When he was done, he returned to the living room. Eden sat in a lotus position on the floor, with a laptop balanced on her calves. Cheater glasses pinched the end of her nose. She had a half-full glass of white wine on the carpet beside her. He didn’t recognize the music playing on his Echo, but it had a new-age serenity. The overhead chandelier was dimmed. Eden had lit a fire in the wood fireplace, and the logs crackled and smoked.
He sat down beside her. The fire made it hot.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Phil Cutter was following me. I wanted to make sure that Rudy wasn’t trying to find you while I was away.”
“He doesn’t want me. He wants Maria Lopes. Whoever that is.”
“I thought the same thing before Jess was killed,” Frost said. “I don’t want to be wrong again.”
“Well, I like being worried about.”
She drank her wine, but her gaze didn’t leave him. The firelight danced around her face. A few of her corkscrew curls swished her forehead. She lifted the glasses from her nose and put them aside, and she closed the cover of her laptop. There was no misreading her eyes. She’d already admitted that she wanted him. He wanted her, too, but with a hollow, physical need that he hated giving in to. And yet he knew he would. Tonight, with his brain fogged by alcohol and Tabby, he didn’t care.
“I didn’t even know that fireplace worked,” Frost said, stalling.
“You’ve never lit a fire here?”
“Never.”
“There was wood in the garage,” she said.
“It must have been there for years.”
Eden leaned back on her hands. “I brought some personal things with me. Not for long, just a day or two. I put them in the master bedroom. You said you didn’t use it.”
“I don’t,” Frost said.
“Shame. It’s a soft bed. Really nice.”
“Good.”
The dance went on. They both knew where this dance went.
“Shack’s hiding in the closet up there,” Eden said. “Doesn’t he like me?”
“That’s one of his spots. He goes there when the world gets too overwhelming.”
“Your cat has issues?” Eden asked.
“He’s very complex. And protective. When the old woman who owned this place was killed, Shack wouldn’t leave her. Practically mauled anyone who got close. But I persuaded him everything was going to be okay.”
“That’s sweet,” Eden said.
They didn’t say anything else. They didn’t need to. Frost took a long look at her body, from the smoothness of her face to the gray silk blouse with two buttons undone to the shorts that left most of her honey-colored legs bare. She waited for him to start. He slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him, and she bent into the kiss. Their lips met, soft, warm, and wet. Her fingers worked gracefully on each button of his shirt.
He laid her back on the carpet, and his body slid on top of hers. He was propped on his forearms. They kissed again; they struggled piece by piece out of their clothes. As her blouse opened, as he parted the silk, he was conscious of the scar just above the hollow of her neck.
She saw his eyes go to it, and she said, “Touch it. Please.”
His thumb caressed the smooth gash.
“Kiss it.”
He leaned down. His mouth and his tongue found it.
“Oh my God,” she murmured.
Then they weren’t tender anymore. They were rough with each other, as if they both had something to prove. They didn’t go upstairs; they didn’t bother with the soft bed. They stayed in front of the hot fire until every inch of their skin was damp with sweat.
37
Sometime in the middle of the night, Frost woke up alone. The fire had died to gray ash, and cold, whistling air blew onto his body through the chimney. He stood up. Their clothes were strewn on the floor, and he grabbed his boxers and stepped into them.
“Eden?” he called softly.
There was no answer in the house.
He surveyed the downstairs, which was lit only by the outside city lights through the patio doors. At some point, Shack had gravitated back to his usual spot on the sofa, where Frost typically slept. The cat didn’t bother opening an eye. Nothing around the house was out of place. The boxes of research materials for Eden’s book were still stacked against the foyer wall.
Frost went silently upstairs. The door to the master bedroom was open. From the doorway, he could see Eden stretched across the bed. He walked inside and stood over her. She was on top of the comforter, lying on her stomach, with her head sideways on the pillow. Black curls draped over her face. The memories of their lovemaking went through his mind. Expressions on her face. The catch of her breath and the pleasured rumbling in her throat. The warmth of her fingers. Her legs wrapped around him. He stared at her and remembered all of it, and he asked himself what he felt about it.
He didn’t like the answer.
Frost turned away to let her sleep, but before he left the room, he heard her voice calling to him. “I’m awake,” she murmured.
He came and sat down on the side of the bed. Eden rolled onto her back. Her eyes opened. Her body was an attractive shadow, and she let him watch her, like a sculpture on display. They stared at each other in the darkness, but it was a long time before either of them spoke.
Finally, Eden said, “I guess I got what I wanted.”
“Why was that so important?” he asked her.
She sat up in bed. She slid behind him and massaged the muscles of his back with deep, insistent fingers. Her bare legs were on either side of his hips.
“I’m selfish. I can’t write about you unless I know you inside and out.” She lightly bit his neck. “Which doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.”
“And what did you discover about me?” Frost asked with morbid curiosity.
“That you want things you can’t have.”
He twisted around to face her. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I’ve been with enough men to know when someone isn’t fulfilled by being with me. That’s okay. Don’t apologize if you were using me simply because I was here. I was using you, too.”
“Then I guess we both got what we wanted,” Frost said.
He was angry with her, and with himself, because she was right. She was right about everything. He’d used her. He’d met two attractive, desirable women recently, and the one he wanted was the one he couldn’t have. And so he’d slept with the other simply because he could.
Looking into his eyes, she smiled at him, as if she could see through him. He found that he was beginning to dislike her smile.
“You want to do it again, don’t you?” she said, pulling him closer, kissing his neck.
She was right about that, too.
Frost drove south out of the city on Saturday afternoon. He’d already talked to six different women named Maria Lopes. He’d questioned each of them about their backgrounds, hoping to find a detail in their personal lives that would explain which of the women was on Rudy Cutter’s list. But none of their stories had brought him any closer to an answer.
Now he was on his way to meet number seven. She was farther away, high in the San Bruno hills. He didn’t mind the drive. He usually listened to audiobooks in the car, and he was nearly done with a Barbara Tuchman book about medieval Europe. There was something about times that were dead and gone that appealed to him.
It was a grim day, as unsettled as his mood. The forecast was for rain and wind moving in overnight, and black clouds had already slouched over the coast from the ocean. The inland temperature hovered at a damp, warm sixty-five degrees, but it was always colder closer to the water. As he drove higher, the low hills were a deep shade of emerald.