She lowered herself and stretched out, and he wished she would have stayed like that a little longer.
“They can’t dictate what we do in our off hours,” he reminded.
“One of us would be off the task force in a heartbeat. Flemming would see to that. Count on it. It would look wrong, and it would damage both of us. We’ve been over this. God …,” she moaned. “Get me a cigarette, would you?”
He obeyed, though he wondered why. No woman had ever ordered him about.
“And the lighter,” she reminded.
He didn’t like the smoking, but he never said anything. He climbed off the bed and found her purse and delivered the cigarettes and lighter. She rolled over, her upper-chest rash red and shiny with sweat, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Okay, fun is fun, and that was fun! But we’ve got work to do.” She worked the cigarette down hungrily, arched her back and lifted her pelvis. “God, you’re something,” she whispered through the smoke.
“A dinner over at your place, early to bed but not to sleep. Who’s going to know?”
“We start that, and it won’t stop.”
“So?” he complained. “What’s wrong with that?”
She said soberly, “We agreed up front about all this, John.”
“Things change.”
“This hasn’t. We’re attracted to each other. We enjoy each other’s company. The sex is out of this world-and I mean that. But we’re both Crimes Against Persons, we’re both on the task force; that’s conflict of interest. That’s a no-no. We are not taking this to the next step. Not so long as the present situation exists.”
LaMoia felt a tightening in his throat and chest, and felt almost obliged to break something. “Bernie says the glass chips are automotive.”
She rolled up onto an elbow and cast a knee forward. She looked like a model to him despite a few extra pounds. He would never get tired of looking at her. He had tired so quickly of the others. She smiled coyly, “You got this when?”
He gave her the answer required of him, “This morning, Captain.” She knew immediately that he had received the information ahead of yesterday’s four o’clock.
“Well, you little shit.” She grinned widely. “I love the way you operate, you rogue son-of-a-bitch. Have I told you that?”
He wanted a different statement of love from her, and the comment stung him in a way she wouldn’t understand.
“The glass is from a side window, not the windshield. They picked up some tiny lettering on one of the chips. Ironically, the Bureau may be able to help us trace the manufacturer.”
“Ford Taurus?”
“No.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“The pollen has been passed along to the botany department at the university for analysis. If Flemming finds out and grabs the sample, there’s not much we can do. The university needs federal money. The Bureau can make up all kinds of shit to justify taking the samples.”
“Flemming doesn’t need any justification. He’s going to do what he likes.” A seagull cried outside the window. LaMoia looked up to see a gray and white blur. A second echoing cry, farther away. He wondered about the Shotz baby and if she was crying too.
“Yeah, Flemming’s little speech,” she said to herself. “Got to respect him, though. Did you know that he worked that CEO in New Jersey found buried alive? Intelligence dug this up,” she said, meaning Boldt.
LaMoia could feel her nervousness. He didn’t want to operate in Flemming’s shadow any more than she did.
“Consulted Hale from the start of this-from San Diego on. They’d worked other kidnappings together. Didn’t bring Hale or Kalidja on until Portland, after he’d cleaned house a few times.” She added softly, “He meant what he said about walking right over us. But then again, he doesn’t know us.”
LaMoia had not seen her like this-Flemming had knocked the wind out of her, not an easy thing to do. “Hale bothers me,” he confessed. “He’s Flemming’s hit man. He’s the one that’s going to do the damage, if any’s done. Flemming keeps himself squeaky clean. Knows what he’s doing. Fraternity types were never my favorites.”
“Hale is ambitious. Tough. He’s married-the only one of the three of them who’s married. Three kids. He must feel these kidnappings as much as Boldt and I do. Yet Flemming’s the one who’s all passionate about the kids. Protecting his rank is more like it.”
“That’s not how it felt to me. He meant that shit.”
“Hale made a name for himself with the Bureau down in Texas by solving some border kidnappings-kids-Mexican fathers taking their kids away from Mom and back across the border. I agree that Hale’s the wild card. We keep an eye on him.”
“And Kalidja?” he asked, appreciating the information.
“Boldt couldn’t dig much up. Came out of the Washington Metropolitan Field Office. Background in analysis is about all that Boldt did find. That would imply she’s Flemming’s fact-checker. But she may be more than that: With her ties to Washington, Flemming buys himself a field agent with good contacts at headquarters. He gets a spy; a liaison. With the kind of heat he must be taking-”
“That would be invaluable.”
“Exactly.” She stubbed out the cigarette in a water glass.
He said, “We gotta do something for the mother-Doris Shotz. Counseling? I don’t know. She sits outside the fifth-floor door all day long. Barely moves. Just sits there.”
“We find her kid. The rest will take care of itself. We’re not in the baby sitting business. She shouldn’t be spending so much time with us. It doesn’t help anyone.”
“You’re a mother,” he reminded. “Where would you spend your time?”
She rolled onto her back and put her knees up. “You want to hear something strange?” she asked rhetorically. “That child went missing, and I had an incredible urge to have another baby. You’d think just the opposite, you know? But not me. I wanted a child.”
“I could arrange that,” he said.
“Oh no, you don’t. You keep those things on.”
“I mean a family, a child of our own.”
She didn’t say anything for a long, long time.
A nude in a Rubens oil, he thought. Round in all the right ways. She cast her hair off her face and behind her ear, exaggerating her graceful neck. “Spare me. Your reputation precedes you, pal.”
“People change.”
“People maybe, but not men,” she said. “Believe me, I have a divorce to prove it.” She said, “We shouldn’t be talking about kids. Not with Rhonda Shotz out there somewhere. Probably shouldn’t be here at all, although I work better when I’m relaxed. And you do relax me. You want the shower first?”
“No,” LaMoia said, edging closer to her. “I want something else first.” He ran his hand lightly from her ankle to her pubis and watched her hair stand on end under his touch.
“Oh, Jesus. I’m going to be late for my one-thirty.” She sighed.
“You want me to stop?” he asked, his fingers gently massaging her.
“What do you think?” she asked, separating her legs for him.
“I think you’re going to be late for your one-thirty,” he answered. He no longer cared about nights with her, another half hour would have to do.
“That’s absolutely perfect,” she said, leaning her head deeply back into the pillow with a warm smile of satisfaction curling her lips. “Absolutely perfect.” She arched her back higher and sighed.
Music to his ears.
CHAPTER 8
Accustomed to his wife’s bald head and lack of eyebrows, Boldt decided she looked wise, like a Buddhist monk, not sick like a cancer patient. He hated the smell of hospitals.
“It’s early,” she said.
“Priorities.”
“Progress?”
The adjacent bed lay empty and made, its surrounding tables neat and cleared of anything personal. In a ward where people went missing for good, the void pulled at Boldt. Had Rhonda Shotz gone missing for good as well?
Distracted, Boldt answered, “Five days now. Precious little to go on. We’ve lost her for the time being. Worse, we know he’ll strike again in the next few days.”