Swimsuit Body (25 page)

First, we have to descend the cliff, freestyle, which would be a daunting prospect even in daylight. But there's no time to think twice. I kick off my heels and hop over the guardrail. That's when I notice I'm still clutching the jagged neck of the bottle. I shove it in my coat pocket, unthinkingly, before I drop onto my belly. I scoot backward to lower myself over the edge of the cliff, using the stout vines of the ice plant, the kudzu of coastal California, that blankets the ground as a makeshift rope, spurred by the sounds of vehicle doors slamming, voices shouting.

I glance up at Brianna, who looks panicked. “Do like me, and you'll be fine,” I whisper, and she nods.

I grope blindly for footholds as I make my descent, loose dirt and pebbles raining from above as Brianna makes her own descent. I balance on outcroppings the width of my palm and dig my toes into crannies. The ice plant that I'm using as a rope tears loose at one point, and I slide a few, terrifying feet before I regain my footing. I'm halfway down when I hear a popping noise from above, that of a gun equipped with a silencer being fired, and dirt and shale kick up near my face, stinging my cheeks and making my eyes water.

“Don't be stupid! There's no escape!” Greta's voice shouts.

I freeze like a plush kitty suctioned to a car window. Then a voice in my head says, calmly but firmly,
Keep moving
. The same voice that I used to hear whenever I was about to turn down the wine aisle of a supermarket during my first thirty days of sobriety when I was clawing my way up from the bottom of a barrel.
I shake off my panic, pry myself loose, and continue on. When I'm nearing the bottom, I drop the last few feet onto the boulder below. I land at an awkward angle and give a muffled cry when I feel my right ankle twist, bringing a sharp stab of pain.

“You okay?” Brianna jumps nimbly down beside me.

I put my weight on my ankle, testing. It hurts like hell, but it doesn't feel like it's sprained or broken. I can still walk on it. “I'll live,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
With any luck.

The short distance to the campground might have been a hundred miles as I hobble in that direction. It's slow going, between my injured ankle and the rough terrain. This stretch of shoreline is more rocks than sand, and the rocks are partially submerged by the rising tide in spots. We splash through pools of icy seawater and slip and slide our way over boulders slick with algae. After we've gone maybe a couple hundred yards, I glance over my shoulder and see a pair of dark figures silhouetted against the face of the cliff in the moonlight, not inching their way downward as Brianna and I had but moving with the agility of mountain goats. A ball of panic lodges in my throat. For a second, I can't breathe. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The throbbing in my ankle is matched by the pounding of my heart as I hobble along as fast as I can. Each breath is like sandpaper rasping against my dry throat. I stumble at one point and would have fallen on my face if Brianna hadn't grabbed my elbow, holding me upright as she must have done countless times with her former employer. The difference is I'm not drunk—I've never been more sober in my life, in fact—and it's not my dignity or career that's at stake but my life.

We reach a large rock formation that juts into the ocean, preventing us from going any farther. We'll have to swim around it. Fortunately, I'm a strong swimmer and the tide isn't yet at its peak. I shoot Brianna a questioning look, and she says briskly, “I'm a certified lifeguard.”
Of course you are.
“I earned spending money for college working summers at my uncle's country club,” she informs me as we slog through the churning surf into deeper water. “I never had to save anyone from drowning, but …” Her next words are swallowed by the wave that crashes over us.

It's rough going with the undertow alternately threatening to pull me under and dash me against the rocks. I feel as though I've swum the English Channel by the time I reach the other side. I stagger toward shore, only to have another wave snatch my feet out from under me. I go down with a splash. Brianna grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. I peer at her through the salt water that's streaming down my face. She looks as bedraggled as I'm sure I do. Her hair hangs in wet strings around her face, and her gown looks like a wrinkly elephant skin where it's plastered to her body. She was smart enough to shed her coat, whereas my own, waterlogged one weighs on me like the lead apron you wear when having an x-ray at the dentist's. I'm also shivering in my drenched clothing, and if I can't feel my fingers or toes, it's only due to the fact that I'm numb with cold. “Go. I'm only slowing you down,” I gasp as I limp alongside Brianna with her keeping a firm grip on my elbow.

“No way.” She shakes her head, sending droplets of water flying from her hair onto my face.

“You work for me, remember? You have to do as I say.”

“Fine. In that case, I quit.”

“Have it your way,” I reply through clenched teeth, though selfishly I'm glad she's being a pain in the ass.

A spark of light off in the distance catches my eye. A campfire glowing on the bluff where the campground is located. My heart leaps, only to sink at the splashing sounds from behind. Greta and Eric are rapidly gaining on us. It's no use. I can't outrun them. I hear the popping of the gun again, and Brianna staggers, letting go of my arm. She takes several lurching steps before she collapses in a heap. I scream and drop down beside her, flashing on the image of Delilah's dead body when I see she's not moving.
Please God, don't let her be dead.
I roll her over and my hand comes away sticky with blood. Most of the blood seems to be coming from where she hit her head when she fell on the rocks, I'm relieved to see, though I notice her right arm is bleeding, too. When I look up, Eric is closing in on us, Greta not far behind.

“You idiot! You ruined
everything
!” Greta shrieks at me.

Her words are like a pin pulled from a grenade. All at once, I'm subsumed by a blaze of fury. So this is
my
fault. Because I wouldn't surrender? Because I messed up her nice, neat murder plot? I surge to my feet, mindless of the threat as I fly to meet Eric headlong. In my drinking days, after I'd had one too many, I sometimes forgot I was the weaker sex. I once broke the nose of a guy who was twice my size and probably twice as drunk when he tried to grope me in the parking lot at the Tide's Inn. But it appears I'm just as reckless and mean-tempered sober as I was when drunk.

It proves to be my saving grace. Eric must have expected me to make a run for it or to cower like a scared rabbit, and he falters when I do neither. He sees the crazy lady coming at him but not the wave breaking behind him. A monster wave with a heart of glass and gnashing white teeth. It crashes over us, and we both go under. I feel a burning sensation in my scalp—my hair seems to be caught on something—and when my vision clears I see it's Eric's hand that's holding me tethered as the wave recedes. I flail about, trying to free myself, but it's no good; he's too strong, and I only end up losing strands of hair and taking water into my lungs. I sputter, coughing. Through the roaring of the surf and that of the blood in my ears I hear Greta's voice scream, “Don't kill her!” Incredibly, she still seems to think she can make my death look like an accident.

Eric has other ideas. He pushes my head underwater while I thrash about. I can't breathe, and as I struggle against him, I realize I'm only making it worse—in my panic I'm running out of oxygen quicker than if I were concentrating on holding my breath. I start to lose consciousness, my body weakening and black spots swarming behind my closed eyelids. I'm about to suck in a lungful of salt water when another wave slams into us. We're dragged apart by the undertow, and I surface seconds later to see Eric splashing his way toward me. I make haste in putting some distance between us, but I only get as far as the tide line before I'm tackled by Greta.

She hurls herself at me like a human cannonball, knocking me down. I don't have the strength to resist when she straddles me, pinning me down.
Game over
, I think. Then something strange happens. I've heard of people performing superhuman feats in life-or-death situations, like hoisting a car from someone who's trapped underneath it or carrying someone who outweighs them from a burning building, but I never imagined it could happen to me. Yet, suddenly, I'm Superwoman. In a burst of renewed strength, I take a swing at Greta with my fist, an uppercut that connects with her jaw and causes her head to snap back. Released from her grip, I roll out from under her and feel something sharp jabbing me through the sodden folds of my coat. I dig the broken bottleneck from my pocket, and when Eric lunges at me from behind, I use it to lash out at him.

“That was for Delilah,” I cry, opening a gash in his cheek, “and this is for me!” I strike again before he can retreat. He screams in pain, reeling backward, clutching his right cheek where blood gushes. Greta lets out a howl like a mama bear and rushes to the aid of her wounded cub. She appears oblivious to all but her brother's distress. I seize the advantage.

“You bipolar
bitch
!” I cry, slashing at her face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

My higher power must be looking out for me after all. Either that, or we got lucky. Brianna regains consciousness as Greta and Eric are floundering. She finds the gun that Greta had put down before she tackled me. Her injures, it seems, aren't serious. She goes for help while I keep the gun pointed at Eric and Greta, both of whom are bleeding profusely and spewing profanities at me, until the cops arrive.

At the hospital, while Brianna and I are treated for our injuries, I learn that the campfire I had spotted earlier belonged to a Danish tourist who let Brianna borrow his phone to call 911. I've suffered a sprained ankle in addition to some scrapes and bruises. Brianna has sustained a flesh wound where Eric's bullet grazed her right arm and a bump on her forehead from when she fell. By the time we're released, Ivy is waiting down the hall to drive us back to her house.

Spence shows up as we're walking to meet her and insists on driving me home. “Would you rather I take you to the station for questioning?” he says sternly when I decline the offer.

“Fine,” I tell him. I'm too spent to argue.

“I'll let Ivy know,” says Brianna, shooting me a meaningful look before she peels away.

Spence blows his tough-cop stance by putting his arm around me, inquiring in a solicitous tone as I limp alongside him, favoring my sore ankle, which is wrapped in an Ace bandage, “You have ibuprofen or should we stop at a drugstore?” He's equally insistent on staying the night when we get to my house. “You need someone to look after you until the swelling goes down.”

“You do realize this is above and beyond,” I say when he returns from fetching me an ice pack. I'm reclining on my living room sofa with my ankle propped on the pillow he placed on the coffee table. It's one o'clock in the morning. We ought to be in our own beds by now, but here he is fussing over me like a Jewish grandmother. Next, he'll be bringing me chicken soup.

Finally, he plops down next to me with an expelled breath. He looks tired, and more than a little rumpled in the off-white chinos and the red-checked button-down shirt he wears, both of which are creased as if from an all-night stakeout. Twin half-moons of sweat darken the shirt under his arms. Who knew he perspired? “Because I'll be sleeping on the world's most uncomfortable sofa bed … or because your cat might use me as a scratching post?” he asks, smiling. I warned him about both.

“I was referring to the call of duty.”

“So? You're not the only one who makes your own rules.” His blue-gray eyes crinkle with wry humor behind his wire-rim glasses. He puts his arm around me, and when my head drops onto his shoulder, it seems only natural. “Like it or not, you're stuck with me, Tish Ballard.”

“Since when?”

“Since … I don't know. Kindergarten? Don't you remember, I used to pull your pigtails?”

“That was you?”

He heaves an exaggerated sigh. “How quickly they forget.”

“I had a crush on you in high school.” I glance up at him shyly. There was a time I'd sooner have stuck pins in my eyes than admit that to Spence, but I'm no longer embarrassed by it.

He seems surprised and disconcerted. “So the night we hooked up …?”

“It meant something. To me, anyway.”

He groans. “Now I feel like an even bigger jerk.”

“You should. But I forgive you.”

“Because you knew I was a good guy underneath?” he asks hopefully.

“More like I know the average teenage boy is thinking with the wrong head ninety percent of the time.”

He doesn't dispute this. “Would it have helped if I'd said I was sorry?”

“Doubtful. But I wouldn't have torched your car, and you wouldn't have ended up hating me.”

“I never hated you. I was pissed.”

“You had every right. It was a rotten thing to do. You loved that car.”

He replies wistfully, “Sweetest ride I ever had. ‘A love like that comes but once in a lifetime.'”

“Ugh. I just threw up a little in my mouth.” I sit up straight to give him a mock glare. “I don't know which is worse, you quoting
The Bridges of Madison County
or telling me that a car was the love of your life.”

“You're jealous. Admit it,” he says, grinning.

“Why would I be jealous?”

“I'm starting to think you like me, the way you keep turning up at crime scenes.”

“It wasn't on purpose! Well, except that one time.” When I was caught breaking and entering in the course of investigating my mom's murder. “Besides, you wouldn't have solved either case without my help.”

He rolls his eyes. “There you go again, hogging all the credit.”

“Not all, just some.”

“You'd have made a good cop,” he admits.

“Did you just pay me a compliment?” I stare at him in surprise.

“Don't let it go to your head. And don't,” he adds, “ever scare me like that again. When I showed up at your house and you weren't there …” He trails off, his arm tightening around my shoulders.

“You came?”

He nods. “I traced your phone to the bed-and-breakfast, and when you weren't there, I went to your house. I didn't know where you'd gone or why you didn't have your phone with you. What in God's name were you thinking, going off like that without telling anyone?” he admonishes.

“You had a suspect in custody! How was I supposed to know Greta was the real culprit?”

“She had me fooled, too,” he admits. “Though I had my doubts about Mrs. Harding's confession.”

“Why, because she took it back?”

“That, and she doesn't fit the profile. Also, don't forget, her alibi checked out. Greta Nyland had a solid alibi, too, which is she why wasn't on my short list of suspects. I didn't see a motive, either. She wasn't named as a beneficiary in the will, and there was no life-insurance policy.”

“She was benefiting in other ways. By embezzling funds that were supposed to go to poor people so her brother could live like a banana republic dictator.” We'd been over it earlier, so Spence knows all this, but the scope of the depravity is so great, it brings a fresh grimace to his face.

“It doesn't get lower than that,” he agrees.

“Other than homicide, you mean?” That goes without saying. “But look at the bright side. You now have, not one, but two suspects in custody. And before this, you were looking at a cold case.”

“Better a cold case than a fresh corpse,” he mutters darkly.

I shudder, thinking of my close call. “Don't worry. I'm sticking to my day job from now on.”

Spence holds my gaze. “Is that a promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to—” I break off before I can say the word. “May the only dead bodies I come across from now on be those of small critters.” A fish that went belly-up or a mole that was decapitated by my cat. That I can handle. My gaze drops to my swollen ankle. “I just hope I can get around okay with this foot. When you're self-employed, you don't have the luxury of sick days.”

“You have Brianna,” he reminds me.

“Not for much longer. It was only a temp job while the investigation was ongoing,” I remind him. I realize, to my surprise, I'll miss her when she's gone.

“Maybe you can get her to stay on.”

I shake my head. “I couldn't afford to pay her what she's worth.”

“There are other incentives.”

“Like what?”

“You could make her a partner.”

“Partner? Are you out of your mind?” I speak first before I pause to consider. “Actually, that's not a bad idea.” If I had a partner, I could take on more clients. I could even take a vacation. “Except she's a total control freak. I wouldn't want her thinking she could boss me
around.”

“No one,” says Spence, smiling, “could ever be the boss of you, Tish.”

“I don't know that she'd agree to it. I'm sure she has bigger ambitions.”

“It doesn't hurt to ask. She's the kind of person who'd see it as an opportunity to grow the business.”

“Maybe. We'll see.”

We lapse into companionable silence. The only sounds are the distant rumbling of the furnace in the basement and the clatter of the icemaker in the kitchen. Hercules and Prince are both asleep on the nubby green armchair opposite me, my cat draped across the backrest, my dog curled on the seat cushion. The cozy domestic scene is a reminder of another issue that needs to be resolved.

“Can I ask you something?” I venture.

“Shoot,” he says.

“Any chance you and your wife will get back together?” My heart starts to beat faster, but I keep my voice light. Until I have his answer, I don't want him to know how much it matters to me.

When I sneak a glance at him, he's staring straight ahead, his brow creased in thought. My heart sinks because I can guess what his answer will be. It starts with
We were together a long time
and ends with
We talked it over and decided to give it another go.
He'll say they have the kids to think of, the life they built together. You don't walk away from that so fast.

But he doesn't say any of those things. “No,” he answers. Just that one word. But if a picture tells a thousand words, one word can speak volumes. I release the pent-up breath in my lungs.

“Oh. Well. That's good. I mean it's good you know for sure.”

“It is what it is.” He seems resigned.

“So what happens next?”

“I made an appointment with a lawyer. Neither of us wants to drag the other through the mud, so we're hoping we can work it out without going to court. We agree on one thing. We both want what's best for the kids.”

“How are they handling it?”

“Barb and I had a talk with them last night. We told them we'd always be their parents and we'd always love them, but we wouldn't ever be together again. They've had some time to get used to the idea, so they took it pretty well. Katie wanted to know if this means
two
trips to Disneyland.”

I smile. “Divorce is not without its perks.”

“I have to be careful not to spoil them.”

“Good luck with that. Once they turn those puppy dog eyes on you …”

“Don't I know it.” He chuckles. “Mainly, what they want is their dad. That much I can give them now that I'm cutting back on my hours.”

“That's good. Kids need both their parents.” I speak from experience.

Spence cuts me a sideways glance. “You never wanted kids?”

“More like I never found the right person to have them with.”

“I take it your boyfriend's not the one.”

“No.” It's not just that Bradley isn't the marrying kind or that we live separate lives on different continents. I realize I'm not in love with him. I like him a lot and I won't deny that he stirs lust in me, but love needs sustenance to grow, and a long-distance relationship such as ours doesn't allow for that. “In fact, he's not my boyfriend anymore.” If he ever really was.

“So it's over?” Spence eyes me anxiously and he looks relieved when I nod. The only thing that remains is to break it to Bradley. I don't think he'll be too heartbroken. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

You would think that I was the most desirable woman in the world, not one with a puffy ankle who was plastered with bandages and wearing her most unflattering sweats, from the way Spence is gazing at me. His expression is soft, and the kiss he gives me is exquisitely tender. When we kissed before, there had been a frantic feel to it as if we'd been flung together by the winds of fate and we were holding on to each other for dear life. Now it's slow and deep and purposeful, as delicious as sinking into a shared hot tub. The bag of ice on my foot clunks to the floor when I shift positions to draw closer to him. The pain in my ankle is but a distant ache. I'm aware only of the pleasurable throbbing between my legs and the feel of his hands and lips on my body. He presses his mouth to the pulse beating at the base of my throat. I stroke the back of his neck with its fuzz of golden hair and work my way down, exploring other parts of his body. I reach below his belt buckle where his jeans have grown noticeably tight, and …

He pulls back abruptly, placing his hand over mine to still it. “Tish … no.”

“What's wrong?” I ask in a breathless voice.

“Not now. Not like this. We should wait.” From his pained expression I know it isn't an easy decision for him to make.

“Seriously? You're going to let a technicality get in the way? I don't care that you're still legally married. This is not the nineteenth century,” I remind him.

“This isn't about me and Barb. This is about you and me. I want it to be right when we do this, and after all you've been through tonight, I don't think now's the time. Tish, I can't mess this up. I did once before, and you don't get many second chances in life. I don't want to blow this one.” As I look into Spence's eyes, I see the man he's become wrestling with the teenage boy he was.

I nod slowly. My body might disagree, but I know he's right. We should wait until we're both rested to make love. Spence sees a future with me, that's what counts. “I promise I'm in full possession of my faculties, although I admit I'm not in the best of shape or at my most attractive.”

“You are beautiful.” He delivers a chaste but meaningful kiss to my lips. “When I think of how close I came to losing you tonight …” He trails off, and his voice is husky when he finishes, “I can't lose you, Tish. You're”—he pauses as if searching for the right word—“special.”

Awash in tenderness, I feel my throat start to close up. “In AA we call it ‘terminally unique.'”

Spence folds me in his arms. “Let's just go with
unique
, shall we?”