She bit her lip, jiggling her car keys. “By the way, Dad, what year was your sabbatical in Italy?”
“Why?”
“I ... was going through all those old photos you gave me and wondering.”
He fell silent for a moment. “I’d need to look it up—I don’t recall exactly.”
“But it was the year of the car accident, right? We never visited Italy any other time, did we?”
Another beat of silence. “What’s going on, Angie?” She noted a shift in his tone.
“It’s nothing. Just that Mom had written 1984 on the back of a photo taken in Rome, and again on a shot from Naples, but I thought we were there in ’86 and that that was the year my face was cut.”
Another odd beat. “Your mother was probably confused. It ... the symptoms—they’d started.”
Angie said goodbye, killed the call, and regarded the rain for a moment, unsettled by the tone in her dad’s voice. But it made sense. If her mom had already been losing touch with reality and time.
Maddocks exited the station, and Angie’s attention snapped to him. He looked arrogant and striking as all get out in a black wool car coat, crisp white shirt, and burgundy tie. He moved with that same commanding presence that had snagged her attention—and libido—in the club. Yeah, she should have recognized that swagger and made him for law enforcement, military, or some allied profession.
“Doc O’Hagan is expecting us,” he said as he approached her.
“I’ll meet you there.” She stepped out into the rain and headed for her vehicle.
“We can take my car!” he called after her.
She hesitated, turned. “I always drive.”
“Fine,” he said, coming up to her and holding out his keys. “You can drive mine.”
“What’s wrong with my vehicle?”
“You want dog pee in yours?”
“What?”
“My dog sitter fell through. I won’t have another until tonight, so Jack-O needs to hang out in my vehicle until then. Sometimes he pees in there. And his blanket and bowl and other trappings are in there.”
“You’re kidding me.”
He tossed her his keys. She caught them. “It’s the Chevy Impala over there.” He strode toward the car.
She stared after him in disbelief. Holgersen sauntered up behind her and chuckled. “Good luck with the control issues, Pallorino.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You sure you haven’t met him before?” Holgersen said. “Old Leo back there reckons you two got history. Said you both looked like you’d been slammed with an RPG when you locked eyes on each other in the morgue.”
Angie swore and stalked toward Maddocks, who was waiting by his vehicle, hands in pockets, rain forming diamond droplets on his jet-black hair. Beeping the lock, she tossed the keys back at him. “It’s fine,” she snapped. “You drive.” She climbed into the passenger seat. A little mongrel growled on the backseat.
“Oh nice, it really does stink,” she said, turning to check out the mutt. Ugly critter. Some kind of Jack Russell cross, and it appeared to have recently had its back right leg amputated. It growled again, baring yellowed little teeth.
“Like I said, only until I get a sitter,” he said, getting into the driver’s seat. “Then I can get the car detailed.” He shut the door and pulled on his seat belt. In the closed confines of the vehicle the pee smell was stronger, and Maddocks’s body was suddenly too close, the space too intimate. His eyes met hers, and the memory of their sex together swelled through her. His pupils darkened, and she knew he was thinking of it, too.
About our unfinished business ... I’d like to finish it ... Can’t stop thinking about you ...
Quickly clearing her throat, she said, “What’s with the dog, anyway? What happened to its leg?”
He fired the ignition and backed out of the parking space.
