Chapter 10 Tom #2
The Baker case seemed to be their last footprint.
A right mess, that was. The killer had gotten sloppy, or perhaps unlucky—the distinction hardly mattered when the result was the same.
They’d cut themselves. Had left evidence behind.
I managed to make the right samples disappear, but not before taking a small portion for my own analysis.
I’d run it through every database I could access without raising flags. Nothing. My friend was still a ghost, but now a ghost who’d made a critical error. Who would know I had that blood sample, aware that I could identify them if we ever crossed paths.
I returned to the delicate work of separating a damaged page from its neighbor, using a bone folder to ease apart fibers that had fused over decades. The paper resisted, and I applied more wheat paste, watching the translucent adhesive darken the aged paper.
I heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open, soft footsteps descending the wooden steps. My hand slipped slightly, and a small droplet of paste splattered across the protective cloth.
Arms slid around my waist from behind, her body warm against my back. I knew her gait by now, could have identified her in complete darkness by the rhythm of her walk alone.
“What are you doing up so late?” Shay asked, her voice soft and drowsy.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“And you snuck downstairs to work on your book,” she said, pressing her cheek against my shoulder blade. “You are such a geek.”
The words sounded fond, however.
“Were you a bully in high school, Detective?” I asked.
“Of course I wasn’t.” She laughed, and I could feel it against my back, the vibrations traveling through my body. “And anyway, I happen to like geeks.”
She shifted against me, and I felt the light press of her lips against my cheek. “Do you want me to make you some tea?”
This situation was nothing new to her. She had gotten used to me being awake at odd hours of the night.
“No, thank you. Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll be right behind you.”
Shay hummed noncommittally and leaned closer, her eyes tracking over my workstation—the scattered tools, the partially restored pages weighted down with glass blocks, the meticulous notes I’d made about paper composition and binding techniques.
“Am I still not completely awake yet, or is that not English?”
“It’s French.”
Her eyebrows rose, genuine surprise flickering across her features. “You know French?”
I hummed in affirmation, turning a page with careful fingers.
“Why didn’t I know that about you?” She was fully awake now, mischief sparking in her eyes. “French is the language of passion, isn’t it? Come on, lover boy, talk dirty to me.”
I turned around completely, abandoning the restoration work to face her fully. She stood there in one of my old t-shirts, her hair mussed from sleep, feet bare against the cold concrete floor.
“Tu es la plus belle chose que j’ai jamais vue. Je pense à toi constamment, même quand je devrais me concentrer sur autre chose.”
She stared at me, something shifting in her expression. “You know I was joking,” she said slowly, her voice taking on a different quality, “but this is kind of starting to do it for me.”
I placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face up, and claimed her mouth with mine. I tasted toothpaste, felt the sleep-warm softness of her body as she pressed against me.
“What did you say?” she murmured against my lips when we broke apart.
“That you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. That I think about you constantly, even when I should be concentrating on other things.”
If she had anything to say to that, it got swallowed by another kiss—deeper this time, more demanding. Her fingers threaded through my hair, tugging slightly in a way that sent heat straight down my spine.
I lifted her onto the edge of my worktable, careful to avoid the restoration materials, and stepped between her legs.
The position brought us level, face to face, her thighs bracketing my hips.
I felt one of her hands sliding under my shirt, her palm warm against my stomach, nails scraping lightly against skin.
“Tell me something else.”
“Tu me rends fou,” I murmured into the curve of her neck, tasting salt and the faint vanilla scent of her lotion.
“Translation?”
“You drive me crazy.”
“Good.” She pulled my face back to hers, her eyes dark and wanting. “That’s only fair.”
We kissed until breathing became difficult, until the worktable creaked under our combined weight, until Shay was gasping my name as my hands traced every inch of her skin.
She arched into me, her body moving with fluid grace, responding to every touch like an instrument being played by someone who knew exactly which strings to pluck.
The book lay forgotten beside us, its damaged pages waiting patiently for attention I could no longer give. The dark basement pressed in around us, intimate and isolated, a world unto itself where nothing existed beyond this moment.
Tomorrow I’ll finish the restoration. Tomorrow I’d carefully mend the torn pages and reinforce the broken binding.
Tomorrow, I’d go back to feeling the hunger.
That gnawing emptiness would return with the dawn.
The itch beneath my skin would resume its persistent demands, reminding me of what I was beneath the careful facade of normalcy.
But tonight—tonight I let myself be just Tom. A man who knew French and restored old books and was falling dangerously, irreversibly for a woman who called him a geek in the fondest voice he’d ever heard.