“I said I’d explain later.” He reached for the shampoo bottle, unscrewed the lid, and had to pound the top of the bottle into his fist for the last dab to drop into his hand.
“Does this have anything to do with the homicides?” she asked from the other side of the glass door as he quickly washed his hair. “Was there another one?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Business. But not the murders.”
“You’re a homicide detective.”
“Nikki, please, I’m trying to shower.”
“I see that!” She didn’t like being put off. He didn’t blame her, but he wasn’t about to break his friend’s confidence. Not until he knew something more. He saw movement through the glass, small and pink.
“Daddy!” Chloe cried happily.
Nikki said, “She wants to shower with you.”
“Not today.” He rinsed his hair, blinked against a bit of soap in his eyes, and saw the blurry image of his wife picking up their daughter. Chloe pressed her hand against the glass. “Daddy!”
More movement. A brown blur. Oh, for the love of God, the new dog was in the bathroom, too.
“Hey, a little privacy!” he yelled as the water, now almost scalding, ran down his back.
“Daddy will be out in a minute, sweetheart,” he heard his wife say, her voice raised to ensure that he could hear over the running water. “And when he is, he’s going to tell us where he’s been and what he’s been up to so early in the morning. Come on, you.” He didn’t know if she was talking to Chloe or the shepherd, but she did carry Chloe out of the room, all the while shooing the dog.
Finally, he was left alone with the hot water and his thoughts about Naomi Kittle. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was very wrong there, and it ran deeper than Naomi not coming home when expected. It had been obvious that Jamison was extremely agitated. Worried sick. Pierce had been an investigator too long not to pay attention to his instincts and something about Jamison’s explanation about having a second honeymoon to bring another kid into the world seemed off. Their youngest daughter was eleven, their oldest sixteen. It seemed odd to want to start out with a new baby now. Not that it was unheard of, but Naomi worked hard to maintain her home, her children, and her figure. Pierce knew that she went to the gym often and had already opted for plastic surgery, at least once, maybe twice, and had never shown interest in starting over with an infant
Would she give all that hard work up to get pregnant and have another child?
Stranger things had happened, but Naomi?
Maybe he was making more of it than there was, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t getting the full story.
He finished with the shower, toweled off, shaved, then quickly dressed and headed down to the kitchen, where his wife was waiting, arms crossed, hips leaning against the counter. “Well?” she said as he found his jacket on a hook by the back door, then returned to the family room to pick up Chloe from the floor where she sat betweenthe two dogs. He kissed her mop of curls and said, “I’ll see you later, Princess.”
“Work?” Nikki asked.
“Yep. But I’ll be back.”
“When?”
“Don’t know.” He saw Nikki’s suspicion in the arch of one eyebrow. “After work. It could be a while.”
He gave Chloe a raspberry on her belly, and she chortled. “Daddy, no!”
“Okay. Later.” He set her down and glanced up at Nikki. The look she gave him said more clearly than words:You’re so full of BS.
He started for the door again. “I’ve gotta run.”
“No coffee?”
They always had coffee together. It was their morning ritual and, once in a while, the only time they talked during the day, or at least until late in the evening. Not today. “I’ll grab a cup at the station.”
“You’d tell me if there was a break in the case.” It wasn’t a question.
“We have a deal,” he said.
