by Nora Roberts
“And thank God for it.” Tucker poured more lemonade and wished it were bourbon. “Listen, son, there isn’t a man alive who hasn’t had his pecker stiffen up on him at an inopportune moment. It’s natural.” He took a slug and said a quick prayer. “You know, ah, about how babies get hatched and all that, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Jim had told him all about it, and he had it from his dad. “She’s got the egg and you’ve got the sperm. It’s best if you’re in love and all.”
“Right.” Tucker felt a wave of sweet relief. “It’s better, too, if you wait till you’re responsible.” And wasn’t he a fine one to talk? “Looking at LeeAnne and thinking about her breasts, and doing something about it, those are two different things.”
“I guess I know.” It was fascinating to Cy to say forbidden things right out loud and not get walloped. He edged in a little deeper. “But sometimes, especially at night … I even do all the states and capitals to keep my mind clear of it, but it don’t always work. And it gets, you know. It feels like if I don’t do something about it, I’ll just explode.” He shot Tucker a quick look. “Sometimes I do. It’s evil, isn’t it, to work on yourself that way:”
Tucker scratched his head. “Seems to me a man’s got to take matters into his own hand—so to speak—now and again. I don’t know that I’d recommend it as a habit, but when an itch just won’t go away, it makes sense to scratch it.”
“But don’t things happen to you if you do?”
“You don’t go blind or grow hair on your palms, if that’s what you mean.”
“You sure?”
This time Tucker had to grin. He lifted his hands, examined the palms with care. “Positive,” he said, and was gratified when Cy grinned back.
Burns’s room in Innocence was small and spartan. As accommodations went, it was merely adequate. He was pleased that Nancy Koons kept it spotless, though. And since he always left a few telltales, he was satisfied that no one came in without his knowledge or went through his things. Everything pertinent to the case was locked in his briefcase unless he was actively working.
He had a twin-size bed, a chest of drawers, and a chifforobe. It had taken him three days to convince Nancy Koons to find him a desk and a sturdy chair. The ceiling fan puffed at the hot air. This inadequate system had prompted Burns to procure an electric fan from Larssons’s. Since he’d been fortunate enough to be given one of the two rooms with an adjoining bath, he concluded that he had everything necessary for his stay.
He hadn’t expected the bonus.
Stretched beneath him on the iron bed was Josie Longstreet. Burns was still shuddering from their second bout. For the life of him, he wasn’t sure how they’d gone from sharing a lemonade at the diner to bouncing on the squeaky mattress. But he wasn’t complaining.
He hadn’t had that kind of wild, ripping sex since … Actually, he supposed he’d never had that kind of sex. The women he dated were cool and composed in bed and out. Five seconds after Josie had dashed up the back stairs ahead of him, she’d been pawing at his clothes.
Over his head, Josie held up her newly painted nails. Scarlet Sin this time. She found it wonderfully appropriate. Experimentally, she raked her nails down his back, watching the red enamel flow over his white skin like blood.
“Honey,” she said, “you just about wore me out. I knew there was a tiger inside that suit.”
“You were fabulous.” Burns knew women expected compliments at such times, but words nearly failed him. “Incredible.”
“I’ve had my eye on you, Special Agent. Something about a man with a badge turns me on fierce.” She thought of Burke and frowned at the ceiling. “You think I’m sexy?”
“I think—” He lifted his head. “You’re the sexiest woman alive.”
That made her smile and grant him a nibbling kiss. “And pretty, too?”
“No, not pretty,” he said, too busy playing with her hair to see the flash in her eyes. “Gorgeous, like some wild Gypsy.”
The flash died into pleasure. “You’re just saying that because I’m stark naked and your pecker’s twitching.”
Normally, his sensibilities would have been offended, but she was quite right about the state of his tool of Satan. “I’m saying it because it’s true. You’re dazzling, Josie.”
“I sure like the way you talk.” She sighed as he began to nuzzle her breasts. Sweat and sex made her skin sticky, though the fan was aimed directly at the bed. Still, Josie had always figured the best way to beat the heat was to lie down naked. And if you were going to lie down naked, you might as well do something about it.
“Not all men know how to say what women like to hear. You take my first husband, Franklin? After we’d been married a month or two and the bloom had worn off, so to speak, he’d finish up, grunt, then start snoring. Lots of men are like that. They just take what they want, then pass on.”
His response was muffled against her breast. She let him enjoy himself. “A woman’s entitled to pretty words. Course, all women don’t care about that. Some’re just after the same thing some men are after. Appreciating pretty words is the difference between a tramp and a lady, I think.”
“You’re an incredible lady.”
Her smile glowed. “And you’re a real gentleman. Smart, too. I love hearing you talk about your cases.” Lazily, she stroked his flanks. “But I guess you’ll be going back north soon.” She snuggled down to find his lips with hers. “It’s an awful shame that you and I got together right before you have to leave.”
“Actually, things do seem to be winding up.”
“I knew it. The first time I saw you I knew you’d solve everything. I could just see how smart you were. I said to myself, now that he’s here, we women’ll be safe again.” She danced her tongue over his. “You’re a hero, Matthew.”
“I’m just doing my job.” He preened as she rolled over on top of him. “It’s all been very standard, really.”
“Catching a murderer?” She skimmed her lips over his chest. Though he was white as a fish, she thought he had a nice build. “Why, nobody had figured out anything before you came along.”
“It’s simply a matter of having the experience, the proper equipment.”
“I just love your equipment,” she purred, wrapping her fingers around him. “Tell me how you did it, Matthew. It just makes me shiver.”
His breath started to catch as she guided those clever fingers over him. “First you have to understand the psychology of a serial killer. Their patterns, the stages. Statistics. Most murders are committed on impulse, and for a few standard reasons.”
“Tell me.” She pressed her lips to his belly. “It makes me so hot.”
“Passion,” he managed as a red haze coated his vision. “Greed, revenge. Those aren’t the motives of the serial killer. For him it’s control, power, the hunt. The kill itself isn’t as important as the anticipation, the stalking.”
“Yes.” She licked gently along his inner thigh. She was doing some stalking of her own, and the anticipation was rising like a hot river in a summer flood. “Don’t stop.”
“He plans, feeds on the plan. He chooses, and he hunts. All the time he does, he may lead a perfectly normal life. Have a family, a career, friendships. But the need to kill drives him. After he destroys his victim, the need to kill begins to build again. And the desire for control, of course.” His hand fisted in her hair as she took him into her mouth. “Taunting the authorities, even using them.” Burns began to pant as she sucked him deep. “He may want to be caught, he may even suffer from guilt, but his hunger outweighs everything.”
She slid sinuously up his body, straddling him. “So he kills again. Until you stop him.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to stop him this time?”
“He’s already been stopped.”
She lifted her hands to her hair, combing it back, arching her breasts to him. “How?”
“Unless other evidence comes to the surface, I’ll repo
rt this case closed with Austin Hatinger’s death.”
Josie shuddered as she lifted her hips and took him deep inside her. “You’re a hero, Special Agent. My hero.” She threw back her head and started the hard ride to paradise.
chapter 21
A storm was moving in. The evening was cooling as it approached, and for the first time in days a real breeze ruffled leaves and brought the sweet scent of rain to the air. Dusk came early as the sun hid behind rough pewter clouds. In the west, heat lightning popped and fizzled.
Even knowing the storm might be a nasty one, knocking down power lines and swelling riverbanks, the delta sighed with relief.
Darleen Fuller Talbot left her mother’s in a foul temper. Happy had smiled and cuddled Scooter even as she’d raked Darleen to the bone over Billy T. Her father was no better, she thought as she slammed her car door shut. All he could do was shake his head and leave the room. Darleen had suffered through twenty minutes of listening to her mother ramble on about how Junior was a decent man who hadn’t deserved to be betrayed in his own home.
Well, it was her home, too, and her signature on the mortage. She pouted, wiping away angry tears before she started the car. Nobody gave any thought to that. No, it was poor Junior this, and poor Junior that. Nobody cared that poor Junior was treating her worse than the dirt you brushed under the rug.
Was it any wonder she was beginning to miss Billy T. to distraction? Her own husband wouldn’t even sleep in the same bed with her anymore. Not that he’d done much but sleep in it, even before the trouble started. But now she was going to bed every night as dry and frustrated as an old maiden aunt.
She was going to fix that, all right. As the first fat drops of rain splattered the windshield, she set her chin. Happy would have recognized the look, and though it might have surprised Darleen, would have wholeheartedly approved.
Scooter was going to stay with his grandma overnight. And she was going to see to it that her husband did her duty by her.
If things didn’t turn around soon, she might as well become one of those papist nuns and go live in a convent.
Going without was making her jumpy, Darleen thought, switching on the wipers as the rain began to batter her car. Junior had interrupted Billy T. before he’d come close to finishing her off. By her calculations, Darleen had been celibate for more than a week.
It wasn’t healthy.
That’s why she was so nervous and irritable, she was sure. For days she’d had the edgy feeling someone was watching her. It was more than the smug looks she’d been getting from some of the town biddies as the story made the rounds. It was more like someone was keeping a bead on her. And there were the phone calls, too. The calls when nobody was there after you picked up.
Probably Junior keeping tabs on her, she thought. He probably had one of his buddies watching the house, too, in case Billy T. came around.
As if Billy T. would speak to her now.
It didn’t seem fair that she lost her boyfriend, her husband, and had to listen to her mother’s lectures all because she’d wanted to have a little fun.
She skidded on the wet road, and slowed to a crawl.
She wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. Crying hadn’t worked, and she’d cried buckets. Keeping the house nice and putting a hot meal on the table every night hadn’t done much good either. Junior just ate whatever she put in front of him and went off to play with Scooter.
Tonight he was going to play with his wife.
She knew just how to set the stage. There was that new nightgown she’d mail-ordered—for Billy T.’s benefit, but that didn’t matter. She’d spent the best part of the afternoon in the Style Rite getting her hair washed and set. She’d even suffered through having Betty Pruett wax her eyebrows and the little fuzz over her top lip.
All that was left was to set the stage.
She had that bayberry-scented candle left over from Christmas, a Randy Travis album, and a bottle of cold duck. Junior got positively romantic after a couple of glasses of cold duck.
Once she got him back in bed, he’d forget all about Billy T. and his manly pride. She’d be his devoted wife. And if she ever took on a boyfriend again, she’d be a damn sight more careful.
She almost didn’t hit the brakes in time. The curtain of rain obscured the road so that she didn’t see the car sitting across it until it was nearly too late. Her tires slipped and skidded. She gave a quick squeal as she fishtailed sideways. When the bumpers barely kissed, she sat back, one hand over her speeding heart.
“Goddamn.” She squinted through the windshield but could see no one, just the abandoned car stretched diagonally across the road. “Well, isn’t this just fine and dandy.” Shakily, she pushed open her door and stepped out into the storm. Instantly her hair was plastered over her eyes so that she had to scrape it back. “Twenty-two seventy-five shot to hell!” she shouted to the rain. “Chrissakes, how’m I supposed to get my husband back if I go home looking like a drowned cat?”
She thought that over, decided it might work to her advantage on the sympathy scale. But if she wanted Junior to fuss and pet because she’d got caught in the rain, she had to get home first. Hands on hips, she kicked the tire of the car blocking the road.
“How the hell’s anybody supposed to get around that?” The prospect of turning around and going back to her mother’s was so daunting, she ignored the rain and walked around the car to find a solution.
She was looking through the window, hoping to see keys in the ignition, when she heard the sound behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat, then settled again when she recognized the familiar form coming through the rain.
“Thought this was your car,” she shouted. “These roads are so wet, I nearly plowed right through. Junior’d have skinned me alive if I’d’ve wrecked this car.”
“I’ll save him the trouble.”
Darleen never saw the tire iron that smashed over her head.
The power flickered on and off before finally wheezing out during a particularly robust clap of thunder. Caroline had prepared by setting emergency candles and oil lamps in every room.
She didn’t mind the dark, or the storm. In fact, she relished them. She was hoping the phone lines would go as well so that she could stop having to answer the sympathetic and curious calls that had hounded her throughout the day. But if the power stayed off through the night, she didn’t want to have to stumble blindly through the house, taking a chance on meeting Austin Hatinger’s grinning ghost.
She watched the rain and the wind from the cover of the porch while Useless cowered inside, whimpering. It was a powerful show. With barely a tree to stop it, the wind roared across the flats and rattled shingles, jiggled windows, hooted through grass.
She didn’t know whether this violent a rain was good or bad for the crops, though she was certain she’d be told all about it when she drove into town. For now, it was enough just to watch, to be awed, to know there was a dry, candlelit house behind her, waiting to offer sanctuary.
Shelter, she corrected herself, and smiled. What would the good doctor Palamo have to say about her use of the word sanctuary? A reflex reaction, she decided. She was no longer running or hiding. For the first time in her life she was just living.
Or trying to.
She’d certainly hidden from Tucker that morning. She’d accepted sex but turned away intimacy. Because she’d needed to prove she was alive, and had been afraid to feel.
Surprised by the chill, she rubbed her arms. It had been enough for both of them. He had wanted her, she had wanted him. It wasn’t worth worrying about.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep gulp of air. There was a trace of ozone from the last spear of lightning. Exhilarating. The puppy yelped at the ensuing blast of thunder, and she laughed.
“All right, Useless, I’ll save you.”
She found him in the parlor with his nose peeking out from the skirt of the couch. Murmuring to him, she gathered him up and walked him like a baby while
he shivered.
“It won’t last long. Storms never do. They just come along to shake us up and make us appreciate the quiet times. How about some music, huh? I feel like music.” She set him in a chair, then picked up her violin. “Passionate, I think.” She ran the bow experimentally across the strings, pausing to tune by ear. “Passionate to match the mood.”
She started with Tchaikovsky, flowed into a movement from Beethoven’s Ninth, then tried out one of the tunes Jim had taught her before ending with her own rousing interpretation of “Lady Madonna.”
Dusk had fallen into full dark when she stopped. The knock on the door had her jumping, but it sent Useless streaking out of the room, up the stairs, and under her bed.
“Maybe I should send him into combat training.” After setting the violin aside, she walked out in the hall. Tucker stared back at her through the screen.
She found her competent hands suddenly restless and linked them together to keep them still. “It’s a rough night to be out.”
“I know.”
“Aren’t you going to come in?”
“Not yet.”
She stepped closer. His hair was dripping. It reminded her how he’d looked after his shower that morning. “How long have you been out there?”
“I drove up right before you went from that longhair music into ‘Salty Dog.’ That was ‘Salty Dog,’ wasn’t it?”
Her smile came and went quickly. “Jim taught me. We’re exchanging techniques.”
“I heard about that. Toby’s real pleased. He’s looking into getting the boy a second-hand fiddle.”
“He’s talented,” she said, and felt foolish. Why were they discussing Jim with the screen door between them? “The, ah, power went out.”
“I know. Come outside a minute, Caroline.”
She hesitated. He seemed so serious, so deliberate. “Has anything happened?”
“Not that I’ve heard.” He pulled open the screen. “Come outside.”
“All right.” She stepped through, nerves jumping. “I was wondering before if this rain is good or bad. For the crops, I mean.”