Middle Of Nowhere

   Their eyes met, smiling. He lifted his water glass. "To private commerce caller number forty-two. I'd say we've got a suspect."

   "I'd say we'd better get through the rest of that list tonight. If we can connect Mr. Forty-two to more of the victims, our case is only that much stronger."

   "Agreed."

   "My room? Or yours?"

   "Yours, it's bigger," Boldt answered.

   She pushed back her chair and excused herself

without looking at him, and hurried across the dining room in that graceful movement of hers.

   When she returned, he felt her urgency to leave the table.

   "How about one dance before dessert?" she asked.

   A jazz trio in the hotel bar. Boldt had tried to block out the music because it could so overpower him and demand his full attention. So could a dance. He was thinking it was a bad idea.

   She added that she'd taken care of the tab, charging it to her room, making it impossible for him to stall.

   "Why not?" he said, his mouth working against his better judgment.

* * *

A mistake. Boldt knew it the moment he put his arm loosely around her and felt the warm indent of her back in the palm of his wide hand. Secrets were lost in such moments. Kingdoms fell. With Daphne in heels, they stood nearly the same height. She pulled herself closer and their chests made contact. "Okay?" she asked, her breath warm on his neck.

   "You know what I think?" she asked, this time in a hoarse whisper that sent chills down him. Their hearts beat contrapuntally.

   "Extraordinary," he said, marveling at the sensation.

   She placed her head gently on his shoulder, and answered herself. "I think this is dangerous."

   "Feels that way to me," he admitted, not letting her go.

"Song's over."

   So it was. He hadn't noticed. Only the one song, or had they stayed out there longer? He took her by the hand and led her off the dance floor.

   They walked together down the long corridor of rooms. She used her electronic key to open the room door and Boldt found himself reminded of the prison's security. She leaned a shoulder against the door and it opened. "This is all right? Right?"

   "Right," he answered, not taking his chance to back out. The faxed pages bulged in his coat pocket.

   She reached up, lightly stroked his cheek, then playfully took him by the necktie and said, "Into my room, big boy."

   But her words were lost to the kiss that Boldt delivered more out of reflex than conscious decision. He kissed her on the lips, not the cheek. Right there in the hallway; she, holding his tie. Brief, but delivered like he meant it.

   The kiss stunned her, but she didn't falter. She pulled him through the door by the tie, turned once inside and returned that kiss with all her enormous powers. They kissed hard and hungrily, a kiss that had fermented for years.

   His fingers worked the tiny buttons to her blouse, the silk melting away and exposing her chest as she unknotted his tie. A car backfired, and they both froze intuitively, and then, looking at each other in the early stages of undress, one of them started to laugh and the other followed until the laughter grew, by which point her blouse was buttoned and her face red behind a girlish blush.

   "Maybe we go through the fax tomorrow morning," she suggested nervously.

   Boldt felt awkward. Devastated. "I—"

   "Don't say anything," she pleaded, placing a warm finger to his lips and holding it there too long. Her blouse was buttoned incorrectly. His shirt was partially open, his tie hanging from his button-down collar.

C H A P T E R

28

The Jefferson County Corrections Facility appeared somehow otherworldly as they approached, the sprawling sand-colored facility surrounded by silver waves of razor wire, all of it pushed out into the scrub of high desert. The ride had been unusually quiet.

   Daphne rolled a Starbucks cup between her palms, as if warming them. It was eighty degrees outside the air-conditioned car, the sky a blue found only in the mountains.

   Boldt felt a little blue himself. He found it difficult to focus on the investigation, which was, after all, the purpose of the trip. This, despite the fact that before going to sleep he had connected inmate 42 with another four of the burglary victims' phone numbers. He and Daphne were on their way now to have a little chat with number 42.

   Boldt turned left onto a long gravel road that led toward the shimmering facility. Dust rose behind the rental in a growing plume that colored the sun. He said, "Listen, Daffy. I've thought about that kiss for a long time. Now that it's behind us, maybe we can make it another five or six years."

   "No harm, no foul?" she questioned.

"I don't want you mad at me."

   "Is that what you think?" she asked. "You know, for being such a good detective, sometimes you don't have a clue."

   "True story," he said.

   He mugged a smile for her, squinting eyes giving him away. He pulled the car up to the first of three guard booths, and slipped his ID wallet out of his blue blazer. Daphne did the same, and the conversation ended.