Free The Death Artist by Jonathan Santlofer Page B

do you know that?”
    “There was an open bag of Colombian coffee on the kitchen counter next to a box of filters and a broken glass percolator on the floor.” Her eyes glowed. “So, Elena makes him coffee–but they never drink it. No dirty coffee cups anywhere–not even the sink.”
    “He cleaned up?”
    “Maybe. Probably. But I also have a feeling it progressed to sex before they got to the coffee.” Kate lifted her glass, but did not drink. “It may have started out consensual, but they never made it to the bedroom. The bed was still made.” She took a breath, seemed to draw strength from it. “Obviously, something went very wrong.” Kate drummed her fingers on the crystal glass. “I’ve got to figure a way to get my hands on the coroner’s report to know if Elena was raped. Don’t you know anyone in the coroner’s office?”
    “Not really.” He frowned. “And then what? I mean, once you get the autopsy, what do you do?”
    “I’m not sure yet. But it will certainly tell me more about what happened.”
    Richard frowned again. “It worries me, you acting the cop again. You’re my wife now. And I love you.”
    “Then be patient, okay?”
    Richard managed to smile.
    Kate smiled, too. But at the same moment her mind was flooded with images: shards of glass around Elena’s feet, the geometric pattern of the bedroom quilt, congealed blood on the kitchen floor. “Hold me, okay?”
    Richard was up fast. He slid an arm over her shoulder, the other around her waist. For a moment, Kate could play the little girl, a role she had to give up too early in life. For a minute, she considered showing him that creepy graduation photo, but no, not now. She didn’t want to ruin the moment.
    Richard’s fingers skipped lightly over the flesh of her arm.
    “If I asked you to make love to me, would you think I was weird? I mean, is it too soon?”
    He grabbed her ass playfully. “Never too soon.”
    “You’re a classy guy, Rothstein.” She hugged him closer. “I think I need to lose myself.” Her words, soft in his ear, were little more than a breath.
    “So let’s get lost.”
    In the bedroom, Kate tapped the music control panel, selected a favorite fifties Motown singer, Barbara Lewis, and sang along with “Hello Stranger” as she tugged her sweater over her head.
    Richard stood. Unhooked his belt. Unzipped, yanked at his pants, which jammed at his cordovan oxfords.
    “I think it’s shoes and socks first, then pants. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
    “Not about this.” Richard laughed, unlaced his oxfords, tossed them to the floor.
    Kate shimmied out of her slacks, lay back against the white cloud of pillows.
    “You look beautiful,” he said, standing above her in boxers and high brown socks.
    “You would, too.” She made a face. “Without the socks.”
    Socks off in a flash, he unhooked her bra even faster, kissed her breasts.
    Barbara Lewis crooned about how long it had been.
    “I agree with Barbara,” said Kate. She gently tugged Richard’s head up toward hers, gazed into his night blue eyes, kissed his lips.
    His tongue moved gently in her mouth.
    She closed her eyes: a blue screen, shimmering purple, then red. Richard’s hand was on her breast, fingers teasing her nipple hard. Now the red went deep plum, congealed in the dark theater of her mind’s eye into long vertical streaks. A flash of light–a photographer’s strobe. Stark white. Kate’s lids twitched open. Richard’s face in close-up: foot-long eyelashes, pores like craters. But his lips lay warm on hers; his tongue still dancing.
    Kate locked her eyelids shut. Blackness. Yes, that’s it, what she wanted. The void. And touch. To feel alive. His hand stroked her thigh, fingers grazed the edge of lace panties, then slid under.
    But now the black had brightened. First umber, then sienna, then to the gray-pink of sickly flesh, which morphed into an arm, a leg, one jutting straight out, another bent; around them, pools