The blinking light on the answering machine was driving her crazy. Swearing, tears burning her eyes again, she stalked over to the machine and punched the play button.

There was a hang-up, then a recorded message trying to sell her cleaning products, three more hangups, a message from Piper saying, "God, Karen, I'm so sorry about your father. Why didn't you call?" The

next message was an aluminum siding salesman, then another hang-up, and all at once a deep, furious voice: "God damn it, Karen—" He stopped, and when he spoke again, it sounded as if his teeth were clenched. "What the hell did you mean, running away like that? You call me the fucking minute you get home, or by God I'll—"

She didn't get to hear the rest of the threat, because he slammed down the phone. Her knees went weak, and she grabbed the edge of the desk for support. No velvet in his voice now; all she could hear was steely rage. The force of it took her aback. She hadn't expected rage. Disgruntlement, maybe, but she had expected the phone call to be something along the lines of "Are you all right? Running away wasn't necessary." She had expected him to check on her, nothing more, and the very mildness of his response would make her feel even more cowardly for running.

She hadn't heard him curse before—those perfect manners again. She hadn't been naive enough to think he didn't swear at all; she had heard him, though he had been speaking French. He was a cop, after all, and under the courtesy was a toughness that in normal circumstances would have made her keep as far away from him as possible. Her father had been a tough man, too. But she had needed Marc, and she had never in her life felt safer than she had with him. It wasn't just the pistol in his belt holster, it was the man himself, big and confident, with his hard, glittering eyes. He was tough, all right, and she didn't doubt he could be mean when the situation warranted.

With her, however, he had been gentle. Courteous. He had used sex words in bed with her, of course; she closed her eyes as she remembered some of the things he had said, and done. Arousal curled low and warm inside her, making her squeeze her legs together. She shivered and groaned aloud. Just as she had the first time he called, she rewound the tape and played his message again. She winced as the force of his fury hit her ears. She had run from him as if he were a rapist, insulting him after he had gone to a great deal of trouble on her behalf, regardless of what his private opinion of her was. Being a cop, he would also have tried to catch her, to make certain nothing was wrong. She hadn't even had the courtesy to answer his page. No wonder he was furious; she was furious with herself. Yes, she'd had a rough few days, a rough year , but she couldn't excuse herself on those grounds. She couldn't excuse herself at all.

She picked up the phone and dialed before she could do something else childish, such as chicken out.

"This is Chastain. Leave a message."

Voice mail. Damn voice mail. Karen clenched her teeth. He deserved a personal apology, deserved the chance to swear at her some more, but it might take her days to catch him in the office. "This is Karen. I'm at home. I'm sorry for running out on you this morning. It was childish of me, and I—I don't have any excuse. I thought—never mind. I acted like an idiot, and I'm sorry." There didn't seem to be anything else to say. She bit her lip and hung up. The pit of her stomach felt cold. Maybe he would call so he could tell her she was a jerk and an idiot, but likely she would never hear from him again.

On impulse, she took the microcassette out of the answering machine and put it in a drawer. Even if he was swearing at her on the tape, at least it was his voice. She could listen to it occasionally to remind herself she was a fool.

She put a new tape in the machine, then stood uncertainly. She could sit waiting for the phone to ring, or she could finish the laundry, do some chores, and try to get some sleep. She had to work that night, and

she hadn't had much sleep the night before. Marc had been on top of her, and inside her, most of the night.

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as memory curled around her. No matter what, it had been a night to remember. She regretted a lot of things about what had happened, but for a few hours she had been lost in sheer physical ecstasy. Marc had given her more pleasure than she had known it was possible to feel. It was impossible to regret that.

And she loved. She, who thought she had blocked out all love except that for her mother, found that she hadn't blocked anything. Despite everything, she loved her father. There was peace in finally admitting it, in no longer fighting to keep herself closed off. She loved him, ached for the life he had wasted, the love he had rejected. She was more like him than she had ever thought, in her reactions, her efforts to seal herself off, and like her mother in that despite all her efforts, she loved anyway. She suspected this meant she would love Marc for the rest of her life. Marc was still in a savage mood late that afternoon when he entered his office. He was hot, sweaty, tired, and so pissed off he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands. Karen had run from him.

He had expected her to be nervous this morning, maybe a little shy, a little embarrassed. Knowing he was short of time and opportunity, he had taken their intimacy to deeper levels, faster, than he had ever done with a woman before. There wasn't an inch of her body he hadn't touched or kissed in his effort to stake a claim on her that she wouldn't be able to easily dismiss. He had left her asleep in the bed and taken a shower, intending to waken her with kisses, hold her on his lap and pet her, tease her, bring a smile to those too-serious dark eyes—and then make love to her again. But she hadn't been asleep after all; instead, when he came out of the bathroom, she was gone.

She must have run all the way to the hotel; that was the only way she could have avoided him. By the time he got there, she had already checked out by phone, and he hadn't been able to cover all the exits. She had slipped past him again, and a valet in the transportation bay remembered getting her a cab to the airport.

He paged her at the airport, but she hadn't answered. By then, he was so angry she was lucky he hadn't been able to catch her. Instead, he called her home phone and left a blistering message; probably not a smart thing to do when he was trying to gentle her out of her skittishness, but her running had rattled him. The relative coolness of his office washed over his damp skin, wringing a sigh of relief from him. He shed his jacket and rolled his shoulders, unsticking his shirt from his back and raising chill bumps at the sensation. He ran an impatient hand over his hair and the back of his neck. God, he hated child murders. He would rather work a hundred other cases than investigate the death of a child. The helplessness and fragility of the little bodies got to him, hit him hard.

He had a five-year-old little boy in the morgue, dead from a fall down the stairs. An accident, his mother said. But the kid's legs had been covered with small, half-healed burns that she had tried to pass off as mosquito bites, and yellowish bruises had blotched his skin. Yellow bruises were old bruises, healing bruises. He had had an accident on his bicycle, his mother said.

The woman had been terrified. She had sat motionless at the kitchen table, as if she were afraid to move.

Once she did turn her head, when her husband said something, and Marc thought he had seen a dark mark on her neck, just under the edge of her collar.

He knew the signs: the blouse buttoned up to the throat, the long sleeves even in sweltering weather, slacks instead of shorts.

Marc no longer wasted time wondering why a woman would stay with an abusive man, or how a mother could be cowed into silence even when her child was killed. He'd been a cop long enough that nothing surprised him. He did know he had to be careful on this case, because the husband was a lawyer and would know if there was a t left uncrossed or an i undotted. He was also a criminal defense lawyer, which made Marc all the more determined to nail his ass.

The ME would likely discover other evidence of abuse, such as previous fractures. He would determine the marks on the child's legs were from cigarette burns, not mosquito bites, and his report would provide reasonable grounds for arrest. Marc only hoped he would be able to get a warrant before the son of a bitch panicked, knowing his wife would be able to testify against him, and killed her, too. Marc sat down to listen to his voice mail and leafed through the pile of papers that had accumulated on his desk during his absence. Most of it was routine stuff, notices, memos, reports he had requested. He had a lot of contacts in the city, a lot of snitches who would gladly roll over on their buddies rather than get on his bad side. Most of the stuff he heard was penny-ante, but sometimes all it took was a detail that fit into an overall picture he already had, and his case was made. He didn't expect Karen to call, because of the message he had left rather than despite it. It was probably for the best, at this point. When he was completely calm again, he would call her and try to get this courtship back on track.

Her message took him by surprise. He stopped and leaned back in his chair, listening grimly. She sounded subdued. "… I thought—never mind. I acted like an idiot, and I'm sorry." She thought… what? She thought too damn much, that was the problem. He could almost hear the worry going on behind the words. The woman didn't know how to relax and have fun, she had to shoulder the responsibility for everything—

"Shit," he growled, puffing out his cheeks. He should have guessed she would wake up kicking herself for what she would consider wildly irresponsible behavior. He'd been so careful not to spook her before he could get her into bed, she had no idea he was planning anything more than a one-night stand. Leaving her alone in bed while he showered had been a major tactical error, one he would remember. The sexual chemistry between them was so hot it took his breath, and it was even more bewitching because he had known immediately she wasn't very experienced. Not ignorant, not virgin, but not…

accustomed to making love. He suspected she controlled her sexuality as fiercely as she controlled her emotions. But last night, she had relaxed her control and turned into the sweetest, hottest woman he'd ever had in his bed. He hadn't known he could get a hard-on that often, but hell, he hadn't had any choice. She had been in dire need of loving, and he had risen to the occasion. He was experienced, and their lovemaking had been more intense than anything he'd known before. The night must have seemed like nothing less than debauchery to her.

He reached for the phone to call her, then stopped. His temper had cooled, but he was still angry, and

his own control was a little shaky after dealing with that little boy's murder. He needed to talk to her as soon as possible, so she wouldn't have time to buttress her resistance to him, but that need was balanced by caution. He wanted to yell at her, and yelling wasn't a good idea right now. She would withdraw even further and maybe refuse to talk to him again.

He forced himself to continue reading the notices from other police forces, flipping through the computer printouts. He paused when he saw the Mississippi state police had reported a body found just across the state line from Louisiana. The victim, a white male age fifty-seven, name of Rick Medina, had been shot twice with a .22; his money and credit cards had been stolen.

People were shot with .22s all the time; it was the most common of handguns. It was instinct alone that made him pull the report out of the stack. Maybe it was nothing, but this victim was approximately the same age as Karen's father, and Mississippi wasn't that far away.

He had his hands full with the little boy's case right now; he didn't have time to chase down such a tenuous, and probably nonexistent, connection. Still, he couldn't ignore it. He found Shannon standing by the cold drink machine, flirting with one of the clerks. "Hey, Antonio." Shannon straightened, his dark eyes alert. "See you later," he said to the woman, touching her arm as he left her. "What's up?" he asked, ranging himself beside Marc and tilting his head to read the sheet. Marc handed it to him. "I've got to stay with the Gable case—"

"Oh, yeah, the little boy. His sonofabitch father killed the kid, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but I've got to do everything by the book, or he'll walk. Do you have time to do some checking for me?"

"Sure." Shannon read the report. "You got something on this Rick Medina?"

"No, it's just a hunch. See if you can find any connection between Dexter Whitlaw and Rick Medina. They're about the same age; maybe they were in the military together. If they knew each other, it's coincidental as hell that they would both be killed with a .22 at about the same time."

"It's a long shot," Shannon said.

"Sure is," Marc agreed. "Just check to see if Medina was in the military, maybe served somewhere the same time Whitlaw did. Who knows what will turn up?"

Chapter 12

«^»

The patient in 11-A had survived an auto accident and extensive surgery to repair the damage, losing a kidney and his spleen in the process. His surgeon had deemed him well enough to be transferred out of SICU to the regular surgical floor, the patient being alert and stable, eating light but solid foods, his remaining kidney producing urine at a normal rate. His temperature was climbing, however, and he had declined to eat his evening meal.

The surgeon on duty had managed to hide himself where no one could find him, and he wasn't answering his page. Karen put in a call to Mr. Gibbons's surgeon and kept a close watch on the patient. If he had picked up a post-op infection, the sooner they caught it, the better. Concern over Mr. Gibbons kept her from brooding. It felt good to be back on the floor, in the familiar world of tile floors, medicinal smells, and beeping monitors. Her name tag was pinned to her short-sleeved tunic, the pockets of which were jammed with various bits of paraphernalia that might or might not come in handy. Her stethoscope was slung around her neck, and her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as she walked. Familiar. Good. Despite her expectations, she had managed to grab several hours' sleep before coming to work. She didn't know whether to be glad of the sleep or sorry Marc hadn't called and disturbed her. Evidently, he had decided just to drop the matter, which, when she thought about it, was the most sensible thing to do. They had slept together, she had made a fool of herself, but it was over. He was in Louisiana. She was back home in Ohio, where she belonged. Maybe one day she would be in a reminiscent mood and tell Piper about the hot night she had spent with a New Orleans detective. Piper would be vastly relieved; in her opinion, Karen's love life was a contradiction in terms, because where there was life, there had to be activity.

Mr. Gibbons's surgeon finally called right before Karen went on break. As expected, he was grumpy. In the general opinion of nurses, all surgeons were assholes, but Dr. Pierini was a logical asshole. "Mr. Gibbons's temp is a hundred point eight," she said. "At midnight, it was ninety-nine point seven."

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