The Unknown Beloved(97)

He heard Dani walk down the hall from the shop, and his attention instantly strayed. He knew it was Dani from the light tread and the click of her low heels. It was lunchtime, but she didn’t go upstairs. He considered taking a break himself, but he didn’t think he could eat. He pushed back from his desk and stood, popping a peppermint into his mouth from the candy dish Dani had given him. Since he’d confessed to having a sweet tooth, she’d kept him well stocked.

The peppermint soothed him too.

He’d spent the morning poring over a copy of the coroner’s report released late last night, making a new list for the Butcher’s latest victim. Official cause of death was still “undetermined,” but probable laceration of the neck with severe blood loss—hemorrhage—was likely. In other words, decapitation.

On Monday, a burlap sack had been found in the river, snagged under the West Third Street Bridge. The sack claimed itself to be Wheel Brand potatoes from Bangor, Maine. One hundred pounds of them, but the sack lied. It wasn’t one hundred pounds, and the contents weren’t potatoes. Both halves of a woman’s bisected torso, a thigh, and a left foot, which matched the calf found in April, were turned over to police.

A thought had occurred to him. One he’d not considered before. Many of the victims—or pieces of them—were found in burlap sacks. Dani had never examined the sacks. If she could pull pictures from leather, surely she could draw impressions from burlap, though the time in the water might destroy that possibility for some of the bags. The sacks wouldn’t tell them anything about the victims, but they might tell them something about the killer.

He heard Dani’s tread again, this time hurried and brief, cutting across the hall from the laundry to his room. She knocked at his door, three quick raps, like he’d summoned her with his musings.

He tamped down his eagerness to see her. It surged hot and sweet in his veins, and he schooled his features and scolded his heart. He’d been careful since the gala. At least . . . more careful. Mass, the morgue, and constant movement had kept him in line.

“Michael?” She sounded breathless, even through the door, and he could almost feel her impatience from the other side.

“Come in. It isn’t locked.” He sounded surly, even to his own ears. Better that than randy. She poked her head around the door and hesitated.

“Is it a bad time?” she asked. Definitely breathless.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “No. Come in, Dani.”

She did, turned the lock behind her, and leaned back against the door. She had a neatly folded stack of his undershirts in her arms and brought with her the dueling scents of bleach and soap flakes. Her curls were tamed in perfect waves that hugged her cheeks and skimmed her shoulders, and she wore a simple brown sheath with narrow lapels that ended in a drooping bow between her breasts. She’d added a slim belt at her waist to avoid the flapper look, but it was a tad faded from too many washes or too many wash days, though the color still warmed her skin. Or maybe that wasn’t the dress. Her cheeks were pink, and she was panting, her chest rising and falling like she’d run around the block and not just across the hall.

He frowned. “Did you find something?”

She extended her arms, handing him his shirts without a word, and he took a few steps, and accepted them, puzzled by her behavior. They were alone, the door was locked, and yet she seemed to be struggling to speak.

“I let Margaret fold your things so that I wouldn’t . . . intrude . . . on your privacy. But she missed one.”

“Oh no,” he muttered. “What now?”

She blinked at him and swallowed, and the pulse at her throat thrummed beneath her silky skin. Damn, she was a sight.

“That one on the top?” She fluttered a hand at the small pile.

“Yeah?” He drew out the word.

“You must have worn that one on Saturday night. But Margaret missed it. It was still in the hamper. It hasn’t been laundered.”

“Huh,” he grunted. But he was beginning to understand. She’d been snooping.

“I was just going to bring them to you. Along with your hamper. Though . . . I seem to have forgotten it. I had something to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Though I can’t remember what it was now.”

“You can’t remember?”

“No.” She shook her head and wetted her lips.

“Why did you lock the door?” he asked, beginning to understand. His heart understood. And his body understood. Beneath the scent of bleach and soap was something else. He set the undershirts on his dresser.

She took a few steps toward him and stopped, but she didn’t answer his question.

“What did you see, Dani?” He cut the distance between them in half.

“I saw myself. The way you . . . saw me on Saturday night. You liked the way I looked.”

“You needed my undershirt to tell you that?”

She took another step, and the space between them was mere inches. But she didn’t touch him and he didn’t touch her.

“I’m no good at reading men. Or people. Only cloth. But you thought . . . you think . . . I’m beautiful. And you . . . you like me very much,” she said softly, resolutely, like she had no doubts about what she’d seen. He suspected she’d seen more than just affection.