Homeport

moved over him, exploring, testing, arousing. As breath thickened and the sun grew strong, he slipped inside her.
    A slow and steady rhythm, savoring, prolonging. Belonging. She rose and fell with him, making the climb, twined with him as they reached the top, holding tight when they trembled there. Falling with him was like drifting out of the clouds.
    Then he shifted his weight, drew her against his side, buried his face in her hair.

    “I still like your moves, Andrew.” She sighed against his shoulder. “I really like your moves.”
    He felt whole again, healed. “I like your tattoo, Annie. I really like your tattoo.”
    She winced. “Oh God, I forgot about it.”
    “I’m never going to look at a butterfly in quite the same way again.” When she laughed and lifted her face, he continued to smile. “It’s taken me a long time to figure out what I need, what makes me happy. Give me a chance to make you happy. I want to build a life and a family with you.”
    “We both really screwed up the first time.”
    “We weren’t ready.”
    “No.” She touched his face. “It feels like we are now.”
    “Belong to me.” He pressed a kiss into her palm. “Let me belong to you. Will you, Annie?”
    “Yes.” She laid her hand over his heart. “Yes, Andrew. I will.”
     
    Ryan stood in Miranda’s office, trying to picture it. Oh, he could still imagine clearly enough the way it had looked the night before. Such things plant themselves on the brain and are rarely rooted out even with great effort.
    There was a nasty stain on the carpet, the windows were smeared, and the dust from the crime scene investigation coated every surface.
    How far would the bullet have propelled Richard’s body? he wondered. How close to each other had he and his killer been standing? Close enough, he thought, for the bullets to have left powder burns on the tuxedo shirt. Close enough for Hawthorne to have looked into his murderer’s eyes and have seen his death there.
    Ryan was damn sure of that.
    He stepped back, moved to the doorway, scanned the room.
    Desk, chairs, window, the lamp that had been switched on. Counter, file cabinets. He could see it all.
    “You shouldn’t be in here, Mr. Boldari.”
    “They’ve taken the tape down,” Ryan said without turning. “It seems the investigators got all they could from this area.”
    “Better we keep it closed off a while yet.” Cook waited until Ryan moved out of the doorway, then shut the door. “No need to have Dr. Jones see all that again, is there?”
    “No, no need at all.”
    “But you wanted to see it again.”
    “I wanted to see if I could get it all clear in my mind.”
    “And have you?”
    “Not entirely. There doesn’t appear to be any sign of a struggle, does there, Detective?”
    “No. Everything tidy—but for the desk.”
    “The victim and his killer would have been standing about as close as you and I are just now. Wouldn’t you say?”
    “Give or take a few inches. Yeah, he knew who pulled the trigger, Boldari. You’d met him, hadn’t you?”
    “Briefly, when he arrived Friday, and again on the night he died.”
    “Never met him before that?”
    “No, I hadn’t.”
    “I wondered about that, seeing as you’re in art, he was in art.”
    “There are a great many people in various areas of the business I haven’t met.”
    “Yeah, but you know, it’s a small world. You move around this place pretty tame.”
    “As do you,” Ryan murmured. “Do you think I came up here last night and put two bullets into Richard Hawthorne?”
    “No, I don’t. We’ve got several witnesses who put you downstairs when the shots were fired.”
    Ryan leaned back against the wall. His skin felt sticky, as if some of the nastiness in the next room had clung to him. “Lucky for me I’m a sociable guy.”
    “Yeah—of course a few of those people are related to you, but there were those who weren’t. So I figure you’re clear. Nobody can seem to say where Dr. Jones, Dr. Miranda Jones, was during the time in question.”

    Ryan came off the wall quickly, almost violently, before he controlled it. But the move had caused Cook’s eyes to flicker. “You two have gotten very friendly.”
    “Friendly enough that I know Miranda’s the last person who could kill.”
    Idly, Cook took out a stick of gum, offered it, then unwrapped it for himself when Ryan only continued to stare at him. “It’s funny what people can do with the right motivation.”
    “And hers