The apartment building was fronted by a date tree on a postage-stamp lawn divided by a sidewalk. Four evergreens clung to the building, sparse ivy climbed over the roof. From the mail slots Kate saw that Ellen O’Neil lived on the first floor, which was elevated above ground by a subterranean parking level. She surveyed both sides of the structure, frowning at the presence of balconies, then buzzed the apartment.
Ellen answered her knock immediately, smiling. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”
To Kate she looked younger and even more feminine in jeans and a man-tailored shirt—much like Anne used to look; but Anne had liked khaki pants, the kind with back pockets that buttoned. “No trouble at all,” she said. “Miss O’Neil, you should always ask who it is before you buzz someone into this building. And use your peephole every time, even when you expect someone.”
Ellen was momentarily irked. “You’re right, I suppose. You know what you’re talking about. I just hate living that way…”
“Understandably.” Kate examined the door lock. “It’s not the way I grew up, either. I come from a small town in Michigan. This lock,” she said. “Sturdy but not deep enough into the frame. Tell your apartment manager LAPD says you need a dead bolt half an inch in.” She took a card from her notebook. “Give them this. Tell them also the garage needs higher wattage.”
“Thank you.” She watched, smiling, as Kate went over to the balcony. She felt at ease and secure with this woman.
Kate frowned at the balcony door and the transparent curtain over it, a slow billowing in the night air. She pushed the curtain aside. Several plants were visible on the balcony, a small wooden table and two light aluminum chairs. A broom handle leaned against a wall on the inside track of the door.
“The brace is a good idea,” Kate told her. “Be sure you always use it, don’t get careless. One case I saw …” She decided not to describe the apartment just off Pico and the body of a young woman in a room awash with blood. “Even though you’re a good fifteen feet above ground level, you should consider keeping the balcony door closed and locked when you’re in here alone at night. This curtain—with lights on, you can see right into the room.”
“Feel free to close it now,” Ellen said. The room had become chill with the night air.
Kate did so, and moved to the window. “Get some locking devices at a hardware store, Miss O’Neil. They’re easy to use, fit right over the runners. A few more safeguards will make you feel that much more secure.” As secure as anyone could feel in this city… And assuming someone didn’t really want to get in here, didn’t use glass cutters or a suction cup.
“Thank you. I’ll do everything you say. What can I get you? We have beer, fruit juice, coffee…” She shrugged apologetically. “Stephanie won’t allow liquor or soft drinks in the house.” The righteous Stephanie also kept a stash of marijuana in the den, but she couldn’t very well offer that to a detective from LAPD.
“Any of those is fine. I’ll have what you’re having.”
Ellen said with a grin, “I’m not having any of those. I like a cup of hot chocolate at night.”
Kate’s throat closed. She swallowed and managed to say, “Fine. I’d like that. I haven’t had hot chocolate for…months.”
I’ve struck a memory again, Ellen thought helplessly, moved by the pain she had heard in Kate Delafield’s voice. But I don’t know how not to. How very much she must have loved her.
Reluctant to leave, Ellen said, “Why don’t we take care of business first? What did you want to ask?”
Kate sat on the sofa next to Ellen and leafed through her notes, gathering her thoughts. She was suddenly bone-tired; her throat still ached with the anguish of memory, there was a stinging under her eyelids. Emotion had been ambushing her all day, seemed perilously close to the surface again. And she was exhausted. The wine, she thought, I should never drink when I’m working.
She cleared her throat. “It’s possible the killer didn’t have much time to exit the building. How long would you say it took you to go from the hallway to the lobby after you saw the body?”
Ellen touched her fingers to her temples, concentrating, reliving the moments. “Fifteen to twenty seconds,” she said finally.
Kate nodded. Better than she had hoped. “How long did it take to find the number and call the guards?”
“I found the number right away, but I didn’t call right away. I was too scared. Of being seen, heard. Another fifteen seconds…Maybe twenty.”
“How long did it take Carlson to answer?”
“He picked up the phone before it finished a ring.”
“And the conversation?”
“Brief. He had trouble hearing me, I was whispering. But it was brief. Fifteen seconds at the outside.”
Kate sat tapping her pen against her chin. Now that the detective was preoccupied, Ellen murmured, “Excuse me,” and rose to fix their hot chocolate.
“Sure,” Kate said absently, adding numbers on a blank page of her notebook. Using Ellen O’Neil’s figures, it had taken a total of forty-five seconds to complete the call to Rick Carlson, another minute at the outside for Carlson and Sutherland to close off the building—allow another ten to fifteen seconds error factor. A minute fifty-two it had taken her, Kate Delafield, to get down those steps in reckless flight. The killer had exited from the staircase with scant seconds to spare before the gate had come down. The killer therefore had to be above average in physical condition. Kate leaned back and reviewed her physical impressions of the employees of Modern Office, Incorporated.
In the kitchen, Ellen scalded the milk, spooned and stirred mix until the chocolate was thick and perfect; she poured it into two mugs, arranged a plate of shortbread biscuits, and carried a tray into the living room. And stopped, staring at Kate Delafield.
Kate had looked up at the sound of footsteps. The face was indistinct in shadows, but framed in the light of the kitchen doorway was the small lithe body, the soft wavy hair. And she held the tray of hot chocolate just as she had for so many nights of Kate’s life.
“Anne,” she breathed.
Carefully, Ellen set the tray on the coffee table. Kate Delafield had dropped her head into her hands. In the anguish of her understanding Ellen reached blindly, gripped shoulders, squeezed them hard with her fingers. Kate Delafield raised her face, a waxen mask of suffering, her light blue eyes glittering with tears.
“I look like her,” Ellen said. “Like Anne. Your lover.”
Kate closed her eyes in her struggle, but the supports gave way, beginning deep in her stomach, and as Ellen sat down and took her into her arms, her entire body trembled, then shook violently. “Oh God,” she choked.
Ellen whispered, “Have you never cried for her?”
The head pressed into the side of her neck shook no.
“You need to. You need to cry for her.” She lay back and drew Kate to her.
Ellen held her, rocked her, clasped the shuddering body close against hers. “It’s okay,” she murmured again and again, “it’s okay. Cry, it’s okay.”
The pain was in layers. She cried through the pure agony, then reached the images, and the words were forced from her: “Burned, burned, parts of her melted, charred…she didn’t have a chance…the tanker fell on the hood, she couldn’t get out…the metal was all fused, she burned, she burned…”
Ellen unbuttoned her shirt, gave her her bare breasts; they were quickly wet with hot tears.
For a long time after the tears stopped Kate took deep wracking breaths, her face buried in the deep soft warmth of Ellen’s breasts; Ellen’s hands were in her hair, holding Kate’s face to her. Then Kate’s hands took Ellen’s hands away and she sat up, her eyes red, her face splotchy. Her eyes met Ellen’s, glanced away.
“Here.” Ellen reached to her, held Kate’s head with one hand on the back of her neck, dried her face with her shirt. Kate took the shirt, gently wiped the wet breasts.
Ellen said, “Do you have a handkerchief?”
Kate nodded, reached into a jacket pocket.
“You need to blow your nose,” Ellen said. “You’re terrible at crying. You don’t know how to do it at all.”
Kate managed a smile. To allow her some moments of privacy, Ellen picked up the mugs and took them to the kitchen. She poured the chocolate back into the saucepan to reheat, went back through the living room and into the bedroom. Kate was sitting with her head bowed; she turned slightly when she heard Ellen, but did not look up.
Ellen pulled on a sweatshirt, returned to the kitchen. She served their hot chocolate again. Kate’s eyes were still reddened but her skin coloring had returned to normal.
Ellen sat beside her. “When did she die?”
“Five months ago. You do resemble her.”
“I feel honored to look like someone who was loved so very much.”
Tears sprang again to Kate’s eyes but she sipped her chocolate, her hands steady. “How did you know?”
“About Anne?”
With effort, Kate smiled. “Among other things.”
“Gail—my boss said that Detective Taylor mentioned you’d lost someone close to you not very long ago. I—I just knew. Somehow I just did.”
“Do I have an L on my forehead? What made you think I’m a…lesbian?” She could not prevent the slight hesitation; reticence and caution had become ingrown—self-protective behavior on which her professional survival depended.
“I guessed when we first met. I can sometimes tell. I think I tend to see it in women—” Seeing she was trapped, she admitted, “—that I find attractive.”
Kate smiled again. “Thank you. After twelve years with one person you wonder if you’re still attractive to anyone else.”
Ellen sipped her chocolate, awkward and uncomfortable with what she had confessed, even though she knew that by physical definition at least, she herself was attractive to Kate Delafield.
Kate said, “I haven’t cried since I was small… You must be clairvoyant, knowing that as well.”
“I lost my father a little over two years ago. He was an enormous presence in my life, we were very very close. Now I know I was in deep shock. I went through his funeral but I don’t remember much—”
“Anne’s was like a dream.”
“One night a full four months later I realized my father was dead. And I just fell apart. I cried and cried. For hours. I think when a person means that much the only way you can live through it at first is to have your mind blank it out. Like an anaesthetic during an operation. But then the anaesthetic wears off—”
“Yes,” Kate said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do that.” Ellen’s voice was firm, quiet. “I think it would be good if you stayed here tonight.”
There had been nothing even faintly sexual in the invitation. Kate looked at her unbelievingly.
Ellen said, “I understand what you’re feeling right now about Anne. And you understand my anxieties. Both of us should be with someone tonight—tonight we have mutual needs. You said I should stay with a friend. I feel very safe with you. I don’t think you’re dangerous, Detective Delafield. Am I wrong?”
Kate said tiredly, “You’re not wrong. I don’t have a halo. No cop does. But no, you’re not wrong.”
Ellen’s voice softened. “Tomorrow I’ll go back to being me, you go back to being a tough cop. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, resisting the impulse to apologize again. “But I did come here tonight to see that you’re safe. I give you my word on that—you’ll be safe in every way.”
“Thank you.” She realized that dealing with a sexual advance from Kate Delafield was a possibility that had not occurred to her. “One thing we do need to get settled first—I refuse to spend the night with a woman I have to call Detective Delafield.”
It was the first time she had heard Kate laugh, and she grinned, liking the warmth of the sound.
“You’re right, Ellen.”
“Make yourself comfortable, Kate. I’ll get a few things ready in the bathroom.”
Thinking of the waxen suffering on Kate Delafield’s face, she laid out a towel and a disposable toothbrush, took a pair of Stephanie’s pajamas from a drawer. Would it be worse to lose a lover than a parent? She caught herself—told herself guiltily that of course she would go to pieces if anything happened to Stephanie; it was simply too difficult to conceive of such a thing.
She came back to find Kate watching television. She had taken off her jacket; the sleeves of her simple white blouse were rolled to the elbow. The jacket was neatly folded over the back of an armchair, but a thin leather strap was visible, part of the holster apparatus of her gun, Ellen realized; Kate had tucked the weapon under the jacket to be out of sight. Kate looked drawn and exhausted; but she sat erect, body tilted slightly forward as she gazed at the television screen.
She had always liked the alert features of intelligent women, but she wondered if many other women would find Kate Delafield as attractive as she did. The tight polished planes of her face would be too hard for some; even her mouth, which was full, was set in a firm straight line; and her eyes were that cool color of blue…But there was one endearing element of physical vulnerability: the graying hair was so fine that it had the unruly shapelessness of a child’s hair.
She sat beside Kate, smothering a yawn as she tried to discern what she was watching—PBS, something about evolution. They were both being polite, she realized. “Look,” she said, “I know it’s only a little after nine, but it’s been a long bad day for both of us.”
Kate picked up the remote control, extinguished the picture.
“Bathroom’s all yours, Kate.”
Hearing the shower run, Ellen remembered her father again, the night she had spent alone crying for him. Kate came out of the bathroom; Ellen motioned with her head toward the bedroom and brushed past her into the bathroom.
Kate contemplated the king-sized bed, decided the side with the digital clock radio on the nightstand was probably Ellen’s. She turned down the heavy satin spread. Her guess was confirmed by two economics texts on the other nightstand, the box of man-sized Kleenex behind the lamp. She lay in bed cool and relaxed, strands of her hair pleasantly damp from the shower, Listerine still strong in her mouth, and wondered about the woman Ellen O’Neil lived with. A professor of economics at UCLA, Taylor had told her—who had been mad as hell when Ellen refused to leave with her. The pajamas were long enough but too snug; their owner was as tall, but more slender than she. The owner’s first name was Stephanie—and that was all she knew about her.
Exhausted from her spent emotion, warm and drowsy, she watched Ellen come in wearing a thigh-length rose nightshirt; she turned out the light and got in beside Kate, smelling of soap and a sweet and pleasant scent that was not perfume—body lotion or face cream, Kate sleepily decided.
Ellen’s hand grasped hers. “Good night, Kate.”
Kate turned on her side toward her. “Good night, Ellen.”
Her hand still clasped in Ellen’s, she plunged into sleep as if bludgeoned.
Ellen was awakened by the blanket being pulled off. The clock digits glowed 12:05. Kate lay rigid beside her, breathing in gasps, tangled in the sheet and blanket, arms and legs twitching.
“Kate,” she murmured, rising on an elbow, leaning toward her, knowing not to touch her. “Kate, wake up.”
Released from a dream of freezing, of clawing at a transparent glass cage, Kate jerked awake and sat up, her body tense and chilled.
In the street light from the window Ellen saw the pallor of Kate’s skin, the faint sheen. She sat up, brushed fingertips over the light film of perspiration on Kate’s forehead. She touched an arm and felt gooseflesh through the thin cotton pajamas. Kate shivered, and Ellen took her into her arms and drew her down, pulled the blanket over them, slid her hands under the pajama top and smoothed the cold pimpled flesh with her palms.
Increasingly aware of the soft contours of Ellen’s body under hers, the clean scent of the silky hair against her cheek, Kate relaxed under the warm hands soothing coldness and tension from her.
The planes of Kate’s back were firmly muscled, her body full and solid—much different from Stephanie’s. Curious, Ellen curved her hands around her ribs, and as Kate raised herself slightly in a welcoming of her touch, she explored the softness of her stomach, flatter, tighter than Stephanie’s despite all Stephanie’s jogging. She slid her hands up to Kate’s shoulders and gripped them, enjoying the breadth and fleshiness of them, their unmistakable strength.
Kate watched her. Ellen’s eyes had been closed as her hands moved, but now as she grasped Kate’s shoulders, her eyes were wide and dark in the dimness of the room. Her body warming with desire, Kate cupped the delicate face, strands of curling hair thick around her fingers. Her fingertips caressed a silken throat. Ellen’s eyes closed.
Kate took her hands away. Regardless of who had initiated this, it had already gone too far. She had given her word.
Ellen gazed into the shadowed face poised gravely above hers. She moved a hand over Kate’s forehead and into fine hair feathery in her fingers. Images of Kate came to her—the steeliness of her during this day. All thought narrowed into a single focus: to feel that strength. Her arms encircled the broad shoulders. “I’m not glass,” she murmured, “I won’t break.”
In the tightening embrace of Ellen’s arms Kate kissed the silken throat, and her hands found the silkiness under the nightshirt. Soon Kate slid the nightshirt off, impatiently stripped off her own pajamas. To a soft sound in Ellen’s throat, she took Ellen fully into her arms.
She was supple and delicate like Anne, but nothing like Anne. Yielding and responsive in these first moments when Anne would have been tigerish and aggressive. Ellen’s gentle yielding was utterly different, her lips melting sweetness, her soft arms warm, and trusting. Hunger rose, distinct in its shape: to give more and more pleasure, to feel every response from the tender woman in her arms. Her lips left Ellen’s; desire sharpened as Ellen arched to the first touch of Kate’s mouth on her breasts.
Ellen had become accustomed to making slow love with Stephanie, to eroticism sustained by periods of conversation, interruptions of mood. She was overwhelmed by the insistence of Kate’s body and arms, the contrasting tenderness of Kate’s hands so subtly caressing her breasts, her mouth that touched lightly in the hollow of her throat, her tongue sweetly stroking. Slowly, Kate’s mouth moved down again, to her breasts. All thought vanished.
Kate turned over, to have Ellen on top of her, to clasp and caress the firm swelling of her hips. Ellen’s thigh was between hers, and her own thighs closed convulsively; arousal had become an ache. With Anne, she would bring Anne’s hand to her now, or turn over and press rhythmically until orgasm released her to continue making love…Kate’s hands slid down to curve around the thigh between hers. But Anne had never breathed like this, in such gasps.
Ellen lay on Kate’s body breathing against her desire, against the possessive hands undulating her hips. A thought passed through her, clear and desire-quenching: I’m Anne.
“Ellen.”
Ellen looked at her.
“Ellen.” Kate’s eyes were closed. “Ellen…”
Ellen turned and pulled Kate on top of her, seeking the full substance of her.
Kate moved her body away. The soft cupping of her hand became her only connection to Ellen. She took her hand away only to know again the crisp softness warmly filling her palm; and yet a second time.
There was a sound—from Kate—as her fingertips touched, were enveloped in warm wetness. The fierce throbbing of her own flesh had eased; her mouth was dry with another want, single and specific.
“Ellen?”
Kate’s eyes were burning, hypnotic. The moving, caressing fingertips created ever-widening erotic waves. Ellen answered helplessly, “Yes.”
There was another sound—from Ellen—at the first touch of Kate’s mouth.
In the ecstasy of tasting her, inhaling her, Kate knew a moment of fear that Ellen would not speak or somehow signal what she needed. Then she heard the sharp intakes of breath, felt the unmistakable stiffening of Ellen’s body. Joyfully, slowly, Kate savored her, pressing the quivering thighs against her face.
She had not been with many women—and never with one who did not want her to readily come; repeatedly sensation intensified and then varied before Ellen realized that for now climax was secondary. She succumbed to sensation, became pure response. Tension became exquisitely unbearable. “Kate,” she said in an agonized whisper. Then her body was gathered up into an intensity that ebbed only with the ebbing of orgasm.
She lay in Kate’s arms, strength only slowly seeping back into her. Never had a woman’s mouth so entirely possessed her.
Ellen’s soft hands were warm pleasantness on her breasts, but not arousal; feeling oddly satiated, Kate murmured, “I don’t need… You were beautiful. I don’t need anything else.”
Remembering the wetness cool on her thigh as Kate had lifted her body from her, Ellen said simply, “I want to touch you.”
Except for her hand which stroked in Ellen’s hair, Kate received her caresses without moving. Ellen’s fingers traced her breasts, Ellen’s mouth took a nipple. Then, as if a veil had been suddenly stripped away, desire powerfully stirred. Kate pressed Ellen’s mouth to her.
Ellen lightly stroked the smooth columns of thighs, gripping them again and again, pleasurably feeling their muscular strength. Questing fingers reached higher, explored hair finer than her own and thick—soft damp fur. Kate’s legs jerked, and as Ellen’s fingers caressed, her heels moved up and down the sheet, her legs opening with each rise and fall of her thighs. Ellen sat up, away from Kate’s embrace, and bent to her.
She hung on a precipice of exquisite sensation, her hand clutching Ellen’s hair. Tantalized beyond all endurance, she pulled Ellen’s mouth away. “I can’t,” she gasped. “Not…like that.”
“Then show me,” Ellen said, coming to her, taking her in her arms. “Kate…want me…”
Again she felt Kate’s wetness on her thigh, felt a tremor in Kate’s body. She tightened her arms and strained up into her, as if to absorb her excitement.
Sensations dormant for long months had rekindled into brilliance. Ellen’s arms fully embraced her, Ellen’s body was satin under hers, Ellen’s breath was hot against her throat. She felt soft lips press into her shoulder, the light imprint of teeth. Kate groaned from the satin friction, her body surging. Moments later she groaned again.
Her body arched into Kate’s, Ellen felt the paroxysm, the sudden relaxation.
Soon afterward Kate managed to say, “You’re wonderful.”
“So are you.” She loosened her grip, but held Kate closely during the long quiet moments that followed.
“Kleenex,” Kate finally said. She added in a low mutter, “I’ve never been so wet.”
Pleased, Ellen reached to the nightstand for the man-sized box of tissues.
Later Kate whispered, “Ellen?”
But Ellen, an arm across Kate, her head nestled into Kate’s shoulder, was asleep. Anne had never liked sleeping close, even after lovemaking. Kate tightened her arm, drawing the warmth of Ellen even closer.
Kate was disturbed by the stirring of the warmth against her, then awakened by the chill of her body. In predawn light the digital clock read 5:22. Ellen had moved away but lay toward her on her side; in slumbering unawareness she shifted a breast from beneath her. Then she turned, her body curved away from Kate, arms outflung, hair in tangles, face buried in her pillow. The sweeping line of back was only partly exposed; other contours were suggested by the blanket. Irresistibly, hungrily, Kate ran a hand down the length of her. She stroked and kissed her back.
Ellen murmured part-pleasure, part-protest, but soon turned and gave Kate her arms. She received in return gentle caresses that warmed her and only gradually dissipated the somnolence of her body. Warmth became vague arousal, and memory returned of the pleasure she had known from Kate, body memory that rekindled desire.
Emboldened by her knowledge of Ellen, Kate took new and deeper pleasure in her, allowing herself to be led, rewarded by response even more quickly triggered. The tender prelude between them turned seamlessly into passion.
“Now,” Ellen soon whispered, “now.”
Kate gave all the pleasure she knew how to give, Ellen’s gasps coming swiftly, her hips alternately rising then grinding into the bed.
Afterward in Kate’s arms Ellen breathed “Kate… Kate,” in thick-voiced exhaustion.
Profoundly content, Kate fell asleep.
Voices—the sound of the television—and the unaccustomed smell of coffee awakened Kate. Memory returned; and as she searched for something to cover herself, a feeling of bleakness enveloped her.
Ellen was in the living room curled up on the sofa in a blue robe, watching Today. Her glance swept the terry robe Kate wore; she raised her coffee cup in greeting. The gesture seemed ironic to Kate, and soberly, she nodded.
“Good morning.” Ellen’s voice was low and expressionless.
“Is it?”
Not very, Ellen thought. She said, “Coffee’s ready.”
Kate shook her head. “For once I wish I were in uniform. I can’t go to work in the same clothes. Have to drive to Glendale.”
“Glendale might as well be Bakersfield in rush hour traffic. Look.” She ticked off on her fingers, “White blouse, gray slacks, green corduroy jacket. All you really need is another jacket. Borrow one of Stephanie’s.”
And why not, Ellen thought, glancing again at the familiar terry robe that covered a woman who was not Stephanie. She’s already made use of everything else.
Kate plucked at the robe. “Even this is too snug.”
“She’s not that much smaller. She’s got several jackets you could try. You’ll get by.”
She was pleased that Ellen did not consider Stephanie’s superior slenderness of much consequence, and she knew she would not refuse if Stephanie’s jackets fit her like a straightjacket. “Why don’t I cook breakfast? What do you like?”
Thinking churlishly that she could not stand cheeriness in the morning, Ellen held out her coffee cup. “Just coffee.”
Kate took the cup and looked down at Ellen. “You know, I wasn’t young when things changed in the sixties. All my upbringing, my influences, were from the fifties. I’m glad times have changed. There weren’t many women in my life before Anne—none of them of any meaning. You’re a different level of experience.”
“That can be very dangerous to weak egos,” Ellen said nastily, stung by Kate’s words.
She had expected anything but this response. Not understanding how she had erred, Kate said in a hasty effort to atone, “But I admire you. I liked it…how you were… In every way. That’s what I meant, all I meant. I thought you knew—could tell how much I liked it.”
“At least you’re honest.” She muttered the words grudgingly, only partly mollified. She was angry that she seemed unable to prevent the opening of herself to this woman.
Kate exhaled, remembering her full schedule of activity for the day. “Time for me to be a cop again.”
“I think I’ll just go on being a loose-living sixties woman,” Ellen said gratingly, anger rising again. “As well as your star witness.”
Finally, she understood; and wondering how she could have been so stupid, Kate sat down beside her, careful not to touch her. “One time, Ellen, when I was off duty, I found a woman lying on the ground with a crowd of people standing around just staring at her. She’d been hit by a girder from a highrise, both arms smashed, internal injuries, bleeding—she couldn’t be touched or moved. It was raining hard, the rain just pouring down on her. She was unconscious, but I spread my raincoat over her, I didn’t care about her blood on it or anything else except she was helpless… Then somebody else thought to hold an umbrella over her till an ambulance—”
“Am I the raincoat?” Ellen interrupted, smiling. “Or the umbrella?”
Kate said, “This morning when I woke up, the first thing I felt was lousy. What happened between us was because you’d felt sorry for me—”
“That’s not true,” Ellen interrupted vehemently. “That’s the last reason—”
“Then the next thing I thought,” Kate continued, “was that I’d done something to betray Anne.”
“I felt like shit this morning,” Ellen said quietly, her voice low and tense. “But you had no reason to feel bad, Kate—not for a second.”
“Neither of us did, that’s the point. But it was my first instinct, too. Last night was unconnected to anything else in our lives, Ellen. It was—”
Ellen reached to Kate, touched her cheek. “At least I have good taste in the people I find out in the rain.”
Kate smiled at Ellen. “You know, I can’t imagine why I ever thought you were anything like Anne. You’re not—at all.”
“Yesterday was a bad emotional time for you. Anybody who resembled Anne might’ve triggered… what I did.”
“But that’s what I mean. You really don’t look like her. Not at all.”
Immensely pleased, Ellen touched Kate’s cheek again.