Hidden Riches

eyes held his now, very sober and sympathetic. “I wasn’t cut out to be an actor, so I made a choice that my family didn’t agree with, but that I knew, inside, was right for me. You’re a cop right down to the bone. You justneed to wait until you’re ready to admit you made the right choice in the first place.”
    He snagged her arm before she could walk again. “Do you know why I left?” His eyes weren’t angry now, but dark and blank and, to Dora, frightening because of the emptiness of emotion. “I didn’t have to kill Speck. There were other ways to bring him down, but I ignored them. I pushed the situation to the point where I knew one of us would die. It turned out to be him. I got a fucking commendation for it, even though I could have brought him in without firing a shot. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it exactly the same way.”
    “You made a choice,” she said carefully. “I imagine most people would consider it the right one—your superiors obviously did.”
    Impatience vibrated from him. “It’s what I consider that counts. I used my badge for personal revenge. Not for the law, not for justice. For myself.”
    “A human frailty,” she murmured. “I bet you’ve had a hell of a time adjusting to the fact that you’re not perfect. Now that you have, you’ll probably be a better cop when you put that badge back on.”
    He tightened his grip on her arm, yanked her forward an inch. When her chin angled up, he eased off but kept her still. “Why are you doing this?”
    For an answer, the very simplest answer, she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers. She tasted that impatience in the kiss, but there was something else twined with it. The something else was need—deep and human.
    “There’s that,” she said after a moment. “And I guess we’d have to say that despite what I’ve always considered my good common sense, I care about you, too.” She watched him open his mouth, close it again. “Take responsibility for that, Skimmerhorn.”
    Turning away, she walked the few steps to the car, then pulled out his keys. “I’m driving.”
    He waited until she’d unlocked the passenger door and had scooted over to the wheel. “Conroy?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Same goes.”
    Her lips curved as she gunned the engine. “That’s good. What do you say, Skimmerhorn? Let’s go for a ride.”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
    F inley’s home was a museum to his ambitions, small and large. Originally built by a director of action films whose love of elaborate construction had soon outreached both his means and his skills, it was tucked high in the hills over Los Angeles.
    Finley had purchased it during a flat period in the market, and had immediately set about installing a more elaborate security system, an indoor lap pool for those rare rainy days and a high stone wall that surrounded the property like a moat around a castle.
    Finley was a voyeur, but he objected to being watched.
    In the third-floor tower, he revamped the director’s lofty screening room, adding a bank of television monitors and a high-powered telescope. Gone were the wide, reclining chairs. In their place, Finley had chosen a large, plush conversation pit in maroon velvet. He often entertainedthere, while home movies, starring himself, flickered on the screen.
    Naturally he had hired decorators. He had gone through three companies during the six months it had taken him to furnish the house to his satisfaction.
    The walls in every room were white. Some were painted, some lacquered, some papered, but all were in pure, virginal white, as were the carpet, the tiles, the bleached wood flooring. All the color came from his treasures—the figurines, the sculptures, the trinkets he had accumulated.
    In room after room there were acres of glass—in windows, in mirrors, in cabinets, in breakfronts—and miles of silks in the drapes and upholstery, pillows, tapestries.
    Every table, every shelf, every niche, held some masterpiece he had hungered for. When one began to bore him, as they always did, Finley shifted it to a less prominent position and set about acquiring more.
    He was never satisfied.
    In his closet, rows of suits were three deep. Wool and silk, linen and gabardine. All conservatively tailored, all in deep colors: navy, black, grays and a few more frivolous medium blues. There were no casual clothes, no sport jackets, no natty shirts with little polo players on the breast.
    Fifty pairs of black