‘He didn’t call, huh?’ he said, hovering at the door.
‘No, Deck, he didn’t call. So I’ll take Tiger out, and if you need me, I’ll be at home. Okay?’
‘Okay... but if you need me, I’m around.’
‘Thanks.’ She turned away from him. ‘I really liked him, Deck, but I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. I just had to tell him about my past — well, some of it...’
Decker leaned on her desk. ‘Listen, if he’s put off you because of that he’s not worth the effort, period. It’s what you are now that counts, and I’m telling you, you’re lovely.’ He watched her fetch Tiger’s lead and leave the office, while he stayed on to make his overseas calls to a list of major galleries that might have sold art works worth over a quarter of a million dollars. The paintings listed didn’t seem to appear on anyone’s records, and the case intrigued him more and more.
Burton was still in his office, wading through investigation reports and trial files. The autopsy report on Cindy Nathan wasn’t passed to him until after five. The cause of death was suffocation by hanging, but she had also tested positive for alcohol and drugs. It was impossible to tell whether she had hanged herself voluntarily or whether someone else had done it.
By the time Burton called Lorraine’s office, the answerphone was picking up calls. Her mobile was switched off and when he tried to call her at home he got another recording. He decided not to leave a message but to go round to the apartment on the off-chance she was there, and he continued to work, clearing his desk. Just as he was finishing, the file on Lorraine caught his eye again. He drew it towards him and leafed through it, rereading everything he had read that morning, then pushed it away. There was something that connected with the Nathan case, something that he had read or been told, that hung like a warning, but he just couldn’t put the pieces together. All he knew was that it had a direct connection to Lorraine.
Lorraine sat on her sofa. She’d made herself an elaborate salad of goat’s cheese and marinated vegetables, but seemed to have no appetite. She’d walked Tiger, fed him, done everything to occupy herself, even played her answerphone messages twice in case she had somehow rewound the first time and missed his call. But there was no call, and no amount of staring at the machine would make a message appear. He hadn’t called, he wasn’t going to call, and she had been dumb to think he ever would call. She thought back to what he had said as he had left that morning: she wasn’t kidding herself, he had asked her if she wanted to see a movie — he must just have decided to skip it. She could easily call him tomorrow, it hadn’t been a firm date, just a casual suggestion, but by the time it got to nine o’clock, she felt worse than depressed, telling herself that no decent guy would want to start anything with her — she wasn’t worth it. She should never have thought he would want to see her again, so she took the phone off the hook, to stop herself staring at it.
It was almost nine thirty when Tiger began to bark frantically. Lorraine, wrapped in a bathrobe, yelled at him to shut up, sure he had only heard the neighbours below, but then the entry phone buzzed. ‘I tried to call you at the office, and here...’ Jake’s voice said.
‘Oh, yeah, sorry. I’ve been really busy.’
‘Is it okay if I come in?’
She pressed the button to release the street door. ‘Sure.’
He seemed embarrassed when she opened the door to the apartment, and paid more attention to Tiger than to her, while she wished she’d kept the appointment with the hairdresser and hadn’t taken off her make-up.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yeah, I got a hamburger at the station, but I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.’
Lorraine busied herself with the percolator, while Jake continued to mess around with Tiger. Then, suddenly, he was close and his arms slipped around her. ‘I missed you,’ he said quietly, and she turned towards him, putting out a hand to touch his face, feeling that he needed a shave.
‘You did?’ she said softly.
‘Yeah, all day.’
She heard a voice inside her head telling her to say it, admit that she had missed him too, but she broke away to fetch the cups and take the cream from the fridge. ‘I’d given up on you,’ she said flippantly, setting out a tray.
‘I’m sorry.’ He ruffled his hair.
‘Well, you say something about a movie, and then when you didn’t return my call...’ She reached for the cookies, and realized as she turned to him that she was holding the jar tightly. ‘I did call you. Some secretary said you were in a meeting.’
‘I was. I’m sorry — it was crazy all day. But when I called you back, there was just the answerphone.’
‘Hell, you don’t have to explain anything, I’m not interrogating you. It was just...’ She couldn’t keep up the pretence. Her voice sounded strangled. ‘I didn’t think you wanted to see me again, not after, you know...’
He took the jar away from her, and held her close. She clung to him, feeling his heart beating. ‘You are wrenching feelings from me that I never thought I would have again, and I’m scared, so scared...’
He kissed the top of her head and the nape of her neck, then opened the palm of her hand and kissed that too, holding it to his lips. He wanted to say there and then that he loved her, but somehow the words just wouldn’t come. Instead he heard himself asking her if it would be all right if he had a shower.
‘Only if you stay the night,’ she said, wanting to say something more loving, but she was as tongue-tied as he was.
It was not until he was beside her, lying on her bed with just a towel wrapped around his waist and a cup of coffee in his hand that they began to relax with each other. Neither said that they felt totally at ease with one another, that they loved the way their bodies fitted together when Lorraine slipped into Jake’s arms and curled up beside him. They didn’t need words, and she was unprepared for what he said when he spoke.
‘Will you marry me?’
She didn’t think twice, but agreed without hesitation. Then they were stunned by the enormity of what they had just agreed, and there was a pause before they laughed. Lorraine covered her face with her hands.
‘Oh, my God, I should at least have hesitated a moment.’ She rolled away from him, in disbelief at what had just happened.
‘No,’ he said, drawing her closer, as if she belonged with him.
‘But it might take a bit of getting used to,’ she whispered.
Chapter 11
Lorraine made breakfast while Jake showered. Just setting two places felt good. She had lain awake beside him for a long time, replaying over and over in her mind the moment he had asked if she would marry him, half afraid she had dreamed it.
‘Hi,’ he said, as he came into the kitchen buttoning up his shirt and rubbing his chin. ‘You’ve got one hell of a blunt razor in there.’
They were at ease with each other, and Jake ate yoghurt and cereal, poured coffee for them both, and even put his dirty dishes in the sink. He made no mention, though, of having asked her to marry him.
‘Somebody house-trained you,’ she said, watching him squirt washing-up liquid into the sink.
Tiger took up his position at the front door, waiting for his morning walk, and Jake offered to take him out while Lorraine showered. It was as if he had known her for months, not just days, and his presence didn’t seem intrusive, just got better and better every moment he was with her.
Jake might have been well-trained in the dish-washing department, but he had left the shower steamed up, sopping towels and puddles on the floor and wet footprints on her carpet. Lorraine liked even that because it stopped him being too perfect. She remembered her ex-husband Mike, and the arguments they had had over his bathroom habits: she could never understand how he could take a shower and leave wet footprints everywhere but on the bath mat — and here she was liking it that the new man in her life was behaving in the same way. The new man in her life! She stared at her reflection in the mirror. In just two days her life had changed course, and from feeling depressed and alone, she knew now that a future was waiting for her.