The Murderers (Badge of Honor 6)

“Why?”

“You have to come here to get on a train.”

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“I have a job, Matt.”

“Call in and tell them you were run over by a truck.”

“It was something like that, wasn’t it? How do you feel this morning?”

“Right now, desolate.”

She chuckled again.

“Don’t call me, Matt. I’ll call you.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“This is what I think they call the cold, cruel light of day,” Amanda said. “I need some time to think.”

“Second thoughts, you mean? Morning-after regrets?”

“I said I need some time to think. But no regrets.”

“Me either,” he said.

He was now fully awake. He picked his watch up from the bedside table. It was ten past eight.

“You could have said something,” he said, somewhat petulantly.

“I’m saying it now,” Amanda said. “I have a job, I have to go to work, and I need some time to think.”

“Damn!”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really want to leave. But it was the sensible thing to do.”

“Screw sensible.”

“Have you got any morning-after regrets?”

“I’m still in shock, but no regrets.”

“We both got a little carried away last night.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“That’s what I want to think about,” Amanda said. “I’ll call you, Matt. Don’t call me.”

The phone went dead in his ear.

“Damn!”

“Push the damned button, Matt,” Inspector Peter Wohl said into the microphone beside Detective Payne’s doorbell. “The Wachenhut guy told me he knows you’re up there.”A moment later the solenoid buzzed, and Wohl pushed the door open and started up the narrow flight of stairs.

“I didn’t know who it was,” Matt said from the head of the stairs. He was wearing khaki trousers, a gray, battered University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt, and was obviously fresh from the shower.

He looks more than a little sleepy, Peter thought. Probably still feeling the pill Amy gave him.