Now You See Her Linda Howard(61)

With that leg finally relaxed, she did the same thing to her right thigh. That cramp was more stubborn, returning as soon as she stopped the massage. She kept at it for five minutes and finally her thigh relaxed. Her entire body felt like a balloon with a leak; she toppled over, going boneless, without the strength to sit up any longer.

Heat. She had to have heat. Richard wouldn't be coming. He was still legally Candra's husband; he would be giving information to the police, filling out reports, probably identifying Candra's body, making arrangements. Sweeney had his cell phone number, but calling him was out of the question.

She had to take care of this herself.

The electric blanket wouldn't help. Hot coffee would help a little, but not enough. Body heat was moist heat, because the body was mostly water. That was what she needed: moist heat. The shower wouldn't be enough. She needed to immerse herself in hot water.

She crawled into the bathroom, dragging herself like a wounded animal. Her arms and legs barely functioned, and she could feel her thoughts slowing.

She never took a tub bath; she always showered. She stared at the lever that closed the drain for several long moments before she figured out how to work it, though of course she knew. The cold was making her stupid.



She turned the hot water on full blast and watched steam begin to fill the air. A remnant of common sense kicked in, and she turned on the cold water, too. If she got the water too hot, she would scald herself, and even if it wasn't hot enough to scald, it could still kill; a lot of people had died in hot tubs when prolonged immersion caused heart failure. She had to be careful.

She put her hand under the faucet, and blessed heat poured over her fingers. It felt so good she put the other hand under the faucet, too, lying with her body draped over the edge of the tub because she didn't have the strength to sit up.

When the water was deep enough to reach the overflow drain, she turned off the faucet and crawled into the tub without bothering to take off her pajamas. She almost howled as she sank into the hot water, the heat was so intense. Her toes throbbed. She stared at her bare feet through the clear water; they looked white with cold, almost shrunken.

She sank down until her chin touched the surface of the water. Tendrils of hair floated around her shoulders. Her trembling sent little wavelets sloshing to-and-fro. "Please please please," she heard herself saying, over and over. Please let this work. If it didn't, she would have to call 911. Probably she should already have done it, but a part of her just couldn't believe a chill was serious.

She began to warm. It was a gradual process, the heat of the water transferring to her flesh. The shivering began to dwindle, so that it wasn't ceaseless, letting her relax between the episodes.

Exhausted, she laid her head against the sloping back of the tub. Always before, when she was warm, she got sleepy, and the colder she had been the sleepier she got. She would have to be careful not to fall asleep in the tub.

The water began to cool. Her fingers and toes grew pink and wrinkled. She let out some of the water, then turned on the hot water to refill the tub, but she forced herself to sit up. The danger of falling asleep was a real one, and so was staying in the water too long. Just a few more minutes, she promised herself.

Sometime during those few minutes she began crying again. Like most people, Candra had been neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Until she had seen Sweeney and Richard together, she had always been warm and friendly. Candra's support had meant a lot to Sweeney's career.

Sweeney regretted the way they had parted. She didn't, couldn't, regret her involvement with Richard, but the timing could have been better. If the divorce had been final, if Candra hadn't been bitter about the settlement— There were so many things to which she could tack an "if", and not one of them could be changed.

She didn't dare stay in the water any longer. She opened the drain and hauled herself, trembling, to a standing position. Her muscles felt like boiled noodles. She removed her dripping pajamas, peeling them off and hanging them over the shower curtain rod to drip. Toweling off required immense effort.

She finally had to sit down on the toilet lid to finish drying her legs and feet.

She blotted the dripping ends of her hair. She had to go back to bed, at least for a while, but she didn't want to do it with wet hair. That seemed to be asking for another chill. Her eyelids drooped, and she sagged sideways, catching herself at the last moment. She couldn't wait for her hair to dry, either. She could always cut it off, she thought, and then shook her head as a measure of common sense kicked in again. She plucked a dry towel from the stack and wrapped it around her head, tucking all the wet ends up under the cloth. That was the best she could do.

She wobbled her way to bed. The electric blanket was still on. Naked, she crawled between the blissfully warm sheets and was asleep as soon as her muscles relaxed.

Detective Joseph Aquino was a burly guy with shrewd eyes and a homely, lived-in face that invited confidences. Detective H. E. Ritenour was lean and more pugnacious, his sandy hair cut military short, and he had a habit of fixing his pale gaze on suspects and not blinking until they began to squirm.

Richard didn't play games. He didn't fidget, and he would bet the discipline trained into him would outlast the detective's technique. He wondered if Ritenour would stare until his eyes dried out.

When they had come to his house early that morning to tell him of Candra's death, he had known immediately he was at the top of their list of most-likely suspects. He kept his behavior low-key and cooperated with everything they asked of him, functioning despite the shock that tried to numb his brain.