"Better spot for what?"
“It's right between the front and back doors. I'll hear anyone who comes around." Her face went just a hint paler.
"You really think—?"
"I don't know what to think at this point. Might as well be ready for anything, though, right?"
"I... guess."
"Don't worry, Red. I'm good at this shit. It's what I do, remember?" She nodded, but the fear still lingered in her eyes. He didn't like seeing it there. He preferred the flicker of heat he'd seen before, if the truth were known.
***
IT WASN'T THE same in the house with her mother away. Holly phoned the hospital again when she and Vince arrived at the house. She couldn't talk to her, though. Jim Mallory came on the line instead, saying not to worry. Her mom was sleeping soundly and he wasn't planning to leave her anytime soon.
It was only slightly reassuring. She hung up the phone, and felt her shoulders slump a little as she sighed. "Anything wrong, Holly? Your mother?"
"She's fine. Sleeping. But it ought to be me there by her bedside."
"Oh, I don't know. I kind of think she'd like the idea of Jim hanging so close by."
"I'm her daughter. It's my place."
"Maybe Jim would like it to be his place, too."
Holly tensed. "You think they're that serious?"
"You didn't see Jim's face when you and I told your mother Welles wasn't the real killer. You were totally focused on Doris. I'll tell you, Mallory looked sick with worry and fighting mad at the thought of her having to go through it all over again." Vince shook his head. "A man doesn't look like that if he doesn't care. He was all pale, kind of pinched around the eyes, and his jaw was clenched so tight I thought it would break. He cares. More than cares. You know?"
"You think he's in love with her?"
Vince nodded.
"Is it hard for you to say that, Vince? That he loves her?"
"No harder than anything else. Why?"
She shrugged. "You kind of danced around the words there."
"Did I?" He wasn't looking her in the eye now.
Sighing, Holly changed the subject. "Think we're safe here tonight?"
"I'm here. I'm armed. We're as safe as we can reasonably be."
"You're supposed to say we're perfectly safe. Tell me nothing's going to happen. What kind of hero are you, anyway?"
"No kind at all."
She rubbed her arms, glanced toward the door, the windows, beyond which she only saw black.
"Go to bed, Holly. Trust me, I'll be here and you'll be safe. I promise. Okay?"
Sending him a shaky excuse for a smile, she said, "That's better." And turning, she went to her room. She didn't stay though. She hit the closet for extra blankets, took a pillow off her own bed, and carried them into the living room for him. He'd already started a pot of coffee brewing, and was standing between the sofa and the television, thumbing the remote, flipping through channels.
She dropped the pile of soft fluff onto the sofa. "So you're planning to stay up all night?"
"At least."
"You don't have to do that, Vince."
He tossed the remote onto the coffee table and turned to face her. "No?"
She shook her head.
"So, suppose I fall asleep out here? What's to stop someone from sneaking past me?"
She swallowed the words that tried to leap out, then said them anyway. "Come to bed with me."
He felt as if she had zapped him with a stun gun. His face flushed, and a muscle twitched beside his mouth. His gaze slid lower over her face, her body. He licked his lips. "That's not gonna happen."
"You don't look like you mean that."
"Don't I?"
"No." She moved closer to him, and hesitantly, slipped her arms around his waist, pressed herself to him, and tipped her head back so she could see his eyes. "And I really hope you don't, because I need you tonight."
He parted his lips to speak. She hushed him with a forefinger.
"I know. You don't want me to need you. You can't be my hero or my savior and you can't be the love of my life. But I don't need those things tonight, Vince."
His eyes were dark as she lowered her finger from his lips. "Then what do you need?" he asked, and his voice was coarse.
"I need your arms tight around me," she said, and she closed her hands on his forearms, and lifted them, settling them around her waist He tightened them there. "I need your hands touching me. I need your mouth ..."
He didn't let her finish. He covered her mouth with his, before she could finish. One of his hands, big and callused, cupped the back of her head, holding her steady while he tasted her mouth with his tongue. His other hand curled over her buttocks, and pulled her tight to his groin.
He was hard, pressing into her, and she knew that this time, he wouldn't stop.
When his mouth slid from hers, to her jaw, to her neck, she tipped her head back. When his hand squeezed her ass, she arched into him, rubbing herself against the hard bulge behind his jeans. He swore under his breath, grabbed her shoulders, pushed her back, and held her away from him. His eyes were hungry when they probed hers. "I've told you I don't have anything to give, Red. This is here and now. That's all."
"I'm not asking for anything else." She reached for the bottom of his T-shirt, and lifted it, slid her hands over his belly and up to his chest, and dragged her nails over his nipples.
He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. When they opened again, his eyes blazed. He grabbed her shirt with both hands, pulled it off over her head, and threw it on the floor. He didn't even pause before unhooking the bra, and throwing it to the side as well. His eyes raked her breasts. Then his hands covered them, and he squeezed. She shivered when his fingers drew together on her nipples, and she opened her mouth to gasp when he pinched them. He moved her backward until her legs hit the couch, then gave a push so she was sitting down. Peeling off his shirt, he dropped it, and knelt, and his hands went around her, palms flat to her back, arching her toward him so he could bend and suck her breasts. He sucked them hard, bit down with his teeth until sweet pain jolted through her, then licked the sting away with his tongue, and did it all over again. Each time he bit a little harder, and each time she liked it a little better.
His hands slid around to her jeans, undid them, and he jammed one hand down the front of them and inside her panties. He didn't take his time. Didn't ease her into this, just spread her folds and touched her. Rubbed her. Fingers pushed up inside her without waiting for an invitation. He lifted her a little, his fingers still in her, and held her around the waist with a free hand, and she stood there, barely balanced with her legs wide and her knees bent. "Shove the jeans off," he rasped.
She did, and he held her up until she managed to shuck free of them, panties and all, then he let her fall to the sofa again. He drew his fingers out of her and pushed her legs wider, one up on the sofa, the other stretched out to the floor, and he knelt low, and bent and pushed his face between her legs. He licked deep, and her body shivered with rapture. When she started to melt into his mouth, he drew his head away, and she almost cried. But then he was on her again, his cock was pressing into her, stretching her wider, pushing inexorably deeper until she didn't think she could take any more, and then still more. She pulled her hips back. His hands closed on the cheeks of her ass, and he held her to him and pushed himself into her. Then he stayed there, waiting. He bent his head and tormented her breasts, and when his tongue and teeth did their work, she began to move. Slowly, she slid her wet body up and down the length of him. Her hands hooked under his arms, nails digging into his back, and she moved faster, harder. And then she was linking her legs around him, pulling him even deeper as her hips rocked.
She saw his face, watched the waves of pleasure wash over him as he began moving, too, thrusting in hard, fast, deeper, until he pushed her to the edge. She came, and she heard herself scream his name as she did. And then he drove into her once more, and went stiff as he held her and poured himself
into her.
Slowly, her warm muscles uncoiled, then relaxed, then seemed to purr in her body. Vince lifted himself off her, kissed her mouth, and gathered her gently into his arms.
"Where are we going?" she asked as he got to his feet.
“To bed," he told her. "How do you feel?"
She opened sleepy eyes and smiled up at him. "Mmm."
He looked at her, his eyes softer than she'd ever seen them as he lowered her onto her own bed, and reached for the covers.
She reached out and grabbed him, tugged him in with her. "Don't go. Stay here. All night, right here."
"I'll sleep if I stay in here," he said, his tone tender.
She pushed him onto his back, slid her body on top of his, and kissed his neck. "Not for a while, you won't."
***
HE SANK INTO a slumber as contented as that of a well-fed baby when he'd finally managed to satisfy the redhead's appetite hours later. He hadn't intended to. Hadn't expected himself to be able to sleep even if he'd wanted to, given that he'd just experienced the most incredible night of sex he'd ever had, with a woman he'd been determined not to get involved with.
He'd expected to lie awake contemplating that for a while.
But he slept. And he didn't stir until the insistent pounding on the front door woke him up. Sunlight tried to perform laser surgery on his eyes when he opened them, so he slammed them closed again. Damn.
"Someone's here," Holly muttered, lifting her head the smallest bit from his chest in order to say so.
"I hear him."
Her head came up higher, eyes just a little wider. "You think it's bad guys?"
"Bad guys don't knock."
She smiled, and dropped her head to his chest again. It was a dopey, crooked, half-asleep smile. The kind a woman who'd just had incredible sex would smile in the morning.
He managed to get up onto one elbow, and she rolled onto her back and squinted up at him. Her hair was sticking up all over, and her eyes were scrunched into tiny slits. "Good morning," she said.
"Morning, Red." Against his better judgment, he kissed her. That easy, that automatic.
When he drew back she said, "I even like your morning breath."
He rolled his eyes, wrapped himself in a blanket, then ran into the living room, picking up clothes as he went. He brought them all back into the bedroom again to put them on.
Holly was pulling on a knee-length plaid flannel nightshirt, and jamming her feet into well-worn slippers.
"It's probably Jerry," he said. "I emailed him before we left the cabin that we'd be here."
"Mmm-hmm," she replied.
Vince tucked his shirt in and headed back to the living room. Jerry stood on the other side of Holly's front door. He was cupping a hand beside his face, leaning forward, trying to peer through the glass between the tiny slit in the curtains. When he saw Vince, he smiled. Vince yanked the door open. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Jerry glanced at his watch. "Seven thirty-five. Why? You have a date?"
As he said it, an odd sound, half yawn, half something else announced Holly's emergence from the bedroom. Looking past Vince, Jerry said, "Or maybe you already had one."
"Watch it, partner."
"So, who's the girl with the feather duster on her head?" Jerry asked. But he sent Holly a warm smile as he said it. "My guess would be, oh, lemme think... Holly?"
"Come on, get your ass in here." Vince swung the door shut, and led Jerry toward the kitchen, which was the direction in which Holly was shuffling. "Holly Newman, Jerry, my partner."
Holly nodded to Jerry and zombie-walked the rest of the way into the kitchen. "Coffee," she moaned.
Jerry frowned at Vince. "Is she asking if we want some, or summoning it to appear?"
"A little of both, I imagine. Just tell her yes, you'll have some."
"Yes," Jerry said. "I'll have some."
Her reply was a grunt, but she grunted while running water into the carafe, so that was probably a good sign. Vince pulled out a chair at the table. Jerry sat down, setting a huge box of doughnuts in the center, opening the lid. From across the room, Holly lifted her head and turned slowly like a wolf catching a scent of blood. Her gaze fell on the doughnuts. One eyebrow rose. Vince felt something warm and liquid in his belly, and told himself it was just because he could smell that coffee brewing. A trigger response.
Right. He was usually a much better liar.
"So, is the chief ready to fire my ass yet?" Vince asked, helping himself to a doughnut.
"He was pissed at first. Then I told him what you said on the phone, about the break-in and the boating accident. I think he gets it. Oh, he's still griping, but I really think he gets it."
"It would be nice if someone did. The Feds sure as hell don't."
“They will, when we dig up something more solid, and then they'll be eating crow. Besides, the two of us are more cop than any twenty Feds."
"Three of us," Holly corrected. She sat down at the table, hitting the chair heavily, and she plunked her empty mug down in front of her. Then she turned the doughnut box toward her and began perusing its contents, taking her time. "I'm working on this case, too," she finished.
Jerry tilted his head. "So, are you Cagney or Lacy?"
She hauled a doughnut out of the box. She'd managed to locate the only one with both frosting and filling. "I haven't decided."
Jerry studied her. "Look more like one of Charlie's Angels, to me."
She lifted her eyes to meet his, and her lips curled just a little at the corners. "Thank you," she said around a mouthful of doughnut.
“It's just a guess," he said. "Hard to tell for sure at the moment, but I figure you probably clean up nice."
She shrugged.
"Nice enough to knock your socks off, partner," Vince muttered. Then he damn near kicked himself for saying what he was thinking aloud. What the hell was wrong with him?
Jerry and Holly both looked at him in surprise. Holly smiled, lowering her eyes again. Jerry lifted his brows and whistled softly, his gaze shifting from one of them to the other for long enough to make Vince uncomfortable. He sent Jerry a look, and his partner read it, nodded, moved on.
"So, what's the plan?" Jerry asked.
"For today, you mean?" Vince thought for a moment. “Today, we get ourselves some Halloween costumes."
Jerry frowned at him as if he thought his partner had lost his mind. "Halloween costumes? Why?"
"Because," Vince said. "Tonight's the big party."
Jerry frowned, looking honestly puzzled. Shrugging, he said, "Oh, well, all right then; if it's the big party." He reached for a doughnut. "That coffee done yet?"
"Almost." Vince got up, then paused when Holly picked up her cup and tapped it on the table. Fighting a smile, he reached over and took it from her, brought it with him to the pot to fill it up.
He loved her in the morning. Scratch that. He found her cute as hell in the morning. Even endearing, maybe. But that was all.
Then, as he handed her the cup, Holly's eyes met his and her face grew suddenly serious. She said, "I didn't do it in order."
He stared back at her. Jerry said, "What's that?"
"I didn't do it in order," Holly said softly. "I go the bathroom, shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, make my bed, and then come out here for coffee." She smiled up at Vince. "I didn't even notice."
It was, he realized, a major step for her. She probably hadn't started a day without thinking about her routine in years.
"That's good, Red. That's real good."
Deep down, he was worried to death. Why now? Would she try to credit his presence with her progress, and want more than he could give?
SIXTEEN
IF REGINALD D'VOE'S Gothic mansion had been eerie before, it had graduated to movie-quality horror. The front lawn had been converted into a graveyard, with giant tombstones of aging, chipped granite. They looked so real that Vince put his hand on one as they walked past, just to be sure. Polystyr
ene. The ground had vanished. It swam beneath layers of ghostly mist, generated, no doubt, by a professional-quality fog machine. The sour chords of a pipe organ played backup to the heartbroken wail of a pack of wolves. Every window of the house was occupied by a glowing jack-o'-lantern, each one wearing a different gruesome expression. It was damned creepy, to be frank.
Vince walked through the open iron gates, along the path, barely able to see his feet. He wondered vaguely if any of the props had been in place the last time he'd been here. Then again, he hadn't exactly been in good enough shape to notice. His ribs were still a little tender.
Holly walked beside him, Jerry bringing up the rear. She still hadn't said much. Nothing in fact, about what had happened between them the night before, and while he thought that was what he wanted, it was driving him to distraction.
"You still all right with things?" he asked her softly, leaning a little closer, keeping his voice low.
She glanced up at him, eyes dark and unreadable. "I'm not all right with much of anything right now. There's a killer on the loose, my mother's in the hospital, my old methods of dealing aren't working anymore. No. I'm kind of far from all right. But I'm hanging in there."
He nodded. He thought about correcting her, telling her he meant to ask if she was still all right with what had happened between them last night, until he thought about how lame that sounded, given the dire situation they were facing. Later. There would be time later.
As costumes went, theirs were sadly lacking. Holly had thrown on a red wool cloak with a hood, and added a basket as a prop. Vince wore a cape in houndstooth checks, and the Sherlock Holmes trademark deerstalker hat his partner had found for him when they'd gone out costume shopping this morning. In a small town, on Halloween day, Vince figured they were lucky to have scored anything at all. Jerry had tried to get him to add a curving, trumpet-bowled pipe to the ensemble, but Vince had pushed his limits already. All Jerry had managed to come up with for himself were a bowler hat and a bow tie. Dr. Watson would be mortified.
As they walked, the music grew louder, and Vince swore that the bat that swooped down making him duck reflexively was real. They hit the first step. An owl hooted three times, and then the heavy hardwood door slowly groaned open. Morticia Addams stepped into the doorway, but when she smiled, he saw Amanda D'Voe underneath the raven wig and heavy makeup. "Good evening," she intoned. "Velcome." Stepping back, she swept her arm inward, black fabric trailing.
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