ACT II

 

The scent of coffee lured Cindy toward the kitchen like a carrot before a horse.  She followed the rich smell past the log walls and the interesting mix of Indian and Greek paintings and rugs.  Abbie was puttering around the space, pouring four cups of coffee into healthy sized mugs when they arrived.  Cindy found the woman even more striking in the golden light of morning.

 “About time you two met the day,” Abbie scolded playfully.  “The biscuits are almost done.  You’re just in time.”

 “Homemade biscuits?” Cindy almost squeaked as she looked at the ham, eggs and fresh fruit laid out before them.  “I think I’ve died, and heaven is a ranch in Texas.”

 Lindsay snorted as her grandmother chuckled in delight.  Abbie patted Cindy on the shoulder and motioned the young woman to sit, which Cindy did with enthusiasm.

 They heard a door close and the stomping of feet followed by a muttering voice.  “Damn fool dogs.  They’re in a mood this morning.  Chasing the…” The newcomer trailed off when he saw the three women watching him from the table.  “Um… Morning.”

 “Morning,” Lindsay greeted as she got up to give her grandfather a hug. 

 Jack MacGill was a big man, Cindy mused, taller than Lindsay and three times as broad.  His face was tanned and weathered, but his blue eyes were pale and kind.  The reporter tucked her hair behind her ears and waited to be introduced, watching the reunion with fascination.

 “Let me look at you, sprout,” Jack said to Lindsay as he pulled back to take her in.  He shook his head.  “Get prettier every time I see you.”

 Sprout?  Cindy mouthed at Abbie in disbelief.

 Predictably, Lindsay blushed.  “You look good,” she told him.

 “I look old,” Jack countered.  “Which is what I am,” he added with a wink before he turned his attention on Cindy.  The reporter sat up a little straighter under his scrutiny.  She was a pretty thing, no doubt about it.  Her hair was as red as fire where the sun bathed it through the windows behind her.  Cindy’s face was open and friendly, and Jack found himself warming to her immediately. “And you must be the spitfire.”

 Cindy blinked.  “I’m sorry?”

 “Grandpa,” Lindsay said, her voice sounding chagrined.

 “Spitfire,” Jack said again as he tromped in his heavy work boots over to the table and extended his hand to Cindy.  Jack was impressed with the reporter’s grip, and the way she met his gaze as they shook hands.

 “Lindsay called you that the first time she mentioned you to us,” Abbie explained.  “Jack liked it so much it stuck.”

 It was Cindy’s turn to blush as she glanced at Lindsay.  Her lover was biting her lip and looking at her apologetically.  “I’ve been called a lot worse,” Cindy said with a light laugh, secretly pleased at her apparent nickname.

“A lovely little thing like you?” Jack said with teasing disbelief.

 “Linz told you I was a reporter, right?” Cindy answered with a grin as her lover returned to a seat next to her at the table.  “I get called all kinds of unsavory terms.”

 “She’s told us lots about you,” Abbie said as they all finally took their seats.  “Not everything,” Abbie added knowingly.  “But enough.”

 Lindsay glanced sideways at Cindy and cleared her throat, but she didn’t comment.

 “That was your opening, sprout,” Jack said gently before picking up his coffee and taking his first sip.

 Cindy glanced at Lindsay.  It was clear what Jack was hinting at, and it was equally clear Lindsay was going to pretend she didn’t have a clue.  With a roll of her eyes, Cindy gave her lover a slight nudge in the ribs with her elbow.  Lindsay jumped a little.

 “Careful,” Lindsay reminded her.  “That’s where I got shot, remember?”  As soon as the words slipped out, Lindsay wished she could snatch them back out of the air.  She closed her eyes and mentally cussed herself out.

 “Excuse me?” Abbie asked, the humor fleeing from the table.

 Lindsay sighed, unsure what she was supposed to come clean about first.  “Well… I wasn’t… It was just a graze…”

 “A graze?” Jack muttered.  “A graze as in a bullet grazed your body??”

 “It really wasn’t that serious,” Cindy jumped in, trying to help.  “Just a flesh wound.  A slight burn really… where the Hallelujah Man shot at her when Lindsay was pursuing him.”  Everyone was quiet at the table for a long, absorbing moment.  “But it’s all right…” Cindy continued, uncomfortable with the silence and babbling to fill it.  “He’s dead now.  The killer… you know… he’s dead.  And I’m just going to stop rambling now and feed my face.”  Cindy took a healthy bite of a biscuit as Lindsay tried to suppress a smile at her antics.

 Abbie and Jack exchanged glances.  “So you’ve seen the wound?” Abbie asked, adding a touch of worry to her voice for effect.

 Cindy nodded.  “Yeah.  It’s right here,” the reporter said as she swallowed, pointing at an area just above the waist of her own jeans.  “She got a few stitches.  Nothing serious.”

 “Cindy,” Lindsay murmured.

 The reporter looked at her.

 “You pretty much walked right into that.”

 Cindy’s brow furrowed.

 “That was my grandmother’s way of trying to determine if we’re sleeping together.”

 Cindy choked on her next bite of biscuit as Jack and Abbie started laughing.  Lindsay patted the redhead on the back.

 “Sorry,” Cindy got out between coughs.

 “You make a beautiful pair,” Jack said quietly.  And they did, he mused.  It had taken some time for him and Abbie to come to grips with the nature of the relationship they suspected was happening between their granddaughter and the reporter, but seeing them together set the last of his worries at ease.  Lindsay looked radiant with Cindy, and there was a peace to them that Jack had never seen between Lindsay and Tom.  It did his heart good to see his granddaughter so in love.

 “I’m sorry,” Lindsay confessed.  “I should have told you before now.  I just…”

 Abbie covered Lindsay’s hand with her own.  “It’s okay, sweetheart.  We’re just happy you’re happy.”

 Tears filled Lindsay’s eyes but she managed by stubborn will not to let them fall.  She looked at Cindy who was watching her quietly.  “I am.  I am happy.”

 “Welcome to the family, spitfire,” Jack told Cindy before picking up a piece of bacon and snapping off the end of it between his teeth.

 Cindy smiled bashfully, pleased more than they knew by their approval.  Her hand eased over Lindsay’s knee under the table, and it took a mere second for Lindsay’s fingers to intertwine with her own and squeeze.

 ****

 

Claire stared down at the naked and freshly washed body of David Arnold.  She’d been standing over him for more than ten minutes now, scalpel in hand, as she studied the face of the man who’d caused so much pain.  Normally Claire thought of herself as a woman who spoke for the dead, someone who gave them a voice.  But she wanted David Arnold just the way he was.

 Dead and quiet.

 If only Lindsay’s bullets had made him that way.  The medical examiner swallowed hard, feeling more than a little sick with herself.  She knew she should pass off this case.  She was too close.  This was the man who had hurt her friends.  Arnold would have killed Jill if Lindsay and Cindy hadn’t gotten to her in time.  Rather than begin her autopsy and search for answers, Claire found herself wishing she could push Arnold into the incinerator and be done with him. 

 “Hey.”

 Claire turned her head and blinked, startled to find her husband in the doorway.  He had a paper bag in his lap and wore a hesitant smile.  “Hi,” she blurted, her dark thoughts scattering.  “I’m… uh…”  She turned back and motioned at the body with a wave of the scalpel.  “I was just about to…”

 Ed rolled his wheelchair closer so he could take in the dead man.  “That’s him, huh?”

 Claire took a breath and a step back from the table.  She put her hand on the back of his chair and let his presence anchor her.  “That’s him,” she confirmed in a faint voice.

 “I’m not going to tell you to excuse yourself from this one,” Ed told her.

 “You know I wouldn’t anyway,” Claire said with just the slightest hint of weary sass.

 Ed smiled.  “Be a waste of breath.”

 “Damn skippy.”

 Ed chuckled and was rewarded with a hesitant smile from his wife.  “This has got to be hard on you.”

 Claire’s smile fell away.  “I’ve never had someone on my table I would have killed if given the chance.  It’s a little unnerving.”  She felt Ed’s touch on her wrist, just above the glove she wore.  It steadied her.  “The kids get off to school okay?”

 Her husband nodded.  “I brought you something to eat.  I figured you’d be here all day.”  He handed her the bag.

 “Thanks, honey,” Claire said sincerely.  She kissed him on the head before turning and heading for the fridge in her office.

 Ed stared at the body of the man who’d almost killed Jill.  Seeing the lips sewn shut rattled him more than he thought it would, so he could only imagine the shock it must have been for Claire to come up on the sight unprepared.  He leaned closer, studying the almost surgical precision of the stitches and felt a chill take him. 

 Claire paused in the doorway and watched him.  There was still a cop in him, still a man who felt driven to find the truth.  She’d see flashes of that man sometimes, of who Ed had been before a bullet had put him in that wheelchair.  Lately she’d been seeing more and more of the man she’d fallen in love with and less of the stricken and depressed soul he had become.  Being here with him now made the events of the last twenty-four hours suddenly infinitely more bearable.

 Ed felt her eyes on him and he looked back at her.  “What do you think?” he asked softly.

 “Are you asking me if I think it’s him?  Kiss-Me-Not?”

 Ed hesitated before slowly nodding.

 Claire swallowed and took in a slow breath.  “I didn’t tell Jill this, but… Yeah.  I do.”

 “Harris…” Ed started to suggest.

 “What do you think?” Claire asked him, cutting him off gently.

 “This feels like him,” Ed confessed.

 “It does,” Claire agreed.

 Ed moved back from the table then rolled over to his wife.  He looked up at her for a long moment.  “I… haven’t always been supportive of what you, Jill and Lindsay tried to do with this case.”

 Claire said nothing.

 “This time it will be different,” Ed promised.

 Tears stung the corner of Claire’s eyes as she eased down into his lap and laid her head on his strong shoulder.  “For all of us,” she vowed.

 ****

 

Denise took a moment to just watch Jill Bernhardt from the open doorway of the woman’s office.  Her DDA was lost in thought, those brilliant blue eyes staring somewhere beyond the window and the skyline that stretched beyond it.  Jill looked exhausted but resilient, as if she’d grown a steel spine in the hours since Denise had last seen her.  Most women would have crumbled under the weight of what Jill had been through these past few months, but the attorney was bucking up remarkably well.  If anything, Denise suspected Jill had finally embraced her anger over the whole situation.  That anger was now fueling the other woman and would carry her through to the end of this case.  Denise just worried what would happen then.

 The acting district attorney rapped slightly on the door.  Jill blinked a few times before turning in her chair to look at her boss.  “Hey,” she greeted, her voice husky.

 “Any word from the medical examiner on cause of death?  Do we know when the bastard died?” Denise asked all business, no hint of the worry she felt for her colleague in her tone.

 Jill shook her head and rubbed at her scratchy eyes.  She felt like she could sleep a week, but the thought of the dreams that would be waiting for her kept her gladly awake and fatigued.  “He was killed sometime yesterday afternoon.  Claire is narrowing that window down.  I expect to get some more news in the next hour or so.”

 Denise nodded.  “You look like hell,” she finally said when she could think of nothing else to say.

 There was no witty comeback from the blonde attorney, just a long sigh.  “That’s appropriate, don’t you think?”

 Hesitantly, Denise entered Jill’s office and sat down on the other side of the woman’s desk.  “You’re pretty sure it’s him, aren’t you?”

 “Kiss-Me-Not?  Oh yeah.”  Jill sighed again and put her elbows on her desk before leaning forward.

 “Is that just intuition talking?”

 “For now,” Jill admitted.  “But none of us ever felt right about Harris.”

 “The clues added up,” Denise reminded her.

 “They did,” Jill agreed.  “And we were so glad to have the dots connect after all that time that we just followed along.  But it was too neat.  Almost too easy.”

 “If that’s easy, I’d hate to see what you consider hard.”  Denise pondered what Jill was telling her.  She didn’t like the notion that one serial killer had apparently risen from the grave just as another had been sent to his.  “So what made him change?” Denise asked.  “Kiss-Me-Not kills women.  Why did he kill David Arnold and string him up in a church?”

 “I don’t know.  Maybe he was pissed that Arnold was taking his place as San Francisco’s latest sicko,” Jill muttered as she put her head in her hands.

 Denise frowned.  “Or maybe…”

 Jill looked up at her and waited expectantly.  “Or maybe what?”

 “Let’s say Kiss-Me-Not really was pissed that someone was stealing his limelight.  Why did he wait until now to kill Arnold?  Why not do it before Arnold racked up more victims?”  Denise leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees.

 Jill shook her head.  She felt either too tired or too dense to pick up the trail Denise seemed to be following.  “Maybe he’s been trying to find him all this time.  Maybe he finally got lucky.”

 “Kiss-Me-Not became obsessed with Lindsay toward the end of his killing spree,” Denise reminded her subordinate.  “He wanted to make her one of his victims.”

 “Yeah,” Jill answered slowly.

 “So maybe Kiss-Me-Not wasn’t upset with another killer stealing his limelight.  Maybe he was upset that the killer was messing with Lindsay.”

 Jill leaned back in her chair, feeling like the breath had been knocked from her lungs.  She could almost hear the puzzle piece snap into place and wanted to slap herself for not seeing it before.  “Jesus.”

 “It’s just a theory…”

 “It’s a damn good one,” Jill admitted.  “As much as I really don’t like the idea.”  She snatched up her phone.  “I’m going to call Claire.”

 “Shouldn’t you call Lindsay or that perky little reporter friend of yours first?”  Denise got to her feet.

 “I don’t know where they are,” Jill admitted.

 “I think you might want to find out,” Denise said as she left the attorney to consider this new and frightening spin on things.

 **** 

 

“You’re lucky I was already on my way.”

 Maggie wasn’t certain she’d used the word lucky to describe picking Agent John Ashe up at the airport.  “So you caught the first flight when you heard about the stitches?” she asked as they headed through the parking lot for Maggie’s silver Mustang.  She popped the trunk and let Ashe toss his luggage inside.  A slight breeze was blowing as the sun beat down on them from directly overhead, but she noticed the agent’s hair didn’t budge.  It was both fascinating and disturbing.

 “I never thought Harris was the real killer.  If I hadn’t been called back to DC on another case…”  He trailed off and sighed.  “I tried to tell Boxer that everything with Harris was fitting too neatly, but she just hung up on me.”

 “When was this?” Maggie asked as they slipped inside the car.

 “A day or two after Harris died.”

 Maggie paused.  “Well, Inspector Boxer was dealing with the death of her father at the time,” she admitted. 

 Ashe just grunted, and in that moment Maggie wanted to smack herself for contacting him.  He was already swooping in and trying to steal her case out from under her.  “So I thought we’d swing by the precinct…” she began.

 “We need a search warrant,” Ashe cut her off.

 “For what?”

 “Boxer’s apartment.”

 “So you think she could have done this,” Maggie said, searching for confirmation.  “You think she could have snapped and killed the Hallelujah Man?”

 Ashe took off his sunglasses and turned to look at her.  “Who the hell named a serial killer the Hallelujah Man?  Do you know how hard that is to spell?”

 “Agent Ashe…” Maggie ground out, not amused that he was toying with her.

 “No,” he answered flatly.  “Boxer is a good cop.  I don’t like her much, and she sure as hell doesn’t like me, but there is nothing that would push her to recreate one of this monster’s crimes.  Nothing.”

 “Preliminary time of death puts Boxer in front of a roomful of witnesses,” Maggie admitted.

 “But you think she might have had help?”  He chuckled.  “Boxer has friends that would kill for her.  No doubt about it.  But they all like her too much to let her turn into a murderer.”

 Maggie took a breath, feeling stung and frustrated.  “Then why the warrant?”

 “You said she’s on vacation.  Unreachable.”

 “She is.”

 “She may have evidence in her attic that we need to look over.  We could just ask one of her friends in that little… club… of hers to meet us with the key, but I don’t think they’d be too thrilled to let me in there.”  

 “Club?” Maggie asked as she started the car.  She wasn’t pleased that Ashe couldn’t see her side of things, but she’d either prove him wrong or she wouldn’t.  She hoped for Lindsay’s sake she was as wrong as the day was long, but she had to be sure.  It wasn’t like she had any other suspects at this point anyway.

 “Yeah.  The little murder club as I like to call it.  The DDA, the medical examiner… that perpetually hyper reporter…”

 Maggie took in what he was saying.  A picture of Lindsay and her inner circle came into sharp focus.  At least Ashe had been good for that much.  “Fine,” she murmured.  “We’ll swing by the Hall and get a warrant.”

 “Make sure you don’t ask Bernhardt for it.”

 “That would be the DDA?” Maggie guessed as they pulled out into traffic.  Her stomach soured at the thought of Jill being mad at her.  She rather liked the attractive attorney.  After giving Jill some time to feel steady again, Maggie had hoped she could ask her out if Jill swung that way. 

 “Yep,” Ashe muttered as he popped a piece of gum in his mouth and slipped his sunglasses back on, settling in for the long ride back to the Hall.

 ****

 

“They’re really big.”

 Lindsay glanced from her lover to the two animals waiting in the corral.  “They’re horses. They tend to be big.”

 Chewing nervously on her lower lip, Cindy watched the animals that appeared to be watching her back.  “Don’t Jack and Abbie have like… a miniature pony or something…?”

 Lindsay chuckled before wrapping her arms around Cindy from behind and resting her chin in the other woman’s sweet smelling hair.  It felt good to hold her, the late afternoon sun warming them nicely as a slight breeze stirred their hair.  “You’ll be fine,” she promised.

 Cindy indulgently leaned back into Lindsay’s heat.  They were both in jeans and denim shirts.  They’d already been into town and bought Cindy a pair of black leather cowboy boots, which the reporter was now happily sporting.  Lindsay didn’t mention that her grandfather had gotten the redhead a cowboy hat as well.  She could hardly wait to see what Cindy looked like in it. 

 They stood that way in silence, breathing in the pleasantly cool, crisp air and savoring the sunlight on their skin.

 “Feels weird,” Cindy murmured almost sleepily.

 “What?” Lindsay drawled.  “No homicides to investigate?  No deadlines?  No serial killers to chase?” she murmured into Cindy’s ear as she started to rock them both from side to side.

 “How did you know I was going to say that?” Cindy asked, charmed that her lover could read her so well.

 Lindsay shrugged.  “This close?  I can read your mind.”

 Cindy turned in Lindsay’s arms, letting her lover press her up against the wood fence.  “I doubt that.”

 “Oh really?”

 “Because what I’m thinking about right now could get me arrested.”  Cindy raised up on tiptoe and caught Lindsay’s lips in a soft, searching kiss.  Lindsay yielded willingly, dipping her head and returning the contact in equal measure.  When they parted, Cindy’s breathing was rough.  She licked her lips and looked up into Lindsay’s eyes.  Her fingers dug into the waistband of Lindsay’s jeans, just above the inspector’s belt buckle.  “We could skip the horseback riding lesson all together and do a different kind of riding…”  Her left eyebrow rose suggestively.

 Lindsay paused theatrically.  “Tempting but no.  And you are not seducing me to get out  of a ride with my grandmother.”

 Cindy playfully stomped her foot as Lindsay stepped back.  “Tell me you were at least a little tempted.”

 “More than a little,” Lindsay confessed with a grin for her lover.  “Now come on.  You wanted the whole Texas experience.  That means riding a horse.  Starlight is a really gentle animal.  She won’t hurt you.”  Lindsay climbed over the fence and dropped down into the dirt.  She held out a hand for Cindy who sighed dramatically before clamoring over and joining Lindsay in the corral. 

 “If I die… make sure my obituary makes me look really heroic.”

 “You’re not gonna die.”

 “Nice horse.”  Cindy patted the large animal’s neck and tried not to flinch when Starlight turned her head and snorted at the reporter.  She was a beautiful horse, an inky black with the pattern of a white star on her forehead, hence the name, no doubt.  Cindy would have been happier admiring the animal from afar, however.  “Nice… very large horse with very big teeth.”

 Lindsay shook her head and held the stirrup.  “Up you go, Lois Lane.”

 “You know she really is kinda… tall.  I’m thinking I’m more a pony girl myself, really,” Cindy informed her lover as she motioned to their differences in height.

 “Put you boot in the stirrup,” Lindsay ordered firmly, but there was an edge of amusement to her voice.

 Jack and Abbie had come up from the ranch and were now watching the proceedings from the fence with avid interest.

 “I’m gonna get bucked onto my butt,” Cindy huffed.  “I just know it.”  The reporter took a deep breath and planted her foot in the stirrup before hopping and reaching for the saddle horn.

 Starlight sidestepped away from Lindsay with the reporter now hanging on for dear life, just not in the saddle.  Abbie giggled and clamped a hand over her mouth.  Jack shushed her, but there was a wicked grin on his lips.

 “Cute as a button,” he murmured.

 “Cindy or watching Lindsay watch Cindy?” Abbie asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

 “Whoa.  Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cindy’s grip on the saddle horn grew tighter as she tried to swing her other leg up and over.  The horse was having none of it, however, and began to shuffle in a circle.  “Come on,” Cindy whined at the animal.  “Give a girl a break.  I’ll feed you an apple.”

 Lindsay laughed as she caught Starlight’s reins and held the animal steady.  “Okay.  Swing your leg over.”

 “Easy for you to say.  Some of us aren’t built with legs like a supermodel’s.”  Cindy finally settled into the saddle, took a steadying breath, and looked down at Lindsay.  “I’m up really high,” she realized aloud.

 “You climbed up the scaffolding of a ten story building,” Lindsay reminded her.  “I think you can handle a horse.”

 “Scaffolding doesn’t buck… or run… or gallop.”

 “Relax,” Abbie called to the reporter.  “Starlight is just having a little fun with you.”

 “That right, Starlight?” Cindy asked in a droll voice.  “You’re just messing with the rookie?”  The reporter smiled, her nerves easing as the horse bobbed her head up and down as if in the affirmative.  She patted her neck and watched the skin ripple with pleasure under her fur.

 “Be back by dark, okay?” Lindsay told them as Abbie entered the corral and mounted her own horse, a pretty chocolate brown mare.

 Abbie merely tilted her head and gave her granddaughter a look.

 “Please?” Lindsay asked sarcastically.

 “Since you asked so nicely,” Cindy teased.  “Lead on, Abbie.  I’ll do my best to follow.”  Cindy smiled at Lindsay, hoping to ease her lover’s fears just a little.  She and Lindsay knew they were being divided and conquered.  No doubt Jack would question Lindsay about what had happened on this latest case, leaving Abbie to grill Cindy about her relationship with their granddaughter.

 The look worked, and Lindsay felt herself melt.  Her lips eased into a grin of their own.  She wanted to tell Cindy she loved her, but she held the words back for now.  A wave had to do instead, and it felt like a poor substitution.

 “Sprout?”

 Lindsay tore her gaze away from the departing Cindy and her grandmother and focused on Jack.

 “Wanna help an old man brush down some of the horses?”

 “Sure.”  Lindsay climbed the fence and dropped over the other side, her boots kicking up a fair amount of dust.

 “You up to talking about it?” Jack asked as they stepped into the stables.

 Lindsay didn’t have to guess what “it” was.  “I’d really rather not,” she admitted.

 “You know you’re going to anyway, right?” Jack handed Lindsay a brush and motioned for her to take the nearest horse, while he entered the stall next to hers.

 Both resigned and touched by her grandfather’s stubbornness, Lindsay sighed.  She stepped into the stall and petted the pretty grey mare on the nose before she eased next to it and started the rubdown.  “I was chasing a killer.  He got too close.  He hurt people I love.  When the time came and we exchanged gunfire, I shot him… twice.  He got away.”

 “You haven’t told us about that time.  How you felt when he took Jill.”  Jack continued his work as he watched his granddaughter through the bars of the stalls.

 “What’s to tell? I imagine my emotions must have been pretty obvious.”

 “If I had been in your boots, sprout, I’d have wanted that man dead.”

 Lindsay’s hand paused mid-brush before resuming, slower than before.  “In the end, I guess I killed him.  He turned up dead in a church.  Probably died from infection from his gunshot wounds.”

 Jack made a face at the thought of such an unholy man dying in such a holy place.  “And how does that make you feel, Lindsay?  Knowing you killed him?”

 Lindsay stopped what she was doing and looked at her grandfather.  “Empty,” she confessed.  “Claire told me he was dead and I just…  It’s like I had nothing left to feel.  I thought I should go to the scene, but I didn’t want to.  It was just habit.  Automatic.”

 “Your priorities are changing,” Jack guessed.  “That little spitfire has something to do with that, I reckon.”

 An image of Cindy, her red hair radiant in the Texas sun brought an unconscious smile to Lindsay’s lips and banished some of the darkness that memories of the case had dredged up.  “Everything to do with that,” Lindsay corrected.

 “Ass over tea kettle for that one, aren’t you?”  Jack chuckled.

 Lindsay’s smile broadened.  “Shows, huh?”

 “Like a ray of light on a cloudy day.”

 The inspector shook her head at that and at herself, admitting for the first time just how deeply her feelings for Cindy ran.  This thing between herself and Cindy… it was stronger than what she’d felt for Tom.  Intense to the point of sweet distraction.  Cindy could make her thoughts derail with a look; her knees buckle with a whispered word.  The reporter had replaced justice as the most important thing in Lindsay’s world. 

“You love her, sprout?” Jack asked softly, spellbound by the look on his granddaughter’s features. 

 Lindsay looked at him.  “So much it hurts sometimes,” she confessed.  “But it’s a good kind of pain.”

 Jack nodded, satisfied with her answer.  “So what happened to that Pete fellow?”

 “Uh…”  Lindsay blinked, needing a moment to even remember who Pete was.  She felt the tiniest bit chagrined by that as she opened the stall and moved to the next one.  “We broke it off.  Obviously.”

 “Obviously.  How’d he take it?” Jack leaned on the door to his stall and watched her move about. 

 Lindsay paused, her gaze focusing on the dust mites floating lazily above the dirt floor in the late afternoon sun.  The stables smelled of horse and hay, both powerful scents from her childhood.  Talking about Pete here seemed wrong.  This was the place that held some of her most cherished memories.  Pete Raynor didn’t belong here.  She frowned, feeling a chill travel up her spine. 

 “Sprout?”

 Her grandfather’s voice snapped Lindsay back into the moment.  “He… not well,” she said slowly.  For the first time since they’d left, Lindsay thought about the camera equipment in her duplex.  How in the hell she’d managed to forget about it until now was a wonder, but she thought once more of Pete and his possible involvement.  “Not… well at all,” she murmured.

 ****

 

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