Ashes to Ashes

“Oh, shit!” Literally. “Shit!”

“Kate?”

The voice came from toward the house. Quinn's voice.

“I'm in here!” she called back, fumbling with the briefcase and the flashlight and her purse.

“What's wrong? I heard you swearing,” he said, coming in.

“I just stepped in a pile of shit.”

“What—Jesus, I smell it. That must have been some dog.”

The flashlight clicked on and she shined it down at the mess. “It couldn't have been a dog. The door was shut. Gross!”

“That looks human,” Quinn said. “Where's your shovel?”

Kate flashed the beam of light at the wall. “Right there. My God, you think someone came into my garage and did this?”

“You have a more viable theory?” he asked.

“I just can't imagine why anyone would do that.”

“It's a sign of disrespect.”

“I know that. I mean, why to me? Who do I know who would do something that strange, that primitive?”

“Who've you pissed off lately?”

“My boss. But somehow I can't envision him squatting in my garage. Nor would I want to.” She limped outside with him, stepping only with the toe of her soiled boot, trying not to smear more feces on her garage floor.

“Do your clients know where you live?”

“If any of them do, it's not because I gave them the information. They have my office number—which forwards to my house machine after hours—and they have my cell phone number for emergencies. That's it. My home number is unlisted, not that that would necessarily stop anyone from finding me. It isn't that hard to do if you know how.”

Quinn dumped the mess between the garage and the neighbor's privacy fence. He cleaned the shovel off in a snowbank while Kate tried to do the same with her boot.

“This is just the exclamation point at the end of my day,” she grumbled as they went back into the garage to put the shovel away. She shone the light around to see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be.

“Have you had any odd things happen lately?”

She laughed without humor. “What about my life lately isn't odd?”

“I mean vandalism, hang-up calls, strange mail, anything like that?”

“No,” she said, then automatically thought of the three hang-up calls last night. God, was it just last night? She'd attributed them to Angie. That made the most sense to her. The idea of a stalker had never occurred. It still didn't seem a possibility.

“I think you should park on the street,” Quinn said. “This might have been some transient going through the neighborhood, or it might have been some kid playing a joke, but you can't be too careful, Kate.”

“I know. I will—starting tomorrow. How long have you been here?” Kate asked as they started for the house.

“Not long enough to have to do that.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I just got here. I tried calling you at the office. I tried calling here. I went to the office—you were gone. So I took a cab. Did you get my messages?”

“Yes, but it was late and I was tired. It's been a rotten, rotten day, and I just wanted out of there.”

She let them in the back door and Thor greeted them with an indignant meow. Kate left her boots in the entry, dropped her briefcase on a kitchen chair, and went directly to the fridge to pull out the cat food.

“You weren't avoiding me?” Quinn said, shrugging out of his coat.

“Maybe. A little.”

“I was worried about you, Kate.”

She set the dish down on the floor, stroked a hand over the cat, and straightened with her back to Quinn. Just that one little sentence brought the volatile emotions swirling once more to the surface, brought tears to her eyes. She wouldn't let him see them if she could help it. She would choke them back down if she could. He was inviting her to need him. She wanted to so badly.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm not used to anyone caring—”

Christ, what a poor choice of words. She wasn't used to anyone caring about her anymore. The truth, but it made her sound pathetic and wretched. It made her think of Melanie Hessler—missing for a week without anyone caring enough to find out why.

“She was my client,” she said. “Melanie Hessler. Victim number four. I managed to lose two in one night. How's that for a record?”

“Oh, Kate.” He came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, folding his warmth and his strength around her. “Why didn't you call me?”

Because I'm afraid of needing you. Because I'm afraid of loving you.

“Nothing you could do about it,” she said.

Quinn turned her in his arms and brushed her hair back from her face, but he didn't try to make her look at him. “I could have done this,” he murmured. “I could have come and put my arms around you and held you for a while.”

“I don't know that that would have been such a good idea,” she said quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because. You're here to work a case. You've got more important things to do.”

“Kate, I love you.”

“Just like that.”

“You know it's not ‘just like that.'”

She stepped away from him, instantly missing the contact. “I know that we went five years without a word, a note, nothing. And now in a day and a half we're in love again. And in a week you'll go. And then what?” she said, moving restlessly, hands on her hips. “What am I thinking?”

“Apparently, nothing good.”

Kate could see that she'd hurt him, which hadn't been her intent at all. She cursed herself for being so clumsy with such fragile feelings, but she was out of practice, and she was so afraid, and fear made her awkward.

“I'm thinking about every time in those five years that I wanted to pick up the phone but didn't,” Quinn said. “But I'm here now.”

“By chance. Can't you see how that scares me, John? If not for this case, would you ever have come? Would you ever have called?”

“Would you?”

“No,” she said without hesitation, then softer and softer, shaking her head. “No . . . no . . . I've had enough pain to last me a lifetime. I wouldn't have gone looking for it. I don't want any more. I'd rather not feel anything at all. And you make me feel so much,” she said, her throat tightening. “Too much. And I don't trust it all not to just disappear.”

“No. No.” He caught hold of her by the arms and held her in front of him. “Look at me, Kate.”

She wouldn't, didn't dare, wanted to be anywhere but right there in front of him on the brink of tears.

“Kate, look at me. It doesn't matter what we would have done. It matters that we're here now. It matters that we feel exactly what we felt back then. It matters that making love to you this morning was the most natural, perfect thing in the world—as if we'd never been apart. That's what matters. Not the rest of it.

“I love you. I do,” he murmured. “That's what matters. Do you love me?”

She nodded, head down, as if she were ashamed to admit it. “I always did.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. Quinn caught them with his thumbs and brushed them away.

“That's what matters,” he whispered. “Anything else we can work around.

“My life has been so empty since you left, Kate. I tried to fill the hole with work, but the work just ate away more of me, and the hole just got bigger and bigger, and I kept digging like crazy, trying to backfill. Lately, I've been