Dark Moon, A Work in Progress – Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX
Jim stood in the cool late summer night watching Sarah’s white BMW back out of his drive, then went into his kitchen, poured himself a stiff Scotch, and threw himself onto the sofa. You can’t do this to yourself, he thought. You can’t get emotional because she’s sleeping with another man. He hadn’t liked the way she’d dismissed him as “my investigator.”
But I can get emotional, he told himself. In fact, I’m powerless to stop the feelings. It’s exactly the way I felt when I realized Gail was sleeping with Josh after we separated. I hated knowing the woman I wanted was with another man.
He drank some more scotch and frowned at his glass. Wow, I’ve just admitted I want to sleep with Sarah, he thought. I knew she was trouble the first time I saw her at Trend. Well, I know I can’t sleep with her for a trillion reasons, not the least of which is her own rule against sleeping with co-workers. But I want to. That’s the awful part. I want to so much. He could smell the faint trace of her perfume that lingered where she’d sat on the sofa. A flower, he thought, possibly a gardenia. He wanted to know the name of it.
He closed his eyes and pictured Sarah’s slender body in the other man’s arms just as he used to picture Gail with Josh on some of the worst nights early in their separation. What did this David person look like? Was he handsome? Was he younger, older? Sarah had said no younger men, but he thought she’d been joking. Had she told this David character how that scar had come to be on her left cheek? Maybe it wasn’t a car accident. Maybe she’d been mugged at knife point coming home from her office too late in New York to be out alone. She was too fiercely independent; that was for sure.
He was going through his scotch too fast. He’d better slow down. He began to reorganize Alexa Reed’s photographs and put them back into the folder to take his mind off Sarah.
He paused to study a picture of her with her children when they must have been about two and three. The uptight lawyer clothes were gone. She was wearing a simple white t-shirt, outrageously flattering tight jeans, and her hair was wild and free around her shoulders. It was about the color of Gail’s. And she, too, had those blue, blue eyes. How had she slipped from a life devoted to over-achievement into the dark, murky world of homicide? She was obviously an exceptionally bright and clever woman. As much as Jim hated to admit it, there were ways to keep from being found out. Some people did get away with murder. And if anyone would have been good at creating the perfect crime, it would have been someone like Alexa Reed. Bright, capable, meticulous attention to detail. Then why had she been so clumsy? She clearly hadn’t wanted to get caught because that meant the loss of her children. So what had gotten into her the night of June 2?
He stared down at three innocent smiling faces in the picture. They’d had no idea the perfect storm was brewing to separate them. Sarah was so sure they’d lose this case. But she wouldn’t accomplish her goal of spiting Hal Remington if she lost. The Joey Menendez case had looked as lost as this one. They’d been celebrating in the U.S. Attorney’s office even before the jury went out. Sarah had come up with a last minute witness who had lied through his teeth and testified Joey didn’t give orders to the cartel. The guy had been some low-ranking drug dealer with one of those very common Latino names like Alvarez or Sanchez, or something ez. He’d come out of nowhere, and the U.S. Attorney, who had thought he knew everything there was no know about Joey Menendez, had been blindsided. Against all the odds, Sarah had persuaded that jury to believe her lying witness. Funny how she wouldn’t talk about a truly legendary victory. Well, she had worked miracles before; Jim was betting she could work one here.
He put the photo of Alexa and the children back in the folder and polished off his scotch. Tomorrow was Wednesday and then Thursday. Two days before he could see Sarah again. And at least three nights for her to spend with David Scott.