L'Affaire C. 16

Headlights lit up the entryway and Karsa felt his pulse settle. He hadn't even noticed that his heart rate had picked up when he realized she was gone. He should have kept Becski on her after her mall trip, but then, he wasn't sure he wanted to know everything she had done tonight.

Against his better judgment Karsa met them at the door. Nicki was obliterated, he could tell before she even opened her mouth so say, "Hi Karsa" as if they were old friends.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded of the teacher, what was his name? Mike?

"Sorry, I didn't realize she had so much to drink, one minute they were all chatting and she was fine—"

"She is not fine," Karsa interrupted. Matt was taller than him, wider, still Karsa blocked his entrance and reached for Nicki. She didn't resist, stepped toward him, though she probably fell toward him. He snaked an arm around her waist. "I'll take care of this."

Matt visible bristled, "Look, that's not nec-"

Karsa stepped back and shut the door. Nicki was no help, and he had to drag her into the living room, depositing her unceremoniously on the couch, livid with the teacher. Mack? What was his fucking name?

Nicki fell back against the couch. "Thank you for having your lackey return my phone," she said, "however, I will not thank you for having him follow me around the mall and slut-shame me when I tried to buy clothing I actually liked. Do you know I bought a maxi dress and a freaking cardigan because of him?"

He didn't say anything, was content to watch her- she had piled her dark curls on top of her head in a loose bun. Her hair looked damp; she must have showered immediately before she left, though she smelled nothing like a fresh shower. It turned out he didn't need to respond at all- Nicki was willing to fill the silence with her drunken ramblings. "Your housekeeper came today. She said you're a good man." Nicki didn't look like she believed this. She looked up at him, a challenge in her eyes. "She said you were a very good man with a very bad wife." She glanced at the bottle of Scotch, still sitting on the table where she'd left it.

Karsa stepped forward, reached for the Scotch bottle. "I think you've had enough," he said.

She grabbed at him, at his arms, though, and not the bottle. "I think I'm just getting started, Kovac. Tell me about her. Tell me why you slept in separate rooms."

He ignored her and stored the Scotch back in the bar, moved back to the couch to move her back upstairs. "Time for bed." He was angry but tried not to show it, she was drunk, and she was a reporter, and she was acting precisely the way he would expect a drunk reporter to act. And she was so very, very, drunk.

He might as well have said nothing, she just looked at him with big brown eyes full of fear and what looked a little too much like despair. "Tell me everything is going to be okay."

He wasn't going to be sucked into her, though, not like this, she was too vibrant, too reckless, and too drunk. Probably too skinny, too, with her little bird features, though that he found oddly attractive. But he didn't need the headache of her, certainly didn't need anyone plying his housekeeper for information- she was dangerous to have around. And she had made clear he was shit stuck to the bottom of her shoe. "All of the evidence is circumstantial. Everything will be fine."

"Not with my case. With my life. Tell me my life is going to be okay."

"You are smart and beautiful. Most smart and beautiful people have okay lives." She did not look satisfied with this answer. He held out a hand to her, recognizing that he should have left her there on his couch to sleep it off. She looked up at him like she recognized it, too, but she accepted his hand, let him pull her up, let him slip an arm around her when she wobbled. "Come on," he said, coaxing her. She followed, tentatively, a look of surprise on her face as she blinked away some of the confusion.

But she was not to be distracted. "She said it was an arranged marriage, that your mother sent her from Hungary. She said she arrived with dollar signs in her eyes."

"Enough," Karsa said, his tone and his face a warning. Enough. He was not going to be her next investigation, whether for a story or just her own dogged curiosity.

"She said there were two bedrooms from the very beginning, that she took a lover and-"

"Enough!" he roared, shaking her. Nicki was too drunk (and too thin) to be shaken. She stumbled back, falling into the couch, hitting her head on the back of the couch and wincing.

She wasn't sober enough to fully process his act of aggression, to be scared or to condemn him for it, but it didn't matter. Shame curled up inside him.

"Nicki," he crouched next to her. "I didn't mean to-"

"She said you were a good husband, that you're a good man," this she said as though this was a dubious claim, and maybe it was.

His face was closer to hers than he intended. She hadn't tried to get back up, had sunk into the couch, almost horizontal, though, only her head propped up by the back of the couch, her neck at an odd angle. He began the work of pulling her up, and her head fell back as he lifted her into a sitting position. He had his own questions, mostly about the teacher, about whether anyone had taken any photos tonight, whether she thought she'd been followed. When he opened his mouth to speak, though, Nicki was speaking again, "She said the night your wife left you was the night she died." Nicki, her head tilted back between her shoulder blades as if her neck lacked the strength to hold it, told this last gem to the ceiling. "She said some people thought you killed her."

A sober Nicki might have made this sound like an accusation, might have judged this to be true. Although she must have been sober when his very chatty housekeeper was here, one would hope-the woman typically left by 2 pm.

"You're very drunk," Karsa said, and he decided then to carry her. Once laid out on the bed no doubt she would pass out and finally, mercifully, shut up. Underneath the stench of bar, she smelled like gardenias today, the scent enveloping him when he dragged her toward the edge of the couch and lifted her into his arms. "You should sleep."

"I miss my dog," she said into his neck, her breath warm. He knew in the way she melted into him that he could have her, could push down her jeans and she wouldn't protest, wouldn't try to stop him. But it wouldn't be because of an attraction to him, it would be because she was obliterated. So obliterated that she might not remember any of the evening. He could kiss her, taste her, fuck her, and it was unlikely she would remember any of it. And he wanted to fuck her. But not like this.

"We will get the dog tomorrow," she was even lighter than she looked. After the awkwardness of trying to drag her into the living room, he expected to have more trouble carrying her, expected her height to be a problem, but she sank into his arms and made herself small against him. And, though, while she wasn't the heaviest woman on earth, he could have done without the flight of stairs.

She was still talking, but the words were thankfully unintelligible now. She seemed to be talking about the mall now, about stupid clothes. He pushed back the covers on the bed while trying to maintain his grasp on her. It was a bad idea to carry her. His back was going to be aching tomorrow. His balls were going to be aching tonight.

As he laid her on the bed she said, "I'm not a slut. I have a boyfriend. I just like short skirts."

"Shh," Karsa said.

Nicki settled back into the pillow, her hair still in a messy bun, Karsa didn't want to imagine how he might get it out so he decided to leave it in. Her eyes drifted closed as he adjusted the covers. Tomorrow he would get her hotel room, would have someone watch her. Someone else could make sure she was safe; it didn't need to be him. There was no way she wouldn't black out, no way that she would remember in the morning if he kissed her right now, if he pulled the covers down and unbuttoned her blouse, kissed his way down her neck and chest to her waistband. He wondered if, in her current state, she would kiss him back. Would she open her lips to his, invite him in? He was curious, but not wildly so. If she did kiss him, it wouldn't mean anything.

He sat up to leave but he grasped his hand, held it in hers as she blinked wildly, trying to focus. "I'm sorry about tonight," she said, and, for fuck's sake, tears welled in her eyes. "I know you're only helping me because of Liam but I appreciate it. I know I seem ungrateful."

"You don't seem ungrateful," he said. "You just seem like an intolerable bitch."

Nicki laughed, and it was like music filling the room. Karsa swallowed, forcing down the swelling of his heart. He was getting soft, which was ridiculous. She was just saying thank you for making a mess of his whole life. And tomorrow there would be a fucking dog here, probably pissing everywhere.

With no small effort, Nicki sat up in the bed. Her face, untouched by time, was close to his. She was young and vibrant and opinionated. She was an idealist, and he could see now that the world was just starting on her. Soon, she would be a cynic, like the rest of them. He couldn't protect her from that. Karsa reached up to brush a stray tendril of hair off of her face, applying just enough pressure and lingering just long enough for her to know that the touch was intentional. Her skin was soft and warm and he wondered if her lips were just as soft. He stole a glance at them and that was it- that was his undoing. Her breath hitched and her eyes searched his, she seemed to be willing him to kiss her. But it wasn't real, the moment wasn't real. She was vulnerable and scared. He was here and in lust. That was all.

"Goodnight, Nicki," he said, and, unable to tuck her in while she was sitting up; he adjusted the covers at her hips and stood. Her hand twitched, but she didn't reach for him. Even drunk, she knew better than to reach for him.