She watches the tall blond man beside her hastily thrust the loose folds of his tunic beneath a leather belt, her brain feeling helpless as a kitten tangled in strings of pure energy. She can’t think or see straight, as if she has gone hauntingly cross-eyed. So she closes her eyes and stands listening to the muted roar of the rain. Or is it the ocean at high tide?
‘Your hair’s wet.’ He caresses it roughly away from her face with both hands, forcing her to open her eyes and look at him.
‘Oh, God, Mike.’ She throws her arms around his neck.
‘Let go of me, Carmen, we’ll talk later.’
She rests her cheek against his unyielding chest. ‘Are you going to fire me?’
He laughs harshly. ‘I’d like to kill you! Firing you wouldn’t be good enough.’ He pushes her away from him. ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.’ He leaves her to open his door.
She quickly picks her panties up off the floor, slips them back on, and smoothes down her dress, as if this will help her think straight.
He walks quickly back to his desk, and sits down. ‘I’ll need Captain Richards in here for a ship-to-shore conference call at three o’clock,’ he says in a loud, businesslike voice, just as Jay appears in the doorway.
She desperately pretends not to see him. ‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’
‘No. Your lunch date is obviously getting impatient.’
Lightning flashes again, farther away this time; the sound of thunder doesn’t reach them until she attempts to brush past Jay’s rigid shoulder. ‘I’m ready now,’ she tells him.
‘I’ll bet you are.’
Mike asks coldly, ‘Is there a problem?’
‘You could say that,’ Jay replies even more frostily. ‘How long have you been fucking your secretary?’
Mike’s powerful body erupts out of his chair. ‘Get out of my office.’
‘Jay, please,’ Carmen clutches his sleeve, ‘you have to understand; something strange is going on here. It’s not what you think.’
‘I want you to quit, Carmen, right now.’
‘Jay, it’s not what you think!’
‘Are you telling me you’re in love with him? Is that it?’
Mike jams a thumb into his console. ‘Beatrice, how long are we expected to work in this tomb?’
‘I just spoke to Maintenance, sir. FPL says three lines are down in our area, and they’re getting calls from all over the place. It’ll be a couple of hours at least.’
‘Then tell everyone to take a long lunch.’
‘No problem, but first can you please tell Carmen there’s a policeman here to see her?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a policeman out in the lobby asking to see Carmen.’
Mike says very slowly, as if obeying a hypnotic suggestion, ‘Tell him to come in.’ He switches off the intercom, and runs the fingers of both hands through his gelled hair, opening up vulnerable fissures in its metallic silver-blond. ‘I didn’t realize you’d scheduled a meeting with all your lovers, Carmen.’ His normal sarcastic sense of humor attempts to take control.
Jay grabs her arm and pulls her into the office.
A moment later, all the shadows seem to gather in the doorway as Will appears in full uniform, crescent moons joined at the tips orbiting the black space of his lean hips…
A third man has entered the cave with her, and whatever it was they gave her to drink has relaxed her so much she can’t walk without their help. Vaguely, she is aware of one of them lifting her up into his arms, then spreading her limp body across a cool leather skin.
‘Did she faint?’
‘Carmen?’
‘She’s so pale!’
‘Carmen, can you hear me?’
She moans.
‘Carmen, what’s wrong? Look at me.’
‘I can’t,’ she whispers, ‘I can’t see, it’s too dark!’
‘Calm down, baby, it’s all right.’
She wants to scream yet her voice emerges as a breathless gasp. ‘No, it’s not. It’s not all right! You have to help me!’
‘I will, don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right, just take a deep breath.’
‘What the hell’s wrong with her?’
‘Quiet… Will you do that for me, Carmen; will you take a deep breath for me? That’s a good girl. Just trust me, and you’ll be all right.’
She wants to trust him, more than anything in the world, but part of her won’t let her, part of her knows he is going to hurt her. ‘I know you won’t help me,’ she says miserably.
‘What the hell have you been doing to her?’
‘Do you trust me, Carmen?’
She sighs, ‘I want to.’
‘Then open your eyes, and look at me.’
‘But it’s so dark…’
‘I’m calling a doctor.’
‘Wait a minute. Can you tell me where you are, baby?’
‘His ship is ready to sail,’ she says after a moment, ‘and I have to go with him.’
‘And where is this ship?’
‘In his grave.’
‘Did she say “his grave”?’
‘If you don’t snap her out of this right now, Westgate, I’m calling a doctor.’
‘And I’m arresting your ass.’
The violent emotional currents washing over her body threaten to drown the little courage she possesses. ‘Just do it,’ she moans.
‘Carmen, look at me. That’s an order.’
Jay is sitting beside her on the leather couch in the vice president’s office, and Will and Mike are standing behind him.
‘How do you feel?’ There is as much curiosity as concern in her lover’s voice.
‘What,’ she has to clear her throat, ‘happened?’ Yet there is only one possible, if unbelievable, explanation for her recumbent position. ‘Did I faint?’
Jay stares intently down into her eyes. ‘Don’t you remember what you said?’
This worries her. She has too many secrets, and the searching intensity of his stare pins her against the blank wall of the last few minutes in a way that makes her want to run. ‘I said something?’
‘Yes, you did, you—’
‘Wait a minute,’ Mike interrupts him, ‘are you sure she should hear this?’
‘Yes, I definitely think she should. She has to try and understand what just happened to her.’ Jay grasps one of her hands, and holds it tightly in his. ‘Carmen, you said his ship was ready to sail, and when I asked you where that ship was, you said “in his grave”.’
‘She’s just fucking with our heads,’ Will convicts her, ‘and if she isn’t, this is all too weird for me.’
Jay looks up at Mike. ‘You know about her dreams?’ It sounds more like a challenge than a question.
‘Yes, she mentioned them, something about Vikings, and flaming arrows.’
Will moves away from the couch, and his weapon-laden hips emit clinking sounds that seem to arouse the electrical atmosphere outside into a series of rapid, silent flashes. He turns back to face them, and demands in the tone of a cop about to make an arrest, ‘What’s going on here?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to determine,’ Jay answers patiently, still looking searchingly down into her eyes.
Mike sounds compelled to repeat, ‘I think we should call a doctor.’
‘No!’ she cries.
‘A doctor wouldn’t help,’ Jay backs her up.
Will contributes dryly, ‘It sounds to me like what we all need is a shrink.’
Jay looks over his shoulder at him. ‘Oh, and why is that?’
‘Because we’re all letting her lead us around by the nose, that’s why. Here I was feeling guilty about almost taking advantage of her the other night, and it turns out she’s fucking half of Miami.’
She attempts to sit up indignantly.
Jay rests his free hand on her shoulder, and holds her down. ‘I’m beginning to suspect something,’ he says quietly.
‘What?’ Mike so
und’s oddly hopeful.
‘I suspect that we’re all caught like flies in the sticky web of her erotic Viking fantasy,’ he gives her hand a painful squeeze, ‘or that some intense karmic drama is playing itself out here.’
‘God, I hope so,’ Mike says fervently. ‘I’d hate to think…’
Jay pulls out that grin he keeps hidden like a knife. ‘What would you hate to think?’
‘Never mind.’
‘I haven’t been able to get a certain article out my head,’ Jay goes on, still pinning her down with his stare. ‘An article about a Viking grave they just discovered.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ Mike realizes out loud, ‘in National Geographic. The cover caught my eye. There was also an article about it in Archaeology Today. Linn subscribes to it for pictures of ancient artifacts to inspire her,’ he explains. ‘She’s a sculptor.’
‘And a real piece herself,’ Will adds rudely.
‘Then you’ve seen the skeleton of the girl with her wrists tied over her head and her legs spread open,’ Jay says. ‘She was found amongst the dead warrior’s belongings.’
‘Barbarians,’ Will mutters.
‘A Viking funeral was always attended by his closest male friends and relatives, so it’s safe to assume they were the ones who put her there. And there’s an obscure, but fascinating, theory about how she was killed, as the climax of a sacred rite in which all the men—’
‘I’m sure it’s very interesting,’Will interrupts him, ‘but I don’t have all day, and I really need to know why I haven’t been able to sleep since I met her. I literally haven’t closed my eyes since that night I rescued her in the Grove. I’m too tired to do my job because I can’t stop thinking about her, and it’s driving me fucking crazy!’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Mike is either being sarcastic, or intensely sincere. ‘At least I’m not the only one losing sleep around here.’
Carmen tries to slip her hand free of Jay’s and sit up again.
‘Stay down, baby.’ His tone is disarmingly gentle in lieu of his implacable grip. ‘We don’t want you passing out again.’
Mike’s fists carve themselves out of the shining ebony material containing them. ‘Let go of her.’
Will strides back over to the couch as if to enforce the request. ‘She wants to get up,’ he states.
‘No, she doesn’t,’ Jay says mildly, ‘she’s enjoying herself.’
Will’s hand rises to his gun as he moves past him to loom directly over her face. ‘I’m out of here, Carmen. If you prefer this guy, that’s your problem.’
Jay reminds him, with an arresting blend of sympathy and disdain, ‘But aren’t you so obsessed with her that you can’t sleep? How then do you suppose walking away now is going to help you?’
‘He’s right.’ Mike strides past both of them to stand behind her where she can’t see him. ‘She’s done something to us.’
‘Actually, I think it’s the other way around.’ Jay is in control. ‘We did something to her once. What happened to her in the Grove the other night seems a mysterious reflection of something. It also seems significant that I met her that morning,’ he glances up at Will, ‘and that you met her that night.’
‘And that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since she told me what happened to her.’
Will cuts in, ‘Carmen, would you mind telling me what these two are raving about?’
‘You were in the restaurant when I knocked over those toothpicks,’ Mike reminds him. ‘You saw how she reacted to them. She just knelt there staring at them, and later she told me they looked like runes to her, that she almost felt she could read them. That was in the gallery, where by some strange coincidence there was a whole exhibit inspired by Viking art, including a painting that looked just like the rug in John Martin’s littered with toothpicks, a painting of Viking runes.’
Jay asks Mike even while looking down into her eyes, ‘You were the one who knocked over the toothpicks?’
‘I’m an atheist,’ Will states bluntly, ‘I don’t believe in the soul or in reincarnation, or anything. This all sounds like a load of bullshit to me. If you two want to play this game with her, that’s you’re problem, but I’m not—’
‘Will,’ her gaze feels painfully stuck to the frozen panes of his eyes in the dark room, ‘this isn’t a game. Please listen to—’
‘To what? I came to see you, Carmen, not these two.’
‘What you believe doesn’t matter, officer,’ Jay’s patience is at an end. ‘However, what you want does matter to me since I happen to be in love with what you want, and she has certain feelings for you, which force me to care. Understand?’
‘No, I can’t say as I understand what some old skeleton has to do with Carmen.’
‘I haven’t told you about my dreams, Will.’
‘So you have a Viking fetish. Some women feel that way about cops. It’s violence that turns them on, plain and simple. I made a mistake being nice to you.’ He turns away, and walks stiffly out of the room’s bloody atmosphere.
‘Well, he’s right about that,’ Jay says lightly.
In contrast, Mike’s voice is hushed, almost reverent. ‘A few days ago I would have agreed with him, but I haven’t felt like myself lately at all. I’m endangering my marriage, and that’s just not acceptable. I’ll listen to anything you have to say that might explain my behavior, and help me stop myself.’
For the first time, there is a gleam of respect in Jay’s eyes when he looks up at him. ‘Well, Mike, I believe Carmen was brutally raped and murdered in a past life – by us.’
Chapter Nine
The world is a jeweled dream. The rain stopped abruptly, the clouds retreated, and now the sun glistens triumphantly off the wet leaves, bringing out the spectrum in all the water drops sparkling in the trees.
Jay’s car feels like a black-and-silver bullet aimed straight at the heart of everything – life and death, time and space, love and desire, possible and impossible. He is going thirty miles per hour over the speed limit, and she is enjoying his skill. She doesn’t ask him to slow down because she wants him to know that she trusts him and respects him enough to let him endanger her life like this.
It is imperative that he not sense how much a part of her had longed to stay with Mike in Seaside’s dark and deserted bowels. She keeps remembering the way he looked at her as she left, and she’ll never forget the substantial energy of his tongue surging around hers in a violent kiss, or the feel of his fist…
‘A Viking coin for your thoughts, Carmen.’
Guilt makes her snap at him, ‘What do you think I’m thinking about?’
‘I know who you’re thinking about,’ he turns the wheel sharply to the left, forcing her to grab a hold of the dashboard, ‘I’m just wondering if you’re honest enough to admit it.’
His condescending attitude makes her want to tell him to go to hell, so she doesn’t say a word.
‘How far have you two gone together anyway?’
For a long stretch the runway of the Miami International Airport is visible from the palmetto. She watches a huge metal bird, stuffed with human bodies smaller than worms from this distance, soar effortlessly up into a foaming sea of clouds.
‘Answer me, Carmen.’
‘We kissed…’
‘Is there any man in Miami you haven’t kissed?’
‘Are you taking me home, Jay?’
‘No, I’m taking you to my place.’
Surprise, relief and fear react inside her like chemicals that should never be mixed together, and like a test-tube overflowing with bubbles, she laughs without meaning to, relieving some of the tension building up inside her.
He floors the accelerator, and passes a speeding truck whose bulk cuts through the air in an invisible roaring wave.
When they can hear each other speak again, he demands, ‘What the hell are you laughing at?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Let’s see if you feel like laughing when I’m throu
gh with you.’
His seductive threat involves her so completely, the conversation dies without her even noticing, or caring.
On Brickell Avenue she finds herself resenting all the high-rises blocking her view of the sky’s dramatic cloud formations. She is admiring a giant white arrowhead when the low ceiling of a parking garage blocks her view.
Jay is out of the car before she even has time to unbuckle her seat-belt. He opens the door for her with fierce gallantry, and then strides away from her towards the elevators.
Carmen discovers that she is literally weak in the knees with fear and excitement. She knows she is treading a very fine line as she hurries after him. She can’t possibly resist her physical attraction to Mike, and she really likes Will. Yet how can she keep dividing herself between three men without disastrous consequences?
She barely has time to catch up with Jay before the elevator arrives, and he steps inside.
The little metal car gives a bone-jarring jolt before starting slowly up into the building.
The silent ride up to the ninth floor seems to take forever.
Finally, the doors open onto a dimly lit, carpeted hallway.
Jay unlocks a door at the end, and lets her walk in ahead of him.
The first thing she notices is the stillness; she is so used to having four warm bodies purring around her ankles when she gets home. On the bright side, none of the plants have been tipped over and spilled half their dirt across the carpet, and the black leather couch is still beautifully smooth.
She drifts over to the glass doors that lead out onto a balcony. It offers an uninterrupted view of water and sky and the Miami skyline that at night will bloom beautifully with lights. The shore below, cluttered with boats and small buildings and parking lots, isn’t visible from inside.
The abundance of plant life, both inside and out, prompts her to ask suspiciously, ‘Do you have another girlfriend, Jay?’ She turns back to face him. ‘Or is it your housekeeper who waters all these plants?’
‘She’s a very nice girl, Miriam, from Colombia.’ He shrugs off his jacket, and tosses it onto a white leather chair shaped like the crescent moon. ‘Would you care for something to drink?’ He slips off his tie, and it becomes a bloody gash across his black jacket.
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