20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(64)

Nardone and Sennick were being released in the morning.

Healy was still in the ICU.

Leonard Barkley, damn him, was still at large.

I got home at around eight. Mrs. Rose had fed Julie, but she was still awake, and hungry again. So we split a bowl of leftover noodle soup. Plus a salad. I insisted on greens. Plus a glass of wine for me. Because I deserved it. Plus a cookie for Julie because she demanded it. And one for me, just because.

By nine Julie was sleeping with Martha and Mrs. Mooey Milkington. I was standing in the shower, still streaming adrenaline out to my fingertips. The hot water beat at my bruises, but my mental and muscular tension was unrelenting.

I was occupied with my hydrotherapy and churning thoughts when I heard Joe calling me.

“Lindsayyy. I’m hooome.”

I yelled toward the bathroom door. “Don’t come in!”

“You’re joking.”

“I have to prepare you first.”

“Prepare me? I’m starting to worry.”

“Aw, nuts,” I said. “Come on in.”

Joe slowly inched the door open, so that by the time he was fully standing in the doorway, I was ready to scream. I parted the curtain just enough to show my face. He stared.

“What happened, Blondie?”

“Can I tell you later? It’s not that interesting and I’d rather you go first.”

Joe brought a towel over to the shower, pulled back the curtain, turned off the taps, and wrapped me in a white terry-cloth bath sheet. He helped me step over the side of the tub and took me into his arms. His tenderness so moved me that tears welled up and spilled over, and then cry, I did.

“What happened, sweetie?” he said. “Don’t tell me you walked into a door.”

“I got punched in the face.”

“Look at me, Lindsay.”

I looked into Joe’s eyes and remembered when, not long ago, while he was attempting to rescue people from a bombed glass-and-steel building, a second bomb had gone off. A heavy structure had fallen on his head, and I had thought I would lose him. The operation to relieve the pressure on his brain had been successful. He was as smart and funny as always. His brain was intact, and now he also had a winding scar road from the top of his head to behind his left ear.

“Lindsay?”

I returned to the moment and my dear husband kissed each of my eyes and then my split lip very carefully.

I said, “Please take me to bed.”

Joe picked me up as if I were weightless and carried me to our king-size pillow-top mattress. He laid me down and stripped off his clothes. Then he got under the covers and took me into his arms again, this time stroking me while I only wrapped my arms around his neck.

He made love to me tenderly, but I was in a different kind of mood. I was reeling from adrenaline overload. I felt the punch to my face and the one I’d thrown. I was charged up about Barkley—the beating he’d given to Healy and that he’d gotten away, again. I was enraged about that and couldn’t find relief.

I said, “I need …”

“Tell me.”

“I need to push back.”

He pinned my wrists to the bed with his big hands and I submitted. Then I got free, turned him onto his back. He gave me what I wanted and more, and I gave him as good as I got. I couldn’t remember when making love with my husband had ever been more satisfying, more cleansing, and at such a deep level—and it was because I loved and trusted him entirely.

Afterward we lay on our backs, touching side to side, hands clasped together, and then Joe rolled over and looked into my eyes.

“Who hit you? I want his name and contact information.”

I laughed. I laughed some more. And when I was all laughed out, I told him about the saloon fight in a country church cemetery and that the guy who’d hit me was in jail awaiting arraignment.

And I told Joe that I loved him.

He said, “No kidding. I love you, too.”

“I know. Put your clothes back on.”

He swatted my butt. We dressed, and after we looked in on our little girl, we walked our family dog in the moonlight.

I thanked God that we were all well and together.

I counted my blessings.





CHAPTER 93





THE NEXT MORNING I called Claire’s hospital room—again.

Edmund had been keeping me up to date on her condition through texts, and I’d sent messages to her through various nurses, who’d passed them on. But Claire hadn’t called, and all that I could learn from Edmund was that she was healing from the surgery, walking a little more every day.

I missed her and wanted very much to get my own sense of how she was feeling. I wanted to hear in her own voice how she felt, and I had a couple of tales to tell her.

I called her as I dressed for work—and she actually answered the phone.

There was a moment of stunned silence before I said, “Claire?”

“Who were you expecting?”

“You’re awfully fresh. I’ve been worried out of my mind.”

She laughed, and that cheered me up, but I was still feeling both worried and in need of a one-on-one conversation.

“When are they sending you home?”

“I guess that’s up to the parole board.”

“Yer a riot, Butterfly. Are you free for lunch?”