Sterling's Reasons (22 page)
“No you didn’t.” She grinned up at him.
He looked at her then, really looked for the first time since he’d gotten back.
She was stubborn. He’d known that. She was a Pollyanna and he’d known that, so why should he expect her to take this incident seriously? Because he told her to. “I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go. I’ve got to get back to Washington and find out what’s going on.”
“You can do that from here. The phones work. Notify the police down here.”
She persisted. “It’s their job to protect their citizens. And we are vacationing here, you know.”
“Stop it, Sterling. It won’t work anymore. You can’t coerce me any longer and you certainly can’t convince me that you’re not the least bit scared of getting killed.”
She slammed the book to the floor. “Oh, I’m scared all right. But I’m not leaving you. What do you suppose I would be doing back in New York? Walking in circles, biting my nails. Working on the reports for the next case, gazing off into the distance thinking about Joe. Wondering every time the phone rang what the news would be. Would it be you announcing you were getting on a plane to come get me?” She paused only long enough to draw a deep breath. “Or there is always the possibility that you wouldn’t get back with me at all. I don’t plan on letting you go, not now. Not when you’ve become all that is right with me.”
She went to the refrigerator and lifted out a Coke. Getting ice and filling a glass, she glanced over her shoulder. He was so still. If only she could read his
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mind. “Every time the phone rings I would wonder if it was the police telling me to come and say good-bye to you.”
“That’s what she said. My wife. She said she couldn’t live with the uncertainty.” His voice was a whisper. Sterling thought for a moment he was just thinking aloud.
He compared her with his ex-wife, who obviously hadn’t loved him at all.
That made her mad. She willed herself to cool down. “I’m not your ex-wife. I’m Sterling Powell. I didn’t say I couldn’t live with it. I said, I’m staying here with you.”
Dangerously calm, he replied flatly, “I won’t ask you to.”
She stopped with the drink halfway to her mouth. He wouldn’t ask her to?
She sipped the drink. “Ask me to what, stay or live with it?”
He turned then, his mouth drawn in a grim line. Tired, fatigue etched its way across his face. “Either.”
Willing to let the subject drop for now, Sterling faced him squarely. “I see.
Then there’s certainly not much sense in continuing this altercation. How about a swim?”
He knew she hadn’t completely lost her mind. He smiled indulgently.
“Water’s too cold. It’s dangerous for us to be out in the open.”
“Probably is,” she agreed readily. “Dangerous and cold.” She walked to the deck and sauntered brazenly down the steps. She should be explaining what she learned from talking to Ramsburg. She could tell him about what she found out front. She should be joining him in devising a plan.
Instead, she ran, fully clothed, into the ocean. The water was freezing. The shock of it had her moving quickly. Waves boxed her around and splashed her face with ice. She ducked under the first crest, hoping the even temperature would warm her a little.
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She wanted to feel anything, anything other than the terror that wormed its way around her heart. She wanted to be cold, be miserable…anything but afraid.
She stood up, shivering, her lips turning blue. It was too early to even consider being in the water. Waving her arms to the man who was watching from the deck, she shouted, “Come on in, cop, the water’s fine.”
He shook his head. This lady was crazy. But no crazier than he was to care about her. “No way,” he shouted down at her. “I don’t get my boots wet.”
She taunted him with names and teased and challenged him until he walked down the steps to watch her. “You’re turning blue. Get out of there. You’ll get sick.”
She didn’t miss how his eyes scanned and took in everything, from their isolation on the beach to the way her wet clothes clung to her body. She was nuts. She had to agree with him this time. She was frigid.
Come out
here, Joe,
she said to the waves beating around her.
Learn to let go. Learn to do all these stupid
things
and enjoy it
.
I thought you were beginning to understand.
Cupping her hands around her mouth to assist the words to his ears, she shouted, “Some people swim in sub-zero-degree water every day. It gets the circulation moving. Makes the adrenaline rush. Come on. Try it.” She challenged one more time.
He thought a minute and then stopped. He didn’t like thinking. So far she had shown him that sometimes
no
thoughts were good. Action was better than meditation. He shed his boots, still not sure he should do this. He unzipped his jeans and shoved them down and off. The last to go was his shirt, and he threw it to the ground while he ran, lest he change his mind.
She watched, gleefully. He was a handsome man. His body was toned and tuned into a powerful machine of confidence and strength. She grinned at his nakedness. He was magnificent.
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He ran to the water and, doubling up, cannon-balled into the first big wave that rolled in. The shock of it was enough to stop his breathing, but then it passed and he was cutting through the cold water, feeling very much alive…and very much in favor of drowning her.
They shivered. They swam. They choked. They turned a light blue. Their blood circulated to compensate and they wrestled and chased each other. For ten minutes, they forgot their problems and frolicked like kids on summer vacation.
Joe kept trying to put his finger on a brand-new emotion that had stirred in him for her. It was still elusive. It niggled him.
He watched her. She was all things rolled into one. She was temptress, she was child; she was scatterbrained, she was deadly intelligent. He pulled her to him and tossed her back into the waves. Nothing could happen to her. And especially not because of him.
She was the first to break for the cottages at a dead run. He shouted and ran after her, scooping up his clothes along the way. By the time he reached the inside of his cottage, she had the warm water running in the shower and was half shed of her clothes.
He stopped in the doorway of the bathroom and watched unabashedly as she struggled to rid herself of her clinging, freezing-wet clothes.
“Help,” she demanded between chattering teeth.
He walked over lazily and helped yank her T-shirt over her head. Her jeans were a little more difficult. They fought them together. And then they were in the shower, both reveling in the warm water. He reached behind her and slowly adjusted the knob until the water was hotter. They both sighed.
She threw her arms around his neck and leaned into him. The water plastered their hair to the top of their heads and rolled down cool bodies, to warm and soothe. She moaned, low in her throat.
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He took the bar of soap and began to trace lazy circles across her back, down over her bottom and her legs and back up again.
She took the soap from him and lathered bubbles over his chest, his muscled arms, and his stomach and down…
The water beat over them. Steam filled the room. He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him. Throwing her head back, she challenged him with a look and bit his bottom lip gently. He grinned and shifted.
He filled her. With one smooth motion, he was inside her. For a moment he held her still, hard against him. She felt him tighten within her. Sterling pulled him even closer with her legs. “My Joe,” she whispered against his lips.
Later, the kittens fed and fussed over, Sterling sat on the kitchen floor with Elliott in her arms. “I think he’s sick.” She examined him. His eyes were shut again and he seemed to be so much thinner than the others.
Joe put the newspaper aside and watched them from his chair. He couldn’t let her keep exposing herself to some unknown danger. He didn’t fully understand why she kept insisting on it. Her head was tilted down as she talked soothingly to the kitten. She looked like a child at this moment. She glanced up at him and smiled. His heart constricted.
Clearing his throat, he sat back in the chair and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. Aching tension made him touchy. “Nothing in this one about the case.”
“Where did you go when you left here?” she asked him, petting the kitten.
“I drove up and down some of the streets. Not much action. A few cars.
None I recognized. I picked up this paper and came back the long way.
Nothing.”
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She had to tell him. She had put it off long enough. “I think it’s Red’s father. I called Mr. Ramsburg and he told me that he was making a fuss.” She watched the expression on Joe’s face go from confusion to hurt.
“Red’s father. Sam?” he asked incredulously.
“He claims the investigation was incomplete. He thinks you were negligent and should be charged.” She dragged out the last words, hoping to ease the cut they would have.
“Sam?” he said again, disbelievingly. He got up and began to prowl again.
She put Elliott back in his box and stood up. “Were you good friends with Red’s family?”
“Sam lived with Red and his family ever since his wife died. Yes. I spent Christmas with them, Thanksgiving. Sometimes the whole family would go to the hunting cabin in Cumberland with us for a fishing trip. We went on picnics and I pushed the kids on the swing.” The memories hurt, bringing new waves of pain.
She tried to picture that. This big, smoke-blowing, slightly wild-looking dragon pushing little kids on swings, gently, methodically, and probably smiling the whole time.
“Doesn’t make sense then. Unless Red’s father is losing it. Is he an old man?”
“Not that old.” He made a move toward the phone.
“Don’t, Joe.” Giving him time to absorb some of this, she took his hand and led him to the couch. Pulling him down, they sat close together.
“I found something outside after you left. I have a feeling that if you called Red’s house, you might find that his father isn’t there.”
“What? What did you find?”
“Come on.” She led him to the bedroom and brought the items out for him to see.
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He read the message on the cardboard and handled his gun. He was glad to see it. The note…Red’s father? He didn’t think so.
He shook his head. “No. It doesn’t fit.”
“Did you go to the funeral?”
“No, I didn’t think it would make it any easier on the family. Besides, I don’t think I could have handled seeing the kids just then. I went over a few days later, before I came here, and talked to Jessica.”
“His wife? How was she?”
“Just as you would expect. Shocked. Dazed. We were close. Brother-and-sister type thing. When she saw me she just held onto me for a few minutes.”
“And his father? He was there then?”
He shook his head in the affirmative. “He was just sitting in a chair by the window. He does that a lot. He likes to see what goes on outside.”
She knew he didn’t want to suspect him, but she had to explore it. “Did you tell them you were coming here?”
“I don’t remember. I think I told them I was going away for a while. I can’t recall if I said where. Damn.”
“I’ll call their house and ask for him. What’s the number?” She got up and went to the phone.
He was silent a moment, and then looked up at her. “Even if he’s not there, it doesn’t mean it’s him.”
She agreed with a shake of her head. “But if he
is
there, then we know it isn’t.”
He fished his wallet from his back pocket and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of it, handing it to her.
She dialed the number and waited while it rang, afraid he would answer and afraid he wouldn’t. No one answered.
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Sterling returned the receiver to the cradle. “One thing for sure is that whoever is doing this isn’t planning on killing you, just torturing you.”
“Not necessarily so.” He paced toward the door again and watched the ocean roll and pitch, ebb and flow. It hadn’t changed. It hadn’t stopped. It just moved on staunchly and refused to be bothered by anything. Eternity. The word floated across Joe’s mind. He moved to stand quietly in front of the glass door.
“It don’t mean nothin’ ” He spoke the words aloud without realizing it.
Sterling heard them, and all her attention was centered on Joe. She got up from the couch to stand behind him. Putting her arms around him, she pressed a kiss to his back. “That is the coldest phrase I’ve ever heard.”
“In the realm of things, all things being equal, nothin’ don’t mean nothin’,”
he repeated wearily.
Her voice was quiet and fierce. “You mean something, Joe. I mean something. We mean something. How can you say that?”
He continued to stare at the ocean, but he dropped his hands to his waist to cover hers; to hold tight to her hands.
Tired, he explained. “Certain times, certain things. In Vietnam many phrases were coined, but I guess that one got me and most of the other men through.
Because when you think about it…nothin’ don’t mean nothin’. If you get blown up, you’re gone. It’s over. You’re replaced by someone else. Anything that happened over there…it couldn’t mean anything. If it did you could never have made it day after damn day. It takes a while to come to understand it. Maybe someday you will.” He leaned back and just let himself feel how good it was to have her there. Behind him. Turning, he hugged her close.
“Teach me, Joe, teach me what it means.”
“I don’t want you here,” he murmured against her hair. He couldn’t risk losing her. Not now.
