Chapter 12

At half an hour after sundown, Laura began to worry Anna wasn’t going to show.

As for herself, she’d returned to the Malibu estate a little over an hour ago and gotten into position. She was near the shed, an excellent vantage point from which to monitor the house and grounds, including the driveway. Her flashlight lay close at hand; her gun was even closer, in her pants pocket, safety off. Firsthand experience had taught her how quick Anna was on the draw. It didn’t hurt to be prepared.

The triumphant conclusion to her search for Remington had blown away some of the cobwebs from her brain, Laura thought. Not that she was under any illusions that she could altogether predict what Anna’s next moves would be. But as her taut nerves finally relaxed, she’d begun to ponder the inconsistency with which Anna had dealt with Remington today. She’d had plenty of time and privacy to shoot him and hide his body in the shed. Why hadn’t she? Scruples? Laura knew Anna possessed none. Soft-heartedness, or its flip side, sadism? Neither one fit the methodical coldness that was Anna’s defining characteristic. Maybe, fresh out of ideas, she was simply improvising.

One fact had seemed clear. Anna wouldn’t leave matters as they stood. She would be back to wind up unfinished business. Or so Laura had thought as she called Lieutenant Jarvis. By now she was beginning to question her instincts, which, after all, weren’t entirely reliable where Anna was concerned.

Some distance behind her The English Rose gently rocked at anchor, lights extinguished, ghostlike against the backdrop of sea and sky. It had put in to the dock while she was at the hospital with Remington; the captain and crew members were long gone, though by what means, she couldn’t determine. But that the yacht might serve as Anna’s escape route had occurred to Laura immediately.

It made sense. With the bulk of her husband’s assets liquidated, Anna could have planned the cruise to San Diego to cover up both Endicott’s murder and Remington’s. The only witnesses who could definitively say that she and Remington hadn’t returned to Malibu by water were the crew, who would depart when she did. But the alibi was flimsy, one that wouldn’t hold up long under police scrutiny. If Anna was going to evade the law she would need to run soon—within hours. Otherwise the window of opportunity would close for good.

Really it was far too early to give up on her, Laura decided. Night had only just fallen. Sooner or later, Anna would come.

In the meantime her thoughts turned to Remington, out of danger in more than one respect in his hospital bed at Los Robles Regional. She’d left him deeply asleep, his forehead dry beneath her lips as she kissed him good-bye. The nurse she’d asked on her way out had assured her that his vitals were strong, his condition completely stable. But what comforted Laura most was the knowledge that he was beyond Anna’s reach. And he was going to stay there. Within the next few hours she would guarantee once and for all that Anna never got the chance to hurt him again.

Because the property was situated off the main drag, it was unusually quiet, and night noises seemed intensified by comparison. Foremost among them was the ocean, slapping against the piles of the boathouse and dock and the sides of the yacht, washing in and out of the cove. That was why Laura wasn’t sure at first that she’d actually heard a car approaching from the road that led to the house. Holding absolutely still, she strained to listen. There it was: the silken snarl of what could only be a high performance engine.

A moment later the beam of its headlights preceded the car down the driveway. Smoothly it took the curve to the garage and stopped. In the interval before its lights went out, Laura could see it was the Ferrari.

Right hand on her flashlight, the left curled loosely around the hilt of her gun, she waited.

A tall, slim figure struck southward from the garage, straight for the shed.

Laura continued to kneel. Reassuring, with the confrontation all but upon her, how clear-headed she felt, calm and purposeful.

Anna had nearly reached the shed. In a moment she would switch on her flashlight and grasp the padlock that fastened the door.

In a single coordinated motion, Laura stood and pinned her opponent to the spot with her own flashlight.

“Looking for something, Mrs. Patton?” she asked. “Or should I say: someone?”

It felt like minutes ticked by before Anna turned, though in reality it was only a few seconds. “You do have a knack for turning up when you’re least expected, don’t you?” she replied almost pleasantly. Her eyes were narrowed, but that might’ve been because of the glare. “Or wanted.”

Laura raised a brow in acknowledgement of the reference to Club 10. “My husband would say it’s part of my charm.” Then, sharply, as Anna made a slight move towards the lock: “He’s not in there.”

“So I’ve gathered.”

“He’s going to be fine, thanks for asking. No lasting harm done. I’m sure Clayton Endicott’s children would give anything to say the same about him.”

Face totally expressionless, Anna was silent.

“I have to admit you’ve baffled me,” Laura went on. “It was a bizarre idea, locking Remington up and leaving him here. Normally your preferred method for disposing of an unwanted suitor is a bullet. It’s how you took care of Endicott, isn’t it?”

Still Anna didn’t respond. Nor had Laura’s interrogation ruffled her serenity. They might have been discussing vacation plans, or the possible end of the mini heat wave, instead of the murder of one man and the near-death of another.

Little did Anna know that sort of resistance only spurred Laura onward.

“Or maybe you’re back to finish the job. Then what? Off to greener pastures with Walter Patton’s fortune?

“Why bother to ask me? You seem to have worked it out so beautifully on your own.”

“On the contrary, there are too many loose ends. They always bring out the worst in me. Ask my husband.” There was a pause. “Well?”

They faced each other in a wordless battle of wills. At the end of it, almost imperceptibly, Anna shrugged. “If you must know, it was meant to look like an accident.”

That was the grand strategy? Laura frowned. As such, it left a lot to be desired. So did its execution. Suddenly Anna’s aura of invulnerability seemed to have slipped a little. Her plan was transparent, amateurish, at best. Any decent investigator could’ve unraveled it within hours of finding Remington’s body—

Therein lay the rub. It might not have been effective for fooling the police in the long run, but for Anna’s purpose, it was perfect. And Remington would’ve undergone terrible suffering because of it. Death, slow and lingering, by heat and thirst, or gangrene from his wound, or all of the above. If Laura hadn’t discovered the drawing—or looked more closely at his note…

It took a fair amount of self-control to conceal the scalp-prickling horror that was creeping over her, but Laura did it. The chill only increased as she registered the detachment with which the other woman was explaining her reasoning process. No. Worse than detachment.

Indifference.

Anna said: “It seemed less likely to rouse suspicion than shooting him would have done. I’ve no desire to go back to prison, you know. The police would’ve thought he’d taken a fall--if they even looked for him at all. Don’t forget, he’d betrayed his wife and gone off with me, never to return. He left you a note telling you so.”

“You left him here to die.” There: Laura had made the direct accusation. “Why? You have what you wanted from Patton. He isn’t a threat to you anymore.”

There was an odd expression in Anna’s eyes. Could it be puzzlement? “But of course he is. Why else would I have taken such pains to be rid of him?”

Apparently the question was rhetorical, since she didn’t wait for an answer. “He ruined everything between Walter and me the day of the trial. I’d accepted that a prison term would be necessary, if it meant Walter would never discover what he and I had been to each other. Bad enough the damage Raymond had already done. I thought Walter would move heaven and earth to get me out of it. But it didn’t work quite the way I’d planned. Walter was convinced I’d pled guilty to somehow protect him. He was jealous…Enough to wash his hands of me for good.”

A fragment of memory rose before Laura’s mind’s eye. She and Remington encountering Patton and Endicott in the hallway inside the Los Angeles County courthouse after the aborted trial; the glance that Patton and Remington had exchanged while waiting for the elevator. Small wonder that Patton had looked as if he would’ve murdered Remington on the spot, if he were physically capable of it. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized the extent of Anna’s lies.

“And a fortune slipped through your grasp. But you wormed your way back into his good graces, didn’t you? As soon as he got sick, he took you back.”

“If only he had. It would’ve saved me eight months in prison,” Anna said dryly. “Don’t you understand? Walter wouldn’t be reconciled, in spite of Clayton’s best efforts to bring us together. Not until the news that Remington Steele had married.”

It was the answer to the question that had dogged Laura from the beginning, and the last thing she’d imagined she would hear. Funny that her slowness in figuring it out for herself didn’t seem so much of a drawback any more. Not now, not when her careful, systematic extraction of the information was bearing such fruit.

“So Patton forgave you in the end. And bought your freedom.”

“It was almost pathetically easy, really. Deep in his heart he’d never stopped wanting me. It only needed a balm for his wounded male pride and a little timely persuasion to give him the push he was waiting for all long.”

“Then this was—what?” Laura gestured toward the shed. “Revenge? Payback for Mr. Steele rejecting you?”

Incredibly, Anna laughed. “Oh, my dear. Haven’t you been listening? I could’ve had him years ago, if I’d really wanted him. But where would be the profit in that?” A change must’ve been visible in Laura’s face, even in the darkness, for Anna added, “Shocked, Mrs. Steele? Why should you be? There are…acquisitions…far more worthwhile than a man’s heart, no matter how handsome and enamored he may be. He almost spoiled my chance at them once, knowing my past as he does. So did Raymond. I’ve simply taken steps to see they don’t come back to haunt me in my new life.”

As it had the last time they met, her gaze raked Laura up and down, but this time there was genuine, if reluctant, respect in it. “I must say he took me by surprise today. I had it on good authority that I was the love of his life. But you seem to have thoroughly supplanted me in his affections. However did you manage it?”

Anna offering aid and comfort to the enemy? Laura wasn’t buying it. Consigning to the background the involuntary, inward tremor of joy the comment had kindled in her, she fixed Anna with a bland stare. “No big secret there. I love him.”

“Very touching. But frightfully naïve of you.”

“Must be the influence of my narrow, provincial upbringing. Tell me about Clayton Endicott. Were you forced to ‘take steps’ with him, too?”

“He was useful for a time. Then he stopped being useful and became tiresome.”

It wasn’t precisely the response Laura was angling for. She tried again. “I notice you didn’t have any problem using a gun on him.”

“Strictly for the sake of expediency. I needed a gun. Clayton had one. News reports are saying the police suspect robbery was the motive for his shooting. Interesting how it worked out, don’t you think?”

“So you covered up the murder by making it look like a robbery.”

For the first time a touch of impatience sharpened Anna’s voice. “I said so, didn’t I?”

“And tonight you’ll set sail and make a clean getaway before the police can take a full body count. Is that about the size of it?”

“As I told you earlier: you’ve worked it out down to the last detail. Well done. You really are as clever as he believes you are.”

“Forgive me if I’m not exactly flattered by the compliment.”

The words had a flippant edge that belied the fact that Laura was watching every move Anna made. For a while the blonde’s right hand had been hovering casually above the corresponding pocket of her linen jacket. Too casually, Laura thought. Now Anna was turning towards the house, hand dipping even lower…

She was saying, “I won’t pretend it hasn’t been interesting, Mrs. Steele, but haven’t you had enough for one evening? Because if you haven’t, I have--”

Swiftly she rounded back to Laura, drawing her gun as she came. As calmly and impassively as she had faced Remington three years ago at Club 10, she threw back her shoulders and cocked the hammer.

Two other things happened simultaneously.

First, a startling flare of light that coalesced into a white pool with the two women exposed in its center. It had no particular origin, but came from everywhere, behind them, before them, from either side.

Second, the door of the shed banged open, revealing that the padlock was fastened to the staple, but not the hasp. Through it strode Lieutenant Jarvis, a walkie-talkie hooked to his belt.

In his right hand was his service revolver. “Anna Patton?” he said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Clayton Endicott and the abduction and attempted murder of Remington Steele. Put your weapon on the ground and step away from it.”

No one would ever be able to understand what Anna did then, let alone explain it. For instead of obeying Jarvis’ order, she whirled on him, pistol sighted at his heart. Laura could’ve sworn the inarticulate cry she let out was of fury.

The next instant transformed Laura’s image of Jarvis as a soft desk jockey forever. Crying, “Down, Mrs. Steele! Get down!” he sprang at her in a flying tackle that knocked her flat, and stretched his body over hers.

The whole world didn’t really explode. It only seemed to.

For ten or fifteen seconds there was no noise but the crack of rifle fire and the zing of bullets speeding towards their target. But suddenly they were cleft by a high, animal scream. Laura felt Jarvis’ weight shift and move off her. “She’s down!” he was shouting. “The shooter’s down, God damn it! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

All went quiet. Moments later, Laura cautiously lifted her head. From the slopes to the west and south, from cover on the beach, the SWAT team was converging on the shed, seven men in soft-billed blue caps and bullet-proof vests. Jarvis had risen to meet them. One of them was muttering into a walkie-talkie, “—female suspect shot…paramedic unit now.”

On the ground was a body, prone and convulsing: Anna, visible to Laura in a single snatched glimpse before Jarvis blocked her view.

“Mrs. Patton?” He was bending down to Anna’s ear. “Mrs. Patton, can you hear me? The ambulance is a few minutes down the road. Try and take it easy til it gets here.” While the lieutenant was speaking, the SWAT guy with the walkie-talkie broke away to climb the hill toward the road. The other men were congregated loosely around Jarvis and Anna.

Only Laura held herself apart from the little group, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes averted. She couldn’t say how she knew, but a deep certainty had taken hold that these were the moments of Anna’s death. And she couldn’t bring herself to watch. Dimly it had occurred to her that she was sparing herself—and Remington—a recital of the details at some point in the future. The less she saw, the less she would have to tell him.

But the sounds of death? Against them there was no insulation, no protection, short of childishly clapping her hands over her ears. They would invade her dreams time and again in the weeks and months that followed. As would the nightmare wail of the ambulance hurtling towards them from the north. As would Jarvis’ flat, emotionless statement: “She’s gone.”

There was little for Laura to do after Anna died except wait for Jarvis to wrap up the details.

Finally, with mop-up directions given to the SWAT team and the arrival of the ambulance, he was done. “You okay, Mrs. Steele?” he asked as they started towards the hiding place where, for the second time in twenty-four hours, she’d concealed the Rabbit.

“Fine, thanks to you.” Well as they knew Jarvis, he wasn’t someone with whom she was comfortable enough to reveal any signs of emotional upset; their relationship with him shaded from the professional into the adversarial too often. So she did no more than quirk an amused eyebrow at him. “That was some fancy tackle you used on me. Have you been hiding secret football skills all this time?”

His frank, boyish grin briefly creased Jarvis’ face. “Hell, no. High school wrestling champ three years running.” Sober again, but with admiration evident in his glance, he added, “That was a good job you did out there tonight, getting a confession out of her. It took a lot of guts. I’m just glad the Malibu PD granted me jurisdiction on the case before she could leave the country.”

It was as close to a thank you as Jarvis was likely to get. Laura nodded her acceptance of it. “So am I.”

“It’s never easy, seeing a woman die like that, even if she was a nasty piece of work. As a police officer you always hate to resort to deadly force. If there was any other way…”

But of course there hadn’t been. He was as aware of it as Laura was. Anna had effectively sealed her own fate as soon as she’d pulled her gun.

Arrived at the Rabbit, they paused. “You’re going back to the hospital?” Jarvis asked.

“I should just about make it before visiting hours end.” She hadn’t confided the information that Remington had no idea where she was or what she’d undertaken tonight. It was none of Jarvis’ business. And now, realizing the absolute necessity of reaching her husband before news of the shootout hit the airwaves, she was eager to be off.

Jarvis must’ve sensed it, because he kept their farewells to a minimum. But just as she was sliding into the driver’s seat, she heard his voice calling her name. Suppressing a sigh, she cranked down her window and slanted an inquiring glance up at him.

“Would you pass something on to Mr. Steele from me?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Tell him I’m glad to see you the two of you learned your lesson the night Roselli got away.”

It was an allusion to the Steeles’ botched attempt to nab their enemy by themselves in Pico Union last September—and a comparison with her cooperation with him over Anna. Trust Jarvis to get his digs in, even when he was trying to be nice. With a rueful shake of the head, Laura rolled up the window and started the engine.

Traffic on the exclusive beachfront road was busier than she’d experienced to date; she had to wait quite a while, left turn signal blinking, to merge onto the northbound lane from the shoulder. The biggest holdup was a slow-moving vehicle at the end of the line. She drummed irritably on the steering wheel as it came into view.

And recognized it as the ambulance carrying Anna’s body to the morgue. Flashers darkened. Siren mute.

As they should have been. There was no need for them now.

A cold shudder swept through her. The old saying was a cliché, but evidently it was also a great and powerful truth when manifested in one’s real life. For there but for the grace of God might very well have gone Remington Steele.

And her. And her. It was the difference between the wife she still was, and the stunned, devastated widow she would have been if Anna’s plan had succeeded.

Her hands, their impatient tattoo abandoned, were shaking as they gripped the steering wheel. Prayers of thanksgiving for her husband, for their intact married life, were rising to her lips.

She prayed them for the entire seventeen-mile ride back to Thousand Oaks.

Remington was still safe, and apparently asleep, when Laura slipped into his hospital room with twenty minutes to spare until visiting hours ended for the night.

The room had been tidied since she left it, the fans and ice packs cleared away. She tiptoed across, intending to move a chair closer to his bed as noiselessly as possible. But his voice halted her in her tracks. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Laura,” he said.

In spite of the slight rasp in his throat, he was as peremptory as she’d ever heard him. She turned. He was awake, all right, and wearing the telltale signs of irritation, snapping eyes, lowered brows. There wasn’t the remotest resemblance to the pale, enervated man she’d rescued seven hours ago.

“You’re supposed to be resting, Mr. Steele,” she replied.

“Resting? Resting?” He thumbed the button that raised the top half of the bed to a sitting position and glared at her. “While you disappear without so much as a good-bye to confront a murderess? That is where you crept off to, isn’t it? To look for Anna?”

Lying to him was out of the question. With a silent gesture she indicated that he’d guessed correctly.

“I knew it! Meanwhile here I was, trapped, hemmed in by hoses and tubes, in no shape to back you up if you needed me! Rest? Not bloody likely!”

The ‘hoses and tubes’ amounted to a single IV line connected to a hanging bag of saline solution. She hid a smile. “Would you calm down? I was armed. And I had plenty of back-up, courtesy of Lieutenant Jarvis and the Malibu PD’s SWAT team.”

He seemed only marginally appeased. “Come here,” he said, grasping her arm and pulling her to him so he could search her face. After a few seconds he exhaled a long, grudging breath. “You look none the worse for wear, I’ll give you that. Thank the good Lord.”

“I’m fine. More importantly, so are you. And you’re going to stay that way.”

The abruptness with which he abandoned his battle stance told her that his finely tuned ear had caught the overtones in her answer--the immense relief, the tiniest ring of victory.

“Is she--?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What happened?”

“She made the mistake of aiming her gun at Lieutenant Jarvis. SWAT teams don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.”

“No, I don’t imagine they would.”

That remark seemed to shift the conversation to a different, tragic, plane. They gazed at each other somberly.

He said: “Tell me everything.”

She did. It didn’t take very long. Even so, well before she’d finished, he’d dropped the guardrail and drawn her onto the bed, where she leaned back against him, enveloped in his arms.

“She might’ve just as easily avoided the scene of the crime and simply boarded the yacht,” he commented as she wound up the narrative. “What made you suspect she’d incriminate herself?”

“It was something you said after she shot Marleau. Remember? ‘You just had to see who came through that door’. I figured she wouldn’t be able to stand it unless she’d checked for herself whether you were dead or alive.”

“Brilliant piece of deduction, my love. Though I have to confess…I thought you went for another reason entirely.”

“Oh?”

“I thought for a moment that you”--he hesitated, clearly unwilling to put it into words--“Well. I thought perhaps you’d set out to remove the threat permanently.”

“You mean what you almost did to Roselli in Pico Union, don’t you?”

“Something like that.”

Thoughtfully she gazed down at his hands, clasped with hers at her waistline, and considered what he’d said. “I don’t think so,” she replied at last. “Maybe if I’d arrived while she was locking you in, I could have done it. But I knew you were safe. And I knew we could trust Jarvis to put her away. Justice was done tonight, Mr. Steele. And I’m satisfied.”

“My avenging angel.” He kissed the top of her head.

She registered the kiss and the endearment, but didn’t acknowledge them; her mind was otherwise occupied. “There’s another thing that’s been nagging me,” she said. “It has to do with you, actually. I’m not quite sure how to put it—“

“Spit it out is the best way, I always say.”

“It’s a long drive from San Diego to Malibu. You must’ve had plenty of opportunity to disarm her and make a run for it. Why didn’t you?”

“She’d planned ahead for that contingency even before we left the dock yesterday. That detective of hers? He wasn’t only tailing you. He had orders to shoot to kill, if Anna didn’t revoke his instructions at a certain hour. Or so she said. It wasn’t worth the risk, Laura. Not until we were nearer home, and I had a better chance of getting to you before he could.”

“Wait a minute.” This was the first time during the last twenty-four hours that she’d even recalled the detective’s existence. Hard as she ransacked her memory, she couldn’t recall a single suspicious character within her vicinity, neither in San Diego nor Malibu. Certainly no one had accosted her on the road.

She told Remington so. “He could’ve decided murder wasn’t in the job description and removed himself from her employ, so to speak,” she concluded.

“Or perhaps she was lying about that, too. Why spoil a spotless record?”

So absorbed was Laura in their conversation, she hadn’t kept track of the time; now she realized with a start that visiting hours were over. But Remington blocked her attempt to crawl over him by reaching over and pulling off one of her shoes. “What are you doing?” she asked, making a grab for it.

With a mischievous grin he held it just out of range. “Getting you ready for bed, of course. You’ll be much more comfortable sleeping without these.” The first shoe hit the floor, followed in short order by its mate.

“What are you talking about? You know I can’t sleep here with you.”

“Why not? We managed it very nicely at Saint-Sauveur.”

What he meant was the hospital in Menton, the one to which he’d spirited her the night he rescued her in Pramagiorre, and where she’d discovered him in bed beside her the following morning. She’d never asked why he was there. She didn’t have to. It was enough that the familiar arms holding her, the blue eyes smiling down into hers, had saved her from awakening in a strange place, alone, sick and frightened.

That was France; this was Thousand Oaks. “It’s against hospital rules, that’s why not. They’ll say I’m interfering with your treatment, or something.”

“Don’t be absurd, Laura. The presence of a loved one is essential to the patient’s recovery. Everyone knows that. We’ve spent too much time sleeping apart as it is.”

“What if they try and kick me out?”

“I’ll pretend to have a relapse. Demand they allow you to stay. Convince them the only way to maintain my body temperature is to have you lying next to me.”

“Body heat’s the cure for hypothermia, not heat exhaustion.” By now, her resistance practically evaporated, she was scooting back to her original spot.

“This bed would be cold and lonely without you. Does that count?”

“It does with me.”

“In you get, then.”

As he spoke he lifted the sheet, an invitation for her to slide underneath. In the process she caught a glimpse of what he was wearing. The peal of laughter rang out too late for her to repress it.

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I’ve never seen you in one of those before,” she said, indicating his hospital gown. “You look…um…adorable. Can I just say the tailoring leaves a little something to be desired, but nothing to the imagination?”

If anything could’ve persuaded her that he was all but recovered, the annoyance with which he responded was it. “Ah, yes. Thank you, Mrs. Steele. Remind me to return the favor whenever you’ve been similarly humiliated.”

Judging by his reception as she snuggled up to him in the darkness—a tender kiss, his fingers laced with hers again--his indignation was short-lived. To fit the bed’s narrow confines meant lying on her right side with her head on his shoulder. That was just fine with her. It was her favorite position in which to fall asleep.

The combination of his warmth and her exhaustion from the rigors of the day would’ve sent her off immediately. But Remington wanted to talk. “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” he said softly.

“Mm?”

“MGM. Lana Turner, John Garfield, 1946.”

This--the only film annotation he’d offered since the ordeal with Anna had begun—got her attention. Her drowsiness receded slightly.

“A femme fatale and her lover are arrested for murdering her husband, but there’s not enough evidence to convict them,” he was saying. “She’s eventually tried and released. Then, just as they’re making a life together, she’s killed in a car accident. Naturally the police suspect he did it. And therein lies the irony. Even though he’s innocent, he goes to the gas chamber for a crime that never was. In his last moments he recognizes his punishment as divine retribution for the husband’s murder.”

Laura allowed the synopsis to percolate. Granted, her head was a little fuzzy, but still…“That doesn’t sound like much of a parallel to what just happened,” she objected, yawning.

“It’s not the plot that made me think of it. It’s the meaning of the title.”

“What does it mean? I’ve always wondered.”

“Garfield explains it in his final scene with the district attorney. He compares getting away with murder to waiting for the postman to deliver a package. You may be convinced he’s missed you the first time, but wait. The second time never fails to do the trick. The second ring, in other words. You see?”

“Not really.”

He sighed gently. “Look at it like this. Anna murdered Marleau and escaped her punishment. That was the first ring. Yesterday she killed Endicott--”

“—and tonight she paid for both his murder and Marleau’s with her life?”

“Precisely. It was the postman ringing the second time, a summons she couldn’t outrun.” He broke off. “I’d never thought of it before, but it’s another example of Xenos’ old adversary, nemesis.”

“Justice, Mr. Steele,” she corrected him. Yielding to drowsiness, she yawned again. “Two very different things.”

“So they are.” His arm tightened around her; his breath, warm and vital, stirred her hair. “I haven’t thanked you properly for saving my life today, have I?” he whispered.

He hadn’t, not in so many words. But it hardly mattered. She had no doubt that he, the man of deeds, would discover a thousand ways to convey it as their life returned to normal.

One way in particular popped into her head. “I’d much rather you showed me,” she said slyly. “For example, if we were at home, you could--” Into his ear she murmured a description of all the places where he could touch her, and the ways in which he could touch them, much as he had done in his phone calls from the hotel.

He wasn’t in the least discomfited by her directness. Instead he chuckled appreciatively. “All in good time, Mrs. Steele. All in good time.”

By now the pull towards slumber was becoming too strong for Laura to resist; it was a bigger effort to move or speak. His voice seemed to come from an increasingly longer distance away, too. “Off to the land of Nod, are we, me darlin’?” he asked.

“Mm-hm,” she sighed.

“Rest well. You’ve earned it.”

The last thing she felt was his hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up for a good night kiss.

And the last thing she heard was Remington saying as their lips parted: “Ah, Laura. It’s well and truly over this time. She’ll never come between us again.”

Silence fell. The Steeles--undisturbed, inseparable--slept.

TO BE CONTINUED