Taste of Grief (Just One Bite #3) (11 page)

Lizbeth nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, even Peters can't
turn a blind eye to all these facts," she said calmly, trying to put her
inner thoughts into words. "I know a reporter I can trust, too. I'll see
if I can set up an interview and be listed only as an anonymous source. I can't
be listed as a source close to the investigation, or even a source inside the
precinct. Maybe I can go under as a friend of someone there." She shook
her head. "I'll straighten it all out tomorrow. Let's go inside."
Lizbeth went around and opened the door for Dia- an excuse to hold her close.

"Yes," Dia whispered. "Our daughter is waiting,
and after she goes to sleep? Well, I'll be waiting for you- you have a promise
to keep." Her smile was wicked as she opened the front door and gave her
round little ass a shake. Lizbeth laughed long and loud as she followed her
into the house and turned her thoughts to brighter things.

After another of Adrian's fantastic dinners, Diandra sat at
the desk in her parlor to work on some of her charity's paperwork while Lizbeth
took RaeLynn upstairs for her bath. She adjusted the water to the right temperature
for the baby's sensitive skin and putting the plug into the tub to fill, she
carried her into the nursery to grab jammies and lay out a fresh diaper on the
changing table for after the bath. Grabbing a hooded towel, she went back to
the bathroom and turned the water off. Sitting down on the wide ledge of the
bathtub, she held RaeLynn steady with one arm while she took off her outfit and
wet diaper before placing her into the tub. Rae immediately slammed her tiny
hands, palms down, onto the surface of the water, sending tiny spurts up into
the air. The baby giggled, a bright, happy sound, and some of the remaining
pain and doubt eased in her chest. A tightness around her eyes eased, and she
laughed, long and loud, in response to the baby's happiness.

She let the splashing continue for some time until the water
started to cool, then she called a halt to playtime to get Rae nice and clean. Nearly
seven months old, her curls brushed the top of her tiny bottom when they were
wet, so Lizzie took great care to get them completely cleaned. Her hair was
unusually thick, taking after her mother in that regard, so it paid to be as thorough
as possible. She rinsed the now golden brown locks, careful to keep the shampoo
and water out of Rae's eyes before taking a soft washcloth and cleaning her,
top to toes. When the baby was scrubbed a healthy pink, Lizbeth drained the tub
and scooped the baby up, wrapping her a bit clumsily in the towel. It had been
awhile since she'd bathed RaeLynn, and she admitted to herself that she'd
missed this bonding time.

Back in the bedroom she dried the baby as thoroughly as
she'd cleaned her, and then rubbed her down with lavender lotion before putting
the clean diaper on and dressing her in her footie pajamas. The mint green of the
jammies brought out the reddish highlights in her curly hair and brightened her
sleepy purple eyes. Not nearly as obvious a purple shade as her mother's eyes,
if the baby wore blue you could almost say that her eyes were a deep blue
color. Somehow green made her eyes seem more of a cornflower blue with light
purple specks in them. Sitting in the rocking chair feeding RaeLynn her bottle,
Lizbeth couldn't help but dwell on each detail of that tiny face, soaking it
all in. It'd been so long since she'd had a chance to spend one-on-one time
with their daughter- for Rae truly felt as much hers as Diandra's- and she had
jumped at the chance tonight. She felt just as calm and peaceful as the baby,
and fought a wave of sleepiness as RaeLynn went still in her arms and her
breathing became more regular.

She carried the baby to her crib, placing a gentle kiss on
those little rosebud lips before laying her down and tucking a blanket up
around her shoulders. She knew Rae would kick them off in no time at all, but
it was part of the routine, and tonight that's what she needed- a slice of
stability in her oh-so hectic life. She took the empty bottle and unscrewed it,
throwing the pieces into a bucket of water by the bedroom door. That, too, was
Adrian's addition to the household. He took the bucket downstairs each day,
emptied it, and refilled it was clean water. Then the women didn't need to take
it downstairs themselves but could go straight to bed if they wished, and there
was no risk of bottles going sour overnight from sitting closed and empty. She
marveled at the idea- for someone with no children, he sure had creative ideas
for taking care of RaeLynn's stuff.

She went into the bedroom and stripped off her clothes. She
climbed naked into their large bed and prepared to read a book while she waited
for Diandra to come to bed. She wanted to be awake to spend some quality time
worshiping her lover's body, and hoped reading one of her favorite books would
keep her entertained in the meantime. She didn't notice that each blink took
longer than the last. Fifteen minutes is all it took before her eyes wouldn't
open after a particularly long blink. When Diandra finally came upstairs, she
found Lizbeth snoring lightly, her paperback lying across her chest with one
arm cradling it to her like a treasured toy. Smiling to herself, she took the
paperback and put a bookmark in it to hold Lizbeth's place before putting it
back on the nightstand. She undressed, turned out the light, and climbed into
bed. She spooned her body around Lizzie's and joined her in sleep.

Lizbeth woke up feeling refreshed, but slightly guilty. She
felt as if she'd forgotten something, but she couldn't quite remember what it
was. It wasn't until she rolled over on her side that she remembered what it
was- she was waiting up for Diandra. They had made plans to make love that night,
but somehow she just couldn't stay awake long enough to wait for her to finish
her paperwork. A small grin quirked the corners of her mouth as she decided to
wake her love up in the best possible way. She leaned over, trailing
feather-light down the side of Diandra's neck. Dia wiggled a little in her
sleep but didn't wake. Lizbeth was enjoying herself, kissing her way lower,
moving the blankets mere inches at a time. When she made her way to the sweet
spot between Dia's thighs, she was still planting light kisses, her breath
fanning lightly over those tanned, trim legs.

Diandra woke when Lizbeth pressed the flat of her tongue at
the bottom of that heat and licked a hard, thick line up. Startled lilac eyes
locked onto amused sky blue ones. "Good morning, baby," Lizzie said
with a smile before returning to the activity that had her so contented.

Dia grasped a handful of the sheets in each hand, her heels
pressed firmly to the bed while her hips bucked wildly. She felt as though the
top of her head would fly off from the pleasure of it all. She'd never been
woken up in quite this fashion, but she found she could all too easily come to
live for nothing less. Lizbeth's tongue was moving expertly- one moment lapping
at her body like a cat with a bowl of milk, the next tensing her tongue and
probing inside much the way she would with fingers. Her tongue found that bud
of pleasure and pressed firmly, barely moving at all- she merely flexed the
muscles and released, over and over again. She felt Diandra's muscles clench
and she carefully inserted two fingers inside that warm passage, flicking the
tips against that spongy spot just inside, over and over again. With a scream,
Diandra's orgasm flowed through her body, running over Lizbeth's fingers and
down to that searching tongue. Lizzie increased the pace, drawing the pleasure
out until the orgasms ran together in a never-ending wave. Finally spent, Dia cried
out one final time and her body trembled against the mattress. Lizbeth kissed
her way back up, much the way she had started. "Good morning, baby,"
she repeated.

"Mm, yes it is," Dia gasped out. She reached
surreptitiously into the drawer of her nightstand while Lizbeth turned her back
and reached down, struggling to grasp her robe without actually getting up.
When she turned around again, the robe slipped from her fingers to puddle back
on the floor. Diandra had the duel-penetration dildo in her hand, and was
slipping half of it inside her own body. She watched, transfixed by the sight
of the dark blue toy slipping inside, inch by slow inch. She barely noticed
when Diandra pushed her back against the pillows, but her attention flew to
Dia's face when she found herself straddled by those firm thighs.

"Did you think you were going to get away with no
pleasure of your own?" Dia whispered as she slid the other head between
Lizbeth's legs. She rode her lover slowly at first, picking up the tempo in
ever increasing increments, her hands molding those small, perfect breasts and
kneading them like they were dough. She leaned down, her teeth lightly pulling
at the tips of those pearly pink nipples, sucking first one into her mouth,
then switching sides to do the same to the other. She felt Lizbeth's hips arch
off the bed, listened to her own name moaned from between those lovely lips.
Only then did she allow her own release so they came back down to Earth
together in a limp bundle of twitching nerve endings and twin hearts full of
love.

When Lizbeth arrived at work she was surprised to find
Lieutenant Peters waiting for her in her office. She muttered a curse under her
breath but went in and stood before her desk, as he was sitting behind it in
her chair. "Lizbeth, I was wondering when you'd get here," he said as
he made a point of frowning down at his watch. He was dressed in a navy blue
suit with the stereotypical red power tie over a white dress shirt. Red, white
and blue, she thought condescendingly, what a patriot he is.

"My shift doesn't start for another fifteen minutes,
Lieu," she said, glancing at her watch to make her own point.

He furrowed his brow- in consternation or confusion, she
wasn't sure. "Yes, well, I expected you here much earlier. If you want to
remain lead detective, I would have thought you'd be spending every waking
moment on this case. Especially considering your… close relationship with
Thompson," he said, and the innuendo was clear in his voice.

 
"Alexar was a
good man, and a wonderful friend," Lizbeth said coldly. "I'm grateful
he took a chance on me when most people would have written off hiring me as a
bad bet. He took me under his wing and helped me clear my name. He's been a
good friend to me," she stopped and had to clear her suddenly thick
throat. "I mean, he was a good friend to me, and he was an even better one
to Diandra after her husband's murder," she finished.

Peters looked thoughtful. "Yes, that was quite a
tragedy. Jonah was a good man, and his death was a horrible thing to have
happen. Both these deaths cast quite a shadow over this precinct."

Lizbeth struggled to keep her face neutral as she said,
"Yes, Jonah was certainly something else." Her words would most
likely be taken as a compliment instead of the insult they truly were. "In
any case, what do you mean about lead detective? I assumed this case would go
to someone with more… I don't know, more experience, or more time in the department.
A higher rank, maybe- I certainly didn't expect it to be my case."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "I can pass it off to
someone else, if you prefer. I thought you'd want to see this through, and see
if you can find the one producing the drug."

"That reminds me," Lizbeth said, and filled him in
on her theory about the case. "So you see
,
there
are too many coincidences at work here. I don't see how these people, with no
drug history, would find a dealer distributing a dosage high enough to kill
them with their first use. It doesn't make sense."

Peters shook his head and her heart sank. "Pretty to
think so, isn't it? Maybe the tainted heroin case is too much on your mind. I
highly doubt there's a killer going around out there, seeking out random people
and injecting them with a lethal dosage of cocaine. There were no signs of a
struggle. Where's your evidence supporting this theory?"

"There's no evidence that says otherwise, either,"
Lizbeth shot back. "Alexar liked my theory, and that's the grounds we were
running the investigation on."

"Maybe you're not ready for this case," Peters
started to say.

Lizbeth cut him off. "No, I can handle it, and you're
right- I want to do this for Alexar." She put the thought out of her mind
that no one would ever be tried for this case. There was no way in Hell the
evil bastard behind the whole thing would allow himself to be caught, tried,
and convicted. "I'll do my best to keep an open mind, okay?"

Peters nodded and got up out of her chair. Stepping towards
the door, he turned to look at her as he replied, "If you need extra hands
on this one, just ask. And if I feel like you're over your head, well, you'll
have extra hands at your disposal regardless."

Lizbeth stood in the office, head bowed as she swore like a
trucker. Somehow, she had to find a way to make this right, if only to keep her
job. She'd get justice for Alexar- she swore it to Carson the other morning on
the phone. But how could she get justice against a man who wouldn't be brought
before a court?

Lizbeth spent a very unproductive day trolling the streets
and checking in with her CI's, trying to find new information, something,
anything that might lead to the arrest and conviction of someone for the
murders. Granted, she would never be able to arrest the right person, she knew
that, but surely she could tag someone for the crime. She'd make sure to arrest
someone actually guilty of a drug crime, but she would loop in the murders as
well. She knew it wasn't legal, and her heart actually hurt at the idea of
framing someone for these overdose murders, but it's not like she'd be framing
an innocent- they would just be innocent of this particular crime.