“The investigating officer.”
He stopped the hand motions. “Let me guess. Fred Hawkins.”
“No. Another cop. He happened upon the wreckage. Eddie was already dead when he arrived.”
“What’s this officer’s name?”
“Why?”
“I’d like to know how he happened upon the wreckage.”
Honor stood up quickly and went out onto the deck but stayed near the exterior wall of the wheelhouse so the slender overhang of the roof would protect her from the rain.
Coburn followed her. “What?”
“Nothing. I needed some air.”
“My ass. What?”
She slumped against the wall, too tired to argue with him. “The officer who investigated Eddie’s car crash was found floating in a bayou a few weeks later. He’d been stabbed.”
“Suspects?”
“No.”
“Unsolved homicide.”
“I suppose. I never heard any more about it.”
“Thorough sons of bitches, aren’t they?” He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring out at the rain. “What did Eddie like to do? Bowl? Golf? What?”
“All that. He was a good athlete. He liked to hunt and fish. I’ve told you that.”
“Where’s his fishing and hunting gear?”
“At Stan’s.”
“Golf bag?”
“At Stan’s. And so are his bowling ball and the bow-and-arrow set he got for his twelfth birthday.” She said it with asperity, but he nodded thoughtfully.
“Sooner or later, I’m gonna have to pay Stan a visit.” Before she could address that, he asked her to describe Eddie.
“You’ve seen his picture.”
“I mean personality-wise. Was he serious and studious? Lighthearted? Moody? Funny?”
“Even-tempered. Conscientious. Serious when called for, but he liked to have a good time. Loved telling jokes. Liked to dance.”
“Liked making love.”
She figured he was trying to get a rise out of her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Looking him straight in the eye, she said, “Very much.”
“Was he faithful?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“You can’t be positive.”
“He was faithful.”
“Were you?”
She glared at him.
He shrugged. “Okay, so you were faithful.”
“We had a good marriage. I didn’t keep secrets, and neither did Eddie.”
“He kept one.” He paused in order to give the statement significance, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Everybody keeps secrets, Honor.”
“Oh really? Tell me one of yours.”
A corner of his mouth tilted up. “Everybody but me. I don’t have any secrets.”
“Absurd thing to say. You’re wrapped up in secrets.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Ask away.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Idaho. Near the state line with Wyoming. In the shadow of the Tetons.”
That surprised her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but not that. He didn’t look like her image of a mountain man. Of course, he could very well be lying, inventing an unlikely past to protect his cover. But she went along. “What did your father do?”
“Drank. Mostly. When he worked, it was as a mechanic at a car dealership. He drove a snowplow in the winter.”
“He’s deceased?”
“For years now.”
She looked at him inquisitively. He didn’t respond to the silent question for so long that she didn’t think he would.
Finally he said, “He had this old horse that he kept in a corral behind our house. I named it, but I never heard him call it anything. He rarely rode it. Rarely fed it. But one day he saddled it and rode off. The horse came back. He didn’t. They never found his body. Of course they didn’t look very hard.”
Honor wondered if the bitterness lacing his voice was aimed at his alcoholic father or at the searchers who had given up on finding his remains.
“Dad had ridden that horse near to death, so I shot it.” His folded arms dropped back to his sides. He stared out into the rain. “No great loss. It wasn’t much of a horse.”
Honor let a full minute pass before she asked about his mother.
“She was French Canadian. Tempestuous by nature. When riled, she would launch into French, which she never bothered to teach me, so half the time I didn’t understand what she was screaming at me. Nothing good, I’m sure.
“Anyhow, she and I parted ways after I graduated high school. I attended two years of college, decided it wasn’t for me, joined the Marines. My first tour of duty, I got word that she’d died. I flew to Idaho. Buried her. End of story.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
His facial expression was as devoid of feeling as his life had been devoid of love from any source.
“No cousins, aunts, uncles, nobody,” he said. “When I die, ‘Taps’ won’t be played. There’ll be no twenty-one-gun salute, and there won’t be anyone there to get a folded flag. I’ll just be history, and nobody will give a shit. Especially me.”
“How can you say something like that?”
He turned his head toward her, registering surprise. “Why does that make you angry?”
Now that he’d asked, she realized she was angry. “I genuinely want to know how someone, anyone, could be so indifferent when speaking about his own death. Don’t you value your life at all?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you care?”
“You’re a fellow human being.”
“Oh. You care about mankind in general, is that it?”
“Of course.”
“Yeah?” He turned the rest of his body toward her, until only his right shoulder was propped against the wall of the wheelhouse. “Why didn’t you beg him to come get you?”
She didn’t follow the shift in topic. “What?”
“Hamilton. Why didn’t you tell him where you were so he could send someone to pick you up?”
She took a shaky breath. “Because after what I’ve seen and heard over the past day and a half, I don’t know who to trust. I guess you could say I chose the devil I know.” She meant it in jest, but he didn’t crack a smile.
He inclined an inch toward her. “Why else?”
“If I have something that will convict The Bookkeeper, then I should help you find it.”
“Ah. Patriotic duty.”
“You could put it that way.”
“Hmm.”
He moved closer still, his nearness making her aware of her heartbeats, which had become stronger and faster. “And… and because… of what I’ve already told you.”
He stepped around until he was facing her, seemingly unmindful of the rain falling on him. “Tell me again.”
Her throat was tight, and not only because she had to tilt her head back in order to look up into his face. “Because of Eddie.”
“To preserve his reputation.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s why you’re here with me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so.”
And then he pressed into her. First his thighs, then his middle, his chest, and finally his mouth. She made a whimpering sound, but its definition was unclear even to her, until she realized that her arms had gone around him instinctually, and that she was clutching his back, his shoulders, her hands restless and greedy for the feel of him.
He kissed her openmouthed, using his tongue, and when she kissed back, she felt the hum that vibrated deep inside his chest. It was the kind of hungry sound she hadn’t heard in a long time. Masculine and carnal, it thrilled and aroused her.
He cupped the back of her head in his large hand. He pushed his thigh up between hers, high, and rubbed it against her, and continued kissing her as if to suck the very breath from her. She reveled in every shocking sensation.