“It’s my workshop. I dabble in metalwork on my off time, creating the occasional artsy piece, like wall hangings and some jewelry.” He walks over to a side table, opens a drawer, and pulls out a small square of folded paper. He sets it on the workbench and carefully unfolds it, revealing a pair of filigreed earrings that look like elongated silver lace doilies. “Stuff like this,” he says, handing the earrings to me.
“These are beautiful,” I say, holding them up to the light. “I had no idea you did anything like this.”
“I don’t do a lot of the small stuff anymore. Mostly I do bigger items, like that thing over there.” He points to a piece leaning against the wall. It’s a large rectangular chunk of varicolored metal strips woven together like a rug.
“What do you do with what you make?”
“I sell most of it, at flea markets mainly.”
I try to give the earrings back to him but he pushes my hand away. “Keep them,” he says.
“Are you trying to bribe me?”
“Absolutely.” He smiles at me and adds, “The color suits you. Please take them.”
“Okay, thanks.” I remove the pierced earrings I’m wearing, fold them up inside the paper on the workbench, and put the whole thing in the pocket of my slacks. I then slip the new ones, which are done in a French hook style, through my ears.
“What do you think?” I ask him when I’m done. I turn my head from side to side to show off the earrings.
Hurley doesn’t answer right away. He looks at the earrings and smiles, then his eyes shift to my hair, my face, my throat . . . his gaze softening as he goes. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, his smile disappears and he turns away. “They look great,” he says, his voice catching slightly. Hurley’s signals lately are about as clear as a broken traffic light and I can feel my level of frustration grow another notch. “I’m glad they found a good home.”
There is an awkward moment as Hurley rearranges some tools on the center worktable that were just fine where they were and I try to figure out what the hell just happened. While I love the fact that Hurley has just given me jewelry, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll need Daniel Webster to defend me in the near future.
Hurley has left the earring drawer open and after glancing inside it, where I see neat little rows of folded paper envelopes that I assume hold more pieces of jewelry, I close it. The sound seems to shake Hurley loose and he walks over and opens a door in the far wall. “Come on out here,” he says. “My boat is parked alongside the garage.”
I follow him outside into the cold night air and there, hidden beneath a tarplike cover, is a small jon boat atop a trailer. He pulls the tarp off near the back of the boat and says, “I kept the knife in this little cubby here, beneath the seat.”
I look where he’s pointing and see a hollowed-out area under a metal seat that spans the width of the boat. “When’s the last time you know it was there?”
“The last time I had the boat out, which was in mid-September.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it? Maybe you stuck it somewhere else and don’t remember doing it.”
“I thought of that,” he says. “Even though I can’t imagine why I would have taken it out of the boat, I spent a good part of today looking in every logical place as well as a few illogical ones. I can’t find it anywhere.”
“You need to tell Richmond.”
Hurley’s jaw clenches, the muscles in his cheeks twitching. “I can’t, Mattie. Not yet anyway. Don’t you see? Someone took my knife from my boat—a unique and distinctive knife, no less—and used it to kill someone I was once close to. I think I’m being set up.”
I shiver, though I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold or his words. “By whom? And why?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I need your help. That’s why I want you to share any evidence you find with me.” He rakes a hand through his hair as he speaks, and as I watch it fall back into place I remember the short, black hair we found in Callie’s wound. I consider telling him about it but something makes me hold back. I’m not ready to share everything with him, at least not yet.
“You’re putting me in a very difficult position, Hurley.”
“I know that. Believe me, if I could think of a better way to handle this, I’d do it. But I can’t. I’m up the proverbial creek with no paddle
This final plea both heats my loins and melts my heart. As I look into the blue depths of his eyes, I realize I’m helpless to refuse him even though it may mean the premature death of my new career. My gut is screaming at me that it would be a huge mistake to agree to what he’s asking of me, yet my heart is whispering,
And go for it I do, though I decide to keep back a little something for myself, just in case. “I’ll help you for now,” I tell him, “but only if we can get back inside. It’s freezing out here.”
“Of course,” he says, flashing me a relieved smile.
With a hand at the small of my back, he steers me back inside. I can feel the heat of his touch radiating through my sweater, and it makes me shiver again.
“I’m sorry, Mattie. I shouldn’t have kept you outside so long without a coat.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I got a little chill but I’ll shake it off in a minute.”
“Dinner will be ready soon,” he says as we enter the kitchen. “That should warm you up, but you can use this in the meantime.” He grabs a heavy flannel shirt off a hook by the door and drapes it over my shoulders. I thank him and pull it close, catching a whiff of a scent from it that is distinctly Hurley, something spicy, masculine, and a little bit dangerous. It sends my hormones into overdrive and suddenly I’m not the least bit cold anymore.
“I’d like to wash up before we eat. Where’s your bathroom?”
Hurley directs me to a room at the top of the stairs and leaves me to find my way while he checks the lasagna in the oven.
The bathroom, which is done in blue and white tile with a hexagon tile floor, is small but sparkling clean, a surprising find in a bachelor pad. At first I fear it is too clean, but I finally find what I want when I snoop inside the medicine cabinet. There on the bottom shelf is a hairbrush. I remove the folded paper from my pocket and take the earrings out of it, dumping them loose into my other pocket. Then I carefully remove several hairs from the brush, place them on the paper, and fold it back up. After slipping it back into the pocket it came from, I flush the toilet, wash my hands, and head back to the kitchen.
I settle into the same chair I had before, just as Hurley sets a bubbling, delicious-smelling pan of lasagna on the table. A basket full of garlic bread is beside my plate and the heady aromas make me feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. I’m practically drooling as Hurley cuts a generous square of lasagna from the pan and sets it on my plate. But just as I pick up my fork, my cell phone rings. I curse under my breath when I see that the caller ID says it’s Izzy, which most likely means work for me.
“Hello, Izzy,” I answer. “What’s up?”
“There’s been a death over at the hospital in the ER. EMS brought in an elderly gentleman with a cardiac history as a PNB.”
PNB is medical speak for a pulseless nonbreather, meaning the patient was already dead when EMS found him. And given that he’s now my patient, it’s safe to assume that the efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.
“It sounds like your basic coronary,” Izzy goes on, “but we still need to examine the patient, review the chart, and obtain a history. It should be pretty straightforward, and given your nursing background, I think it will be a good one for you to do for your first solo. Are you up for it?”
The delicious smells of garlic, mozzarella, and tomato sauce are making my stomach rumble, which makes me want to tell Izzy no. But I owe him on many levels, not the least of which is his giving me this job when I so desperately needed it.
“Sure,” I tell him.
“Fabulous,” Izzy says, and I can’t help but smile at his choice of words. Even though he is openly gay, Izzy doesn’t broadcast his proclivities much. But every once in a while he does or says something that screams gay to me. The way he says the word
“I’ll head over now,” I say, looking longingly first at the lasagna, then Hurley.
