The Delilah Complex (17 page)

W
e lay on the couch afterward, wrapped in each other, stuck together from our sweat and the heat we were still generating. He kept kissing me. And I didn’t stop him. For a long time, I floated on his lips until the sensations calmed and I remembered who I was. And who I was with.

“If you will stay out of my head,” I said, pulling back, ending the kiss, not even realizing I had answered a question he had not asked out loud.

He nodded. Not in assent. Just in acknowledgment that he had heard me.

“That’s wrong, Morgan. You need me in your head. You need to be able to talk to me. You need me to be able to listen to you.”

“You can’t not push, can you?”

“You didn’t mind my pushing ten minutes ago.”

“Don’t,” I said. Despite his levity, I was scared. And, of course, he knew it. So he moved away, reached for the long-abandoned drink, took a long pull, then asked, “What is this, by the way?”

“Vodka, ice, lime juice.”

He nodded and took another long sip. “Not bad. See, you
can
cook.”

I smiled despite myself.

“Speaking of food…” Noah stood, pulled on his pants and went into my kitchen. I found him there after getting my robe. He had just opened the stove and, laughing, was pulling out the pathetic, once-frozen, now dried-out chicken entrée. He threw it into the garbage and said, “Real food, Morgan. You need to eat real food.”

He returned to the hallway and retrieved a plastic shopping bag that I hadn’t even seen him walk in with.

Back in the kitchen he withdrew packages and lined them up on the counter. Then he opened the cabinets and took out bowls and mixing spoons, a frying pan and a pot.

He put water on to boil. Cut two of the three lemons he’d brought and squeezed them into a measuring cup.

“Strainer?” he asked without turning around.

“Cabinet under the silverware drawer.”

I wanted to fight him. To get him out of there. And, just as strongly, I was so happy to sit down at the kitchen table and watch this impossibly sweet man cook for me that I didn’t know how to stop smiling. Just for tonight, I thought to myself, I will forget about what Nina warned me about; I will not worry about what is going to happen between Noah and me, not worry about the murders and the newspapers and the women in the Scarlet Society.

He opened a container of cream and poured it into a saucepan. After turning on the flame, he stirred it slowly. Watched it. Stirred it some more. After another minute, he poured in the lemon juice, stirred the liquids together, swirling them with a wire whisk, and then turned the flame down.

Listing the ingredients he assumed I had, he watched me as I pulled them out of the cabinets. Then, moving over to the sink, he unwrapped a package of fresh scallops and
washed them in the sink, gently, careful not to bruise the white flesh. Just as tenderly, he patted them down with a paper towel. His long fingers picked up one glistening scallop at a time and slowly dredged it, giving it a fine coat of flour, salt and pepper. With a knife, he sliced off a knob of butter and set it in the pan to melt.

While he waited, he opened a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. By then, the butter was sizzling and Noah added the scallops to the pan. His whole body was intent on cooking this meal. The same way it had been focused on every inch of our bodies that had been touching fifteen minutes before.

The dry, crisp white wine he’d brought was an excellent accompaniment to the delicately lemon-flavored pasta and sautéed scallops. The tastes worked off one another— the buttery and salty flesh of the seafood giving up their perfume, softened by pasta coated with the lush cream, spiked with the tart lemon juice. For a few minutes, I didn’t say anything but just luxuriated in the food.

Mixed in with my admiration of the detective’s skill was a little resentment. I didn’t want to admire him. Or look at his too blue eyes and strong cheekbones, or watch his hands bringing forkfuls of food up to his mouth and remember—

“Why are you really here?” I asked, knowing, sadly, what I was doing. Sabotaging a lovely night. But I didn’t have any choice, did I?

He frowned. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to talk about that until after I’d made coffee. Want to take back the question? You’re allowed to do that, you know. It’s part of the rules when I make dinner. People who ruin the mood are allowed to retract their words. You have thirty seconds.” He looked at his wristwatch.

“Wish I could. Why, Noah?”

“I came here hoping to find out that your visit to me at the station was a personal one. That after seeing me at dinner last week, you’d decided that you’d been wrong last June. That you regretted having stood me up and wanted to make amends and start over.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t personal. I’m sorry.”

“Are you, really?” His voice was suddenly edged with sarcasm.

I hated hearing it and yet was relieved. I was back in control.

“Okay.” He gave a small sigh as if starting down this path was saddening him. “Why did you run out of the precinct then? You obviously came all the way downtown to see me. What made you change your mind?”

I shook my head. “Sorry, Noah. I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t?”

Damn, I’d given too much away with one word. I’d forgotten how sharp he was, like a magnet that picked up the slightest sliver of iron from a bushel of wood.

“We’ve followed Betsy Young. We know she’s been to your office. I should have realized she wasn’t just there to interview you. So she’s a patient.”

“No. I don’t know Betsy Young. I told you that last week.” I was confused. Why had he brought up the reporter now?

“You told me she’d interviewed you.”

“Right. Over the phone.”

“You never saw her, never met her?”

“No, Noah. I already told you that.”

“If that’s true, why did your eyes widen a mile when you saw her in the hall?”

I didn’t say anything. I was too surprised. Betsy Young? No. The woman Noah had been escorting out of his office
was Liz-without-a-last-name, from the Monday night Scarlet Society group, albeit with different hair.

Finally, I got it.

So that was why Betsy Young had called
me
to get a quote for her article on the first killing. She hadn’t thought of me because of my involvement in the Magdalene Murders at all.

Shelby Rush had told me that many of the women who belonged to the society slightly disguised themselves when they participated. I hadn’t questioned that. Of course they would. If they had any kind of public persona, they would want their participation in the society to be anonymous. And they couldn’t just show up in masks all the time. Hence wigs turning brown hair blond, sunglasses, hats. Certainly not all of them changed their appearances. But Betsy Young had.

“I thought she looked like someone I knew, Noah. Someone I didn’t expect to see there. It shook me up. I ran out. That’s it.”

“Is the person you saw with me a patient of yours, Morgan?”

“You know better than to even ask me that. If she were, I couldn’t tell you, anyway.”

“You’re right. And I don’t have to ask you. Because I already know. When I asked you why you ran out of the precinct, the first thing you said was
I can’t tell you
. Not I won’t tell you. Only one reason for that.”

He stood and picked up our plates. His shirt was unbuttoned and I looked away from his bare chest. Not wanting to think about his flesh now.

“Don’t do that, Noah. I’ll clean up after you go.”

“So, I’ve been dismissed?”

“I don’t know what you expect of me. You come over
here to seduce me and once that’s done you switch gears and start digging to get information that might help your case. How am I supposed to deal with all of that?” It was all I could manage not to scream. This had happened to us before. We’d gotten our roles mixed up. We’d crossed the line, and now I’d let it happen again. What was wrong with me?

I grabbed the plates—my plates—out of his hands. “This is my house. You can’t come in here and take over. Uninvited. You can’t.”

The dishes sounded as if they had shattered as I dropped them into the sink. I didn’t look to see if they had.

“You’re right,” he said in a low voice that curled around me like his arms had before.

Damn him for that, too. The easiest way to defuse someone’s anger is to apologize. And I couldn’t afford to have my anger defused. It was the only way I could get him a safe distance away.

I went back to the table to get the glasses and utensils. When I came back, Noah was standing at the sink filling my teakettle with water. In four steps I was by his side, pulling the kettle out of his hands and managing to splash myself and him with a wide arc of water.

“Glad that was still cold,” he said.

“This isn’t your kitchen!” I shouted. “I told you that.”

“What are you so mad about? You love my cooking. I remember that you loved my coffee, too. I even bought chicory.”

There was a whole subtext to what he was saying that I didn’t want to hear, because after he left, when I was alone again, I didn’t want to think about what else he’d implied.

He retrieved the kettle out of my hands before I realized what he was doing and finished filling it up.

“Noah, I’m asking you to get out of here. To leave me alone. And to give me back my goddamn kettle.”

Ignoring me, he put it on the stove, turned on the burner and proceeded to fill the French press with some freshly ground espresso beans that he’d also brought with him.

“You might as well just sit down and relax, because I haven’t had any coffee yet and I’m not leaving until I do. You know that about me.”

His arrogance infuriated me. He laughed. The New Orleans accent even affected his laugh. The peals were long and drawn out, like his words, like his legs, like his fingers. I turned away. I did not want to look at him anymore. I did not want to feel my insides bubbling up again.

I didn’t succeed.

Meanwhile, Noah took a pastry box out of the bag he’d brought with him, opened it and put the contents on a plate.

The raspberries glistened in their flaky tart crust.

“You can’t throw me out. I brought your favorite dessert.”

“You can’t know that. How do you know that?”

“You told me. Did you forget?”

I didn’t answer him.

The kettle started to sing and Noah returned to the stove to finish making the coffee.

“Take these,” he said, handing me the plate and two forks. He brought the French press and two mugs.

As he arranged everything on the table, he said, “You don’t have to tell me anything, Morgan. But you have to listen to me. There’s nothing stopping me from giving you information about this case.”

“Why would you want to do that?” The glistening raspberries were impossible to resist.

“Humor me.”

My fork slipped in between two berries, through the custard, and crunched into the crust.

“No. Explain.”

“Because I think you’re involved. I believe that Betsy Young is your patient and I am afraid that, by treating her, you could put yourself in danger. And that if or when that happens, you won’t come to me for help because of your professional integrity. Which, by the way, I think is very sexy no matter how infuriating it is. If I keep you informed, you will at least be able to protect yourself. And if, at some point, this case reaches a stage that’s dangerous enough that you won’t have to keep your information confidential, you might come to me.”

I lifted the fork to my mouth. The smooth and crunchy textures battled for prominence. The combined but distinct flavors of buttery crust, tart berries and sweet cream were a perfect excuse for me not to say anything.

Regardless of the words, no matter the conversation, Noah and I were spinning. We fluttered around each other like butterflies preparing to mate. They dance, they flirt, they advance and retreat. Some species, when they finally do perform coitus, stay locked together for as many as a dozen hours.

“One day,” Noah said in a voice so low I had to lean forward to hear him, “you’ll stop fighting me.”

“You’re so sure.” I had tried for a tone of voice that would suggest irritation.

“And you’re happy that I am.”

Obviously, I’d failed. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t ready to. And this time, Noah didn’t push.

Once we were finished, we left the table and moved into the living area. Noah took the chair near the window, making
clear his intention to continue the serious part of the conversation.

“We don’t have anything. Perez and I are flying blind. Shit, we can’t even find the damn bodies, Morgan. It’s a crisis situation the likes of which neither of us has ever dealt with. I need something. A connection between the men. A suggestion in one of the shots to indicate where the hell those bodies are. Just one reason that the killer wants the stories to break in the paper first.”

“I noticed something odd in the photos in your office.”

He nodded.

I continued, speaking slowly, thinking out exactly how to phrase my sentences. I didn’t question why I had finally decided to speak. Did not allow myself to doubt my decision. I was not betraying any confidence. I had not been told what I was going to tell him by any of my patients.

“The bottom of the men’s feet are dirty.”

He nodded.

“There are dozens of particles, scratches, rough spots, and there are the red numbers. But there was also a…mole…or a piece of dirt on Philip Maur’s right foot, just where the number started. And there was something similar on Timothy Wheaton’s right foot. Almost in the exact same place. At first, I just thought it was more dirt. But how could both men have a speck of dirt in precisely the same place?”

“That’s something either Perez or I should have noticed.”

“I could be wrong.”

He got up. Urgent now.

I was barely able to breathe. Over and over in my mind I repeated what I’d just said, satisfying myself that I hadn’t broken any confidence, just pointed out something I’d noticed.
Besides, I didn’t know what the mark was. I hadn’t asked the women in my group. There would have been no way to explain that I’d seen the photographs that close up, for one thing. It was only my guess that a group like the Scarlet Society would engage in some kind of ritualistic behavior and brand their men.