Sensuous Burgundy

by Barbara Delinsky

  “No, Max. No. Don’t come near me. Please…don’t.” Her plea went unheeded as he stepped within inches of her tensed form. Terrified by some animal instinct, she swung around to flee this glowering mask of impassioned rage, only to find her arm snagged in his iron fingers, long, strong, and digging into her soft flesh. “Don’t! Let me go, Max?” He said nothing, the rigid set of his mouth telling the story.

  Pulling her along behind him, he headed for her bedroom, deaf to her desperate cries of protest. She tried to pull away from his grasp, but he only tightened it until she thought her bones would snap.

  Hard hands swung her around, then threw her upon the bed. On the rebound she tried to rise, only to be crushed by the weight of his dark and menacing body. “Max, please,” she begged a final time, “don’t do this—” Her breath was cut off by his mouth, clamping down with angry force, punishing her lips for some unknown crime.

  Laura’s mind and body were firm allies. Her thoughts were filled with revulsion, shame, and degradation. Her body fought him unrelentingly, squirming beneath him, battering him with her arms. When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, she gasped, panting in terror as much as from lack of oxygen.

  Max’s own breathing was ragged, yet his anger filtered clearly through his glower. “Oh, I’m very human, Laura, and I intend to feel and do everything in life.”

  Her mouth had opened in renewed plea when his plundered it again. This time his hands began a rough and aggressive assault on her body, causing her pain at every touch. She would never know where she found the continued strength to fight him; all her energies seemed wasted against his immovable granite form. She was no match for his physical superiority. Yet something within would not let her surrender, not as long as she remembered how very beautiful it had all been once, a dream ago.

  His hard body was atop hers now, his muscled thighs parting her own even as his hands lowered to violently lift up the hems of her robe and nightgown, forcing them above her hips, before reaching for the fastening of his trousers. Panic hit her as the air touched her bare skin. Yet her struggles had taken their toll, her strength had been spent, she had nothing left with which to fight. Nothing at all…except her own agonizingly soulful plea, uttered in a strangled tongue.

  “I love you, Max. Please don’t do this to me. Just let me keep the memories…please…I love you.”

  Even before she’d finished, she felt his body stiffen, then roll away to sit up on the far edge of the bed, head hung low, breath coming in shuddering gasps. Awash with humiliation both at what he’d nearly done and what she’d clearly said, Laura struggled to the other side of the bed and jumped up, staggering to the bathroom in time to be violently ill. It was a nightmare that would never end, she moaned silently, as she braced herself for oncoming spasms.

  Much later, when the retching had finally ceased and she’d splashed her face with cold water for the third time, she ventured to open the bathroom door and step out, intent only on bringing the doomed relationship to its sorrowful and inescapable end as quickly as possible. She loved Max Kraig with her very heart and soul, yet there was no way she could reconcile that love with the anger and disdain he’d shown he felt for her.

  As at so many other times during their ill-fated affair, however, Max had already taken things into his own hands. He was gone. There was sign of him neither in the bedroom, nor the kitchen, nor the living room. He’d taken his jacket and his trenchcoat. The only lingering evidence of his presence on this dismal night were the cold remains of a half-eaten pizza…and the raw and open sores of an aching heart.

  nine

  IN ACTUALITY IT WAS A SIZEABLE LEGACY HE LEFT her. It was a legacy of beautiful memories, of love and passion, of desire and ecstasy, of nearness and the myriad means of communication two lovers could find. It was a legacy of experience, both private and public, personal and professional, encompassing all she’d learned from their brief liaison. It was a legacy of pain, of hurt and heartache, of humiliation and distrust, of frustration and disillusionment, of the sheer hell of a loneliness made worse by comparison with what might have been. And, finally, there was the small gold heart she wore constantly, ruby-eyed and shining, a poignant reminder of that part of her own heart which was, now and forever, lost.

  For days he was her life’s obsession. Her emotions teetered from love to hate, from anger to fear. She felt confused and out of control, a state which, in itself, was painful. Her personal life was in shambles; her professional life suffered the fallout.

  “Snap out of it, Laura!” Her trooper-in-attendance finally brought the issue to the surface a week later. “You’ve been a walking zombie since the trial. We’ve got three other cases here”—he tapped the thick folders on her desk which dealt with the cases they were to be discussing at the moment—“that badly need your attention…your full attention.”

  Laura’s features were suddenly open and vulnerable, in noted contrast to the austere pull of her dark black hair into its somber bun. Sandy’s perceptiveness was keen, and she knew him to be right. Clearly, he spoke as a friend.

  “It’s Kraig, isn’t it?” The harshness in his tone served to soften her own. After all, Max wasn’t here to defend himself. Instinctively, her hand went to the small gold heart that lay against the creamy smoothness of her throat.

  “Oh, it’s not all that bad.” Despite its sadness, the gentleness of her words surprised her.

  Sandy eyed her warily. “I knew the guy was dangerous.”

  “He’s not dangerous, he’s simply…” How futile it would be to try to describe Maxwell Kraig in a word, even two; nothing about the man was simple.

  “Simply what?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “You know,” he began, his expression calculating as he fitted in the pieces of a long-strung-out jigsaw, “there’s been a change in you since you met him. You’re more sensitive…more feminine, I guess, is the right word.”

  A wan smile answered his gaze. “I’m not sure whether to take that as a complement or an insult.”

  “Just an observation, kid.”

  “Not along the usual line, though, is it?” Her casual quips were designed to avoid the central issue; Sandy would have no part of it.

  “I’m speaking as a man, Laura, not a detective. I only wish those faraway looks were for me. They’re soft and sad and…beautiful.” His own eyes held a caring Laura had never seen in them before. She was touched but also acutely aware of the deeper implication.

  “Sandy—”

  He held up a hand in silent protest. “I know, I know. We’re just friends. But I hope that someday I’ll find a woman to look at me the way you look at him.” She flinched visibly, but he seemed not to notice. “Are you still seeing him?”

  This time, the flinch was awesomely internal, sending a shaft of pain through her. “No.”

  The other hesitated a minute, wrestling with his own impulses before yielding to them. “Look, I know this is none of my business, but…why? The vibes between the two of you were pretty strong there for a while, and it’s obvious you still—”

  “No.” The melancholy sound that cut him off, soft as it was, had its effect.

  “Your decision or his?” He took a different tack, his feelings for Laura, ones of warmth and an urge to protect, driving him on.

  “It was a mutual decision.” Her blue-eyed gaze had shifted from the trooper to some faraway place, such that she missed the skeptical eyebrow that shot up.

  “Mutual? Then why the trouble concentrating on your work? Having second thoughts?” The softness of his tone eased the directness of his inquiry.

  “No!”

  Again Sandy’s gaze was searching. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly, the conversation hit too close to home. An impatient sigh cut through her lips. “Sandy, I think it’s best left alone. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That bastard…” he muttered. “They’re a slimy bunch, those arrogant, high-priced ones.”
<
br />   Again, she felt an inexplicable need to defend Max. “That’s unfair, Sandy. He’s a moral person—”

  “He’s a bastard in my book!”

  Laura shrugged. There was no way she would change Sandy’s mind. He had been distrustful from the start; his instincts had proven more accurate than hers. Perhaps he was right too. Max had been a bastard in many ways!

  “Ah-hah! See, you agree with me!” There was triumph in the trooper’s grim exclamation. Laura couldn’t help but smile.

  “You’re almost as bad as he is! Men!” she snorted gently, opening the first folder on her desk and flipping over the top papers.

  “There’s one more thing, Laura, before we get going on those. You haven’t even asked about the progress on identifying your mystery caller.”

  Impatiently, she defended herself. “I really haven’t thought that much about it.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “How can you not think about it, when you get threatening phone calls every night?”

  “It’s let up a bit. He doesn’t call every night any longer—now it’s only three or four times a week. I think he’s getting bored with the whole game, just as I am.”

  The trooper growled begrudgingly, “Three or four times a week is plenty. And he may not be bored, just sly. We’ve gotten nowhere tracing the call. The guy is pretty wise; he hangs up just before we can get a track on him.”

  Sensing that her friend blamed himself for the lack of leads, Laura put a hand out to cover his. “Look, Sandy, it’s nothing you or any of the others can help. And I’m not bothered by the calls. Really!”

  In all honesty she wasn’t. The calls, ominous and intimidating as they were objectively, fulfilled some strange need to flirt with danger that Laura felt. Falling short of self-destructive, her apathy toward the potential hazard was, given her internal upheaval, not unusual. Only later would she look back on her attitude as irresponsible; only later would she understand that she must have wanted something, anything to happen, to prove to herself that some part of her was still alive. As for the rest of life, she avoided it whenever possible, withdrawing into her own torture-ridden shell.

  Late in the following week, nearly two weeks after the conclusion of the trial, Franklin Potter called her into his office. “What’s this about Timothy Reardon handling the sentencing of the Stallway case for you?” he demanded, tapping a finger on the revised list of case assignments. “Any special reason?”

  She shrugged. “He sat in on so much of the trial; I thought he’d enjoy handling it.”

  As a politician, the D.A. could worm his way around most issues if he wished. He could also, however, recognize when someone else did it. “Laura, I wondered why you didn’t want to handle it,” he scolded over the brim of his glasses.

  “No special reason,” she lied with too-nonchalant a flip of the head.

  Adept in his own right in the art of cross-examination, Frank cleared his throat. “Let me reword that. Are you and Max Kraig…still…?” Her blue eyes came up with a start, pain searing in them long enough for her boss to see it before she averted them. “I see. It ended badly, did it?” He knew her too well, this old family friend, for Laura to be anything but truthful.

  “You might say that.” Defeat was written over her ivory-sculpted features.

  “I’m surprised. I really thought this was it.”

  “So did I. For a while…” Both her eyes and her hands remained cemented to her lap.

  “What happened?” It could have been her own father asking the question, so full of gentleness and concern was his tone.

  “I don’t know,” she began, only to correct herself immediately. “Yes, I do. It’s very simple. I fell in love; Max did not.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Oh, yes, very sure.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Blushing, she knew she could not explain adequately. The pain and humiliation were still too fresh. “Oh, things he said. And did.” She evaded the details. “He’s just not the type to settle down, I guess.”

  The D.A. looked genuinely puzzled. “That’s strange. I thought he’d finally found…” His voice trailed off as he realized he’d said too much.

  “Frank, you were the one who warned me about him in the beginning! And you were absolutely right! How can you be doubtful now?”

  He sat forward in his chair. “He’s called me several times…about you.”

  Her heart froze. “About me?”

  “He was—is—worried.”

  “Is?”

  The D.A. nodded. “I heard from him just yesterday. He’s been in and out of the state and wanted to make sure everything was all right here.”

  Laura’s heart had begun to thud loudly. “All right?”

  “You know, the phone calls and all.”

  “Oh.” What had she expected? He was merely curious! And he and Frank were friends to start with. How perfectly normal that he should call.

  “Still,” Frank went on, confusing her all the more, just when she thought she’d figured this one out, “from the way he talked, I could have sworn he was as taken with you as…” As before, he abruptly severed his rambling.

  “He’s a great actor, isn’t he!” she barked, angry anew. Bolting out of her chair, she paced to the window, arms folded protectively across her chest, one hand clutching at the small gold heart round her neck. After several moments of deafening silence, she spoke, more softly, her anger replaced by a defeat-laden conviction. It was the swing of the pendulum that threatened to maim her; she could not take the wavering from hope to despair a moment longer. “I don’t want to see him, Frank. That’s why I’ve asked Tim to cover for me. I don’t want to see Max again!”

  As the next days passed, it appeared she was to have her wish. She neither saw him, heard from him, nor read about him in the newspapers. Not that her thoughts ever strayed far from him, but it was her only hope that, in time, that too would change.

  The day of the Stallway sentencing came and went. Laura stayed as far from the office as possible that day, setting up a slew of appointments outside Northampton. After all, she had reasoned, the sentencing was a relatively simple matter. She had prepped her stand-in on her own recommendations, and was pleased to discover, when she called in to the office late that afternoon, that the judge had acceded to the prosecution’s request. She was also surprised—and the slightest bit disconcerted—to learn that Max had avoided the hearing too, sending one of his associates, with no excuses given. But, that was no longer her business, she reminded herself sharply, even as part of her wondered where he was and why he hadn’t made a final show. Her only conclusion was that he had no further desire to see her, either. And this thought, this vivid reminder of his underlying disdain for her, gnawed at her.

  The first of May brought with it warm air, pale green buds, and brightly colored blossoms. The world was gay and fresh, the dismal chill of winter having yielded to the exquisite wonder of spring.

  Not so for Laura. Spring was bypassing her this year, that gray chill remaining within her, packed firmly and immovably around her heart. She went through the motions of replacing the woolens in her closet with cottons and linens, of storing her snow tires for another six months, of turning off the radiators and lowering the screens. Yet there was nothing but winter at her very core.

  Friends began to express their concern more frequently. Was she feeling well? She looked too pale. Was she working herself too hard? She looked too tired. Was she eating at all? She looked too thin. As for herself, she avoided the mirror whenever possible, knowing that the observations were correct, yet unable to remedy the situation. She seemed incapable of corraling her resources, of pulling herself out of her depression. The old things, which once had meant so very much to her, now held only half their meaning. The other half, she realized with heart-stopping regret, lay with Max.

  It was, perhaps, a blessing when the matter of her troublesome telephoner took a turn for the worse. No longer would she be
able to ignore an open-ended threat. For, now, she had a date, a point in time toward which her life, according to this as yet unknown menace, approached some equally as unknown climax.

  The new development occurred during that first week in May, when everyone else had begun to walk a bit lighter, to smile a bit more gaily, to relax a bit more openly under the increasingly indulgent sun. She had returned home from work, only to have her phone ring within minutes of having dropped her briefcase, with a tired sigh, onto the kitchen table.

  “Hello?”

  “See, I know just when you get home, lady,” the voice began, its satisfaction evident. As always, Laura fought the impulse to hang up on him. But the arguments of the police on the matter were correct; the longer she could keep the mystery man on the phone, the greater was the chance of tracing the call.

  “Who is this?” Her voice was tired, indifferent.

  “You should only know,” the other went on, a sneering quality now in it which she’d never heard but alerted her slightly. “That would spoil the fun. No, lady, you’ll be sweating it out by the time I’m done with you.” He paused before delivering the punch line. “But, don’t worry, there’s not much longer to go, May the fifteenth. Don’t forget. May the fifteenth.”

  That was all. He’d hung up. May 15. Why did that sound familiar to her, she asked herself, thinking of her own calendar for any coincidental dates or appointments that could have sparked the instant recognition. Automatically, she dialed Frank’s number, then Sandy’s, when no one answered the first. Under strict orders to report immediately any change in the status quo, she had not the courage to disobey, diligently repeating to the trooper, word for word, as close as she recalled it, the harrowing message she’d just received.

  Yes, benumbed as she’d been during the past weeks, this most recent happening had succeeded in pricking her sensibilities. Whether it was that she’d been given a specific date, or it was the date itself that haunted her with its familiarity, Laura wasn’t sure. But she had suddenly become uneasy.