82 Desire

but she could watch his fingers when he typed it in. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was all she had.
    That depressed her so much she thought of getting off the bus, crossing the street, and taking another one headed for home.
    But, as she was still ambivalent, she kept going.
    Everyone was cheerful at United Oil. Evidently not having guilty consciences, they had slept better than she had. Rochelle was still pregnant, Favret still flirtatious, everything normal. Except that Robert Tyson had called in sick.
    Damn, damn, damn. Why the hell hadn’t she dealt with this yesterday?
    Well, it wasn’t a big deal. She had time. Back when she was working for Allred, most of the time she’d been at United, all she’d done was install software. She had to work out the week anyway, in order not to draw attention to herself.
    She just wouldn’t think about it for a while. That ought to be easy enough.
    ***
    “So how’re you doin’, kid?” Abasolo put a hand on Skip’s shoulder and paused only a second before sitting down on her desk.
    “Your management style is sure different from Cappello’s.”
    “Oh? How so?”
    “You’re kind of hands-on.”
    “Oh, God. You’re not gonna scream sexual harassment, are you?”
    She chuckled. The remark would have been half-serious coming from some of the bozos around here, but she and Abasolo had been through far too much together. He was just messing around. “How about plain no-frills harassment?”
    He looked hurt. “I thought you liked going over cases. We used to do it all the time.”
    “Oh, hell, AA. I guess I’m being defensive because I’m not used to having you as my sergeant yet. Yeah, let’s talk about the case. If you’ve got a minute.”
    A smile of such genuine pleasure spread across his features that she made an inner vow to try to get back to the old relationship—clearly, he was willing. “I’m trying to get into Russell’s head—I mean, he might be dead, but the events leading up to his murder still might be relevant, right? It didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
    He was lanky as a cowboy, draped on that desk like he was, handcuffs hanging from his belt, reminding her inanely of balls. Far from judgmental, he looked eager. He nodded. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”
    “Random thoughts, that’s about all. You have time for this?”
    “Sure.”
    “Okay, he was in this amazing sailing accident about two years ago—it was five days before he was rescued. Shortly after that, his mother died. Matter of fact, you know where Cindy Lou met him? At a workshop she was teaching—on dealing with grief.”
    “What! That doesn’t sound right.”
    “Why not? Think he picked her up in a bar?”
    “Oh, the part about Cindy Lou’s perfectly plausible. Anybody would go for her.” (Skip had always suspected he had a soft spot for Lou-Lou.) “I just don’t see a hotshot executive going to some touchy-feely thing.”
    “Kind of a discordant note, isn’t it? Well, a few people say he was different after the sailing ordeal. Maybe—I don’t know—maybe he questioned the meaning of life or something. Oooh, now that’s good. He has some sort of religious experience on the boat, his mother dies and he feels hopeless, his father dies, and he decides to cash it all in.”
    “You mean suicide?”
    She considered. “Could be. But that wasn’t really what I was thinking of. I mean, what if he was just fed up with his life and decided to get a new one?”
    “There’s no body. It’s not a bad bet. But for the sake of argument, what about Bebe and the daughter—what’s-her-name?”
    “Eugenie. Well, we already know about Bebe—maybe he knew about her affair with LaBarre.”
    “Plausible.”
    “So he tries that little thing with Cindy Lou, it doesn’t work—”
    “What do you mean, it doesn’t work?”
    “Girl-talk. Evidently it didn’t work.”
    An odd expression crossed Abasolo’s movie-star features—something like a wince. “I don’t really need the details.”
    Skip shrugged. “Well, you asked.” She was keeping it casual to save his feelings, but she could tell he had it bad for the psychologist. She and Lou-Lou had talked about him—Lou-Lou said he was way too decent a fellow for her. With her fabled bad taste in men, it was undoubtedly true, but Skip wondered if there wasn’t more than that at work here—Abasolo was an Italian macho Southern cop. Guys like that just didn’t date black women. Period.
    His loss , she thought, and had