Fire And Ice

“Lethal injection room in New Mexico. And not if it wasn’t premeditated.”

“But if it was…”

“You said it wasn’t.”

“And you’re not catching my point.” Jena came to stand in front of her younger friend. If the memory of her own parents surfaced a little bit more every time she worked on the Glendale case, that was only natural, wasn’t it? And if that same memory made her want to change the system, there was nothing wrong with that either. “Was there a reason why you stopped by? You know, other than to give me a lesson on morality?”

“Oh! Yes. I almost forgot.” She tucked the hair at the other side of her face behind her left ear. “I wanted to ask if you’d co with me on the Fuller case.”

“I thought Dulcy was going to do that.”

“She was. But what with her new condition and all… Anyway, the court date is set at the same time as her due date and I’d really hate to get all the way there and have no backup.”

Jena twisted her lips. “Depends.”

She gave a secret smile, remembering when Tommy had used the highly suggestive word on her earlier that morning, and her own puzzling response to it.

“On what?”

“On whether you’ll co with me on this case.”

“The Glendale case? The case of the wealthy socialite who whacks her husband and screams years of emotional abuse as the reason that’s in all the newspapers and smeared all over the television? Oh, no fair.”

Jena lifted a finger. “On the condition that there’ll be no more conversations like the one we just had questioning the client’s innocence.” She lowered her voice to a mutter. “And no comments like the one you just made.”

“But…”

“Uh-uh. Those are my terms. You want me to co on the whistle-blower Fuller case, you have to do the Glendale case.”

Marie made a comic face at her. “Oh, okay. Done.”

“Good.”

“You want to catch dinner tonight?” Marie asked, leaning against the desk.

Jena paused, then continued through the door. “Rain check. I already have other plans.”

“Ah. A guy.”

Jena smiled, thinking the word grossly inadequate. Tommy was a god. A king. The eighth wonder of the world. “Yes. A guy.”

IT HAD BEEN A LONG, long time since Jena had indulged in a genuine midnight snack. She, Dulcy and Marie used to make a habit of getting together at least one night a week to pig out on everything their little ole hearts desired and OD on old videos, but they’d stopped that a few months ago. She slowed her chewing, realizing that had happened just after Dulcy had met Quinn.

Is that what happened when women fell in love? Did everything else in their lives come a distant second within a blink of an eye?

The thought bothered her, but for only a moment. Because, right now, sitting across her kitchen table from Tommy in her old sweats, her muscles stretched, her skin refreshed from the brisk walk they’d given Caramel, for the first time she almost understood why Dulcy had stopped participating in their weekly get-togethers.

She slid her foot under the table to stick her toe under the hem of Tommy’s jeans, still hungry for him even though by all rights she should have had her fill. But when it came to Tommy…well, she was beginning to fear she’d never get enough of him. Caramel stopped her foot halfway there and she nudged the puppy out of the way.

“That pizza is two days old,” Tommy said, his brown eyes sexy, his hair tousled and reminding her how they had spent the past few hours. “How can you eat it?”

Jena distantly eyed the fruit he’d peeled and cut into precise pieces on a plate. “That fruit’s healthy. How can you eat that?”

She picked up the last of the nuked pizza, plucked a piece of pepperoni off the top, then leisurely stuffed the rest into her mouth, making loud sounds of enjoyment as she finished it off. Tommy swallowed hard as he watched her movements. Jena made sure to take extra care in sucking her fingers in a provocative way.

“So how’d it go today?” he asked, clearing his throat then putting two pieces of orange on her sauce-smeared plate.

Jena made a face as she fed some pepperoni to Caramel. “Where?” Was her voice a little raspy? “At work?”

“Didn’t you say you had to visit a client in jail?”

Jena’s shoulders instantly tensed. He would have to remind her of something she’d prefer not to think about just then. “Oh, that.”

“You know, that pepperoni isn’t going to help her, um, stomach problems any.” He looked at her. “It didn’t go well, I take it.”

“No, it went okay.” She moved the fruit out of the way to get at a gob of remaining cheese. “It’s just that…I don’t know. Do you ever feel like you know someone but have these awful flashes that you might not know them that well after all?”

“Never.”

She poked him with her cold toe. “I’m serious.”

“Sure. Everyone feels that way at one time or another, I guess.” He slid a peach slice into his mouth and made the same sounds of pleasure she had made moments before. Jena watched as peach juice dripped down the side of his mouth over his chin and felt her own mouth water. Oh, how she wished she were that peach.

“Do you know this client?”

“Know her?” She tugged her gaze from his decadent mouth. “No. Not very well anyway. I know of her. Her family is old society. The Glendales were friends of my parents.” Jena’s throat tightened at what she might have given away in the simple sentence. “Anyway, about four months ago Patsy Glendale murdered her husband. And I agreed to take on her case.”

“That’s the woman all over the news?”

“It reached L.A.?” Jena perked up a bit. She knew the case was high profile in Albuquerque. Had the national media picked up on it?

Tommy pointed toward the living room. “I caught a bit of the news earlier.”

Jena deflated. “Oh.”

His chuckle made her think of everything but Patsy Glendale and murder. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”

She shrugged, uncomfortable with having been found out. “It’s just that this case…it’s one of those make-you-or-break-you cases, you know? The kind that puts you on the front page of the local newspaper. Garners attention.” She wiped her hands on her napkin. “You can’t pay for that kind of PR. And seeing as Dulcy, Marie and I are still finding our footing…well, we can use all the PR we can get.”

“So murderers can beat a path to your door?”

“No, so high-paying clients can keep us out of the rain.”

She sat back and watched him cut another peach, putting a slice on her plate alongside the orange pieces she had yet to touch. “Did she do it?” he asked.

Jena was reminded of her conversation with Marie earlier. “Yes.”

She waited for his response. Only he didn’t indicate one way or another what he thought of her pronouncement. He merely continued peeling the peach then cutting it into easy, precise pieces. “Premeditated?”