“Y-you’ve been following me.”
“It’s called learning the subject’s routine.”
“My r-routine?”
“Where you go, what you do, et cetera.” At her puzzled expression, he added, “Hey, I know the whole procedure, lady. Never miss an episode of New York Undercover.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said again as his fingers flexed around the ax handle. “Look, I’m sorry about this, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.” Ax raised, he stepped forward.
He was going to kill her. Right here. Right now. While she was wearing nothing but a shocked expression and a terry cloth robe. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Her gaze shot to the open doorway behind him. Run! her brain commanded, but in the face of death everything seemed to shut down. She couldn’t scream, move, breathe, nothing.
She managed to clamp her eyes shut and pray. Please forgive me for all my sins…
The floor creaked.
…for every bad thing I’ve ever thought in my entire life…
His heavy breathing echoed in her ears.
…for lying to Jenny about that awful perm she got back in the eighth grade that I said was simply divine…
Footsteps sounded.
… for not making more time to help old people and small children, for watching that R movie on cable a few months back, for eating that double pint of rocky road when I know my body is a temple…
“Sorry,” the guy grumbled again, closing the distance to her. The floor creaked, the ax hissed through the air and—
He moved past her. Whew. Thank God. No ax. No bloody murder—
Past her?
Her eyes popped open and she whirled to see Viva head for the bed. He raised the ax. The blade arced, flashing silver fire as it headed for one defenseless bedpost—
“No!” Her own voice blended with another female cry.
“Norman Nathaniel Presley!”
The ax poised and Ronnie whirled to see the woman standing in the open doorway. Six feet of luscious curves and a frown that made even Ronnie’s heart pause in her chest.
“I knew it,” the woman cried, her gaze pinning Ronnie in place. “You low-down, two-timing, snake in the grass. I knew you were cheating on me!”
“Cheating?” Norman actually looked relieved. “Is that what you think? Aw, I ain’t here because of her, honey.”
“Oh really?” She glared. “Tell that to your mama, buster, because I’m calling first thing when I get back home and telling her everything you’ve been up to.”
“Now don’t go flying off the handle. I’m telling the truth. I ain’t here for her. I’m here for this.” He motioned toward the bed.
Norma Renee’s face went from angry to confused as she stared past him, blinking frantically and wiping at her tear-streaked face. “The bed. Oh, my lord, that’s the bed.”
“Not for long. I been waiting for this moment for weeks. I’m acting out. Just like the doc said.”
She planted her hands on her hips and glared. “You mean to tell me you’ve been lying to me, telling me you’re out playing cards with Buddy and Woodrow, making me think you’re skirt chasing, when you’re really bed chasing.”
“Yep.” He seemed pleased to have avoided the womanizing rap in favor of lying.
“Do you know how awful I felt when Buddy called me tonight and wanted to talk to you, and I said, he’s at your house playing five-card stud, and he says, no he ain’t? Stupid, that’s how,” she shouted before he could get a word in edgewise. “And mad. And upset. I cried for hours, then I decided if you were really fooling around, I had to see for myself.”
“How’d you find me?”
“I drove around a few hours, then I spotted you at the Jiffy Mart taking a leak. Then I followed you.” She shook her head. “Weeks of lies. Weeks, Norman Nathaniel. How could you?”
“I had to stake her out. I couldn’t risk her being here when I made my move. I had to watch her, find out where she went, when she was gone, so I could pick the lock and do what I would have done if that security guard hadn’t stopped me.”
“You’re the lawyer’s assistant,” Ronnie mumbled, remembering the story Val had told her about the near miss with the ax-wielding fiancé in the warehouse.
“Was.” Norma Renee sniffled. “When the security guard reported that Norman, here, nearly chopped up a prime piece of estate furniture, I got fired.” Tears poured down her face, leaving trails of black mascara in their wake.
“Now, honey, you didn’t really like that job anyway.”
“That wasn’t the point. I got fired. I’ve never been fired. And then to find out my fiancé was cheating on me.”
“I’m not cheating.”
“But I didn’t know that until just a few seconds ago.”
“Now you do, so go on home, honey.” He eyed the bed. “This is between me and it. I can practically feel the aggression draining away just looking at it, Norma. The doc’s right about this. I know he is.”
“Doc?” Ronnie asked, still trying to grasp the whole absurd scene unfolding in front of her.
“Our therapist,” Norma Renee supplied. “Ever since Norman found me in that bed having a good time without him, he’s been feeling guilty and jealous. Dr. Weiner suggested Norman act out his aggression on an inanimate object.” She shot Norman a glance. “But I think any bed would do, Norman. It’s symbolic.”
“I thought about that and it’s this bed that got me all worked up in the first place. It has to be this one.” He raised the ax again.
“Stop!” Ronnie shouted. Okay, so he was an ax-wielding crazy man, but from the conversation going on, he was fast losing serial killer status and Ronnie wasn’t about to see her hard-earned money go down the tube. “You can’t do this. It’s a bed, for Pete’s sake; A defenseless bed. My bed.” Val’s bed. Not that he was anywhere in sight as the scene played out. But he was there. She felt a prickling awareness that soothed the fear inside her and made her stand taller. She glared at Norman, who pulled a wad of bills from his pocket.
“I’ll pay for the damage, lady.”
“Why didn’t you just buy it in the first place?”
“I tried, but you got to the antique shop before me. That’s where I got your name and address. From the bill of sale.”
“Why didn’t you just offer to buy it from me?”
“Would you have sold it to me?”
“No.”
“That’s why. It was a risk I couldn’t take. I show up, offer you money, you turn me down. Later on the bed turns up destroyed, money left behind to pay for the damages. Who would you have suspected?”
“The guy who offered to buy it from me.”
“Bingo, lady. You could have given a description of me to the police, my name, everything. I couldn’t risk that.”
“I can still give a description to the police, as well as your name and your girlfriend’s, here.”
The wrong thing to say to a man holding an ax, Ronnie realized when he tightened his grip and glared at her.
“We’ll see about that,” he started, but Norma cut him off.
“He isn’t usually like this,” she explained, her gaze pleading as Ronnie grabbed the phone. “Really he isn’t. But he sort of has this problem—”
“Norma Renee!”
“That’s why we’re seeing the therapist. He told us that time sometimes heals these things and it’s probably just stress that keeps him from getting it up—”
“Norma Renee!”
“What? You want to go to jail, because I can tell you right now, your mother will have a major cardiac arrest if you call her from the pokey.” She cast pleading eyes on Ronnie. “His mama’s on the city council and crazy, ax-wielding sons won’t look too good come reelection time. Anyhow, with Norman’s problem and us seeing the doctor and all, I wasn’t exactly seeing sparklers in bed, if you know what I mean, much less a great big Roman candle. But then I sat down on that bed and it was like, bam. Fourth of Jul
y and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one, and then Norman walks in and if it had been another man, he would have punched his lights out—that’s what he did when Davey Joe Carver—that’s my brother’s best friend—tried to kiss me at the family Christmas party last year. My mama always throws these big spreads over in Shreveport—”
“Tell her our life story so there’s no mistake when she reports it, why don’t you?”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Norman Nathaniel. You’re the one who broke into this nice lady’s apartment and is now acting like a crazy man. Anyhow—” she turned back to Ronnie “—Norman, here, sort of took me seeing fireworks as a personal affront to his manhood. I should have seen this coming, with him so insanely jealous and all.”
“I have to get my feelings out,” Norman said. “The doc said to act out, and I have to, honey. For us. Our future,” he said, turning determined eyes on the bed. He lifted the ax.
Ronnie watched as Val materialized next to Norman and caught the ax midair. Wood splintered, the handle broke in two, and the man stumbled backward, eyes wide as he stared at the fallen ax.
“What the hell …?” Norma’s voice faded away as she, too, stared at the fallen ax.
“It’s not a normal bed,” Ronnie told them. “It’s haunted.”
“H-haunted?” Norman sputtered.
“That’s right.” Ronnie thought about calling the police at that moment, since she and Val seemed to have the upper hand, but considering the outrageous circumstances, she decided scaring the daylights out of Norman might be more efficient, and a lot more fun. Besides, she wasn’t about to tolerate a police force combing every inch of her bed, or possibly confiscating it as evidence. “By a big, mean, bloodthirsty classical music lover who hates Elvis.”
Norman’s gaze dropped to his shirt, shifted back to the bed, then cut sideways to Ronnie. “You’re making that up.”
“Go on, then. Sing an Elvis song and see what happens.”
“I-I think we should go. Now,” Norma Renee said.
But Norman was already backing up, his eyes like saucers as he glanced past Ronnie toward the bed.
She turned and saw the source of his sudden distress. The pillow was rising off the bed, courtesy of a tanned arm attached to an equally tanned body, but Norman and Norma couldn’t see that. They saw only the pillow.
“He doesn’t like late-night visitors,” Ronnie told them.
Both pairs of eyes stared past her in time to see a sheet rise off the bed, taking shape and form until it looked like a Halloween ghost minus the black eyehole cutouts.
They bolted for the door as if the Devil himself were chasing them.
Or a legendary lover covered in a sheet.
The door slammed and she turned on Val. “That wasn’t nice.”
He pulled the sheet off his head and grinned. “But it was fun.”
A smile tugged at her lips as she bolted the door and slid the chain lock into place for good measure. “A lot of fun.” She closed her eyes and touched a hand to her still pounding heart. “But for a few seconds there, I thought I was ground meat.”
He came up behind her. Strong hands closed over her shoulders and kneaded the heavily knotted muscles. “You need not have been afraid. I would never let anyone harm you.” His fingers tightened for the space of a heartbeat and she felt his desperation, his fear.
It mirrored her own when she’d seen Norman about to ax Val’s treasured bed. His link. Him.
Lips nibbled at her neck as he slid his arms around her to untie the belt and cup her breasts. Thumbs grazed her nipples, brought them to throbbing life, and she tilted her head back into the cradle of his shoulder.
“Now, where were we, chérie?”
She touched his hands and slid them down to the part of her that burned the hottest. “Well, I think we were just about here.”
“Mmm …” he murmured, his fingers pushing her panties down, ruffling the curls until his fingertip touched the slick folds between her legs. “And I was just about here.”
“Val?”
“Mmm?”
“What would have happened if that security guard hadn’t stopped Norman the first time?”
“He would have turned my bed into firewood.” He nipped at her exposed shoulder and a tingle vibrated along her spine.
“I know that,” she breathed. “But what would have happened to you?”
“With my link to this world destroyed, I would have been forced to cross over.”
“To heaven? Is that what waits?”
“The Afterlife. An eternity of peace. That’s what waits once I learn the truth.” He plunged a fingertip deep inside her and she gasped, lost in the feeling for a long moment before she managed to find her voice.
“But if your bed is destroyed before you learn Emma’s parent-age?”
His hand stilled and his body went rigid, as if she’d just reminded him of something.
“Purgatory,” he murmured after a long, silent second.
“Purgatory?”
“An eternity of restlessness, of longing, of loneliness. The place for questioning, tortured souls. For those foolish enough to make the same fatal mistake twice.”
Fatal mistake. The words echoed in her head and she went stone still as the truth crystalized in her mind. Val’s distaste for virgins. His reluctance to touch her. The way he’d stopped the first time despite the fact that she’d begged him to make love to her and he’d wanted to.
She jerked away from him and whirled to face him. “You mean to tell me that if we … if you … because I’m a … Hell? You could go to hell?” He nodded and she shook her head. “How could you keep something like that from me? I never would’ve … Oh, my God, I almost … you almost … we almost … Hell, Val. Hell.”
“A small price.”
“Eternal damnation is a small price? We’re talking forever. You could lose everything.”
“Everything?” A bitter laugh passed his lips. “I thought so, too, chérie. But to lose everything, you must have something. I have nothing. Only bitter memories and past regrets. Nothing. But when I hold you …” A pained expression twisted his features. “Then I have something. Everything. You.”
“What are you saying?”
“I try to imagine what things will be like for me once I learn the truth. An eternity of peace, but how will I rest, facing forever without you?” He shook his head. “Then I weigh the alternative. A moment in your arms and an eternity of restlessness.” His gaze captured hers. “I could face a dozen forevers if I had one sweet memory of you to keep me company. Just one.” His gaze fired hotter, brighter, and he moved toward her. “I could face anything, because I love you, Veronique.” He reached for her. “I love you.”
He loved her.
She tossed and turned that night, restless and frustrated, and determined to stay that way despite Val’s efforts to seduce her once he’d made his declaration.
Ronnie had faced the second most difficult decision of her life then, and, just like the first time, she’d turned away, walked away.
Because she’d had to.
Not to preserve her own sense of self, but to save Val’s soul. He loved her, and she loved him, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t doom him to an eternity of hell.
“Not touching you is hell,” he’d told her. Even so, he’d backed off when she’d refused, a bleak look in his eyes, love warring with lust, the past with the present.
She tossed to the other side, buried her head in the pillow, and ignored the ache between her own legs. Inconsequential compared to the ache in her chest when she thought of how close Val had come to losing his soul.
Not once, but twice.
First with her damning seduction, then with Norman Nathaniel and his crazy intention to ax Val’s bed.
Ronnie had since made up her mind to keep her clothes on. Meanwhile, she felt certain that Norman was scared witless and wouldn’t be back to bother Val again. Just to be sure, she was planning on having Mr. Sams install
an extra deadbolt, and, come morning, she was placing an anonymous call to Council-woman Terribone to tell her her son had been caught spying on poor defenseless college women. That should take care of Norman Nathaniel for a little while.
Long enough for Ronnie to find out the truth and send Val into the Afterlife, which was exactly what she intended to do. She loved him, and while she couldn’t express that love in a physical way, much less pledge to love, honor, and cherish till death do us part, she could give him peace.
She would, she promised herself the next morning as she forfeited her classes and work to make the three-hour drive to Heaven’s Gate. She would find the truth and let Val go before anything else happened. Before Norman returned, and before she lost her selflessness and begged Valentine Tremaine to stay with her regardless of the consequences.
“The Emma Warren,” Harvey said excitedly. “I never even considered the possibility.”
“What’s so special about Emma Warren?”
“She was a kind and generous woman. She funded a home for orphaned children that paved the way for modern-day shelters. She started the first town newspaper. She was always giving money to charity, helping those less fortunate. Because of her and her husband’s support, this town went from a dried-up ghost town after the Civil War to a thriving, upper-class community by the turn of the century.”
“So who’s this legendary woman’s father?”
“That I don’t know. I have tons of research on her, but nothing that mentions her father. I don’t think she even knew him, hence her sympathy for orphaned children. I’ve been to the cemetery, checked her headstone, the family mausoleum. I’ve picked through all my records. She even kept a diary.” He shook his head. “But there’s nothing on him.”
“There has to be something. Does she have any descendants? Family members who might know something?”
He shook his head. “The only thing left of the Warrens is Sunnydale, the estate house where they lived. Preserved and cared for by the New Orleans Historical Society. It’s open daily to tourists.”
“A museum?” He nodded, and excitement bubbled inside Ronnie. “Maybe there’s something there.”
In the Midnight Hour Page 24