The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Charlotte Stone Novel

by Karen Robards

  Which, she told herself sternly, was a good thing.

  His eyes met hers across the not-as-wide-as-she-might-have-wished-it-was expanse of her spotless white bed. Charlie felt like the temperature in the bedroom had suddenly warmed by about a hundred degrees.

  “You wearing something pretty under that robe?”

  He knew her affinity for beautiful, feminine lingerie. It resulted, Charlie was sure, from the no-nonsense, practically androgynous clothes she chose to wear professionally. The answer was yes: her simple summer nightgown was cream silk with lashings of lace, and it was, indeed, very pretty. Not that she had any intention whatsoever of telling him so.

  “None of your business,” she answered. “What’s up with your shirt?”

  He smiled slowly back at her. His eyes had gone all heavy-lidded and hot. “Thought I’d try turning you on.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Her lips firmed. His smile kicked it up a notch.

  “It’s wet, okay?” he said. “Unless you have access to a ghost Laundromat, I’m just going to have to wait and see if it dries.”

  The sizzle that was suddenly there in the air between them made her body throb. It made her burn. Instantly she started doing everything she could to shut that down. There was no point in even taking so much as the first step down the path this thing with him was heading.

  Hot, mindless sex was not going to happen. What was going to happen was that they would have the conversation about the watch, and then she would get some much-needed sleep.

  “I asked you who you’d like me to send your watch to,” she persisted, resolutely ignoring the shivery little tendrils of wanting she could feel coursing around inside her.

  His mouth twisted. “Don’t waste your time.” His eyes slid over her again, lingering on the deep vee of the robe she had belted around her waist, openly assessing the scrap of creamy lace visible in the opening. “For future reference, I like lace.”

  There was a huskiness to his voice that made butterflies take flight in her stomach. Against the hardwood floor, her toes curled.

  Do not let him see you react.

  “For future reference, I don’t care.”

  “There you go with that pretty pink tongue of yours again.”

  She was not wetting her lips. She didn’t think. It was all she could do not to glare at him, but that would be a dead tell—giveaway—that he was getting under her skin.

  “So are you going to give me the name of your next of kin or not?” Charlie snapped, attempting to battle her body’s shameless response by trying to call to mind what she knew about him. For one thing, at the time of his arrest he’d had a girlfriend. Charlie even remembered her name: Jasmine. She liked the idea that she remembered his girlfriend’s name only slightly less than she liked the idea of sending his watch to her.

  “I got no next of kin.” He was looking her in the eye again now, instead of staring at her chest. The sad thing was, that didn’t help what ailed her a bit. The steamy glint at the backs of those sky blue eyes had the unfortunate effect of making her go all gooey inside. “You’re it, babe: you’re the closest thing I’ve got to anybody who gives a damn about me. You keep it.”

  There was no self-pity in his face, no chagrin that she could see, no sadness or sorrow. He looked perfectly fine, his usual drop dead sexy self in fact, but Charlie felt a pang in the region of her heart.

  It was wrong that he had no one.

  Something of what she was feeling must have shown on her face, because his gaze sharpened.

  “Are you standing over there feeling sorry for me?” he demanded.

  “No,” she replied guiltily.

  “Yes you are. I can tell.” Wadding up the T-shirt, he threw it into the elegantly upholstered armchair in the corner. “There goes that soft heart of yours again.”

  Charlie raised her chin. “You say that like having a soft heart is a bad thing.”

  “Believe me, most of the time it is. But that’s why you get the watch, Doc: because you have a heart as soft and squishy as a big ole giant marshmallow. And because you—how was it you put that once?—oh, yeah: you care about me.”

  About to deny it, Charlie realized that she couldn’t. And the fact that she couldn’t scared her enough to make her cross. Enough to make her brows snap together and her arms fold over her chest.

  “Go to hell,” she said, not caring much at the moment if he actually did. He laughed.

  “You gonna show me that pretty thing you’re wearing?”

  “No.” She was still scowling at him. A yawn caught her by surprise, and she clapped a hand to her mouth a split second too late.

  His expression changed to something she couldn’t read.

  “You’re out on your feet,” he said in a totally different tone than before. “Go on to bed.”

  She almost said no just to be contrary. But she really was exhausted, and the thought of climbing into bed and closing her eyes was all but irresistible.

  Of course, before she did that, she was going to have to lose the robe.

  Giving him a peep show was not on the evening’s agenda.

  She could tell from the hooded way he was watching her that he was waiting for it. Lips curving in secret triumph, she set his watch down on the bedside table, pulled back the covers, positioned her pillows—and turned off the lamp, which was on her side of the bed. When he said “Shit,” she smiled. With the room plunged into almost complete darkness, she took off her robe, crawled into bed, and curled up with her back to him.

  Then she lay there sightlessly listening to the too-rapid beating of her heart, so conscious of him standing there on the other side of the bed looking down at her that she couldn’t even close her eyes, that she had to remind herself to breathe. He didn’t move, or make a sound, and she knew that the most he could possibly see of her was a shadow-enshrouded shape beneath the covers. But simply knowing that he was there made her supremely conscious of the cool slide of her silk nightgown against her skin, of the tautness of her nipples against the slight abrasion of the lace covering them, of the dampness between her legs. The body lotion she used was scented with lavender: she could smell it on her own skin.

  “Just for the record”—his voice was low and thick enough to send a shiver down her spine—“I want to fuck you. Bad.”

  Her breath caught. Her hands fisted in the sheets. Her bones turned to water. Her body caught fire.

  Oh, God, I want you to.

  But she didn’t say it. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged those words out of her mouth.

  What she did say, very firmly, was “Good-night.”

  Then she closed her eyes.

  So aroused it felt as if flames were licking over every inch of her skin, she practically prayed for sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Of course she had bad dreams. Who wouldn’t, under the circumstances? But when Charlie woke up in the morning, she couldn’t remember them. All she remembered was crying out once, and hearing Michael say, “Don’t worry, babe, I’m right here.” Which had made her feel absurdly safe and protected, and so she had fallen back to sleep until sunlight filtering through the curtains—and her shrilling alarm—announced the arrival of another day.

  Michael was nowhere to be found. That worried her. At least, until she got downstairs, followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen, and discovered him with his back to the room, looking out through the big kitchen window while Crane hovered over the coffeemaker and Tony and Kaminsky sat at her breakfast bar discussing something that Charlie surmised had to do with the laptop that was open in front of Kaminsky. A sweeping glance told her that the back door was indeed, to all outward appearances anyway, repaired, and the mail was still piled as she had left it in the center of the table, which was probably why no one was using it. The gang was dressed in their usual FBI-agent suits, and Michael was once again wearing his T-shirt. Charlie presumed it had dried. Although how he had gotten down to the kitchen while still staying within the prescribed fifty-foot
limit mystified her, until it dawned on her that Michael could go through the floor. As the ghost traveled, she calculated swiftly, her bedroom was only about thirty feet away.

  “Morning,” Tony greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. “Hope you don’t mind us making ourselves at home.”

  “Not at all,” she said, as Crane waved a spoon at her, Kaminsky favored her with a sour look, and Michael turned to face her. He was unsmiling, and the sunlight pouring in through the window spilled over his tall, powerfully built body as if he were as solid as the house itself. It picked up golden threads in his tawny hair and emphasized the hard planes and sculpted angles of his face. If she hadn’t known for sure that what she was looking at was his ghost, she wouldn’t have believed it: that’s how alive he looked. Even across the distance separating them she could see the beautiful sky blue of his eyes. God, he’s gorgeous, was the thought that ricocheted through her idiot brain, only to be squashed like an annoying little bug with the reality slap of, And dead. She pulled her eyes away from him to concentrate on the living, breathing good guy she was talking to. “Only I didn’t think I had any coffee in the house.”

  “You didn’t.” Tony smiled at her. Obviously not long out of the shower, he was looking very handsome himself with his well-groomed black hair brushed back from his face and his brown eyes crinkling at her. “Crane ran to the store. Got some doughnuts, too.”

  For people who she knew were operating on only a few hours’ sleep, everybody looked good, Charlie thought. Bright-eyed and ready to go. The men clean-shaven. Kaminsky in one of her snug skirt suits—this one had pinstripes—and, God help her, her usual towering heels. Knowing that they would be going after the Gingerbread Man full bore, Charlie, too, had put on a work appropriate outfit, consisting of black flats, slim black pants, and a sleeveless peach silk blouse. She had twisted her hair up in a loose knot in deference to the heat, and when they left would take her black blazer with her, to be carried until she needed to put it on.

  She wore jewelry, too—small, tasteful silver hoops in her ears, and Michael’s big silver watch pushed halfway up her arm.

  Leaving it behind on her nightstand just hadn’t felt right. If what he had told her was the truth, it was too important as evidence—and clearly too important to him personally as well. Now, as Michael’s eyes touched on the watch then rose to meet hers, she returned his gaze a tad defensively: don’t read anything into it.

  He smiled at her. She refused to even allow herself to speculate on the meaning behind that smile. But a shiver passed through her at the sheer seductive charm of it, and she realized with a thrill of alarm that she was in even bigger trouble where he was concerned than she had thought.

  Do not fall in love with him.

  She was horribly afraid that was like warning herself not to breathe.

  “Coffee?” Crane asked her, and she nodded. Glancing at the clock over the microwave, Charlie saw that it was a couple of minutes after nine a.m. It was Saturday, which was a good thing because it meant that she didn’t have to worry about going in to work, and already so bright with sunshine that simply looking out the window made Charlie want to wince.

  It was hard to reconcile a world that looked like it belonged in a happy Disney movie with the terrible things that she had seen last night.

  Michael said, “You’ve got chickens in your backyard. And a big ole orange tabby looking like he’s thinking about having McNuggets for breakfast.”

  “Oh, no.” Charlie was already charging out the back door into what felt like a wall of steamy heat before it occurred to her that she had spoken aloud. Well, she would just have to hope that everyone thought she had seen the impending carnage through the window for herself. Mrs. Norman, the elderly widow who lived next door on one side, raised prize-winning Leghorn chickens of which she was fiercely proud; the Powells, a high school teacher, his K-Mart assistant manager wife, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Glory, who lived on Charlie’s other side, adored Pumpkin, their cat. Unfortunately the cat and the chickens were the animal world equivalents of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Both warring parties frequently breached Charlie’s fence, the chickens because of a partiality for her sunflowers and the cat because of a partiality for the chickens. Her backyard had become the battleground on which the two species waged their deadliest battles. So far, the toll was one badly mauled chicken and a frequently pecked bloody cat.

  “Shoo!” Making the appropriate shooing motions with her hands, Charlie stomped toward the chickens. The big white birds were actually surprisingly aggressive, particularly toward Pumpkin, so the sides were not as unevenly matched as she had, upon moving into the house and discovering the ongoing war, at first supposed. At that moment the chickens were scratching around in the grass beneath the sunflowers, oblivious to Pumpkin, who crouched, tail twitching and eyes fixed on his putative prey, behind a nearby rock. “Go home, Pumpkin!”

  Squawking, the chickens scattered at her approach, making for the fence and then launching themselves over it into their own yard with all the grace of boulders trying to fly.

  Charlie turned back to see Pumpkin, his fun ruined, sitting up and eyeing her with an unblinking golden gaze. As if to allay her suspicions about his intentions, he lifted a paw and proceeded to wash his face.

  “Yeah, right. I know what you were up to,” Charlie told him. Scooping him into her arms, she turned to restore him to his own yard and found herself looking at the mountain behind her. Unnerving as it was to think about, last night a killer who had committed unspeakable crimes had been on that mountainside, peering into her windows through the foliage. The thickly wooded slope stretched upwards against the background of cerulean sky until it was lost in a froth of low-hanging, misty white clouds. Despite the bright sunshine, the variegated green of the treetops struck her as dark and forbidding, and the entrance to the path where she always began her run to the ridge seemed filled with sinister shadows. Tamping down on a shudder, Charlie reflected that it would be a long time before she ran that particular path again. Always before, she had thought of the mountain as a place of renewal, of peace and tranquility.

  Now just looking at it made her feel as if a clammy hand had gripped the back of her neck.

  “Charlie?” At the sound of her name, uttered on a note of uncertainty, Charlie turned to see Melissa Powell waving at her from her own backyard on the other side of the fence. Since Charlie had only lived there for a few months, she was still getting to know her neighbors, most of whom had lived in the area all of their lives. They were a close-knit group who were friendly and welcoming but a little slow to fully accept a stranger. Having never had a settled existence, much less a hometown full of family and friends and neighbors, Charlie found their easy connection to one another enviable. It was something, she had decided when she had moved in, she would like to try to be a part of. A year or so previously, it had occurred to her that she didn’t really know how to have friends. After her unstable childhood, and especially after the trauma of what had happened to Holly, she simply hadn’t wanted or perhaps she’d been unable to form many lasting bonds. Cautiously, like a swimmer putting a toe into a pool she feared might be icy, she was working to remedy that now. Here in Big Stone Gap, she was trying small town life on for size. That kind of happy normalcy was something she badly wanted for herself, even though she wasn’t quite sure if it was going to fit.

  “Hi, Melissa.” Pumpkin was wriggling in Charlie’s arms now that he saw his owner, and Charlie carried him to the fence and handed him over. Probably no older than Charlie’s own age, attractive rather than pretty, Melissa had short brown hair and a thin, boyish figure. Having apparently seen Charlie with Pumpkin from her kitchen, she had stepped outside in a knee-length, zip-up pink robe. Except for the length of her hair, which reached halfway down her back, Glory, who was standing on the back porch watching Charlie, too, looked exactly like her mother, while Brett, the husband and father, whom she could just glimpse inside the open back door, was a bi
g guy, with a bluff laugh and a beer belly. Charlie smiled a little apologetically at Melissa. “He was after Mrs. Norman’s chickens.”

  “Oh, dear.” Melissa looked dismayed. Glancing down at the cat in her arms, she said, “No, Pumpkin. Bad kitty.” Shaking her head at Charlie, she added, “We’re trying to keep him in, but—” She shrugged, then gave Charlie an almost shamefaced look. “I heard—everybody’s saying—I wouldn’t pry, but with Glory, you know, I have to be so careful—did a serial killer murder two girls up on the mountain last night, and did a third one escape by running to your house?”

  So Melissa hadn’t been one of the neighbors who had flocked to her house in the aftermath—but still she knew what had happened. Well, of course she did. That was part of the reality of small town life. It was part—Charlie thought—of what she wanted for her own life.

  Charlie gave her neighbor the bare bones of the story in a few quick sentences. Eyes rounding in horror, Melissa listened, exclaimed, “Oh, my goodness, I’m never letting Glory out of my sight again,” and “The police department needs to release a city-wide alert!”

  “Did you hear or see anything unusual out here last night? Say, between 11:30 and midnight?” Charlie asked.

  Melissa shook her head. “We were in bed by eleven. All of us.” She made a little face. “Everybody says there were police cars and ambulances and all kinds of commotion going on, but we didn’t hear that, either. We didn’t know a thing in the world was wrong until Sally Bennett called me this morning.”

  “If you can think of anything, will you call and let me know?”

  Melissa nodded. Then, with a quick “’Bye” and Pumpkin still clasped in her arms, she rounded up Glory and hurried inside her house, where Charlie had little doubt that she would soon be burning up the phone and Internet.