by Nora Roberts
Meet me at McNair Pond at midnight. We’ll fix everything. I only want to be alone with you for a little while.
And wasn’t that just like him? Edda Lou thought. Making her go all soft, saying how he wanted to be alone with her, then pissing her off because he was late.
Five minutes, she decided. That was all he was getting. Then she was going to drive on up the road, right through those fancy gates and up to the big house. She’d let Tucker Longstreet know that he couldn’t play around with her affections.
At the whisper of sound behind her, she turned her head, prepared to flutter her lashes. The blow to the base of her skull had her tumbling facedown in the earth.
Her moan was muffled. Edda Lou heard it in her head, and her head felt as though it had been split in two by a dull rock. She tried to lift it. Oh, but it hurt, it hurt! When she started to bring her hands up to hold the ache, she found them stuck tight behind her.
The first quiver of fear pierced through the pain. Opening her eyes wide, she tried to call out. But her mouth was gagged. She could taste the cloth and the cologne that scented it. Her eyes rolled wildly as she fought to work her hands free.
She was naked, and her bare back and buttocks were scraping into bark as she wriggled against the tree. She’d been tied hand and foot to a live oak, her feet expertly cinched so that her legs were spread in a vulnerable v. Visions of rape danced hideously through her mind.
“Edda Lou. Edda Lou.” The voice was low and harsh, like the scrape of metal against rock. Edda Lou’s terrified eyes wheeled in their sockets as she tried to find the source.
All she saw was the water and the thick black of clustered leaves. She tried to scream and choked on the gag.
“I’ve had my eye on you. I wondered how soon we’d get together like this. Romantic, isn’t it, being naked in the moonlight? And we’re all alone, you and me. All alone. Let’s have sex.”
Paralyzed with terror, she watched the figure slip out of the shadows. Saw the moonlight glint on naked skin. Saw it flash for one hideous instant on the long-bladed knife.
Now it was terror and revulsion she felt as she recognized what was coming toward her. Her stomach clenched and rolled, and she tasted sickness on her tongue. But the figure came closer, gilded by a fine sheen of sweat and smelling of madness.
Her pleas and prayers were smothered by the gag. Thin streams of blood ran down her back and legs as she twisted desperately against the tree. The hands were on her, squeezing, stroking. And the mouth. Hot, frightened tears slid down her cheeks as the mouth closed hungrily over her defenseless breasts.
Slick with sweat, the body rubbed against hers, doing things she didn’t want to believe could be done to her. Her weeping was mindless now, her body shuddering at every touch of the wet mouth, the intruding fingers, the smooth flat of the buck knife.
For she had remembered what had happened to Arnette and Francie, and knew they had felt this same numb terror, felt the same sick revulsion in the last moments of their lives.
“You want it. You want it.” The breathless chant rolled over the dull buzzing in Edda’s brain. “Whore.” The knife turned, slicing delicately, almost painlessly, down Edda Lou’s arm. As the mouth closed greedily over the wound, Edda Lou slumped into a half faint.
“No, you don’t.” A hand slapped playfully across her face to revive her. “No sleeping on the job for whores.” There was a quick, almost giggly laugh. Blood smeared the smiling lips. Edda Lou’s glazed eyes opened and fixed. “Better, that’s better. I want you to watch. Ready?”
“Please, please, please,” her mind screamed. “Don’t kill me. I won’t tell, I won’t tell, I won’t tell.”
“No!” The voice was husky with arousal, and Edda Lou smelled her own fear, her own blood, when that face leaned close to hers, with madness shining out of eyes she’d known very well. “You’re not worth fucking.”
One hand ripped aside the gag. Part of the pleasure, the need, was to hear that one high scream. It was cut off as the knife slashed Edda Lou’s throat.
Caroline sat straight up in bed, heart thudding like a Maytag with an unbalanced load. She was clutching both hands to it, nearly ripping her thin sleep shirt in reaction.
A scream, she thought wildly while her ragged breathing echoed in the room. Who was screaming?
She was nearly out of bed and fumbling for the light when she remembered where she was and sagged back against the pillows. Not Philadelphia. Not Baltimore, or New York or Paris. She was in rural Mississippi, sleeping in the bed her grandparents had slept in.
Night sounds seemed to fill the room. Peepers, crickets, cicadas. And owls. She heard another scream, eerily like a woman’s. Screech owls, they called them, she remembered now. Her grandmother had soothed her one night during that long-ago visit when the same rusty cry had awakened her.
Just an old screech owl, pumpkin pie. Don’t you worry now. You’re safe as a bug in a rug.
Closing her eyes, Caroline listened to the long whooo-whooo of another, better-mannered owl. Country sounds, she assured herself, and tried to ignore the creaking and settling of the old house. Soon they would seem as natural to her as the whoosh of traffic or the whine of distant sirens.
It was just as her grandmother had told her. She was safe as a bug in a rug.
chapter 3
Tucker sat on the side terrace where purple clematis wound up the white wicker trellis. A hummingbird streaked behind him, iridescent wings a flashing blur as it hovered to drink deeply from one of the wide, tender blooms. Inside, Della’s Electrolux hummed busily. The sound drifted through the screened windows to mix with the drone of bees.
Underneath the glass table sprawled the aged family hound, Buster, a huddle of loose skin and old bones. Occasionally, he worked up the energy to thump his tail and look hopefully through the glass at Tucker’s breakfast.
Tucker wasn’t paying conscious attention to any of the morning sounds and scents. He absorbed them in the same absent way he absorbed the chilled juice, black coffee, and toast.
He was performing one of his favorite daily rituals: reading the mail.
As always, there was a stack of fashion catalogues and magazines for Josie. He tossed them one at a time onto the padded seat beside him. Each time a catalogue plopped, Buster would shift his rheumy old eyes hopefully, then mutter in canine disgust.
There was a letter for Dwayne from Nashville, addressed in Sissy’s childishly correct handwriting. Tucker frowned at it a minute, held it up to the sunlight, then set it aside. He knew it wasn’t a request for child support. As family bookkeeper, he made out the monthly checks himself and had sent one two weeks before.
In keeping with his filing system, he tossed bills on another chair, personal correspondence was shoved over to the other side of the coffeepot, and those letters obviously from a charitable organization or some other group sneakily begging for money were tossed in a paper sack at his side.
Tucker’s way of handling them was to dig into the bag once a month, choosing two envelopes at random. Those would receive generous contributions, whether they were for the World Wildlife Fund, the American Red Cross, or the Society for the Prevention of Hangnails. In this way, Tucker felt the Longstreets were fulfilling their charitable obligations. And if certain organizations were confused when they received a check for several thousand dollars one month, and nothing for several years thereafter, he figured it was their problem.
He had problems of his own.
The simple routine of sorting the mail helped shift those problems to the back of his mind, at least for the moment. The fact was, he didn’t know what his next move should be, since Edda Lou wasn’t even talking to him. She’d had two days to follow up on her staggering public announcement, but was apparently playing possum. Not only hadn’t she contacted him, but she wasn’t answering her phone.
It was worrying—particularly since he’d had a taste of her temper and knew she could lash out with the stealth and skill of a water moccas
in. Waiting for the sting made Tucker jumpy.
He piled up the YOU ARE A WINNER! envelopes Dwayne liked to ship off to his kids, and found the lilac-colored and scented stationery that could only belong to one person.
“Cousin Lulu.” His grin flashed and his worries drained away.
Lulu Longstreet Boyston was from the Georgia Longstreets and a cousin of Tucker’s grandfather. Speculation put her age in the mid-seventies, though she had stubbornly clung to sixty-five for many years. She was spit-in-your-face rich, a dainty five foot in her sensible shoes, and crazy as a June bug.
Tucker flat out adored her. Though the letter was addressed TO MY LONGSTREET COUSINS, he ripped it open himself. He wasn’t about to wait until Dwayne and Josie wandered back from wherever they’d gone.
He read the first paragraph, written with a hot-pink felt tip, and let out a hoot.
Cousin Lulu was coming to call.
She always phrased it just that way, so you could never tell if she’d stay for dinner or settle in for a month. Tucker sincerely hoped it was the latter. He needed a distraction.
The last time she’d come to call, she’d brought along a whole crate of ice cream cakes packed in dry ice, and had worn a paper party hat with an ostrich feather poking through the pointy top. She’d kept that damn hat on for a full week, waking and sleeping, saying she was celebrating birthdays. Anybody’s birthday.
Tucker licked strawberry jam from his fingers, then tossed the rest of his toast to Buster. Leaving the rest of the mail to be picked up later, he started toward the door. He was going to tell Della to have Cousin Lulu’s room ready and waiting.
Even as he swung open the door, Tucker heard the dyspeptic rattle of Austin Hatinger’s pick-up. There was only one vehicle in Innocence that made that particular grunt-rattle-belch sound. After giving one brief thought to going inside and barring the doors, Tucker turned and walked out to the porch, prepared to face the music.
Not only could he hear Austin coming, he could see him, by the stream of black smoke rising up between the magnolias. With a half-hearted sigh, Tucker waited for the truck to come into view, and pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, broke off a fraction of the tip.
He was just enjoying his first drag when the truck pulled up and Austin Hatinger rolled out of it.
He was as grizzled and bulky as the old Ford, but was held together by sinew and muscle rather than bailing twine and spit. Beneath his grease-stained planter’s hat, his face looked as if it had been carved out of tree bark. Deep lines flared out from his walnut-colored eyes, scored his wind-burned cheeks, and bracketed his hard, unsmiling mouth.
Not a speck of hair showed beneath the hat. Not that Austin was bald. Every month he drove into the barber shop and had his gray-flecked hair buzzed. Perhaps, Tucker sometimes thought, in memory of the four years he’d served in the Corps. Semper Fi. That was just one of the sentiments he had tattooed on his cinder-block arms. Along with it, rippling over muscle, was the American flag.
Austin—who would be the first to tell you he was a God-fearing Christian—had never gone in for such frivolities as dancing girls.
He spit a stream of Red Indian into the gravel, leaving a nasty-looking puddle of yellow. Beneath his dusty overalls and sweaty work shirt—which even in the heat Austin wore buttoned clear to the top—his chest was broad as a bull’s.
Tucker noted that he hadn’t brought out any of the rifles slotted into the rack in the back window of the cab. He hoped he could take that courtesy as a good omen.
“Austin.” He came down one step, a sign of marginal friendliness.
“Longstreet.” He had a voice like a rusty nail skidding over concrete. “Where the hell is my girl?”
Since it was the last question Tucker expected, he only blinked politely. “Excuse me?”
“You godless, rutting fuck. Where the hell is my Edda Lou?”
The description was a little more along the lines of what Tucker had expected. “I haven’t seen Edda Lou since day before yesterday, when she went at me in the diner.” He held up a hand before Austin could speak. There was still something to be said for being part of the most powerful family in the county. “You can be as pissed as you want, Austin, and I’d expect that to be mighty damn pissed, but the fact is I slept with your daughter.” He took a long, slow drag. “You probably had a pretty good idea what I was doing when I was doing it, and I don’t figure you liked it much. And I don’t figure I can blame you for it.”
Austin’s lips peeled back from yellowed, uneven teeth. No one would have mistaken it for a smile. “I shoulda skinned your worthless hide the first time you came sniffing around her.”
“Maybe, but seeing as Edda’s been over twenty-one for a couple years or more, she does her own choosing.” Tucker drew on the cigarette again, considered the tip, then flicked it aside. “The point is, Austin, what’s done’s done.”
“Easy to say when you planted a bastard in my daughter’s belly.”
“With her full cooperation,” Tucker said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I’m going to see to it that she has everything she needs while she’s carrying the baby, and there’ll be no pinching on the child support.”
“Big talk.” Austin spat again. “Smooth talk. You’ve always been able to get your tongue around words real good, Tucker. Now you listen to a few. I take care of my own, and I want that girl out here, now.”
Tucker merely lifted a brow. “You think Edda’s here? She’s not.”
“Liar! Fornicator!” His grating voice rose and fell like an evangelist’s with strep throat. “Your soul’s black with sin.”
“I can’t argue about that,” Tucker said as agreeably as he could, “but Edda Lou’s not here. I’ve got no reason to lie about that, and you can take a look for yourself, but I’m telling you I haven’t seen or heard from her since she made her grand announcement.”
Austin considered barging into the house, and he considered just what kind of fool that would make him. He wasn’t about to play the fool for a Longstreet. “She ain’t here, she ain’t nowhere in town. I tell you what I think, you sonofabitch, I think you talked her into going to one of those murder clinics to get rid of it.”
“Edda Lou and I haven’t talked about anything. If that’s what she’s done, she came up with it all on her own.”
He’d forgotten just how fast the big man could move. Before the last word was out of his mouth, Austin had leapt forward, grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him clean off the steps.
“Don’t you talk that way about my girl. She was a God-fearing Christian before she got hooked up with you. Look at you, nothing but a lazy, rutting pig living in your big, fine house with your drunk of a brother and whore of a sister.” Fine spit sprayed Tucker’s face as Austin’s skin turned a mottled, angry red. “You’ll rot in hell, the lot of you, just like your sin-soaked father.”
As a matter of course, Tucker preferred to talk, charm, or run his way out of confrontations. But there was always a point, no matter how he tried to prevent it, when pride and temper kicked in.
He plowed a fist into Austin’s midsection, surprising the older man enough to make him loosen his grip. “You listen to me, you sanctimonious bastard, you’re dealing with me, not my family. Just me. I told you once I’ll do right by Edda Lou, and I’m not telling you again. If you think I was the first one to get her on her back, then you’re crazier than I figured.” He was getting himself worked up, and knew better. But the embarrassment, the annoyance, and the insult outweighed caution. “And don’t think being lazy means stupid. I know damn well what she’s trying to do. If the pair of you think that screams and threats are going to have me dancing down the aisle, then think again.”
The muscles in Austin’s jaw quivered. “So, she’s good enough to fuck but not good enough to marry.”
“That says it plain enough.”
Tucker was quick enough to duck the first swing, but not the second. Austin’s ham-sized fist shot into his gut, stea
ling his breath and doubling him over. He took a rain of blows on the face and neck before he managed to find the wind to defend himself.
He tasted blood, smelled it. The fact that it was his own sent a ripe, dazzling fury pouring through him. He didn’t feel the pain when his knuckles rammed into Austin’s chin, but the power of the punch sang up his arm.
It felt good. Damn good.
A part of him continued to think with a silver-edged clarity. He had to stay on his feet. He would never match Austin for size or strength, and had to depend on agility and quickness. If he was brought down, and managed to get up again, he’d likely do so with broken bones and a bloody pulp for a face.
He took one just beneath the ear and heard the archangels sing.
Fists thudded against bone. Blood and sweat flew out in a grisly spray. As they grappled, lips peeled back in animal snarls, Tucker realized it wasn’t simply his pride he was defending, it was his life. There was a dull gleam of madness in Austin’s eyes that spoke more clearly than hard grunts or sneering curses. The sight of it had a snake of panic curling in Tucker’s gut.
His worst fears were realized when Austin came at him, head down, bulldozer body behind it. He let out a long triumphant cry as Tucker’s feet skidded on the gravel and he went flying backward into the peonies.
His wind was gone. He could hear the pathetic wheeze of air struggling to get down his throat and into his lungs. But he still had his fury, and he had fear. When he started to scrabble up, Austin fell on him, one beefy hand closing over Tucker’s throat, the other pummeling his kidneys.
Even as he levered a hand under Austin’s chin, frantically struggling to pry the head up and away, his vision dimmed. All he could see were those eyes, bright now with the pleasure of the kill, blank with madness.
“Send you to Satan,” Austin chanted. “Send you to Satan. Should’ve killed you before, Beau. Should’ve done it.”
Feeling his life passing, Tucker went for the eyes.
Austin threw back his head and howled like a wounded cur. When his hand slipped off Tucker’s throat, Tucker sucked air in big greedy gulps that burned and revived.