The Night In Question. Harper Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ living room floor got heavily to his feet, his tail beating in acknowledgement. Stiffly the animal walked over to him and stopped, looking up inquiringly.

      “Yeah, we’ve got a guest, Boomer.” Max dropped a hand to the dog’s head and idly scratched the folded ear, frowning. “I’m damned if I know what I was thinking, bringing her here, but we’ve got a guest. I’d better go check on her.”

      The house was quiet as he passed through the kitchen, the only sounds the ticking of the clock on the wall and the irregular dripping of the faucet. He’d been meaning to fix that, he thought, pausing to tighten the loose tap. Maybe tomorrow he’d stop by the hardware store and get some washers after he sent Julia Tennant on her way.

      Julia Tennant. Julia Tennant in his house—no, in his bed. What exactly had he been thinking, for God’s sake?

      He’d told the good doctor his interest in her wasn’t personal. That might have been true at some point, but even two years ago he’d been in danger of crossing over the line between professional and personal. Now there was no doubt about it. His involvement with her in the last few days hadn’t been any part of his official duties.

      In fact, if anyone found out just how involved he’d let himself become with Julia Tennant, Max told himself with calm certainty, he could end up losing his job.

      He’d had a whack of vacation time due him. Other agents might plan a trip to Disneyland with the wife and kids, a wild and crazy jaunt to Vegas, a fishing trip with a few good buddies. He’d taken a week off three years ago, mainly because his director had insisted on it, and for the whole seven days he and Boomer had sat on the couch in front of the television, watching old movies and the afternoon soaps.

      But when the word had gotten out that Julia Tennant’s conviction had been overturned and she was due to be released, he’d immediately asked for time off. He just hadn’t told anyone that he intended to spend his vacation making sure that she didn’t get within a hundred miles of her daughter and the woman who had once been her friend and sister-in-law.

      So, yeah—this whole thing was emotional, Max admitted, staring out of his kitchen window into the night. But despite what Julia probably thought, the emotion driving him wasn’t hatred of her. She was a murderer, and he’d put plenty of them behind bars without giving them a second thought. On the Tennant case, however, he’d had to watch a little girl’s world be torn apart by the cold-blooded actions of her mother, and Willa Tennant’s innocence had broken through the wall of detachment he tried to keep between him and his work.

      She hadn’t deserved to have her father killed, her life turned upside down, and everything familiar taken from her. He’d vowed her mother wasn’t going to do it to her a second time.

      But this afternoon when he’d seen Julia standing in that intersection as if she had no desire to go on living, his blood had turned to ice. And a few seconds later, when he’d been cradling her suddenly fragile-seeming body beneath him on the pavement, he hadn’t been thinking of Julia Tennant as the enemy at all. Oblivious to the shaky anger of the bus driver who’d stopped a few feet past them and the surge of bystanders who’d gathered around, his attention had been fixed on her hair, dark with rain under his hand, on the vulnerable line of her throat, on the delicate fanning of her lashes against her cheeks. Then her eyes had opened.

      They really were sapphire. For a moment they’d simply gazed at him as if waking up and finding him close to her wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. For that same crazy moment, he’d felt exactly the same way.

      He was losing his goddamn mind, Max thought flatly, turning away from the sink and just barely concealing his disconcertion as he met those sapphire eyes once again. This time they were staring expressionlessly at him from a few feet away.

      “If you’ll tell me how much I owe you for the doctor, I’ll be on my way.”

      Her posture was ramrod straight and the shoulder-length blond hair was pulled tightly back from her face in a low ponytail. The graze on her temple had been cleaned by the doctor, but pinpricks of blood had welled up on it again.

      She looked about as vulnerable as an electric fence. She was looking at him the way she always had—as if breathing the same damned air as he did was an ordeal. Max felt a muscle in his jaw twitch.

      “Don’t worry about it.” His tone was deliberately dismissive, and with a flicker of satisfaction he saw her stiffen. “It was my decision to call him in. He gave you a fairly clean bill of health, by the way.”

      “So barring any more encounters with the Boston transit system, I should live to a ripe old age. That’s good to hear.”

      If he hadn’t been watching her closely he would have missed the total despair that flashed over her features. She bent her head, holding out her hand to Boomer as the dog sniffed her leg with canine formality. After a moment the heavy black tail gave a slow wag of acceptance.

      “You stepped out in front of that bus deliberately, didn’t you?” He hadn’t intended to ask her the question, but as soon as the words were out he knew he needed to hear her answer. Julia’s head remained bowed.

      “I don’t know, Max,” she said finally. “I honestly don’t know. Anyway, what happens with me isn’t your problem now, so don’t worry about it.” She gave Boomer one last pat and straightened, meeting his gaze directly. “I want to thank you for opening my eyes. You were right—Willa’s better off without me. I won’t be looking for her anymore.”

      The smile that lifted her lips was brittle, as if she was one small muscle movement away from cracking. The least impulsive of men, with difficulty Max curbed the impulse to reach out to her. There was nothing he could say, he told himself harshly. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.

      All that was left was to let her walk away. In silence he preceded her down the short hallway. He unlatched the front door and opened it, seeing with obscure relief that at least the rain had stopped.

      The woman before him was a stone-cold killer, he reminded himself sharply. Forty days and forty nights of rain wouldn’t wash away the enormity of her crime.

      “There’s a bus stop at the corner.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “There should be one coming by in a few minutes.”

      “I’ll wait for it on the curb this time.” There was a touch of wryness in her tone. “Goodbye, Max.”

      He saw the slight movement as she began to extend her hand to him. Before she could complete the action, he bent down to grasp Boomer’s collar. Her expression went very still.

      “I’ll hold him while you leave,” he said shortly. “Sometimes the old boy forgets he’s not a pup anymore, and tries to make a dash for freedom.”

      “Tell him it’s not worth it.” Julia’s words were clipped. She put her hand on the aluminum handle of the outer door and then paused, looking down at the two of them. “The answer to your question is yes, Max. Some part of me couldn’t bear the thought of going on without her. But even while I was lying there on the pavement a second later, I thanked God that I’d been prevented from doing it—because one day, maybe years from now or decades from now, my daughter might want to meet the mother she can’t remember. And even if that meeting only lasts long enough for her to satisfy her curiosity, it’ll be something to hold on to for the rest of my life.”

      She turned back to the door, averting her face from him, but not before he saw the terrible bleakness that shadowed her features, the СКАЧАТЬ