She had indulged in her wildest fantasy, but Jericho was real and solid. She traced the tattoo with her finger. “Wish for a bone—er?”
“The guys used to say that girls always wanted me. When I got the tattoo, they picked it out. Thought it was hilariously funny.”
“But I’m sure you didn’t after you woke up with a major hangover and what I’m sure was a major sore, uh, nether region.”
Taking the towel from her hands, he secured it around his waist. “You have no idea.” Grabbing his robe off the back of the door, he bundled it around her. “What do you think the DNA test will reveal tomorrow?” he murmured, pulling her out of the bathroom to the bed.
She rummaged around in her bag and suddenly realized that she’d forgotten something. “I think we’ll find that Ken Mitchell was in Mrs. LePlante’s apartment the night she was killed. Shoot.”
“What?”
“I didn’t bring anything to sleep in.”
He walked over to his dresser as he picked up the thread of conversation. “You know his attorney will say that he could have stolen from her at any time. Doesn’t necessarily place him in the apartment the night of the murder.” He pulled the drawer open and pulled out a faded gray T-shirt with Columbia Law across the front.
He came across the room and handed it to her.
She took off the robe and pulled the T-shirt over her head, her voice muffled for a moment in the fabric. “And you’ll say, yes it can, since Mrs. LePlante’s Tiffany bracelet was there the day she was killed and was missing after she was murdered.” She reached into her bag for her blow dryer.
“You are a clever woman.” He drew down the bedspread. “You think Danny’s totally innocent.” He paused and looked up at her.
She shook her head. “Not exactly. He did hit her with the candlestick, but I’m sure it was in what he would call self-defense,” she said, going back into the bathroom and plugging in her blow dryer. “I think Danny should be cleared and set free, though.”
“Probably,” he said, coming into the bathroom and taking the blow dryer and brush out of her hands. “Sounds like he’s as innocent as you said he was, but I have to wait for the evidence.”
Over the soft whine of the blow dryer, she said, “I understand. The truth, not to mention the evidence, will set him free.”
He sent the brush through her hair, the warmth of the air sending goose bumps along her skin. “You are relentless, Kate. I like that,” he said, nuzzling just below her ear, then nibbling on her lobe.
She automatically tilted her head to the side, giving him better access to her neck as he worked at her hair.
“All done,” he said, shutting off the instrument and setting it on the vanity.
“Thanks,” she said. He stepped closer, aligning her back to his chest. A muscled arm slid around her waist, and he pulled her body to his.
She rested her head on his shoulder, meeting his eyes in the mirror.
“I wouldn’t have missed that experience for anything, Kate.”
“Me, either,” she said. She wasn’t going to admit to herself what she felt for Jericho. He was running for DA, and she would have to accept the fact that he deserved to win. She couldn’t be the person to mess that up for him. The emotions for him twisted in her chest and she turned in his arms, unable to look into his eyes.
It wasn’t until much later when Kate lay spooned to his body that she felt vulnerable and panicked, but it had nothing to do with her proximity to Jericho. Physically, she was all his in every way, but it was the raw emotions working their way up to the surface that made her feel so exposed to him. Her throat closed and she swallowed hard as the feelings swamped her. He’d said a week. A week to open her up like a flower coming out into the sun. It’d taken less time, and he’d kept his promise. The emotions were alien to her, just too scary and unmanageable. But a bargain, she understood. He’d give her the souvenir and she could prove to her friends once and for all that she wasn’t Sister Kate.
Right, her mind took over even as her heart objected. Such feelings of passion wouldn’t have lasted anyway. They couldn’t have. If they did, she and Jericho would just simply burn out. She didn’t want to be around for that fall.
It would be too far.
* * *
Bright and early, even before Jericho woke, Kate got up and dressed for work. She went downstairs and brewed a cup of coffee, looking at two blue jays splashing in Jericho’s wonderful marble birdbath. His house was beautiful, decorated very tastefully, but it seemed so…unlived in. That was the word. It needed a woman’s touch, she thought. But not hers. She wasn’t meant for this kind of life. Simplicity and intellectual pursuits were what Kate understood.
But her heart clamored,You and Jericho fit so nicely together. She told that organ to shut up and finished her coffee, leaving enough in the pot for him.
She called a cab and as soon as she walked into the lab, she analyzed Ken Mitchell’s DNA sample.
Hours later she compared it to the DNA she’d found in the shower. It matched perfectly.
But when she compared the DNA from the shower, Ken’s DNA, and the blood from the glass shards, they didn’t match. The blood on the glass shards also didn’t match Danny’s DNA.