the floor and kicked it under the sofa. He glanced to the bedroom. His holstered gun was on the dresser. He went to the door and closed it, returning to the sofa to sit by her side.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.
“Beer?” she said.
He went to the kitchen and brought back two Heinekens, sitting down next to her. He still felt edgy, like his skin was too tight. She was watching him as she sipped her beer, as if she sensed his tension.
“It’s cold,” he said, getting up to toss a log on the fire.
“I love the cold,” she said.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Well, you’re from Chicago so you’re used to it. I never seem to warm up.”
“Where are you from?” she asked, setting the beer aside.
“Michigan. But I was born in Mississippi.” He sat back down, acutely aware of her shoulder touching his. A surge went through him, electric, magic. Slowly, he felt himself starting to relax.
She turned to face him. She studied his face.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Your bone structure. I’m an artist, remember?”
“Of landscapes, I thought.”
“Well, I’ve taken life-drawing classes.”
“Ah, nude men.”
“Lots of nude men.”
Her gaze traveled over him, down from his face. He held his breath. It was intimate, more erotic than if she had touched him.
“You have an athlete’s body,” she said.
“Used to. Out of shape now.”
She smiled, her eyes moving on.
“Your second toe is longer than your big toe.”
He glanced down at his feet in their tube socks. “You know what they say about that, don’t you?”
She laughed, then her eyes returned to his face. “You’ve got a white relative somewhere,” she said.
It caught him off guard. He thought of saying something flip but the warmth of her eyes stopped him.
“My father,” he said.
Her eyes held his. “Then you know,” she said softly. “You know what it’s like.”
She raised a hand and touched his cheekbone. She ran her fingers down his face, under his chin. He closed his eyes at the excruciatingly light touch.
When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. The fire bathed her in gold. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on her high broad forehead. The soft tight curls of her hair formed a dark aureole around her head. She touched his lips. Her own lips parted.
He kissed her. He held her upper lip softly with his own, savoring it. When he let go, she leaned into him, placing her cheek against his. He could feel the fast rise and fall of her chest against his. Slowly, he raised his hand, brushing his fingers along the small curve of her breast.
“Can you stay?” he asked softly.
“For a while,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 11
Louis glanced at his watch. Only seven-thirty, still plenty of time before briefing. He got up and went to the coffeepot, pouring his second cup of the morning. Returning to his desk, he looked down at the papers and mail, the stuff he had taken from Lovejoy’s mailbox. Gibralter had told him to go through it, see if there might be something, some small clue.
Louis sipped the coffee, struggling to get his blood flowing, his mind working. He hadn’t slept more than a couple hours, but for once he didn’t care.
Zoe had stayed until nearly three. He had wanted her to spend the night, entwined with him in the afghan on that moth-eaten bear rug. But she had refused. Strange woman. Tender in her lovemaking but as soon as it was over she had turned edgy, as if she couldn’t wait to leave. Strange, strange woman, unlike any woman he had been with before. The others had all expected things after sex — everything from a couple minutes of cuddling to a lifetime commitment. But not Zoe. It had left him feeling a little unbalanced and, he finally had to admit, bruised around the old ego. She wouldn’t even give him her phone number. Just the promise that she would return. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted a woman as much.
He rubbed his hands roughly over his face. Easy, easy…back to the task at hand. He began sorting through Lovejoy’s mail.
Lots of bills…but nothing from the phone company, which was what he had been hoping to find. He jotted a note to Dale to have Lovejoy’s phone records pulled. Discarding the junk mail and the magazines, he turned his attention to the copies of the
Pulling off the blue plastic he saw all three were Sunday editions. Now why would a guy who didn’t get the local paper take the trouble to have the Sunday
The crossword. Lovejoy had been working on one when he was shot in the shanty. Louis focused on the dates on the front pages. December 1, December 8 and December 15. Louis fished out his pocket notebook and flipped through it. The puzzle found in the shanty was dated November 24. Why was Lovejoy working on an old puzzle when there were new ones in his mailbox?
Louis sat back in his chair, frowning slightly. Maybe it took three weeks for the damn paper to make its way to an outpost like Loon Lake.
He opened the paper and found the circulation number. He dialed it and reached an operator, who politely told him he could get the Sunday edition of “the world’s greatest newspaper” mailed to him for fifty-six dollars a year. But that since he lived in a rural area it would be a three-day delivery.
Louis thanked her and hung up. He was staring at the
“That Lovejoy’s stuff?”
Louis nodded.
“Anything in it?’
“No,” Louis said. “No copes of the
Jesse gave a snort of derision. “The
Louis drummed the pencil on the desk. That explained no local papers at least. But the untouched
“Something doesn’t make sense,” Louis said.
“What doesn’t?” Jesse asked.
“Lovejoy left the papers in his mailbox. The last crossword he worked on was November 24.”
Jesse frowned. “So?”
“It could mean Lovejoy was killed weeks ago, some time between November 25 and December 4.”
Louis watched as Jesse’s expression shifted from confusion to trepidation. “About the same time as Pryce,”
