Catherine Coulter - Backfire

“Well, yeah, but don’t feel like you have to put on a show for me, even though I did let you eat all three of the glazed donuts. No, just show me your back. You know, if you can’t think of me as your doctor, you can pretend you’re an artist’s model draped with a towel. Come on, Barbieri, I’m not going to jump you. You’re safe. I’m not desperate enough, and, fact is, you’re too pathetic-looking right now.”

She stood up, turned her back to him, and let her robe drop to her waist. Harry pushed her hair out of the way, even though he didn’t need to, and studied the shades of her green, black, and yellow back. “You got a modern art painter living with you?”

She tried to look back over her shoulder. “That bad?”

He lightly touched his fingertips to one bruise. She didn’t flinch. “Do you have some muscle cream?”

She pulled her robe back up. “Yeah, I do, for all the good it did me. I can’t reach the bad areas.”

“Get it. I’ll do it for you.”

She gave him a look, then left him in the kitchen to finish his coffee and stare out at her small back garden with its six-foot stone walls and single cypress tree. Everything looked dormant now, but he imagined there’d be lots of color in the summer.

He ate the last donut since it was chocolate.

She came back into the kitchen in a minute, handed him a white tube. It was brand-new.

“It’s supposed to be good stuff, not only for muscle soreness but for bruising as well. I bought it yesterday before I realized I couldn’t reach anything.”

She again dropped the robe to her waist. She grinned over her shoulder. “Am I really that pitiful?”

“Not quite; you combed your hair.”

“Well, I looked in the mirror and nearly fainted. I had to do something.”

Harry covered his fingers with the cream, stared at her long stretch of back, closed his eyes for a moment to get a grip on himself, and touched his fingers to her skin. I’m a solid, consummate professional, doing my job. He wished she did look pathetic, but the fact was, she didn’t, not at all. He reminded himself he was looking at a deputy marshal’s back splotched blue and green, but, unfortunately, that didn’t help.

“Am I rubbing too hard?”

She said over her shoulder, “No, it feels grand.”

“Would you like to lie on your stomach? Speaking as one solid professional to another?”

She laughed, then groaned. “Not a good idea, even speaking as a professional. You’ve got really good hands, Harry.”

Really good professional hands . He started whistling as he continued rubbing the cream on her back in steady smooth strokes, deepening when he realized he wasn’t hurting her, and if his hands went a bit lower than the bruises, surely there were sore muscles at her waist, and the massage couldn’t but help.

“You can’t see the bruises now,” he said. “You’re all white since I’ve used half the tube on you.”

“Feels like it, nice and hot.”

He didn’t want to stop, but he did. He stepped back. Slowly, she shrugged back into her robe. She turned. “Thank you. Look at me, I think I can straighten without groaning.”

He went to the sink to wash his hands. He could feel the heat deep and knew it must feel good on her back.

“Tell me more about your meeting this morning with Cheney, Savich, and Sherlock.”

So he told her, answering her questions until she had no more. His cell phone chimed.

“Yeah?”

“Cheney here, Harry. They found Mickey O’Rourke. Two kids in Nicasio saw a man bury him. Thank God they had the sense to keep quiet so he never saw them. The Marin County sheriff, Bud Hibbert, had a photo of Mickey on his desk, recognized him, and called me. I called Savich and Sherlock. They’ve finished interviewing Boozer Gordon. I don’t want to call Barbieri; she’s probably still flat on her stomach, high on codeine.”

“Actually,” Harry said, “I’m with her now, and she’s doing okay. She’s got to get dressed, but we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Good. Ask Eve to requisition a Chevy Suburban out of the marshals’ pool, that way the five of us can ride up together.”

Harry punched off his cell. He looked up to see Eve standing in the doorway to the kitchen, unmoving, her face set.

“You heard what Cheney said?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to believe Mickey could be dead, it hurt too much, so I tried not to think about it.” She swallowed. “But I knew he had to be. Harry, he’s dead, just-dead. That monster murdered him.”

Harry said, “Yes, the monster murdered him. But we’ve got two kids who saw him. We’ve got witnesses, Eve. Cheney wants us to go up there. We’ll catch him; you know we will.”

She turned to go into her bedroom, saying over her shoulder, “I can’t stand this, Harry, just can’t stand it.”

Harry thought of Mrs. O’Rourke, thought of Mickey O’Rourke’s teenage daughters, thought of the uncertainty they’d been living with for the past four days, the soul-eating fear, and now they had to face the death of a husband, a father.

When Eve came out, she was dressed in her black and red, her hair in a ponytail, no makeup on her face. Her eyes were puffy from crying.

He walked to her and lightly rubbed his fingertip over her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Eve. Believe me, I know how you feel.”

Near Nicasio, California

Forty-five minutes northwest of San Francisco

Sunday afternoon

Harry turned the U.S. Marshals’ Chevy Suburban west off Highway 101 on Lucas Valley Road, drove about ten miles, then turned right on Nicasio.

Sherlock looked out over the rolling hills of cattle and horse country. “The hills are still all gold and brown, even with the rain.”

Cheney said, “The rain was a little late this year. By March, the hills will be as green as Ireland.” He saw Harry turn the windshield wipers on intermittent, and said, “I hope we stay with this light mist. A full-on downpour would really make things difficult.” He waved a hand as Harry curved left. “There’s Nicasio, one square block, really. Its claim to fame is the 1871 red schoolhouse. It’s a historical landmark.”

Harry said, “The Nicasio Reservoir is up ahead. You’ll see this area is a real mix, with a few exclusive, expensive homes sitting next to farm country and to old hippie hangouts.”

Eve said, “Hard to believe we’re so close to the gazillion people living in San Francisco.”

They were all thinking, We’re talking about the ridiculous weather and the scenery because Mickey O’Rourke is dead.

Harry pulled in to what looked like a makeshift parking lot, climbed out of the Chevy, and opened a gate. “Here it is. Ranch Road.” And he got back into the SUV and drove through the gate. He followed the narrow, dirty road through trees and fancy horse pastures and hills dotted with cows. They came across a white Crown Vic with a green sheriff’s ID on the side, parked at the edge of the road.

Bud Hibbert, the Marin County sheriff, was tall and runner-lean, with a full head of iron-gray hair that glistened with a light film of rain. He had a craggy, weathered face that announced he sat squarely in his fifties, and dark, smart eyes that looked like they’d seen about everything.

“How’d the FBI get hold of a U.S. Marshals’ SUV?” he asked, nodding toward the big black Suburban.

“I’m Deputy Marshal Eve Barbieri,” Eve said, and shook his hand. “I’m their procurer.” She introduced everyone, and Sheriff Hibbert introduced his three deputies, all from Civic Center Main Station.