by Joanne Fluke
He pushed the dirty glasses to the back of the bar and scowled as his elbow twinged. He’d bumped it on that damn case of lobster when he’d helped Walker lay Vanessa out in the freezer and it had been bothering him ever since. Maybe he should have gone in for the operation his doctor had recommended last year. With the new techniques in orthoscopic surgery, his arm could be repaired completely. If they’d had the technology ten years ago, he would have jumped at the chance, but it had seemed pointless at this stage of the game. It was too late for him. No major league ball club would consider hiring a forty-year-old rookie.
There was no sense getting riled up about it. Marc filled his glass to the brim, took another gulp, and then headed for the game room. It was only natural to be jumpy after everything that had happened in the past few days. He needed some distraction or he’d go crazy, stuck up here in the condo with nothing but his anxiety for company.
Marc took off his shirt and flexed. Women still came on to him all the time and it wasn’t because of his money. His newest lady couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Myra wasn’t much in the brains department, but he didn’t go out with a woman to talk to her.
She was one crazy lady with an incredible body. He’d learned to spot silicone from a mile away and Myra was all natural. She was also a serious cokehead, but that didn’t bother him. Then there was Myra’s daughter. When he’d gone to pick Myra up last week, the little nymphet had waltzed out of her bedroom stark naked. At sixteen, she’d already developed a figure to rival her mother’s, and all that rosy young skin had nearly driven him crazy. Naturally, she’d acted all surprised, but Marc knew she’d heard him come in. If he’d guessed that damned avalanche was going to hit, he would have invited them both up here for lunch.
Ellen could still feel the imprint of his lips on hers when she pulled away. They were standing in the middle of the living room, still in their parkas and boots. “Look, Walker. I like you a lot, but this is impossible.”
“A kiss is impossible?” Walker raised his eyebrows as he shrugged out of his parka. “Could’ve fooled me. I thought we just did it. Take off your coat, Ellen, you’re going to get overheated.”
“I just mean that we shouldn’t get involved. It really won’t work.” Ellen unzipped her jacket and threw it on the couch.
“Because I’m black and you’re white?”
“That has nothing to do with it and you know it!” Ellen sat down to pull off her boots.
“Didn’t think so.” Walker flashed her a smile. “Then you’re not attracted to me?”
Ellen took a deep breath and threw her boots in the corner. “I just don’t want to get involved with any man.”
“But, Ellen, I’m not just any man.”
The color rose in Ellen’s face. She was beginning to get exasperated. “You’re being deliberately obtuse! What do I have to do, spell it out for you?”
Walker placed his boots next to Ellen’s, taking time to straighten both pairs, then came to sit next to her on the couch. “Spell it out for me, Ellen, the whole thing. I want to know exactly why you won’t let me love you.”
“Oh.” Ellen’s voice was very small. She hadn’t expected this. “All right, then. I had a bad experience. With a man.”
“But it wasn’t with me, was it, Ellen?”
“Look, Walker, it doesn’t really matter what happened. The point is, I’m bright enough to realize my limitations and stay away from the obvious pitfalls.”
Walker pulled her into his arms and kissed her again. Ellen felt herself falling again, swimming in a pool of pure sensation. She knew she couldn’t take much more of this. It was far too dangerous.
“You’re crazy, Ellen.” Walker released her at last. “And you’re so damned defensive you make me want to cry. But I’m crazy about you anyway.”
He was giving her that smile again, the smile she had to return. And then he was pushing her down on the couch. And kissing her again and again, the way she’d dreamed someone would kiss her. And this time their clothes did fall away like rain, perhaps because her head was whirling so hard she could barely think. And then he was carrying her into the bedroom, carrying her, Ellen Wingate, with her too-tall awkward body that seemed amazingly petite in his arms. And the light was on in the bedroom, and she wished he’d turn it off, but he seemed to want to look at her and touch her, running his hands over her skin with a feathery sweeping motion that made her breath catch in her throat. And then she was on top of her quilt, her face pressed against the smooth muscles of his chest and oh God! She knew she’d die if he didn’t kiss her again!
And he did, his lips painting a pattern of crimson pleasure that blossomed and rippled and ran through her in such a rushing torrent of desire that she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried out for him to love her. There was no hesitation, no painful shyness, no shame as she lifted her hips to meet him. And then she was whirling away in a glorious rainbow of pleasure that made her gasp. And sob. And laugh with delight at the incredible beauty of it all as he carried her with him to ecstasy.
EIGHTEEN
There was a little foil packet on her tray and Betty picked it up to examine it. Letters were on the top. S . . . T . . . R . . . and the rest were so smudged she couldn’t read them. She pulled off the top and stared at the contents. Red berries inside, to spread on the whole wheat toast Nurse had brought her for an afternoon snack. Now she missed Jack more than ever. He’d always brought her cookies with strawberry ice cream.
Strawberries! Betty held the packet to her nose and sniffed. There were strawberries inside the packet, but they didn’t smell as wonderful as the strawberries in Aunt Sophia’s garden. She remembered helping to pick them while Aunt Sophia held the basket. One for Betty, and one for the basket, over and over until she couldn’t eat any more. And then, in the middle of that warm, sticky summer, Aunt Sophia had given her a beautiful white ruffled dress and said to get ready, she was a birthday girl and they were having a party. The whole family was coming, even cousins from across the sea, and there would be music and games and clowns and balloons, everything to make the birthday girl happy, even her very favorite strawberry ice cream.
Car after car had pulled into the compound, people laughing and everyone hugging and kissing her. The big table in the dining room had been heaped with presents wrapped in gold and silver and pink and blue, all gifts for the birthday girl. She’d met all her cousins and tried not to get dirty as they’d played hide-and-seek in the yard. And then she’d sat in a folding chair next to Aunt Sophia and Daddy and her brother, Mario, to watch the clowns do their tricks.
One clown had a funny bicycle with only one wheel, and he’d ridden it around and around, swerving and swooping down the garden paths as all her cousins had laughed. Another clown had brought a little white dog who could prance on his back legs and jump through hoops. The clowns had been very funny in their polka-dot suits with too-big shoes and bright red hair. They had chased each other and turned cartwheels on the grass until there was a loud bang and Daddy had pushed her down so hard she’d cried.
Then the birthday party wasn’t fun anymore because Mario had a strawberry stain on his shirt and everyone was screaming. Aunt Sophia had taken her into the house when they came with the loud sirens and flashing red lights, and she’d heard them say that Daddy had been damn lucky he’d moved just then. But Mario was gone and he’d never come back, and opening her presents hadn’t been as much fun.
There were drops of wet on her dressing gown and Betty frowned. It was silk and the wet would leave a stain. Dishes rattled in the kitchen and Betty reached for a tissue to wipe her eyes. Soon Nurse would pick up her tray and she’d go for the needle if she suspected that Betty had been crying.
Betty sat up a little straighter and concentrated on the game show. A man in a yellow and green flowered shirt was trying to answer a question worth twenty thousand dollars. The host read the question out loud. What term do scientists use to describe the large boulders left by glaciers during the Ice
Age?
The name popped into Betty’s mind like magic. The boulders were called erratics. She’d learned that a long time ago when they’d studied glaciers and she’d helped Charles make a mountain out of flour and salt and water. But the man in the yellow and green shirt didn’t know and he’d lost the game.
There was a happy smile on Betty’s face as Nurse opened the door. If she had been the contestant on that game show, she would have won twenty thousand dollars.
“Not very hungry?” Nurse took the tray. “You’ve got company, so we’ll have our bath later.”
Betty was careful not to laugh out loud. Since Nurse had never bathed with her, why did she use the plural? Perhaps Nurse was using the “royal we,” pretending she was Queen of England. And then Nurse was gone and the cowgirl was there, along with her foreign actor. Betty smiled, always glad to see faces besides Nurse’s.
The quiz program was over and a movie was on, something with stirring music. It was about a runner in an important race and the cowgirl watched for a minute. “That looks like Chariots of Fire. Have you seen it before, Betty?”
Betty shook her head, even though she really wasn’t sure. With this horrid disease, she sometimes forgot the movies as soon as she watched them. If everyone in the country had her disease, the television station could save a lot of money by running the same movie over and over.
The cowgirl spoke again. “You look tired. Did you stay up late watching television?”
Betty nodded. Yes, she had, she remembered, and she recalled the movie, too, because it had frightened her.
“Which program did you watch, Betty?” The foreign actor asked the question and Betty turned to look at him. He really wanted to know. She wished she could tell him about it, but the words were very difficult to catch.
“Movie.” She heard herself speak and she was very surprised. It must have been right because he nodded.
“That sounds like fun.” The cowgirl smiled. “Do you remember what it was about?”
Betty frowned. Of course she remembered, but now she’d forgotten the word for it. She opened her mouth and nothing came out.
“Was it a romance?”
Betty shook her head. It hadn’t been a romance. She knew that. Suddenly she had an idea, and she put her hands up to her eyes to peek through her fingers.
“It was a horror movie!” The cowgirl looked very excited. “Did someone get killed?”
Betty smiled. That was exactly right, someone had died.
“Were they shot? Or maybe stabbed?” The cowgirl turned to the foreign actor. “Help me, Paul. I can’t think of any other ways.”
“Perhaps there was a drowning? An explosion? Poison?”
Betty shook her head each time he spoke. If only she could find that word! Then, before she really thought about it, her hands moved up to her neck.
“Choking!” They both spoke at once and Betty gave them a smile. That was almost right so she did it again.
“Strangling?” the cowgirl guessed. “Or maybe someone got hung?”
“Hanged,” Betty corrected. “Clothes get hung, people get hanged.”
The cowgirl looked very shocked and then she reached out to hug Betty. “That’s right! Hanged. I never could remember which was which.”
Betty laughed out loud, glad there was something someone else had trouble remembering. And the cowgirl didn’t even have the disease.
“So the subject was hanging.” The foreign actor smiled at her. “That is very frightening. Are there no comedies for you to watch?”
Betty shook her head. No comedies, just awful movies where people got killed.
“I bet it was a western!” The cowgirl looked excited again. Betty knew she must like westerns because she always dressed in the costumes. “Channel eleven runs all those old cowboy movies. Were you watching channel eleven?”
Betty held up three fingers. She had been watching forbidden channel three.
“But we don’t even get channel three. Are you sure, Betty?”
Betty tried to concentrate on the question. What had the cowgirl asked? Suddenly her mind was blank. This was an interesting game to play, but her eyes kept falling shut.
“Come, Jayne.” The foreign actor stood up. “Would you wish us to come back later, Betty, after you have rested?”
Betty nodded. He was so nice. It was lucky the cowgirl with her in-between name had found him again.
It was almost one in the afternoon when Moira and Grace knocked on Hal’s door bearing a pitcher of orange juice and a large bottle of aspirin, just in case Hal didn’t have any. Moira knocked again, then used the key Hal had given them so they could keep an eye on things when he was out of town.
Silence greeted them, and the bed didn’t look as if it had been slept in. “He must be in his studio,” Moira said, leading the way. “He probably holed up in there.”
Grace blushed. “Yes, but what if he’s . . . I mean . . . what if he doesn’t have any clothes on?”
“That shouldn’t bother you, especially if he’s passed out cold. Come on. You’ll probably have to help me carry him back to bed.”
Grace found she was holding her breath as Moira opened Hal’s studio door.
“Hell!” Moira spun Grace around and pushed her through the doorway. “Go get a couple of the guys.”
“But I can help you,” Grace started to protest. “What’s wrong?”
“Move it, Grace! Get the hell out of here!”
Grace hurried to the elevator and frantically stabbed at the button. When it didn’t come right away, she ran up the stairs. Moira had said hell twice without even trying to think of a substitute, and that meant that something was terribly wrong.
They’d all gathered at Grace and Moira’s again, and it had been almost eleven at night before they’d split up to go home. Jayne had claimed they were like spooked cattle herding together, and she wasn’t far wrong. No one had wanted to be alone. Hal’s suicide on the heels of Vanessa’s awful accident had been just too much to handle.
Laureen frowned as Alan opened the door to their apartment and they stepped inside. “I can’t do it, Alan. I simply can’t survive another night in those lounge chairs.”
“I know what you mean.” Alan winced a little and rubbed his neck. “I guess we should have taken Jayne and Paul up on their offer after all.”
“No, you were right. They need their time alone right now. I thought about asking Ellen if we could sleep there, but I know Walker’s using her guest room. Maybe we should have stayed at Grace and Moira’s.”
“We can still do that,” Alan pointed out. “Moira told us to knock on the door if we couldn’t sleep.”
“But Grace could hardly keep her eyes open, Alan.”
“Then how about Marc’s place? He’s always up late, playing his pinball machines. He’d put us up in his guest room.”
Laureen shook her head. “Remember the last time you slept on a water bed?”
Alan grinned. They’d gone to one of those adult motels once, and the water bed had thrown his back out for a week. “It seemed to me it was worth it.”
Laureen giggled and her face turned slightly red. It had definitely been worth it.
Alan started to grin. “I know what we can do. We’ll go up and sleep at Hal’s. After all, we’re putting him up in our freezer.”
“Oh, Alan!” Laureen looked shocked. “How can you joke about a thing like that?”
“If I don’t, I get scared. I can handle it if I joke about it. Betty’s place is out. The nurse is using her guest room, but how about Johnny’s? His place is vacant.”
“Not Johnny’s. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t seem to shake the idea that we’ll open a closet and find his body.”
“Then the only place left is Clayton and Rachael’s. Would that bother you?”
Laureen took a moment to think, then she shook her head. “Rachael’s such a good housekeeper, she’s probably got the guest room all made up. You don’t think they’d mind, do yo
u, Alan?”
“If they were here, they’d be the first to invite us. Come on, honey. Let’s get our things together and go.”
The Caretaker frowned as he watched them step inside. Alan was carrying a bag and Laureen had two pillows. Clayton’s apartment was a lousy choice, but perhaps it would be all right as long as they didn’t start snooping around.
Betty was still sleeping soundly, but her lips were moving. Perhaps she was trying to speak. He leaned over to listen and smiled as he made out the word. Friend. Poor Betty, with her confused mind and her love for everyone. For the first time, he almost felt sorry for her. What would she think if she knew that he was the one who’d supervised the hit on her boyfriend and come up with the plan that had turned her into a vegetable?
Naturally, the Old Man had objected, but he’d finally seen that there was no other way, not if he wanted to keep his darling daughter alive. The Caretaker had hired Margaret Woodard himself. No one knew that he’d recruited her more than ten years ago, the daughter of one of the Old Man’s soldiers who’d been killed in the line of duty. It had been a brilliant move, training her in a profession that might prove valuable.
Margaret was smart enough to know what would happen if she didn’t repay her debt. She hadn’t been happy about her assignment, but she’d done an excellent job so far. The only problem he could see was her sympathy for Betty, an occupational hazard in the nursing profession. Of course, it didn’t really matter. If she made any wrong moves, she was expendable.
He smiled as Alan turned down the covers, a typical domestic scene. There was no need to turn up the audio as long as they went straight to bed. Other people might enjoy being voyeurs, but not him, and Laureen and Alan’s sex life was bound to be dull.