Steve.
In her mind’s eye she saw him as a sketchy figure. She concentrated on making him as fully realized as she could. She mentally added in details after details, down to the smallest item she could recall.
Making love with him had helped emblazon his physical details in her mind. She drew on those memories now to help flesh him out as best she possibly could. Gradually, he started becoming whole within her mind. Two- dimensional at first, she made sure she turned him over and over until he was almost real
Almost as if he’d actually been there.
I need you, Steve.
Curran shivered again as another cold breeze washed over him. He cranked the heater and frowned. The cold had been more than just a temperature in the course of this case. When this is over, he thought, I’m moving to the equator.
Maybe he could take Lauren with him.
He grabbed his cell phone and punched in the number to Father Jim’s house. The phone rang.
And rang.
He checked his watch.
She ought to be home by now.
“I should be there by noon.”
Her words.
The ringing continued.
His dashboard clock read 12:45.
He disconnected.
And shivered.
Traffic began moving again. Curran shot down Commonwealth Avenue and then halted by the Burger King that stayed open later than any other in the city. More traffic.
He sighed.
Lauren.
She’d been amazing in bed this morning. Curran almost grinned. If she’d been holding anything back, it sure hadn’t seemed like it. Her appetite was voracious. They’d sweated their way through at least an hour of non-stop sticky aerobics.
I wouldn’t mind a repeat of that performance, he thought.
But would she?
Something about the way she seemed to give herself so totally to him this morning stuck in his head. Was that the only time she would do so? Would she leave him when this was all over? Would she go back to what she’d originally planned to do?
Would she become a nun after all?
Curran glanced down at the hair on his forearms. They still stood straight up.
He rubbed them down absently but they jumped back to life as if the entire car was surrounded by an electrical field.
Lauren.
His mind kept going to her.
He frowned again.
It got colder in the car.
Curran turned the heater on. But only cold air came out.
“What the hell-?”
Lauren.
He kept saying her name in his head. Why? Or was he really saying it at all? Curran got through two more traffic lights until he came to another stop. Another red light.
And still it remained cold inside his car.
And her name kept repeating in his mind.
Lauren.
Lauren.
Lauren.
Curran glanced down at the portable blue light, most of the unmarked BPD units used. It fed right into the cigarette lighter.
He looked back at the slow traffic. And glanced at the clock.
12:55pm.
It would take him easily another twenty minutes to reach Father Jim’s house in this traffic.
Lauren.
Curran sighed. “Hell with it.”
He jammed the end of the blue light into the cigarette lighter plug and slapped the light on his rearview mirror. He switched on the light and the siren wired into the car already. Instantly cars began parting, and more horns wailed as people tried to get out of his way.
“C’mon,” said Curran. “Move, move, move.”
More cars slid right. A minivan blocked his way. Curran cranked up the volume of the siren and at last the van moved. He shot through, slowed by the intersection by the grocery store and then shot up Commonwealth Avenue into Allston.
At Harvard Avenue, he hesitated but then kept going straight on. It would be easier to get to her by taking a left off of Commonwealth Avenue than trying to snake his way through the neighborhoods.
At last, he broke into the neighborhood where Father Jim lived. Curran switched off the siren as he drew up by the house.
Somehow in the daylight, it looked simply like another house.
There seemed nothing holy about it.
He hopped out, running for her front door.
Reached the door and yanked hard.
Stopped — locked.
“Crap!”
He stooped and examined the lock. It was a serious caliber deadbolt that would take too long to pick.
Curran frowned.
Time’s up.
He turned sideways and used his right elbow to bust through the pane of glass directly next to the lock. The glass shattered and sprinkled the inside floor.
So much for surprise, he thought.
He snaked his hand in and found the lock’s knob — turned it — and tore the door open.
Curran balled himself up and then crashed through the open doorway.
He brought the gun up and moved fast and carefully, bracing himself at doorways as he worked through the house.
He moved down the hall, checked out the living room.
Nothing.
He sidestepped toward the kitchen.
Empty.
Likewise for the bathroom.
He eased to the left side of the house.
Toward the bedroom.
His mind briefly filled with images of this early morning, of the incredible passion he’d shared with Lauren in there.
The door to the bedroom was closed.
Curran frowned.
