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“Did I?”
“Maybe not what you said, but how you said it.”
He concurred. “I don’t think they did it. And not just because they had a pretty decent alibi for the first bombing.”
“I don’t think they were involved, either.” She paused. “But I’d tell the sheriff to keep an eye on Valerie.”
“I already did.”
“You did?”
“I read the initial reports from the vandalism last year. She instigated it. She would have gone further except Craig stopped her. And her punishment was minimal. She’s not going to think twice about doing it again if she could get away with it.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“Great minds...”
Matt leaned forward. He wanted to touch Kara so badly, but the house was full of sleeping agents, and he couldn’t take the risk...not that he would care if the world knew how he felt. But it wasn’t professional, and he was having a difficult time reconciling his two lives right now.
Not to mention Catherine’s threat to tell Tony. Matt hoped he could talk her out of it, but Catherine was stubborn.
Last month, when he and Kara had a long weekend at his house in Tucson, everything had been perfect. They walked around naked. They swam in his pool. They had amazing sex in almost every room in his house. She told him how she got every scar on her body. And they even went out for dinner with his best friend and his wife—a real date, where he wasn’t self-conscious about how he looked at Kara, how he touched her, how much he wanted her.
It had been a perfect three days. He wanted more time.
Kara tilted her head. “You’re not thinking about the case.”
“I’m thinking about Tucson. And that last night, when we went to dinner with Tim and Sarah. I wish we were there right now.”
She leaned forward, stood on her toes. He leaned forward. Her lips were only inches from his.
She whispered, “Because after dinner we went back to your place and had sex in the pool, and it was pretty damn amazing.”
“Kara, it always is,” he said, then realized that he sounded a lot more serious than her. If he wasn’t careful, they would be making out on the front porch, and then neither of them would be satisfied, just like last night in the kitchen.
She smiled. “Yes, it is.”
Then she walked into the house, leaving him physically uncomfortable and with nothing he could do about it.
WEDNESDAY
24
Kara slept like a rock for more than four hours but was still awake before dawn. No one else was up, which was good—she needed time alone to consider how she wanted to approach Marcy. She drank half a cup of coffee with her toast, then left. She stretched her arms as she walked to the harbor. By the time she arrived, she had a strategy.
Marcy knew Kara’s style already from the interviews they’d already done together, so straightforward seemed best. She should have talked to her right after the interview with Cal, but maybe this was even better—she was going over her notes, and forgot she’d wanted to talk to her about it yesterday. They’d been busy, blah, blah. Because Marcy was a cop, Kara needed to talk to her like a cop.
Kara arrived first. She stretched while looking around, noticing the other people who were out and about this early. She recognized a few. Kara might have only been here for three days, but she didn’t forget faces. Businesses were opening: a doughnut shop on the corner, a coffee shop down the street. Life went on, even after a bombing and murder.
The idyllic town had been hit hard, but they still functioned. Kara admired that. She didn’t like many people, but she liked the concept of community; that people had their own businesses, with family and purpose and a sense of belonging.
Even if she had none of these.
She glimpsed Marcy down the street approaching their designated meeting place, but pretended she hadn’t noticed her as Kara bent over and touched her toes. Marcy looked different than she had yesterday, but it took Kara a second to realize why.
Yesterday Marcy had worn sweats and a Seattle PD T-shirt. Today she wore black jogging pants like Kara. Yesterday Kara had run in a windbreaker, but left it at the sheriff’s station, so this morning she’d only worn her tank top, even though it was cool. Marcy had on a windbreaker this morning—not Kara’s, this one had SJSD on the back.
Weird, it seemed, but maybe not. Kara was sometimestooobservant.
