Body Farm 2 - Flesh And Bone by Jefferson Bass Read Free Book Online Page B

charcoal?”
    “Be a waste of a good steak to cook it over gas,” I said.
    “Indeed,” she said. “Gas is great for a crematorium, but a steak just cries out for the extra flavor of those charcoal carcinogens.”
    “You do have an eye for the tarnished lining. Anybody ever tell you that?”
    She looked down at her drink. “Ouch. Actually, I’ve been told that’s one of my special talents,” she said. She looked up again, and I could see hurt in her eyes.
    “I was just joking,” I said. “Who said it that wasn’t joking? And why does it make you look so sad all of a sudden?”
    “My ex-husband. My most recent ex-husband, to be clinically precise.”
    “You introduced me to a lawyer husband a couple years ago; that the one?” She nodded. “How many other exes you got scattered around?”
    “Just one other. If you’re only counting husbands.”
    “And if I’m counting other significant others?”
    She rolled her eyes. “It’d take me some thinking to tally them up. Four or five semiserious guys, and one experimental woman.”
    The world had changed in the several de cades since I’d last dated, I decided. “A few months back, you told me you were happily lesbian. Was that the experiment?”
    She laughed. “Naw, that was just to fend you off in case you were harboring any designs on me. You seemed so bogged down in your grief over Kathleen still, I knew you weren’t ready for anybody yet. Or maybe I just didn’t want to get tangled up in all that sadness.”
    “And now?”
    “Now you seem over it, or at least through the worst of it. Not exactly giddy with joie de vivre yet, but then again, that’d be a stretch for a guy in your line of work. You seem…solid now.”
    “Did I seem solid a few months ago, when we had that near miss with a dinner date?”
    “Solid enough,” she said, “at the center. A little gooey around the edges, maybe, but who isn’t sometimes?” As she said it, she cocked her head and shrugged slightly, and smiled not so slightly. I could have sworn I felt myself getting a little gooey around the edges but stirringly solid at my center. I took a step toward her and reached up a hand to touch her cheek. When I did, she nodded her head up and down, rubbing against my hand. I closed my eyes to concentrate on the feel of her skin. “So you didn’t mind that I invited myself to dinner to night?” My eyes still closed, I shook my head. “So why didn’t you ask me out again after I had to skip out all those months ago?”
    The truth was, I’d gotten scared, but I wanted to appear more suave than that. “I was playing hard to get,” I said. As I said it, I heard my voice crack like that of a boy just hitting puberty. So much for suave. I laughed. “I’ve heard nothing interests a woman more than acting indifferent.”
    I felt a palm smack my face, but it was a playful smack. I opened my eyes and saw Jess shaking her head, but she was grinning as she did it. “You are such a lying piece of shit,” she said. “You are a seriously bad liar. But a seriously good man.”
    She moved closer to me and turned her face to mine. Maybe some things in the world hadn’t changed all that much, because I had no trouble interpreting an invitation to kiss her. With her boots on, her mouth was nearly at the level of mine. Just enough lower that it felt good to reach a hand around to the back of her neck, threading my fingers through her thick auburn hair.
    I felt a pleasant tingling in my loins for a moment, then it stopped. Then it returned, and I realized the tingling was not actually within my loins, but against them.
    “Oh, damn,” murmured Jess. “It’s my pager.” I felt the buzz one last time, then she pulled away and jammed a hand into a pocket of her jeans. As she fished out the pager, it gave another buzz, like an angry insect—a cicada spinning helplessly on its back, I decided. “Shit, it’s Homicide,” she said. “I have to call them.” From her other pocket she