“I suppose a person would remember something like that.” She sighed. “It’s sounding less and less like Lucas Monroe sent the photos. But if he didn’t, who did?”

“I don’t know. And we don’t know that he isn’t in some kind of partnership with whoever sent these. Give me a few days to try to find him.”

“You’re going to go looking through the skid row area alone?”

“Oh no, not alone. I’ve got an excellent partner in mind.”

12

YOU’VE GOTa really great ass.”

“So you’ve told me,” he said.

I sighed. “Ah, the bloom is already off the newlywed rose. I tell him he has a great ass-”

“Areally great ass,” he corrected.

“A really great ass, and he just acts bored.”

“Hmm. A little more to the left.”

I moved my hands to the right.

He peered over his shoulder, smiled at me. “Okay, okay. I apologize.” He didn’t mean it.

I was giving Frank a back massage, trying to get him to relax a little before I told him my plans. Running my hands over his muscles, I was having trouble concentrating on what those plans were. I moved to the left, gently working out the tension.

“Hmm. Yeah, right there,” he said. “Oh God, yes! Yes, yes!”

“No need to overdo it, Frank.”

I felt him shaking beneath me. There was a little snort into his pillow. I slapped that ass I was so fond of and climbed out of bed.

“Ouch. Hey, where are you going?” he asked. For all his size, he can move like lightning; before I was out of reach, he had pulled me back into bed.

“To find Cody. Hepurrs when I rub him.”

“Hmm. But Cody doesn’t know that you’re hatching some scheme.”

Busted. Well, hell.

“You’re turning red. Does that mean I’m right?”

“Yes, Frank. Feel free to gloat a little more.”

He didn’t, just rested his chin on top of my head, rubbed his hand along my neck. “Nothing to gloat over,” he said after a moment. “I just did something really stupid. Only a fool would have interrupted a backrub like that. I should have at least collected my bribe.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, let’s see. The glass of my favorite scotch? The one you handed me as I walked in the door? That raised suspicions. The dinner you cooked when it was my night to cook? Made me a little more suspicious, but you were smart, you didn’t push it too far-no candlelight, no music playing in the background. Just a nice dinner together. Spaghetti. Not even one of my favorite pasta dishes.”

“Didn’t have time to run to the store,” I admitted.

“Hmm.” He kept rubbing my back and neck.

“So the massage must have been a real tip-off.”

“I knew before then.”

“How?” I said, looking up at him in disbelief.

“You’re upset about something. At first, I thought it was the funeral. Funerals upset you. I understand that; they upset me, too. But you’re not acting like you’ve been to a funeral. You’re hyper-tense. That doesn’t make any sense. You’re distracted.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pasta? Overcooked. The queen of al dente made soft spaghetti tonight. Cody chases Deke and Dunk around the house, you don’t even come to the dogs’ rescue.”

“Oh.”

“Shall I go on?”

“No thanks.”

“What’s on your mind, Irene?”

When I didn’t answer, he said softly, “Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

So I did, only I think the day changed as I talked to him. Feelings I had set aside to concentrate on one problem or another throughout the day took their place in the order of things. The remembered horror of seeing Ben Watterson in that shower; my concern for Claire; my fears for Lucas; my guilt over my nastiness with Roberta.

So by the time I got around to the part about my plan to ask Rachel to help me search for Lucas, I should have felt drained, I suppose. But oddly, I just felt better.

“It’s a good idea,” he said.

“What? Forgive me for saying this, Frank, but I expected a lot of objections.”

“You would go looking for Lucas anyway, right?”

“Yes.”

“See, I’m learning. But maybe you are, too. Taking Rachel with you is a good idea. She’ll provide good protection,” he said, and absently rubbed at his shoulder. I knew he was thinking of a recent hard throw to the mat she had given him in a martial arts workout, but he didn’t say anything. “She’s a hell of a shot,” he added.

He was being generous. She didn’t stand a chance against him on a firing range. She had told me as much herself. They had gone to the firing range the day after the throw to the mat. His idea, I believe.

“She didn’t get to where she was in Phoenix by being careless,” he added. I think he had convinced himself. He paused, then laughed. “Pete is going to have a fit. Let’s get dressed and have them over for a drink.”

“NO WAY,” Pete said, pacing our living room, then stopping to point a finger at me. “No effing way are the two of you going to do this.”

I looked over to Frank, who sat quietly in my grandfather’s old armchair, drinking a glass of merlot, acting as if his partner hadn’t said a word. The dogs lay on the floor in front of the fireplace, watching Pete intently, ready to come to my defense if need be. Cody, my cat, was curled up next to Frank’s dog, Dunk, getting the benefit of fur on one side and fire on the other, and faking sleep-his ears pivoted once in a while, giving him away.

Not long after Pete and Rachel arrived, I told Rachel my plan to enlist her help in finding Lucas. As predicted, Pete had gone nuts.

“Rachel, tell her no,” he pleaded.

“I already told her yes,” Rachel said. “Since people who live in cardboard boxes seldom have private attorneys, I’m down in the skid row district all the time now.”

This was part of my reason for asking Rachel if I could hire her help. She had retired from the Phoenix Police Department after twenty years’ service; at forty-two, she was still young enough to work elsewhere. Elsewhere had turned out to be Las Piernas, where she moved when she married Pete. She got a private investigator’s license, and part of her income now came from doing contract work as an investigator for the public defender’s office. This irritated Pete on two counts: first, because she was “working for the other side,” as he saw it, and second, because Frank had helped her find the job.

“Skid row is no place for a woman to be,” he moaned.

“You’ve got a real problem, you know that?” Rachel said. “What’d you think I was going to do? I told you I was going to keep working.”

“I know! I know! But did you have to go from being a cop to being a-a-Christ! I hate to say it!”

“An investigator for the public defender. Oh, how awful. Better I should be home making raviolis for you,caro?”

Apparently, she would have stuffed them with sarcasm.

“There’s no shame in being a homemaker,” he snapped.

“No. And there’s no shame in what I’m doing, either.”

I noticed Frank’s glass of wine was empty. I reached over to refill it. He smiled his thanks and stroked a finger along my forearm. Newlywed gesture. I had been wrong about that earlier.

“Pete,” Frank said in that quiet way of his, the tone that Pete seems to hear better than a shout.

“What?” Pete said, lowering his own voice.

“You can’t win this one.”

Pete made a face and wrung his hands together, but sat down. The dogs relaxed. We managed to get along peaceably through the rest of the evening.

“See you early tomorrow morning,” Rachel said as they left. “If Lucas is a wino, he’s probably hanging out with other winos. Early in the day, his old friends may be hungover, but probably at least half-sober. We’ll try to get to them before they’ve panhandled enough cash to get too far along in the day’s drinking.”

“WE START THE NEXT ROUND HERE.”