Free Skinny-dipping by Claire Matturro Page B

babies to puppies.
    Bonita sighed and left my office, leaving the door cracked.
    Technically I was supposed to be doing the final edits on an appellate brief, but my mind wandered back to Dr. Trusdale and my mugging and Sam and Newly and just about everything except the appellate brief. So when Bonita knocked on my door and asked if I had a minute for Detective Santuri, I was actually glad.
    â€œTwice in one day,” I said, smiling, as he walked into my office.
    He nodded, which I assumed was Strong-and-Silent for hello.
    â€œLet’s go outside,” he said.
    â€œSure.” I was game and led him out the back door by my office.
    â€œThis is where you were mugged, isn’t it?” he asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid you know the code on the lock was changed the day before you were mugged?”
    Lock codes, I thought, trying to remember but mostly noticing the way the sun lit up his chocolate eyes. “Yeah, sure. We changed it after we fired one of the bookkeepers.”
    â€œDid you already know the new code, or did you have it written down, have to get it out of your purse?”
    â€œNo, I knew the code. I memorize numbers easily.”
    â€œTalk me through the mugging again,” he ordered.
    I complied. Leaving out, I realized, that I’d stomped on the mugger’s foot and then screamed. “Did I mention I fought back?” I didn’t want Sam thinking I was a sissy.
    â€œYes. You struggled, you said. But walk me through it again.”
    My not-so-latent fondness for theatrics—another fine trait for a trial attorney—came out as I acted out the stomping, the scream, and the knock upside the head.
    â€œHe hit you when you screamed?”
    â€œYes. With something hard. In his hand.”
    â€œYou didn’t mention this before.”
    An accusation from Sam? That I was making it up? Or not cooperating by leaving out details?
    The best defense is a good offense is a trial strategy I had frequently followed to mixed results but still favored. So I said, sounding, even to myself, a bit snippy, “I did too.”
    â€œNot to me.” Very sure of himself, I saw.
    Dodge on my part. “Why is that possibly relevant?”
    â€œI’ll show you. Where did the mugger come from?”
    â€œBeats me,” I said. Thin air? Hell? The karma of a misspent adolescence?
    â€œYou walked through the alley, right?” Sam nodded toward the alley beside the law firm.
    I nodded.
    â€œSo you would have noticed somebody in the alley?”
    â€œOne would hope,” I offered, unsure.
    â€œYou would have seen him if he’d been standing here, by the door?”
    â€œOne would think so, yes.”
    â€œSo he must have been here, behind the stairs.” Sam pointed to the stairs that led to the door on the second floor, the stairs used primarily by the smokers as a hangout during the workday, where they inhaled carcinogenics and avoided work.
    â€œSo,” Sam said, “it must have been like this.”
    With the “this,” Sam turned me toward the door, positioned my right hand on the lock, stepped back by the stairs, then advanced on me, put his arm around my neck and lightly tugged, pulling me closer against him.
    Hmm, I thought, feeling his body heat through our clothes, this is kind of nice.
    â€œHad you already punched in the access code?” he asked.
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œWas the door opened?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He still had his arm around my neck, though this seemed unnecessary by now. I inhaled, and he pressed up against me, his chest coming neatly and tightly up against my back.
    I held my breath. He dipped his face into my hair.
    â€œGardenias,” he said, and sighed, and paused. “Now, scream. Like you did that night with the mugger.”
    Wondering if this might be some kind of turn-on for Sam, I faked a modest scream and his left hand came up with the speed of a demon and clamped over