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He flew off the bed, his eyes wide as they both heard the kitchen door open from the garage.
She placed a finger to her lips as he gathered his jeans and T-shirt. She was already straightening the covers, and sliding open a window. “Go into the next bedroom. Hurry! Hide there. I’ll . . . I’ll think of something. I’ll distract him and you can leave. Wait until you hear him up here. With me.”
He slipped through the doorway and tiptoed down the hallway as her husband’s tread echoed in the mudroom downstairs. Frantically she found her perfume atomizer and gave the room a spray, then flew into the bathroom, sprayed again, twisted on the shower, and stepped inside. The water was cold, and she gasped as the needle-sharp spray slashed against her skin and into her eyes.
Oh, God, she hoped Richtor didn’t see him on the landing, didn’t guess.
She thought of the lovemaking and bit her lip. Why had they been so reckless? They both knew the consequences. Richtor Tufts had a mercurial temper. Oh, God, she could never let him find out.
And, this, the cheating, could never happen again, even if her lover did have a way of turning her inside out.
She grabbed for a bar of soap, but her hands were shaking so badly, the bar toppled from her fingers and hit the tiles of the floor. “Damn it.” She was losing it. Scared. All those happy little feelings of being “bad” disappeared at the thought of her husband’s reaction if he knew she’d been sleeping with . . .
She took in a deep breath and, as the spray started to warm, snatched up the slippery little bar and began lathering her body. The spray and lather would hide the marks on her skin, the smell of the soap and perfume hiding the scent of sex, and she could say she’d taken a nap while reading a book. That’s why the bed wasn’t perfect.
Forcing herself, she began to hum as steam roiled over the glass door of the shower.
“Marjory?” she heard her husband call from the bedroom. Her insides twisted. “Marj?”
And then he was poking his head into the bathroom.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
“What’s it look like?” She smiled through the foggy glass.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“I know. Didn’t feel well today.” She sent him a look. “You know.”
“Are you okay?” He was looking at her body, the shower door not quite opaque, and she felt a little jab of guilt. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Richtor. She did. In a way. Just not all that passionately. He
was a big man, tall and good looking, though of course he was graying, his goatee almost silver. But he’d kept himself in shape. Sort of. And he owned the Ford dealership in town, so he could afford this house and the motor home and the boat and fabulous vacations and . . .
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Good. Sooo . . . maybe I should join you,” he said through the glass. He was already toeing off one loafer with the other, then pulling his blue polo shirt with its TUFTS FORD logo over his head. Well, why not? Didn’t she need to find a distraction? He would never guess that she’d just been made love to three times already this afternoon. What would a fourth hurt? And he’d be less inclined to be suspicious.
“Maybe you should,” she agreed as he tossed the shirt across the room and began working on his pants. In a second, he was in the shower and standing under the spray.
“I think you should do me first . . . with your mouth,” he said. “You know, to get me going.”
He was having a bit of a problem in that department lately. She didn’t really want to give him a blow job in the shower, but it was something she’d done before they were married, in this very shower, in the middle of the afternoon when his first wife, Terri, had been out of town for a couple of days and Richtor had never forgotten, never let her forget it.
At every opportunity, he thought she should nearly drown while going down on him just so he could get it up enough to penetrate her.
She wanted to refuse, but thought about her lover’s need to escape.
“Sure,” she said, lowering herself to her knees, clinging onto his thick thighs, and feeling his strong fingers curl in the wet strands of her hair.
* * *
For the rest of the afternoon, Pescoli managed to avoid Joelle, who was being ever persistent about the damned baby shower. She conducted a few phone interviews, studied the autopsy herself, double-checked some alibis, then checked in with Sage Zoller, who was running through all of the statements of the kids who had been at the party Saturday night. After spending fifteen minutes being “briefed” by the sheriff, who thankfully didn’t bring up the Justison interview, she was on the road again, this time in her own Jeep. Alone. Heading for home. Alvarez was following in her Subaru.
She’d been right. The taste of greasy French fries kept coming back on her, and she was beginning to regret that particular choice for lunch. Or maybe it was because she was nervous about Bianca being interviewed. Or maybe just the fact that she was so bloody pregnant. Whatever the reason, she decided French fries were going the way of cigarettes, alcohol, and caffeine. At least for a while.
She turned off the main road and onto the long lane leading to her house. The sun was lazying down around the mountain tops, and as she rounded a final bend she spied her house and the lake nearby. Ducks were skimming across the water, and the house, really a large cabin they’d recently built, was a sanctuary for her, a place she could relax with Santana and the kids and dogs while leaving the stress of her job at the office.
Well, usually.
