straddling him, then lifted her so he could push inside.
He was full and hard, but mostly he was Dent, and she pressed down on him with a satisfied sigh. Leaning forward, she kissed his mouth, long and slow, then squirmed down and touched the tip of her tongue to his nipple. He made a low, sexy sound and asked her to repeat that.
His arousal aroused her, but when she began to rock against him, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her up to a sitting position. “I want to watch.”
“What?”
He splayed his hand over her lower belly. “Lean back. Farther. Put your hands on my thighs.”
She hesitated, then did as he instructed, making herself vulnerable to his hot gaze and to his thumb, which he slid down between their bodies. He watched the lips of her sex close around it, then looked into her eyes as he began to stroke her with a circular motion that caused her body to quicken and involuntarily thrust against his thumb. Tilting her face toward the ceiling, she closed her eyes and lost herself to the sensations.
Without inhibition, she gave over to her impulses, moved as her body was dictating, and allowed herself to be governed strictly by her senses. She heard Dent’s hiss of pleasure, felt the fervent, wet tug of his mouth on her nipple, the flicking of his tongue in concert with his thumb’s caresses.
She arched her back and cried out his name.
At some point during the wee hours, they grew tired enough to spoon. “You never did tell me,” she said drowsily.
“Tell you what?”
“Why you love flying so much. You told me that you fell in love with it the first time Gall took you up. He told me you were enraptured.”
“Gall said that?”
She laughed softly and turned to face him. “I supplied the word, but that’s how he described you.” She placed her arm around his waist and rested her cheek against the fuzziness on his chest. “Describe to me how you felt that day.”
While collecting his thoughts, his fingers sifted through her hair. “For as far back as I could remember, I’d been trying to figure out why my dad didn’t like me and what I could do to win him over. That day, when Gall took me up, it was like… like I left all that on the ground.
“During that five-minute flight, it stopped mattering to me whether my dad liked me or not. His indifference couldn’t reach me in the sky. I knew I’d found something more important to my life than he would ever be because I loved it more. I’d found a new home.”
He gave a light laugh. “Of course when we landed, nothing that poetic-sounding came to my adolescent mind. I’ve had years to think about that first flight and how significant it was. Even then, I knew it was life- changing, but, of course, nothing changed immediately.
“We landed, and I went back to that cold house and that unfeeling man. I remained angry and resentful, carried a chip on my shoulder just as I always had. The difference was, I now had something to look forward to. My dad couldn’t lock me out anymore because I’d stopped wanting in.”
He paused as though considering whether or not to continue. “This is going to sound as corny as hell. But”— again, he hesitated—“but during that flight, there was a span of time, maybe forty-five seconds, when the sun shone through a crack in the clouds. And I mean a slit. You know how it sometimes does just before sundown and there are clouds on the horizon?
“Anyway, we were flying at the perfect altitude to be level with it. That beam of sunlight was aimed directly at me. I was staring straight into it and I
“And I thought to myself, ‘This is what it’s about. It’s never going to get better than this. This is my life’s perfect moment. If I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll remember this till the day I die.’”
Bellamy didn’t move for the longest time. Eventually Dent mumbled, “Told you it was corny.”
“No, it’s lovely.”
“You ever had a moment like that? Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
She raised her head, and a tear slid over her lower eyelid as she smiled down into his face and said softly, “As of right now, I do.”
They slept for several hours and woke to make love again as they showered together. He was assembling the coffee-maker when she emerged from the bathroom, wearing only the dress shirt he’d discarded the night before, towel-drying her hair.
When he turned and saw her, an odd expression came over his face. “What?” she asked.
He shook his head slightly, then gave her a wolfish grin. “I was just thinking how good it looks on you.”
“Your shirt?”
“Debauchery.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Damn, that gets to me every time.”
“What?”
“Your blush.”
“I don’t blush.”
“Bet you will.”
“
He sat down in one of the chairs at the table, caught her hand, and pulled her into his lap. It was a while before they got around to having their coffee.
Over steaming cups, she told him what she’d learned about the man they knew as Jerry. Dent muttered a few choice phrases. “Steven’s the one I should have gone after.”
“He retained the man to look out for me. He meant well.”
He looked prepared to comment on that, but chose not to. “What was on Moody’s mind?”
She related their conversation and, when she finished, she said, “Admit it, Dent. You must be a little relieved.”
“To know that you didn’t kill her?” When she solemnly nodded, he said, “I’m relieved for your sake. From a practical standpoint, I never really thought you had.”
“But you had considered the possibility.”
“Let’s just say I hoped that when you regained your memory, it wouldn’t be of you choking Susan. I’m glad you don’t have to be haunted by that.”
“Yes. But if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Strickland, then who? Moody claims only to know who didn’t. Not who did. We need to—”
“Go see Haymaker,” he said.
The retired detective looked as elfin as ever. “Sorry about your dad,” he said to Bellamy.
She acknowledged the condolence but didn’t linger on it. “Moody said you’d be expecting us.”
He moved aside and motioned them in. They sat as before, he in the recliner, them competing with the dog for space on the sofa. Haymaker pointed down to the case file lying on the coffee table. “Recognize that?”
She nodded.
“Frankly, I can’t believe Dale is ready to share this.” He held up his hands and gave an elaborate shrug. “But who’s to say how a man’s conscience works?”
“He told me that he left some kind of confession with you.”
The former cop took several folded sheets of paper from the pocket of his shirt and spread them open. “Signed.”
“And thumbprinted,” she said, checking the last sheet, where Moody’s signature was affixed along with the thumbprint.
“So what does he confess to, exactly?” Dent asked.
Haymaker settled more comfortably into his chair. “Ever hear of a Brady cop?”
Bellamy and Dent shook their heads.
“There was a Supreme Court case, midsixties, I think. Stemmed from a murder trial,
