Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(11)

She couldn’t have known. I told myself that all the time. She couldn’t have known.

I wore low-rider jeans and a white buttoned top. I left my dark hair down. I liked how it looked, a jolt of dark against the light.

Beneath, I wore the world’s tiniest champagne-colored demi-bra and a lace thong. I’m not the world’s biggest-built girl, but I know how to use what I have.

When Sheriff Wayne arrived, I could tell he was dismayed by the scene. The pretty table in the middle of a very small apartment. The scent of bubbling spaghetti sauce and cooking pasta.

I didn’t give him a chance to think about things.

Come in, come in, I said at once, all bright smiles and youthful exuberance. Sorry for the small space. It’s different living in the city. I took his coat before he had a chance to blink, hung it on the coatrack as I prattled away. I know we’d talked about going out, but I was a little nervous about having our conversation in public, so if he didn’t mind, I’d decided to throw together a little pasta and gravy. Not the best cook, still learning, yada yada yada.

What could the poor man say? What could the poor man do?

He assured me my apartment was very nice. The sauce smelled good. Of course we could eat in. Whatever made me more comfortable.

I sat him at the table, poured him a liberal glass of red wine. Nothing for myself; that would’ve been inappropriate. I added some music. He didn’t strike me as a Nine Inch Nails kind of guy, so I went with light jazz.

We started with dinner salad. He sat stiffly, not touching his wine, keeping his eyes on his plate. He had aged well. Squarely built, solid but not fat. Gray hair on top of a broad, mustached face. He moved concisely, with an economy of motion that appealed to me.

He asked about my aunt, my schooling, my plans for the future. I painted for him a light overview of my new and improved life. It was what he needed to hear; once, he’d carried me through my father’s house, his arms tight around my bony shoulders, his voice a warm whisper in my ear. “Don’t look honey. You’re safe now, you’re safe.”

I dished up penne pasta. Covered it in red sauce.

Then I got serious.

I didn’t ask about my father. Instead, I dredged from Sheriff Wayne’s memory all the bright, shining moments of my mother’s laugh and Johnny’s mischievous ways and Natalie’s compassion for animals. Turns out, my sister had once adopted a wild bunny she’d found struck by a car and nursed it back to health. She wanted to work with animals. I learned that from Sheriff Wayne. And my brother liked to climb to the tops of trees, then call for my mother to come see, so she could raise her hands and shriek in mock horror.

The memories got to him, of course. Hurt him even more than me, because these people remained real in his mind, whereas they’d long ago become ghosts to me.

The wine went quickly. Who could blame him?

He offered to clear the dishes. I watched him move around in my tiny kitchenette, gestures less steady after two hours of intense emotions, plus a full bottle of Chianti. He stacked the dishes in the sink. Rinsed each one. Placed them in a pile to soak. Then the pans. Then his wineglass. Then my water glass. Two forks. Two spoons. Two knives.

When he returned to the table, I could see the effects of the evening in the haggard lines of his face. He tried to speak, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Shhh,” I said. “Shhh …”

As I undid the first button of my top, then the second, then the third, exposing, inch by inch, long lines of bare, bronzed skin, a lacy wisp of lingerie.

“Don’t,” he said. “You shouldn’t … not right—”

“Shhh …”

I straddled his lap. I let my shirt fall open, rocking my hips gently against his groin. He tried to protest again, his mouth forming faint words that I pretended not to hear. I feathered my hands through his buzz-cut hair. I touched the solid lines of his shoulders. And I felt his body start to respond as my white shirt drifted down to the floor, as I arched my back and offered myself to him.

“Danielle …” A last desperate plea.

“Shhh …”

I led his mouth to my breast. When I felt his lips finally close over my lace-covered nipple, the need that swept over me, the pure need, cut deeper than any grief ever had.

I took him, the man who’d once saved me, and for a brief moment, he was mine.



It was only years later, after completing my studies and embarking on a career in the psychiatric field, that I finally understood the damage I’d done to Sheriff Wayne that night. I’d hurt, and I’d branded him with that pain, forcing him to carry the scar of my wounds, a decent man who had to live out his days with his wife, his children, his grandchildren, knowing there was one night he didn’t measure up to his standards as a husband, father, protector of the community.

Afterward, when I slept at night, I could no longer hear his voice. I was alone with the blood and the cordite. No one carried me out of my father’s house anymore.

I suppose it was the least I deserved.





| CHAPTER

FIVE





They wrapped the scene at 11:53 p.m. Not that they were done with it, but they were done for now. The detectives returned to HQ for a case conference. An entire unit can start a case, but an entire unit can’t end one. For that, they needed the point person, the one detective’s head that would rest in the noose if the job didn’t get done.