* * *

That evening Sam and I had our first fight. This was probably overdue, given that we had been going out for three months without even a mild disagreement, but the timing sucked all round.

Sam and I got together a few months after I left Murder. I'm not sure exactly how that happened. I don't remember a whole lot about that period; I appear to have bought a couple of truly depressing sweaters, the kind you only wear when all you really want is to curl up under the bed for several years, which occasionally made me wonder about the wisdom of any relationship I had acquired around the same time. Sam and I had got close on Operation Vestal, stayed that way after the walls came tumbling down--the nightmare cases do that to you, that or the opposite--and long before the case ended I had decided he was pure gold, but a relationship, with anyone, was the last thing I had in mind.

He got to my place around nine. "Hi, you," he said, giving me a kiss and a full-on hug. His cheek was cold from the wind outside. "Something smells good."

The flat smelled of tomatoes and garlic and herbs. I had a complicated sauce simmering and water boiling and a huge packet of ravioli at the ready, going by the same principle women have followed since the dawn of time: if you have something to tell him that he doesn't want to hear, make sure there is food. "I'm being domesticated," I told him. "I cleaned and everything. Hi, honey, how was your day?"

"Ah, sure," Sam said vaguely. "We'll get there in the end." As he pulled off his coat, his eyes went to the coffee table: wine bottles, corks, glasses. "Have you been seeing fancy men behind my back?"

"Frank," I said. "Not very fancy."

The laughter went out of Sam's face. "Oh," he said. "What did he want?"

I had been hoping to save this for after dinner. For a detective, my crime-scene cleanup skills suck. "He wanted me to come to your case meeting tomorrow night," I said, as casually as I could, heading over to the kitchenette to check the garlic bread. "He went at it sideways, but that's what he was after."

Slowly Sam folded his coat, draped it over the back of the sofa. "What did you say?"

"I thought about it a lot," I said. "I want to go."

"He'd no right," Sam said, quietly. A red flush was starting high on his cheekbones. "Coming here behind my back, putting pressure on you when I wasn't there to--"

"I would've decided exactly the same way if you'd been standing right here," I said. "I'm a big girl, Sam. I don't need protecting."

"I don't like that fella," Sam said sharply. "I don't like the way he thinks and I don't like the way he works."

I slammed the oven door. "He's trying to solve this case. Maybe you don't agree with the way he's doing it--"