Light in Shadow by Unknown

his jaw.
    Absently he dabbed at it with the silk scarf as he crossed the living room to where Mason lay,
    moaning.
    Zoe followed.
    Mason clenched his thigh with both hands, gritting his teeth. A pool of blood had formed on
    the tiles.
    "You can't prove anything." Mason looked up, his face twisted with pain and rage. "You can't
    prove a damned thing."
    "Don't bet on it." Ethan brushed a couple of slivers of glass off his shirt, reached into his
    pocket, and took out his phone. "I found the bed."

Chapter Eight

    "Okay," Zoe said, "How did you find that bed?"
    Ethan took a swallow of the champagne Arcadia had insisted on ordering for the table and put
    down the glass. Champagne was not his beverage of choice, but Zoe seemed to like it and he
    was trying to go along with the client. He consoled himself with the thought that he could
    always pour himself a stiff shot of whiskey later when he got back to Nightwinds.
    It was late, and the trendy little Fountain Square restaurant was starting to empty out. A few
    couples lingered, and there was one large group on the far side of the room. He recognized a
    familiar face and figured it for a business dinner.
    It had been Zoe's idea that they go out to eat after the long session with the police. They
    were both exhausted, and she said she was concerned about their stress levels. They needed
    to unwind.
    "Dinner is on me," she said. "It's the least I can do after what happened today."
    The offer had sounded too good to be true, and, as was often the case with such offers, it
    proved to be exactly that. Zoe invited Arcadia Ames to join them. The result was that instead
    of an intimate dinner for two during which he could have told her in great detail why she'd had
    no business taking off alone that afternoon, he was stuck with this not-so-cozy threesome.
    He was acutely aware that he had no real grounds for complaint. If it had not been for
    Arcadia, he might still be looking for Zoe.
    Every time he thought about Zoe locking herself inside the high-tech, steel-doored wine cellar
    to escape a crazy wife killer, he felt the inchoate anger and got the freezing sensation in his
    gut all over again. It had been so damned close.
    So here the three of them sat, squeezed into a snug corner booth, sipping champagne. Maybe
    it was better this way, he thought. His relationship with Zoe was supposed to be all business,
    and the truth was he probably would have tried something really stupid if he'd found himself
    alone with her tonight.
    The problem was that even though he was well and truly pissed, he also wanted very badly to
    take her to bed. The resulting tension had made him a little surly, and it was hard work trying
    to conceal his bad temper.
    "The bed," he said, focusing on the neutral topic. "Right, in the end that proved to be Mason's
    biggest problem. It was easy enough to wrap his dead wife in the shower curtains and bury
    her in the back garden. But he couldn't quite see digging a hole big enough to bury a
    king-sized box spring and mattress."
    "That might have gotten the attention of some of his neighbors," Zoe said dryly.
    "But he couldn't just haul them off to a landfill, either. People prowl through landfills looking for
    things to salvage and the bed was in pretty good shape."
    "Except for the stains, of course." Arcadia turned her champagne flute slowly between her
    fingertips. "He knew that if the blood-soaked mattress ever turned up it could be used as
    evidence of foul play."
    Ethan nodded. On the surface he could not see what Zoe and Arcadia had in common, but the
    emotional tie that bound them together was unmistakable and it worried him. He wondered if
    the connection between the two women was sexual. His instincts told him that it was not, but
    he did not trust his gut reaction when it came to that kind of thing. Women were a mystery.
    His instincts might be in denial tonight because all he could think about was having hot,
    sweaty sex with Zoe.
    Get your mind out of the