Death at the Wheel (24 page)

We've had our conflicts about my taking risks. Andre's instinctive protectiveness wars with my determined independence.

We've worked that out pretty well—I've agreed to be more careful and he's agreed to be less controlling—but things still come up that we disagree about. I didn't know if that was it, but there was something on his mind.

"Ravishing, gorgeous, and tired," he said, setting a vase of roses on the coffee table and sitting down beside me. "We need to talk."

"Now? Don't you want to eat first?" Up close, I could see his five o'clock shadow, dark along the firm edge of his jaw. I reached out and touched it.

He caught my hand and held it. "Better to clear the air. I've got things on my mind," he said.

"You want some wine?" He nodded. I poured a glass and handed it to him. He was watching me carefully with his policeman's observant eyes.

"They hurt you," he said.

"It's nothing...."

"Any time you're hurt, it's something to me."

Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe I was neurotic. Maybe there was something wrong with all the rushing about and pushing myself so hard and never taking the time to just be, to have my feelings, to think about where I was in the world and what I wanted instead of what I had to do. When Andre said that, something inside crumbled and all my fear and pain and repressed desire to be comforted and cared for tumbled out. Like a frightened child, I threw myself into his arms and buried my head in his shoulder.

"I was scared," I said. "Scared and angry."

"Tell me about it." His arms locked around me and pulled me closer. For the first time in days, I felt safe and comforted. I took a deep breath and cleaned my emotional closets. I told him everything. About the false police and the papers I'd taken from Julie's house and how just having them might get me in trouble with the Feds. How stupid I felt for having taken them and now I didn't know what to do. About Julie's brother—though he already knew about that. About the other people at the bank and how everyone had disliked Cal Bass and about Bass's girlfriend and about Dr. Durren and why we were going to go to Connecticut and do some investigating of our own. When I was done, I felt so much better I was practically giddy with relief.

"So that's the story," I said. "Are you hungry?"

"I still don't understand why you're mixed up in this at all," he said.

"I told you. Because she reminds me of Carrie...."

"I don't think that's it, Thea. I think you're letting your family push you into this. It's not your problem. You've got to stop thinking you can save the whole world, Thea. You can't. No one can."

He was right. And he was wrong. I'd made it my problem. "You don't understand," I said. "My mother just asked me to do a little—"

"I can't believe how you let her manipulate you," he interrupted. "When you know what she's like. If this is so important to her, why doesn't she do it herself?"

"She wouldn't know how."

"And neither should you. And how many times has she asked you to stop getting involved in other people's problems? Until one comes along that matters to her. Someone should do the world a favor and shoot that woman!"

"You should be the last person on earth to advocate shooting someone, Detective!"

He held his hands out defensively in front of him. "Look, forget it. I'm sorry. It's just that I can't stand the way she manipulates you into doing her dirty work for her. I thought you'd gotten over that."

I shrugged. "So did I... after Carrie... but then, she's my mother. I guess it's kind of like malaria. I think I'm over it and then it comes back and there I am sweating and shivering and right back in the grips of it again. I don't think anyone is ever entirely cured of family."

"Did you consider just saying no?"

"Of course. But you haven't met Julie. She seemed so helpless... and then it turned out she really didn't have any friends, just that belligerent lout of a brother."

"You're not Mother Teresa, you know. You can't go around taking in all the world's strays."

"You're saying I shouldn't help people?"

He rubbed his forehead like it hurt. "No. No. Of course not. It's one of the best things about you, your loyalty, your generosity. How can I say this? I just wish you'd take better care of yourself. Be generous to you." I felt his chest heave under my head, felt him gathering himself. "You should have seen the two of us, when Roland told me about Donahue... about what he did to you! That man is lucky he's still walking."

"You saw Donahue?"

"I exercised the greatest self-control." I knew that was all he was going to tell me. "You know I can't stand it when you're hurt," he said. "I want to be there. To help you. To put the bandages on your little fingers and toes."

I'd been holding my breath and now I let it out. We weren't going to have a fight. He was just telling me he'd been worried. "And thighs."

"Oh, yes. And thighs." He sighed.

"I'm trying to be careful."

"The things you do when I'm not around," he said, shaking his head. "You're going to give me an ulcer if you keep this up. I don't know what I'm going to do with you. Throwing a vase at a man with a gun?"

"I didn't know he had a gun. And it wasn't a vase. It was a cat. That dumb, grinning ceramic cat that used to sit by the door."

"Nitpicker." He gave me a diabolical grin and pulled out his handcuffs, dangling them in front of my face. "I think I've got it," he said.

"Got what?"

"The solution." He clicked a cuff around my wrist and the other around his own, fastening our wrists together. "From now on we aren't going to be separated."

"Cute," I said. "Like Siamese twins. These are going to make things very difficult."

"Where some people see a problem, others see a challenge," he said.

"Mister, you are always a challenge. And sometimes a problem. I guess you're going to help me fix dinner?"

He shrugged. "Whither thou goest..."

"Everywhere?"

"We'll see." His hand was warm through the thin silk. I tried to work up some irritation at the handcuffs, at the questions, but I couldn't. I was too happy just to have him here.

"I feel so safe," I murmured.

"You ought to. You've got your own cop only an arm's length away."

"Come closer," I said. I wanted to be even more connected. I didn't know what had come over me but I was practically intoxicated with lust, overcome with the rushes of sensation his hands were producing. He was on the same wavelength now—getting mad at each other seems to naturally segue into other passionate activities—and we managed nicely, despite the cuffs. Getting undressed, at least, though a couple times our gyrations had me laughing so hard I almost slid right off the buttery-soft leather of the couch.

Afterwards, I looked at our linked arms and burst out laughing. "We look like a clothesline."

"Clothesline?"

My shirt, his shirt, my bra, and his T-shirt all dangled from our arms. "Nobody better come to the door."

"And the phone better not ring."

"We're never going to get this stuff back on."

"Who cares?"

"Well, I'm not going out on the deck to cook the fish dressed like this."

"Undressed, you mean."

"Keep correcting me and you aren't getting any dinner."

"Who cares?" he repeated, but his stomach betrayed him by rumbling.

"You are hungry!"

"For you. Come live with me. I can't go on like this much longer."

"I'll consider it if you'll take these things off."

I jerked my arm impatiently, half amused, half angry. They were beginning to make me feel vaguely claustrophobic.

He lay there on the couch beside me with an insolent grin. "Can't. I don't have the key."

"Where is it?" I had mortifying visions of having to drive back to Maine this way or going into the local police station to ask for help.

"Out in the car."

"Out in the car! How could you...?"

"I forgot."

"Forgot?" Suddenly I wanted them off right now. I struggled to sit up. "Get dressed. We've got to go get it."

He covered me with his body and pressed me back down onto the couch. "What's the rush?" he whispered, nuzzling my neck. "I said I wasn't going to let you go." I tried to push him off but he captured my free hand and pinned it down. I could feel him hard again against my leg, searching, connecting. His breath roared in my ear, his rocking head scraping against my cheek. Then it changed to a faint moan, a gasp, and a drawn-out groan of satisfaction.

This time we weren't on the same wavelength at all. A panic I'd never experienced filled me, tightening my chest until I couldn't breathe. It didn't matter that this was Andre, a man I loved and enjoyed having sex with. I was trapped by locks. Held down and overpowered by another big man bent on controlling me when I couldn't escape. I pulled my arm free and beat on him with my fist. "Let me go. Let me go!" My voice was shrill with desperation.

He raised himself with his free arm and stared down at me, his satisfied look changing to astonishment. "Thea? Hey, calm down. Calm down. What's the matter?"

I couldn't calm down. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think rationally. Like a bottle of soda that's been shaken, my panic flowed up and out and I couldn't stop it. "Please. Let me up," I gasped.

He rolled sideways into a sitting position, his face still etched with confusion. I jumped up and tried to run away, but I only got to the end of my arm, which I practically jerked out of its socket before the cuffs caught me and pulled me backwards. I collapsed onto one knee on the rug, naked and trapped, and buried my face in the clothes strung along my arm. "Help me."

Andre knelt beside me. "Thea? I don't understand. What's going on? Did I scare you? Did I hurt you?"

I was confused, disoriented. I was having trouble breathing. "I... don't... know. Suddenly. I felt so strange... something happened... I felt trapped and I panicked. You were holding me down and I couldn't get away. Too many people doing that to me lately."

"I didn't mean to." He was struggling to understand. "I thought we were having fun. You're not saying I'm like them?"

"You were having fun. I was having a panic attack."

"You don't have panic attacks, Thea." He said it firmly, as though that was the end of the discussion. "You've just had a hard week. You've been hurt. Traumatized." Implicit in his words was the phrase "you'll get over it." At the same time, good cop that he was, and used to dealing with people at the limits of control, he was soothing me with warm and gentle hands.

"Maybe I do now. Have panic attacks. There's been so much happening lately. All these men pointing guns at me and trying to push me around."

"I'm not one of them, Thea," he said, hurt by being lumped together with my attackers.

I had to straighten this out or we'd have a fight. I didn't want that. This wasn't something rational, this shattered feeling. I collected myself and tried to explain. "That's not what I meant...."

"You're not saying that having sex with me gives you panic attacks?"

"No. This isn't about sex. It's about handcuffs. And power. It's about being overpowered...being trapped and feeling helpless. I feel like my life is falling apart."

He reached over and gently pushed back some hair that was sticking to the tears on my face. "I think we should go get those keys, don't you?"

"Please."

Getting undressed had been easy and amusing. Getting dressed was harder. A recent survey showed that sixty percent of men prefer bras which fasten in the front. Well, mine did and it still gave us a hard time. But we managed. Finally, panting and almost restored to good humor, we were dressed. Not neatly but at least we were decently covered and I could breathe again. We went out to his car and I waited patiently while he searched for the key. There was a scary moment when he thought it was lost, but then he found it and set me free.

He steered me back inside and poured me another glass of wine. I curled up in one corner of the couch and sat, clutching a pillow defensively.

"You look about twelve years old," he said. "What did you mean when you said your life was falling apart? This thing with Julie Bass?"

I shook my head. "Not just that. Everything. Sarah is grouchy all the time. Suzanne is talking about moving...."

"What about the business?"

"I don't know. She doesn't know. She's not talking about it yet. Paul's considering a new job."

He nodded. He knew how important my job, Suzanne, and all the people I worked with were to me. "You don't know what's going to happen and you're scared."

I nodded. "I used to have my family. And David. Then I didn't have David any more. And since Carrie... since she died, I don't feel like I have my family any more. Not in the same way. And so what I have is my work. And you. And I'm scared of having you and scared of losing my work. And please, could we not talk about this any more?"

"Tough luck, lady."

"What do you mean?"

"You've got me whether you want me or not."

"But you're not here when I need—" I stopped. The decision not to live together was mutual and insurmountable.

"And you're not there when I need... and we both need to do something about that," he said. "But not right now. Let's eat. I'm starving."

"Right. The way to a man's heart and all that."

He struck himself lightly on the chest with his fist. "You're already in my heart, stuck right here in the middle of this squishy, bloody muscle."

"Ugh. How romantic."

He gave me a look the Hallmark people would have died for.

"Do you have any idea how I feel about you?"

"Do you have any idea how strongly your feelings are reciprocated?"

The intensity of the moment crackled around us like a storm of personal lightning. Then he refilled our glasses and touched mine lightly with his. He didn't say anything. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

Andre cooked the fish while I finished the salad and set the table. It was fun to watch him eat. No picking and aimless cutting for him. He takes a twofold view of food—he eats to sustain his big, solid body, and he eats because he loves to eat. Like my mother, I enjoy feeding people. Feeding him brings out all my maternal instincts. I practically beam as he packs it away.