CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Annalise ran her finger over the computer screen, tracing the contour of her own body. She’d turned the image of herself on a hotel bed into an arty black-and-white photograph. In this one, Michael had captured a full nude shot, but from the side. Nothing too porny. Sure, he’d taken some of those pictures, and she had no interest in gazing at her parts. But this picture? She rather liked it. In it, she looked at the photographer out of the corner of one eye, one knee raised, and her hair spilling down her back.

From her desk by the floor-to-ceiling window in her home, she adjusted the contrast a bit more, then she leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and studied the screen.

She gazed at it as if she could find the answers to her heartbreak in a photo. To some it might seem narcissistic, but Annalise comprehended the world from behind a lens.

Her world.

Her heart.

In all its brokenness.

But here in this photo, she felt…whole again. For the first time. So odd that a nude photo, a shot of her turned on beyond any and all reason, would make her feel that way. But it did. Because her body had been a part of the heartbreak, too.

Her body was healing.

Perhaps it was no surprise too that this photo on her screen was next to the shot of him at Caesars. The candid of him by the pool. She hadn’t yet decided how she wanted to frame it or crop it. If she would edit it, or leave it untouched.

Keep it raw. Maybe because she felt that way with Michael.

She pushed away from her chair and roamed around her flat. Sex with Julien had been good. They’d had an active sex life, tried many positions, and never went more than a few nights without making love. She’d always been a physical woman, had always longed for that kind of triple connection between heart, mind, and body. She stopped at a bookcase and picked up a photo of Julien taken in one of the covered walkways in Paris. He’d emerged from a store full of maps, a gleeful look in his eyes, like he’d found treasure. She picked up an image of him sipping espresso, coolly staring in the distance, contemplative. Then another of him thumbing through postcards at a sidewalk dealer along the Seine, sweetly complimenting her work in comparison.

He was her handsome, thoughtful, kind, inquisitive love.

Her throat hitched as she considered the picture.

But the lump disappeared as quickly as it came.

No tears threatened her. No pain rattled around in her chest. No ache descended on her body.

Did that mean something? Anything?

An idea seized her, and in minutes her purse was slung on her shoulder, flats were on her feet, and the metro was rattling its way to this very spot from the first photo—one of the passages of Paris.

Soon she walked past the map shop, stopping outside the window to stare at the vast collection of maps of the world. Julien had loved history and geography. That was one of the reasons he’d become a photojournalist. He’d always been drawn to the big world beyond this city. And she’d been lucky to spend time traveling with her explorer man. She ran her finger over a map in the window, tracing a line over Italy, to Turkey, over to Singapore…all the places they’d been…recalling the times they’d had.

She looked at her watch. She was due at her mother’s in two hours to help her with dinner and to fix her broken sink. That gave Annalise time to walk past some of the haunts she’d shared with Julien. At the café they loved, she tapped their regular table for good luck. She wandered across their favorite bridge on the Seine, marveling at the gray ribbon of water that snaked through Paris, then along the antique shops and art dealers near the Musee d’Orsay, one of her most beloved spots in the city, and past the sidewalk dealers by the river, peddling postcards.

He’d once joked that she’d set up shop someday, selling her photos there. She smiled faintly at the memory.

Then, when she was done with her tour, she turned her face to the sky, looked heavenward, and said her final good-bye.

“Love, I won’t be here always. You need to move on. You’re young, and beautiful, and smart, and vibrant.”

It was okay to feel again, to want again, to live, and maybe even to love.

And it was okay to let him go.

When she arrived at her mother’s, she knocked then let herself in, and walked over to her mother, who was reading a book on her couch, a news station playing softly on her radio. Her mother set down the book and greeted her with a hug and a warm hello. “How was your day, mon petite papillon?”

“It was completely necessary,” she answered, and her mother raised an eyebrow at her response.

Annalise explained what she meant as she made dinner, then fixed the sink, chatting about the news of the day. Her mother was a newshound, and Annalise had always loved world affairs. Later, Annalise fell asleep on the couch. When she woke up the next morning, she stretched, brushed her teeth, and said good-bye.

Outside, as the sun rose in the Paris sky, she snapped a photo of a coffee éclair in a bakery window. She captioned it: “Are coffee éclairs on your hell-no list, too? Wait. Don’t tell me. I want to discover all the things about you I do not know. Will you let me?”

* * *

“And then you will hand me the ring for Ryan,” Sophie said to Michael, as she gestured grandly to the waterfalls raining behind them. They were at Mandalay Bay’s outdoor terrace, framed by gentle waterfalls that would form the backdrop to Ryan and Sophie’s ceremony next month. The walk-through was early, but Sophie had said she wanted to be prepared.

Michael was the best man. Well, one of them. Ryan had decided to have two best men. Both Colin and Michael would stand with him. John would be the one to give his sister away, but he wasn’t here today. Sophie said he’d been called away on police business, and Michael could only hope that was code for “close to cracking the murder investigation.” Of course, Michael was well aware that John was a busy detective and had many cases he was working. His father’s was one of them, though Michael felt, selfishly, like it was the only one that mattered.

It had been a quiet several days on that front since he’d returned from New York, but his private investigator, Morris, had messaged him the other day to say that he had some leads and hoped to get some solid intel soon.

Soon couldn’t come fast enough, especially after Michael’s pointless pursuit of Luke several nights ago.

As they finished the quick walk-through of the ceremony, his cell phone buzzed, and Michael’s new Pavlovian response kicked in, a dart of lust flaring in him.

His phone had been glued to his side since he’d left New York, but even more so after Annalise’s note the other morning. That note. It was a window opening and sunshine pouring in, and of course he’d said yes. She hadn’t said I love you, but in the last few days she’d given him so much of her time and herself, even from an ocean away. She sent him sweet little messages throughout the day, and often included photos, too. She took pictures of her lunch, her coffee, her life in Paris. A flower planter in a second story window of a flat she walked past in the Fifth Arrondissement. A couple lounging on a blanket on the grass by the Eiffel Tower. A shop window with impossibly tall silver mannequins on display. The rain on a cobblestoned street corner. She captioned them all.

In French.

He answered them. In French.

That wasn’t all, though. She also gave really good naked Skype strip shows. The best, actually.

Last night, for instance, she’d shown him precisely how a cheektini looked on her succulent ass. She’d modeled no less than a dozen, sliding them on, gliding them off. Yeah, he was okay with how things were. Because at least they had something. He didn’t try to define it, or to pressure her for a declaration. Maybe just voicing his own feelings on the street had been enough. He was no longer carrying that hard knot of tension inside him, that secret knowledge that he was a man wildly in love with a woman. His feelings were out in the open, and somehow that made things better, especially after she threw the line back to him with her note. I want to discover you.

But as he pulled the phone from his pocket, his thoughts of her vanished. Morris’s name flashed across his screen.

“Michael,” the man said in a gruff, gravelly tone befitting a PI. “I got something for you.”

He straightened and glanced over at Ryan and Sophie, who were wrapped up in each other, laughing, whispering. They probably wouldn’t care that he was busy on the phone. He walked away from them and down the aisle that would be covered in peach tulip petals for the wedding.

“Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Meet me in person in thirty minutes. There’s a diner off the highway. It’s busy enough, but far enough away, too.”

Morris gave him the address, and Michael repeated it. When he hung up, he headed to the happy couple and dropped a hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “Hey, I need to take off, but I’m all set on the ring and what I need to do.”

“What’s going on? Client stuff?” Ryan asked. “On a Saturday? Wait. Don’t tell me there’s more trouble at White—”

Michael cut him off. “Nothing work-related. Just something I need to do.”

He didn’t want to say anything in front of Sophie. Not that he was worried it would get back to John, but the fewer people that knew about his own investigation, the better chance he had of gaining information. He’d learned that over the years in business.

“Fine, fine. Just take off,” Sophie said with a pout, shooing him away. “We were going to invite you to get a bite to eat or coffee, but now we won’t.”

Ryan laughed and tugged Sophie closer. “He hates coffee.”

“Well, he could have had soda,” she said. “But now he can’t. So toodle-oo.”

Michael smiled and pressed his palms together as if in prayer. “Rain check?”

She waved a hand as if wiping away his transgression. “You are forgiven. Oh, wait. Are you going to bring Annalise to the wedding?”

Michael stared at her like she was an oddity. That hadn’t even occurred to him. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Think about it. It would be so nice.”

Michael shifted his attention to Ryan. “I don’t believe I’ve said much about Annalise, and now you’re telling Sophie to invite her to the wedding?”

Ryan shrugged. “You don’t have to say much. Your constant texting, emailing, and Skyping says it for you. Oh, that and the fact that you were madly in love with her in high school.”

Sophie’s eyes lit up. “Tell me everything. I adore romantic tales of love rekindled.”

He shook his head. “I seriously need to go.”

“Bring her,” Sophie called out as Michael turned on his heel.

“It’s more than a month away,” he shouted back.

“Gives her time to plan.”

Michael laughed once more, pretending he had no interest in asking Annalise. But as he headed to the parking garage, he found himself considering it further. If they were really doing this long-distance thing, and it seemed they were, why not bring her to his brother’s wedding? They’d already been tossing out options for his first trip to see her in a week or so. Maybe they could plan the next one, too.

For now, though, he shifted gears, calling Mindy and picking her up along the way.

“My fingers are crossed for big news,” Michael said as he held open the car door for his friend.

She wrapped her index and middle fingers together. “Me, too.”

At the diner, Morris was working his way through a mug of coffee when Michael slid across from him, shaking his hand in greeting. Mindy said hello, too, and sat next to Michael. Fifties music played on the sound system, and waitresses took orders decked out in pink diner uniforms.

“This place has great fries. You should get some,” Morris said, sliding a well-worn menu to the two of them before scrubbing a hand across his jaw, complete with day-old stubble.

“Far be it from me to refuse great fries. Want to split a plate, Mindy?”

The blonde nodded. “That I do.”

After they ordered, Michael raised his chin. “So, what have we got?”

Morris took a deep breath, dipped a hand into his messenger bag, and pulled out a manila folder. It was so old school, and Michael kind of loved the Phillip Marlowe vibe. The guy just needed a fedora to finish the look.

Taking his time, he flipped open the folder and stabbed his finger against a photograph. It was upside-down, but Michael could tell what it was. He glanced at Mindy then at Morris, then leaned closer to study the picture, his muscles coiled, tension threaded tightly inside him. “The piano shop? The place where he buys sheet music?” he asked in a hushed tone.

Morris nodded.

“Okay. What of it?” Mindy asked.

Morris raised both eyebrows. “I’ve been casing it. And our target. All day long. All night long. Stuff cops don’t have the man hours or resources to do.”

“And?”

“There’s a lot more that goes on in the back of the store than sheet music.”

Michael swallowed. “Like what?” he asked, so fucking eager for information.

“It’s where the Royal Sinners fence all their stolen goods. It’s their goddamn fucking headquarters. Everything runs through there. Electronics, iPhones, all sorts of stolen shit. As well as guns. They’ve got themselves a huge illegal gun sales operation they run from this joint.” He lowered his voice even more, licked his lips, then made his pronouncement. “Bust the guns, you’ve got your man.”

Time froze…then sped up. Michael’s fingertips tingled, and the possibility of justice tore through him. A smile spread across his face, morphing into a thrilled grin. He looked at Mindy, and she beamed, too. They raised their hands, smacked palms, and treated Morris to a cheeseburger and the best fries in Vegas as he shared the rest of the details.

Later, Mindy and Michael went to meet John at a Starbucks.

“This is good stuff,” the detective said, his eyes glinting with excitement.

“Is this enough?”

“I can’t make any promises, but if I can’t at least get him in custody with this, then someone should take away my badge.”

Mindy laughed, and John turned his attention to her, as if he were seeing her for the first time. Maybe even checking her out. Well, that was certainly an interesting development, too.