Divine Evil

by Nora Roberts

  Maybe I should just measure …” She slid a hand down, between their bodies.

  “Cut it out.”

  She collapsed with laughter. “Who would have thought Cameron Rafferty, bad boy turned lawman, would be shy.”

  “I'm not shy, I'm just—discreet.”

  “My ass.”

  “I thought we were talking about mine.”

  Giving a snort, she shifted again, bundling pillows under her head. Where had all this energy come from? she wondered. Ten minutes ago she hadn't been certain she would ever move again. Now she felt like … well, dancing.

  “I guess we could use a loincloth. You could pin your star to it if it made you feel better. I could title it The Long Arm of the Law.”

  “I'm going to slug you in a minute.”

  After a long, contented sigh, she turned her head to look at him. “I might as well tell you, I'm really stubborn when it comes to my work. I once hounded a bag lady for two weeks so I could sketch her hands. What are you smiling at?”

  You're pretty.

  “You're trying to change the subject.”

  “Yeah. But you are pretty. You've got these freckles on your nose. They're just about the same color as your eyes.”

  “Okay, you can sculpt me if you want, but I get to do you first.”

  He pushed a pillow into her face.

  “You know.” She slid it off and stuck it with the others under her head. “If we were in New York, I'd make you get dressed so we could go out. To a club.” Smiling, she closed her eyes. “Hot music, too many people, overpriced drinks served by rude waitresses.”

  He picked up her hand to play with her fingers. “Do you miss it?”

  “Hmmm?” She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I haven't thought about it much. It's tough not having a bakery across the street, but the market has pretty good doughnuts.”

  He was frowning now, studying her fingers instead of toying with them. They were long, slender and artistic, like her. “Where do you live up there?”

  “I've got a loft in SoHo.”

  A loft in SoHo. That, too, was like her. Exotic and funky.

  “Have you ever been to New York?”

  “Couple of times.” He looked from her hand to her face. She was utterly relaxed, eyes closed, lips just parted, skin faintly flushed in the afterglow of sex. She hadn't bothered to pull up the sheet as some women would have, but lay over it, comfortably naked. He slid a hand over her breast, down her rib cage, more to reassure himself than to arouse.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Like what?”

  She smiled again. “New York.”

  “It was okay. Like a fast ride in a crowded and overpriced amusement park.”

  His description made her smile widen. “A long way from the Emmitsboro annual carnival.”

  “Yeah. A long way. It's funny the way things work out—that you and I would both come back here and end up together.” He reached over to stroke her cheek. “I don't want you to go back to New York, Clare.” She opened her eyes again, and they were wary. “Don't tell me I'm moving too fast, because I feel like my life's on the line here.”

  “I wasn't going to say that. I don't know what to say.”

  “I don't want to lose you, and if you went back to New York, I couldn't go with you. I can't go back on the force.”

  “You're doing police work here.”

  “Yeah.” He sat up, reached for a cigarette. She wouldn't settle for half-truths or ultimatums. Why should she? he thought. He was going to have to tell her everything. “Nice, quiet little town. Or at least it was, and that's what I wanted.” He struck a match. That, too, was quiet, even harmless, with just the right friction. He watched the flame flare before he shook it out. “What I had to have. I came back here because I couldn't function as a cop in the city. I couldn't trust myself to go through the door with anyone again.”

  “Through the door?”

  “With a partner,” he said. “I couldn't trust myself to back up a partner.”

  She put a hand over his. “Why?”

  “I had a partner. We worked together for over three years. He was a good cop. And a good friend.”

  “Was?” she said and brought his hand to her lips. “I'm sorry. What happened?”

  “I fucked up, and he died.”

  “Nothing's that simple.” Suddenly cold, she picked up his shirt and pushed her arms through it. She knew what it was like to hold tight to hidden hurts, grow proprietary over them, nurse them inside like a miser with a dark, secret treasure. “Can you tell me?”

  “It's more like I have to.” But he was silent for a moment while a whippoorwill joined its song to the music of Johnnie Ray. “We were out doing some legwork on a case, and a call came through for a unit to respond to a disturbance.” He could hear the squawk of the radio, Jake's good-natured oath.

  Looks like you and me, Tonto.

  “An armed man taking potshots at parked cars and apartment windows in South East. We were only a couple of blocks away, so we took it. When we got there, the guy had some woman around the neck with a forty-five to her head. She was screaming.”

  He paused to take a pull on his cigarette. The moonlight flashed into high summer sun. Hazy heat. The stink of garbage.

  He could see it clearly, much too clearly. The color of the woman's shirt, the wild look in the gunman's eyes, the glitter of glass on the sidewalk.

  “He was on PCP, really raving. He dragged her into this building. It was abandoned, slated for demolition. We called for backup, and we went in. Jake didn't come out.”

  “Oh, Cam.”

  “The guy was pulling her up the steps. She'd lost a shoe,” he said softly. “Funny what you remember. She'd lost a shoe, and her heels were thudding on the steps as he dragged her up. Her eyes …” She had looked right at him, dark, dark eyes filled with terror and hope and pleading. “She wasn't screaming anymore, just crying. Begging. But he was screaming.

  I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIGHT! I AM SALVATION! IF THINE EYE OFFENDS THEE, THEN PLUCK THE FUCKER O UT!

  “We went up the first landing.” He could hear the screams and sobs echoing off the scarred and crumbling walls. The smell of dust, the fetid, sweaty stench of terror. “It was at the top of the second floor. A step broke. I went through it, up to my goddamn knee.” The unexpected give, the flash of pain and frustration. And fear. “Jake was three steps ahead of me. Three steps. I hauled myself out of the damn hole.

  THE WHORE OF BABYLON! WHO'S GONNA CAST THE FIRST STONE? WHO'S GOT THE GUTS? WHO'S GOT THE GLORY?

  “The crazy bastard shot the woman. I'm on my fucking hands and knees scrambling up, and he shot her. She bounced off the wall like a doll, and before she hit he'd already pumped three bullets into Jake. I killed him.”

  The scream as the bullets slapped into flesh. Blood blossoming on a torn T-shirt.

  “I killed him,” Cam repeated. “Just a couple of seconds too late. I was still on my knees, and Jake was tumbling down those steps when I did it. If I hadn't been three steps behind, he'd be alive.”

  “You can't know that.”

  “I can know that. He was my partner, and he died at the bottom of those steps because I wasn't there to back him up.”

  “He died because a maniac killed him and an innocent woman.” She put her arms around him, folding herself around his rigid body. “Maybe if the steps hadn't been rotted, maybe if your partner had fallen through them instead of you, maybe if that man had gone crazy in another part of town—maybe then, it wouldn't have happened. There was nothing you could have done to change it.”

  “I've replayed it in my mind hundreds of times, thousands.” He pressed his lips against her neck, taking comfort in the taste and scent of her skin. “And I'm never in time. Afterwards, I got into the bottle.” He pulled away again because he wanted her to look at him. “Real deep into the bottle. I'd still be there if it had helped any. I turned in my shield and my gun, and I came back here because I figured I
wouldn't have to do anything more than give out citations and break up a few bar fights.”

  “You do a good job here.” She sat back to take his hands. “You belong here. Whatever happened to bring you back doesn't change the truth of that.” Grieving for him, she pressed his fingers to her lips. “I know what it's like to lose someone important to you, what it is to wonder if you could have done something, anything to stop it from happening. I wish I could tell you that it goes away, but I'm not sure it does. All I know is that you have to forgive yourself and go on.”

  “Maybe I'd started to do that. Maybe. Then in the last few weeks, with everything that's been happening to this town, I've wondered if I'm the one who should be handling it. No. No, I guess I've wondered if I can handle it.”

  She smiled a little, hoping it would help. “I can tell you that you sounded like a pretty tough cop when you interrogated me.”

  “I didn't mean to be rough on you.”

  “You weren't. I think the word is ‘thorough.’ ” She combed a hand through his hair. Yes, she liked his face, she thought. All the more now that she could see the vulnerability. “I remember you, Rafferty, ten, twelve years ago, strutting through Emmitsboro with a chip on your shoulder the size of a redwood. Nobody messed with you. I also remember you giving Annie rides on your bike. Talking to her. Being kind to her. It was a hell of a combination then, and it still is. This town needs you, and whatever's wrong with it, there's nobody better suited to fixing it than you.”

  He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “You're good for me.”

  “Yeah.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I think I am.” She kissed him again. “I think I love you.”

  “Hold it.” He gripped her arms tighter and pulled her back. “Run that by me again.”

  “I think—”

  “No, leave that part out.”

  She looked at him, saw what he wanted, and let out a long breath. “Okay. I love you.”

  “That's good.” His lips curved when they met hers. “That's real good, Slim. I love you, too.”

  She framed his face, drawing away enough to see his eyes. “I know. I want to believe we've got a shot at this, Cam.”

  “We've got more than a shot.” He settled her against his shoulder. She fit, just as the pieces of his life seemed to fit now that she had been added. “I've got to think that sometimes things happen because they just have to happen. After ten years we both end up back where we started. You came here because you needed to find some answers. And I was running away.”

  Her eyes closed, and she smiled. “So the reasons why don't matter so much as the result.”

  “That's the way I figure it.”

  “I still think you've got one point wrong. You were running to, not away.” Her eyes shot open. “Oh, my God.”

  “What is it?” he asked as she struggled out of his arms.

  “Running away. The girl you were looking for when I first came to town. The runaway from—”

  “Harrisburg?”

  “Yes, from Harrisburg. What was her name?”

  “Jamison,” he said. “Carly Jamison. Why?”

  “Jesus.” She shut her eyes again. It couldn't be a coincidence. “Spelled how?”

  “C-a-r-1-y. Clare, what is it?”

  “Annie. I saw Annie at the parade this morning, and she was showing off her jewelry. She had a bracelet on her arm, a silver bracelet with a name engraved on it. The name was Carly. I couldn't think why it bothered me so much until now.”

  The feeling of dread settled in his stomach. He glanced at the clock and saw it was after one. “I'll go talk to Annie first thing in the morning.”

  “Let me go with you. I'm not trying to interfere,” she said quickly. “I think I can help. She said the bracelet was her favorite because it had her name on it. She read the letters wrong. If you give me an hour, I can make her another, then talk her into trading.”

  “All right. I hope to Christ she found it out on the shoulder of Fifteen and that the kid dropped it while she was out there hitching.”

  “That's probably just what happened.” But she had grown cold. “Kids are careless. She probably didn't notice it was missing until she was halfway to Florida.”

  “Yeah.” But something in his gut wouldn't let him believe it.

  * * *

  “It doesn't have to be your best work,” Cam said, trying to hurry her.

  “Everything has to be my best work.” With infinite care, Clare soldered the link together. She was rather pleased with the design, the slim silver band that widened into an oval. She would engrave Annie's name there in big, bold script. If Cam didn't stop distracting her with complaints.

  He paced the garage, picking up tools and setting them down again. “I want to get out to her trailer before she takes off for the day.”

  “All right, all right.” He was going to bitch if she took the time to file the solder joint down. Clare examined it and decided he'd just have to bitch. She didn't pass out inferior work. “Don't play with my calipers.”

  “What the hell's going on?” Blair came to the doorway sporting a pair of jogging shorts and a major league hangover.

  “Clare's making a bracelet.”

  “Making a bracelet?” He threw up a hand against the light and was careful not to scowl. Scowling only made his head pound more severely. “It's seven o'clock in the morning. Sunday morning.”

  Cam glanced at his watch. “Ten after.”

  “Oh, well then.” Blair made an expansive rolling motion with his arms and instantly regretted it.

  “I'm on police business,” Clare told him while she searched through her engraving tools.

  “Making a bracelet is police business?”

  “Yep. If you're just going to stand there, why don't you make coffee?”

  “We don't have time,” Cam put in.

  “We can take it with us.”

  “I'll buy you a goddamn gallon of coffee when we're finished.”

  “You need it now,” she said, settling on the tool. “You're cranky.”

  “I'm past cranky and working my way rapidly to pissed.”

  “See?”

  “Listen,” Blair began and put both hands on his head to keep it bolted to his shoulders. “Why don't you two work this out, and I'll just go back to bed?”

  Neither of them bothered to glance over.

  “How much longer?”

  “Couple minutes.” The fine point skimmed into the silver. “If I'd had more time, I could've—”

  “Clare, it's shiny. She'll love it.”

  “I'm an artist,” she said, adding neat little flourishes with the engraving tool. “My work is my soul.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  She bit her lip to stop the laugh and exchanged the tool for a polishing cloth. “There now. A bit primitive, but fine.”

  “Take your soul out of the vise and let's go.”

  Instead, she picked up a file. “Five more minutes. I just have to smooth down the joint.”

  “Do it in the car.” He unscrewed the vise himself.

  “Remind me to mention your lack of appreciation for the creative process.” She spoke on the run as Cam pulled her out of the garage. “Let's take my car. It'll seem less official and more like a visit.”

  “All right. I'll drive.”

  “Be my guest. The keys are in it.” She took the bracelet back, settled in the passenger seat, and began to file. “What will you do after you get the bracelet from her?”

  He backed out of the drive. “Hope to God she can remember where