“Nope. I’ll be the man who got Al Capone but couldn’t get the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.”
“But you did.”
“Well, someone did.”
Margaret was back again and both men fell silent while she refilled their coffee and fussed over them before retreating once more.
“So what’s next for you, Malone?” Ness asked, folding the paper with finality.
“I’m thinking of adopting a pain in the ass named Charlie.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And a couple of old ladies. Margaret too. And it’s probably time for a new name. Michael Malone is a liability.”
“Maybe something a little more eastern European. Say . . . Michael Kos?” Ness grinned.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“It has a ring.”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to learn to sew.”
Ness laughed and scooped up his last spoonful of eggs. “If that doesn’t work out . . . you can always come work for me.”
“Nah. This last time didn’t go so well,” Malone shot back.
“I don’t know about that.” Ness sipped his coffee and raised his eyes to Malone’s. “The way I look at it, you owe me big.”
“Yeah,” Malone grunted. “Maybe I do.”
“Maybe you do. And you know I’ll be calling that marker in.”
He was lurking at her bedroom door again, like he’d done over the last few days. Dr. Peterka said she needed rest and liquids—he’d checked on her several times since they’d brought her home—and she’d gotten plenty of both. The Rauses checked on her as well. The story was that Dani had been accidentally trapped in the faulty freezer. Privately, Malone knew Peterka and Raus were questioned at length, but Ness was handling that. Sweeney’s name never came up when Raus or Peterka made their calls on Dani. He knew because he hadn’t been far from her side since the night he’d found her at the morgue.
Her aunts had hovered too, and Dani had patiently borne their anxious fluttering and Malone’s constant presence. She’d told him and Eliot everything that had occurred—word for word, minute by minute—when Francis Sweeney strolled into the morgue on Mead.
Yet there was so much that hadn’t been said. He’d been waiting for the horror to ebb, for the quiet and privacy his feelings required.
“Michael?” Dani called.
He stuck his head around the frame. “Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
He shut the door behind him and moved to stand beside her bed. She was sitting up, her back against the headboard, and she looked beautiful. Well and rested. Her face was scrubbed, her hair loose, her nightgown fresh. A pitcher and a glass of water sat beside her on her nightstand.
“How do you feel?” he asked. She’d been asked the same thing countless times in the last few days. She had to be weary of answering, but she answered all the same, reassuring him.
“I’m bored silly.”
He gave her the barest of grins, but his heart contracted. “Have you ever been bored a day in your life?”
“No. I haven’t had time.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m not spending another day lying in bed, Michael. Tomorrow, life must go on.”
“All right,” he whispered, nodding. He chewed his lip, eyeing her glass of water, and then he took it and gulped it down. Lenka had refilled it before she went to bed as well as the pitcher beside it. He poured Dani another glass and set it down before shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Michael? Did you want to talk?”
He cleared his throat. They’d talked at length about the Butcher and her ordeal. They’d talked about the burnt remains that Eliot believed were Frank Sweeney. But they hadn’t talked about what came next. “I just need . . . I just need to hold on to you for a while. I’ll be gone when you wake, I promise.” He was trying for easy, for lighthearted, but when he met Dani’s gaze, she shook her head.
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“No. If I let you hold on to me again, Michael Malone, you need to be here when I wake. And every morning after that.”
He nodded, his eyes holding hers. “All right, Dani.”
“All right?” she asked. They studied each other, taking each other in, conversing silently.
“All right,” he repeated.
“And I think maybe we should move downstairs,” she said. “To your room.”
“Oh yeah?”