Deadly Desires

by Ann Christopher

  Nothing he could possibly do to her would be worse than what he did the other night. That made her free, whether she had the divorce papers to prove it or not. He could still kill her, of course; maybe that was the fate God had in mind for her.

  Fine, God.

  As long as they all understood that she meant to take Kareem out with her.

  So she reached into her purse and pulled out the Glock.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I think I’m good on the lessons, but thanks. It’s your turn for a lesson.”

  From over on the sofa came Radcliffe’s shaky voice. “Oh, shit.”

  Kareem, meanwhile, had a respectful new glint in his eyes, but otherwise looked unruffled, as though he wouldn’t let her ruin his day any more than he’d let a few aggressive ants ruin his picnic.

  “What’re you doing, baby?”

  Kira kept the gun at her side, pointed toward the floor, relishing the power it gave her. Too bad she’d never gotten one before. She and Kareem could have done a much better job communicating.

  “I’m having a discussion with my husband.”

  “With a gun? You never liked guns. You never wanted them in the house.”

  She shrugged. “Things change. People change.”

  His face hardened, except for a wry glint in his eye. “You’re proof of that, aren’t you? But I still don’t think you want to go around threatening people with guns. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Actually, I do.” For one quick second, she let her gaze flicker to Jacob Radcliffe, who was trying to act casual while furtively thumbing numbers on his cell phone. “Tell your lawyer not to call the police, Kareem. I won’t be here long.”

  Without looking away from Kira, Kareem waved a negligent hand. Radcliffe put the phone down, muttering a curse under his breath.

  “What’s on your mind, baby?” Taking all the time in the world, Kareem leaned against the sofa and crossed his ankles. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  Confidence began to pump through Kira’s veins. It was either that or a poisonous amount of adrenaline, or maybe she was just as twisted as Husband Dearest here. Whatever. The bottom line was that she was beginning to enjoy this little discussion.

  “Here’s the thing. I want a divorce. I want to move on with my life. I don’t want any of my clothes or jewelry, and I’d never ask you for support. I just want a divorce.” She paused. “I assume you’re not going to agree to any of that.”

  Utterly still, Kareem studied her with narrowed eyes and said nothing.

  “Right. Well, then. Here’s what you need to know. I’m going to file for divorce. I’m going to live my life. I’m not going to hide. You’re not going to control me any more. Not one more day.”

  A glimmer of amusement lit Kareem’s face.

  Since he didn’t seem to be taking her seriously, she raised the gun, clicked off the safety, and leveled it at his face with her two-handed grip.

  “Jesus,” breathed Jacob Radcliffe.

  Kareem’s amusement vanished.

  “You will not stalk me. You will not follow me or have one of your goons follow me. You will not call me and hang up. I don’t even want you thinking about me. And if you reappear in my life, and try to bother me, I will kill you. I’m going to have this gun with me all the time—it’ll be under my pillow at night and in the shower with me—and I’m just looking for an excuse to use it on you. Don’t try to tell yourself that your sweet little wife would never hurt you. I will. I’m just waiting for my chance. Do you understand me?”

  The moment lengthened. It stretched between them, encompassing everything they’d been to each other over the years. The joy. The ugliness. For half a second, Kira remembered the man she’d loved, the one she’d thought she’d married. Too bad she was too young and naive—or just plain stupid—to know that the man she’d loved so much had only ever existed in her imagination.

  Apparently Kareem was experiencing some of the same ambivalence, because his face softened into something that might have been sadness, but of course there was no percentage in trying to read a sociopath’s emotions.

  “How did we get here, baby?” he wondered.

  “You brought us here.”

  “I loved you.”

  Funny how those words meant nothing to her. It was hard to remember when they’d ever mattered. “And I loved a man who never existed.”

  His eyes flashed. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

  Sorry. Kira swallowed some of the bitterness collecting on the back of her tongue and snorted with something that might have been a laugh. “Not half as sorry as I am. Trust me.”

  And there it was—that invisible wall of malevolence radiating from him like a force field. She could almost feel the room’s temperature drop. His expression flattened out, as though even the charred remnant that passed for his soul had left the building, and she knew that this was the real Kareem, the one he’d hidden so well in their early years together.

  This was as much of a warning as she’d ever receive, as close to a pair of horns, forked tongue, and pointed tail that she’d ever get. Much as she wished the Glock equalized the power between them, it didn’t. Nothing ever could because—bottom line—she was human and he was some unidentifiable other.

  He scared her to death.

  When she was ready to scream with the spiking tension, he straightened and came closer. One step ... two steps ... and then he was too close, right in her face, less than a breath away. Her knees, which had done a remarkable job of holding up for the last several minutes, softened into warm pudding. Even so, she would not show weakness to this man. Not again. Never again. So she stiffened her spine and stared into those eyes that were emptier than a shark’s.

  “You remember what I said when we got married, don’t you, baby?” Kareem asked in that velvety voice that used to make her skin sizzle and now made it crawl. “My vow was to have and hold you all the days of my life, wasn’t it? You remember that, don’t you?”

  “I remember.”

  That was it, then. The battle lines were drawn.

  “So,” she said. “Either I’m going to kill you one day, or you’re going to kill me. I think that about covers it.”

  “Oh, no.” His features eased into a chilling smile that made her wonder if he’d descended from a long line of dragons, and despite all her bravado, she wanted to run. To hide. “You can come home any time you want, baby.”

  There was only one response to this invitation.

  “I’d rather be dead,” she told him.

  He tsked and reached up a hand to touch her cheek. And she surprised herself by taking her finger off the trigger and, in one swift move, whipping him across the face with the pistol.

  Nose bleeding, he stared at her with wide, shocked eyes.

  “I’d rather be dead,” she repeated.

  Kira’s strength lasted just long enough to propel her through the door, across the porch, and down the steps. As soon as she reached the relative darkness and shelter of the mature oak to the right of the driveway, she leaned against it, her courage exhausted. Bracing her hands on her thighs, she doubled up as a sickening wave of dry heaves and dry sobs wracked her down to the marrow of her bones.

  And then, quite suddenly, she’d had enough.

  No one would reduce her to this. Not even Kareem. Fuck him.

  Right. To the car, Kira.

  She slipped through the gate and started walking down the middle of the street, concentrating on individual steps rather than her exhaustion or the half mile that stretched between her and her little hunk o’junk.

  The street was quiet, the few houses immaculate and well lit with their tasteful little porch lights, the neighbors well behaved and genteel. What would they say if they knew of the unfolding domestic-violence drama down the way?

  A semihysterical giggle burbled out of her throat and she bit it back by clamping her hand over her mouth.

  One step ... another step ... keep going ... you can do it.
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  The cold, sharp air rejuvenated her, making her feel ... she felt ...

  Good.

  Was that wild, or what?

  After all those months of pretending she wanted to save their marriage, of cat-and-mousing it while she bought herself time to finish her nursing degree and gain the means to financial independence, it felt wonderfully, ecstatically, orgasmically good to tell Kareem where she stood and give him a dose of his own medicine.

  Hell, she was proud of herself for confronting the bully, and wasn’t that a strange feeling after spending so much time with shame as her BFF?

  Laughing again while she swiped the tears and clammy sweat from her cheeks, she wheeled around to face Kareem’s house again.

  She needed to gloat a little.

  “Fuck you, Kareem,” she called, not caring if anyone or everyone heard her. “Fuck y—”

  Without warning, the house exploded in a blinding flash of orange heat that sent Kira flying through the air.

  Chapter 9

  Kira landed flat on her back, slamming into the grass and hitting her head with a force that had stars streaking across her vision. The blast’s percussion seemed to go on forever, reverberating inside her skull and shooting out her ears like splintered razor blades. Debris showered from the sky, and she stopped scuttling backward long enough to cover her face with her hands. Sharp bits of something—glass, probably—prickled and pierced her skin, and blood filled her mouth. Stunned, she spat, and then spat again. What was that? Had she swallowed glass or—? No, wait. It was her tongue. She’d bitten her tongue.

  The house ...

  Shock roared out of her on a bewildered cry that turned into an endless scream. No. No, no, no. And then there was another, smaller explosion, and she dropped her head again, trying to escape the projectiles. It didn’t work; she’d have had more success trying to dart between air molecules.

  This could not be happening.

  Houses just didn’t explode, and Kareem was too evil to die.

  Frozen by her disbelief, she sat on her butt and watched the inferno. That was the only word for it. One second ago, a million-dollar house had sat there, but now there was only a blackened shell and flames licking through doors and windows toward the sky, as though Hell had opened up a portal and reclaimed Kareem as its own.

  “No.” It took forever for her to climb to her feet, longer for her legs to solidify. “No!” She started walking toward the furnace, propelled not by courage or Good Samaritanism but by the need to confirm what her gut already knew:

  This was a trick. Kareem was not dead. Kareem would never die.

  Monsters needed to be exorcised, staked, or shot with silver bullets. They didn’t just conveniently die and set their victims free. Life wasn’t that easy and never would be. Kareem was not dead.

  “Kira.” Running footsteps came up on her right, but she ignored them. “Oh, my God, what happened? What happened?”

  Kira kept walking.

  From every direction came the sounds of more doors banging open, more shouts of alarm, more shocked cries from neighbors. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered now was stopping this farce before it got going. Kareem would not get away with this, and she was just the woman to stop him.

  “Kira.” Some worried neighbor—she had no idea who—kept pace with her, trotting alongside and grabbing her arm. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there. Kira!”

  Kira jerked free, driven by both her righteous mission and rising hysteria, attracted to the crackling blaze like a suicidal moth. “Kareem.” If she looked hard enough, she knew, she would find him—probably streaking through the flames and trying to escape out the kitchen door in the back. “Kareem!” Maybe he’d snuck down to the wine cellar—God knew he spent enough time down there—or maybe he’d already climbed out through a side window. But he was still alive. Maybe she was insane, but the scent of him was in her nostrils, even over the assault of scorched wood, melting plastic and rubber, and the stark stench of her own fear. Kareem was still alive. She could smell it. “Kareem!”

  “Kira!” roared a new voice. “Kira!”

  Breaking into a run, Kira raced for the front door before anyone could stop her. It was, once again, dangling off the hinges he’d just had repaired, and wouldn’t that piss Kareem off when he reappeared? But there had to be a way inside—

  “Kareem !” she shrieked. “You come out here right now, you son of a bitch—Oh, God!”

  An invisible wall of heat slammed into her from head to toe, so fierce she could feel the sizzle of her bare hands and face and the singe of her hair and eyebrows. Her coat, so warm during the winter months, now felt like an aluminum-foil wrapping designed to roast her alive.

  Frustrated by this unexpected barrier and possessed by the overwhelming need to see Kareem either dead or alive, either a crispy critter or the smirking and arrogant man she’d always known—to know, one way or the other—she prowled the perimeter, looking for an opening and ignoring the pain.

  A little heat would not stop her from finding that bastard—oh, no, it would not. Burns could heal, and—

  Wait. Maybe if she climbed through the dining room’s shattered picture window. Yes. Yes, that could work if she just ran straight through the heat—

  “Kira !” That new voice thundered at her again, this time accompanied by a strong arm that hooked her around the waist and swung her off her feet. “You’re not going in there.”

  “I have to see!” she screeched, twisting and kicking because this was her one chance—her one and only chance, ever—to stop Kareem from committing more wickedness. If she didn’t stop him, who would? “I can’t let him get away with this!”

  “You’re not going in there.”

  The voice finally registered with her frantic brain, and with it came enough relief to make her body go limp. Brady. Oh, thank God it was Brady. He would listen to reason. He would understand that this was a trick.

  “Brady.” Apparently reassured that she had calmed down, he set her down and held on while she got her footing. She twisted within the circle of his arms and grabbed his jacket collar, determined to make him understand her urgency. “Kareem’s in there. He’s alive. I know he’s still alive.”

  Brady shook his head, his expression grim, his lips a thin line of intransigence. Everything about him screamed no, and then no again, into infinity. Panic flared again, because this man did not look like an ally.

  “Kira,” he began gently, “no one could survive—”

  “Kareem could.”

  “No. Not even Kareem.”

  Why did she have to explain this? Why couldn’t he see? Tightening her grip on his jacket, she shook him so he would open his eyes and help her. The flames were growing brighter, and it would never get any easier to go inside that house and find Kareem.

  “This is a trick, Brady—”

  Another grim head shake. “No.”

  “Yes, it is. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “No, Kira.”

  Increasing mania made her voice shrill. “And we both know that it’ll take more than an explosion to get rid of Kareem—”

  “No. Look at those flames. The whole house will be gone in a minute.”

  Now was not the time to be reasonable. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to reconsider what she knew in her gut to be true. “We have to verify—”

  “Someone does, yeah.” His features became, if possible, more stubborn. More forbidding, as though the sun would fall out of the sky, hit the earth, and bounce back up again before he let her take another step closer to the house. “But it’s not going to be you.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  He stared at her without a hint of compromise in his expression.

  “Try me.”

  That did it. This additional brick wall, when she’d expected his help, snapped her shaky hold on control and sent her spinning into insanity.

  “Kareem!” Breaking and running, screeching fo
r all she was worth, she sprinted back toward the house and got exactly two steps before Brady caught her from behind and held her. This time, she knew, he wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her go, and that meant one thing: Kareem had won, and no matter what Brady said—no matter what the police, fire marshal, or anyone else said—he had escaped, and, despite all the steps she’d taken to build a new life for herself, she would never know a moment’s peace. “Kareem!”

  “I’m not going to let you go, Kira.” Brady held her tight around the waist while she stared at the fire, writhed to get free, and sobbed, rocking her and pressing his lips to her temple as he spoke. “I’m not going to let you go.”

  Sanity crept back to her in bits and pieces, anchoring her to reality. The relentless burning of her cheeks and forehead became uncomfortable, as though someone had slid her into the oven and set the dial to Broil. Sweat dripped down her face, mixing with her tears for a stinging combination. She became aware of the solidity of Brady’s body, its strength, and the comfort of its fit against hers. Worse, she realized that she had, once again, failed to save herself. If Brady hadn’t stopped her from running into that house, she’d be dead right now, and if she needed any further proof of that fact, it came with the crashing collapse of one section of the roof.

  Stepping away from Brady, she watched the shower of sparks and ash for a few seconds before facing him and opening her mouth to begin her thanks. Except that when their gazes connected, there was something so intense in his eyes, so primal, that her thoughts scattered and her voice wimped out.

  Swiping at her wet face, she needed a couple of attempts to manage it. “Thanks.”

  Brady also seemed to have trouble with the whole speaking thing and had to clear his hoarse throat. “You okay?”

  In trying to smile, she discovered that that was another thing about her that didn’t work right now. “I’ve been better.”

  “You will be again.” He paused. “What the hell were you doing here? Or do I even want to know?”

  Unrepentant, she told him the truth. “Showing Kareem my new Glock.”