Hauck had gone out for an evening run around the cove. He’d sat at home for a couple of days, and still he hadn’t heard from Karen. The night was hot, sticky. The cicadas were buzzing. Finally he just had to calm the frustration that was bursting in his chest.

He knew it wasn’t right to push. He knew how hard this had to be for her, to face her husband. It would be like a part of Norah suddenly brought up for him again. Ripping open wounds that hadn’t healed. He wasn’t sure whether to wait and see if she still wanted to find Charles. Or now that she knew the truth—at least parts of it—to simply pack it in. Bring what they’d found into Fitzpatrick.

He’d have to reopen the case. AJ Raymond’s hit-and-run.

That’s what had started him on it in the first place, right?

To his surprise, as he headed back down Euclid toward his house, he spotted the familiar Lexus parked on the street. Karen sitting on his front stairs. When he came to a stop, she stood up.

A slightly awkward smile. “Hey…”

She was dressed in a fitted black shirt worn out over nice jeans, her caramel hair a little messy, a chunky, quartzlike bracelet dangling loosely from her wrist. It was a warm summer night. She looked great to him.

“I’m sorry to barge in,” she said, a look that was almost forlorn, little-girl-ish, coming through on her face. “I just needed to talk to someone. I took a chance.”

Hauck shook his head. “You’re not barging in.”

He walked her up the steps and unlocked the door. He grabbed a towel off the kitchen counter and wiped down his face. He asked if she wanted a beer from the fridge.

“No. Thanks.”

Karen was like a bundle of nerves, and she walked around like she was holding something deep inside. She went up to the easel by the window. He followed her over, taking a seat on the stool.

“I didn’t know you paint.”

Hauck shrugged. “You better look at it closely before you use that word.”

She stepped up to the easel. So close that Hauck could smell her scent—sweet, blossomy—his pulse climbing. He held back the urge to touch her.

“It’s nice,” she said. “You’re always full of surprises, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

“That’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about it.” He smiled.

“You probably cook, too. I bet you—”

“Karen…” He had never seen her so wound up. He swiveled around and went to grab her arm.

She pulled away.

“It was him,” she said. Her eyes were liquid, angry, almost glaring at him. “He answered me. It took three days. I had to write him twice.” She put a hand to the back of her neck. “I didn’t know what to say to him, Ty. What the hell could I say? ‘I know it’s you, Charles. Please answer me’? Finally he did.”

“What did he say?”

“What did he say?” She sniffed, blew out a derisive blast of air. “He said ‘Hello, baby.’”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, hurt. “That was all.” She took a few steps around, as if she were holding back some torrent, checking out the view of the cove off the deck. She went over to a console against the wall. He kept a couple of pictures on it. She picked them up, one by one. A shot of the two girls when they were babies. He saw her staring at it. Another of Hauck’s boat, the Merrily.

“Yours?”

“Mine.” Hauck nodded. He stood up. “Not exactly like the sultan of Brunei’s, but Jessie likes it. In the summer we go up to Newington or out to Shelter Island. Fish. When the weather’s nice, I’ve been known to—”

“You do it all, don’t you, Ty?” Her eyes were ablaze, flashing at him. “You’re what they call a good man.”

Hauck wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. Karen compressed her lips tightly, ran a hand through her tousled hair. It was like she was ready to explode.

He stepped forward. “Karen…”

“‘ Hello, baby,’” she said again, her voice cracking. “That’s all he fucking said to me, Ty. Like, ‘What have you been up to, hon? Anything new with the kids?’ It was Charles! The man I buried. The man I slept next to for eighteen years! ‘Hello, baby.’ What the hell do I say to him now, Ty? What the hell happens now?”

Hauck went to her and took her in his arms. This time as he had always dreamed of holding her tightly, pressing her close to his chest, hard. His blood almost burst out of his veins.

At first she tried to pull away, anger coursing. Then she let him, tears smearing on his shirt, her hair honey-scented and disarrayed, her breasts full against his chest.

He kissed her. Karen didn’t resist. Instead she parted her lips in response, her tongue seeming just as eager to seek out his, something beyond their control taking hold of them, her scent deep in his nostrils—an intoxication, something sweet, jasmine—driving him wild.

His hand traveled down the curve of her back, his fingers crawling underneath the belt on her jeans. Arousing him. He drew it back, her blouse loose, finding the warmth of the exposed flesh of her belly, drew it past the breathless sigh of her breasts, and cupped her face in his hands.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said.

“I can’t.” Karen looked at him, tears glistening off her cheeks. “I can’t be there alone.”

He kissed her again. This time their tongues lingered in a sweet, slow dance. “I just can’t….”

Hauck wiped the tears off her face. “You don’t have to,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Then he picked her up in his arms.

THEY MADE LOVE in the bedroom.

Slowly, he unbuttoned her shirt, ran his hands over the black lace of her bra, tenderly down to her groin, as she drew back, a little afraid, parts of her that hadn’t been touched in a year.

Her breathing heavy, Karen tilted her head against his bare chest. “Ty, I haven’t done this in a long time.”

“I know,” he said, gently pulling her arms through her sleeves, running his hand along her thigh, underneath her jeans.

She tensed with anticipation.

“I mean with someone else,” she said. “I’ve been with Charles for twenty years.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I know.”

He laid her back on the bed, drew her jeans out from under her firm thighs a leg at a time, slipped his hand underneath her panties, felt the tremor of anticipation there. The throbbing in her womb was driving Karen wild. She looked up at him. He had been there for her, steadied her, when everything else was just insanity. He had been the one thing in which she could believe. She reached up and gently touched his side, the marks healing, and kissed them, his perspiration sweet. Hauck, tensing, unbuckled his shorts. He was the one thing that held her together. Without him she didn’t know what she would have done.

She put her face close to him. “Ty…”

He moved his body firmly over hers, his buttocks tight, arms strong, athletic. Their bodies came together like a warm wave, electricity shooting down Karen’s spine. She arched her back. Her breasts, his chest came together, a hundred degrees.

Suddenly there was nothing holding them back. She felt this yearning rising up from her center. Karen let her head fall back, fall from side to side as he entered her, a tremor shooting through her from the tips of her fingers to her toes, like a current, a long-awaited prize. She cupped his rear and drew him into her deeply. A wildness taking over. Gasping, their bodies became a tangle of pelvises and thighs. She clung to him. This man had risked everything for her. She didn’t want to hold anything back. They rocked. She wanted to give him everything. A part of her she had never given to anyone. Even Charles. A part of her she had always held back.

Everything.