Kill the Competition (37 page)

Wade was attaching some kind of sensor thingy to the bay window. He wore a tool belt, and nicely. Downey wound between his feet, rubbing her head against his legs and purring like a vibrator.

Shameless pussy.

Wade nodded toward the sofa. "Nice."

"Thank you."

"Looks comfortable. Does it unfold to make a bed?"

She coughed—probably cat hair in the air—then nodded.

"I'll be needing some new furniture soon," he said. "The renovations to my den are almost finished."

"What did you do to it?"

"The big jobs were refinishing the wood floors and replacing the crown molding."

"Wow. When do you have time for that?"

He looked up from what he was doing and shrugged, then looked back down, and she understood—it was what he had thrown himself into when his marriage had dissolved. She had done the same thing with Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners.

"What are you doing to my window?"

"Since these don't open, I'm installing a glass shattering sensor. If the glass is broken, an alarm will sound there." He pointed up to a white box the size of a deck of cards sitting on the landing of her stairs, against the wall. "I'll put motion sensors on the two windows in the kitchen."

"I think you're overreacting."

He leveled his gray gaze on her. "I hope so."

There was that Southern I'll-take-care-of-you attitude again. She tried to rally her feminist defenses, but they were cowering behind her ovaries. To be honest, it felt kind of good to be fussed over. "What am I supposed to do if the alarm sounds?"

"Lock yourself in your bathroom and call 9-1-1. Do you have anything to protect yourself with?"

"The detectives took Big Daddy."

"Oh, right." He grinned. "The gift from your girlfriends."

"What would you suggest?"

"A big dog that barks."

She pointed to his feet. "How about a little cat that bites?"

"It's not quite the same."

Belinda made a rueful noise. "You're going to hurt Downey's feelings. She thinks you like her." She lowered herself to the couch for a trial sit, and sighed as the leather cushions hugged her.

"I do like her," he said, but he wasn't looking at the cat.

She squirmed farther down into the cushions, thinking what a great spot this would be if her television were working. And if Margo were alive.

"You really should cover this window," he said. "It's like a huge glass door. Anyone can see in."

"I know, I had to scare Perry off when I got home."

He frowned. "You should have let me shoot him in the food court."

"He was just curious about all the commotion. I think he's harmless."

"If you see him lurking around again, call the police and file a report."

"Yes, sir."

Wade gave the sensor a final inspection, then walked over to the couch and, after removing his tool belt, sat down on the couch next to her. He draped both arms along the back and made a satisfied noise as he settled into the creaky cushions. He turned his head and smiled. "Very nice."

With his leg pressed against hers, she could only nod and smile. Downey sought to join them, but Belinda shooed her away. "No," she said in her best master voice. "You'll scratch the leather."

"Aluminum foil," Wade said.

"Hm?" He was so close that she could feel his breath against her temple.

"Put aluminum foil on the couch when you're not using it. Cats hate the way it feels and sounds, so when she jumps on it, she'll get a bad association with the couch."

"Oh," she murmured, looking up to meet his gaze. "You know a lot about... cats."

"Not so much," he said, and she could tell by the set of his jaw that he was feeling the same prickly awareness that she was feeling. Maybe the smell of new leather was an aphrodisiac.

She swallowed audibly. "So... where do we go from here?"

He turned and leaned in close. Her breath caught as he cupped his hand under her jaw and made his approach. In a split second, she registered so many details about his face—smoky gray eyes, shadowy square jaw, determined mouth. She managed to inhale just before his lips touched hers. The pressure was light at first, but within a couple of seconds, the kiss ignited, and soon they were going at it like a couple of teenagers. She kept waiting for the wrongness to set in, for the unfamiliarity of his touch to disturb her, but the overriding thought in her brain was that this man knew how to kiss. And his intensity alone hinted at other skills in his repertoire.

She had mentally settled in for a nice long session of necking on the couch when he suddenly pulled away. While she recovered, he stood and pulled his hand down his face. "I'm sorry about that."

He was? She touched her tender mouth.

"If I don't behave myself," he said in a thick voice, "Detective Salyers will yank me from this case. So, for now, we can't 'go' anywhere."

She pressed her bruised lips together. "I meant... where does the
investigation
go from here?"

His color rose. "Oh."

The phone rang, thank God. She jumped up from her couch to answer, hoping it wasn't another reporter with disturbing details. "Hello?" She stared at the large impression her behind had left in the couch and willed it to fill in quickly.

"Hello, dear, it's Mother."

Of course it was. "Hi, Mom."

"Are you alone, or is your friend there?"

She glanced at Wade. "What friend would that be, Mom?"

"You know, your
man
friend."

"Oh,
him."
She watched as Wade reattached his tool belt. "Yes, he's here doing... handiwork."

Wade arched his eyebrow.

Her mother partially covered the mouthpiece. "Franklin, he's
handy."
She came back on the line. "Your father wants to know if he knows anything about cars."

Wade walked away from her toward the kitchen. "Tell Dad I don't know. Where are you calling from?"

"North Platte, Nebraska. The scenery is absolutely lovely."

"Are you taking a lot of pictures?" Her mother was a notoriously bad photographer.

Barbara Hennessey sighed. "Yes, but I just discovered that somehow the camera lens cover has been on from Indianapolis to Omaha."

Somehow.

"Did your sofa arrive, dear?"

"Yes, just a few minutes ago, in fact."

"Is it still red?"

"Um, yes."

Another sigh sounded. "I suppose there are worse things that could happen."

If her mother only knew.

"I'd better let you get back to your guest. I'll call you in another couple of days."

"Okay. Give my love to Dad. Talk to you soon." Belinda hung up the phone and shook her head. Her poor dad had probably heard enough about her red couch to make him want to drive the Buick off a bridge.

"Finished," Wade said, walking back through the hallway, wiping his hands on the tail of his T-shirt.

She dragged her gaze from the glimpses of his planed stomach. "That was quick."

"They're contact sensors, so don't forget and accidentally open your windows."

"I won't." She followed him to the door, almost tripping over Downey, who was trying to get there first.

At the door he turned. "Call me if... anything."

"Okay." She nodded. "Thanks for the kiss—I mean
fish.
Thanks for the fish. Sandwiches. And the beer. And the security alarm." She couldn't shut up.

"No problem," he said with a little smile. "I'll most likely see you tomorrow—about the investigation."

"Of course."

He left, and she closed the door before Downey could escape. The cat meowed and circled in place. Belinda sighed, scooped the forlorn feline into her arms, and carried her, wriggling, to the couch. "Don't get your hopes up, old girl," she murmured, stroking her pet's dark fur to calm both of them. "We humans call it 'being on the rebound.' And when both humans are on the rebound, there's another word for it:
doomed."

Chapter 26

Belinda descended the stairs to the eighth floor alone, relieved to be free of the women's company after a tense morning carpool. Terse exchanges and rueful glances convinced her that something was going on between Libby and Carole and Rosemary that excluded her, probably something to do with Rosemary's secret appointments. But frankly, she didn't want to ask questions on the chance that she might be expected to answer some of her own, and she didn't have the strength.

Wade's kiss and her reaction to it had dominated her concentration for most of the evening. Then her thoughts had switched to Julian and his possible involvement in the murder, and if there was a connection between Jeanie's death and Margo's. Around midnight she had begun to obsess over her part in the Payton acquisition. She needed to talk to Mr. Archer, but she planned to stall, hoping the missing contracts would turn up.

Around 2:00 a.m., all the events of the past few days had gathered to press upon her mind like a vise. Hoping a cup of herbal tea would help her sleep, she had tied on her robe and walked downstairs by the illumination of strategic night-lights (for Downey's sake, she'd told herself when she'd bought them).

The sheet that she'd hung over the bay window had fallen onto the floor, allowing light from the dusk-to-dawn streetlamp to stream in. As she had walked by, the hair had stood up on her arms—she could have sworn someone had been at the window, peering in. Perry? She blinked, and whatever she'd thought she'd seen was gone. She'd laughed at herself and rehung the sheet. Instead of preparing tea, though, she'd curled up on the new couch that she'd covered with two quilts in deference to Downey's claws until she could buy a couple of rolls of aluminum foil. She hadn't worried about oversleeping because she hadn't thought she'd be able to sleep.

When Downey had licked her awake, the alarm on her clock upstairs had been sounding, her brain had been gummy, and her limbs leaden. The urge to lie there until Christmas had been appealing, but the sensation had been so similar to the way she'd felt the days following the wedding that it had frightened her into mobility. That, and the knowledge that the carpool was coming.

By simply showing up, the girls had saved her from slipping into that murky place where she could wallow in the futility of Why me?, so at first she hadn't minded the quiet in the car. But after an hour of listening to their prickly silence and a stand-in traffic reporter on the radio, she was ready to implode.

Hopefully today they would find Jim Newberry, and the nightmare would end.

Well, one of the nightmares—there was still the little matter of the missing contracts.

She opened the stairwell door, strode into the reception area, and blinked at the welcoming party—Detectives Salyers and Truett, and a dour-faced woman she didn't know. Wade Alexander stood in the wings, his expression regrettable, not unlike after he'd kissed her.

"Good morning, Ms. Hennessey," Truett said.

"Good... morning."

"Where are your carpooling buddies?"

She shifted her briefcase to her other hand. "They rode the elevator. Why?"

"We found Jim Newberry."

Her pulse raced. "And?"

"And he has an alibi for his whereabouts after leaving here Monday afternoon."

Dread washed over her just as the elevator doors opened and the women alighted. They came up short and stood expectantly.

"And since Jim Newberry didn't kill Margo Campbell," he said to all of them, "we need to have a little powwow with your carpool and clear up a few
inconsistencies."

She glanced at her friends, and the expressions on their pale faces sent a rock to her stomach. What was it Libby had once said about lies?

Lies are the glue that holds relationships together. We lie to our spouses, to our kids, to our ministers, and to ourselves.

Belinda swallowed. And to our friends?