'You're no fun at all,' she teased.
Chapter 42
It was still early when we pulled into our driveway in Venice. The sun was down, but in June the sky in Los Angeles remains light until after nine. We unlocked the front door and walked inside.
The house was hot and I instantly knew nobody had been there in a while. Delfina and Chooch had obviously returned to school directly from Santa Barbara. I checked outside and refilled Franco's food bowl while Alexa went to the fridge and got us a couple of cold ones. Before heading out to the backyard I went into the living room to put on some music. When I turned on the stereo, 93.9 FM started playing. Country radio. I looked at the dial, puzzled and then I retuned it to 103.5, a station I knew Alexa preferred.
I wandered outside and sat down as the music drifted through our patio speakers.
Alexa handed me a beer and we clinked bottles.
Almost immediately, Franco appeared from around the corner of the house and jumped up onto Alexa's lap, turning around three times before dropping anchor.
'When did you start listening to ninety-three point nine FM?' I asked, wondering if her taste in music had also changed.
'That's a country station, isn't it?'
'Yeah.'
'I never listen to it. Why?'
'The tuner was on that station.'
'Maybe Chooch or Delfina?'
'When did those two ever listen to country?'
'Yeah, you're right.' She fell silent, thinking about it while she ruffled the fur behind Franco's ears, then she said, 'If it's not one of us, who turned it there?'
'Back in the early nineties, when I was on patrol in the Valley, Brian Devine was our urban cowboy. He was always listening to C and W.'
'You think he came in here and played our stereo while he went through our things?'
'I think Brian Devine is crazy. I wouldn't put anything past him.'
We sat for a moment thinking about that, and then, almost in unison both turned and looked back at the house.
'How do you want to do this?' she asked.
'You take the front rooms, I'll take the back. Meet you in the middle.'
We got up and went inside. I started with our bedroom, looking for anything that was out of place, or might have been moved. I knew it wouldn't be an obvious mistake. Brian Devine was a pro and had probably done his share of unauthorized, warrantless shakes. He knew how to toss a room and not leave any obvious telltale signs. But no matter how careful someone is, there's always something.
The closet looked okay. The medicine cabinet and bathroom drawers checked out. I looked in Alexa's alcove at her desk, but decided I'd have to leave that to her. It was so messy these days it was hard for me to tell what, if anything, was out of place.
In the kitchen, the scratch pad I'd used to write down the names of Church's crew was missing. I wondered if, after the attack in the mountain, Brian had removed those names so they wouldn't become part of a future investigation. Then I pushed a button on the phone caddy. It opened to the W's. The last number I had looked up was the Police Officer's Association. If Alexa hadn't moved the dial, and if Chooch and Delfina hadn't been here, then maybe Devine had been checking out my phone numbers. Nothing else seemed out of place. I couldn't shake the strong suspicion that Brian Devine had been in here poking through our lives during the ten days Alexa and I were up in Santa Barbara.
I walked into the front room to ask Alexa if she had changed the phone dial or removed the scratch pad. I found her sitting in a chair at my desk. She had one of my spiral notebooks in her lap. As I got closer I saw that it was my Alexa Journal. I had recorded all my doubts about our relationship on those pages, remembering as Dr. Lusk had instructed to include my innermost feelings.
She heard me behind her and turned to look up at me, a stricken expression on her face. 'Oh my God, Shane, is this what you really think?'
Chapter 43
I reached out and took the notebook from her.
'I'm sorry you saw that,' I said gently. 'I was so worried after you crashed the car that I went down to the Support Services Division and they recommended a psychologist named Eric Lusk. He told me he couldn't treat you through me, but suggested I keep a journal. I've been doing that in the hope that it will somehow help us.'
Alexa sat in silence for a moment longer, then stood up and walked into the kitchen. I heard her rummaging around and after a couple of minutes she returned with two glasses of champagne in long, stemmed flutes.
'Here,' she said, handing one to me.
'I think we need to discuss this.'
'You were right to get help, Shane. I should have gone to someone myself. It's time I faced up to the fact that I'm different. I hear things coming out of my mouth and half the time I can't believe it's me saying them. I'm not sure how many men would have put up with what you did this past year. But I don't want to talk about that now.' Alexa clinked her glass on mine. We both took a sip. Then she set down her flute, and drew me to her. 'Practice time,' she said softly.
She kissed me tentatively at first, then deeply. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and her body pressed hard against me. I felt the sudden driving heat of shared passion. We fumbled with buttons and zippers, pulling off our clothes in a desperate attempt to find each other. She was quickly down to her bra and panties and unbuckling my belt, helping me shed the rest of my clothes. Then we were naked, on the floor.
'You are everything to me,' she whispered.
She held me tightly and guided me into her. Her breath quickened, warm against my ear as she began to move with me, dictating the passion and the pace of our lovemaking. Tonight was no dutiful performance. She was in control escalating us higher and higher, from one orbit to the next until we both climaxed. She moaned in pleasure as I released inside her. We smothered each other with kisses, inhaling each other, holding tight. Something valuable that once was lost had just been found. We lay like that, out of breath for several minutes.
'Practice, practice, practice,' she whispered.
I had a friend who once explained his successful thirty-year marriage to me this way. 'It's like team sailing,' he'd said. 'But you are never in the same boat. You are never one craft, always two. You sail along without problems the first few years after marriage, lust and love at the tiller, your two boats easily staying side by side. But as time passes you inevitably encounter strong winds or bad seas, and your two boats start to drift apart. The careless sailor pays no attention. He kids himself that a little separation doesn't matter. It's healthy. No need to smother one another. But soon you are so far apart no line is long enough to pull you back together. The good sailor senses the danger the first moment the boats separate and throws a line.' My friend said that conversation, lovemaking, and vacation time are the ropes that keep a marriage together.
I knew that during the past year, Alexa and I had drifted far apart, but a line had just been thrown and caught. I was determined to pull with all my strength until our boats were again side by side.
Chapter 44
