be discreet. Still…” He motioned me toward a hallway. It was narrow and poorly lit. Three doors lined the wall on the right. One stood open. Inside, piles of paper were stacked on the desk. “I realize now that I was wrong to ask,” he admitted, and motioned to a green plastic chair. “To put you in such a position. I know how you feel about my son.”
Well, I thought, surveying the room, that would put him way ahead of me.
“I'd like to apologize, too,” I said, and, smoothing my apple-green shift against the back of my thighs, classify took the proffered seat. He closed the door and sat in the chair across the desk from me. “I didn't mean to call you a liar. Especially in front of your son. It's just that… he and I… we've had enough trouble between us without added fabrications.” That's what I like to call lying if the lies are propagated by me. “But I'm afraid I may have only made things worse.”
He scowled, looking concerned. “What do you mean?”
“He was obviously a bit… upset.” That's what I like to call rabid when referring to someone I had recently considered screwing. “When he left.”
The senator leaned back a little. “But surely you've spoken to him since.”
I didn't reply but studied the endless piles of paper.
He stared at me a moment, appalled, then shook his head. “My son, he is a stubborn man.”
“Really?” I tugged my attention back to him and gave him my first-string smile. “I hadn't noticed.”
He looked startled for a second, then laughed. “Perhaps love makes you blind, yes?”
“I—” My mouth opened but nothing else came out, and he laughed again.
“Give him time. He will call. He thinks a great deal of you.”
“Does he?” I didn't mean to sound pathetic. But sometimes … well, I'm pathetic.
“Christina,” he said, tone soothing. “Surely you do not doubt that.”
“Uhh…”
“Have you not looked in the mirror?”
I remembered seeing myself in the microwave that night and stifled a shudder. “No more than necessary.”
He shook his head. “Could it be that you truly do not realize how attractive you are?”
I was sure I should think of some snappy comeback to that, but nothing came to mind.
Nevertheless, he smiled, warm and toasty “I am truly sorry to cause trouble between the two of you.”
I shrugged, determined not to act like a weak-kneedninny. “About Kathleen Baltimore,” I said. “Why didn't you tell me the police determined her death was an accident?”
He sighed and sat back, studying me. “Sometimes the police are wrong, Christina.” His eyes grew intense, thoughtful. “I simply wish to ascertain that this is not one of those times.”
I watched him, trying to read his expression, his body language. “You believe she was murdered,” I said.
“That is what I had hoped to find out.”
“Because you believe Jack, a Los Angeles police officer, might somehow become involved with an accidental death that took place in another city.” My tone might have reflected my skepticism, because he drew a deep breath and pursed his lips, studying me for a moment.
“Christina,” he began, and suddenly his eyes were filled with parental zeal. “I realize that, being as of yet childless yourself, you cannot fully understand the agony and ecstasy of bringing children into this world. But as a father, I feel it is my—”
“Senator,” I said. He stopped, brows raised. “Let's try the truth,” I suggested. “Just this once.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a nod. “My apologies again,” he said. “At times your beauty causes me to underestimate you.”
Perhaps Rivera wasn't
too crazy
for thinking his father was propositioning me. But more likely the senator treated every woman like she was a sex bomb about to explode. “How did you know her?” I asked, taking a stab in the dark.
He looked surprised at my attack. “As I told you earlier,I had a dream and simply wanted to make certain her death
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