Carla Neggers - Cold Ridge

"Neither of us deserves what we're doing to each other. I felt-I feel tainted. Dirty. Then, to have Louis killed."

"Did you do it?"

"What!" She almost fell backward, and automatically-he couldn't help himself- Sterling reached out for her, but she was too far away and had to regain her balance on her own. The near-fall upset her, all that elegant reserve gone now. "No, goddamn it, no. I didn't kill him. Where the hell would I have gotten a gun? Why would I-"

"It was a stupid thing to say."

"An affair is one thing, Sterling, if that's even what it was-but murder-" She choked back her outrage. "I'd hoped you wouldn't find out. I had no idea about the pictures. I never saw, never heard-"

"You were too busy with other things."

"Goddamn it! I'm trying here, Sterling. I'm trying to make up for lost ground and be honest with you. I realized, even before-I realized then and there, while I was in the library, that I didn't want to hurt you. All my desire for revenge fell away, and that was what was left. That I loved you."

He breathed through his clenched teeth, not knowing what the hell he felt. Anger? Pity? Humiliation? Not love, not at that moment. "I should have had Gary take the damn disk from Carine, steal it if he had to."

"I tried to steal it yesterday. I went to her apartment-I have a key-"

"Jodie, for God's sake!"

She blinked through her tears. "I had no choice. I told the police I was with Louis, but I never mentioned what we were doing. I didn't lie to them. I just didn't tell them everything."

"You lied to me."

She nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry."

But Sterling frowned, her words sinking in, the holes they presented. "Jodie, if you didn't hear anyone while you were with Louis, how did you know there were pictures?"

She didn't speak for a moment. "I had a call."

"What?" This time he really did almost lose his footing.

"It just said, 'There are pictures.'" She licked her lips, not meeting his eye. "That was all. Like it was a friendly warning, and I should take action."

"Christ." Sterling raked a hand over his head, whipped around on the path, stones flying up under his hiking boots. "Christ Almighty!"

"I told Gary this morning. I didn't know what else to do. He decided you had to know about the disk, but I begged him not to tell you how I knew, to let me tell you first-"

"For God's sake, Jodie. For God's sake! How could you not have told me?"

She ignored his question. "I think it was Manny who called." Her voice was hoarse from the dry wind, the tension. "I think he took the pictures. He must have planned to use them as further leverage against Louis, maybe to get him to quit so he didn't have to tell you what he knew. He probably didn't take the camera because Louis was about to catch him-or he figured he could get it from Carine since they're friends."

Sterling 's head was spinning. "The police will look at the pictures as more evidence against him."

"We can't help that," Jodie said quietly.

He bit off a sigh, but his rage had subsided. He was tired and cold, past the point of feeling anything. He took another step down the path, hardly paying attention to the tricky footing. "I'm heading back to the house. You can do what you want to do."

"Can I walk with you?"

He nodded without enthusiasm. "Suit yourself."

" Sterling -we'll get through this together."

"I'll get through it," he said stiffly. "I don't care if you do or not."

Val Carrera waited until midafternoon for Manny to call her. When he didn't, she started calling him and leaving him messages on his voice mail. One every fifteen minutes. After the tenth, he called her back. "Damn it, Val, can't you take a hint? I don't want to talk to you."

"Tough. Where are you? Not in jail, I presume, or you wouldn't have your cell phone."

"My hotel. A different one. I'm on my own dime now. I'm climbing the fucking walls. There, you happy?"

"Police watching you?"

"Yes."

Her heart jumped. It was real. Her husband was under suspicion for murder. "Jesus, Manny. How the hell did this happen? Is there anything I can do?"

"I don't know how the hell this happened. There's nothing you can do. Well, there is." He paused, and she could feel his smile-she swore she could. "You couldg et a job. You drive people crazy when you're not working."

"Ass. I've got a job. Hank and Antonia hired me this morning. Manny-" She choked back a sob, hating herself for displaying any weakness. "Do you want me to come to Boston?"

"No."

"Have you talked to Eric?"

"No. You?"

"Yesterday. I'll call him again tonight. He's-well, you know how tight-lipped he is. Gee, I wonder where he gets it. But I can tell he's worried about you. I am, too. Sorry, bub, but you can't control how we feel."

"Val, listen to me. Worry all you want. Tear your hair out, curse me to the rafters. I don't care. Just stay out of this mess. Understood?"

"Manny, you're my husband. What happens to you-"

"What happens to me doesn't happen to you. When I jump out of a helo, I don't see you strapped on my back."

He clicked off.

She hated him. She really did.

She hit Redial on her phone, since his number was the only one she'd called all day. She got his voice mail again. He'd probably shut off his cell phone, knowing she'd call back.

Her apartment reeked of cheap pizza, half of it still in the open box on the coffee table. She'd had it delivered, and next time, she thought, she was going to make them wait until she got it out and give them the damn box back, let them get rid of it.

"Someone ought to come up with a self-destructing pizza box," she grumbled, carrying it into the kitchen.

She stuck the leftover pizza in the refrigerator, no plate, no aluminum foil-she just laid the two cold slices on the rack by themselves. If she was still here, she'd heat it up for supper. If not, it could rot. The pizza box she dropped onto the floor and jumped on, flattening it, then used her feet to fold it as small as she could, but even that didn't fit into her trash can.

When he was home, Manny did the trash. He never complained about it. They shared the cooking, but she didn't think he'd ever touched a toilet brush in his life. Maybe in PJ indoc somebody made him swab out a toilet. If so, it was the last damn time.

She scooped a stray piece of pepperoni off the floor, dumped it in the trash and wiped up the spot with the toe of her running shoe. Okay, so she wasn't a great housekeeper. She liked books. She could read one a day. She loved talking books with her customers back when she was a store manager. She'd read anything- mystery, romance, thrillers, the women's book club books, biographies. She'd gotten into self-help for a while, but it always made her feel inadequate, sitting there answering the questions about dreams and goals, writing her own eulogy. That was pretty sick. Here lies Val Carrera, who read a lot of books and tried to do right by her family, even if she screwed it up most of the time.

She hoped there were readers on Hank's staff. If they were all policy wonks and just wanted to talk about reforming the health-caresystem, she'd slit her own throat.

She grabbed her lukewarm Diet Coke off the coffee table and took it with her to the computer, set up in a corner of the living room. Pepperoni pizza and a Diet Coke. Made a lot of sense. But she was wired as it was, and sugar in addition to the caffeine would put her over the top. Then she would get in her car and drive up to Boston. Manny was acting as if he was on a combat mission and she was out of line for wanting to show up. No wives on search-and-rescue missions. Except he wasn't in the air force anymore.

Two years in uniform had done it for her. She had no interest in being career military. She knew women who could be generals and wanted the job a whole lot more than she ever did.