Becoming Rain (Burying Water #2)(24)
“Teaching Stanley not to bite people.”
I can’t help but chuckle.
“And going out with you.” There’s a smile in her voice.
I smile right along with her, because that’s exactly what I wanted her to say. “That’s right. You are.”
Chapter 10
CLARA
One of my strengths—and I don’t know if it’s a cop thing or just a Clara thing—is my peripheral vision. My brother jokes that I have extra sets of eyes hidden beneath my thick mane of hair.
I had my eye on Luke the entire time—when he stopped in the middle of his bedroom like he’d just walked into a wall, probably still dripping, towel wrapped around his lower half, to watch me. When he wandered over, adjusting his towel around himself repeatedly.
When I used my body to entice him.
My phone rang, and it took everything in my power not to look over when his voice filled my ear, knowing he was standing there. He didn’t warn me about the view. Didn’t mention it. I’m glad, given my phone is tapped. My surveillance team didn’t need to overhear that conversation. None of them would believe that I forgot to shut my blinds. I’m not supposed to open them to begin with.
I can’t believe I just did that. What would Warner say? What’s more, I can’t believe I don’t feel completely vile right now. I should. If I had done that for any of my past targets . . . My gag reflexes kick in just thinking about the last guy I busted—a beady-eyed pimp with greasy hair and a bad habit of spitting through the gap in his front teeth every few minutes. I quickly push those thoughts away and focus on the room across the way, now dark, wondering if Luke can so easily throw on a pair of pants and go out, or if he’s dealing with what I just did to him. I feel a burn course through my thighs at the thought, and admit to myself that I wish he hadn’t shut the lights off.
Good undercovers do what they have to do.
I think I’ve finally caught Luke Boone’s interest.
“You never call!”
“I called you three days ago, Mom.” I roll my eyes, dumping sugar into my coffee. Normally I need two cups in my body before I attempt a conversation with her. But when I pulled my personal phone out of the safe and saw that she had already called four times this morning, I panicked. “Don’t do that to me. I thought something happened to Dad.” At sixty-one years old, my dad has already been admitted to the hospital twice with chest pains and difficulty breathing. Between a diet of pasta, meat, and cheese and being a heavy smoker for forty-five years, the doctors say he’s a solid candidate for a heart attack. Fortunately, he quit smoking a few years ago, and my mom has managed to add one salad a day to his diet. Still . . . he’s far from healthy.
She ignores me and scolds in her thick accent, “Isabella calls Josephine every day. Every single day!”
I busy my mouth with a sip of coffee and let her go on about how her neighbors of twenty years—another Italian family who my parents spend half their time praising their rosebushes and the other half lobbing Italian insults at over the fence—have respectful children who call twice a day and visit every Sunday, and have already given Josephine and her husband, Gus, six grandchildren. And how her heart is broken that neither of her children has had babies yet.
I say nothing because I’ve heard it countless times before. I’ve given up on promising my mom that I do want children at some point in my life, but that right now my career is more important. She doesn’t get it. Her jobs have never been anything more than a means to put food on the table. It’s as if she thinks that she can irritate me into getting pregnant.
“How are things at home? How’s dad?”
“Oh, you know. Busy fixing the coffeemaker.”
I sigh. “Again?” That basic twelve-cup machine has been “fixed” so many times that it only brews three cups of black tar now. I eye the machine on my counter, one of those high-end computerized gadgets that makes everything from espresso to cappuccino with the flick of a button. I considered buying one for them for Christmas but abandoned that idea when I looked up the price. I love my parents, but I’d need to take out a small loan to afford it. “Just go and buy a new one.” He’s going to lose an entire day, standing around in his garage, tinkering with it.
“And what, just throw this one away?” I can picture her scowl. “Your generation is all about throwing everything away . . .” I tune her out. Another battle not worth having. This is my life, though. These are Clara’s real parents. Not the sleek, sophisticated couple that raised Rain.
“How’s the weather at home?” I finally manage to squeeze in as I peek past the blinds to see the moisture from a light drizzle cover the glass. And beyond that, Luke, milling around his living room, his coat in one hand, as if he’s collecting things before heading out. I wonder where he’s going.
My mother’s heavy-accented voice pulls me away from him. “What kind of life is this that you can’t even tell me where you are? I don’t even know where my own daughter is! What if something happens to you?”
“You’ll be the first to know if something happens to me,” I assure her.
That sets off yet another rant, too fast for me to catch all the words, this one in Italian. She doesn’t usually harp on me this much. I know it’s because she loves me and I haven’t exactly made her life easy. She started sleeping with a Jesus statue by her bed the day I graduated from police college.