by Nancy Gideon
“Charlotte,” he coaxed softly, unable to keep from touching her. Her hair, her cheek, her shoulder, her waist. And just when she began to thaw a bit, her stare slipped beyond him and she froze up solid. He glanced around to see Amber sliding his jacket about her shoulders as she settled at his table, waiting for him to rejoin her. His grip tightened on Cee Cee’s upper arms as he heard her breath suck in through her clenched teeth.
“Take—your—hands—off—me—right—now.” Each word was wielded like an eviscerating slash. He let her go and she jumped back into a combative stance.
“It’s not what you think.”
She gave a taut laugh. “So now I’m blind as well as stupid.” She swallowed hard. “I made a mistake coming here. I won’t make it again.”
“Don’t—”
“I have some questions for you. I’ll stop by your office tomorrow at three.”
His features stiffened. “I see. On the record.”
“Yes.”
“Your game, your rules, detective.” He turned and started back to his table, stopping when he heard the soft snag in her breathing. By the time he looked back, she was gone.
“CHARLOTTE!”
She increased her stride, dashing the tears from her face with the rough swipe of her hand. “Leave me alone,” she snarled when Max caught up to her outside. He put his hand on her elbow. She shook it off violently. “Leave me alone!”
“Charlotte, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She flung off his attempt to put his arm about her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. Get away from me.”
He hurried after her. “We need to talk. Please. Come home with me.”
“I don’t want to talk to you now. I don’t want to go home with you. I don’t want you, Max.”
“Yes you do. You do want me. You do. You told me you did. You told me you always would.” He spoke with urgent insistence, finally grabbing her shoulders and turning her to face him. He was breathing in quick, anxious snatches. “Tell me you still love me.”
“I can’t.” She couldn’t make eye contact. “Let me go, Max.”
“Tell me, Charlotte. I need to hear you say it.”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “No.”
“No you won’t tell me, or no you don’t love me?”
“No I don’t—”
He clamped her face between his palms and kissed her, a long, deep, sweetly tormented kiss that was devastating. She didn’t resist. Nor did she respond, but that didn’t seem to bother him.
“You taste so good. You smell so good,” he whispered against her lips.
“You taste like a cigarette butt floating in a stale glass of beer,” she told him bluntly.
He grinned, remembering when he’d told her the same thing. “That’s because I’ve been smoking and I’m drunk off my ass. And I want you so bad.” He folded her in close to him, pressed her face into his shoulder. She sighed, inhaled, then went rigid.
“And you smell like one of your new girlfriends.” She shoved him hard, making him stumble. “Save your sweet talk for them.”
He blinked at her. “My what?”
She had her car keys out. Her tone was hard, angry, like steel. “Stay away from me, Max. I don’t like what you’ve become, and I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
He was so stunned, she managed to get all the way to her car before he came after her.
“You don’t mean that. I know you don’t.” He stood on the passenger side while she unlocked her door.
She glared at him over the rooftop. “Read my lips, Savoie: Leave me the hell alone. I don’t want to see you again unless it’s work-related.”
He just stared at her, expression blank. Then he shook his head. “You’re just saying that to hurt me because I hurt you.”
“And you keep on hurting me.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“It’s not enough, Max. This isn’t working. We’re not working. I can’t be what you want me to be.”
A look of confusion crossed his face. “But, Charlotte, you’re everything I want.”
That only made her angrier. Needing to protect herself, she attacked. “But you’re not what I want. You can never be what I want. You’re a criminal, a killer. You’re not even human. I don’t know what you are. You went from someone I thought I cared about to this . . . this monster in Armani. You lie to me, you hide things from me. You stand there in your shiny shoes and say you love me, but you don’t know what that means. If you knew what it meant, you wouldn’t have that woman’s smell all over you. You wouldn’t be out every night drinking and screwing without giving me a second thought. Without caring that I might need you. Just like my—” She broke off, gulping for breath, for clarity of thought.
Max just stood staring at her, the look on his face so blank and stunned, so horribly wounded. Yet she couldn’t keep herself from going on.
“I can’t do this anymore, Max. I can’t do it. You won’t stop pushing me. I can’t . . . I can’t look at you without seeing every painful thing that’s ever happened to me. My heart’s so raw, it bleeds. It hurts too much to be with you. Leave me alone, Max. Just leave me alone.”
She slid into the car. The sound of the door slamming woke him from his stupor. He pulled on the passenger side handle. The door was locked.
“Charlotte, open the door. We need to talk. I’m not letting you just drive away. Talk to me. Dammit, talk to me!”
She started the engine, the roar drowning out his voice. She had her hand on the gearshift when an explosion of glass showered across the seat from the impact of Max’s elbow.
He reached through the broken window to unlock the door and slid in. No longer the wavering injured party, he was all dark control and determination. The sound he made was a low, dominating growl.
“Get out!”
His eyes glittered. Hot green, gold, flickering furiously. Dangerously. “No. Talk to me.” He dodged the slaps of her hand and jerked the keys out of the ignition. But by then she had the door open and was running.
She knew she couldn’t outrun him, but she had to get away, to escape him while her emotions were so exposed and out of control. If she could evade him, maybe he’d be drunk enough to give up and let her go. She glanced back, surprised and relieved to see he wasn’t behind her, then burst out onto the next street—right into his arms. She lunged back and his grip tightened.
“Don’t run. Charlotte, don’t run.”
On the periphery she heard the pleading, the warning in his voice, but at the same time, she was writhing, squirming, striking him with her elbows until his hold loosened just enough for her to slip free. Then a hard push toppled him to the sidewalk, where he rolled off balance for just a second, struggling to get his feet back under him. She grabbed her keys from his hand and darted into the parking structure that connected the two streets.
Even though the workday was long ended, the ramp was still fairly crowded with vehicles from the night owls who prowled the city’s hot spots. She wove between them, crouching low, finally stopping to listen, hearing nothing but the hoarse pulls of her breathing. That’s what he’d be listening for, too. She had to get control of herself.
She crouched behind the rear tire of a parked SUV and struggled to slow her breaths. Then she heard soft thumps, coming closer, closer. He was traveling across the roofs of the parked cars, like an animal on the high ground stalking his prey. Another sound, one that made the hair on her arms stand up.
A growl.
A low, throaty vibration so fierce and menacing that she forgot all about Max Savoie and saw Sandra Cummings and Vivian Goodman fleeing for their lives. Panicky instinct took over.
She lay down on the cold concrete and rolled beneath the vehicle. On her back, staring up at the drive train, she unsnapped her holster and eased her weapon free.
Max. It’s only Max.
The suspension gave a slight bounce. Cee Cee held her breath and waited. Waited.
It’s Max. It’s only Max.
Again, the deep, threatening rumble.
She held her gun up between her breasts, seeing those empty eyes so filled with shock and horror. Those torn-out throats forever holding their screams silent.
Please, Max. Please just go.
She heard the soft sound of his feet touching down on concrete. Then the rasp of his breathing. The quiet snuffle as he took her scent.
And then he started to move away, footfalls light and quick toward the front of the vehicle. Then silence.
Cee Cee released her breath slowly.
The clamp of his hand around her ankle shocked a cry of alarm from her. He jerked her out from under the SUV. As she tried to twist under the chassis, trying to grab on, to kick free, she lost her grip on her gun and on her composure.
Scream all you want. Shout and curse, it don’t matter. Ain’t nobody gonna hear you. An’ even if they did, they wouldn’t help you. So you can lie there quiet and let me take what I want, or you can scream and fight and I’ll take it anyway. And probably enjoy it more.
Help me!
But she’d never said those two words out loud. Not once.
She was facedown as Max’s shadow loomed over her. She stopped fighting, tensing at the feel of his weight settling over her, heavy and insistent as he moved against her. Her mind closed down, becoming empty, blocking out the fear, the knowledge of the pain to come. Then came the feel of his hot breath on her neck, followed by the slow rasp of his tongue.
A small, helpless sound escaped her.
Max went completely still.
Slowly he rolled her over onto her back. Her fisted hands came up to cover her face protectively. When he didn’t touch her, she slit her eyes open cautiously. There was no awareness in them, only a defiant readiness to accept what she couldn’t escape.
“Go ahead.” Her voice sounded as if it was scraping over gravel. “Take what you want. I can’t stop you.”
“Just say ‘Stop.’”
“Stop. Please stop.” Fright shivered beneath the gruff command.
Max rocked back onto his heels, at a loss as to how to deal with her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I would never hurt you. I would never—” He reached out his hand, halting when she shrank back to avoid contact. “Charlotte, I’d never hurt you.”
“Just don’t touch me. All right? Just don’t touch me.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Cee Cee crawled under the vehicle, retrieving her weapon. They both got awkwardly to their feet, Cee Cee strung tight with remembered terror, and Max beginning to weave with the effects of confusion and booze.
“I’m sorry. You ran and I had to chase you. Can’t stop myself. Have to chase when you run. Don’t be afraid. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
She stared at him as if he was something foreign and awful.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said plaintively.
“Just stay away from me. Stay away.” She started to back up. When he didn’t move, she turned and hurried toward the street where she was parked. She heard him follow, his steps unsteady. By the time she exited the ramp she was breathing normally again, the residue of helplessness and terror replaced by anger once again. And a riptide of sorrow.
Max stumbled out onto the sidewalk beside her. His gaze was bleak, his expression broken.
“Don’t leave me.”
She took a shaky breath, because his eyes were welling up and her throat was tightening up.
“Please, Charlotte. Please let me explain.”
“It’s too late for that.”
His breathing quickened as he tried to get his jumbled thoughts around that statement. He turned it over and over in his alcohol-muddled mind, and finally said with quiet disbelief, “That can’t be true. I have nothing without you.”
She didn’t answer.
He started to say something more, but the words wouldn’t come. His legs gave out with a graceful ripple, dropping him onto the curb where he sat, head between his knees and arms crossed over the back of his neck. He didn’t move or make a sound, so Charlotte finally forced herself to start across the street.
A glance showed that Giles was no longer there waiting. He’d probably assumed that she and Max would leave together and had gone home.
Not her problem.
She got in the car, scowling at the shattered window and the pebbles of glass all over the seat. Dammit, now she had two broken windows. After brushing the glass off with an impatient hand, she started the car. And glanced at the opposite curb where Max still huddled.
With a fierce curse, she executed a sharp U-turn and pushed open the door. Though furious and hurt, she wasn’t about to let him go back inside the club.
“Get in, Savoie. I’ll take you home.”
He crawled into the car without a word, slumping in the seat, eyes closed. He didn’t even grab for the dash when she spun the car around a second time to take the spot Giles had vacated in front of the club.
“Wait here,” she said.
Leaving the car running, she strode back into the smoky darkness, back to Max’s table. A man she recognized as the third man in Cummings’s office looked up in surprise, then amusement. He had his arm about an intoxicated redhead. The other woman stared up at Cee Cee in annoyance.
“Let me extend Max’s apologies. He won’t be rejoining you. I’ve come for his coat.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Serious enough to shed blood if you don’t take it off right now. Is it worth that much to you? Because it is to me.”
Pouting, the woman stripped off the jacket and extended it. “Have Max call me later. He has my number.”
“So do I.” Taking the coat between thumb and forefinger as if it was something offensive, Cee Cee drawled, “I’ll give him the message. I can’t guarantee he’ll be in any condition to hear it once I’m through with him.”
As she walked away, she heard the man, Rollo, chuckle and say, “Okay. Now I’m impressed.”
At the bar, LaRoche hoisted his glass and smiled wryly.
She climbed back into the car, throwing the jacket at Max’s immobile form, gritting her teeth because of the expensive fragrance that filled the interior. A scent that was not her own. She tore out of town without a glance in his direction.
The electronic gates opened when she pulled up. She sped down the long drive to Jimmy Legere’s front porch and fishtailed to a stop nearly on the first step.
Max made no move to get out. His eyes were still closed, and she guessed he was unconscious. She leaned over to push the door open, then with a hard shove toppled him out onto the steps.
“They can have you. You’re not my problem,” she told him as she shut the door. She drove about ten feet, slammed into reverse, and stopped again to fling his coat out the window. “Your girlfriend wants you to call.”
She drove off in a temperamental spit of gravel.
Surprisingly there were no tears. Only a deep, dark emptiness weighting her soul.
At home she crawled into her bed still dressed, shivering with the effort of holding her emotions inside. Only in her dreams did they escape her: clawing, gnashing nightmares that had her weeping and whimpering in her sleep.
She was so exhausted, she imagined he was there to comfort her, could almost feel the gentleness of the arms holding her close, hear the tenderness in his low voice as he crooned, “Don’t be afraid. I’d never let anything harm you.”
Believing him, she sank into much-needed slumber, not waking until her alarm went off.
When she awoke she lay in bed, puzzled, but not sure why. Something was different. Then she noticed that the suit in its dry cleaner bag and the red shoes were gone. And the tears she’d held back the night before came in a flood.
Twelve
GOOD AFTERNOON, DETECTIVE. Right on time. Marissa, I don’t wish to be disturbed. Thank you.”
Cee Cee had spent a ridiculou
s amount of time getting ready for this meeting. She’d stood looking in her closet and all she could see were all of his things mingling with hers. His gorgeous Armani jacket, his gray silk tie, two of his silk shirts, his T-shirts, even a pair of his shiny shoes.
And then there were her things that had him all over them. The bronze dress she wore on their first date, the short leather skirt he loved to see on her—and take off her, the sexy undergarments she’d bought to tease him, and the beautiful raincoat he’d bought her to make her think of him. Everything made her think of him.
The bastard.
She was so in love with him, her fillings ached.
She finally opted for black. A loose black T-shirt and slim black jeans. And boots. No open toes. She slung a silver studded belt about her hips, glazed her short hair into an aggressive bristle, circled her eyes with heavy smudges of liner, and put a coat of bright red on her lips.
She thought she was ready to tangle until she went downstairs and saw a glass company finishing with the new windows in her car doors, just as the first fat raindrops began to fall in what became a deluge by the time she pulled into his office lot. Finding no empty spaces up close, she was a soggy mess by the time she reached the building.
Pride wouldn’t allow her to wear the raincoat. So that pride was dripping miserably cold down the back of her neck by the time she stood on the other side of his desk, her hair gooey and misshapen, her eyes smeared, and her shirt stuck to her.
“Would you like some coffee? A towel?”
“I’m fine. This won’t take long.”
“Have a seat, detective. Where’s your partner? I thought he’d be glued to your side for the sake of propriety.”
“The sensitivity of my visit took precedence over public opinion.”
“That’s a first. What can I do for you, detective?”
He engaged in the expected banter, but there was no life in it. Just as there was no animation in his expression, in his voice, or in his eyes. His cheeks were still stubbled but neatly edged. He wore a Saints muscle shirt under one of his tailored suit coats with jeans. And his red Converses. The effect should have been sloppy, but he managed to appear carelessly elegant.