around the car, opened the door, and waited for her to get into the driver’s seat.
“You probably shouldn’t drive, Temple, but maybe you need to concentrate on something.”
“I speed.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“We might get arrested all over again.”
“If they didn’t arrest you here, they’re not going to bother now. At least not for a while.”
She turned to settle her tote in the Miata’s vestigial backseat. “I suppose you think this car is impractical, and uncomfortable.” She glanced over as he settled into the passenger seat. “Nope. Can’t quite stretch my legs out, but otherwise it feels fine.”
Temple switched on the ignition and had a momentary blank about exactly where the drive position was.
She shouldn’t be driving, but she’d be damned if she let on. She pushed the shift into reverse and made a sudden arc out of the parking space before hitting the brakes. Matt put a hand on her knee. “Relax.”
And how the heck-?
Temple shifted into drive and roared out of the lot, passing several parked squad cars and the SWAT van.
No one bothered them, though, and the cool night wind whipped through their hair and sinuses.
The streets and highways were still occupied, but not crowded. Temple settled down and drove like a sedate schoolteacher until she reached the turn into the Circle Ritz parking lot. She screeched up the small incline and whipped the Miata into a sharp ninety-degree turn to occupy its usual spot under the big old palm tree.
The headlights flooded the palm tree’s crusty trunk with Hollywood-bright glare.
She pushed the shift into park, then shut down. Her hands remained on the steering wheel. They were shaking.
After a while, Matt reached over and turned off the ignition. He had to reach past her to push the headlight button off, and his arm brushed her body like an erotic push-broom.
She shivered and crossed her arms to hold the heat in, or maybe keep the cold out.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “A taste of battle fatigue, right here in Las Vegas. I feel like I’ve been up for five days straight.”
“Somebody shot at us. Again and again.”
“Not us, specifically.”
“Whoever shot didn’t care who they, he, it hit. So they were shooting at us.”
Matt’s fingers touched her upper arm. “I think you keep a mediocre bottle of whiskey in your kitchen cupboard.”
“I do.” She tossed off some of the shock by shaking her head slightly. “Only it’s not mediocre anymore. Max left me the
bottle of really good stuff you and he started.”
Temple didn’t add that was the last time Max had visited the Circle Ritz, and her. Several nights ago. Where was Max?
When he should be here with her? Protecting his turf. Keeping her from feeling uncertain and lonely. Was he involved in new mysterious missions of counterterrorism, Mr. Magician-cumspy … or was he just not interested in her enough anymore? They’d gone from months of living together to months apart and now to meeting clandestinely for almost six months. Wasn’t that all backwards? Shouldn’t the clandestine come before the flagrant?
Matt was watching her, surprised that she knew about the two men’s recent midnight tete-a-tete.
“You remember,” she told him. “Max showed up on yourbalcony with an irresistible invitation: a bottle of Bushmill’s Millennium, which I gather is the whiskey of the gods. Imagine. You and Max sharing a drink instead of glaring whenever each other’s name is mentioned. Remember that night? When you were both mourning your lost youths and opportunities. He brought me the dregs. Of the bottle. Not of your wasted lives. Actually, the bottle was almost full. Guess you two are too mutually suspicious to even booze together.”
Matt looked away. Out the window. Mentioning Max had made for three’s-a-crowd in the Miata’s cozy seating arrangement.
Temple had to wonder if some reflexive impulse of survival instinct had made her do that deliberately.
“He started that bottle without me:’ Matt finally said, getting out to put the top up.
Temple still couldn’t move, just sat there like life was a dream and she was sleep-walking through it.
Matt opened the driver’s-side door and put out his hand. “Wait a minute:’ she said. “What about your car?”
“I left it in the Maylords lot, remember? You can drop me off there tomorrow. Well, later today. Much later today.”
“Oh.” Temple put both feet on the asphalt, observing the glitter of the Midnight Louie shoes with an odd third-party sort of detachment.
Matt took her hand and pulled her upright, shut the car door, hit the lock button on the key chain.
“What’s the matter with me?” she wondered with small interest.
“Shock and exhaustion. Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
“It feels like I’m really drunk without the buzz.”
His arm around her shoulder steered for the building’s side door.
When they got there she shook herself alert. “I’ll take the keys. I’m awake and singing now.”
But the key tip stuttered in the lock before she finally found the right touch. And when they took the elevator up a floor and got to her front door, she fumbled the keys again.
“You’re still cold.” He took the keys from her fingers to unlock the door.
“How come you’re Mr. Steady as She Goes?”
“I had to go on the air live to do my show tonight. Sobers the emotions right up.”
“The show must go on. I used to know what that meant.”
She flicked the light switch by the door, then gazed into her living room, dead ahead. It looked so normal, especially the newspaper sections tossed all over.
In a couple hours the Las Vegas Review-Journal would be in the same place, full of front-page news and photos of the shooting spree at Maylords. Oh, her aching PR-person head!
“I’ve got to get on this first thing tomorrow,’ she said, mostly to herself. “Today.”
Matt steered her into the kitchen. “Where’s that Kinsella firewater stored?”
“Cabinet under the coffeemaker. Maybe I should have caffeine.”
“No. One nightcap and you’ll sleep like a baby. Caffeine first thing in the morning, which will be about noon for you.”
Temple nodded, almost nodding off. Matt lifted her onto a kitchen stool to get her out of the way. That brought her head on a level with his and their glances crossed for the first time since leaving Maylords.
She swayed toward him. He hesitated, then brushed his lips across hers, more hit-and-run than kiss, but they didn’t … hadn’t … kissed casually before. Temple was feeling anything but casual, yet this moment seemed too natural to comment on.
Now Matt was squatting in front of the cupboard, shoving aside the Old Crow bottle for the tall, dark, and expensive model beside it. Kinda looked like Max himself.
Matt rose, poured it neat into two glasses from the cupboard, Irish cut crystal, and handed her one, curling her fingers securely around the wide, low glass.
“To the end of all bad things.” He raised his glass.
Temple couldn’t help feeling it was a toast to all the undear departed who’d made all their lives so miserable, from Matt’s evil stepfather to Max and his stalker. But not even they couldhave been behind the terrifying attack on Maylords. They were so very dead. And Temple was dead tired.
She sipped the fiery gold liquid. It cleared her sinuses like Chinese mustard.
“Kickapoo Joy Juice.” She blinked tears out of her eyes. “What an irreverent name to call one of the world’s choicest
whiskies. I really don’t like hard liquors straight. You don’t have to drink all of it. You look a lot better already.”
“How?”
“It’s true you don’t need much help in looking better usually, but you were pretty pasty-faced.”
“I think that was a compliment. The first part. Not the pasty-faced part. Unless you like pasty-faced.”