Maximum Security by Rose Connors Page B

woman,” he repeats, laughing. “You’ve heard of the species?”

    I stand up straight in the doorway. As usual, my stomach races ahead of my brain.

    “Think about it,” he continues, smiling and tapping the pen in his palm. “Big plans for last night. Working like hell so he could keep them. Later to the office than usual this morning. I smell a romance brewing.”

    I’m speechless.

    Harry winks at me.

    I don’t wink back. The Kydd’s red pickup—parked in Louisa Rawlings’s driveway early yesterday—pops into my head. Morning dew undisturbed.

    Harry chuckles. “Maybe my offer to hook him up with a good-looking inmate got to him, scared him into finding a sweetheart on his own.”

    Now I see different scenes: the Kydd matter-of-factly negotiating the hardware on the double doors of Louisa’s veranda; his familiarity with the steam room switches in the Queen’s Spa.

    I force myself to answer Harry. “Maybe you’re right,” I tell him. But I hope like hell he’s wrong. And it’s not because I begrudge the Kydd a love life.

    I hurry back to the front office, grab my briefcase and jacket, and head out the door. Harry’s wrong, I tell myself. And so am I. It’s as simple as that. We’re just plain wrong.

     

    The lean red fox in the road ahead hesitates when my Thunderbird speeds toward him and then he darts back into the bushes he came from. He’s staring after the car when I check the rearview mirror, his head and neck sticking tentatively into the road. He lifts his aristocratic snout in the air as he reemerges, apparently unhappy about riffraff in the neighborhood. Slow down, I tell myself. Even the wildlife deems this errand ridiculous.

    And it is. The Kydd knows better than to get involved with a client. And what interest would Louisa Rawlings have in a boy little more than half her age? For God’s sake, she’s old enough to be his mother. Hell, she’s old enough to be his big brother’s mother too.

    My head hurts.

    But my stomach feels worse. It knots when I pull into the Rawlingses’ driveway. The Kydd’s red pickup is here, right where it was yesterday, roof and hood dew covered. Its windows are fogged, just as they were yesterday, and tiny dew-fed rivers once again trickle down the misty glass.

    The front door of Louisa’s house is closed, but predictably unlocked, and I barge in as if I’m a one-woman SWAT team. From the foyer, I hear the steady pelting of water in the first-floor shower. I pause for just a second—haste is often an effective substitute for courage—and then crack open the door to the master suite.

    Apparently Louisa got first dibs on the Queen’s Spa. The Kydd is ensconced in her king-size bed, leaning against a mountain of pillows, the lilac sheets pulled up to his stomach. He’s naked above the sheets, one arm draped over Pillow Mountain, his hand pressed against a bedpost, a lit cigarette dangling between his fingers. I didn’t know he smoked.

    He jumps about a foot and a half when the door squeaks.

    “Jesus Christ, Marty. What the hell are you doing here?” He bolts upright in the bed, yanks the sheets up to his chest, and damn near drops his cigarette underneath them in the process.

    “What am I doing here?” I find it hard to believe we’re having this conversation. “What am I doing here? That’s not really the question, is it, Kydd?”

    He says nothing for a moment, stares down at the sheets he’s clutching as if he’s never seen them before, and then returns his gaze to me. His expression suggests he’s genuinely surprised to realize he’s not wearing a suit. “Please,” he says finally, swallowing hard and pointing toward the bathroom door. “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you outside.”

    “You’ll meet me in side,” I tell him. No need to invite the neighbors to this gathering. There aren’t any neighbors at the moment, of course. But still. “In the sunroom,” I add.

    He nods like a bobble-head doll. He’d agree