Eight Classic Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense Novels

by Nora Roberts

  Restless, Clare put out her cigarette with quick, short taps. “It is difficult—though they were anything but close.”

  “Does he have any suspects?” Jean-Paul asked.

  “I don’t know. I doubt it.” Clare glanced out the window at the slow-moving cars and slower-moving people. “It’s hard to believe it could have been anyone from town.” Then she shook her head and changed her phrasing. “No one wants to believe it could have been anyone from town.”

  It was after three when they returned home. Jean-Paul had scoured the antique stores and was toting three mahogany frames. To her surprise, Angie had come across a lovely Art Deco pin in sterling and had paid a small fraction of what the price would have been if the pin had found its way to Manhattan.

  A big yellow school bus, pregnant with children, stopped at the corner with a belch and a wheeze to offload. The race was on for bikes, for cartoons, for catcher’s mitts.

  “There’s Ernie.” Clare spotted him standing at the edge of her driveway. “The model for the arm,” she explained.

  “He seems to be waiting for you,” Jean-Paul commented.

  “He hangs around sometimes. He’s lonely.” She smiled and waved. “I don’t think he gets along with his parents. They haven’t even bothered to come take a look at the sculpture.”

  He watched her, annoyed that she wasn’t alone. He knew the sheriff was busy out at Dopper’s farm where two young calves had been slaughtered. Ernie knew, because he’d done the slaughtering in hopes that it would trigger his initiation into the cult.

  “Hi, Ernie. Aren’t you working today?”

  “I got a few minutes.”

  “Good, I haven’t seen you around the last few days.”

  “Been busy.”

  “Well, I’d like to show you the finished sculpture. These are my friends, Mr. and Mrs. LeBeau.”

  He acknowledged their greetings with a mumble but shook Jean-Paul’s hand when it was offered.

  “Come on into the garage. I’d like to know what you think.” Clare led the way. “You haven’t seen it since it was finished and fired,” she continued. “Clay turned out to be the right medium, a little rougher and more primitive than wood. And since Mr. LeBeau plans to have it shipped up to New York soon, this might be your only chance.” She gestured, then hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “So, what do you think?”

  Studying it made Ernie feel strange and disjointed. Without thinking, he reached over to cup his left hand around his right forearm. She’d taken part of him somehow, more than his arm and hand and fingers. He couldn’t explain it, didn’t have the words. If he had, he might have chosen essence, for it seemed as though she’d stolen his essence and created it again in the defiant, disembodied arm and fist.

  “I guess it’s okay.”

  Clare laughed and put a hand on his shoulder. “That’ll do, then. I really appreciate your helping me out.”

  “It was no big deal.”

  “To us it is a very big deal,” Jean-Paul corrected. “Without you, Clare could not have created this. If she had not created it, we couldn’t display it in our gallery so that other art dealers would pull out their hair in envy and frustration.” He grinned down at the boy. “So you see, we are all in your debt.”

  Ernie only shrugged, sending the pendant around his neck swinging. Jean-Paul glanced down at it. Surprise came first, then amusement. Teenagers, he thought, toying with what they couldn’t possibly understand. He glanced back at Ernie, and the smile faded from his lips. A teenager, yes, a boy, but Jean-Paul had the uncomfortable feeling that this boy could understand all too well.

  “Jean-Paul?” Angie stepped forward to lay a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” He eased his wife slightly closer to him. “My mind was wandering. That’s an interesting pendant,” he said to Ernie.

  “I like it.”

  “We must be keeping you.” Jean-Paul’s voice remained mild, but he kept a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  “Yeah.” Ernie’s lip curled over his teeth. “I got things to do.” Lightly, deliberately, he touched his fingers to the pentagram, closed his fist, and lifted the index and pinkie in the sign of the goat. “See you around.”

  “Don’t use him again,” Jean-Paul said as he watched Ernie walk away.

  Clare’s brows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  “To model. Don’t use him. He has bad eyes.”

  “Well, really—”

  “Humor me.” Smiling again, he kissed Clare’s cheek. “They say my grandmother had the sight.”

  “I say you’ve had too much sun,” Clare decided. “And need a drink.”

  “I wouldn’t turn one down.” He cast a last glance over his shoulder as he followed Angie and Clare into the kitchen. “Do you have cookies?”

  “Always.” She gestured him toward the refrigerator while she headed to the cupboard for a bag of Chips Ahoy. “Christ, listen to those flies. Sounds like a convention.” Curious, she turned toward the screen door and peeked out. The burger she’d consumed with such relish threatened to bolt up. “God. Oh, God.”

  “Clare?” Angie was beside her in one leap. “Honey, what—” Then she saw for herself. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she turned away. “Jean-Paul.”

  But he was already nudging them aside. On the stoop outside the screen door someone had flung a dead cat, a young black cat. Dark blood had poured and pooled where its head had once been. Black flies drank and buzzed busily.

  He swore ripely in French before turning a pasty face to the women. “Go—in the other room. I’ll deal with it.”

  “It’s horrible.” Hugging herself, Clare kept her back to the door. “All that blood.” Still terribly fresh, too, she remembered, and swallowed hard. “It must have been a stray dog that killed it and dragged it here.”

  Jean-Paul thought of the pendant around Ernie’s neck and wondered. “The boy might have done it.”

  “Boy?” Clare steeled herself to hand Jean-Paul a plastic garbage bag. “Ernie? Don’t be ridiculous. It was a dog.”

  “He wore a pentagram. A symbol of Satanism.”

  “Satanism?” Shuddering, Clare turned away again. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “Satanism?” Angie reached in the refrigerator for the wine. She thought they all would need it. “You read about it now and again. Hear about rites going on in Central Park.”

  “Cut it out.” Clare fumbled for a cigarette. “Maybe the kid was wearing some kind of occult symbol—and he probably got a charge out of seeing Jean-Paul notice it. Christ, my father had a peace sign, that didn’t make him a Communist.” She dragged in smoke and let it out quickly. “Lots of people dabble in the occult, especially kids. It’s a way of questioning authority.”

  “It can be dangerous,” Jean-Paul insisted.

  “That kid didn’t behead some stray cat and leave it on my back doorstep. It’s awful, I’ll grant you, but you’ve been watching too many movies.”

  “Maybe.” There was no use upsetting her or Angie any further, and he had to steel himself for the grisly task ahead. “But do something for me, chèrie, and be careful of him. My grandmother said that one should be wary of those who choose the left-hand path. Take the wine,” he told them after a deep breath. “Go in the other room until I’m done here.”

  The left-hand path, Clare thought, and remembered the book she had found in her father’s office at the top of the stairs.

  Chapter 15

  What the hell was going on? Cam settled back on the deck chair, a cold liter bottle of Pepsi at his side. He’d stripped down and showered since returning from the Dopper farm and now, wearing only jeans, watched the sun set, and wondered.

  Two young Angus had been brutally butchered. Decapitated. Castrated. According to the vet who had examined the corpses with him, several of the internal organs had been cut out. And were missing.

  Sick. Cam shrugged down Pepsi to wash the ugly taste from his mouth. Whoever ha
d done it had wanted to shock and disgust—and had done a damn good job. Even Matt Dopper had been pale and pasty-faced beneath his fury. The calves had been only two months old and would have grown into hulking steers.

  To be butchered, Cam thought, but not mutilated. And Matt blamed him, at least partially. If the dogs hadn’t been chained up, no one would have trespassed on the land, no one would have gotten to the stock, no one would have butchered his calves.

  Cam leaned back, watching the twilight, feeling the light chill of it on his bare skin. There was a stillness that fascinated him, a lovely kind of hush as the light faded from pearly to dim. Into the silence, like a benediction, came a whippoorwill’s hopeful call.

  What was happening to his town, the town he thought he knew so well?

  A baby’s grave disturbed, a man hideously murdered, calves mutilated. All of these things had occurred within weeks of each other in a town where the biggest controversy was whether to have a rock or a country band at the Legion on Saturday nights.

  Where was the connection? Did there have to be one?

  Cam wasn’t naive enough to ignore the fact that city problems, and city violence, could creep down the interstate and sneak into town. Emmitsboro wasn’t Brigadoon. But it had been the next best thing.

  Drugs. He took another swig from the bottle and watched the first star blink on. He would have said that whoever had taken a knife to the calves had to be wacked, or just crazy. And that person would have known Dopper’s farm, and known too that the German shepherds were chained. So that someone belonged to Emmitsboro.

  The town was close enough to D.C. that it had the potential for a drug drop-off point. The fact was the state police had raided a farmhouse about ten miles south and had confiscated a couple hundred pounds of coke, some automatic rifles, and about twenty thousand in cash. With almost ridiculous regularity, mules were picked up traveling on Interstate 70, stupid enough to speed with bags of coke under the hubcaps.

  Could Biff have been picking up extra cash, screwed up a deal, or gotten greedy, then been taken out?

  He’d been beaten by someone crazed with fury—or by someone making a point.

  But neither of those incidents, nasty as they were, seemed to connect with the gruesome work in the cemetery.

  So why were his instincts telling him to look for a connection?

  Because he was tired, he thought. Because he’d come back here to escape from the ugliness and the guilt. And, he was forced to admit, the fears he had lived with since he’d held his dying partner in his arms.

  He sat back, let his eyes close. Because he wanted a drink, badly wanted a drink, he refused to move. He let himself imagine what it would be like to pick up a bottle, lift it, set those seductive glass lips against his and swallow: hot liquid searing down his throat to burn in his gut and numb his brain. One drink, then two. What the fuck, let’s drink the whole bottle. Life’s too short to be stingy. Let’s drown in it. Drip with it.

  Then the misery of the morning after. Sick as a dog and wanting to die. Old Jack heaving back up while you sprawl in the bathroom and cling to the sweaty porcelain.

  Hell of a good time.

  It was just one of the mind games he played with himself since he’d broken off his friendship with good old Jack Daniels.

  He wanted to believe he could get up in the morning and the urge to reach for the bottle would be gone. Vanished. He wanted to think he could get up, cruise into town, hand out a few traffic violations, lecture a few kids, fill out a few forms.

  He didn’t want a murder investigation or frantic farmers on his conscience. Most of all he didn’t want to talk again to frightened, grieving parents like the Jamisons, who called every week, like clockwork.

  But he knew he would get up the next day, check the urge to poison himself with Jack, then do his job. Because there was no place else for him to go and nothing else for him to do.

  You think you know this town, but you don’t.

  Sarah Hewitt’s bitter words played back in his head. What had she been telling him? What did she know about Parker?

  Cam hadn’t had any luck reaching the former sheriff. Parker had moved from Fort Lauderdale over a year before, without leaving a forwarding address. Now, Cam thought that he would add one more chore to his routine—trying to track Parker down. He only wished he knew why he felt compelled to bother.

  He opened his eyes again to full dark, was soothed by it. He picked up the bottle and contented himself with the measly punch of sugar and caffeine. He lighted a cigarette, then swung his telescope around. It always soothed him to look at the stars.

  He was studying Venus when he heard a car rattling up his lane. And he knew, with a certainty that surprised him, that it was Clare. More, he knew that he’d been waiting for her.

  She’d needed to get out of the house. No, Clare admitted as she bolted out of the car, she’d been frantic to get out of the house. She knew Angie and Jean-Paul would be fine on their own for an hour or two. In fact, she was sure they’d been waiting to have some time alone to discuss Jean-Paul’s theories. She couldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t.

  “Hey, Slim.” Cam had walked to the end of the deck to lean over the rail. “Come on up.”

  Clare took the deck steps two at a time, then threw her arms around him. Before he could react, she had fastened her mouth hard to his.

  “Well,” he managed after a moment. “It’s nice to see you, too.” He stroked his hands up and down her rib cage, then settled them on her hips as he studied her in the backwash of light from the bedroom window. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She knew she had a bright smile on her face. She’d all but glued it there. “I was just restless.” She combed her hands through his hair and pressed against him. “Or maybe it was horny.”

  He might have been flattered, even amused, if he’d believed her. He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You can talk to me, Clare.”

  She knew he would listen. That he would care. But she couldn’t tell him about the horror she’d found on her back stoop, or Jean-Paul’s wild suspicions, or the book she had taken from her father’s office and hidden under her mattress the way a teenage boy hides a porno magazine.

  “It’s nothing, really. I guess I’m wired—commissions, contracts, great expectations.” It was partially true, but she had a feeling he would sense more if she didn’t wipe it from her mind. “So, what are you doing?” She pulled away from him to stroll along the deck to his telescope.

  “Nothing much.” He came up behind her to pick up the bottle of Pepsi. “Want a drink?”

  “Yeah.” She took it, sipped from the bottle. “I was hoping you’d call,” she said, then was immediately annoyed with herself. “Forget I said that. What can you see through here?”

  He put a hand on her shoulder before she could bend to the eyepiece of the scope. “I did call. Your line was busy.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t stop the satisfied smile. “Angie’s been on the line to New York. Got a cigarette, Rafferty? I must have left my purse in the car.”

  He took one out. “I like your friends,” he said, striking a match.

  “They’re great. I guess it was stupid, but I was really nervous about your meeting them. It felt like I was showing you off to my parents or something. Oh, Christ.” She plopped onto the arm of his chair. “I can’t believe I said that. Pay no attention to me—pretend I just got here.” She let out a long breath. “God, I feel like a teenager. I hate it.”

  “I like it.” Cam put a hand under her chin to lift her face. “In fact, I think I’m crazy about it. Ten minutes ago I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Now I can’t figure out why.”

  She looked at him. His eyes seemed almost black in the dappled starlight. There was a faint, satisfied smile on his mouth. The pull was so strong her stomach trembled with the effort to hold back. “Rafferty, what have we got here?”

  “What do you want to have?”

  “I guess I haven’t figure
d that out yet. I was hoping you had.”

  He’d figured it out all right, but he didn’t want to make it easy on her. “Why don’t you think about it for a while?” He sat in the chair next to hers. “I’ve got Venus in the scope. Want to take a look?”

  She shifted into the chair and tilted her head. “I like being with you,” she said as she studied the bright red star. “I mean like this—not just in bed.”

  “That’s a good start.”

  “But the sex is great.”

  His lips quirked. “I can’t argue with that.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that even though the sex is, well, incredible, that’s not why I …” Care about you, dream about you, think about you. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Okay.” He took the hand that she was rapping against the arm of the Adirondack chair. “So, why are you here?”

  “I just wanted to be with you.” She kept looking through the scope, but she no longer saw anything.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.” He brought her hand to his lips, brushed a kiss over the knuckles in a quietly romantic gesture that brought tears to her eyes.

  “I don’t want to screw this up, Cam. I’m real good at screwing things up.”

  “We’re doing fine, Slim. Just fine.”

  They looked at the stars for more than an hour. When she left, Clare had nearly forgotten about the book she’d secreted away.

  Lisa MacDonald was pissed. She was also lost—in the middle of nowhere, as far as she could tell—and her car had definitely given up the ghost. Trying to be optimistic, she gave the engine one more shot. After all, it only had a hundred and sixy-two thousand miles on it. She turned the key and listened to the rattle—death rattle, she thought. The car vibrated beneath her, but didn’t turn over.

  Disgusted, she slammed the door on her ’72 Volvo and rounded the hood. Since her forte was ballet and not auto mechanics, she knew ahead of time that it was a wasted effort.

  The moon was nearly full, and the stars were brilliant. But the light they shed only cast shadows on the long length of dark road. All she could hear was the monotonous chorus of peepers and crickets. The hood screeched when she lifted it, then fumbled with the bar. Swearing, she went around to the passenger side to search in the glove compartment. Her brother, who was a nag, a pain, and her closest friend, had bought her a flashlight and emergency kit.