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“How are you, Kate?”

“Hmm? What?” She turned toward him from the microwave, her brow knit in confusion. “I'm tired. I'm upset. I've lost a witness—”

Stepping close, Quinn put a finger to her lips. “I don't mean with the case. It's been five years. How are you, really?”

Kate's heart thumped hard against her sternum. Answers log-jammed in her throat. Five years. The first was remembered as a pain so sharp, it stole her breath. The second had been like trying to relearn how to walk and talk after a stroke. Then came the third and the fourth and another after that. In that time she'd built a career, made a home for herself, done some traveling, settled into a nice, safe rut. But the answers that rushed to mind were other words.

How are you? Empty. Alone. Walled off.

“Let's not play that game,” she said softly. “If you'd really wanted to know, it wouldn't have taken you five years to ask.”

She heard the regret in those words and wished them back. What was the point now, when all they would have was a few days. Better to pretend there'd been no fire at all than to poke at the ash and stir up the dust of memories. The timer went off on the microwave, and she turned her back to him and busied herself making a cup of tea.

“You told me that was what you wanted,” he said. “You wanted out. You wanted a clean break. You wanted to leave, to start over. What was I supposed to do, Kate?”

Ask me not to go. Go with me. The answers were right there, as fresh as yesterday and just as futile. By the time she'd left Virginia, the anger and the pain had taken them past the point of his asking her not to go. And she knew without having to ask that he would never have left Investigative Support to go with her. The job was who John Quinn was. He was bound to it in a way he would never be bound to a woman. And, God, how it still hurt to think that.

“What were you supposed to do? Nothing,” she whispered. “You did it well.”

Quinn moved in close behind her, wanting to touch her, as if that might magically erase the time and the trouble that had passed between them. He wanted to tell her the phone worked both ways, but he knew she would never have backed away from her pride or the insecurity it covered. A part of him had been relieved that she had never called, because he would then have had to face himself in life's big mirror and finally answer the question of whether or not there was enough left in him to build a lasting relationship. His fear of the answer had kept him running from that question for a long, long time.

And now he stood here, an inch away from the better part of his past, knowing he should let it lie. If he hadn't had enough to give a relationship five years ago, he sure as hell didn't have any more now.

He raised a hand to touch her hair, his memory of its texture meeting the silk of reality. He let his hand rest on her shoulder, his thumb finding the familiar knot of tension there.

“Do you regret it, Kate? Not the way it ended, but us.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. She had a truckload of regret she had to move out of her way every day in order to get on with her life. But she had never been able to find it in her to regret turning to him. She regretted she had wished for more. She regretted he hadn't had more to give. But she couldn't think of a single touch, a single kiss, a single night in his arms, and regret a second of it. He had given her love and understanding, passion and compassion, tenderness and comfort when she had needed so badly, when she had hurt so much, when she had felt so alone. How could she regret that?

“No,” she said, turning and holding the steaming mug of tea between them. “Here. It's good for what ails you.”

He took the cup and set it aside.

“I don't regret us,” he said. “There were times when I thought I should, but I didn't, and I don't.”

His fingertips touched her cheek and slid back into her hair, and he leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. Need, sharp and bitter and sweet, instantly sprang up inside her. Her lips moved against his out of memory and longing. A perfect fit. The perfect balance of pressure and passion. Their tongues tangled, seeking, searching, tasting, touching, deepening the kiss and the emotions it evoked. Her heart beat hard against the wall of her chest and his. She was instantly aware of a tenderness in her breasts, a longing for the touch of his hand, his mouth, a need for a connection beyond this simple act. His arms tightened around her. She could feel him hard against her belly as he pressed against her.

He would be here a matter of days, her fading logic reminded her. He had come for a case, not because he needed her or missed her or wanted to resolve what they had walked away from. All of that was incidental.

“No,” she said softly as he raised his head. “I don't regret it. But that doesn't mean I'll go through it again, John. I'm not here for your convenience.”

“You think that's what I expect?” he asked, hurt. “You think I expect you to go to bed with me because you're handy and you know what I like? I thought you knew me better than that, Kate.” His voice dropped low and rough, and skimmed across her heart like a callused hand. “My God, you're the only person who ever knew me.”

“Well, at least I thought I did,” Kate murmured. “It seemed at the end there we didn't know each other very well at all.”

He sighed and stepped back.

“Let's just call ourselves old friends and leave it at that, huh?” she said around the knot in her throat. “You didn't come here for me, John. You would have done that years ago if it was what you wanted. I'll go call you that cab.”

21

CHAPTER

THE HOUSE WAS DARK. The neighborhood was dark. People living on Lake of the Isles kept civilized hours. In Kovac's neighborhood there was always a light on somewhere—people coming in late, going to work early, watching infomercials.

Kovac parked on the street at the edge of Bondurant's property and made a complete circuit of the place on foot through the fresh snow. Fresh, wet snow. Heavy and sticky, it clung to his pant legs and worked down into his shoes, but he ignored it, his attention on the mansion that seemed to loom even larger in the dark than in the light. Security lights marked entrances on the back side. There were no lights visible in the house. If Peter Bondurant was watching TV, learning how to get buns of steel, he was in some windowless room in the heart of his home.

Some home. It looked like something out of medieval England, like someplace that would have a torture chamber in the basement. For all he knew, it did have.

Christ, wouldn't that be just his luck? He'd have to be the one to tell the world billionaire Peter Big Deal Bondurant was a homicidal lunatic. The mayor would have his throat cut and dispose of his body in the footings of the new jail. The bigwigs wanted a killer caught, all right. And this killer would preferably be a bug-eyed, drooling ex-con from Wisconsin.

Circling back around to his car, he kicked the snow off his legs and feet, slid in behind the wheel, and started the engine, setting the anemic heater to full blast. The bones in his feet and ankles and shins had absorbed the cold into their marrow, and it was now making its way up his legs like mercury in a thermometer.

He dug his cell phone out from under a pile of junk on the seat and dialed Bondurant's home number. Quinn had called to tell him Kate had spotted Bondurant in the back at the meeting, hiding out among the common folk. The guy was a twitch. He was holding out on them about that last night with Jillian, and God knew what else.

The phone rang.

It burned his ass that Bondurant got special treatment, was privy to information, didn't have to come downtown to make a statement. It was wrong. They should have been able to rattle his cage same as anyone else's.