Chapter 15: Level Three

At two in the morning, level three of the staff garage smells like wet concrete and old coffee.

Kurt's car was a big grey SUV, ten years old, with a back seat wider than my first apartment's bed.

We sat in the front seat with the engine off and the heater ticking.

The forensic review had a date: Thursday week.

We had a plan to talk about, and we had talked about it for forty minutes, and neither of us had said anything useful.

"Dolores found something," I said finally.

"She told me."

"She says Pembrey's assistant prints everything. Dolores gets the recycling bin on Fridays."

"She told me that too."

"She has a list of every camera he ordered since June."

"Gretchen."

"What?"

"You're looking at my mouth."

I was.

"It's two in the morning," I said. "I'm allowed."

"Come here."

"Where?"

He tipped his head toward the back seat.

"I may have planned this," he said.

"You planned this?"

"I hoped," he said. "Planning would have been presumptuous."

I was laughing as I climbed between the seats.

The back seat was cold and wide.

He followed me in, folding his big body into it with a grunt, and pulled the door shut.

The glass was already going misty.

I shoved him down against the leather and straddled his lap, with my knees on either side of his thighs.

My head hit the ceiling lining, and I swore.

"Careful, Doctor."

"I'm always careful."

"You are not."

"I'm very careful about the things that matter."

I kissed him, and he made that low sound again, the one I'd earned in the stairwell.

His hands slid under my scrub top, up my ribs, and thumbed my nipples through my bra until I gasped.