Page 34 of Playing With Fire

The single preference that Chrissie had expressed was devastating in its simplicity.

I want my child to grow up in Temple Mountain. I was happy there.

Ricky clenched his jaw against the inevitable rush of pain, of furious incomprehension.

Baby Lioba Angel.

Chrissie’s name was there of course, and her barely legible signature.

Angela Christine Caitens.

“Mom wanted to call me Angel, but she was told it sounded too Spanish. But I’d rather be Chrissie anyway.”

He could still hear Chrissie’s hushed voice. They had wandered into Grace Church on Broadway, in those heady days when everything was viewed through the rose-tinted filter of romance. Once inside, the exquisite proportions of the light-filled space had taken away their breath. And the window, that masterpiece of stained glass, had dazzled them into awed silence.

Later, they had strolled down Broadway feeling like proper inhabitants of the greatest city in the world. That there was nothing that they couldn’t do.

***

Jodi dressed with particular care for her Monday meeting with Chief Leroy Browning. Not because she wished to impress him, (or Ricky Sharp if he happened to wander into the office) but because sometimes a girl had to bolster her flagging self-esteem.

She was still surprised by the invitation, which had been issued with the usual grudging compliance by Sally Lett—who acted like she was granting a special favor—with the clear expectation that Ms. Ruskin had better toe the line, or else.

On balance, it hadn’t been a great weekend.

She’d babysat her nephew Isaac, whose normally easygoing temperament had been hijacked by the prior ingestion of a whole pack of candy, got her washing rained on, and forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning. To add insult to injury, Jaylee had been late picking up her son on the laughable grounds that she’d been forced to linger in a café on account of the rain.

Even these vexatious experiences hadn’t helped Jodi shake off her sense of grievance following the community meal debacle.

She swallowed a yawn, settling herself inside the Chief’s glass-fronted office to wait for the Great Man. Her lips were a glossy kick-butt red, and her unruly waves had been tamed into a sleek chignon.

Focus, she told herself sternly. She took a moment to twitch her new charcoal and blue herringbone skirt into place over her knees.

True, the oyster satin silk blouse had been a brave purchase, given the high risk of inky fingers, occasional pastry crumbs, and the regular and steady consumption of coffee which her job required. (Not to forget external threats such as Bubbles the boodle, of course.) But there was no question that the divine color and drape was drop-dead, bury-me-in-this gorgeous.

And honestly, the sensual drape of silk on bare skin made Jodi feel like...well, like purring...and who could put a dollar-figure on that?

“Ms. Ruskin!”

She jumped. The Chief’s voice was pitched to carry over a town hall full of irate voters or a busy fire station, not a medium-sized though beautifully furnished office.

“My apologies for holding you up, those old folks at Temple Mountain Retirement Village all wanted to have their say. I kept explaining to them that the county makes laws about where folks can smoke, and we just carry them out. Got quite heated.”

He chuckled at his own joke.

Jodi maintained her professional smile as Ricky appeared. He threw her a wide, appreciative grin. She nodded coolly.

The blouse was so, so worth it.

“And don’t you look a picture?” the Chief said admiringly, running his gaze over Jodi, whose expression turned a tad icy. “And might I say what a truly fine job you are doing young woman, keepin’ the editor’s seat hot?”

Typical good-old-boy bullshit.

Her inner purr dropped a notch to the deep menacing growl a mama lion gives just before it takes off someone’s head.

Ricky winced.

Jodi inspected the perfect gloss of her midnight blue nails, as though wondering whether to risk chipping them. Her fingers began drumming a tattoo on her knee.

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