Free The Kill Clause by Gregg Hurwitz Page B

detectives on it aren’t…” He stopped again, unable to meet Tannino’s eyes.
    “We can’t put this office’s resources on the line for a personal case, Rackley. That’s not how we play. You know better than to ask that.”
    Tim’s face reddened. “Yes. I do. I’m sorry.” He slid off the table. “I’m okay to go?”
    “I’d like to buy you a little more time from the media. Three dead, a public shooting—it’s gonna be a circus. We’ll have to do things very methodically.” He looked at Tim as if unsure he was registering this. “Plus, your FLEOA lawyer is on his way over. He’ll help you with your statement, make sure you’re all lined out.”
    “Okay,” Tim said. “Thanks.”
    “I’m sorry about this crap. This is just the way things go down these days. But we’ll cover all our bases. You can’t turn a bad shooting into a good shooting, but you can turn a good shooting into a bad one.”
    “It was a good shooting.”
    “Then let’s make sure it stays that way.”
     
    •Dray was curled up on the couch in the gloom of the living room when Tim returned. The blinds were drawn, as they’d been when Tim had left that morning, and he wondered if she’d bothered to open them all day. She was wearing ripped jeans and a sweatshirt from the academy and looked as though she hadn’t gotten around to a shower. At arm’s length from her repose sat a half-eaten bowl of cereal, beside two empty Coke cans that had been knocked over.
    It was too dark for Tim to see whether she was asleep, though he sensed she wasn’t. He checked the clock on the VCR: almost eleven. “Sorry I’m so late. I got—”
    “I know. I watched the news. I thought you might’ve been able to find a phone.”
    “Not the way things went.”
    With effort Dray propped herself up on her elbows, her face rising into visibility. “How’d it go down?”
    He told her. A thoughtful frown appeared on her face halfway through.
    “Come here,” she said when he was done. He crossed to her, and she made room on the couch between her legs. He sat, leaning against her, her body sleep-warm and firm. She’d been working her triceps last month, and they stood out like prongs on the backs of her arms. She played with his hair. She pressed his head to her chest, and he let her. As he relinquished control, it became clear how much he’d retreated into protective rigidity to drag himself through the past few days. He lay back, breathing Dray in, relishing her touch.
    After a few minutes he turned and kissed her. They broke apart, hesitated, then kissed again.
    Dray brushed his bangs back from his forehead, running a finger over the thin scar at his scalp line where he’d been struck by a rifle butt outside of Kandahar. He kept his hair combed down on the right side to hide it; Dray alone could study it without making him uncomfortable. “Maybe we could, I don’t know, go back to the bedroom,” she said.
    “Are you hitting on me?”
    “I think so.”
    Tim stood and leaned over her, sliding his hands under her knees and shoulders. She let out an anomalous giggle and looped her arms around his neck. He exaggerated his trouble picking her up, groaned, and dropped her back on the couch. “You’re gonna have to lay off the weights.”
    He’d intended it as a joke, but it came out sharply. Her smile dimmed, and he felt his insult bank and come back a vicious self-loathing. He crouched and cupped her face with both his hands, letting her read the remorse in his eyes.
    “Come with me,” he said.
    She stood, and they regarded each other. They hadn’t made love since Ginny was killed. Though it had been only six days, the fact hung disproportionately heavy between them. Maybe they were punishing themselves, denying themselves intimacy, or maybe they feared the closeness itself.
    Tim felt first-date nervous, and he thought how odd to be so fragile at his age, in his house, with his wife. She was breathing hard, her neck sparkling with