LITMIR.BIZ

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truth now, because Nancy is dead.”

      “That’s right,” Jake said, his voice lethally quiet. “Nancy is dead.”

      “And if you had been sleeping with her, you’d never tell me, ’cause now there’s no way I could know for sure.”

      Jake held his temper. “I think we both remember the inquest. It was a nasty, dirty affair. But it proved one thing, Brian. She wasn’t with me that night.” She’d had what the medical examiner had deemed consensual sex with someone that night. He’d volunteered to be tested, proving that it hadn’t been with him.

      “She sure as hell wasn’t with me,” Brian responded bitterly. “But even if she wasn’t with you that night, she loved you.”

      “We were friends, Brian.”

      “Friends. Yeah.” He was silent for a moment. “You still think I was responsible.”

      “I never said that.”

      “You never said that? Like hell. Every time you looked at me during the inquest, you fucking accused me with your eyes.”

      Brian really had been drinking heavily. Jake shook his head. He understood the feeling. Now and then, he still felt like heading out on a major bender himself.

      “Brian, you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

      “Accident. They said it was an accident. But you…you never believed that.”

      “Brian, I think you were responsible for being a real idiot now and then, but not for your wife’s death, all right?”

      “I didn’t make her do shit, man. I never made her do drugs, and when we were together, we never got plastered.”

      “Brian, you’re on a crying jag of a drunk right now. You’re not thinking straight. No one ever suggested that you made anyone do anything. You were an ass, and hell yes, she was mad at you a lot. But she loved you, got it? Jesus, Brian, it was all a long time ago now. What the hell brought this on?”

      “You don’t know? Man, how could you have forgotten?”

      Jake stared at Brian. He knew. He knew every damn year. “Her birthday,” he said softly.

      “Yeah. She’d have been thirty, Jake. Thirty. Shit. She was twenty-five.”

      Jake leaned against the counter, feeling as if hot wire were coiling in his stomach. “Twenty-five, and there’s not a damned thing either of us can do about it now. She’s been dead for nearly five years, Brian. And if I’ve heard right, you’ve been living for the past two of those years with a flight attendant.”

      “Yeah, I’ve been living with a flight attendant,” Brian agreed. He shook his head. “Nice girl. I should marry her. But every time I get too close….” His words trailed off, and a pained expression having nothing to do with his swollen jaw crossed his features. “Well, hell, I start to wonder if Nancy will live with me forever, if I won’t keep on waking up nights and thinking she’s staring at me, thinking that if…Well, hell.”

      The coffee was ready. Jake turned away from Brian and poured him a cup. Brian had hit a nail right on the head—for the two of them, though Brian couldn’t know that.

      Jake felt the same. As if something of Nancy continued to haunt him, as well, after all these years.

      He brought Brian the coffee. “Brian, nothing is going to bring Nancy back. And get a grip. Do you know how much time has passed? No one thinks you killed her.”

      “No. Not that I killed her. That I made her kill herself.”

      “She didn’t kill herself. I know it, and you know it.”

      Brian lowered his head and inhaled deeply. “You know, Jake, there are people out there who think you’re one heck of a big shit and not the great distinguished powerhouse you always look like in the press.”

      “There’s not a damned thing I can do about what people think, Brian,” Jake said evenly.

      “Yeah, that’s right. You can’t arrest them for thinking you’re a shit, can you?”

      “Brian, drink your coffee, and please tell me you didn’t drive down here.”

      “Why, you gonna arrest me for that?” Brian said belligerently, staring at him.

      “No, I’m just going to pray there aren’t any broken bodies along the way.”

      Brian lowered his head. “No, I didn’t drive. I had a few drinks at a bar downtown and got a ride to Nick’s from a friend. Sat out on the porch and had another few beers there. I didn’t drive.”

      “Good. Finish that and I’ll take you home.”

      Brian stared at him, shaking his head. “I know that Nancy came to you all the time. So sometimes I wonder…hell, with everything she must have said…why don’t you just go ahead and tear me to pieces?”

      “It would be illegal for me to kill you. And I’m a cop. That would make it really bad.”

      Brian tried to form a smile; it came out more like a grimace.

      “Yeah, but you could beat the shit out of me. Self-defense. I’ve given you cause a time or two. Why don’t you do it? Would it make you feel guilty?”

      “No,” Jake said flatly.

      “Then…?”

      “Because she loved you. And I loved her.” The other man looked up, startled, and Jake hastened to add, “I didn’t say that I’d slept with her, Brian, just that I loved her. And she always believed there was something decent in you. Damned if I can see it, but it must be there. So…finish that coffee and I’ll get you home.”

      Brian stared at him, bowed his head again and nodded. He drank the coffee and quietly asked for another cup. After that, he went into the head and cleaned himself up a bit.

      Brian had left his jacket at Nick’s; they stopped for it.

      Nick was behind the bar, working with Sharon, the woman he’d been dating for nearly a year, and with whom, Nick had informed Jake, he’d fallen in love. At his age. Love. She tolerated his almost twenty-four-hour work schedule. In fact, it was fine with her, since she was into real estate. She put in long days herself, sometimes—sometimes followed by days and days with little or nothing to do. She liked politics, though, and was planning on learning a lot more. She wanted to run for local office.

      They hadn’t seemed like a pair to hit it off so well. But then, who the hell was he to tell?

      Nick arched a brow when Jake walked in with Brian. “Everything all right?”

      “Just fine.”

      “Couldn’t be better,” Brian said.

      “You didn’t come for another drink?” Sharon asked Brian warily.

      “I’m going to drive Brian home. He left his jacket here. We just came to pick it up.”

      “Oh,” Nick said, looking from one of them to the other.

      “I can drive him, if you like, Jake,” Sharon offered quietly.

      “No, thanks, I’ll get him back home.”

      Brian threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, we’re fine. Jake and me, we’re like brothers.” He grinned. “I’d get him home if he’d had a few too many. You know—share and share alike.”

      “Let’s go, Brian.”

      Luckily, Brian remembered directions, since he was in a new apartment. The flight attendant’s name was Norma. She seemed like a decent woman, coming to the door with concern in her eyes when Brian couldn’t quite work the key. Brian managed to introduce Jake without making snide comments. She was nothing like Nancy. Norma was short, fair and incredibly soft-spoken. Jake realized

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