or
“What about Guthrie?”
“It’s a good plan, but let it wait a couple days. Maybe save it for Little Halloween. Hurrying’s not going to help us right now. Besides, you’ve got plenty of other work to do.”
Ruger looked at the wall clock and his body shuddered as if in climax. “Sundown. Time to go out and play.”
Chapter 12
(1)
The shades were up and the curtains pulled back to allow as much morning light as possible to wash over them. Both of them were propped up on pillows with coffee cups steaming on the bedside tables. Crow had his arm around Val and she was resting the unbruised side of her face against his chest. They had learned the routines of cuddling while avoiding bruises and stitches and sore places. Across the room the TV was on with the sound muted as a petite blond read the weather on Channel 6. Sarah had brought them coffee a few minutes ago, told them Terry was still out at the hospital, and then left them to deal with the day that lay ahead of them.
“You can still back out,” Crow said softly, stroking Val’s shoulder. “Terry and Sarah would let us stay here. Or we could just shack up at my place. The cats would love to have you visit.”
“No,” she said firmly, then smiled a bit. “Thanks, honey, but…no.”
Crow let it go. Last night, as they were climbing into bed, Val had told him that she wanted to go home, but Crow had wondered what kind of ghosts would be there. Would they be able to feel Ruger’s toxicity? Certainly they would feel the utter loss of the presence of Henry Guthrie. If it was up to Crow, he would have her sell the damn place and they could buy a town house somewhere on Corn Hill, but Val wouldn’t even listen to that kind of talk. Guthries had always lived there and by God Guthries always would. “I won’t be chased out of my own house,” she said. “I won’t be chased out of my own life. Besides, Ruger’s already taken enough away from me.”
He kissed her hair as they sat in the window bay watching geese mill around in the yard.
Val said, “Crow?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“About our getting married?” He tensed. “Are you sure?”
Crow laughed. “No, it was just a whim.”
She smacked his chest lightly. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” he admitted.
“When you proposed at the hospital…you knew I needed something real to anchor myself to. It was so wonderful, so sweet of you, but I don’t want to think that you did it just to make me feel better. Like some kind of distraction therapy.”
He laughed again, harder. “Yeah, you found me out. You see, I found it pretty useful carrying around a two- carat Asscher-cut engagement ring just in case some random woman needs a little emotional pick-me-up. It’s worked dozens of times.”
Val raised her head and studied him with her dark blue eyes. “I’m not joking, Crow.”
His eyes still twinkled with humor. “You are possibly the dumbest smart woman in the world if you don’t know how much I love you. I love you more than anything else in the universe, Valerie Guthrie, and I’ve been planning to pop the ol’question for some time now but couldn’t find just the right moment. Though in retrospect proposing while I was whacked out on morphine may be a questionable interpretation of ‘the right moment,’ it seemed to work out okay.”
Val kissed him, sweetly and softly, careful of the stitches in his lips and mouth. “My God! It was
Crow pulled her closer and kissed her lips and her eyes and buried his face in the fragrant softness of the side of her throat. “My sweet love, I am more sure of that than anything else in my life. I have to be with you, now and forever. I love so much that if I even think about living a second without you I think I’d go nuts. I’m babbling, I know…but I don’t know how else to say it. I want to be with you, I want to marry you, and I want to have everything with you. Life, house, two-point-five kids, dog, station wagon, PTA, crab-grass, and middle-age spread— the whole enchilada.” Her eyes closed and a single tear leaked out of her bruised eye. He didn’t see it, but when it fell on his chest, he pushed her gently back so that he could see her face. “Hey…are you crying?”
“Of course I’m crying, you idiot.”
“Val, I—”
“Crow…I have to tell you something and if you want to take back your ring, if you want to back off, I will understand, but I
Crow’s heart turned to a block of ice. “You are scaring the shit out of me here.”
“God, I hope not.” Her face was serious, but there was a bright light there, sparkling in her eyes like spring sunlight on late winter snow.
“Then tell me,” he said, and braced himself.
“Crow…my love…I’m pregnant.”
Crow could actually feel his mouth drop open like a trap-door. If he was still breathing, he wasn’t aware of it, though he knew that his heart was still beating—it was right there in his throat. He saw the look of desperate hopefulness in her eyes begin to change into a look of broken-hearted fear…and he wanted to say something smart, something pithy.
Instead he just yelled. A great big whooping bellow of pure joy.
Val felt herself yanked forward and Crow crushed her to his chest. They both howled in pain and then they both laughed, and a moment later they were both crying and kissing each other. Crow kept saying: “Babybabybabybaby…” but Val didn’t know if he was using an endearment for her or just trying out the new implications of the word. Either way, she felt the knot that had been wrapped around her heart split apart and her whole chest seemed to be filled with warm helium. She wanted to leap into the air with him, and she was sure that they would both float.
Feet pounded on the steps and Val turned her head—which made Crow miss her face and land a big noisy kiss on her ear, which hurt, but who cared?—and the door burst open and Sarah Wolfe was there, looking shocked and desperate. “Oh my God,” Sarah yelled, fear in her eyes, “what’s going on, who’s hurt, did you fall…?”
Val wrapped her arms around Crow’s neck and pulled his face to her chest and spoke over his tousled hair, pitching her voice high over Crow’s constant
Sarah stopped, mouth in a perfect O, her inability to process this registering on her face. “A…baby?” And then she was hugging them both.
(2)
Frank Ferro sat at the head of the conference table with Vince LaMastra to his right. At the far end sat Terry
