Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

sound. "I'm the classiest thing they're ever going to see, so let them look."

"I don't understand this. Hard as nails. No shame. What has happened to you?"

Finn grabbed up his jacket from the ground, and shook it out all the while keeping his eyes on his ex. On a movie screen she would have been a goddess. But they were in an artist's compound in a rough part of Los Angeles. In the clear morning light his ex-wife looked like a stripper or worse.

"Nothing has happened to me." Bev grabbed the top of her corset and pulled up, re-adjusting her fine breasts. "We're divorced, Finn, so don't go pulling your righteous Irish act on me. I'm not your mother, and I never was. That was the trouble, you know. Who could compete with your saintly, long suffering mother?"

"Beverly," Finn said, and she understood the warning.

 Finn's family was off limits. That was fine, because there really wasn't anything to complain about. The O'Brien clan was as close to saintly as they come—all nine of them —but especially the long-dead, forever-child Alexander.  It had been a predator, a murderer, that picked Finn's brother up from school when Finn had forgotten to fetch the little boy. Finn would never stop doing penance for that sin, and God help the person who suggested the mystery of Alexander's death should be put to rest.

Bev crossed her arms and threw herself against the wall like a petulant child. Moments ago Finn had taken her by the wrist and pulled her behind a latticework of rotting wood. It was overgrown with a vine that thrived in spite of neglect. The shelter was minimal, but it was the best he could do. He wanted to keep their meeting private. When he took Bev from the building she had stumbled after him, those ridiculous heels of hers clacking on the metal stairs and concrete floors. She took two steps to every one of his. Now through the wooden lattice, he could see the team going about their business. The EMTs were gone; the Medical Examiner's people and a forensic team were there. Two more black and whites had come to help Officer Hunter and Officer Douglas. Cori would be seeing to the artist and his wife. He attended to his ex.

"Sure, Beverly, I'm not judging because I've got no idea what it is I've been looking at in that place."

Finn ran his hand over his head as he turned away from her only to turn back again. This time he had both hands out, and he used them to rake the air.

"And this. What is this you're wearing among strangers?"

"These people aren't strangers," she snapped.

"You're telling me those are your friends?" Finn asked, his Irish spiking as it did when emotions ran high. "I'm thinking you can do better, Beverly, my girl."

"Yeah, like all those cops you thought were your friends?" she said. "Those good guys who turned their backs on you when you needed them most. God, is it any wonder I left you?"

'Tis a wonder now that you mention it." Finn tried to lighten the mood, but Bev shot him a withering look.

"Oh, please. How could I stay when your trials would never end, Finn?" Bev threw up her hands. "Alexander was one thing. We were kids when he got killed. I knew I could help you through that, but the thing with the cop? I wasn't going to live my whole life under that cloud. You could have come with me, quit the force, and had a better life. I needed you to say screw 'em all."

Beverly shook her head. She put her palms flat against the wall. Her stance made her look as if she were resigned to a firing squad and the truth would make no difference to the bullet.

"You're such a boy scout. I admire that, but not on my time. We got married too young, and I never had a chance to see what else was out there."

"I knew what was out there, and it wasn't pretty," Finn said. "I would have kept you safe."

"I am safe."  Beverly pushed away, chastened a bit when she saw that she could still hurt him. "Nobody can live with a saint. People don't even like saints."

"I've never said that I was one," Finn said.

"You didn't have to." Bev tossed her head. "Saints love being tortured, and if you live with one you can't be more tortured than they are. I needed to have some fun and—"

"And that's fun?" Finn pointed to the building. "Men dressed up like animals in fancy dress, women on their knees before them without their clothes on?"

 "I don't have to explain myself, Finn," she said. "And you don't need to save me from anything. So thank you very much, I'm out of here."

She did a ridiculous two-step in shoes that weren't meant for walking much less dancing.  Finn took her arm and pulled her back until they were chest-to-chest, eye-to-eye. He felt none of the love he once had, but he still felt for her. What he felt was pity.

This woman was beautiful, but not pretty like his Beverly. This woman spoke her mind, but she didn't seem to have a rational thought in it. This one was desirable, but not to him. In that moment Finn realized it was finally done between them. He let her go. Feeling he still owed her something, he would try to save her from herself.

"Sit. It hurts me to look at you in those shoes." Bev raised her chin, but he'd have none of it. "There is a murdered woman inside, and you rampaged through that place looking for her. Everyone took note, and if there is suspicion on you it's well deserved.  Now sit."

Bev sat down on a small wooden bench that was in no better shape than the lattice. Finn got down on one knee and rested his forearms on the upraised one.

"I'm not leaving Cori up there to do all the work