Hidden Riches

horn-rims.” He leaned against the edge of his desk. “Come back, Jed.”
    Jed lowered his eyes to his coffee, slowly lifted them again. “I can’t. Christ, Brent, I’m a mess. Give me a badge right now and I don’t know what I’d do, or who’d pay for it. Last night.” He had to stop. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Somebody’d been in my place, in my things.”
    “You had another break-in over there?”
    Jed shook his head. “This was slick. A couple things out of place, a drawer shut when I’d left it partway open, that kind of thing. I’d been out most of the day. Elaine’s estate, the settlement on her house.” Weary, he kneaded the back of his neck. “After all that, I went and had a drink, I went to a movie. I came home, took one look around and went after Dora.”
    He picked up his coffee again. It was no more bitter than the taste already lodged in his throat. “I mean I went afterher, Brent. Saw the crime, made the collar.” In disgust, he crushed out his cigarette and rose. “I pushed her around.”
    “Christ, Jed.” Stunned, he watched Jed pace the office. “You didn’t—you didn’t hit her?”
    “No.” How could he be offended by the question? Jed wondered. “I scared the hell out of her, though. Scared myself after I pulled it in. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t keep it chilled. I just snapped. I’m not going to take the chance of doing something like that from behind a badge, Brent.” He turned back. “That badge used to mean something to me.”
    “I’ve known you almost ten years. I never once saw you misuse it.”
    “And I don’t intend to. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. Dora didn’t go into my apartment. So who did?”
    “Might have been a return from whoever broke in the other night. Looking for something to lift.”
    “I don’t have a lot in there with me, but there was a couple hundred in cash in the drawer. My thirty-eight. A Sony Walkman. Dora’s place across the hall’s loaded.”
    “What about the security?”
    “I looked it over, couldn’t find anything. This guy’s good, Brent. A pro. It could be a connection to Speck, somebody who wants revenge.”
    “Speck wasn’t the kind to inspire loyalty after death.” But, like Jed, Brent wasn’t willing to dismiss the possibility. “I’m going to do some checking. Why don’t I put a couple of eyes on the building?”
    Normally Jed would have cringed at the thought of protection. Now he merely nodded. “I’d appreciate it. If somebody wants me, I wouldn’t like to have Dora caught in the middle.”
    “Consider it done. So tell me, how are you handling things with Dora?”
    “I apologized.” He snorted, turned to study Brent’s poster of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. “Big fucking deal. I offered to move out, but she didn’t seem to care one way or the other.”He muttered under his breath, but Brent’s ears were keen.
    “What was that? Did you say something about flowers?”
    “I bought her some damn flowers,” Jed snapped. “She won’t even look at them. She sure as hell won’t look at me. Which would be just fine and dandy, except . . .”
    “Except?”
    Jed whirled back, a bleak expression on his face. “Goddamn it, Brent, she’s got me. I don’t know how she did it, but she’s got me. If I don’t have her soon, I’m going to start drooling.”
    “Bad sign,” Brent said with a slow nod. “Drooling’s a very bad sign.”
    “You getting a kick out of this?”
    “Well . . . yeah.” Brent grinned and pushed up his glasses. “A big one, actually. I mean, as I recall, you’ve always been smooth and on top of things—no pun intended—with women. Always figured it was all that high-class breeding. Now you’re standing there with this hook in your mouth. It looks good on you.”
    Jed just glared.
    “So she’s pissed,” Brent continued. “She’ll make you sweat for a little while, beg a little.”
    “I’m not begging. Screw begging.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I’d rather she be angry than frightened.” No, he realized, he didn’t think he could handle having her look at him with fear in her eyes again. “I thought I might pick up some more flowers on the way back.”
    “Maybe you’d better think sparkles, pal. The kind you hang around your neck.”
    “Jewelry? I’m not going to bribe her to forgive me.”
    “What are the flowers for?”
    “Flowers aren’t a bribe.” Amazed that a married man could know so little,