Sensuous Burgundy

by Barbara Delinsky

  Intent on reassurance, both the D.A. and the police stressed the advantage that each small bit of information—in this case, the date—gave them in their efforts. Yet as each day passed and each old file was searched and discarded, leads were as scarce as smiles on Laura’s pale face.

  The phone calls, coming now again nearly every night, were more varied. At times there was only the vague threat. At times there was mention of something Laura had done that day that the caller had observed. He might tell her what she’d been wearing, or where she’d eaten lunch, before reminding her of the fast approaching fifteenth of May.

  The police detail around her was stepped up, patrol cars now passing at close intervals outside her house, often stopping across the street in silent vigil. Sandy had taken to picking her up in the morning and dropping her home at night, a habit which, despite her outward protest, gave her comfort. She found herself constantly looking about her, off to the side, back over her shoulder—hoping to see and recognize some misplaced face from the past come back to haunt her.

  Through it all, she found great support, though no solace, in her friends. There was only one person who could have given her solace, and he was now gone from her life.

  As her nerves began to fray, so seemingly did those of her nameless tormenter, as the middle of the month approached and the phone calls became even more frequent. The obsession with which this man had planned and was carrying out his cruel scheme had convinced Laura that his was a perverted mind, and one that held great potential for violence. The calls grew more angry, often obscene, and were dominated by a seething vengeance that thoroughly frightened her.

  It occurred to her to pack up and leave until the ominous date had passed; Frank had even suggested as much, when the twelfth of May rolled around with no sign of a break in the case.

  “Why don’t you visit with Howard for a while. You could use the rest, and he’d love to have you in Chicago!” he had urged.

  “No, Frank. I don’t want to go to Chicago.” She had dismissed the suggestion with undue petulance. The only place she could imagine herself escaping to was Rockport, and that thought irritated her all the more. She would never go to Rockport again…never! “And besides,” she argued amid her annoyance, “I can’t really run away from this man. He’d only follow me. He’s gone to such efforts to do it all the time now,” she added bitterly and with subtle accusation, “and your guys can’t even find him!” Her eyes clouded over as she pondered the date once again. “May fifteenth—it rings a bell every time, but I just can’t pinpoint it for the life of me…”

  Frank echoed her frustration. “The fellows have been through the files of every case you’ve prosecuted since you’ve been in the office, and there is no significance that we can find to the date.” His cheeks were at their ruddiest, his eyes emitting currents of worry through his glasses. “I think you should have a policewoman with you around the clock for the next few days.”

  “No! That’s unnecessary.” She argued vehemently. “He’s building everything up to the fifteenth. He won’t do anything before that.” Deep inside she knew that only in her quiet, private times at home could she release the grief that periodically overtook her. To have someone, a stranger, with her every minute, would be stifling. Her pain of missing Max was a very deep and intimate one; it was enough of an effort to hide it when she was at work. To have to do so at home was tantamount to cruel and undue punishment.

  “I hope not, Laura.” Frank reluctantly acceded to her wish. “But, just remember, young lady, that I have the final say, and come the fifteenth you will go nowhere alone.”

  Laura could barely think that far—a mere three days—in advance; one day was about her limit. If she could get through a full day of work, a lonely evening, broken only by the horror of the telephone, and into bed, without a major spell of either bitterness, anger, or self-pity, she felt she’d done quite well.

  On the night of the fourteenth, the phone call was at its most fevered and most revealing. “Time’s almost up, lady. I’ll show you, just like I showed those others. No woman is gonna make a fool of me!” He seethed in near-demented fashion. “You’ll be sorry for what you did, lady. You can bet your boots on that. I’m gonna do to you just what I did to them.” As always, he’d hung up in time to prevent tracing the call.

  Just like the others, he had said. As the night passed, Laura racked her brain for some clue. May the fifteenth. Just like the others. It had to be a giveaway, yet she couldn’t solve the mystery. She barely slept that night, though her door was bolted, as ordered, and a police car spent the night parked by her sidewalk. Although she’d been expecting it, she jumped when the doorbell rang the next morning, composing herself enough to greet the woman who would be accompanying her everywhere on this D-Day of sorts.

  If she was a bundle of raw nerves when she left her apartment, quietly shadowed by her bodyguard, it was nothing compared to the terror she felt when, just before noon, she received the phone call at work. Never had he called her there before. But his own warped excitement had gotten out of hand.

  “It’s me, Miss Prosecutor,” he enunciated mockingly. “We got a date later? You’re gonna be pleased to see who I am finally. And believe me, you won’t be disappointed.” His voice held a stomach-wrenching blend of anger, violence, and sexuality. “Even nine years in that stinkin’ hell hole of a prison didn’t hurt my virility none.” He laughed a sharp, ugly laugh. “Oh, yah, you’ll get yours later.”

  Trembling when she hung up the phone, Laura sank into her chair and let the policewoman call her superiors to report this latest incident. Nine years in prison. May the fifteenth. Just like the others. One more piece to the puzzle, and it gave them nothing! They had known all along that it had had to be a work-related miscreant; Laura had never had enemies to speak of, certainly none capable of this kind of evil. Yet even knowing that the man had been in prison for nine years gave them no leads. After all, nine years ago, when this man had first been sent to jail, Laura had been a mere undergraduate.

  It was a combustible combination of confusion, anger, and fear that exploded within Laura when Frank appeared in her office brief moments later insisting that they put a look-alike decoy in her place for the rest of the day. “No! Absolutely not! I’ve come this far, Frank, and I’m going to finally see who that maniac is! I’ll have Shirley here with me all day; she can protect me when he finally makes his move!” Her blue eyes were wide and determined, her voice tremulous.

  “I’m sorry, Laura. I don’t want to take that chance. I told you once: I have the final say. You’re getting out of here. I’ve already sent for your stand-in. She looks like you. When you’ve switched clothes, this monster will be easily duped.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” she challenged brashly. “Then do I wait for him to start all over again?” A quick glance told her that the proposed decoy had, in fact, arrived, along with several other nonuniformed policemen. Laura knew her argument would have to be strong enough to conquer this army that had invaded her small office. “Frank”—she lowered her voice and spoke shakily to her boss—“I have to get this over, once and for all. I’m so well watched that I won’t be hurt, believe me, but if he catches any hint of a switch, he’s apt to cancel the whole thing.” The azure of her eyes brightened in frantic pleading. “I can’t go through this again. We need to get him out in the open—finally!”

  For an instant Laura felt as though she were the demented one, standing in the center of a circle of silently sad and sympathetic caretakers. It seemed that everything she had so steadily built up in her life was about to crumble. Then out of the soundless maelstrom, a deep voice broke through, strongly velvet-rich and familiar.

  “You’re absolutely right, Laura, we do need to get him out into the open. But that is the business of these people.” Dark brown eyes intently scanned the ring of faces before returning to rest determinedly on the one that had whirled to face him. “You’re coming with me.”

  Her breath caught in
her throat as her gaze locked with that of the man to whom she’d confessed her love, in a heartbreaking moment of torment and humiliation over a month ago. She’d not seen him since, and had no desire to see him now. For with his dark handsomeness and inherently compelling personage came a renewal of that same shame and degradation she’d suffered at his hands on that last day.

  Helpless to understand what he was doing here now, casually dressed as he was in an open-necked cotton shirt, cuffs rolled to the elbows, and jeans, her horror-stricken gaze flew to the D.A.’s face, itself tense and rigid. “Frank?” she whispered hoarsely, a gut feeling of betrayal engulfing her. “What’s he doing here?” In a moment of dismay she feared that she’d poured her heart out to Frank only to have it turned and used against her.

  The politician pushed his glasses farther up on his nose, then smoothed down the thin gray hairs on the top of his head. “He’s been kept informed of the developments, Laura. You knew that. But I had no idea he’d show up.” He kept his voice low, given the more personal undercurrents of the subject matter. Now he moved his gaze above and behind Laura to where Max stood, implicitly questioning on his own.

  Laura felt a steel grip seize her arm. “Let’s go, Laura. You have to change first, I stopped by your apartment to pick up some clothes for several days’ vacation, so it will be no problem for you to give your things to this kind woman.” His head tilted in the direction of the newly arrived policewoman.

  Totally disbelieving of this latest turn of events, Laura allowed herself to be guided out of the office, away from the politely curious looks of both the plain-clothesmen and the policewoman. Once in the hall, however, she rebelled, in a spurt of awareness, catching Max off guard and pulling away from him with a jerk.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Every muscle in her body trembled, yet her fists were clenched and a grimness overwhelmed her features.

  To her dismay, Max was as tense and grim. “You’re coming with me now. I’ve threatened before, and I’ll do it—I’ll carry you out of here bodily, if need be.” Laura knew only too well, from other, infinitely more tender moments, of his ability to bodily move her. He was thoroughly intimidating, towering above her. Reflexively, she moved back against the wall.

  Her voice was low and came through gritted teeth as the memory of her past humiliation stirred a seething anger within her. “I won’t go with you, Max. I’ll leave but not with you.”

  Before she’d taken another breath, Max stepped forward to put both hands on the wall on either side of her, his solid form a hair’s breadth from her stiffened one, his breath fanning her hair in painful reminder of past intimacies. His tone was quiet yet unyielding. Here was the embodiment of a stubbornness she’d once only imagined.

  “Don’t make me hurt you any more that I already have, Laura. It’s about time we both acted our age. But that we’ll get to later. The immediate problem is getting you away from this mess. Now”—he stood back a bit—“I’m going to call that decoy out here, and you and she can go into the ladies’ room and change clothes. I’ve got your bag right here.” He pointed to the small overnight bag, which she instantly recognized as the one that had been stored in the spare room when she’d left the apartment that morning.

  “What business did you have going to my home? You’ve got no right, Max—” The ongoing drama had driven her to near hysterics.

  “I’ve got every right, in the world! Now do you go willingly, or do I have to use force?”

  Laura let her chin drop onto her chest as she took several deep breaths. This whole thing is ludicrous, she told herself over and over, trying to grasp what was happening but falling short of any understanding.

  “I’ll change and leave here, but I’m not going with you,” she repeated in a final bid for dignity. She hadn’t lifted her head, but heard Max’s half-whispered oath. Roughly, he took hold of her arm and held it as he moved back to the door of her office to interrupt the intensely serious huddle.

  Laura wasn’t sure how she found herself, ten minutes later, sitting in the front seat of the shiny brown Mercedes. She’d had every intention of escaping Max’s presence as soon as she’d changed into the blouse, jeans, and sandals she’d found, among other things, in her bag, yet he’d been waiting right outside the ladies’ room and had taken her nearly bruised arm once more, overriding her objections that he had no right, that he was hurting her, that he was nothing but a selfish, sadistic bastard.

  “She looked pretty good in your clothes, that decoy did,” he commented easily as the car headed out of Northampton. “And very much like you.” As though to further remove them from the fast-receding scene, he deftly reached over, and before she realized what he had in mind, had removed the two strategic pins that had held the coil of her hair neatly in place. The damage was done, even as she batted his hand away, combing her hair out over her shoulders with her slender fingers. Glaring as she was at the passing scenery, she missed the self-satisfied grin on Max’s face.

  Laura was in no mood for conversation. Inwardly, she agreed with Max that the resemblance was remarkable between her and the decoy Frank and Sandy had dug up. They must have been planning this for quite some time! Sandy…where had he been during that mortifying few moments in her office?

  “Did you and Sandy dream up this little getaway together?” she burst out, now suspicious, then shocked at the possibility of treason from that source.

  Max never took his eyes from the road, his expression half-hidden from her own suspicious gaze. “Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t plan anything with anyone. No one knew I’d be driving in this morning…least of all myself,” he added in a much softer, more self-directed tone. “But, to answer your suspicions, I have been in touch with Chatfield. He’s not a bad sort, once he gets over that innate distrust of his. Boy,” he reminisced, “did he let me have it, at one point there.” A smile played at the corner of his strong lips, but Laura was in no playful mood.

  “Served you right,” she snapped, then stiffened as her eyes returned to the road. “Where are you taking me?” The car had taken a wide turn onto the ramp leading to the Mass Pike.

  “Boston.”

  “Why Boston?” Her distraught mind flew back to the last time she’d been in Boston, and a shudder coursed through her.

  “We’re going to my town house.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You have no choice!” he thundered. “Now if we can’t talk civilly, I don’t care to talk at all. Just keep still until we get there.”

  That was exactly what she did, keeping her face averted for most of the trip, struggling with the warring emotions within her. From that real and violent threat of danger this morning to this real but very different threat this afternoon…where would it end? She still loved Max, as she’d known she always would. But that fact had been made even more clear to her when he’d so unexpectedly appeared earlier in her office. Strangely, as much as she had fought his presence, she did feel more at east regarding the danger posed by her faceless stalker. In fact, she mused amid the dilemma of Maxwell Kraig, this was the first thought she’d given to that other menace since Max had arrived. But where was she going in life? Where would this trip lead? What further humiliation did Max have in store for her?

  Closing her eyes against the quagmire, she drifted into a doze of sheer exhaustion, only to come to life with a start when the car slowed at the turnpike exit and delved onto the more crowded streets of Boston. Her embarrassed glance at Max was met by a surprisingly grim glare. “You look exhausted! It’s no wonder you fell asleep. What have you done to yourself in the past month? You’re pale, thin, overtired—that’s what I’d call a keen instinct for survival,” he barked sarcastically.

  Wary of only angering him more—and fearful of that, since she was literally at his mercy—Laura rested her elbow against the door and jammed a clenched fist against her mouth. “Well?” he prodded. “Have you been running around with every man in sight?” With remarkably little concen
tration, he turned onto Charles Street and headed toward Beacon Hill.

  “You’re disgusting,” she seethed, turning her blue gaze on the enigmatic man beside her, no longer able to curb her own explosive anger. “I haven’t been anywhere for the last month. If I’m pale, it’s because I work during all of the daylight hours. If I’m thin, it’s because I don’t care to eat. And if I’m tired, it’s because I can’t sleep at night. But you…you’re the one who’s probably been sowing enough wild oats for the two of us! You’re the only sexually dangerous person I know—” In the back of her mind a bell rang. The dawn broke. She gasped at what she’d just said, as the pieces to the puzzle finally fell into place. So immersed was she in the unfolding discovery that she totally missed the broad grin, for the first time more relaxed, that spread across his face. “My God,” she whispered breathlessly, “that’s it. Sexually dangerous…I stood in on that hearing…”

  The smile vanished from his manly features as Max turned into the driveway abutting his town house and drove through to the central courtyard. “Laura, what are you saying?”

  She closed her eyes and put several shaky fingers to her forehead in a desperate attempt at recalling the details. “I can’t remember his name…it was right after I started working in the D.A.’s office…you know, those periodic hearings to determine whether an inmate is still to be considered sexually dangerous…” She paused, remembering more clearly the facts of the case now. A large, very gentle hand settled on her shoulder.

  “Go on,” he urged softly. She cringed at her own words as she did so.

  “He had raped and brutally beaten three women. Always on May fifteenth. Only the last one was ever prosecuted, and he was convicted. He came up each year for hearings, since his release from prison was contingent on his being found no longer sexually dangerous. He’d served already five, no, six years in prison, I think, and could have been let out at any time. I happened to have subbed for someone else that day, a lawyer who left soon afterward.” She took a gulping breath as the words flowed. “When the judge sent him back to prison that day, he burst out into a raging tantrum. His behavior only reinforced the psychiatrists’ reports and our own recommendations. I guess he resented me more for being a woman than for sending him back to that hell hole, as he called it on the phone this morning.” She looked helplessly at Max. “You know how cruelly the prison population treats sex offenders.” She shuddered again, oblivious of the comforting caress the strong hand had begun on her shoulders. “I was only filling in on the case, so it wouldn’t have even been on the list of cases the state police searched.” She shook her head in dismay. “I should have seen it sooner. Damn it, I should have seen it! The clues were all there!” She fell silent, stunned by the implication of what this ex-convict had had in mind for her.