together a meal. Her motions were economical, efficient, graceful. He was not hungry, but whatever she was making was starting to smell good.
He had been surprised when she had suggested that he come to her apartment for dinner after he finished with the county cops.
Isabella’s apartment was a warm, cheerful space filled with thriving green plants and cast-off furniture. The former tenant had disappeared one night, leaving no forwarding address, not an uncommon event in the Cove. Ralph Toomey owned the shabby rooms above his shop. He had offered them to Isabella and told her she could have the previous occupant’s furniture as well.
She had taken the apartment but declined the furniture. Fallon had helped Toomey haul a battered table, a couple of wobbly chairs, an unattractively stained mattress and rusty bedsprings to the town dump.
On the final expedition to the dump, a plastic baggie full of marijuana had fallen out of one ripped cushion.
“Always wondered how he managed to pay the rent,” Toomey remarked, pocketing the baggie. “Guy had no visible means of support. Figured he was in the business.”
“Probably explains why he disappeared in a hurry,” Fallon said.
Scargill Cove was on the fringes of the Emerald Triangle, a tricounty region in Northern California. In these parts it was freely acknowledged that marijuana was the largest cash crop, an economic engine that supported a multitude of businesses from gardening supply stores to gas stations. It also brought with it the usual law enforcement problems.
Toomey contemplated the stained mattress that they had tossed over the cliff into the ravine that served as the Cove’s dump.
“You know,” he said, “Isabella fits right in at the Cove. It’s like she belongs here with the rest of us or something.”
One more lost soul in a town where lost souls constituted the majority of the citizenry, Fallon thought.
When the apartment had been emptied out, Isabella, together with Marge from the cafe, Harriet Stokes, proprietor of Stokes’s Grocery, and the innkeepers, Violet and Patty, scrubbed the place from top to bottom. The cleaning had been followed by a fresh coat of sunny gold paint.
After the paint had dried, several people in the Cove had offered Isabella replacements for the furnishings and kitchen equipment that had been tossed. She had accepted each used item with glowing pleasure, as if it were a treasured housewarming gift or a valuable antique. The table and chairs and the heavy crockery had come from Marge. The secondhand sofa and the end table were courtesy of Violet and Patty. The Elvis lamps were a gift from Oliver and Fran Hitchcock, owners of the Scar.
The only new furniture in the place was the bed. Everyone in town had witnessed its arrival. The big van bearing the logo of a discount mattress store had blocked the street for half an hour while the new mattress and box springs were unloaded.
Fallon had watched the operation from the window of his office. Keen detective that he was, he had observed that the mattress was a traditional double. Unfortunately, that information was inconclusive. It did not tell him what he really wanted to know. Single people often used double beds.
On the other hand, the size of the mattress could indicate that there was a man in Isabella’s life. If so, the guy had not yet put in an appearance. On the whole, though, the evidence appeared to indicate that Isabella was alone.
The weariness was getting heavier, weighing him down. He had used a lot of energy to take down the killer. Energy was energy, and when you pulled on your reserves, you had to allow time to recover. But he knew that the soul-deep exhaustion that was sinking into him was more than just the result of having pushed his para-senses to the max. It was not the first time he had killed and it might not be the last but coming to terms with the psychic damage was not getting easier. He knew it never would.
“More whiskey?” Isabella asked, coming toward him with the bottle.
He looked down at the glass he cradled in his hands and was surprised to see that it was empty.
“Yes,” he said. “Thanks.”
She poured out another healthy measure and went back into the kitchenette, where she splashed a little more into her own glass. She knocked back the whiskey with a dashing air and promptly went into a small coughing spasm.
He got up, crossed the room and thumped her lightly between the shoulder blades.
“Thanks,” she managed. She took a deep breath. “Whew. Bad day at Black Rock.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. I’m a J&J agent. I can handle the whiskey.”
“I’m surprised you keep a bottle around,” he said. “Thought women liked white wine and pink cocktail drinks.”
“Shows how much you know.”
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”
He looked at the bottle. It was nearly full. He’d heard her crack the seal earlier when she’d opened it and knew that his glass was the first she had poured from it. He wondered how she knew the brand he preferred, and then it dawned on him that she had probably seen the bottle he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.
What were the odds that she drank the same brand? he wondered. About zero, given all available evidence. That left one tantalizing possibility. She had purchased this particular bottle of whiskey with the express purpose of serving him a drink from it. Something inside him warmed at the thought.
“Isabella.”
“Hmm?” She looked at him with her wonderful eyes.
“I think I’m going to kiss you,” he said.
“Want some advice?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t think about it too much,” she said. “Just do it.”
He set his glass down on the counter, took hers from her hand and put it down as well. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
For an instant, she did not respond. A heartbeat later the atmosphere around them exploded with blazing energy. Isabella put her arms around his neck and kissed him back with a fierce, feminine hunger that set his senses on fire.
She might as well have picked up a sledgehammer and used it to shatter the crystalline prison cell in which he had lived most of his adult life. He was suddenly free, wholly consumed by a fever unlike anything he had ever experienced.
“Isabella.” He could barely shape the word. It was as if he were invoking magic. He framed her face in his hands, astonishment and wonder unfurling somewhere inside him.
Her mysterious eyes widened briefly, as though she, too, was amazed by what was happening.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t break.”
“I might.”
She smiled again and kissed him just under his jaw.
“No,” she said, sounding very certain. “You won’t. Nothing could break you, Fallon Jones.”
He could not seem to find his breath. The hair on the back of his neck stirred. He tightened his arms around Isabella, pinned her to him and kissed her mouth and then her throat. She responded with a soft cry and an electric passion. She was so delicate and sleek and feminine. He was afraid of crushing her.
He picked her up in his arms.
“Wait,” she said urgently. “The soup.”
He waited while she reached down to turn off the burner. Then he carried her swiftly down the short hall into the small bedroom. He set her on her feet beside the bed. When he started to undress her, he fumbled the business because his hands were trembling.
“It’s been a long time for me,” he warned.
“For me, too,” she said. “But I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
