Divine Evil

“You're no better than I am, and never were. Just because you're screwing Clare Kimball for free, you think you've got class?”
    “Leave her out of it.”
    That only made it worse. Fury flared, negating all the carefully applied cosmetics. In that instant she looked exactly like what she was-a slowly aging small-town hooker.
    “Rich bitch Kimball with her fancy car and fancy house. Strange how money makes it all right that her old man was a drunk and a thief. She strolls on back into town, and the ladies cluck all over her with cakes and
    Jell-O molds.”
    “And their husbands come to you.”
    “That's right.” Her smile was small and bitter. “And when Clare Kimball heads back to New York and leaves you dry, they'll still be coming to me. We're the same, you and me, we always have been. You're still Cameron Rafferty from the wrong side of the tracks, and you're as stuck in this stinking town as I am.”
    “There's a difference, Sarah. I came back because I wanted to, not because there was no place else to go.”
    She shrugged off his hands in two edgy moves. She wanted to pay him back, make him suffer. It didn't matterfor what. “Must be handy, wearing that badge right now, when even your mother wonders if you were the one who beat Biff to death.” She watched the heat leap into his eyes and fed off of it. “Won't be long before people start remembering that temper of yours and bad blood.” She smiled again, eyes narrowed. “There are some who are going to want people to remember. You think you know this town, Cam, and all the good, solid citizens in it. But there are things you don't know. Things you couldn't even imagine. Maybe you should ask yourself why Parker picked up and ran. Why he moved his fat, lazy ass out before he even collected his pension.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    She was saying too much. It wouldn't do to let pride or temper push her further. Instead, she walked to the door, put a hand on the knob, then turned back. “We could have been good together, you and me.” She gave him one last look, thinking that with a little help from her, he was already on his way to hell. “You're going to regret it.”
    When the door closed behind her, Cam rubbed his hands over his face. He already regretted it, he thought. Regretted that he hadn't gotten out of the office ten minutes sooner and avoided her altogether. Regretted that he hadn't handled the encounter better. Regretted that he remembered, all too clearly, those nights with her in the woods with the smell of pine and earth and sex.
    She reminded him too well of what he had been at seventeen. What he could still be if he hadn't learned to strap down the more vicious of his impulses-of what he had nearly become again after his partner had been killed and the bottle had seemed the best and easiest answer.
    Absently, he lifted a hand to touch the badge on his shirt. It was a small thing, something-as Clare had once said-he could pick up at any dime store. But it meantsomething to him, something he wasn't sure he could explain even to himself.
    With it, he felt he belonged in the town, to the town, in a way he hadn't since his father had died. Sarah was wrong, he thought. He knew the people here. He understood them.
    But what the hell had she meant with that remark about Parker? Suddenly tired, he rubbed the back of his neck. It wouldn't do any harm to put in a call to Florida. He glanced at the clock again, then picked up his keys.
    He'd do it in the morning-just to satisfy his own curiosity.
    He was too tired, Cam decided as he drove to Clare's, for putting on company manners and socializing with strangers. He would go by, make some excuse, then leave her alone with her friends.
    Sarah's comments were rubbing against him, abrasive as sandpaper. He was stuck here. It might have been through choice, but it didn't change the bottom line. He could never again face living and working in the city, where every time he strapped on his gun or walked into an alley he'd be chased by his partner's ghost. Clare would go back to New York. In a week, a month, six months. He couldn't follow her. He remembered how empty he'd felt when he stood in the cemetery and watched her walk away.
    It scared him right down to the bone.
    Cam pulled up in back of a Jaguar, then stopped by Clare's car to pull out her keys before he walked through the garage to the door leading to the house. Music was blaring-jazz-hot and slick and sophisticated. He