“Some police chief you are if, with all the evidence, ‘okay’ is the best you’ve got.”

“I was being modest. You really need to stay. It’s bad out there,” he continued before she could agree or refuse. “Really bad. I’ll admit if this was a balmy night in June I’d want you to stay for, oh, forever. Unless CiCi gives in, then I’d have to kick you out.”

“You’re talking about making it with my grandmother when I’m naked in your bed.”

“Fact is fact. But seriously, you need to stay. I’ve got wine, frozen pizza, and more sex in store.”

She sent him a wicked look with a hint of a smile. “What kind of frozen pizza?”

“Sausage and pepperoni.” Rolling over, he grabbed her wineglass for her. “And I’ve got Dove bars.”

“Dove bars seal the deal.” She sat up, took the wine. “But I will insist on more sex.”

“Before or after pizza?”

“After. I worked up an appetite. I need to text CiCi. She knew where I was going, and she’ll figure things out, but it is bad out there, so I want her to know I’m safe inside.”

Rising, he walked to the doors. “It really is bad. Tell her to text you back. Let’s make sure she’s okay.”

“CiCi’s weathered more storms than both of us put together. And she’s got a generator. Which is why she’s having her usual nor’easter gathering. A few friends, a lot of food and alcohol. Everyone will bunk there until this blows out. You were invited,” she told him. “But I had other ideas.”

He switched on the fire, adding the flickering light of flame. “You have good ideas.”

“I’m glad you think so. Because another of my ideas? I’m going to have to sculpt you. Guardian. Protector,” she mused. “Not with a gun—I don’t like them. I think a sword. Maybe in mid-swing. Maybe…”

He glanced back. “Like I’m wearing armor?”

She laughed, hitched herself back to prop up on the pillows as she drank. “No, Reed. You’ll be wearing the sword.”

“I don’t really think—”

“You’ve got a good form, an appealing body. Rangy, but not gaunt. You were on the edge of gaunt at CiCi’s party, but you’re back in shape.”

“Still a couple pounds light.” And though he’d never been the modest type, he found himself reaching for his discarded boxers. “I can’t seem to get it back.”

“You look good. I know the human anatomy, the male body. You look fit and strong along with the rangy.” She got up now, walked to him, traced her fingers over the scar on his shoulder, his side. “And these.”

“You’d want to leave them out.”

“No. They’re part of you, part of the protector. You were wounded, but you still pick up the sword. That’s admirable.”

“It’s a job.”

“It’s you. The boy who stopped to grab a terrified child in the middle of a nightmare, who protected him. I admire that. I might be here if I didn’t—it was a long fast for me. But I wouldn’t stay.” She rose on her toes, brushed his lips with hers. “I need to sculpt you. I could do it from memory now, but I’d rather do some sketches of you.”

“You’re trying to sex me into it.”

“Oh.” With a slow, slow smile, she trailed a hand down his chest, his belly. “I will.”

“I’m going to have to make you prove that.”

He started to pull her in, wanted to ravage that smile.

And his phone rang.

“Crap. Crap, crap. Shit! Sorry.” He crouched down for his jeans, dug the phone out of the pocket. “Quartermaine. Okay, slow it down. Where? All right, I’m on my way. Stay calm.

“I’ve gotta go,” he told Simone as he dragged on his jeans. “I’m taking the calls tonight.”

“What is it?”

“Car accident, downed tree, a lot of hysteria.”

“I could go with you.”

“Absolutely no.” He pulled on his shirt. “Stay. Toss the pizza in the oven. Eat. I’ll text you.” He took his gun out of the drawer, clipped it on.

“You need a slicker.”

“I’ve got rain gear downstairs.” Sitting, he laced on his boots. “Flashlight in the drawer there, and candles, a lantern downstairs if the power goes.”

“Be careful, Chief. It really is bad out there.”

“If I only had my sword.” He stood, grabbed her, kissed her. “Pizza and ice cream in the freezer. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

So, she thought as she stood in the empty room, this is what happens when you start sleeping with a cop.

He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t really bitched. He’d just thrown on his clothes and walked out into the storm.

She went to his closet, found herself amused he used about a quarter—if that—of the available space. She checked the bathroom. Apparently the scarred, rangy cop didn’t own a robe. She went back to his closet, borrowed one of his shirts.

She texted CiCi, simply tapping in she’d ride out the storm at Reed’s.

Two minutes later, CiCi replied with: Woo-hoo!

She considered pizza, but decided she’d wait awhile first. Maybe he’d be quick. She thought about TV, decided against. Books. He had some stacked in the bedroom, and she’d seen some downstairs.

Catch-22, some thrillers. Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

She enjoyed that particular book, but decided it wouldn’t be the best choice on a dark and stormy night alone in a still unfamiliar house.

If only she’d brought her sketch pad …

On the chance he had a notebook or pad, she opened the nightstand drawers. The flashlight, as advertised, and an iPad that she discovered could operate the TV, a music system, the fireplace.

So the chief liked technology. Something new to add in the getting-to-know-him file.

Home office, she remembered. Bound to have a pad and a pencil in a home office. She wandered out, stopped to smile at the retro bathroom. Maybe she’d paint him a sexy mermaid. She was no CiCi Lennon with brush and paint, but she could manage a fun, sexy mermaid.

She’d while away the time until he got back sketching mermaids—and a few of The Protector.

A study from the side—the right side because she wanted the scars—mostly back and butt, his head turned toward the right, sword lifted with both hands, caught in the downswing.

She had to ask him not to get a haircut for a bit. She wanted it a little long and shaggy.

Lightning flashed again as she opened the office door, and she thought of him out in it because someone needed help. She’d come for the sex, she admitted—primarily for the sex. But she stayed, she waited, because of who she’d begun to discover he was.

She switched on the lights, thought he hadn’t lied about the mess. Piles of files on a boxy old desk—and a teddy bear with a gun and badge. Folding chairs against the wall, an open trash can loaded with bottles and cans. Maps pinned right to the unfinished walls.

But, hello, a stack of legal pads—they’d do in a pinch—in the closet that had no door.

She walked in, took one, turned to the desk to hunt down pencils.

And saw the boards, saw what was crowded on the two big boards.

“God. Oh God.” She had to grip the back of his desk chair, breathe in, breathe out.

She knew the faces, so many of the faces. She’d formed some of them already with her hands.

There, the boy she’d thought she loved. There, her best friend. There, Reed’s Angie.

He had photos—not just the faces, but of bodies, blood, broken glass, guns. One of those guns, she realized, had killed Tish, had shot Mi.

She looked at the faces of the killers—boys, just boys. Hobart, Whitehall, Paulson.

And on the second board, Patricia Hobart—her photo and a sketch. She looked different in the sketch, but Simone saw her.

And that face, she realized, had been the one Reed had seen when she’d tried to kill him.

Other faces, other names, other bodies. Times and dates, cities and towns.

He looked at this every day, she realized. He looked, studied, and tried to find the answers.

“My face,” she murmured, touching the photos of the girl she’d been, the woman she’d become. “My face on his board. His face and mine. He doesn’t look away. He never has.”

So she sat at his desk and didn’t look away.

*

When Reed got home, soaked, at just before two a.m., he found Simone wearing one of his shirts, sitting by the fire, drinking a Coke, and reading Bradbury.

“Hey. You didn’t have to wait up.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She rose. “You’re soaked.”

“Yeah. I think it’s starting to ease off some, but it’ll probably blow another couple hours.” He dragged off a black slicker with POLICE in reflective letters across the back and front. “Laundry room,” he said with a gesture, disappearing inside.

When he came out, feet bare, she stood at his fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs.

“It’s too late for pizza.”

“It’s never too late for pizza,” he countered. “Didn’t you eat?”

“Not yet. I can scramble eggs, too. What happened? How bad was it?”

“Do you know the Wagmans?”

“Priscilla—goes by Prissy—and Rick. They live out by the school.”

“They had a fight. Apparently they’ve been having some marital troubles.”

“He had—and likely still is having—an affair with a woman who worked at Benson’s Lobster Shack last summer. From Westbrook. Double divorcée.”

“So, you know the background. Want a latte?”