“Because of the Mellin case?”
“Which had the effect of an H-bomb on my life.”
“Your marriage?”
“No, the marriage had already been leveled, but my obsession over the balled-up investigation, my drunken nights after, gave Roslyn the excuse she needed to blame the failed marriage on me, instead of on the affair she’d been having.”
“For how long?”
“A year or more.”
“You knew about it?”
“Knew and didn’t care.” He met her gaze head-on. “I wasn’t living like a saint, either.”
“I see.” She looked down and picked up a strand of fringe again. “Why did you stay married?”
“That’s not open to discussion.”
“All right.” She wetted her lips, then said, “What specifically happened between you and Tom Barker?”
He was about to hedge on that, too, when she said, “I deserve to know why my life was endangered tonight. Unless you were exaggerating about that.”
“I wasn’t.” He sat up, rolled his shoulders, shifted positions in the chair. “When I cut Billy Oliver down from the ceiling in his jail cell, he had a suicide note tucked inside his shirt. Barker’s take on that? ‘Crissy is dead and gone, but at least the perp saves us the trouble of executing him. That’s cause for celebration.’ That kid’s body was still warm.”
“That’s obscene.”
“I thought so.”
“You didn’t think Billy Oliver was the culprit, did you?”
“No.”
“And you still don’t.”
“No.” He came out of his chair again and ran his hand around the back of his neck. “But, as I said, I’ve been wrong before.”
Beth got up and followed him over to the dining table, where he retrieved his glass of whiskey and shot the remainder of it. “I don’t think you’re wrong, John. I think there’s a real possibility that the individual who took Crissy, and the two girls in 2018, is still out there, waiting for Thursday night, and that some woman is going to suffer terribly if he’s not stopped.”
“Then stop him. Good luck.”
He reached for the bottle of bourbon, but Beth knocked it out of his hand. In spite of being stunned, he made a quick save. Otherwise, the bottle would have crashed to the floor. He set it down hard on the table. “What the hell was that for?”
She looked equally as irate as he was. “How can you be so nonchalant?”
“Practice,” he retorted. “It’s another of my self-preservation tactics.”
“Self-preservation. Self. That’s the key word here, isn’t it? The Mellin case messed up your life. But are you prepared to stand by and see another woman vanish off the face of the earth?”
“If that happens, it’ll be a shame, but it won’t be my problem.”
Her chest seemed to cave in. She made a sobbing sound. “I don’t think you act mean; I think you genuinely are.”
He held up his index finger. “Don’t shortchange loaning socks and fondness for my dog.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “If your only form of defense is sarcasm, that’s pathetic. I’ll admit that after everything we went through this evening, and here, surrounded by your family memorabilia, I was beginning to think that maybe I’d misjudged you, that maybe you did have a sensitive side. But my first impression was spot on. Your arrogant disregard never fails to resurface.
“The bottom line is that you don’t give a damn about anything. I saw it the minute you walked into that scuzzy bar, and again this morning after you dragged me from the airport.
“You ooze indifference. Nothing gets to you. That Mellin case opened you up and scooped you out. You’re empty. Heartless, soulless, and unfeeling. You don’t really feel anything, do you? Do you?”
Pushed to his limit, he moved in on her until just shy of touching, their faces close. “You think I’m unfeeling? Let me tell you something. I’ve done nothing but feel remorse and regret for over three years. Every morning I wake up with self-loathing for ignoring my instincts, for not telling Barker to go fuck himself and start looking for Crissy hours—hours—before we did.
“I told that conceited asshole that the neighbor kid, Billy, was a conspicuous suspect, a perfect scapegoat, too obvious and easy. I told him we needed to broaden our scope, widen our net, look at other people.
“But Barker wanted to be done with it. He wanted it quickly wrapped up to make himself look good. He assigned the ogre to interrogate Billy. He hammered that poor kid, confusing him, feeding him the answers that Barker wanted to hear. When I called them on it, Barker sneered at me. ‘Don’t tell me how to run my show, Bowie. Be a team player, or you’ll never be a team leader.’
“So I fell into step and followed procedure, grumbling about it, yeah, but also not acting on my gut instinct that we were looking in the wrong place and at the wrong guy. Why did I capitulate, you ask? Why?” He inched closer to her. “Because I was vying for the same goddamn promotion as Barker.
“And because I wanted it, wanted it bad, wanted the pay increase, bad, I failed both Crissy and Billy Oliver. Trust me, Ms. Collins, I have enough self-disgust to last me for the rest of my life.”
He ended on a near shout that awakened him to how he had borne down on her. His breathing was labored, heavy enough for the hot gusts to stir the pale strands of hair framing her face.
Forcibly, he released the tension in his muscles. He angled himself back. Her eyes, wide with shock, were the color of the bourbon he’d been drinking and just as intoxicating. He fixed on them and focused on bringing himself under control.
He didn’t quite succeed, though. Strictly by willing it, he couldn’t regain control over everything. He couldn’t rule the fever infusing his blood, or where it was funneling, or the volume of it that filled him, swelled him, made him hard. He had no dominion over a desperate craving to draw her against his straining body and take her mouth with his.
Christ.