“And you just said no matter how much I love you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Love,’ as in present tense. Don’t try to take it back. I heard it.”
He pressed my hand to his face, his lips moving over my fingers.
“I’ve tried to stop thinking about you. I can’t.”
He paused, his face close to mine. “I’m not asking you to say the same thing.”
But he was asking that, and I answered him.
I touched his cheek and he touched mine, then we kissed the places our fingers had been until we found each other’s lips. And we said nothing more. We stopped thinking entirely until the windshield suddenly lit up and the night beyond was throbbing red. We frantically rearranged ourselves as a patrol car pulled up and a deputy climbed out, flashlight and portable radio in hand.
Mark was already opening his door.
“Everything all right?” the deputy asked, bending over to peer inside. His eyes wandered disconcertingly over the scene of our passion, his face stern, an unseemly bulge in his right cheek.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, horrified as I not so subtly probed the floor with my stocking foot. Somehow I had lost a shoe.
He stepped back and spat out a stream of tobacco juice.
“We were having a conversation,” Mark offered, and he had the presence of mind not to display his badge. The deputy knew damn well we had been doing a lot of things when he pulled up. Conversing was not one of them.
“Well, now, if y’all intend to continue your conversation,” he said, “I’d ‘preciate it if you’d go someplace else. You know, it ain’t safe to be sitting out here late at night in a car, been some problems. And if you’re not from around here, maybe you hadn’t heard about the couples disappearing. ” He went on with his lecture, my blood running cold.
“You’re right, and thank you,” Mark finally said. “We’re leaving now.”
Nodding, the deputy spat again, and we watched him climb into his car. He pulled out onto the road and slowly drove away.
“Jesus,” Mark muttered under his breath.
“Don’t say it,” I replied. “Let’s not even get into how stupid we are. Lord.”
“Do you see how damn easy it is?”
He said it anyway. “Two people out at night and someone pulls up. Hell, my damn gun’s in the glove compartment. I never even thought about it until he was right in my face, and then it would have been too late – ” “Stop it, Mark. Please.”
He startled me by laughing.
“It’s not funny!”
“Your blouse is buttoned crooked,” he gasped.
Shit! “You better hope like hell he didn’t recognize you, Chief Scarpetta.”
“Thank you for the reassuring thought, Mr. FBI. And now I’m going home.”
I opened the door. “You’ve gotten me into enough trouble for one night.”
“Hey. You started it.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Kay?” He got serious. “What do we do now? I mean, I’m going back to Denver tomorrow. I don’t know what’s going to happen, what I can make happen or if I should try to make anything happen.”
There were no easy answers. There never had been with us.
“If you don’t try to make anything happen, nothing will.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“There’s a lot of talking we need to do, Mark.”
He turned on the headlights and fastened his seat belt. “What about you?” he asked again. “It takes two to try.”
“Funny you should say that.”
“Kay, don’t. Please don’t start in.”
“I need to think.”
I got out my keys. I was suddenly exhausted.
“Don’t jerk me around.”
“I’m not jerking you around, Mark,” I said, touching his cheek.
We kissed one last time. I wanted the kiss to go on for hours, and yet I wanted to get away. Our passion had always been reckless. We had always lived for moments that never seemed to add up to any sort of future.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
I opened my car door.
“Listen to Benton,” he added. “You can trust him. What you’re involved in is very bad stuff.”
I started the engine.