Brandon Walker 02 - Kiss Of The Bees (v5.0)

by J. A. Jance

  Finished with his grandfather’s grave, David turned to his father’s. Breakfast with Astrid had lessened the impact of the latest visitation of the recurring dream. Vivid and disturbing, it had come to him every night for over a week now. Each time it came, he awakened the moment he saw his sister’s lifeless body in the middle of the kitchen floor. And when his eyes opened, his body would launch off, sweating and trembling, into yet another panic attack.

  Night after night, the two events came together like a pair of evil twins—first the dream and then the panic attack. One followed the other as inevitably as night follows day. Davy went to bed at night almost as sick with dread at what was bound to come as he would be later when it did. As the days and virtually sleepless nights went by, anticipating the attacks became almost as shattering as the attacks themselves.

  Up to that moment in the cemetery, the attacks themselves had always happened at night, in the privacy of his own room and always preceded by the dream. But right then, kneeling beside the marker bearing the name of Garrison Walther Ladd III, David felt his pulse begin to quicken. Moments later, his heart was hammering in his chest, knocking his ribs so hard that he could barely breathe. His hands began to tingle. He felt dizzy.

  Not trusting his ability to remain upright, David sank down on the ground next to his father’s headstone and leaned against it for support. He tried to pray. As a child, the old priest, Father John, had taught him about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And Rita had taught him about I’itoi.

  But right then, in Davy’s hour of need, there in the hot, still air of that Chicago cemetery, all he could hear through the trees was the sound of traffic buzzing by on Lake Shore Drive. From where Davy sat, both Heavenly Father and Elder Brother seemed impossibly remote.

  David had no idea how long the attack lasted. Eventually his breathing steadied and his heartbeat returned to normal. Weak and queasy, he returned to himself bathed in his own rank sweat.

  Nothing to worry about, the doctor had said after running all those tests weeks before. After learning that Davy was about to embark on a cross-country drive, the emergency room physician had declined to prescribe any sedatives or tranquilizers that might have caused drowsiness.

  “If you’re still having difficulties when you get back home to Arizona,” the doctor had told him, “you should consult with your family physician.”

  If I get home, David Ladd thought. What if one of these spells came over him in the middle of a freeway somewhere when he was driving by himself? What would happen then?

  David staggered to his feet. Still somewhat unsteady, he stood for some time, staring down at his father’s grave. This was one of the reasons he had come to Evanston in the first place, one of the reasons he had accepted his grandmother’s generous offer and applied to Northwestern. He had hoped that by coming here, he might somehow come to understand his father’s side of the story. After all, he had grown up and spent most of his life hearing his mother’s version of those long-ago events.

  But the laudatory tales about Davy’s father that his grandmother told him were no help. Davy sensed that there was no more truth in them than there had been in his own mother’s clipped, bare-bones answers in the face of her son’s never-ending curiosity. And as for visiting the grave itself? That had told him less than nothing.

  Shaking his head, David Ladd turned and walked away, wondering what to do with the solitary hours before the three-o’clock check-in time at the hotel. But by the time he reached the car, he had an answer.

  Almost without thinking, he drove to the Field Museum of Natural History. There he wandered slowly through galleries of lighted displays that told the stories, one after another, of vanished and vanquished Native American cultures.

  David Ladd blended into the throngs of tourists that surged like herds of grazing buffalo through the museum’s long hallways. Most were Anglos of one kind or another, with their loud voices and bulging bellies. For most the displays were clearly something foreign and outside their own experience. A few of the visitors were Indian. They came to the displays with a sense of understanding and a reverence that here, at least, their past still existed.

  And standing in the midst of all those different people, David Ladd felt doubly alone. Cheated, almost. He was a blond-haired, blue-eyed outsider. He felt no connection, no sense of brotherhood, with the Mil-gahn tourists with their Bermuda-shorts-clad legs and their ill-behaved children. But here in this place, he felt no connection to The People—to the Indians—either.

  Then, almost as though she were standing beside him, he heard Rita Antone’s voice once more, speaking to him out of the distant past. She sat at a kitchen table with the fragrant, newly dried bear grass and yucca laid out on the table. There was a fistful of grass in one hand. Her awl—her owij—was poised but still in her other hand. The raw materials for Rita’s next basket lay arrayed on the table, but the old woman’s real workbench was forever her ample, apron-covered lap.

  “The center must be very strong, Olhoni,” she had said, “or the basket will be no good.”

  Whenever Rita had started a basket, she always said something like that. The words reminded him of the words that usually accompanied taking the Holy Sacrament. The words were almost always the same, and yet they were always different.

  With tears misting his eyes, David Ladd fled the museum. I have lost the center of my basket, he thought despairingly. I don’t know who I am.

  With Lani Walker there in the Bounder with him, Mitch tried to keep Andy’s failure clearly at the forefront of his mind. Much as he wanted her, much as he physically ached to use that slender body, he was equally determined to deny himself the pleasure. Andrew Carlisle had allowed his base nature to overwhelm his intellect. Mitch Johnson had no intention of making the same mistake.

  Watching Lani sleeping peacefully on the bed, Mitch’s physical need for her was so great that he forced himself to turn his back on her and walk away. That was the only reasonable thing to do—put some distance between himself and what he knew to be an invitation to disaster.

  For a time he busied himself with his art materials, setting up his easel and getting out his paper. He waited until he was once more fully under control before he turned to look at her once again, before he allowed himself to gaze down at her. Her long dark lashes rested softly on bronze cheeks. It surprised him to notice, for the first time, that here and there on the bronze skin of her body were occasional light spots, reverse freckles, almost. He wondered vaguely what might have caused those blemishes, but he didn’t worry about them long. It was time to tie her, to use the four matching, richly colored teal-and-burgundy scarves he had bought for that precise purpose.

  He had bought them in four separate stores, paying for them in cash. “It’s for my mother’s birthday,” he had told the first saleslady, who waited on him at Park Mall. “For my Aunt Gertrude’s eightieth,” he told the second one in a store at El Con. “For my next-door neighbor,” he explained, smiling at the third salesclerk in the first store in Tucson Mall. “She takes care of my two dogs when I’m out of town.” By the fourth store Mitch was running out of imagination. It was back to his mother’s birthday.

  As an artist, Mitch Johnson possibly could have done without the scarves altogether and painted them in later from either memory or imagination. But when it came to this particular picture, Mitch Johnson was a perfectionist. He wanted to do it right. He took care to arrange the scarves properly, so that it was clear they were restraints, holding the girl against her will, but beautiful restraints nonetheless. He arranged the loose ends of the scarves in drapes and folds around her as an opulent counterpoint to the naked simplicity of the girl’s body. Contrast, of course, is everything.

  He also spent a considerable period of time creating just the right angle and perspective. For that he finally settled on three pillows. Two he used to raise her head and neck enough so that both her face and that funny necklace at the base of her throat were clearly visible. The
third pillow went under her buttocks, raising her hips high enough so that what lay between her spread legs was fully visible. To Mitch, anyway.

  That was the whole tantalizing wonder of this particular pose. Had Mitch been an ancient Greek sculptor, he would have opted for the use of fig leaves, perhaps. The painters of the Renaissance had gone in for the strategic drape of robes to conceal what shouldn’t be seen. Mitch was a purist. He wanted to use the girl’s own body to create the desired illusion. Nicolaïdes had taught him to look for edges and to draw those.

  Afraid the shock of cold water might awaken her, he dampened his fingers with warm water from the tap. Then he petted the wild tangle of soft black pubic hair, teasing and coaxing it into place. He used the hair itself to create a concealing veil until it curved around and over what he wanted to hide from any other casual viewers if not from himself. No one else would be able to see under it, but any person viewing the picture would know unerringly that the artist himself had drunk his fill.

  His hand still reeked with the heady, musky smell of her when, weak-kneed, he returned to his easel and began to work on the quick gesture sketch, using broad lines and circles to capture the general form of her.

  As the charcoal scraped comfortingly across the paper, he felt himself settling down once more. As he worked, the chorus of an old Sunday-school hymn came unbidden to his mind. “Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” Smiling to himself, he sang as many of the words as he was able to remember.

  The strange combination of drawing and humming didn’t amount to quite the same thing as taking a cold shower, but the physical effect on his body was much the same. At least his damned persistent hard-on went away, enough so that he was able to concentrate on what he was doing.

  David Ladd left the Field Museum and went directly to the Ritz. Carrying one small suitcase, he left the car with the attendant and walked inside. He figured he was still too early to check in, but Candace had told him to stop by the concierge desk to check for a message whenever he arrived.

  “Why, Mr. Ladd,” the concierge said with a welcoming smile. “Welcome to the Ritz. I’m so glad you could join us today. Your wife left a note here for you and asked that I give it to you as soon as you arrived.”

  His wife? Blushing furiously, David took the note and retreated to a chair at the far end of the lobby before he tore open the envelope. Inside were a note and a room key.

  David,

  I had some last-minute shopping to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Our room is 1712. See you there.

  Love,

  Candace

  So he already was checked in. Pocketing the note and palming the key, David headed upstairs. Leave it to Candace to figure a way around those 3 P.M. check-in rules, he thought with a rueful grin, but he was supremely grateful. Not only was he emotionally drained by his dealings with Astrid Ladd and his trip to the museum, he was rummy from days of almost no sleep.

  Upon entering the room, he was surprised to see four suitcases, two arranged on the bed as well as one on each of the room’s two folding metal luggage racks. Four suitcases did seem a little much for an overnight at the Ritz, especially since the bathroom was already fully stocked with robes, hair dryer, and a selection of toiletries. Evidently the female side of the Oak Park Waverlys didn’t believe in traveling light.

  Hoping he had time for a quick nap, he closed the blackout curtains and then undressed. Before stripping off his shirt, he discovered Astrid’s diamond engagement ring still lurking in his pocket. He had meant to give the ring back to his grandmother before he left, but he had forgotten.

  Shaking his head, he put the ring on the nightstand along with his watch. He thought about leaving a wake-up call so he could be showered and dressed before Candace’s arrival. In the end he decided to sleep until he woke up or Candace arrived, whichever came first. Lying down on the bed, he tried to relax, but that wasn’t easy. He was smitten by an attack of conscience.

  If you don’t want to marry her, he thought, then what the hell are you doing here?

  Hopefully screwing your brains out was the short answer, he decided, grinning ruefully up at the darkened ceiling overhead. But for that—for plain old getting your rocks off—most any place would do, from Motel 6 up. The Ritz had been Candace’s idea. And even if Candace had sold him on the proposition that this special night on the town was both a graduation and a going-away gift from her, he had the distinct feeling that Candace’s daddy’s law firm was actually picking up the tab.

  Despite Astrid Ladd’s none-too-subtle lobbying, things weren’t all sweetness and light between David Garrison Ladd and Candace Eugenia Waverly.

  They had met the previous December, when they had both been participants in what they still laughingly referred to as the wedding from hell. Candace had been maid of honor and David best man at a pre-Christmas wedding that had fallen victim to an unseasonal but vicious mid-December blizzard. The storm had stalled prospective guests—including most of the groom’s family—at airports all over the country while O’Hare and Midway airports were shut down for four solid hours.

  As “best” people, Candace and David had both had their hands full. Candace had been stuck baby-sitting a somewhat hysterical bride and her mostly hysterical mother while David was closeted with an exceedingly nervous groom who had been close to bagging the whole idea well before the snow started falling. By the time they finally made it through the wedding, the maid of honor and best man were comrades-in-arms.

  From that beginning, it was a simple step for Candace to invite her new friend to her parents’ traditional Christmas party the following week—the night before David Ladd was due to fly home to spend his winter vacation with his family in Tucson.

  The prospect of meeting the Oak Park Waverlys—as Astrid Ladd soon took to calling them—wasn’t nearly as daunting to David Ladd as it would have been had he gone straight there from his mother’s and stepfather’s place in Gates Pass. Following Candace’s directions through the still ice-rutted streets, he arrived at a house that was much the same size as his grandmother’s lakeshore mansion, only this one was alive with lights visible in every window of all three floors.

  The gateposts at the end of a long curving drive glowed a holiday welcome with hundreds of white Christmas lights. The house itself was outlined with thousands more. Handing his Jeep off to a valet-parking attendant, David rang the doorbell. One glimpse of the tux-clad butler who opened the door and relieved arriving guests of their coats made David more than happy that he’d gone to the trouble of renting a tuxedo himself.

  For fifteen or twenty interminable minutes he was there on his own, trying to make acceptable small talk with people he had never met and most likely would never see again. Just when he was ready to bolt back the way he had come, Candace appeared in a slick, low-cut red dress with a slit that came halfway up her thigh.

  “I see somebody put a drink in your hand,” she said. “Have you tried the buffet?”

  “I was waiting for you. Are you hungry?”

  Candace made a face. “Not really. Mother uses the same caterer every year, although I’ve never quite figured out why. The food reminds me of those breakfast sausages they serve at hotels in England. They look great but they taste like they’re made of sawdust.”

  David couldn’t help laughing at that. Encouraged by an appreciative audience, Candace continued. “My two older sisters and I learned early on to load up a plate and carry it around awhile just to keep peace in the family. I suggest you do the same, but you don’t have to eat it. Later on, we’ll go up to my room and order a pizza.”

  “Order a pizza?” David echoed.

  “Sure. I have my own entrance. The delivery people know to bring it there instead of to the front door. My sisters and I have been doing it for years.”

  “Your parents have never figured it out?”

  Candace grinned at him conspiratorially from behind her champagne flute. “Never. Come on. I’ll introduce you to my folks, but d
on’t breathe a word about the pizza. If you do, I won’t let you have any.”

  It turned out there was a whole lot more waiting for David Ladd in Candace Waverly’s upstairs room than a thin-crust pepperoni and cheese. For one thing, it wasn’t a room at all, but a three-room suite, complete with bedroom, sitting room, and Jacuzzi-equipped bath. And Candace Waverly wasn’t particularly interested in staying in the sitting room.

  David Ladd had taken his time with school, changing majors several times before finally finishing his BA and deciding on law school. At twenty-seven, he certainly wasn’t a virgin, but he hadn’t encountered anyone like Candace Eugenia Waverly, either. Slipping out of her bright red dress along the way, she led him into her bedroom. Davy was still nervously fumbling with his cuff links when a naked Candace stepped forward to help him and to drag him, unprotesting, into her bed. Two frenetic hours later, she sat up in bed, propped herself upright on a mound of pillows, and matter-of-factly reached out for the phone to order a pizza. By then David Ladd had experienced several exotic sexual activities he had previously only imagined. Or read about.

  Candace might look delicate and ladylike, but in bed she was anything but, and in the six months since, David Ladd had found himself deeply in lust if not in love. He and Candace spent a good deal of time together—as much as possible, considering his course load. And because of Astrid Ladd’s prying eyes, most of their fun and games had happened in Candace’s chaste-appearing bedroom.