by Deborah Camp
Her lips brushed his. “Should we check in with Quintara before we go to the police station?”
“Yes.”
He stood up and snagged the belt of her robe before she could turn away from him. He pulled her roughly against him. Kissing her, he parted her lips and his tongue slipped inside her sweet, warm mouth. She tasted like lemon and honey.
“I’ve placed you in danger,” he whispered. “Knowing me has put a target on your back.”
She leaned away from him to look squarely into his eyes. “Levi, don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true, though. You can’t say it isn’t.” Guilt wrapped around him tightly like a prisoning cocoon. “It’s like I plunked you down into a nightmare when I’d promised you a lovely dream.”
“We can’t control the crazies,” she said. “Whoever this creepazoid is, we’ll work together along with the police and we’ll track him down. That’s what we do, right?”
She angled up her chin in the “take that!” way that always made him smile. “You poke that adorable nose in the air and act as if you’re invincible.” Unbidden, the slicing of the whip and the agonizing pain that had followed bombarded him. He blinked it all away and focused on the woman in his arms – in his heart. Resolute determination fortified him and he kissed her again, possessively, urgently. Dark, red-capped waves of fury rolled through him. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Tru,” he swore to her and to himself. “I’ll dismember anyone who tries.”
###
Arranging the clear containers in the refrigerator, Trudy was glad there was a manageable amount of Thanksgiving meal leftovers. One warmed over meal and a few turkey sandwiches, and it would all be gone.
Thanksgiving was a blur. From the moment she’d awakened yesterday and headed for the kitchen to prepare the turkey to a few hours ago when she’d hugged Quintara goodbye, it seemed that time had been on fast-forward. She’d wanted Quintara to stay another day or two, but Quintara would have none of it. She’d been anxious to get back to Tulsa and her busy life there.
Levi had left before sunrise to appear on the local morning show. He’d swung back by later to take Quintara to the airport with one of Gonzo’s guys along for the ride. Even though Trudy knew that Heather Asher was dead, the danger hadn’t diminished. On the contrary, it had been ramped up since it was clear that Trudy was the intended victim.
She closed the refrigerator door to find Levi standing behind it. She jerked in surprise. “You scared me!”
“I live here, too,” he said, grinning. “I just got a text from Quintara. She’s back home, safe in her little house.”
“That’s good.” Trudy released a long sigh. “It was lovely having her here. I’ll miss her company.”
“There’s news.”
The grim timbre of his voice sent a trill of alarm through her and she gave him her full attention.
“I heard on the radio just now that Heather Asher’s body was found this morning.”
She slumped against the refrigerator, momentarily weakened by the information she’d been expecting ever since Tuesday night. “Where?”
“At a construction site.”
She stared at him, waiting. There was more.
Levi sighed and rolled his eyes. “Behind a building I’m renovating in Edgewood.”
“What’s Edgewood?”
“Part of Atlanta. Like a suburb.”
“So, he’s sending you a message and we know that he’s been checking you out or he wouldn’t have known about that construction site. Have you been going there a lot lately?”
He considered the question for a few seconds before answering, “I was there a couple of times last week.”
She nodded. “He’s watching you.”
“If so, then we’re damned lucky he never saw you with me. Once he hears the news, he’ll know that he killed the wrong woman – again.”
A chill ran up her spine and she moved away from the refrigerator. “You should call Heather’s husband, don’t you think?”
Levi screwed up one eye in a half-wince. “Not really. I don’t think he’d want to hear from me.”
“Why not?”
“When we met with our lawyers after Heather was arrested, he was an asshole. Even when I told him I’d help with his wife’s treatment expense, he was anything but gracious.”
“Why did you offer to pay her bills?”
“His insurance will only cover sixty percent and I agreed to pay the other forty.”
“Why?” she asked, feeling that she’d missed something.
He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. I felt bad for the guy. I mean, his wife has gone cuckoo for another man.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “This man.”
Trudy shook her head slowly, finding him absolutely adorable. “You’re so sweet.”
It was his turn to shake his head – vigorously. “No.”
“Yes.” She stepped up to him, against him, and wound her arms around his neck. “Sweet.” Rising on tiptoes, she kissed his unsmiling mouth. “Sweet,” she repeated, and his lips twitched. “So sweet.” She kissed him again and his lips parted on a chuckle as his arms tightened around her and his hands covered her backside, giving it a firm squeeze. “It was enough that you agreed not to file charges against her if she entered a psychiatric facility.” After one more breath-stealing kiss, she eased from his arms. “I see a visit to the police station in our future.”
Levi’s cellphone buzzed and he pulled it from his trouser pocket to glance at the glowing screen. His mouth twisted into a wry smile and he held up the phone for her to see the caller’s I.D. Atlanta Police Dept. “Bingo, baby. You must be psychic.”
###
Studying architectural blueprints, Levi’s vision blurred and he sat back in the office chair and closed his eyes to rest them. Trudy had been irritated with him when he’d announced after lunch that he was going to go next door to the office building and catch up on some projects.
“It’s a holiday,” she’d said, grabbing his shirt collar. “Can’t you knock off for a long weekend?”
“I could, but then I’ll have twice as much to do Monday and Mondays are always a bitch. I have two days’ worth of backlog already. I’ll only work for a few hours.”
She’d released him with a huff. “Go on, then. I’m going to call my family.”
“You do that.” He’d kissed her freckled nose. “I’ll be back in a few hours and we’ll watch a movie and maybe play a game of how-many-times-can-Levi-make-Trudy-come.”
“Always going for a new record! Go on. Work.” Then she’d pushed him out the door. But she’d been laughing.
God, he loved the sound of her laugh.
He sat up straighter and opened his eyes, glancing at the clock. He’d been at it for three hours and was satisfied with what he’d accomplished. Enough, he thought, stretching his arms above his head and swaying from side to side to relieve the tension coiling around his spine. He stood, feeling stiff. He rolled his shoulders where his muscles burned from hammering the punching bag last night and this morning. Some of his stress had been exorcised, but his body was letting him know that he’d overdone it.
Yesterday at the police station, Detective Brand had shown photos of Heather Asher’s battered and bloodied body to him and Trudy. The deep bruises on her neck confirmed that she’d been strangled. Trudy had repeated the details from her psychic eye-witnessing of the murder. Then the detective had turned his attention to Levi, asking him about his vision and grilling him about his thoughts concerning Lizzie’s boyfriend. Brand had asked him to call Lizzie to get the man’s name, but the last number he had for her was no longer in service.
Levi had wracked his brain to recall anyone else he’d had sex with who’d been “spoken for,” but the two or three who fit that description would have been long-shots. The men in their lives either knew about their affairs and didn’t care or had ended their relationships and moved on to other partners.
Once again, the case seemed to be i
n a holding pattern.
His cellphone buzzed, ending his woolgathering. He picked it up off the desktop, almost certain it would be Trudy asking him to get his butt back to the penthouse. He was surprised to see Gonzo’s name and number.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answered. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks. Are you in the penthouse?”
“No, I’m at the office building catching up on some work. Why?”
“We’ve got a situation here, buddy.”
His hackles rose. “Where’s here? What’s going on?”
“Elizabeth Darwin’s in the street lobby of the apartment building.”
Elizabeth Darwin. At first the name sat in his brain like a stone. Then it rattled around in his head, making him wince. He sat down in the chair again as if his knees had been taken out. An ominous feeling coated him. Christ! The timing of this couldn’t be coincidental. Could it? “Lizzie’s here? What the fuck, Gonzo?”
“Yeah, and she’s messed up,” he said, his voice dipping to a low growl. “I think she’s high on something. She wants to see you.”
Levi realized he was running his hand through his hair over and over again. Balling his hand into a fist, he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to be calm. He should have listened to Dr. McLain and everyone else who had told him not to answer Lizzie’s calls and e-mails. Too late now.
“What do you want to do, Levi?” Gonzo asked.
Good question, Levi thought. “Stay put and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“You got it.”
Levi ended the call and sat back in the chair, staring off in space as scenes of England flitted through his mind. Lizzie in class. Lizzie kissing him and showing him how to kiss properly. Lizzie under him, moaning, her hands moving over his, directing him, guiding him. She’d been the first girl he’d kissed and the first girl he’d had sex with and the first girl to betray him and stomp his heart like it was a cockroach. He’d wanted to hate her – and he had for a while – but he knew too much about her to totally shun her. She had kept in contact with him and he’d never been able to find it in himself to pretend that she’d never existed. She’d burned all of her bridges and he knew what it felt like to be stranded and alone.
Gonzo said she was high. Great. In pursuing his degrees in psychology, addictions hadn’t interested him all that much. Afflictions and phobias that were imposed on people fascinated him, but the diseases and problems that resulted from people choosing to indulge and take stupid risks held little interest for him.
Levi grabbed his phone again and dialed a number he knew by heart. The phone rang six times before it was answered.
“Hello, Levi Wolfe. Something I can help you with?”
Just the sound of her soft, cultured voice lowered his blood pressure and anxiety level. “I’m sorry to bother you on a weekend, Dr. McLain. I have a surprise visitor. Gonzo just called to tell me that Elizabeth Darwin is in the lobby of my apartment building. He says she’s high on something.”
“I see.” She didn’t even sound all that surprised. “Did you know that she was in Atlanta?”
“I didn’t know where she went after leaving the rehab center. I assumed she was in Texas with her boyfriend.” The moment he mentioned Lizzie’s boyfriend, a sliver of discord shot through him. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing his eyes shut. “Should I put her in an ambulance? Take her upstairs? What?”
“She’ll face drug charges if you call for an ambulance and that could lead to her being deported. Why don’t we find out what’s going on with her first. Then we can determine the best way to proceed. I can be there in about forty-five minutes.”
“Thank you, Dr. McLain. That’s generous of you.”
“Oh, I’ll charge you for my time,” she said, humor lacing her voice. After a few moments, she added, “Breathe, Levi. Just breathe.” Then the line went dead.
He stared at the phone, thinking that she knew him too well. In sessions, when they discussed the most painful parts of his past, “Breathe, Levi, breathe” was always her gentle admonishment. He followed her instructions, giving himself a few more moments to compose himself and then he debated whether to call Trudy now or . . . Ah, fuck it. He hit the #1 button.
“Hey, handsome. Are you ready to play?”
“Trudy.” He ran his teeth across his lower lip while he chose his words. “Gonzo just called me. Lizzie is in the lobby of the apartment building and she’s high on drugs. I’m headed there now to see what the hell’s going on. Gonzo is with her right now and I called Dr. McLain and she’s on her way. She has far more experience than I do with addicts.” He paused for breath and the silence on the other end unnerved him. “Did you get any of that?”
“England Lizzie is downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Jeez. There’s never a dull moment around here, is there?”
He closed his eyes and smiled, grimly.
“You’re not going to leave her in the lobby, are you?” Trudy asked.
“No. I can’t do that.”
“Right, so bring her up. I’d like to meet her.”
“Okay. I’m sorry about this.”
“Sorry for what? You didn’t do anything. I’ll brew a pot of tea.”
“Thanks.” He shook his head and smiled in spite of himself. Her first reaction was to prepare a pot of tea for the British druggie. He pressed the disconnect button and stared at the phone, chuckling darkly. Just when he thought he knew her, that he could predict Trudy’s moods and actions, she did something to set him back on his heels.
He switched off the desk light and his computer and strode from the office. In the elevator, he closed his eyes and saw Lizzie as he remembered her – straight blond hair that fell to her waist, earthy brown eyes, small breasts and narrow hips, on the skinny side. But, oh, the magic she could wield!
She’d had a way about her. She could look at a boy, bat her long lashes at him, and make him feel as if she hung on his every word and that her heart beat in perfect unison with his. She could make him feel accepted, wanted, desired, and – most of all – understood. She could suss out what a person needed and then dole it out in generous portions. The problem was she had no real empathy for anyone. She did what she did to gain acceptance and trust so that she could get what she wanted, by whatever means necessary. If someone was hurt, if a heart was broken, if trust was shattered, it had nothing to do with her. She’d made no promises. She’d taken no vows of silence or given her word about anything. Essentially, she was a psychopath.
As he left the office building and walked across the courtyard to the apartments, he glanced back at the security guard following him. He’d never get used to being tailed. Never. Opening the lobby door, he stepped inside the high-ceilinged area, catching a glimpse of the doorman’s tense expression and Gonzo’s peeved scowl before giving his attention to the softly sobbing woman sitting in the middle of the floor at his feet. She looked small, frail, and bedraggled.
“Lizzie.”
She stopped sobbing and looked up at him. Her tear-stained face was mottled pink and bruises bloomed on her throat and the part of her chest exposed by her V-necked, olive green sweater. Blue and purple bruises circled her wrists. Big, brown eyes stared blankly at him for a few moments and she blinked as if she were trying hard to focus on his face.
It struck him that she didn’t look like a thirty-year-old woman. She looked ten years older than that. Lines fanned from the corners of her eyes and her skin had lost the glow of vitality. Her hair, once lustrous and the envy of nearly every girl on campus, had been hacked to shoulder-length and hung in greasy ropes. She raised a hand and rubbed the heel of it against her eyes.
“Levi?” she croaked.
“Yes. You need to stand up.” He reached down to cup one of her elbows and help her find her feet.
She rocketed up and flung her arms around him, nearly unbalancing him. “Levi, oh, Levi! You have to
help me.” She tipped her head back, staring into his eyes. “I’ll be anything you want. I’ll do anything you want. Please, sir.”
Her choice of words affronted him more than the stench of stale cigarette smoke and poor hygiene that wafted from her skin and hair. Grasping her wrists, he pulled her arms from around his neck and set her from him. “Stop this.” He watched her, seeing her eyes go in and out of focus, and her breathing go from panting to gasping. She was flying. Flying high. “I’m taking you up to my place. My doctor is coming here to see to you.”
“Doctor? Uh-uh.” She made a pouting face at him. “I’m tired of doctors. I just need you. My best and dearest friend.”
The ghost of the girl he knew flitted across her face and crept into her eyes and he felt the edges of his heart soften a little before he jerked himself from the haze of yesterday and back into the cold light of the lobby. He glanced at the doorman. “Dr. McLain will be here in about half an hour. Send her right up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along, Miss Darwin,” Gonzo said, gripping Lizzie’s upper arm to guide her to the elevator.
“Levi?” She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes large and glassy.
Levi stepped inside the elevator with her and Gonzo. He used his key to open the panel, tapped in the access code, and closed it again.
“Does Trudy know about this?” Gonzo asked when the elevator began its ascent.
“Yes. I called her.” He pocketed his keys.
“Who’s Trudy?” Lizzie asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“My girlfriend.” It still felt a little unreal saying that – but he liked it.
She frowned. “Is she here on holiday?”
“She lives here.” He glanced at Lizzie. “With me.”
She had no reply to that. Levi appreciated the next seconds of silence in the elevator because he knew the next hours would be grim. He caught Gonzo’s eye briefly and they exchanged head-shakes just as the elevator doors opened. Trudy stood on the threshold of the penthouse’s open double doors.
“Hi, boys.” She smiled tentatively at them, her gaze tracking to Lizzie as she stepped back. “Please, come in. I’m Trudy Tucker. It’s nice to meet you, Lizzie.”