by Nora Roberts
Less grinned and slapped his companion on the shoulder. “You go ahead and go for the top spot, buddy. I’m with you.”
He smiled to himself as they parted. The way Less figured it, if the two of them battled it out, they would leave a nice clean spot for him to step into. As high priest, he’d have his pick of the whores.
After a quick trip to the market, Clare pulled up in her drive. Ernie was sitting on the low stone wall beside the garage. She waved, reached for the trunk release, and pressed the automatic seat-belt adjustment instead. After a brief struggle, she found the right switch.
“Hi, Ernie.” She walked around the back to heft out two bags of groceries. He sauntered over and took one from her. “Thanks.”
“You left your keys in the car,” he told her.
She blew the hair out of her eyes. “Right.” After leaning in the window and pulling them out, she smiled at him. “I’m always doing that.” He let her lead the way inside so he could watch her hips sway.
“You said you wanted to work in clay,” he said when she began pulling out groceries.
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do.” She pulled out a bag of Oreos and offered it, but he shook his head. “Have you been waiting for me?”
“I thought I’d hang around.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m not going to be able to work today. I’m tied up. Want a soda?”
He was annoyed but hid it with a careless shrug. He took the opened bottle she passed him and watched her search for a pan.
“I know I bought one, damn it. Oh, here we go.” She set a dented pot, another prize from the flea market, on the stove. “You’re not working today?”
“Not until six.”
Listening with half an ear, she opened a jar of Ragu. It was the only sensible way she knew to make spaghetti. “Is it hard, juggling that with your schoolwork?”
“I get by.” He moved a little closer, letting his eyes drop to where her tank top drooped over her breasts. “I’ll be out of school in a few weeks.”
“Hmmm.” She set the burner on low. “You must have a prom coming up.”
“I’m not into that.”
“No?” Her hair fell over her face as she bent down to root out another pan for the pasta. “I remember my senior prom. I went with Robert Knight—you know, the family that runs the market? I just saw him a few minutes ago. He’s got a bald spot as big as a dinner plate.” She chuckled as she filled the pan with water. “I have to say, it made me feel old.”
“You’re not old.” He lifted a hand to touch her hair but snatched it away when she turned to grin at him. “Thanks.”
He stepped toward her, and the look in his eyes surprised her more than a little. He didn’t seem as much of a boy as he had a few minutes before when she’d seen him leaning on her stone wall, sulking. “Ah …” she began, wondering how to handle it without crushing his ego.
“Hey, Slim.” Cam stepped into the kitchen doorway. He’d just seen the last maneuver and wasn’t sure if he should be amused or annoyed.
“Cam.” On a little breath of relief, she picked up a package of pasta. “Right on time.”
“I like to be prompt when I’m offered a free meal. Hi. Ernie, right?”
“Yeah.”
Cam was as surprised by the vicious flash of hate from the boy’s eyes as Clare had been by the glimpse of mature desire. Then it was gone, and Ernie was only a sullen teenage boy again, dressed in a Slayer T-shirt and torn jeans.
“I gotta go,” he muttered and bolted for the door.
“Ernie.” Clare rushed after him, certain now that she’d misread that unnerving moment. “Look, thanks for helping me with the bags.” She laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I should be able to start in clay tomorrow, if you have a chance to come by again.”
“Maybe.” He looked past her to where Cam poked a spoon into the sauce on the stove. “You making him dinner?”
“More or less. I’d better get back before I burn it. See you later.”
His hands fisted hard in his pockets, he stalked off. He would take care of Cameron Rafferty, he promised himself. One way or the other.
“Hope I didn’t—interrupt,” Cam commented when Clare stepped back into the kitchen.
“Very funny.” She plucked a loaf of Italian bread from a bag.
“No, I don’t think it was. I’ve been wished dead on the spot before, but not so … skillfully.”
“Don’t be stupid. He’s just a boy.” She rummaged through a drawer for a knife.
“That boy was about to take a chunk out of you when I walked in.”
“He was not.” But she gave a quick, involuntary shudder. That was exactly how it had seemed to her, that hungry, even predatory look in his eyes. Imagination, she told herself. “He’s just lonely. I don’t know if he has any friends, anyone to talk to.”
“Not lonely. A loner. He’s got a reputation for keeping to himself and for letting loose with a pretty wild temper. He’s had two citations this month for speeding. Bud’s come across him more than once bouncing on some girl in the cab of that truck he drives.”
“Really?” She turned, poker-faced. “I wonder why that description reminds me of someone I used to know.”
He had to grin. “I don’t recall ever getting ready to slide my tongue down an older woman’s throat.”
“Ah, graciously put, Rafferty.” Grinning, she sawed thick slices from the loaf. “You haven’t lost your touch.”
“Just watch your step with him, that’s all.”
“I’m using him as a model, not for Seduction 101.”
“Good.” He walked over and, taking her by the shoulders, turned her to face him. “Because I’d just as soon I was the only one sliding my tongue down your throat.”
“God, you’re romantic.”
“You want romance—put down the knife.” When she only laughed, he took it away himself and set it aside. Slowly, his eyes on hers, he combed his fingers through her hair. Her smile faded. “I want you. I figure you should know that straight off.”
“I think I already worked that out for myself.” She tried to be casual but only succeeded in sounding breathless. “Listen, Cam, my track record’s really lousy. I …” Her voice trailed off when he lowered his head and rubbed his open mouth against her throat. Frissons of fire and ice raced up her spine. “I don’t want to make another mistake.” She closed her eyes on a moan when he caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth. “I’m really bad at analyzing my feelings. My shrink says … oh, Jesus.” His thumbs were circling slowly, lightly over her nipples.
“That’s very profound,” Cam murmured, then began a lazy, tortuous trail along her jawline with his tongue and nibbling teeth.
“No—he says that I use glibness and … oh, sarcasm to shield myself and only open up in my work. That’s why I screwed up my marriage and the relationships that.… God, do you know what you’re doing to my insides?”
He knew what was happening to his while he cupped her small, firm breasts in his hands and let his mouth roam her face. “How long are you going to keep talking?”
“I think I’m finished.” Her hands were on his hips, fingers dug in. “For God’s sake, kiss me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He closed his wandering mouth over hers. He’d expected the punch, craved it. He let his body absorb the shock before he pressed himself hard against her.
Her lips parted hungrily, inviting him in so that she could scrape her teeth over his tongue, then soothe it with hers. His low groan of approval vibrated into her. He tasted dark, dangerous, and visions of wild, raging sex had her head spinning.
It had been long, too long, she thought, since she had felt a man’s hands on her, since she had felt this churning frenzy to mate. But this was more, too much more, and it frightened her. The need sped beyond the hot, frantic sex she knew they could share. She knew, if she let herself, she could be in love.
“Cam—”
“Not yet.”
He caught her face in his hands, shaken by what she was doing to him. Body, mind, soul. He stared at her, searching for a reason, for an answer. Then with an oath, he crushed his mouth to hers again. When he realized he was crossing the line, he gentled his hold and rested his brow on hers.
“I guess we should be glad this didn’t happen ten years ago.”
“I guess,” she said on a long breath. “Cam, I need to think about all of this.”
He nodded and stepped back a pace. “I’m not going to tell you to take your time.”
She passed a hand through her hair. “I wasn’t kidding about mistakes. I’ve made too many of them.”
“I imagine we both have.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “And though I don’t think this is one, you’re making a mistake right now.”
“You lost me.”
“The water’s boiling over.”
She turned around in time to see the water bubble up and sizzle on the burner. “Oh, shit.”
Bud took his routine patrol up to the quarry, circling around while he munched on a bag of Fritos. As hard as he tried not to think about what he had seen that afternoon, his mind kept shooting back, flashing the image of Biff’s mauled body behind his eyes like a personal movie projector. He was deeply ashamed that he’d thrown up at the scene, though Cam had made no fuss over it.
Bud firmly believed that a good cop—even if he was only a small town deputy—required an iron will, iron integrity, and an iron stomach. He’d fallen flat on the third one that day.
News of Biff’s death was all over town. Alice had stopped him on the street, pretty in her pink uniform and smelling of lilacs. It had done his ego considerable good to look sober-faced and quote the official line.
“Biff Stokey’s body was found alongside Gossard Creek off of Gossard Creek Road. The cause of death has yet to be determined.”
She’d looked impressed with that, Bud thought now, and he’d nearly screwed up the courage to ask her to the movies. Before he could, she’d rushed off, saying she’d be late for her shift.
Next time, he promised himself, and crunched down on a Frito. In fact, maybe when he’d finished his patrol, he’d stop by Martha’s for a cup of coffee and some pie. Then he could offer to walk Alice home, slide an arm around her shoulder, and mention, real casual like, that the new Stallone movie was playing at the mall.
The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea, so he sped up another five miles an hour. On his way down Quarry Road, he began to tap a foot on the floorboard, thinking how nice it would be to watch Stallone slaughter all the bad guys with Alice beside him in the darkened theater.
When he rounded a turn, a flash of metal caught his eye. He slowed, squinting against the rays of the lowering sun. It was a car bumper sure enough, he thought with some disgust. Damn kids didn’t even wait until nighttime anymore.
He pulled to the shoulder and got out. Nothing embarrassed him more than having to poke his face into the window of a parked car and advise lovers to move along.
Just last week he’d seen Marci Gladhill without her blouse. Even though he’d averted his eyes quickly, he had a hard time adjusting to the fact that he’d seen Less Gladhill’s oldest girl’s tits. And they’d been whoppers. He imagined he’d have a harder time if Less ever got wind of it.
Resigned, he stepped off the shoulder and into the brush. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught kids driving into bushes to do the backseat tango, but it was the first time he’d caught any in a Cadillac. Shaking his head, he took another step and froze.
Not any Caddy, he realized. Biff Stokey’s Caddy. There wasn’t a person in town who wouldn’t recognize the glossy black car with its flashy red upholstery. He walked closer, his feet causing twigs and brush to crackle and crack.
It had been pulled halfway into the thicket of wild blackberry, and the thorns had left nasty thin scratches along the gleaming black paint.
Biff would’ve had a shit-fit, Bud thought, and shuddered, remembering what had happened to Biff.
He tried not to think too hard about that, and spent some time cursing and picking thorns out of his pant legs. At the last minute, he remembered to use a handkerchief to open the door.
The stereo unit, complete with CD, that Biff had bragged about was gone. Neatly and skillfully removed, Bud noted. The glove box was open and empty. Most everybody knew that Biff had carried a .45 in there. The Caddy’s keys were tossed on the seat. He decided against touching them.
He closed the door again. He was damn proud of himself. Only hours after the body had been discovered, and he’d come across the first clue. With a spring in his step, he walked back to his cruiser to radio in.
Chapter 10
Clare didn’t know what had awakened her. She had no lingering image of a dream, no aftershock of fear from a nightmare. Yet she had shot from sleep to full wakefulness in the dark, every muscle tensed. In the silence she heard nothing but the roar and pump of her heartbeat.
Slowly, she pushed the top of the sleeping bag aside. Despite its cocooning warmth, her legs were icy. Shivering, she groped for the sweatpants she had peeled off before climbing in.
She realized her jaw was locked tight, her head cocked to the side. Listening. What was she listening for? She’d grown up in this house with its nighttime moans and shudders and knew better than to jump at every creak. But her skin remained chilled, her muscles rigid, her ears pricked.
Uneasy, she crept to the doorway and scanned the dark hall. There was nothing there. Of course there was nothing there. But she hit the light switch before rubbing the chill from her arms.
The light that flooded the room behind her only made her more aware that it was the middle of the night and she was awake and alone.
“What I need is a real bed.” She spoke aloud to comfort herself with her own voice. As she stepped into the hall, she massaged the heel of her hand against her breastbone as if to calm her racing heart.
A cup of tea, she decided. She would go downstairs and fix herself a cup of tea, then curl up on the sofa. She’d probably have a better chance of getting some sleep if she pretended she was just going to take a nap.
She’d turn up the heat, too, as she had forgotten to do before climbing into bed. The spring nights were cool. That was why she was cold and shaky. The heat, the radio, and more lights, she thought. Then she’d sleep like the dead.
But at the top of the stairs, she stopped. Turning, she stared at the narrow steps that led to the attic room. There were fourteen worn treads leading to a locked wooden door. It was a short trip, but she had yet to make it. Had tried to believe she didn’t have to make it. Yet it had been on her mind since she stepped into the house again.
No, she admitted, it had been on her mind long before she had come back to Emmitsboro, to the house where she had spent her childhood.
Her movements were stiff and drunkenly cautious as she walked back to the bedroom to get her keys. They jangled in her unsteady hand as she started toward the stairway, her eyes on the door above.
From the shadows of the first floor, Ernie watched her. Inside his thin chest his heart sledgehammered against his ribs. She was coming to him. Coming for him. When she changed directions, then reappeared to start up to the attic, his lips curved.
She wanted him. She wanted him to follow her to that room, a room of violent death. A room of secrets and shadows. His palm left a streak of sweat on the rail as he slowly started up.
There was pain, sharp and jabbing, like an icicle lodged in the pit of her stomach. It increased with each step. By the time she reached the door, her breath was whistling out of her lungs. She fumbled with the keys, then was forced to press one hand against the wall for balance as she rattled it into the lock.
“You have to face realities, Clare,” Dr. Janowski would say. “You have to accept them for what they are and deal with your feelings. Life hurts, and death is a part of life.”
“Fuck you,” she whispered. What did he know about pain?
The metal hinges keened as the door swung open. The scent of dust and cold, stale air filled the opening. Her eyes stung. She had hoped, somehow, to find some lingering scent of her father. A wisp of the English Leather he had splashed on every morning, a sweet trace of the cherry Lifesavers he’d been addicted to. Even the hot smell of whiskey. It had all been smothered by time. Nothing was left but dust. That was the most painful reality of all. She turned on the light.
The center of the room was empty, the floor coated with the thick gray powder of time. Clare knew her mother had given the office furniture away years before. She’d been right to do so. But Clare wished, how she wished, she could run a hand over the scarred surface of her father’s desk or sit in the worn, squeaky chair.
There were boxes lined against a wall, neatly sealed with packing tape. More dust, layers of the passing years, clung softly to Clare’s icy bare feet when she crossed to them. Using the keys still clutched in her hand, she cut through the tape and pried off a lid. And there was her father.
With a sound that was half joy, half sorrow, she reached inside and drew out a gardening shirt. It had been laundered and neatly folded, but grass and earth stains remained. She could see him, the faded denim bagging over his thin torso as he whistled through his teeth and tended his flowers.
“Just look at the delphiniums, Clare.” He’d grin and run his bony, dirt-crusted fingers over the deep blue blooms as gently as a man handling a newborn. “They’re going to be even bigger than last year. Nothing like a little chicken poop to give a garden the edge.”
She buried her face in the shirt, drawing breath after deep breath. And she could smell him, as clearly as if she’d been sitting beside him.
“Why did you leave me that way?” She kept the scent of him pressed hard against her skin as she rocked as if she could absorb what was left of him. And the anger came, hot waves of it that twisted tight around the smothering grief. “You had no right to leave me that way when I needed you so much. Damn you, I wanted you there. I needed you there. Daddy. Oh, Daddy, why?”