F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (9 page)

           
He flung that thought away.
Ludicrous. He hadn't been saving himself for Kara. There'd been plenty of women
since Kara. He glanced at the sleeping form beside him. Like Connie, for
instance.

           
But it occurred to him that Kara had
done a hell of a lot more than he with their ten years apart. She'd been
married, had a child, graduated from college, and had a book in the works. Rob
had had the job when she'd left, and he still had the job. Nothing more. He
felt… jealous.

           
The thought of Kara brought Kelly to
mind, and with her came the thought that he should have gone to the funeral
yesterday. Even though Kara had let him know in no uncertain terms that he
wasn't needed there in rural,
Pennsylvania
, and it might have been uncomfortable, he
still felt he should have shown up. He'd had little or no contact with Kelly
since her sister had dropped him ten years ago, but he felt he owed it to her
to stand by her grave and say a prayer.

           
"What a jerk," he said
aloud.

           
Next to him in the bed, Connie
mumbled and turned onto her back. The movement exposed her right breast, pink
and ample. Rob watched the dark nipple rise in the cool air of the bedroom.
Connie squirmed, then pulled the covers up to her neck.

           
Rob leaned back with his hands
behind his head and continued his rumination on being a jerk. Mostly it had to
do with loyalty. He couldn't get past this feeling that he had some sort of
obligation to be there for everyone he knew or with whom he'd ever had a
potential relationship. Like Kelly Wade.

           
Jerk
.
Why was he lying here thinking about her on a Sunday morning? Did she come
around to help him over the rough days and weeks and months he'd had after Kara
left him? No. Oh, they'd had lunch together a couple of times and she'd tried
to explain Kara's refusal to return his calls or letters, but in general she'd
avoided him, going about her business without worrying too much about Rob
Harris. So why did he feel he should be at her funeral ten years later?

           
Because
you're a cop and she died in your city.

           
Bull. It wasn't his city. He didn't
run it. And he hadn't dressed her up like a hooker and sent her trolling
through the Oak Bar.

           
Still, Kelly had been a good kid.
She had died a scarlet woman, but Rob would always remember her as the sweet
young thing of ten years ago. He smiled. Kara and Kelly Wade, the two beautiful
hicks looking like they'd just stepped out of a Doublemint ad. He remembered
his first glimpse of her that night at McSorley's, and how the Wade twins, with
their shapely, well-turned little bodies, pale blonde hair, blue eyes, scrubbed
faces, and dazzling smiles had won over that all-male hangout before they'd
departed.

           
You couldn't
not
like them. They even had a little routine: "I'm Kara, the
Kelly Girl."

           
"And I'm Kelly, Kara's
sister." Corny and ridiculous from anyone else, but it had blown Rob away.

           
And although it was almost
impossible to tell them apart except for their make up—Kelly always wore more—Rob
found himself immediately drawn to Kara. Something about Kara…

           
Kara.

           
She'd turned out to be nothing but
trouble for him. Why was he thinking about Kara when there was a shapely,
passionate woman curled up against him in his bed?

           
Maybe because when he and Kara had
been good together, it was magic. There had never been anything else quite like
it for him, before or since.

           
But why torture himself about it?
For all the passion and intimacy and ecstasy they'd shared, there had been
large counterbalancing doses of anger and shouting and pain. And when she
finally called it quits, she
really
called it quits—completely severing herself from him, from the city, and
everyone she had known here. No calls, no letters not a word. Kelly had assured
him that Kara was alive and well in Elderun but that she most definitely did
not want to see him any more. He hadn't believed that. He'd traveled out
through Amish country, groping through the area around a place called Bird In
Hand until he'd finally found the Wade family farm and pounded on the door. Her
mother had let him in but Kara had refused to come downstairs. He had
stubbornly waited for hours in the warm but pitying presence of Mrs. Wade, but
Kara wouldn't even show her face.

           
That was when it finally got through
his thick Irish skull that she really and truly wanted no part of him.

           
That had hurt him like never before.
As if the heart had been ripped out of him, leaving him with an empty hole
where it had been.

           
Rob stretched. But that was all in
the past now. Time heals all wounds. Or so they said.

           
Kara certainly hadn't needed much
time to heal. She'd bounced back and married Mr. Right. He might be dead now,
but at least she'd found him.

           
When's
my turn
? he thought. When would he find
Mrs
.
Right, if there was such a person? Or had he already found her and let her slip
away? Or was the job going to turn out to be Mrs. Right, like it had for so
many cops he knew?

           
He wondered how many chances you
got.

           
He still loved the job, but it
wasn't quite the same anymore. It had been getting to him lately. The human
misery he saw on a daily basis seemed to be deeper, more soul-wrenching; the
scum he had to deal with seemed scummier. Was the city changing for the worse,
or was it him?

           
That little restaurant he and Kara
had dreamed of opening was looking better and better. Even though Kara wouldn't
be with him, he still wanted to give it a try. He'd put in his twenty years,
then use his pension as a back-up while he made the restaurant a going thing.
He just had to hold out until—

           
He felt a hand slide up the inside
of his thigh. He looked at Connie. She was awake and staring at him with her
curly brown eyes. Her long dark hair flowed over her cheek and throat.

           
"An option on your
thoughts," she said.

           
"Nothing. A blank."

           
"Come on. Your face reminded me
of the first time I made you try sushi."

           
"Okay. I was thinking about a
murder that maybe wasn't a murder and how I'm probably never going to
know."

           
"Hey, it's Sunday. You're not
suppose to be thinking about work. You're supposed to be thinking about
me."

           
As if to emphasize that point, she
ran her hand further up his thigh and began caressing him. Rob felt a faint
tingle of pleasure but little more. His usual quick response wasn't there this
morning.

           
"Not in the mood, huh?"
Connie said after a couple of minutes.

           
"Not really."

           
"I hate it when you get so
wrapped up in a case. You're good for nothing else when that happens."

           
"And I suppose you were a
barrel of laughs back in October of '87?"

           
She laughed and punched him on the
arm.

           
He'd met Connie during a robbery
investigation when he'd been assigned to the
Upper West Side
. Her apartment—condo, rather—was next door
to the scene; she'd heard noises and knew her neighbors were in
Tortola
for the week, so she called the police. Rob
had questioned her and learned that she was an investment banker with Saloman
Brothers. A few days later she had called him back to her apartment, saying
she'd remembered a few more details. She'd greeted him at the door… nude.
They'd been seeing each other ever since.

           
Neither of them had any illusions
that this was going anywhere. There were no problems in bed. That was fine.
Connie wasn't easy to keep up with, but Rob managed. It was out of bed that
they ran into problems. They moved in radically different circles. Rob had
taken her once to Leo's, the watering hole where most of the Midtown North cops
did their post-shift relaxing. She'd loathed the place. And Rob felt far out of
his depth with her yuppie friends.

           
"How about going out for
brunch?" she said.

           
"Brunch? I don't do
brunch."

           
Connie hopped out of bed and went
over to the mirror above the dresser. Rob had never met a woman so totally
unselfconscious about nudity. Maybe that was because she had a great body and
knew it. She pulled a brush out of her purse and began working on her hair.

           
"Sure you do. Every time you
order breakfast when you're supposed to be having lunch, you're doing
brunch."

           
"Oh. Okay. Let's do
brunch."

           
She turned to him, her eyes bright.

           
"I got a great idea! We'll go
to this place Pete McCarthy and I found up on
Columbus Avenue
.. It's called Julio's."

           
"Not another yuppie
eatery!"

           
"No. This place is really
declasse—determinedly so. It's a working man's bar left over from
pre-gentrification days. It's grungy, the owner's the bartender, and the
service is surly at best."

           
"Doesn't sound like your kind
of place."

           
"It's not, but then again it
is. Actually, it's a little like Leo's, but the hamburgers are great. Pete and
I are keeping it a secret. We're only telling our closest friends, otherwise
this place will be overrun."

           
"Just what I want to do on a
Sunday—listen to your friends talk about money," he said, jabbing out his
cigarette. "Almost as much fun as a tetanus shot."

           
"No, really." She began
slipping into her bra and panties. "You'll like it."

           
Rob shook his head. "Sounds
like too much fun for me. I think I'll pass."

           
It wasn't that he was into the
anti-yuppie vogue. Sure, they seemed like a pretty empty-headed bunch, but He
wasn't all too sure that if he had an income well into six figures that he
wouldn't be just like them. It was just that he never seemed to have anything
to say to her friends. They all liked to hear him talk about police work, but
that was the last thing he wanted to discuss during his off hours.