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“No flirting, Blondie. I’m steamed.”
He handed me a glass of wine and I took it, saying, “Joe, I said I’m sorry, and I am!”
“You know what?” he said. Martha whimpered and trotted out of the room. “I saw more of you when I lived in DC.”
“Joe, that’s not true.”
“So, I’m going to ask you flat out, Lindsay. One question. And I want the truth.”
I thought, No, please, please don’t ask me if I really want to marry you, please don’t. I’m not ready. I looked into the storm raging in Joe’s deep blue eyes.
“I want to know about you and Conklin. What’s going on?”
I was flabbergasted.
“You think I’m — Joe, you can’t think that!”
“Look. I spent an hour with the two of you. You’ve got a little something special going on between you, and please don’t tell me you’re partners.
“I worked with you once, Lindsay,” Joe went on. “We were partners. And now, here we are.”
I opened my mouth, closed it without speaking. I felt so guilty I couldn’t even act offended. Joe was right about everything. That Rich and I had a special feeling for each other, that I was neglecting Joe, that the time we spent together was more focused on each other when Joe lived a couple of time zones away than it was now.
Once Joe had made the commitment to move to San Francisco, he’d been mine, mine, totally mine. And I’d taken him for granted. I was wrong. And I had to admit it. But my throat was backed up with tears. This was the very thing that broke up cop marriages.
The Job. The obsession and commitment to the Job.
That’s what this was about — wasn’t it?
I felt sick with shame. I never wanted to make Joe feel bad, never wanted to hurt him at all. I set my glass down on the counter and took Joe’s glass out of his hand, put that glass down, too.
“There’s nothing going on, Joe. It’s just the Job.”
He looked into my eyes, and it was as though he was patting down my brain. He knew me that well.
“Give the sauce a stir in a couple of minutes, okay, Linds? I’m going to take a shower.”
I stood up on my toes and wrapped my arms around Joe’s neck, held on to the man I thought of as my future husband, pressed my cheek to his. I wanted him to hold me. And finally he did. He closed his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him.
I said, “I love you so much. I’m going to do a better job of showing you, Joe, I swear, I will.”
Chapter 110
RICH WAS ALREADY at the computer when I got to my desk. He looked like he was in fifth gear, his index fingers tapping a fast two-step over the keys. I thanked him for the Krispy Kreme he’d parked on a napkin next to my phone.
“It was my turn,” Rich said, not looking up as I dragged out my chair and sat down. “Dr. Roach called,” Rich continued. “Said there were fifty-five ccs of gasoline in Alan Beam’s stomach.”
“What’s that? Three ounces? Geez. Is she saying he drank gasoline?”
“Yeah. Probably directly out of the can. Beam really wanted to make sure he got it right this time. Doctor says the gas would’ve killed him if the fire hadn’t. She’s calling it a suicide. But look here, Lindsay.”
“Whatcha got?” I said.
“Come over here and see this.”
I walked around our two desks and peered over Conklin’s shoulder. There was a Web site on his screen called Crime Web. Conklin pressed the enter key and an animation began. A spider dropped a line from the top of the page, made a web around the blood-red headline over the feature story, then skittered back to its corner of the page. I read the headline.
Five Fatal Shootings This Week Alone
