Protector With A Past. Harper Allen
led the distraught Jackie away.
“I can’t believe he used to be a cop.” Darting a disgusted look at his retreating figure, Cindy raked strong fingers through a swath of shining hair and then patted her pockets. “I don’t want anyone ragging on me for this,” she said belligerently, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and scowling. She lit one with a quick nervous gesture and took a deep drag. “I’m trying to quit, but having to deal with that yahoo right after a funeral is too much.”
“Jerks like that aren’t worth it, Cin.” A slender, almost fragile-seeming woman in the group spoke up, her voice attractively husky. Chestnut hair curved in elegant feathers around the delicate bones of her face and her arched brows knitted together as the other woman drew agitatedly on the cigarette. “Why don’t we go home and I’ll brew up some maté? We can have it out on the balcony.”
Her clear green gaze rested on Cindy with a mixture of love and concern that seemed oddly familiar to Julia. With dawning comprehension, she realized that it was the same look that she’d seen in Sheila’s eyes when the stress of the job had gotten to Paul. The knowledge took her aback, but only for a moment. Although she hadn’t guessed at Cindy’s lifestyle when she’d met her after Cord had transferred out two years ago, Paul certainly would have known shortly after being partnered with her. He’d counted her among his friends, and that was good enough for Julia. Lopez sighed.
“I know, Erica.” She frowned and looked at Cord. “Dammit, he was grilling me for details like some stringer for the National Enquirer—asking me whether Paul was shot and then stabbed, or stabbed and then shot, wanting to know exactly where Sheila’s body had been found, what she’d been wearing…” Her voice shook. “Hell, after everything I’ve seen at work you’d think I’d be handling this better.”
“He used to be my partner. I’m not handling it too well, either,” Cord said bleakly. “Being a cop doesn’t mean you stop feeling—unless you want to end up like Dean Tascoe.”
He squinted through the elm branches at the cloudless sky, his hands shoved negligently in the pockets of his trousers, his jacket open. Against the crisp white of his shirt Julia glimpsed the worn brown leather of his shoulder holster, and at the sight a small jolt of fear ran through her. He’d come armed. What was he expecting to happen here, of all places?
“It seems all wrong, somehow, doesn’t it?” Cindy’s friend Erica looked at the perfect sky as Cord had and sketched a small, graceful gesture that encompassed the beautifully landscaped grounds, the freshly leafed trees, the golden sunlight bathing the scene. “If this was an opera the heavens would be splitting open with thunder and lightning, the sky would be dark, and we’d be rending our clothes and cursing the gods.”
“This is my only decent pantsuit,” Lopez said with a lopsided smile. “But that cursing the gods thing sounds good to me. Erica designs stage costumes,” she added to Julia with a note of pride in her voice. “She gets a little Wagnerian once in a while, but this time she’s right. I’d feel better if I could just be doing something.”
As they’d been speaking, the crowd around them had gradually thinned. Lopez’s frustrated comment brought forth a ragged and dispirited chorus of agreement from the few remaining officers clustered nearby, and one by one, men and women in uniform shook hands or clasped each other in brief, wordless hugs before heading toward the high and ornate iron gates enclosing the area. Beyond the gates, parked cars lined both sides of the winding, graveled drive that entered the cemetery.
“I guess we should be heading out, too, Cord,” Lopez said heavily. “Although tonight I don’t think a nice hot cup of maté’s going to cut it.” She shot a defiantly guilty look at Erica that under different circumstances might have brought a smile to Julia’s lips. “I’ve got a date with an almost full bottle of Scotch that I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Right now I feel like Noah.”
There was a heartbeat of silence after her words, and then her appalled gaze found and held Julia’s. Her color rose under the smooth tan of her cheeks.
“God—sorry, Julia. I didn’t intend to—I mean, I know it’s probably something you’d rather…” She raked her hair back, her expression contrite and her words trailing away. “Me and my big mouth,” she mumbled.
Great, Julia thought dully. Her only consolation these last two years had been that at least the people she’d once worked with had no idea of how completely her life had disintegrated. Now it seemed that her personal problems and weaknesses had been common knowledge right from the start. It was humiliating, and shameful, and…
…and strangely liberating, she thought with a slight sense of shock. She wouldn’t have to watch what she said or concoct any elaborate excuses—make that lies, she told herself—in the event that she found herself in a social situation. It felt as if a weighty load had been lifted from her shoulders—a weight that she never would have had the nerve to shrug off without Cindy’s faux pas.
Although she had been able to tell Cord, she realized, surprised.
“Please don’t think that Paul violated any confidences—” Cindy stammered, but Julia cut across her apologies.
“I know he didn’t. I thought it was such a terrible secret that I didn’t tell anyone about it.”
Seeing the stricken look in the expressive brown eyes watching her, she laid her hand tentatively on Lopez’s arm. The disconcerting thought came to her that it had been a long time since she’d reached out to comfort another person.
“Cindy—it’s okay. I’m not upset.” She attempted a grin. “I’m certainly not about to run off to the nearest bar and knock back a dozen tequila shooters because of this.”
It was time to change the topic, she thought, wishing all of a sudden that she was back at the lake, alone in the big house with no one but King to intrude upon her solitude. But the German shepherd was with Lizbet at Mary Whitefield’s house, where he would stay until all danger to the child had passed.
“You must have your own theory as to who targeted Paul and Sheila.” She directed her comment to Lopez, but she was conscious of Cord beside her. “I know neither of us has any official standing in this matter, but maybe the very fact that we aren’t as close to the investigation as you are might help us see a pattern here.”
“I think I see the pattern,” Lopez began, but then she broke off, darting a quick glance over her shoulder at a cluster of overall-clad workers standing by the discreet, foot-high chain that surrounded the rectangles of fresh earth a few dozen yards away. Julia followed her glance. Just beyond the two new graves the rolling landscape took a slight rise, and from somewhere out of sight she could hear the rumbling noise of a piece of machinery idling. It sounded like construction equipment, more suited to the side of a highway than to this pastoral setting.
Cord had heard it, too. Julia saw the pain that flashed across his features without understanding the reason for it. A second later she understood.
“I think we’re holding up their work.” His hand moved as if to touch her, but then he checked himself. “Let’s go,” he said quietly. “They want to fill in the graves.”
“Oh.”
The startled exclamation that escaped Cindy’s lips made her suddenly sound much more vulnerable than her tough exterior suggested. Erica, taking in the situation at a glance, laid a hand on her back, shepherding her gently toward the gates that led out of the cemetery.
“You said you thought you saw a pattern?” Cord’s question was a timely diversion. Erica shot him a grateful look. Julia heard Cindy take in a deep, shuddering breath and saw her square her shoulders.
“Yeah. And I think we were supposed to see it.” She frowned at the velvety turf underfoot, and Julia realized that the dark-haired woman beside her was back in the unassumingly comfortable suburban house that she’d visited so often before as a guest, but that now had turned nightmarishly into a crime scene, with her partner and his wife as the victims.
“It