Envy

Shit, to think he used to like that thing.

Then again, it had gotten her to take him home last night.

“See you in twenty,” he told her.

“Are you sure you don’t want an extra coat?”

“I’ll be fine.”

As he walked off across the still spongy, muddy ground, he thought about Jim Heron and the lack of footprints. He’d spent more time looking for evidence that someone other than he and Reilly had been walking around that area, but there had been nothing. Yet he was very sure the man couldn’t possibly have shown up nearly half a mile down the slope, having traversed wet, uneven terrain, without leaving any trace. And it wasn’t as if Veck had imagined the guy’s appearance.

Look down at your feet, Thomas DelVecchio. And then you call me when you get scared enough. I’m the only one who can help you.

Whatever, Heron.

Resisting the urge to shout at the shadows, he mounted up, started his engine, and waited as Reilly stood next to her open trunk and took off her caked, filthy boots. At least that made him smile. He was willing to bet she had either a plastic bag or a rubber mat in there so that she didn’t put the dirty treads on the rug. And she’d take those nasty suckers out as soon as she parked in her garage, and wash them right away so they’d be ready for the next time.

He glanced down at his own feet. His loafers were ruined. The kind of thing that you addressed with a garbage bag, not a scrub brush and a hose.

Hard not to find some other parallels there.

Reilly took the lead, and he was on her all the way into town even though going seventy on a bike on a night like this made you feel like you were back in December. Windbreaker, his ass. He might as well have been wearing a muscle shirt and nothing else, the cold biting into him.

But it wasn’t as if he dwelled on the temperature. In his mind, he went back to the shower he’d taken after that nightmare in the woods with Kroner, back to the dark presence that had wrapped around him and spoken to him and caressed him, back to his biggest fear up close and personal.

It was nothing of this world. Never had been.

And then he heard Reilly’s voice: It’s like he just dropped out of the sky.

Christ, he was losing his mind. Had to be. Because he wasn’t actually thinking Jim Heron didn’t exist.

Was he?

About ten minutes later, they got off the Northway and weeded their way over to Reilly’s neighborhood, and it was a relief to see all the nice-and-normal in the form of houses with lights and TVs on inside, and cars going at slow paces, and corner stores with lottery signs in them.

All things that could be easily and concretely explained. And who’d have ever thought he’d crave that?

When they got to Reilly’s place, he pulled in behind her and dismounted as she eased into the garage, the bright reds of her brake lights flaring and then disappearing as she cut the ignition.

“You should wear a helmet,” she said as she got out, went around to her trunk, and snagged her muddy boots.

Sure enough, she flicked a light switch on, walked them over to the garden hose on the front corner of the garage, and washed off the dirt.

When she glanced back at him, she flushed a little. “What are you smiling for?”

“I had a feeling you were going to do that.”

She laughed and refocused on the cleaning job. “Am I so predictable.”

Eyeing her bent form, he thought “sexy as hell” would also cover it. Man, the woman could turn a mundane chore into something so worth watching.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured.

“Trust me, never that.” Cutting off the water, she shook the boots, dried them with a chamois, and put them back into the trunk.

Together, they went into her cock-a-doodle-doo kitchen and more lights went on. First thing he looked at? The table.

The hard-on was instant. As was the replay of the night before last when he’d done so much more than kiss her on it.

But neither lasted.

Through the doorway into the office, he saw that she had rearranged the furniture in there: The armchair had been pulled into the far corner and angled outward, and a small table was next to it. Extrapolating, he figured that if you were sitting there, you could watch both the front and the rear doors with your back to a solid wall.

“You want to try for pizza again?” she asked from over by the phone.

Cranking his head around, he said roughly, “Why didn’t you tell me.”

“What?”

“That you were being watched, too.”

Jim didn’t wait around to follow Sissy’s mortal remains out of the quarry and into town. Instead, he disengaged from Veck, leaving Adrian to stay with the guy, and proceeded to her family’s house along with a shortish, intense-looking detective who muttered to himself in Spanish.

He said, “Madre de Dios” a lot. And made the sign of the cross so many times it was like his hand had a stutter.

What he did not do was notice that he had a passenger with him in his unmarked: Jim rode shotgun all the way back to Caldwell with the guy. Yeah, sure, he could have taken the fly-by-night route, but this gave him some time to get his shit together.

Plus the Spanish primer was educational.

Twenty minutes after they left the site, the detective pulled over in front of the Barten house, turned off the engine, and got out of the car. As he jacked up his slacks, his face was grim, but then, with the kind of news he had? Hardly time to be flashing your dental work.

Hitting the walkway, Jim stayed side by side with the man, unwilling to invade Sissy’s mother’s house even for a moment, and even though she would never know he was there.

At the door, the guy lifted his hand and put it under his tie, at his chest. There was a cross there. Had to be, especially as the man fell into Spanish as if he were praying—

Abruptly, the detective looked over.

And even though the guy couldn’t see him, Jim met those tired, sad dark eyes. “You can do this. You’re a good man, and you can do this. You’re not alone.”

De la Cruz looked back at the door and nodded sure as if he had heard the words.

Then he rang the bell.

Mrs. Barten opened up a moment later, as if she’d been expecting him. “Detective de la Cruz.”

“May I come in, ma’am?”

“Yes. Please.”

Before he stepped into the house, the detective kicked off his muddy shoes on the mat, and as the woman watched him, her hand crept to her throat. “You found her.”

“Yes, ma’am. We have. Is there anyone else you’d like with you as we speak?”

“My husband’s traveling—but he’s on his way home. I called him right after I got off with you.”

“Let’s do this inside, ma’am.”

She shook herself, as if she’d forgotten she was standing in the open doorway. “Of course.”

Jim went inside with the guy, and then there they were, once again in the living room, with Mrs. Barten taking the same flower-printed armchair she’d sat in the other day. De la Cruz grabbed the couch, and Jim paced back and forth, his rage at Devina making it impossible for him to sit down.

“Tell me,” Mrs. Barten said roughly.

The detective leaned forward and kept his eyes right on her tense, pale face. “We found her at the quarry.”

Sissy’s mother’s lids went on lockdown, closing and staying there. Then her breath left her slowly, until there