Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

A strong southwest wind was piling up twelve-foot swells. Salt spray made a fine mist that haloed everything, even the streetlights.
    “Nice view,” he said as he always did. Then he added, “Must cost you a bundle.”
    Bliss raised her eyebrows. That comment was new. “I’ll ask my accountant.”
    “Then you have one. Good.”
    “An accountant?”
    Rory turned and faced her. “Yes.”
    Uneasily she crossed her arms over her D-cup chest. He wasn’t smiling. His brown eyes didn’t have the edgy gleam that came when he was deliberately getting in her face. If anything, he looked tired. New lines on his forehead, new gray in his hair, new wrinkles in the clothes covering his lanky body. The veins stood out on the back of his hands as he shrugged off his jacket and dumped it over the back of the nearest chair. His movements were tense.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    “You really out of gin?”
    She looked in his eyes for a long moment and saw what she’d never found in any other man except her father—confidence. All right, arrogance. But in both men, not without cause. In their lifetimes they had accomplished more than most men.
    “Tonic?” she asked.
    “Lime?”
    She nodded.
    “Tonic and rocks,” he said. “Thanks, Blissy. One way or another, it’s been a long day.”
    Her smile was weary, wary, and real. They had a lot of history together. Some of it was good. “Coming up. Sit down and kick off your shoes. Have you eaten dinner?”
    “Not yet.” He sank into a sleek Italian leather chair and began rubbing his face the way he did when he was worn out.
    “Want an omelet to go with the gin?” she asked.
    He looked up suddenly. “Would you cook for me?”
    “Sure.”
    “How’d I let you get away?”
    “You didn’t. I did it all by myself.”
    He smiled faintly. “Oh, yeah. It’s coming back now.”
    Bliss retreated to the kitchen before their brittle, unstated truce could blow up in her face. She didn’t feel like fighting with anyone right now. Even her fiery ex. She was as tired as he was, tired of many things. Most of all, she was tired of being alone.
    Rory listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen, sighed, and toed off his shoes, enjoying the peace while it lasted. With Bliss, it was never long. But then, he was never bored. If he could have found awoman that he wanted more, he’d have married her and written “the end” to the part of his life that had included Bliss. But he hadn’t found anyone and he’d decided he wasn’t going to.
    Whatever Bliss’s faults, he loved her. A lot of the time he even liked her. He sure didn’t want to watch while her father plucked off each of her beautiful feathers and shoved them up her pampered ass.
    She didn’t understand her father. Rory did.
    “You awake?” Bliss asked quietly.
    He opened his eyes. “More or less.”
    “Here,” she said, handing him a glass of ice and mostly gin, just enough tonic to make the lime taste good. “Kill or cure.”
    He took a sip, blinked at the burn, took another sip, and sighed with pleasure. No one made a drink like Bliss. Somehow she knew when to be liberal and when to be light on the booze.
    “Fantastic,” he said, lifting the glass in a silent toast to her. “Want to get married again?”
    She did a double take, laughed hesitantly, and retreated to the kitchen. “Would the aliens who stole the real Rory Turner please bring him back?” she said. “This one is scaring me.”
    “Hey, I wasn’t that bad as a husband, was I?”
    “You want validation or eggs?”
    “Eggs. Want me to make toast?”
    “It’s toasting.”
    “Damn, you’re good.”
    He took another healthy sip of the drink and felt his nerves begin to uncurl. As he did, he thought it was funny how Ward, for all his shrewdness, hadn’t noticed how upset his former son-in-law was. But Bliss, who was rarely shrewd about people, had seen his edginess right off.
    Score a first for Bliss. Maybe getting older really did turn people into adults. Finally.
    “Want to eat there or in the kitchen?” she called.
    “Kitchen.”
    He stood and walked in his stocking feet to the cool tile floor in the kitchen. There was nothing awkward or slow about his movements. One of the things he had done as sheriff of Moreno County for the past fifteen years was to get rid of the doughnut-gut brigade. Any man—orwoman—who wanted to rise under his command was as fit as their fifty-four-year-old boss was.
    He slid into a chair whose