The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,7

his hand and took a sip of it while he watched. She fondled the long neck of the bottle as suggestively as she could. She frowned. She was a little too drunk to be convincing. Her timing was off. She put the bottle down and almost spilled it. She started to laugh. Maybe she wasn’t as good at this as she’d thought.

Del touched her hand on the table and said, “I’ve always loved your laugh.” He turned her palm up and traced her lifeline with his index finger, the touch giving her a shiver. “And I’ve always loved your hands,” he said.

“That’s not the only body part of mine that you’ve loved,” she said with an out-of-the-corner-of-her-eye glance.

“But it’s the only part I can love in public unless you want people to stare.”

“There’s a lot of fun things we can do in public with our hands. We just need to get imaginative.”

“Like what?”

Lucy switched her voice to that of a scolding schoolmarm. “Well, I can’t believe that you spilled your drink all over yourself.” She picked up a napkin and pretended to wipe off his shirt, her fingertips tracing a slow swirl across his neck, then slipping lower down on his chest, sneaking toward the waist of his pants, all the while saying “tsk, tsk,” in her schoolteacher tone. And all the while smiling.

He grabbed her wrist just as she was nearing his belt. “If you go any lower I’ll be spilling more than my drink.”

“Really? I’d like to be around for that.” Del’s face changed when she said that. What had been a boyish smile was replaced by the hard edge of lust.

“We can go back to my place,” he said in a low tone.

“Cockroaches are scared to go to your place,” she said back softly. They had always had this teasing tension. It was part of their sexual combat.

“You can come over and help me clean. Remember the time we spent all night dusting off the kitchen table?” He squeezed her hand—their fingers interlaced, their legs touching under the table. Lucy put her head on Del’s chest and took a deep breath. He smelled of cigarettes and sweet sweat.

She had him. She could crush him. Destroy him like he had destroyed her. All she had to do was go home with him, feed him a few more beers, and bring him to the edge. Slowly kiss his clothes off, but keep her own on. Then, as he stood there naked, anticipating, she could say, “Oh that’s right, we broke up,” and leave.

It was then that she realized what she wanted more than to destroy him: She wanted to get back together. That thought alone saved her.

She smiled up at him and pushed him away, saying, “How about instead I find you a ride home, and then tomorrow morning you call your girlfriend and buy her flowers for no reason.”

CHAPTER TWO

Tuesday Morning

Detective Sergeant Gilbert Montoya of the Special Investigations Team shifted in his desk chair, his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson digging into his side. He pushed his gun belt lower on his waist and wished that he still had his .357-caliber revolver. Six months ago the Santa Fe Police Department had switched to standardized weapons. Administration said that the stainless-steel Smith & Wesson, with its fixed sight and nine-shot magazine, was the weapon “best suited for the police mission”—at least according to the memo. The officers were still complaining about having to take three full-day training sessions in order to pass the shooting qualifications.

Gil had spent most of the morning entering reports. They had just finished a fairly routine drug murder the night before, with Gil in charge of the suspect interrogation, which took only a few hours. He looked at the clock on his desk. 8:22 A.M. He kept glancing at the time every few minutes until it said 8:30. Yesterday he had called fifteen minutes late and he could tell that she had been worried. His picked up his phone and hit speed dial. His mother answered with a weak “Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, mi hito.” He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.

“How was church?” His mother went to morning Mass every day, walking the quarter mile down the dirt road to the small chapel.

“Just fine.” She paused a little and said, “Father Adam wants to know when you’re going to go to church again.”

“Mom, I go every Sunday with Susan and the girls to Santa María de la Paz. You know that.” This was a