56 Days (Black) (20 page)

“What about sex mornings?”
I joked.

“Oh, honey
.” she responded. “There will be no sex mornings.  Those are for the dating class.  Once you get married, you start wearing granny panties and he gets a beer belly.  Then you have to start marking your calendar for every other Sunday and craning your neck towards the television while watching a rerun of Dexter.”

“Wow, Gem, you make marriage sound so hot.”

“What?” she asked, licking the frosting off of a day-old cookie.  “I love Dexter.”

*****

An hour later, Jack came by.  He never came by
… something was wrong.  Luckily, I was by myself in the back.  Gemma sent him in so that we could be alone.

“Oh, God, Jack… what?”

He smiled.  “I didn’t even need the test.  I saw the baby.”

I put my hand to my mouth.  “It’s yours,” I mumbled.

“She’s half-Japanese.”

I choked out a sob.
  He immediately came to my side. 

“
Here’s the confirmation anyway,” he said, handing me a folded piece of paper.  He grabbed me by the waist and gave me a long, wet kiss. 

“Let’s
start trying for a baby,” I blurted.

“I thought you wanted to wait
a little bit.”

“Yeah,
we probably should but I don’t want to anymore.  Do
you
want to?”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips.  “I
told you, El.  I want a family.  I would have knocked you up last week if you would’ve let me.”

I dug around in my purse and pulled out my birth control pills, throwing them in the garbage bin.  “Done.”

“What about school?” he questioned.

“I’ll do both.  I can do it.”

“You want to stay in Chicago?”

I eyed him.  “What do you mean?”

“I just worry about a baby in the city…”

“Jackie,” I whispered, touching his face, “
Millions of people have kids in the city.  Besides, where would we go?”

“What about Indianapolis?  Rachel and Vince are there.  We could be a little family support group.”

I took a deep breath.  “What about your parents?  They can be our support group.”

“I’ve been thinking about that too.  Maybe they can sell th
eir place and move with us.  I mean, not
in
with us, but…”

“Jack, they’ve lived here forever.”

“I know,” he said, smiling.  “Maybe it’s time for a change.  For all of us.”

I thought about it for a minute.  “But school is here.  I’ve already got a schedule.”

“And you’ll keep that schedule.  I’m not talking about moving tomorrow.  I can make furniture anywhere, really, so it’s whenever you’re ready.”  He pressed his hand to my cheek.  “And if you’re never ready, that’s okay too.  I know we can stay here… it’s home.  It’s just something to think about, you know, long term.”

“Okay,” I replied, wrapping my arms around his waist.  “I gotta get back to work.”

“Sure you can’t go with me tomorrow?”

I pushed at his chest.  “Go. 
I’ll see you in a few hours.  I love you.”

“Love you too.”  He smacked me on the behind and headed out to the front.

The baby wasn’t his.  Thank
fuck.

*
****

I went over
the travel plans with Jack a million times.  It was ridiculous, but travel made me nervous now.  I couldn’t stand to be apart.

Jack just laughed at me.  “Baby, I’ll be home tomorrow.  I’m leaving
first thing in the morning.  I’ll be back in time for dinner, okay?  I’ll even cook.”

“I’ll cook,” I responded.  “You’ll be driving all day.”

He cocked his head at me.  “You sure about that, babe?”

I knew I wasn’t the best cook.  I could rock the shit out of baking, but cooking was definitely not my strong suit.  “Uh, yeah, dick
.  Don’t be mean.”

He laughed.  “Alright.  Well, I look forward to it.”

I leaned into him.  “Please hurry back, okay?”

He kissed me softly, cupping my face.  “Yes.  I don’t want to be away from you any longer than you want to be away from me.  Trust me.”

“Go out in Nashville, honey.  Buy some cowboy boots or something.”  I grinned at him.

“Uh huh.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe,” I whispered, laughing.

He gave me one final kiss and
leaned down into Buster’s face.  “Take care of your mother.”

I rolled my eyes at him. 

“I love you.”  He touched his hand to my face one last time and closed the door behind him.

*
****

A few hours after my shift ended, the buzzer rang. 
After checking the peephole, I slowly opened the door to a couple of men in ill-fitting suits with badges on their belts.

“Can I help you?” I asked. 

God, please let Jack be okay.

“Elsa Black?”

“Yes?”

“
I’m Detective Hanna and this is Detective Molinari.  You recently took out an order of protection on a David Viera.  Is that correct?”

“Yes.”  I was visibly rattled now. 
Oh, God, what had he done?
“Has something happened to my husband?  Jack Conti?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions if we could.”

“Yeah, of course.”  I gestured for the officers to come in.

I sat on the edge of the couch.  They stood.

“Ms. Black…”

I cut him off.  “It’s
Conti.”

“Sure. 
  Mrs. Conti, we need to ask you a few questions about the nature of your relationship with Mr. Viera.”

“There is no relationship with
Mr. Viera.  We used to date and now we don’t.  He didn’t take the break-up very seriously and harassed the shit out of me for months.  But, he hasn’t been around much lately… or at least I haven’t seen him.  I received a disc from him a few weeks ago.  We gave it to the police when we filed the restraining order.”

“What kind of disc, Mrs. Conti?”

Of course they hadn’t seen it. 

“Well, it
was some kind of stalker art project, I guess.  It has music and video of me doing random things.  He filmed clips of my husband at his studio and us walking around town.”  I paused and took a deep breath.  “He also filmed us… me and Jack… having sex.  I’m not sure, but it looks like it was taken through the screen of our bedroom window.  That’s on there too.”

Hanna looked at his pad and took a few notes.

I was starting to panic.  “Why are you here?”

“David Viera was murdered last night.”

I took in a sharp breath.  “What?  How?”

“Well, that’s why we’re here, Ms. Black.  Can you verify your whereabouts last
evening between ten and midnight?”

My whereabouts?
  Fuck
me.

“I was here
… with Jack.  Why?”

“Just asking a few questions.  Now, where is your husband, Ms. Black?”

“It’s Conti,” I reminded him.  “He’s in Nashville delivering a piece of furniture.  He’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

“We have some interesting
security footage from outside of Mr. Viera’s office.  It shows both you and your husband getting buzzed in.  Mind telling us why you were there?  I’m assuming you weren’t having Sunday coffee.”

I sighed.  “All of this was on the incident report.  Dave broke into my house when Jack was out of town.  He threatened me, punched me… just double-check the report.  That’s the reason why we went to see him.  Jack just wanted to tell him to leave me alone.  That’s it. 
We haven’t seen him since.”

The two men looked at each other, Detective Hanna smiling and jotting something down on a notebook.  “Well, okay, then.”  He handed me his card.  “The second your husband gets back, we’d like to have a talk with him
, Ms. Black.”

You fucker.

“Mmm,” I replied, standing up and showing them to the door.  “Will do.”

The second the door closed behind them, I picked up the phone with shaking hands and dialed Jack.

*****

“
The cops were here.”  Those were the first words out of my mouth when Jack picked up the phone.

“Okay, slow down.  What’s going on?”

“Dave… someone killed him.”  I choked out a short sob.

“Are you fucking serious?  When?”

I concentrated on my breathing.  “I don’t know.  I guess last night.  They asked me where we both were.  I told them we were at home.”

“Elsa, calm down.  We
were
home last night.  Why are you so frazzled?”

“
This is so fucked.  Even if we broke up, he’s still
dead
, Jack,” I sniffled.

“I know, honey.  I’m sorry.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Well, I was going to come home tomorrow morning, but I’ll leave tonight.”

I didn’t want him to drive in the middle of the night.  Even if he left that second, it would be after two in the morning when he arrived.

“No,” I whispered.  “I’m fine.  I was just freaking out
for a minute.  Stay, but come home safe, okay?”

“I will.  El, I love you.  Don’t worry
.  It’s going to be fine, okay?”

*
****

Sometime in the night, I woke to a pair of warm lips at my back.  “Baby,” he whispered.

I rolled over and threw myself into his arms.  “Oh, thank God, Jack,” I replied, pressing a kiss to his lips.  “What time is it?”

“It’s late.  I didn’t want to wake you up, but I wanted to see your face
.  It was selfish.  Go back to sleep, honey.”

“No,” I murmured.  “Come here.”

I pulled him closer and gripped his t-shirt at the hem, pulling it over his head.

“El… it’s late.  You want to start something up right now?  You have to be at work in a few hours.”

“Oh, God.” I joked.  “It’s just like Gem said.  Once we got married, you wouldn’t want to do it with me anymore.”

Jack laughed aloud once before burying his lips in the crook of my neck.  He licked under my ear and whispered into it.  “Oh, I definitely want to do it with you, Mrs. C.”

“Don’t ever call me that again,” I teased.

He shifted me on the mattress and pulled me into the center.  I watched him as he slowly dragged my underwear down my legs, pausing to press kisses into my skin every couple of inches.  He kne
lt between them and slowly unzipped his pants, studying my face.

I pulled at his belt loops and slid his pants down his thighs.  He freed them from his ankles and kicked them off the side of the bed.  He lowered his mouth to my stomach, kissing and licking along my waist.

“Thank God you’re home,” I breathed.

He pulled my black cami over my head and grazed my nipple with his teeth lightly.  I moaned and clutched the back of his neck. 

Please, stick it in already!

“Turn over,” he whispered.

I rotated slowly, facing the mattress.  I splayed my hands across the cool cotton and took a deep breath as Jack tortured me with a slow tongue-lashing across my lower back.  He reached into his bedside table and retrieved something… a bottle?

Oh God, what the hell is that?

He flipped the cap open and poured some liquid into his palms, rubbing them together.  Lowering them to my back, he leisurely massaged my tight muscles.  “You’re tense.”

“Christ, Jack,” I muttered.  “I thought you had a huge bottle of lube.”

“Really, Elsa?”

“I don’t know… it’s not like we’ve ever talked about
it before.  How do I know you aren’t into that?”

He laughed softly. 
“Relax.  You’ve had a rough day and I was trying to help.”

I breathed calmly and let out a sigh.  “It’s so good, baby.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Don’t get too comfortable though.  I’m not done with you just yet.”

Thank God.

He gave me the best ten minute massage of my life.  Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’d ever had a massage before.  I mean, not really.  I truly was missing out.

He whispered in my ear.  “Get on your knees.”

Oh boy.

I obeyed, slowly placing my arms in front of me.  I could feel his hands hot on my back
as he caressed the massage oil into my skin gently.  His hands lingered on my backside, fingers kneading my flesh.  His right hand dipped further down, moving between my legs.  He pressed one long finger inside of me.

I moaned loudly causing Buster’s collar to jingle in the other room.