Foul Play (7 page)

“I almost rented an apartment here,” Jake said. “They're just like mine, except they don't have a little patch of woods behind them.”

“I'm surprised they'd allow her to have a rooster. Don't those things cock-a-doodle bright and early every morning?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “and I've never known a rooster that was potty trained. When we get into her apartment you should watch where you're stepping.”

“When we get into her apartment? No. Not me. That's very illegal.”

Jake parked and hauled Amy out of the car. “Don't worry. I know what I'm doing.”

Jake found the correct door number and looked around. He took a credit card from his wallet and inserted it between the door and the jamb.

“That's against the law!” Amy said.

“Nonsense. The police taught me how to do this. They wouldn't teach me to do
something illegal. It must only be illegal if you intend to steal something.” The door swung open.

“Jacob Elliott! Don't you dare go into that apartment.”

“I don't think it's breaking and entering, because I didn't break anything. Are you coming?” he called from the hallway. “I wouldn't stand out there with the door open if I were you. It looks suspicious.”

Amy put her hand over her heart and crept into the apartment. “I'm too young to go to jail. I'm just beginning my life, for crying out loud.”

Jake closed the door behind her. “If it makes you feel any better, I promise I won't let them take you away until you've…lived a little.”

Amy gave him a black look. “You should be ashamed of yourself. A man of medicine. Isn't this against your Hippocratic oath?”

“I didn't take a Hippocratic oath. I said the pledge of allegiance under a picture of Dr. Dolittle. And he'd approve of me looking for Red.”

Jake walked through the living room,
dining room, bedroom, and kitchen. He looked in the closets, in the cupboards, in the refrigerator.

“This is strange. There's absolutely no sign of a rooster having lived here. No rooster food. No cage. No rooster paraphernalia of any kind. That stuff costs money. If it were me, I'd wait a while before I got rid of it. I'd make sure the rooster wasn't coming back.”

“Maybe the rooster never lived here. Maybe she kept it someplace else.”

“I suppose that's possible…”

Jake and Amy froze at the sound of a key being inserted in Veronica Bottles's front door. “Oh hell,” Jake whispered, pushing Amy into the bedroom. “Under the bed!”

“It's a waterbed. There is no under.”

“The closet! Get into the closet.”

It was a long closet, extending three feet beyond the sliding doors. Jake dived for the deepest part of it and held Amy to him. He could feel her heart thudding against her backbone. Or was that his heart? Pull it together, he ordered himself. Don't let the panic control you.

He listened for footsteps, straining his ears because sound was muffled through the closet door. Footsteps in the living room. No conversation. She was alone. Jake realized he'd been holding his breath and let it out in a small whoosh.

Minutes ticked by, and he became more aware of the woman in his arms. They were locked together spoon fashion, with her perfect derriere pressed against his zipper. Her hair was silky and fragrant. Her breast hung soft against his thumb. He closed his eyes and silently willed himself to keep control.

Amy's eyes opened wide. Something suspiciously personal was moving against her bottom. It couldn't be…It was! She'd read somewhere that this sort of thing happened to men when they were nervous. “Are you nervous?” she whispered.

“No. I'm sorry. I'm ridiculously libidinous.” His hands curled around her rib cage, cuddling her even closer to him. He kissed the tip of her ear and bent to kiss the sensitive spot just below the lobe.

Amy felt the heat pour through her. She'd
never been a daredevil, but she had a sudden insight into the allure of the dangerous and exotic. Passion hummed in her veins. Her educated mind told her it was due to a surge of adrenaline, a primitive, primordial instinct to survive, to procreate. Her heart whispered more romantic reasons. This was Jake. Her protector, her love, her friend. It seemed natural to respond to him. It was the intensity that gave her cause for wonder.

They both stiffened as a light flashed on in the bedroom, casting a sliver of yellow under the closet door. More footsteps and suddenly the closet doors were flung open, and a perfectly tanned, naked arm reached into the closet and extracted a hanger. Clothes rustled, and the hanger returned with a dress draped over it. Veronica sighed heavily and kicked her shoes into the closet.

Amy waited, barely breathing. Hard to believe Veronica hadn't seen them, hadn't sensed their presence. They were so close to her. Amy could smell the cloying perfume of Veronica's hairspray, and a disturbing
idea skittered through her brain. It was the frightening acknowledgment of things unknown, of dangers present but never perceived. Had there ever been a man in
her
closet? If it could happen to Veronica, it could happen to Amy. Tonight she'd thoroughly examine her closets, and tomorrow she'd have better locks installed on her doors.

There was the whisper of clothing being dropped to the floor. Panties? Amy instinctively closed her eyes and immediately realized it was absurd…she was in the back of a dark closet and couldn't see a thing. Her knees ached from standing at rigid attention as minutes elapsed.

“Thank goodness,” she whispered, almost collapsing with relief when she heard the shower turn on. The next few moments were a blur. Creeping through the bedroom into the living room, the foyer, out the front door.

“I don't ever want to do this again,” Amy said, standing on the sidewalk, taking deep gulps of fresh air. “I'm going to go home and pretend this never happened.”

“Good idea. I just have one more eensy-teensy thing to do before we go home,” Jake said. “I want to check out the Dumpster.”

“Haven't we seen enough garbage for one day?”

“Afraid not. We've seen your garbage, sweet thing. Now I want to see Veronica's garbage.” Jake leaned into the refuse bin. “Damn, it's dark in here. I wish I'd thought to bring a flashlight. I wish I'd…Oh hell!”

Amy let out a small shriek and clapped her hand over her mouth. He was in the Dumpster. She'd known it was going to happen. She could feel it in her bones. Murphy's law. If anything can go wrong…it will. “Are you all right?” she asked, peering over the side.

“Yeah. I'm fine, and I found what I was looking for.”

“Rhode Island Red? Oh lord, don't tell me you found Red. Don't tell me they threw him away in the Dumpster.”

Jake hoisted himself out and landed with a squishy thud on the blacktop. “No, I didn't find Red. I found his cage. Veronica threw Red's cage away.”

A quiet feeling of dread stole across Amy's chest, and she knew Jake's instincts had been correct. “He's dead, isn't he?”

“I think Veronica knows the answer to that question.”

“I'm sorry he's dead,” Amy said. “He was kind of special, wasn't he?”

Jake took the car keys from his back pocket. “We're not absolutely sure that he's dead. We're just sure he's not living with Veronica. Let's go home.”

Amy jumped from the car as it came to a rolling stop in her driveway. “What was in that Dumpster? My nose will never be the same. My car will never be the same. I'll probably have to sell it.”

Jake unfolded himself from the little sports car. “Are you trying to tell me I smell bad?”

“You are beyond bad. You are putrid.”

“Gee, I hadn't noticed. Maybe that's why my eyes are watering. I don't suppose you'd allow me to use your shower?”

Amy unlocked her front door. “Not only will I allow you to use it—I'll insist upon it. Just pitch your clothes out into the hall. Do you want me to wash them or bury them?”

“I leave that decision up to you.”

Amy decided to wash them. Twice. She stood for a minute in the laundry room, listening to the clothes agitate, feeling oddly wifely. There was a big, gorgeous naked man in her shower and a pair of navy briefs in her washer.

“I like it,” she said out loud, and she wondered if she was in love. She thought she'd been in love with Jeff. What a bummer that had been. She closed her eyes, but she couldn't remember what Jeff looked like.

“Sad,” she said. “Really pathetic.”

Jake padded into the laundry room wearing a royal blue towel wrapped low on his hips. “What's pathetic?”

“I was thinking about this person I used to know, and I couldn't remember what he looked like.”

“Was this person important to you?”

Amy straightened the boxes of detergent on the shelf above the washer. “I used to think so. I was engaged to him.”

She took a long, hard look at Jake in his towel and was surprised to find she wasn't nervous. Two days ago she'd almost fainted
at the sight of his chest, and now she was ogling him practically in the buff without so much as a change of heartbeat. Well, maybe there was a slight change of heartbeat, but she wasn't panic-stricken. She supposed washing men's underwear made one much more worldly.

Jake crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb.
Engaged.
A mysterious emotion shot through him. Jealousy? It was ridiculous, but it rankled him. He made an effort to keep his voice steady and light. “What happened?”

Amy smiled. “I used to find this story very embarrassing. Now I find it kind of funny. As you already know, I've never actually…um, you know.”

“I know.”

“It isn't as if it was planned. I didn't set out to remain a virgin all my life. I didn't even have any grandiose romantic or moral ideas about saving myself for marriage. It just never seemed right. For a while there I was afraid I had some physical defect or maybe a hormone
deficiency. I mean, you'd think that by the time you were twenty-six years old you'd have gotten the urge to make mad, passionate love to some man.

“Anyway, the year I got out of college, when I was teaching first grade, I decided it was time for me to fall in love and get married. Looking back on it, I guess Jeff was smarter than I was, because after we'd been engaged for two months he gave me an ultimatum. Something to the effect that he had no intention of ever buying a suit without first trying it on.”

Amy laughed at the expression on Jake's face. “Don't look so horrified. Jeff might have put it a little crudely, but he did me a favor. A marriage ceremony wouldn't have made any difference in the way I felt about Jeff. I wasn't in love with him, and I didn't want to share my body with him.”

Amy made an expansive gesture with her arms. “Well, how about some lemonade?”

Jake followed her into the kitchen, enormously pleased that she'd never wanted another man, positively gloating over the
fact that she wanted him. She
did
want him, didn't she? “So, why did this change from embarrassing to funny?”

“Because…” Amy paused with her hand on the refrigerator door. “Because…” She stuck her head in the refrigerator to hide the blush staining her cheeks.

Because she'd finally found the right man. Because suddenly her hormones were working overtime, and she had demanding sensations in body parts she'd previously suspected might be missing nerve endings. Because not only was she attracted to Jake, but she liked him, she enjoyed being with him, she respected him…she loved him. She retreated from the refrigerator with a handful of lemons.

“Just because,” she said. End of discussion.

She caught a glimpse of tantalizing blue towel and busied herself with the lemons, paying strict attention to squeezing, measuring, and mixing her ingredients. She was afraid if she didn't keep her hands busy squeezing lemons, she might squeeze something else. At the very least,
she was tempted to rip his towel off. Lord, she was bad. All those years of dormant, suppressed desire were catching up with her.

“I have some gym clothes in the middle drawer of my dresser,” she said breathlessly, attributing it to the exertion of making lemonade. “Maybe you can find something more comfortable to wear. I have a pair of black sweats that have always been too big for me.”

Jake almost ran to the bedroom. Wearing nothing but a skimpy towel was putting a strain on his self-control. And the way she'd looked at him! He was afraid his towel would catch fire. But then she'd backed off. She'd squeezed those lemons until there was nothing left but pulp. Damned if it wasn't confusing.

He found the sweats and tugged them on, for the first time noticing the details of her bedroom. It had the same airy serenity of the living room, but there was a difference in the atmosphere.

It was warmer, more sensual. Her table
lamp was reflected in the rich patina of her brass bedstead. The bed linens and quilt were peach, trimmed in satin. The room was sparsely decorated. Just the bed and a low oak dresser with a white marble top, above which a wood-trimmed oval mirror was centered on the wall. A small television sat on the dresser.

Jake stretched out on the bed and thought of the cache of undies and nighties he'd found that first night…satin and lace and raw silk. He was beginning to understand Amy. She kept the sensuous part of her private, wearing it under her clothes, confining it to the bedroom. She was a lady-in-waiting. The big question was, how long did she want to wait? She said she didn't necessarily care about marriage. What
did
she care about?

Amy brought Jake his lemonade and sat Indian-style on the bed, next to him. She zapped the television with the remote control, but couldn't get interested in the ten o'clock news. She had the clinic on her mind. She was beginning to share Jake's
belief that Turner and Bottles knew more about the rooster's disappearance than they'd admitted to, but what about the second break-in? It didn't make any sense.

Jake sipped his drink and watched Amy. “You look like a woman with a lot on her mind.”

“I can't help wondering about Red. Why would you—” She stopped in midsentence and stared openmouthed at the television. There she was in living color, holding a container of alleged rooster soup. “Omigosh.”

Jake scrambled to the edge of the bed. “We made the ten o'clock news?”

“…and so, there you have it, folks. The question remains unanswered. Has Lulu the Clown cooked Red's goose?”

Amy felt her eyes fill with tears. “What a terrible thing to say about Lulu.”

Jake pulled Amy into his arms and shut the television off.

“We must have missed something, Amy. The reason. We need to know the reason for all this. There have to be clues. We just haven't recognized them.”

Amy didn't care about clues. She cared about getting kissed. She cared about getting closer to Jake. A
lot
closer.

He looked at her face, flushed with desire, and knew she wasn't going to tell him to stop tonight. Heaven knew, he didn't want to stop, but there was a meddlesome voice, whispering through the cobwebs of his mind, “Why?” He wanted to be sure it was love. This had been a strange day. He was afraid her emotions might be jumbled.

“Amy, I think we'd better stop now.”

“Why?”

“Because if we don't stop soon…we're not going to stop at all, and you're going to get devirgined.”

“So?”

“
So!
I'm not going to devirgin you when you're at an emotional low. Only a sleazeball would do a thing like that.”

“You don't want me?”

“Of course I want you! Anyone can see I want you. I've completely stretched the crease out of my sweats.”

“Well?”

“For Pete's sake, Amy, you don't just rush
into these things. You have to get to know people.” He couldn't believe he was saying any of this. The woman of his dreams was panting on the sacrificial altar.

“Besides, you have to take precautions when you do these things, and I don't have any…um, precautions with me. If we did it without precautions you might end up with kittens.” Did he say “kittens”?

Amy laughed out loud. “I wouldn't mind having kittens. Motley needs a playmate.”

Jake grinned. “Don't laugh. This is serious.”

“You're right. It is serious,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I've waited a long time for the right man to come along.”

She looked into his soft brown eyes and wondered if he loved her. She knew he cared, but love…she was afraid to hope for love. It almost didn't matter. She couldn't help the way she felt about him, and if it had to be a one-sided love affair, then she would have to live with it.

Jake's heart was caught in his throat. “Are you sure I'm the right man?”

Amy tugged at the drawstring of his sweats, loosening the knot. “I'm sure. I've never felt like this before. I love you.”

She loved him. He felt like his heart had just been blown up like a helium balloon. She loved him!

Amy closed her eyes. “Oh geez. I've said the wrong thing. You look like you just got punched in the stomach.”

“I was surprised. I didn't think…I never dreamed. I mean, I'd hoped, but…Oh, hell.” He kissed her.

“Amy, I've loved you since the first moment I saw you. When you stole my parking place. And I have a confession to make. I followed you all through the supermarket, waiting for my chance to marry you. And when I offered you a job, I didn't know I needed a receptionist.”

He kissed her again. “I love you.” He drew her closer, feeling fiercely possessive. “I love you.”

His voice had turned bedroom sexy, deep and raspy soft. His brown eyes darkened as his hand moved over the nape of her neck.
He drew a playful line along the side of her breast to her rib cage. “I'd like to spend the night with you.”

“The night. Hmmm. Just exactly what are your intentions?” Amy purred.

Jake whispered a few suggestions in her ear.

Amy's eyes opened wide in anticipation. “I think at least one of those things is illegal in this state.”

Jake slid off the bed. “I'm going to check on Spot and make sure things are locked up for the night.”

When he returned the room was dusky, lit by two brass candlesticks Amy had placed on the dresser. She sat on one side of the bed, her legs partially curled under her. She wore a short, creamy satin shift with spaghetti straps and a dab of her best perfume at her throat. The satin clung to her breasts, perfectly outlining every detail, and molded into the dimple of her navel. She smiled at Jake's reaction: a sharp intake of breath.

The candles flickered out and Amy and Jake were intertwined in a tangle of sheets and spent passion.

“Nice,” Amy said.

He thought “nice” was a little bland. He'd felt like the earth had moved. The after part, the cuddling…that was nice.

He grinned at her and kissed her nose. “You're going to be sore.”

“Maybe, but right now I feel glorious.”

 

Amy opened her eyes. She felt as though she'd been run over by a dumptruck. She remembered Jake and decided it was a terrific dumptruck. She had sore muscles in places she'd never known muscles existed.

She limped into the shower and stood under steaming water until her skin turned lobster red. She washed her hair, wrapped herself in a towel, brushed her teeth, and smiled at herself in the mirror. Much better. Better than better. Wonderful.

“I love being in love,” she said to her mirror image. “I love Jake. I love me. I love mornings.”

She quickly dressed in a pair of faded blue shorts and a gray T-shirt advertising running shoes, and padded out to the kitchen, looking for Jake. A coffee cup was
on the counter; Jake couldn't be far off. She found him leaning on a lawn mower, talking to a neighbor. They were discussing lime.

Jake wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cheek affectionately. “Jerry loaned me his lawn mower, and he thinks we should lime the backyard.”

Amy smiled at Jerry. Lime the backyard? Wasn't lime a color? A fruit?

“I've got some hedge clippers, too,” Jerry said. “I've got everything. All you have to do is ask. I've got a daughter who baby sits. You folks have any children?”

Jake squeezed Amy. “Not yet, but we're working on it.”

“Mmmm,” Amy said, “we thought we'd start out with kittens and see how it goes.”

By noon, the front yard looked reasonably tame. The grass was neatly cut and trimmed. Jaws had been transformed into a meek shrub, a lilac tree had been discovered hiding in the mountain laurel, and Amy had planted a small fortune in flowers.

“Pretty nice,” Jake said.

“Doesn't look like the same house,” Amy said.

Jake linked his arms around her. “You know, you're very sexy looking, wearing all that potting soil. And I love those little blue shorts, especially when you bend over. And is it my imagination, or have you neglected to wear a bra this morning?”

She had purposely gone braless because she'd woken up feeling expansive. Her whole world had changed, grown larger, more wondrous. She hadn't wanted to feel confined by anything as mundane as a bra. “Besides the bra thing, do I look any different? Can you tell I'm not a virgin anymore?”