doughnuts? You’re such a cop.”

“So sue me. It comes with the job.” He tightened his arms. “Mind telling me where you’re going?”

“To see Raven,” she said and sat up. “I need to see her. I feel like I have to tell her about us and all the things I realized the other day.” Andie drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Raven and I have been each other’s everything for so long, and I…that’s going to change. It already has. I don’t want to hurt her, but we’ve depended on each other far too much, Nick. We’ve been using each other to hide from life, from other relationships.”

She looked at him, troubled despite her resolve. “This has been coming for a while, I think she’ll see it, too. I know she’s felt it.”

For a long moment, Nick was quiet. When he finally spoke, his softly voiced words caused a ripple of unease to move over her.

“Be careful,” he murmured. “Raven’s very…protective of your relationship. She may not take it well.”

Andie looked him in the eye, shaking the unease off. She laughed. “For heaven’s sake, Nick, you make it sound so ominous. What’s she going to do, kill me?”

“A
ndie,” Raven said with pleasure, swinging her front door wider. “How nice.”

Andie smiled nervously, uncertain what she would say to her friend, more uncertain of Raven’s reaction. It was one thing to experience an epiphany, it was quite another to have someone else’s forced on you.

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” she asked.

“Don’t be a jerk.” Raven caught her hands and drew her inside. “What are Sunday mornings for besides best friends and good coffee?”

“The Sunday funnies?”

Raven laughed. “I have French roast brewing and some fresh croissants.”

“Sounds great.” Andie followed Raven to her kitchen. It was strictly gourmet, all the bells and whistles. The kind of kitchen a chef would envy and a decorating magazine would feature on the cover.

True to her friend’s words, she had croissants and strawberries arranged artfully on a tray, the coffeepot burbled its last just as Raven reached for the cups.

It was all so picture-perfect.

“What do you say we sit out on the porch? It’s pretty today.”

Andie agreed and within a handful of minutes, Raven had the table on the screened porch set with pretty linen napkins and china dessert plates. As a final touch, she placed a crystal bud vase at the table’s center, then added a bloom she snipped from her garden.

Picture-perfect, Andie thought again.

They took their seats. Raven smiled. “We used to do this all the time. Remember?” Without waiting for Andie to reply, she went on happily. “Sunday mornings. Fresh coffee and pastries. The newspaper. A walk in the park later.”

She poured Andie a cup of coffee, then added cream for her, knowing just how she took it. Raven passed it across, meeting Andie’s eyes. “What happened to us, Andie? How could we forget what was important?”

Andie shifted, finding something about the brightness of Raven’s gaze unsettling. It was as if they were lit by an inner fire. “We got busy with our careers. We grew up.” Her lips lifted. “Sort of.”

Raven laughed, the sound high and girlish. “Silly, Andie.” She held out the tray of croissants. “You can never be too busy for family. You know that.”

Andie took a pastry and laid it on her plate, her appetite gone. Raven, too, selected a croissant. Andie watched as she ripped into it, noticing for the first time the size of Raven’s hands, the strength in them.

Raven spread a bit of raspberry jam on the bread, then bit into it. Andie dropped a hand to her lap and curled her fingers around her napkin, repelled, though she couldn’t say why.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come back around. I knew you would, Andie. When I opened the door this morning and you were standing there…my heart took flight. All my planning and waiting was paying off. Finally, I knew that everything was going to be all right again.” Raven met her eyes, tears of happiness sparkling in them. “You’ve always been my special one.”

Special one. David.
A sensation, like ice water, trickled down her spine. Raven’s words, the way she said them, seemed off. Not quite…right. It was as if someone had plugged her into the wrong-voltage socket, or wound her key too tight.

“I loved Julie,” Raven went on, “you know I did. But she never meant to me what you do. I don’t know—” Raven sighed and brought her coffee cup to her lips “—maybe because she wouldn’t let me. She kept us both away on some level. No matter how hard I tried to be faithful to her, she kept…straying.”

Talking about Julie this way was making Andie uncomfortable. As was the touchy-feely best-friends tone of this conversation. She understood the grieving process, she understood that talking helped lessen the pain. But she wasn’t ready. It felt wrong. She told Raven so.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Raven reached across the table and covered her hand. “Of course you’re not ready. How could I have been so insensitive?”

She had to say what she had come to. The longer it went on, the harder it was going to be. And the harder for Raven to take.

“Raven,” she murmured, “I need to talk to you.”

“So talk,” Raven said, smiling, reaching for another croissant. “I’m right here. I’m always right here.”

Andie stood and walked to the screen enclosure and gazed out at the golden fall day. This was going to be tougher than she thought. Raven was going to take it worse than she had imagined.

Andie thought of Nick, his words of caution, then looked back at Raven. “I realized some things. Important things. About me. About us. What we’ve been doing.”

Raven’s smile froze. The blood drained from her cheeks. “About us?” she repeated.

“Before I begin, I beg you to try to hear what I have to say. To try to understand. I really want us to talk about this.”

“What are you doing, Andie?” Raven asked, a muscle working in her jaw. “Dumping me?”

“Of course not. You’ve been the most important person in my life almost forever, how could I—”

“But not anymore. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that.” Andie fought back a feeling of alarm. This was spinning out of her grasp already, and she had hardly begun. “Raven, please. Try to listen. I realized that somewhere along the line, I stopped trying. I started taking the easy way, the way where I knew I wouldn’t get hurt.”

She went on, talking about how Patti Pierpont’s desperation and Julie’s death forced her to see, spoke of Nick and how he made her feel alive. How he had brought to the surface longings she had buried years ago.

Raven brought a hand to her throat. Andie saw that it trembled. “What are you saying?”

“That we’ve depended on each other too much. That we’ve used our relationship as a way to hide from other relationships. We made it easy not to need anyone else. That’s hiding from life, Raven. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Raven balled her hands into fists. “This is about
him,
isn’t it. Maybe you’re more like Julie than I thought.”

At the comment, furious heat rushed to Andie’s cheeks. Raven was hurting, Andie told herself, counting to ten. She felt betrayed and was lashing out. Otherwise, she would never have spoken of Julie that way.

“This isn’t about Nick, though he has helped me see. This is about me. And you.”

“That’s bullshit!” Raven pushed back from the tiny table with such force, she upset the vase. It hit the tabletop, shattering. “You’re in love with him, I know you are!”

“I am in love with him,” Andie answered, her voice steady. “I want to be with him, no matter the consequences.”

A sound of pain passed Raven’s lips, high-pitched and terrible. Frightened, Andie hurried to her friend. She knelt before her and gathered Raven’s cold hands in hers. “Don’t, Raven. I still love you. You’re my best friend. You always will be. But you can’t be my everything. No one can be someone’s everything.”

Raven drew her hands away. She met Andie’s gaze, hers swimming with tears. “Get out.”

Tears flooded her own eyes. “Raven, please.”

“Get out,” she said again, voice shaking. “You’re a traitor. Dead to me now. I’ll never forgive you. Never.”

N
ick sat quietly, the squad room in chaos around him, his attention focused on Julie Cooper’s autopsy report that lay on the desk in front of him. It told him the time and cause of death, what her last meal had been and when she had eaten it. It told him that except for the trauma to her neck, she had been the picture of health, told him that she had not had intercourse prior to being killed.

There was lots more it didn’t tell him.

Nick frowned. Something didn’t add up.

He shuffled the autopsy report to the side, shifting his attention to the lab report, just in from St. Louis. The trace evidence—hair and saliva left on Julie Cooper’s body—had been analyzed. The lab hadn’t found any conflicting DNA evidence; all the genetic markers pointed to only two people—Julie Cooper and David Sadler.

Fiber samples, footprints, fingerprints and now genetic markers. Ones from both crimes. All pointed to David Sadler. He was the guy. Cut-and-dried. Easy.

“Why the frown, partner?” Bobby ambled over and dropped the bag of takeout on the desk in front of Nick. “Ham and cheese on rye, brown mustard, no pickle. Salt-free chips.”

Nick glanced up. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Bobby folded his large frame into the chair across from Nick. “What gives?”

“The Cooper homicide.” Nick reached into the bag, took out the sandwich and unwrapped it. “Why would a smooth operator like David Sadler kill Julie Cooper in one of his own model homes, then just leave the body for us to find?”

“Dunno.” Bobby leaned back in his chair. “My guess is he panicked. He didn’t mean to kill her. They got carried away, the stool goes over.” Bobby snapped his fingers. “Pop. She’s history.”

“So he runs? Leaving evidence that links him not only to Julie Cooper’s homicide, but Leah Robertson’s, as well?” Nick took a big bite of his sandwich.

“He knows he’s in deep shit. He can’t think. He needs a plan. Or maybe he has one, but needs to get some pieces of it lined up. He takes off, before he can get back, we’ve been tipped and he’s screwed, big-time.”

Nick washed the bite of sandwich down with cold coffee. “That’s another thing. This anonymous tip. There’s something odd about it. Somebody just
happened
to be passing by the Gatehouse development. At that time of night? There’s nothing out there, Bobby. Nada. How did this person happen to see lights? And what about the two-hour discrepancy between the coroner’s estimated time of death and when the call came in?”

Bobby arched his bushy eyebrows. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know.” He made a sound of frustration. “What about the barrette?”

“The one Sadler
supposedly
found in the house? The one neither girl can positively identify? Give me a break. That proves dick. The guy’s grasping at straws.”

Nick met his friend’s eyes. “It’s all too pat, Bobby. Too easy.”

“That’s the way I like ’em, partner. Get the perps off the street and in the pen without even breaking a sweat.” Bobby stood. “This one’s personal for you, could be that’s clouding things. Could be it has you making things hard.”

Nick frowned. He didn’t like to think that was the case, but it very well could be. Every cop knew the best place to look for a suspect was close to the victim. “Maybe so.”

“Excuse me. Nick?”

At the sound of his ex-wife’s voice, Nick looked up. Jenny stood a couple of feet behind Bobby, her expression hesitant. Nick caught his breath, thinking immediately of Mara. “Is something…is Mara all right?”

“Fine, I—” Jenny moved her gaze between Bobby and Nick. “Sarge said I could come back. I hope that’s okay.”

“No problem,” Nick said, standing. He flipped the Cooper file closed. “What can I do for you?”

She clasped her hands in front of her, her gaze flickering to Bobby once more. “Could we go somewhere…private? To talk?”

“Sure,” Nick said with forced casualness, the blood beginning to thrum in his head. This had better not be about reducing his visitation time with Mara. Or about her trying to renege on his having Mara the entire week of her birthday. They had already agreed; he had put in for time off. “Bobby, anybody in interrogation one?”

“Not that I know of, partner.”

“If you need me, that’s where I’ll be.”

Nick led Jenny to the interrogation room, closing the door behind them. He faced her. “If this is about me changing my plans with Mara for her birthday, you can forget it, Jenny.”

“That’s not it. It’s…” Her words trailed off helplessly. To his surprise, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s about…us.”

“Us,” he repeated, thunderstruck. “What do you mean, us?”

“I…I think I’ve made a mistake, Nick. A big mistake.” She crossed to him and laid her cheek against his chest. “I want to come back. For us to be a family again.”

To come back. For them to be a family again.

Nick struggled to breathe evenly, past his surprise, his thundering heart. Hadn’t he hoped for this, a chance for his family to be back together? Hadn’t he prayed for it?

But now, all he could think of was Andie.

But this wasn’t just about him and his life. It was Mara. Her life. What she wanted and needed.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry I did what I did. That I hurt you. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“But you are now?” he asked, openly skeptical. “Thinking clearly.”

She tilted her head back to meet his eyes. Tears sparkled in hers. “Yes. I want to come home. Please take me back, Nick.” She curved her arms around his waist, clinging to him. “Forgive me.”

He breathed through his nose, thinking of Andie, the way she loved him—without demands or provisions, without hesitation. And he thought of the way it had been between him and Jenny, her dissatisfaction, her betrayal. “Why do you want to come back, Jen?” He freed himself from her grasp. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. That you weren’t happy.”

“I know I said that, but—”

“But nothing’s changed. I’m the same man I was then, you’re the same woman. We’d have the same life.”

“It wouldn’t have to be that way. You could change. So could I.”

For long moments he simply gazed at her, the woman he had once loved, the mother of his child, a woman with whom he shared so much history. And yet, as he gazed at her he realized he felt little more than sympathy and indifference for her. As he gazed at her, he could only think of another woman. The one who had sneaked into his heart and stolen it.

A sense of wonder filled him.
Andie. Sweet, perfect, wonderful Andie.

“I’m sorry, Jen, but it’s too late. There’s someone else. I’m in love with her.”

“No.” The word rushed past her lips, and she searched behind her for a chair. She found one, pulled it out and sank onto it. She lifted her watery gaze to his. “No.”

Nick crossed to where she sat and squatted in front of her. “What you said when you left, you were right. We didn’t love each other anymore. We hadn’t in a long time. Hell, we hardly liked each other.” He reached up and touched her cheek lightly, then dropped his hand. “It wouldn’t last. You wouldn’t be happy.”

“I would. I—”

“No, Jen,” he corrected gently, “you wouldn’t. And we both deserve better than a loveless marriage. So does Mara.”

She sucked in a trembling breath. “Well, I guess I’ve made a monumental fool of myself. But I never thought you’d…that you’d—”

“Turn you down?” He laughed softly, but without amusement. “I might not have a week or two ago. A part of me can’t believe I’m doing it now.” He straightened and held out a hand to help her up.

She took it and got to her feet. “I guess I should…go.”

“Jenny?” She met his eyes. “What about Bernard? Is that over?”

She lifted her shoulders. “We’ve been…fighting. He doesn’t like being…tied down with a child. He likes to go out, to travel.”

“So? Travel with him, Jenny. I’ll keep Mara, anytime. You know how much I love her. Maybe we could do an equal-time custody arrangement? That would take some of the pressure off of you.”

“But with your job—”

“I’ll put in less hours. Think about it.”

“I will.”

From there, there was nothing left to say to one another. He walked her to the station’s front entrance, then returned to his desk.

“So,” Bobby murmured, grinning up at him, “what was that all about?”

“She wants us to get back together.”

Bobby didn’t often look totally dumbfounded, but he did now. He whistled long and low under his breath. “What did you—”

“I said no, Bobby. Much as I want to be with Mara full-time, it’s over.” He slid into the chair behind his desk. “Besides, she doesn’t really want me back. It’s just that things aren’t going perfectly with Bernard, so she came running back to where she felt safe. No big deal.”

Bobby’s eyebrows shot up. “No big deal?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“And you’re okay with this?”

“Very okay.”

“Did this decision have anything to do with a certain lovely headshrinker?”

“Yeah, it did,” Nick said, surprising his partner for the second time in as many minutes. “It had just about everything to do with her.”

Bobby narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

Nick flashed him a grin. “Yup.”

“That sucks, partner. Big-time.”

“No,” Nick said, lowering his gaze to the reports on the desk in front of him, “What sucks is David Sadler’s story. What do you say we take another crack at him? See if he wants to add anything to his story?”

“His lawyer won’t like it.”

“His lawyer can bite me.” Nick smiled. “Get the guy on the phone, I feel like going fishing this afternoon.”