Leinney stayed away from Vegas as weeks eked past into months, occasionally emailing Jim with an excuse about a mountain of work that was consuming her every waking moment. There was a deadline to meet, she said.
Memory of that sunny morning after their first dinner and dancing date haunted him with its beauty. Its poetry.
Memory of how her lips tasted.
Of the scent of her sweat.
Of the feel of her silky velvet skin and tickly hair cascading over his chest.
Of the breakfast in bed they had both gotten up to make.
Of her cutting onions for their omelets, eyes turning bright aquamarine behind the happy tears.
Of the way those same eyes became a gentle seagreen in his bedroom.
And of the walks in the park, resting on the swings in middle-aged comfort.
He never wanted to return to that non-existence where his only personal companion was a J&B double. Once Pandora's box of possibilities opened up, he could hardly shut the lid again on his psyche.
Brass thought daily about flying up to Bozeman to visit her. Every other week, his fingers found flight schedules listed on the Internet. But each time, as if by psychic magic, he received another email from Leinney. Her descriptions of being so relentlessly busy always discouraged him. He figured he'd just get in the way of her work and then she'd tell him to bug off. Forever. Unthinkable.
He was getting too old for these relationship games; what was the right thing to do? Go with his heart or give her space? Of course, he always replied to her emails immediately, but kicking himself afterwards for the clumsy words sounding too much like an official police memo. Finally, he called Mr. Bateman of BMF's Human Resources.
"She's been on medical leave," the vice president informed him. "I just kept her marked as working for Dr. Fell — as she requested. It seemed sensible at the time. No one here at the company needs to know her private medical issues, and the assignment gave a good excuse for her not being available. She's not missing again, is she?" Mr. Bateman sounded worried.
"No, no. Nothing like that," Brass reassured hastily. "Just a routine question. Sorry to disturb you."
He confronted her immediately by phone. "I just talked to Bateman at BMF. You're not working on any big project for them."
A dread pause on the other end.
"Look, I just don't understand. I thought we had something together..." He couldn't mask his disappointment with gruffness.
"We do." Present tense, but tense presence.
Although he brightened with hope, his usual cynicism replied. "Don't bullshit me. Tell me the truth. It's not like haven't been around the block before. I'm too old for you." He gave her an easy way out. Better to have a clean break than this wishy-washy nowhere relationship.
"What? No, not at all. Age is completely irrelevant. And you're not that old. Are you? I just..." she couldn't say it, but she was afraid Lecter might return, especially here where she lived, since she hadn't completed the commissioned project to her satisfaction. And if Brass were to catch wind of it, he might fall victim to the Cannibalwhile trying to protect her. She knew it was just fear, but nevertheless, she did not want to risk it.
"Look," he cut through the pause to steer the conversation into a more active direction, "I've got an invitation to a party next week at Zoë Ellismere's house. It says I should bring a guest. There's no one in the world I'd rather bring, and you didsay you wished to meet her. Will you come?" He figured one way or another she would have to make a decision.
"OK," she breathed, although suspecting something out of her control would step in fatefully to prevent her from fulfilling this small promise.
Nevertheless, gritting her teeth with resolve the next day, she placed the helmet on her head, and headed off towards I-15 South. She had only packed a week's worth of clothing in the saddlebags, not really believing she would stay in Vegas even that long. She was desperate to find a way out of this situation. Desperate to see Jim again, to walk in beauty with him, if only for another moment in this awful, cruel world. Desperate to protect him from unspeakable dangers, even if that meant she had to end their relationship. Somehow. You can't kill a canon character.She couldn't let Lecter kill Jim.
Just twenty miles north of the city outskirts, a trucker drifted out of his lane as the long haul south from Idaho finally caught up to him. The bump-thump of the two-wheeler passing under his eighteen wheels woke him up.
Other than the Montana license plate, which had ripped away early in the crash, the only recognizable fragment in the mangled mess poked out from under the corner of something saddle-baggish: a CD safely ensconced in its jewel-case, itself miraculously unscathed. The Garden,by Merril Bainbridge. Slightly resembling Ellie Brass, the blond Australian singer gazed placidly out of the plastic window, surrounded by a butterfly garden, blissfully unaware of the carnage outside her fecund frame.
Brass was on duty when he received the call at 3:13 AM. Strictly routine vehicular manslaughter — the distraught driver had confessed immediately and Brass nodded to the arresting officer to drive the trucker back to the station for booking and processing. Then he conducted his own visual inspection of the scene. The quick confession probably saved the trucker's life, although he had not suffered a scratch in the accident.
At the scene, the veteran detective did something he had never done before, but would not remember doing later... Later — as lyrics from each song shattered the windshield of his soul. He stole evidence.
On the upper floor of an elegant Argentinean mansion, nestled in the bosom of milky nectar, a pair of rubies glinted in satiation.