Mary Crow drove home to Hartsville in a mood as gray as the weather. She’d blown her triumphant return as a prosecutor, and now Victor wanted to talk. She couldn’t imagine what might be troubling him, unless he’d argued with Alton Spencer, his spit-polished, anal boss who regarded Agent Victor Galloway as a dangerously loose cannon. “Some days just dawn crappy and never improve,” she whispered as sleety rain began to pepper her windshield.
She found a parking space a block away from her office and lugged her briefcase up the street. Her secretary Annette had already gone, but had left a page of notes–mostly about JimAnn Ponder, a fifty-something mountain woman whose husband of thirty years had taken her out to a fancy dinner and told her he wanted a divorce. JimAnn bent Mary’s ear regularly about that humiliation, and now she’d apparently begun to hector poor Annette, who’d noted that Mrs. Ponder had referred to her soon to be ex as a “pissant ridge runner” and that she was “mean mad enough to wring his chicken neck.”
Imagining their conversation, Mary had to laugh. Annette sounded like an announcer for the BBC while JimAnn Ponder could win the local hollerin’ contest. Annette probably wished for a translator every time JimAnn called.
“Good grief,” whispered Mary as she reluctantly made a note to call JimAnn in the morning. “I’d rather do one good murder than a hundred divorces.”
A knock on the door startled her. She opened it to find Victor, still dressed in the coat and tie he’d worn to court. Though it was freezing outside, his face was flushed and a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Hi,” he said. “What are you working on now?”
“Helping a mountain gal who’s madder’n a wet hen,” Mary imitated JimAnn as she put a hand on Victor’s forehead. “She’s nigh fit to bustin’ over her rotten mister. Do you have a fever?”
“No, I’m fine. So are you going to take her rotten mister to the cleaners?”
“After she’s washed his socks and run his flea market for thirty years, I’m not letting him leave her with nothing,” said Mary.
“You go for it, counselor.” He turned toward the door, frowning. “Are you ready to eat?”
“I am. I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”
“Then let’s go. I’ve got reservations at Lulu’s.”
As Mary turned off her lights, her heart gave a sour little beat. Lulu’s had been the site of JimAnn Ponder’s dump-off dinner. Victor was acting so subdued, she wondered if he had a similar plan for her, tonight. Don’t be silly, she told herself. Victor’s no Cletus Ponder.
The restaurant was only two blocks away, so they walked, arm-in-arm, along sidewalks wet with an icy rain. Hartsville seemed in drab hibernation—all the bright Christmas decorations had vanished, but the stores had been slow to replace them with Valentine hearts. Hurrying through the depressing gloom, they jaywalked across Main Street, dodging a red pickup truck. Mary looked back at the driver just before they ducked into the warm redolence of Lulu’s. As they followed the hostess to a small booth in a corner nook, Mary realized that this was the perfect break-up table. Softly lit, but secluded, so that angry tears and strident voices would not disturb the other diners. But it was also a romantic nook, perfect for hand-holding over a bottle of wine. Mary didn’t know what to think.
The waitress came to the table. Victor ordered the IPA on tap. After the long, frustrating day, Mary decided to self-medicate, fast. “A double martini. Sapphire Gin, Noilly Prat. With a twist.”
As the waitress left, Victor gave her an odd look. “You’re usually a Malbec girl. When did you switch to double Martinis?”
“When I blow a case in court. Killer Crow got her wings clipped today.”
“Are you kidding? You looked like the right hand of God up there. That stuff about the Indian trails was terrific.”
“Yeah, well, that bastard Teo’s still a free man.”
“I feel like that’s my fault,” said Victor. “I followed every lead I could find, and still came up with nothing. Spencer pulling me off on those other cases didn’t help, either.”
“You did a great job, Victor. Drusilla’s secretary warned me that catching Teo was like trying to bottle smoke.”
Victor’s frown did not lift. “I still should have done better.”
“We’ve got almost four more months to work on it,” said Mary. “Surely we can come up with something.”
The waitress brought their drinks. Mary clicked her martini against Victor’s beer and drained half of it. As the gin began to warm her insides, she looked at Victor and mustered her courage.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
He loosened his tie. “Don’t you want to eat first?”
“No. I’d rather have our talk.” If Victor was going to dump her, she did not intend to react like JimAnn, and start bawling over a plate of pork chops.
“Oh. Well. Okay.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. For a moment he stared at the dark green candle that glowed between them, and cleared his throat.
“Mary, by my last count, I’ve asked you to marry me six times. You’ve turned me down six times. Tonight,” he paused for a deep breath, “things have got to change.”
“Okay.” This is it, she decided, taking another slug of her Martini. Here it comes.
He took another swallow of beer. “The Richmond, Virginia, police department has made me an offer— they’ll put me on salary as detective and pay for the rest of my training as a profiler. I will no longer be at the end of Spencer’s short leash.”
“That’s great!” She tried to sound happy but her heart clenched. Victor was moving to Virginia.
“That’s the good news,” he said.
“Okay. What’s the bad news?”
“I have to let them know by next Friday.”
“Oh.” Mary blinked. “Why is that bad? I know how much you hate Spencer.”
“Before I go, I need to do this.” He reached in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. He opened it to reveal a ring; a single diamond surrounded by small rubies. It reminded Mary of glittering pieces of ice and fire, all mixed together.
“Te adoro, Maria Cuervo,” he whispered, leaning across the table. “For the last and final time, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She stared at the ring, stunned, unable to form words.
“If you don’t love me, just say so.” Again, he swallowed hard. “I’d rather end everything tonight.”
She felt like an idiot. She’d tossed back most of a double martini to soften the blow of a kiss-off. Now he was proposing.
Her cheeks on fire, she struggled to come up with the right words. “Victor, I love you more than anything. But…”
“It’s Walkingstick, isn’t it?”
“Walkingstick?”
“You still look at red pickup trucks. You looked at that one on the way over here.”
“It almost ran over us.”
Victor went on. “Every time you see a red pickup, you look. I used to think maybe you just had a thing for trucks, but Cochran told me that Walkingstick drove one.”
“Victor—”
“Look, I know Walkingstick played a big part in your life. I know how much you loved him.”
He rattled on, expanding on a theory about how some deep hurts can emotionally lame people for the rest of their lives. Finally, he gave up the psycho-babble and grabbed her hand. “Look—forget Walkingstick. I don’t know that much about him and I don’t care. What I do know is that you are kind and funny and smart and beautiful and even our worst moments have been the best moments of my life.” He slipped the ring on her finger.“Marry me,” he whispered. “I will never, ever love anyone the way I love you.”
She stared at the ring— it perfectly reflected everything she felt for him. Love and passion, need and desire. Her head clearing a bit, she pressed his hand against her cheek. “Victor, I love you but I don’t know if I can marry anybody.”
“Why not?” he asked. “I’ll never ask you to quit being Killer Crow.”
“Victor, it has nothing to do with my job.” She looked into his eyes—the candlelight made them dark and fierce, but also kind. “I’m just scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of it not working out. Of having something wonderful turn to dust.” Losing Jonathan Walkingstick had felt like someone dissecting her own beating heart, inches at a time. After that she’d sworn that she would never again love anyone that deeply.
Gently, he covered her hand in such way that she could not remove the ring. “Then let’s do this. Wear this for a while. Think hard about everything I’ve said. Tomorrow I go to Raleigh for that SBI seminar. When I get back, we’ll talk again. If you say yes, I’ll forget Richmond and happily stay here kissing Spencer’s ass until we toddle off to the nursing home together. If your answer’s no, I’ll move on.”
She kissed his hand—how she loved him! What would her life be without him? She couldn’t stand the thought of losing him, but neither could she stand the thought of the two of them someday turning into another JimAnn and Cletus Ponder.
“Let’s go home, Victor,” she finally whispered. “Let’s forget about dinner and go home. Then we can pretend I’ve just said yes.”