Dying For Siena (16 page)

“Good, because I don’t want it,” he said heatedly.

“Good.”

“Good.”

Silence.

Nick looked up with a sly smile. “Incredibly good-looking, huh?”

“Shut up, Nick.”

Except she wasn’t looking at him, and was drawing wavy lines in the tablecloth with the tines of her fork.

“Look at me when you say that.”

She took a deep breath and raised her eyes and said nothing.

“Ahhhh, Faith.” Miserable, Nick pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I want to go back. To the way it was…before.”

“Nobody can go back, Nick. That’s the nature of life. You can only go forward.”

“Okay.” He took his hands away. “Then let’s go forward. I’m really, really sorry about what happened. The truth is, I was—”

“Drunk.” Faith looked at him steadily. “As a skunk.”

“Yeah. I guess you could tell.”

“I had an inkling when you tried to pay for dinner with your Hunters security pass. You’re such a celebrity, the manager was actually apologetic when he said, very seriously, that the restaurant couldn’t accept security passes as a form of payment.”

Nick didn’t remember a thing about the dinner or even how they had wound up at his house. Though he did remember long, pale limbs and the feeling of bone-deep satisfaction.

“Don’t look so sad, Nick. You were a very sweet drunk.”

“You’re smiling. I must’ve done something right.”

Faith’s light brown eyebrows drew together. “Is that what all this is about?” she asked icily. “You want to know what your performance was like? ‘How’m I doing, coach?’ Do you want me to tell you the earth moved? Do you want a score? Your rating on a scale of one to a hundred?”

Nick winced, wishing he didn’t deserve that. “No, no. It’s just—”

“Just what? You’re making such a big deal out of this, Nick. We had sex. It was nice and now it’s over. I don’t know why we need to rehash it. And it’s not as if it was your first time.”

His cue. He leaned forward, looking her intently in the face. “Faith, listen to me.” He looked away for a second, mouth tight, then brought his gaze back to her. “I really, really need to know this, so don’t blow me off. Was it—was it
your
first time?”

Blood rushed to her face and she wanted to die, simply die, on the spot. Nick was so close to the truth it was humiliating. In all the ways that counted, Nick was the first.

She could hardly consider Tim Gresham’s unsatisfactory and brief flailing around in her body as sex in any real sense of the term. More a roll in the spreadsheets than a roll in the hay. The heated discussion afterwards, about Truman’s theories on factor analysis, had been infinitely more exciting than the sex.

“Of course not,” she said haughtily, lifting her chin. “I’ve had—” she looked at him to see what he would buy, “—dozens of affairs. Dozens.”

Nick’s jaw muscles bunched.

She ticked off her fingers, as if silently totting all her lovers up, then opened her hands and shrugged her shoulders—sorry, too numerous to count.
“Can’t even remember their names.”

“Look—” Nick bit off what he was going to say as Tullio himself smoothly slid two plates in front of them.

“
Buon appetito
.” He beamed at them, then rushed away.

Nick didn’t even look at his plate. He shifted the plate away with a forefinger, planted his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Okay. That’s the way you want to play it, fine. But don’t think that’s the end—”

“Great stuff,” Faith said around a forkful. “Wow. This is the first time I’ve ever had a cucumber with a specific taste as opposed to something cold and slimy. Can you get the recipe?”

She lifted her eyes to Nick, and he could read perfectly well that the subject was closed.

Okay
, Nick thought.
That’s it.
If that’s the way she wanted it, fine. Fine. He shunted his guilty conscience aside. His women knew the score, he made sure of it. He didn’t ordinarily have to beat himself up about having sex with a woman. Granted, he never chose anyone remotely like Faith and he knew why. She’d have been perfectly justified to beat his brains out, with what he’d done. Instead, she chose to pretend that nothing was wrong. But he knew—

Suddenly, with no warning, Nick was blasted away by sensory memories.

Long, silky limbs, milk-pale skin soft as a baby’s cheek, wet and tight…

Christ!
Nick shook his head, shaken at the intensity of the flashback. He was semi-aroused and disgusted at himself.
What had brought that on?
Maybe it was the concussion. That was the only explanation. This was Faith, good old Faith. Lou’s friend. His friend, still. He hoped.

And because he wanted the friendship to continue, because he wanted her to know that he was her friend, too, he needed to ask the next question.

What she had told Dante about her first months on the job had shaken him. He’d had no idea…

All through last fall and last winter, while they’d seen each other a couple of times a week when his team wasn’t on an away game, she hadn’t let on. While he’d complained about his coach, and Lou had bitched endlessly about the guy two cubicles over in her office, Faith had listened to them in total sympathy, dispensing advice, and more often than not making them laugh with some ironic, totally dead-on comment about the coach’s IQ and Lou’s office-mate’s creepiness. She hadn’t let on by so much as a whisper that her boss was making her life a living hell.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were being harassed?”

She looked up, surprised, the fork halfway to her mouth. She finished chewing and swallowed. “What?”

“By Kane. I heard what you told Dante. You should’ve told us you were going through a hard time. We had no idea.”

Nick didn’t know which was worse. The fact she hadn’t told him and Lou about her troubles when they were all supposed to be friends, or the completely blank look on her face right now, as if sharing troubles was a completely unknown concept to her.

The idea made him angry. Damn it, everybody had to have someone to care when times were tough. Lou had threatened to remove Coach Benson’s manhood with a dull spoon and the Rossi men had had a little talk with Lou’s nemesis. Three tall, broad-shouldered men had instilled the fear of God—or better yet, the fear of Rossi revenge—into the creep. He’d behaved himself after that.

Who had gone to bat for Faith?
He wanted to know, needed to know, someone had been on her side, since he hadn’t.

“Did you at least tell your parents?”

And just like that, Faith shuttered down, tighter than a
Batmobile, with eyes blank, mouth tight and skin gone even paler. Nick’s balance slipped a little more. Good old Faith. Calm, rational, funny Faith had a whole side to her personality he had had no inkling of.
No family to back her up.
And her friends couldn’t even tell when she was in trouble.

She was staring at him fiercely, like a wounded bird that didn’t want to be touched, and a huge surge of emotion caught him square in the chest and he looked away so she wouldn’t see it.

One thing he knew about Faith Murphy—she was astute. If she caught any whiff of the intense emotion he was feeling, she would mistake it for pity and clam up even more. It wasn’t pity he was feeling, or at least not all he was feeling.

Valor. The Code of the Jock. When you fell down, you mopped up the blood and picked yourself right up again. And you never ever said that you hurt. It was what Faith had done. She had valor. The quiet, tough kind. She wasn’t going to talk about it. Well, two could play at tough guy.

“So,” he said genially, digging into the
vitello tonnato.
“Who do you think offed the prof?”

Faith blinked and he watched as every muscle relaxed. Clearly, murder was a much easier topic to deal with than sex or a harassing boss.

“I don’t know,” Faith said thoughtfully. “But whoever it was, he deserves a medal.”

“Sounds like Kane would’ve had people lined up just waiting to do the job,” Nick mused. “Knifing someone in the heart is just about as up close and personal as it gets.” His eyes narrowed on her plate and he frowned. “What’s the use of Tullio cooking up something really good for you if you’re just going to stare at it?”

He watched pointedly until she put a forkful into her mouth. “That’s it,” he said with satisfaction.

“So…who’s the guilty party? Unless…” He stopped and looked at her. “Unless you did it. Perfectly understandable if you had. I don’t mind. Unless, of course, you develop a taste for it and come after
me
with a knife.”

Faith gave a half laugh. “Truth is, I didn’t do it, though I thought about it.” She sighed. “A lot. Especially in the first few months. The man was insanely cruel. I imagine your cousin will order an autopsy. I’d like to know what Kane’s brain is like—he’s probably missing the hypothalamus.”

“Is that where feelings are?”

“Why, yes.” Faith blinked in surprise.

Nick finished off the last bite of his veal and pointed his fork at Faith. “There you go. You’re as bad as Lou. She’s always making cracks about dumb jocks. I’ll have you know that even though I don’t read that much, I did go to college—”

“Lou says you didn’t go to college…that you went to sex camp,” Faith said acidly, and Nick winced.

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Enough. So—who do you think did it?”

The humor died out of her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m hoping it’s an outsider, some tramp who got into the
Certosa
, but…bottom line, I don’t know. It’s much more likely it’s one of us. Madeleine, Grif…I work with them every day. Professor Gori—he seems like such a nice, civilized man.”

“Civilization’s a thin shield,” Nick said. “On the ice and off.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “I don’t know, Nick. I just don’t know. I could say to you that it’s impossible the people I know could commit an act of violence, but then, I was the one who found the body and I saw it—the knife. The stiletto.” She shivered. “Like a stake through the heart.”

Nick covered her hand with his.

She let her hand rest under his for a moment, then shook it off. “Anyway, we’ve got your cousin on this guy’s trail.” She frowned. “Or the woman’s trail.”

“Dante.” Nick finished off his wine and caught Tullio’s eye. He mimed writing a check. “Dante’s smart, but I don’t think he’s got too much experience with homicide.”

“He’s a cop. Of course he does.”

“He’s an Italian cop. More to the point—a Sienese cop. The Sienese have too pleasant a life to indulge in murder. I don’t think there are any murders in Siena.”

“What—people are better here?”

“Not better.” Nick handed over a credit card. “Happier. More content. There’s a difference.” He signed, left a big tip and smiled at Tullio, exchanging a few words.

Faith glanced at her watch. “I need to be getting back to the
Certosa
. I think the door closes at ten.”

“No, there’ll be a police guard tonight. I asked. I’ll get you to the
Certosa
and, if you can pack your bags quickly, you can be in bed by ten.”

“Why should I pack and where will I be by ten?”

“Hmm?” Nick was walking along with a half-smile on his face. The
piazza
at night was like a fairytale land. A crescent moon was rising above the bell tower of city hall and two stars twinkled. One of them, doubtless Venus, was sending her wayward rays to mess with the minds of otherwise sane men and women.

There was a deep buzz, the conversation of hundreds of people, laughing and talking on a summer’s night, accompanied by the percussion of hundreds of feet. The sound of it was almost a living thing.

“You’ll be staying at my grandparents’ place. They have a nice summer house in the country, not far from the
Certosa
. Don’t worry. I cleared it with Dante. And my grandparents are nice people, so you’ll enjoy them.”

“I have no doubt your grandparents are nice people. But I fail to understand why you think I’ll be staying with them when I’m staying at the
Certosa
.”

“Now, Faith,” Nick said reasonably. “You don’t think I’m going to let you stay in a building where there’s a murderer on the loose, do you? Lou’d have my head.”

“Well, since it’s only there for decorative purposes, that’s no great loss,” Faith said between her teeth. “Listen, Nick, I can’t imagine why you think you’d have a say over my sleeping arrangements. I am absolutely not staying with your grandparents. I am staying at the
Certosa
, where I’m in the middle of an important conference.”

“Now, look—”

“No, you look.” Faith wheeled and faced him. “Nick, get this through your head. You don’t need to atone for anything. You don’t need to hover over me or worry about me. And I certainly don’t want you interfering with my job.

“This conference is my big chance to show what I can do. It’s also a chance to network and get to know some of the people in my field without Professor Kane running interference. I want to—I
need
to—be on site as much as possible and not be ferried back and forth.