She tried her best to avoid the mirror above the sink as she leaned over the basin and turned on the tap, letting the cool water run through her fingers, frowning at the dirt and stickiness, the scraped and broken nails. A shame, she thought. How often did she pamper herself with a real manicure, colored polish, the works? And for what? For what?
Disgusted with herself, she splashed water on her face. The unexpected sting of it made her straighten up like a shot She whispered a shocked oath, then leaned closer to stare at her reflection in the mirror. “Jeez,” she muttered, “I look like I’ve been mugged.” Her gaze shifted, taking it all in-the cuts in her eyebrow, on the bridge of her nose, the scraped cheekbone, the fat lip-before she finally forced herself to meet her own accusing eyes. Yeah, and it’s probably the least of what could happen to you. You got yourself into this. Now it’s time to face the music. What’re you gonna do about it?
She drew the terry-cloth robe closer around herself and belted it tightly, picking up as she did a scent that was strange to her yet somehow familiar-a mixture of soap and aftershave, fabric softener and male-definitely a man’s scent. And definitely one she didn’t know. She remembered a tall man, though, with a long, rather patrician face and melancholy eyes. Jake. That was his name-Special Agent Jake… Something.
Pulling in one more deep breath, both for comfort and for courage, Eve turned off the light and left the bathroom. It was time to hobble downstairs and face this Agent Jake Something of the FBI, the man who’d brought her here, to his home, undressed her to her undies and covered her with a blanket while she slept. And very thoughtfully left her his bathrobe.
Jake had been waiting for her, sitting stiffly on the rented brown tweed sofa in the living room with a cup of cold coffee on the table in front of him and an album from his collection of blues LP’s playing on the old-fashioned turntable on the floor under the window. He’d shed the coveralls for a comfortable pair of slacks and a polo shirt, and had a copy of a John D. MacDonald paperback-a Travis McGee-open on his lap. He’d been reading the same paragraph over and over since he’d first heard signs of life coming from his bedroom upstairs.
Now, as the scuff of footsteps sounded on the carpeted stairs, he closed the book and placed it on the coffee table, then peeled off his drugstore reading glasses and hitched forward on the cushions. He was ready. More than ready. In a way he felt as if he’d been waiting for this woman all his life.
His heartbeat quickened as he watched her slender legs in their white lace stockings come slowly into view. He told himself it had nothing to do with memories of what those stockings were attached to, the way those golden thighs had curved into hips cleft only with a tiny scrap of lace. The tension, the dry-mouthed anticipation, he insisted, were solely for what she could tell him about the man he’d spent five years of his life trying to bring down. They had no connection whatsoever with the fact that she was a beautiful, sensuous woman wearing a white lace teddy under his favorite bathrobe.
She waited until she’d finished navigating the stairs before she spoke, and then only a husky “Hi” as she came toward him with the careful, slightly canted gait of someone walking barefoot on pebbles while balancing a jar on her head.
“There’s coffee,” Jake offered, with a gesture toward his own chilled dregs.
She shook her head, flinched and whispered, “Water, if you have it,” as she groped with one hand for the back of the sofa.
He got up and headed for the kitchen, inquiring over his shoulder, “Can I get you a couple aspirin, while I’m at it?”
She gave a single huff of laughter-breathy, chagrinned, and a little surprised. “Yeah, okay… maybe… sure.” Then, for a few moments, gave herself up to the complex task of sitting down on the sofa. That accomplished, she looked over at him and frowned. “What time is it? How long’ve I been…?”
“Asleep?” Jake glanced at his watch. “It’s a little after eleven. You’ve been out about six hours.” He went into the kitchen, filled a plain white mug with water from the faucet, snagged the bottle of aspirin from the top of the refrigerator and went back out to the living room. “There you go,” he said as he placed the mug and aspirin bottle on the coffee table. Outwardly calm, he felt deep inside the shaky nervousness of adolescence. “It’s tap water-that’s all I’ve got…
She shrugged and reached for the mug. When she made no move to pick up the aspirin, he opened the bottle and shook two tablets onto the tabletop. Wordlessly she held up three fingers. He shook out one more, then picked them up and held them out to her, watched as she took them from him and placed them on her tongue, avoiding contact with her swollen lower lip. He tried not to watch the way the pearl choker rippled against her throat as she swallowed; it was too short a distance from there to the deep, shadowed V of his bathrobe and the secrets hidden therein.
Cradling the mug in both hands, she cleared her throat and nodded toward the window. “Is that Billie Holiday?”
Jake arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, it is. You like blues?”
One shoulder lifted as she eased them both back against the cushions. “I did a piece on blues musicians couple years back…great stuff-fascinating. Don’t really have much time to listen to music myself, unfortunately.” A frown briefly pulled her eyebrows together, drawing lines that were almost a caricature of distress above eyes dark with pain. “It’s nice… but would you mind turning it down… little?”
Since the record player was already turned down about as low as it would go, Jake switched it off. Then, since his witness was occupying the only piece of furniture in the room designed for sitting, he leaned his backside against the windowsill, folded his arms on his chest and waited.
After a moment of the silence, the witness opened one eye and ventured, “FBI, right? And your name is… Jake?” She waited for his nod, then smiled her skewed smile, showing an unexpected dimple, like a little girl much pleased with herself. She sat up and placed the mug on the coffee table with an air of getting down to business. “I suppose you’d like an explanation.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Jake murmured.
She acknowledged his politeness with an ironic snort, waited a moment, then angled a look at him and said, “Well, for starters, I did not get mugged, no matter what I look like. I got this face falling out of, or maybe into-it’s sort of a blur-a Dumpster.” She held up a hand, though he wouldn’t have dreamed of interrupting. “I do not make a habit of getting falling-down drunk. I’m not even very much of a drinker at all. I seriously do not know what got into me. I didn’t even realize I’d drunk the whole bottle-I did drink the whole bottle, didn’t I?” She sighed and closed her eyes. “What a waste. Do you know what that was? There probably aren’t more than a few hundred bottles of that vintage left in existence, and I just… oh, hell.”
She covered her eyes briefly with one hand, and when they met Jake’s again they held a different kind of pain, the kind aspirin doesn’t have much effect on. “I just kept drinking it. It seemed like the only way I could keep from coming completely unglued. After what I’d heard… I didn’t know what to do.”
Jake cleared his throat. In spite of the fact that his stomach was tying itself in knots and his jaws were tight as steel traps, his voice when he spoke was almost gentle, issued from a layer of calm that was like a thin film of oil on roiling waters. “What exactly was it you heard?”
She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. Then her mouth quirked sideways in her droll little half smile. “Why do I have a feeling you already know this? But… just found out the man I was going to marry is a very bad man.”