Hot Contact (13 page)

He explored her gently, keeping a slow, steady pace, deepening a touch when she made a needy sound, moving
on when the sound turned to one indicating imminent satisfaction. Not yet, Arianna. Not yet.

He put his mouth on her and she went still, only a long, low moan coming from her. Then she moved, up toward him, enough to let him slide a finger inside her. She lurched higher. He lifted his head.

“Don't…stop,” she said, urgent and demanding, trying to pull him back.

But he was afraid she would make too much noise and his neighbors might hear. He slid off the bench, removed the rest of his clothes then sat again, pulling her onto his lap.

“You're going to be the death of me,” she murmured against his mouth.

“What a way to go.”

He felt her lips form a smile before her tongue got into the game. He held her head in place, keeping her mouth covered as he lifted her, then brought her down on him. Her mouth opened. He pulled her back, stopping the threatening sound with his own mouth.

She angled away. “Good,” she whispered. “This is so good.”

She moved against him, her nipples brushing his chest, her belly gliding along his. She felt glorious. Tight and wet and slick. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried not to think about how she was the most dazzling woman he'd ever met and that, even after more than a week with her, he could hardly believe he was making love with her now. He felt her clench inside, around him, her tempo increasing to an urgent level. As she burst into a climax he grabbed her head and pulled her mouth to his, swallowing the sounds.

The wooden bench cut into his legs, distracting him, for which he was grateful, but making him even more aware of her.

“Aren't you going to join me?” she asked, her movements slowing.

“In a minute. In the house. I don't want anyone to overhear.”

He took her by the hand. Watching her walk naked beside him would rank at the top of his memories. The way her body moved, her confidence, the need he still saw in her eyes—all of it registered.

In his bedroom he jerked back the covers. They could have freedom here.

He followed her down onto the bed. She reached for him.

“I'm not done yet,” he said, grabbing her wrist, stopping her.

“I don't know whether to be terrified or thrilled.”

He noted the lack of terror in her eyes. “You can let me know later.”

“I'll do that.”

He kissed her, a long, searching, searing kiss that built then lingered then swelled again. He touched her, the freedom almost painful. He tasted her, a feast he would never forget. She was everything he'd dreamed of and nothing like he'd dreamed. She finally stopped trying to take control, to please
him,
but gave herself up to it—to him. It satisfied him enormously. Eventually he let her reach the top, then after a while, rise above it. She didn't scream exactly, but she would've been loud enough in the yard to have the neighbors wondering.

He didn't let her come down all the way but plunged into her, then stopped. She rose to meet him. He moved slowly, methodically. She tried to increase the pace. He resisted. He had no idea where his ability to resist came from. Some soul-deep need to cherish her as no one had, to plant in her a memory she could pluck from the air now and then and think of him. He didn't want her to forget.

But finally even he had to acknowledge the need and purpose and let himself find oblivion. He almost didn't last long enough to bring her to climax again, but he did, then he followed with an explosion that lasted for hours or days or months. An eternity, at least. Then he woke up on the other side of heaven with her still in his arms, not a dream, after all, not even elusive, but real and warm and all woman.

“You are a generous man,” she said quietly, shifting a little.

He moved aside, taking his weight off her, but not losing contact. “No. Completely selfish.”

“You need to check your dictionary.”

“This is just the beginning,” he said, nuzzling her neck.

She arched her back and sighed. “I'll take over for Heartbreak Hill, Marathon Man. See if you can make it over the rise.”

He grinned leisurely. “Here. I'll pass you the baton.”

T
he next morning, the front door to Mary Beth Horvath's house opened before Arianna or Joe had a chance to knock.

“I figured you would be back,” Mary Beth said, inviting them in as if resigned to the ordeal. “Thank you for waiting until my family was gone.”

“If there was more to say, why didn't you just tell us before?” Arianna asked, taking a seat on the same sofa as before, glad that Joe was beside her.

“I was hoping I wouldn't have to. I should've known better. Mike Vicente's son and Mateo's daughter? You wouldn't quit until you had all your answers.”

“Did you love my father?” Arianna asked, surprising herself. It wasn't the first question she'd had on her mental list. She felt Joe react to it, too, felt the heat from his body as he moved a little closer. In comfort? Or to remind her to stick to the facts of the case?

“Yes,” Mary Beth answered, apology in her eyes.

“How did you meet?”

“He and his partner got me away from my boyfriend before he beat me to death. Your dad came to the hospital after to make sure I wasn't going back to Rollie, my boyfriend.” She shook her head. “I don't know how it happened with Mateo. He was just being nice. He helped me find a new job and a place to live. He'd come by the store every day I was working to see that I was okay and that Rollie hadn't tracked me down after he'd been let out of jail. Mateo was like my knight in shining armor, and I just kept falling for him…. He talked about you a lot.”

Arianna realized she didn't want or need the details of her father's affair.

“Tell us what happened the day of the murder,” Joe said, somehow picking up on her feelings.

Mary Beth's shoulders drooped, as if settled to her fate. “Mateo came into the store at lunchtime, as usual. A few seconds later Rollie and a friend came in, but I didn't see them because I was crouched under the counter opening a new carton of cigarettes to get Mateo a pack. When I stood up I saw Rollie. He'd pulled a gun on Mateo. The friend had one trained on me. Rollie took your dad's gun, then he shot him with it. Just like that. Shot him. Point blank. Then he shot me.”

“With his own .22,” Joe said.

“I didn't know that at the time. I just knew I'd been shot and left for dead. Mateo's partner…”

“Fred Zamora,” Arianna said.

“Yes. He came running through the door right after they left. Then I was unconscious until a couple of days later in the hospital.”

“So, Fred saw the shooters.”

She nodded.

“And recognized one as your ex-boyfriend, because he and Mateo had broken up a fight between you before.”

“Yes. He came to the hospital after I regained consciousness and told me I needed to say I barely knew Mateo, that he was a cop who came to the store every so often, but that was all. That it needed to look like a robbery. He told me to say I couldn't remember anything, that way no one could challenge me about it.”

“Did he tell you why?” Joe asked.

“Because if Mateo was shot in the line of duty, not a love triangle, his widow wouldn't have the public humiliation of our affair. Fred said I owed Mateo that much. And you,” she said to Arianna. “I owed it to you. I knew that. He loved you so much.”

Arianna's stomach twisted. It made her sick to think of her father talking about her with the woman he was sleeping with.
I didn't know you at all, did I, Dad?

“Then my father discovered the truth,” Joe said.

“At some point. I don't know when.”

“He would've learned about the fight Mateo and Fred broke up between you and Rollie just by running your name in the computer. He would've known that they were the responding officers,” Joe said. “Made the connection. Known Rollie was a potential suspect.”

“I suppose. Your father came to me after a couple of weeks, just when I got out of the hospital, and said they got the killer.”

“They?”

“I don't know who he meant.”

“Then how did he know who the killer was if neither you nor Fred Zamora identified him?”

“I never asked for the name, and he never told me. But he looked at me like he knew I'd been holding back. Then he walked out. I never saw him again. And Rollie disap
peared.” She closed her eyes, exhaustion lining her face. “That's all I can tell you. Honest. There's nothing more.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “Please go now. And please don't ever come back. I've paid for what happened, in ways you don't know. I will pay until the day I die.”

Arianna headed for the door. Mary Beth was right. There was nothing left to say.

In Joe's car a few minutes later tension thickened the air, hot and heavy. She waited for him to start the conversation, but he didn't. He gripped the steering wheel. His jaw clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched. She swallowed against the ache in her throat. Was she better off knowing what she knew now? Would ignorance be better? It would be easier, of course, but better? She needed time to let everything sink in before she could answer that question.

Their silence continued as they entered Joe's house. He went directly into the dining room and started boxing up all the paperwork pertaining to the case—his father's notes and his own. She stacked hers, intending to take them with her.

Should she gather her personal items, too, the things she'd brought in order to stay overnight with him?

Suddenly Joe went rigid, his hands resting on the back of a dining room chair, his head bowed. She waited.

Finally he spoke. “So. You have your answers.”

“Yes.” The word echoed in her chest, hollow now. “My father was shot by his mistress's jealous boyfriend—former boyfriend. It was planned. A cold-blooded murder.”

“Do you wish you'd never gone searching for the truth?”

“I was asking myself that on the way here. I don't know how I feel about that yet.” She moved closer to him. He straightened, almost backing away. “How about you?”

“I don't have answers, only more questions.”

“Yes.” She put a hand on his arm, like touching steel. “What will you do?”

“I will wonder forever if my father was involved in a cover-up, as it appears.”

She was so glad she hadn't told him about her mother and his father. Glad he wouldn't be burdened with that, too.

“You probably need to get to your office,” he said, pulling back.

She decided he needed time to come to terms with what he'd learned. “I do,” she said, then hesitated a few seconds. “Should I come back after work?”

He nodded.

She moved close to him. His eyes were vacant. She framed his face with her hands and kissed him softly. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

She took a few steps then turned back, an ache settling around her heart. “It happened a long time ago, Joe.”

“Yeah.”

If the situation were reversed she wouldn't want him trying to pacify her, so she left him to deal with the first blows alone, as she would want for herself. But the office was the last place she wanted to be.

More amazing than that—for the first time in her life, she was in love.

 

Joe stood in the dining room for several minutes after Arianna left. First he watched her car drive off. Then a slow-motion replay ran through his head. She'd kissed him goodbye.

He pulled up a chair and sat. What did it mean? She'd resisted kissing him hello and goodbye until now, and he
hadn't known why. Now he was just as confused by the fact that she had kissed him.

In sympathy? Probably. Likely, he decided.

His cell phone rang. He roused himself to pull it from his pocket, but didn't recognize the caller's number listed on the tiny screen. “Joe Vicente,” he said, striving for a normal voice.

“This is Paloma Clemente. Your lieutenant gave me your number. I'm very sorry to bother you, but I need to speak to my daughter.”

Joe massaged the bridge of his nose as he made the mental adjustment from coming to terms with what he'd learned—and not learned—about his father, and the reality of speaking with Arianna's mother. “She's not here, Mrs. Clemente. I imagine you can get her on her cell, though.”

“I've been trying for days. She doesn't answer. I leave messages she doesn't return.”

“Give her time.”

“My daughter doesn't forgive and forget easily. If I don't push, she'll keep me out of her life for a much longer period of time.”

He didn't want to get in the middle of the mother-daughter battle. “I don't know what to tell you.”

“You're probably angry at me, too.”

He heard something in her voice—resignation or apology, he didn't know which. “Angry?”

“Because of my relationship with your father. I'm sorry. Truly sorry.”

Her relationship with his father?

“Please ask Arianna to call me, if you will. I'd really appreciate it. Goodbye.”

His arm hit the table hard, his cell phone smacking the wood. Her relationship with his father? What the hell did she mean by that? And she'd said it in a way that had to
mean Arianna knew, and that Paloma assumed Arianna had told him.

Her relationship with his father?

Dove.
Joe sat up. Paloma meant dove. Her husband, Estebán, had even called her that, Joe remembered suddenly. He'd been too focused on Arianna that afternoon, on her reaction to what she was learning about her father.

Dove. He'd seen the word in his father's notebook.

He grabbed the papers then searched through his own index of the shorthand his father had used. Dove—the word was found on several pages, starting about a week after the murder. Before that, she was identified as P.A., for Paloma Alvarado.

He read it all, the references to P.A. and to “dove.” The subtle shift from the cop's widow to woman.

Flames torched his stomach, crept up his esophagus. More deceit. More lies. His father and Arianna's mother. He had cheated, just as Jane had implied.

And Arianna knew. He'd praised her honesty, had valued it. And she'd been lying all along. Surely she'd seen the references to “dove” in the notes and known it was her mother.

It hurt more than Jane giving him back his ring. That, at least, had been honest. This was deception at its worst, playing on his emotions, not giving him credit for being able to deal with the truth. Making independent decisions that affected him. Not honoring him and his right to know, as if he were a child.

And by the woman he'd already placed above any other he'd known.