Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

mouth.
    He’d moved so fast, I hadn’t even noticed, just found myself engulfed. In lips. In passion like I remembered from a long time before, but had almost forgotten about.

CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    “Get out of here! This is not your home, get out!”
    “This
is
my home, goddammit! I paid for it so you could pursue that hobby you call a career.”
    “Hobby! For your precious Sadie, it was a religious vocation, for me it’s a hobby, you fucking hypocrite!”
    The female voice was Marty’s, and the male one Don’s. I glanced quickly at my bedside clock—almost nine-fifteen, which didn’t surprise me. I’d been up past one the night before. What did surprise me was the presence of either half of this morning comedy team, especially Marty. Don must have arrived home from his business trip. But why the hell had the police let Marty out? Had they arrested someone else? Someone they suspected of having killed Katy Montebello as well as Sadie?
    I rubbed my eyes, thinking to throw on clothes, race downstairs, and demand to know what was going on. But then it occurred to me that wouldn’t be tactful. Also that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too embarrassed, I told myself. And, more to the point, far too curious.
    “Would you shut up? You’re going to wake the children.”
    “I thought you came to get the children.”
    “I didn’t plan to terrify them, however.”
    “Goddammit, you started this, not me!”
    “You’re the one who ordered me out of my own goddamn house!”
    “A house that you left to go live with your floozy.”
    I held my breath. There was real potential for violence here.
    Instead of the crack of fist on soft flesh that I half expected, there was silence, silence for so long, I was puzzled. And then I came bolt upright as the truth of it hit me:
Omigod
,
he's choking her
! I threw off the covers and was halfway out the door when I heard a sob, a deep, masculine sob that sounded as if it had been held in far too long.
    “Oh, Marty, I can’t believe she’s dead!”
    Marty said, “Oh, Don!” as concerned as if he were a younger Keil with a skinned knee, and I pictured her opening her arms to him.
    I thought briefly that it was no wonder that Dr. Freud had been puzzled by women, because so was I, and I was one. The hell of it was I was also thinking that, much as I hated to admit it, I might have done the same thing. But it occurred to me that Marty and I were two very different creatures. I might have put my anger and hurt aside because I’m a sucker for birds with broken wings. (This doesn’t mean I’m a suffering angel—I know perfectly well that’s probably more about power than compassion, but it’s still wimp behavior, and I do it because I can’t help it.) Marty, on the other hand, always had an angle. What was it this time?
    I got dressed slowly, listening to Don’s sobs, now genuinely more embarrassed than curious. I didn’t want to be a fly on this particular wall, and I was sure Keil, Libby, and Ava didn’t either (well, Keil and Libby anyway).
    Finally Marty said, “I’m sorry I called her a floozy.”
    “You were upset.”
    “Leave the kids with me, Don. I’ve just spent two days in jail.”
    “Leave the kids with you?”
    “Please, Don.”
    “Rebecca’s here, isn’t she? And your mother? Marty, I’m all alone. I’ve just lost Sadie—I need something. I’ve been flying for two days—”
    “Flying! I’ve been in
jail
!”
    “Jail!” I could tell it hadn’t sunk in the first time she said it. “For what?”
    “For killing your little girlfriend, asshole. As if I cared who you’re fucking. As if I weren’t
thrilled
to get rid of you.”
    Don said, “
Did
you kill her?” in an utterly bewildered tone of voice, as if the thought had just occurred to him, and as if he considered it very possible indeed.
    “Did I kill her! No, I didn’t kill her. I was framed, goddammit. They let me go when they got the autopsy report. She was dead before she was stabbed—stabbed in the eye with my letter opener, by the way. The letter opener you gave me.”
    “Oooohhh.” It was a loud, masculine moan—Don’s—but it was followed quickly by a scream of distress from Libby’s room.
    “Mommy, shut up! Shut up!”
    I heard the sound of small racing feet on the stairs. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
    Libby must have catapulted into his arms. I heard restless sounds from Keil’s room and knew that his pride wouldn’t allow him to do what Libby had