Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“Afraid so. George Metrano.”

“At least now you know he’s not in Baja with Elizabeth, not if he was in town this afternoon.”

“Damn. It’s so much easier to take out an asshole below the border. We’ll just hope he rabbits when we catch him and we’ll shoot him on the fly, huh?”

“I’ll help you.” My voice sounded thick. “What did he possibly have to gain by killing her?”

“If. If he killed her. Maybe the question is, what did he stand to lose if he didn’t?” Mike rubbed his face wearily, rasping the whiskers on his chin.

I touched his face. “If Mrs. Sinclair was correct and Elizabeth inherits nothing, then who is Randy’s heir?”

“I could make a pretty good guess.”

“Check it out, will you?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckled. “Anything else?”

I looked inside the envelope. “Guido only gave us one print.”

“One’s all we need. It stays with me. You’re retiring.”

“Retiring for the night, you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” He slipped George back into the envelope. “I have to get on the horn and make arrangements. I’ll come tuck you in later.”

“Wake me if I fall asleep,” I said, yawning. I kissed his cheek and headed for the bedroom. I was tired, but I knew I couldn’t sleep; I had seen the face.

Mike had unpacked my duffel, hung up my two clean shirts with his, put my dirty clothes in a pillowcase on the closet floor, lined my shoes up next to his. I had never seen my shoes next to his before. Somehow, the sight touched me.

I fussed a bit, cleared away yesterday’s newspapers from the bed, smoothed the quilt. This would make four nights in a row in the same bed. I liked the number.

With nothing else to do, I brushed my teeth, stripped off my clothes, and ran a hot shower. I was standing with my head against the tile, steamy water pounding on my spine, when Mike opened the shower door.

“We’re waiting for the head shed to work its way through diplomatic channels,” he said. “As soon as the connection is made with the federales, I’m going into the office to make the call.”

“I want to go with you.”

“You can’t. The boss will be there.”

“No fair.” I tried to pout, but I had water pouring in my eyes. The best I could do was squint and puff out my lower lip.

He laughed. “Don’t use all the hot water. I need a shower, too.”

“You can get in here with me.”

“I’d like to, but I wouldn’t be able to hear the phone.”

“Will you scrub my back?”

“Hand me the soap.”

I gave him the soap and my back. He started with my shoulders, massaging with strong fingers slippery with lather. I felt the tight muscles release. It was so delicious and so relaxing it was all I could do to stand upright.

He worked down my back, occasionally letting his hot, soapy hands slip around front, teasing. He circled my waist so his thumbs could work the knots in the small of my back. I was saying bright things like ooh and aah, writhing to direct him. Then he was all of a sudden in the shower with me, in his clothes, his body pressed tight behind me.

His lips nipped along the base of my neck, giving me goose bumps despite the steam billowing around us. He ran his tongue along the back of my ear, followed the stream of water that sluiced over my collarbone and down my breast, where he held his hand like a dam.

I turned around then, and began working on the annoyingly small buttons of his wet shirt. He worked my buttons with amazingly skillful tongue and fingers. I thought suddenly of something Guido had said, about making love to a man as experienced as Mike. I didn’t care where Mike had learned what he knew. As long as he kept doing it. With me.

Around one, the summons came from headquarters. We were dry by then, napping on top of the quilt when the phone jolted us awake. Elizabeth was being held in a Baja jail as a courtesy, but the federales in Cabo San Lucas wouldn’t hold her for very long.

While he dressed, I made Mike coffee and a sandwich and then kissed him goodbye. Very Dolly Domestic. And sweet. Until I had a flash of life with Mike, but without Lyle. Leaving Lyle would be like leaving one’s widowed mother alone. My stomach started to rumble again. I sat in the kitchen and stared back at the red light on Mr. Espresso, hoping for some revelation to come.

At two, when nothing had resolved itself, I slipped into a few more clothes and some shoes and went for a drive, a change of scenery to sort things through.

In the middle of the night, when there isn’t construction going on, the freeways become free ways. Once I realized where I was headed, I was impatient to get there. I pushed the little rental Toyota up to ninety, slowed to maneuver around a slow drunk, then hit the pedal again.

I was in Long Beach in under thirty minutes.

My big regret was that I had never met Randy. Never would. He was the key player in all of this, and I thought it would have been awfully damned interesting to hear what he had to say, an addition to the My Most Memorable Character collection.

From what people had told me, Randy would go to just about any lengths to get his own way. If sheer force of his considerable charm, stubborn will, and cussed determination didn’t work, he used money. Sometimes he used money for bribery, as I believe he had with George Metrano, as he had tried with Lacy. Sometimes he used the threat of withholding money, as he had with his ex-wives, to maintain control.

I keep telling Casey that she should be careful what she wishes for, because her wishes might come true. Apparently no one had ever warned Randy. Or maybe he hadn’t listened very carefully, because what he wished for ended up killing him. Poor Randy.

At two-thirty, all the bars and clubs on Second Street were closed. All the chickies were in for the night. The narrow streets of Naples were deserted. I drove through the alley behind the Ramsdale house, saw no one about, and parked two houses farther down.

When I got out of the car, I had one of Mike’s big, heavy Kel-Lite flashlights in my hand. I had picked it up on my way out of the kitchen.

Mike had told me one time that when he worked street patrol in uniform, back before his hair turned white, the Kel-Lite had been his compliance tool of choice during hand-to-hand brawling. Better than his service revolver as a cudgel. His stories always failed the political correctitude tests. Sometimes their brutality set my back molars on edge. Most of the time, they made me laugh, because I knew there was no malice in anything he had done. Times have changed. Acceptable police practices have changed. So has Mike.

Anyway, I carried the flashlight as a sort of talisman against anything that might be waiting in the dark. I lurked down the alley. If anyone had seen me, and been worried, he or she would have called in to report a burglar. I heard no sirens, so I lurked on.

The back door of the Ramsdale house was heavy oak. I longed for Martha’s key. But I would have had to break into her house to get it. So I broke into the Ramsdales’ instead.

Randy’s study was on Martha’s side of the house. I knew she was gone, so unless I made a big noise, no one was likely to hear me. I used the Kel-Lite on the pane in the French doors closest to the latch. The shattered glass made less noise than I had expected as it fell onto a doormat inside.

I tried the knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t give. I could see hardware for a floor bolt, so I broke another pane and I could pull up the bolt. The door opened smoothly, finally, and I slipped inside, stepping wide around the glass.

I stepped inside and waited for my heart to stop pounding, a wide spot in the checkerboard of shadows, trying to listen to the house. All was still except for the ticking of a clock somewhere. Relying on my imperfect recollection of the floor plan, I felt my way through the dark and up the stairs to Hillary’s room.