“Do you want to go up in flames?” he whispered, letting his breath caress her stomach.
“But not alone.” With her fingernails, she stroked the cleft at the bottom of his spine and over his haunch to the front of his thigh. “I don’t want technique, Sullivan. I want you. With me, burning together.”
He slid his thigh over her restlessly moving legs, holding her still as he reached into the nightstand quickly for a silver packet, its crinkle as he unwrapped it a counterpoint to the slow ticking of the clock in the background. “Sweetheart, I can make you burn so hot you won’t care about anything except what we’re doing here tonight. I want to see you like that, blazing for me. Let me do that for you, for me. Let me watch you explode into cinders and burn again like the sun, again and again until you swear nothing else exists.”
With his free hand, he slid the sleeves of her knit dress down her arms, imprisoning her. “Then, when you’re sure you have nothing left, I’ll make you burn again,” he promised gruffly, moving his mouth across the rim of her breasts where the green knit flattened them, the taste of her exquisite. “And I’ll be there with you. All the way, burning as hot as you.”
With the flat of his hand he rolled her panties down her hips, grazing her with his fingers, stroking her until she sighed, such a tiny, feminine sound in the quiet. Her dress covered her breasts and the tops of her arms, and she was bare to his touch everywhere except where that cool green band hid her. Sliding over her, he nudged her legs open with his ankles and made a space for himself in the haven of her body, rocking slowly against her, his gym shorts riding lower with each rocking thrust.
She twisted and turned under him, raising her knees to his sides, half sitting up, her arms restricted by the binding of her dress. Slipping beneath him, she ran her hands under his shorts to his bare skin, sliding his shorts down until they tangled around his feet.
Barbaric, that green binding across the curving sweep of her. He watched the pink flush rise from his stroking hand up across her stomach, vanish under the band and reappear in a slow ascent up her slender throat as she arched beneath him, her mouth fastened to the pulse in his throat, drinking from him, her hands grasping his hips and holding him to her.
“Open, sweetheart.” He nudged her thighs wider and sank into her, pressing against her, waiting for her invitation as he traced the green ribbon around her, lingering in the vulnerable tenderness of her underarm. When she hooked her legs over him, a sweet, trusting move that left her infinitely accessible, he swept the ribbon up and away, tugging the hot bud of her nipple into the dark cave of his mouth. He touched the very tip with his tongue. She arched wildly beneath him, shuddering and silent as he slipped inside her, impaling her on the moment of her pleasure and then driving her higher as he wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and slid his hands under her thighs, lifting her to each deep thrust.
He wanted to make the moment last forever, wanted to stay with her in that burning darkness, consumed.
But his hunger for her betrayed him. Lonely, he’d hungered for her, wanted her to the point of pain. As he held on to the rails of the bed, driving himself toward that burning with an urgency he hadn’t dreamed of, her whimper sent him tumbling over the edge into the sun.
He watched her flash and burn with him, her eyes wide and filled with him until that final moment when she arched, shuddering into him, her eyes closing, and he followed her into that heat, losing himself in her.
And in those nighttime, shifting shadows, he sent them soaring twice more into that brilliance where nothing existed except the exploding sun.
After the last time, he tucked Maggie against his side, where she drifted to sleep, a teasing smile on her lips as he traced them over and over with the pad of his thumb, her lips nibbling the end of his thumb lazily. Her mouth parted even in sleep with each stroke he made against its fullness.
The cursor wouldn’t let him fall asleep beside her. It forced him out of the rumple of sheets and to the monitor, where he saw the pale reflection of Maggie as he called up the Paulie file. Drained of everything except the urge to find out Reid’s well-kept secrets, he yawned and rolled his tired eyes, then was kept awake by the hunt through lists so detailed they boggled his mind. Paul had been incredibly thorough, and Sullivan owed him the attention his work demanded.
As he worked, the shadowy form of Maggie lay still in the monitor’s glass. He wasn’t surprised she slept so deeply. They had exhausted each other. Only his sense of lingering responsibility for Reid and an unflagging curiosity held him stationary.
In a subfile Reid had called Firsts, Sullivan found a collection of notes and observations, pieces of conversations Reid had overheard in the courthouse. There’d been no guesswork on Reid’s part as he recorded the pieces—he’d been meticulously objective and factual—but Sullivan saw the same pattern Reid had seen. Saw how the puzzle pieces fell into place as each innocuous bit added up to a contemptible whole.
Illegally circumventing the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the conspirators had established a toxic-management company. Arriving in authentic-looking, sealed trucks, the disposal teams made the rounds of a number of pulp-and-paper industries and several pesticide companies. There they would collect the sludge that legitimate chemical companies burned at high incineration, 3000°—an expensive process required for safe disposal of the sludge by-product, which had once been buried underground.
Payoffs from the factories and companies to the so-called Toxic Management Corporation were funneled into the pockets of city and county officials, who had facilitated approval of the state permits required for toxic collection. The rest of the money, thousands and thousands of dollars, with the potential for much more, was deposited into banks, where it made its way into land purchases.
In his computer monitor, a ghostly presence behind the horrifying material he was reading, Sullivan saw Maggie’s arm slide off the bed, her hand tangle in the pile of sheets and clothing. He wanted to return to her side and forget what he was reading, but he couldn’t. The corruption and betrayal were worse than he’d thought. In his quiet, unobtrusive way, Reid had stumbled onto a situation so foul that reading about it scared the hell out of Sullivan.
The participating paper mills and pesticide-manufacturing companies saved money, even with the payoffs. Sullivan swallowed against the chill running up and down his spine as he recognized names. No wonder Reid had been killed. He’d been sitting on the proverbial keg of dynamite.
And it had detonated with him on top.
Sullivan shifted uneasily in his chair, feeling the keg under him now with Reid’s material in front of him.
From Reid’s notes he learned that the industrial process that bleached the pulp at the paper mills yielded dioxin, which also required high-temperature incineration to be disposed of safely. The chlorine from the pulp-bleaching process yielded dioxin when it came into contact with oxygen. The pesticide companies produced chlorinated pesticides that also produced dioxin as a by-product.
Sullivan had seen some reports of follow-up studies after the Love Canal disaster, which had indicated dioxin wasn’t as dangerous as originally thought. But the majority of the scientific community disagreed, still considering it the most potentially toxic waste disposed of in ground because of its mutagenic and carcinogenic properties.
At Love Canal, the dioxin had been stored in pits lined with eighteen inches of impervious clay, through which water couldn’t pass. Later, when the land was developed, the weight of the constructed houses had pressed the fifty-five-gallon drums to the surface, where they’d leaked.
The desolate area around Seth’s Landing had been used for the last three years as a dump by the Toxic Management Corporation. Seth’s Landing was a Love Canal in the making. The county owned the land, and, according to Reid’s notes, the long-range plan was to sell the Landing cheaply to developers who intended to put up expensive retirement condos. A vile circle of money, influence and greed was destroying the land and callously endangering live
s.
Reading on, Sullivan was sickened by the nastiness of what had been planned. And done.
Reid wouldn’t have been allowed to live once he’d started his careful note taking, not even if he’d never fed Sullivan any of the information. There was too much money, too many reputations and lives at stake. Killing Reid had been a blip on a radar screen to these people.
Shoving back his chair, Sullivan turned to Maggie. He’d endangered her by keeping her at his side. Every time he tried to dismiss her from his life, she floated back in. Because of her loyalty to Royal, she was the wild card in the deck, regardless of her plea for trust, despite her growing discomfort with Jackson.
The dumping at Seth’s Landing couldn’t have continued for three years without protection, not in a state where drug deals occurred routinely in the bayous and isolated back areas. The conspirators had paid off officials all down the line. Sullivan hadn’t found all the names yet. But he would if he continued reading. Somewhere among Reid’s details he expected to find the names Royal Gaines and Johnny Jackson.
Maggie’s trust had been misplaced. He was convinced of it.
Stretching his aching muscles, he went into the bathroom and ran cold water over his eyes. In the minor, he stared at his bristled, shaggy-haired reflection, his eye sockets black with a fatigue that had gone beyond tired. He wondered how he’d ever sleep again with what he knew.
In the kitchen he emptied the glass of whiskey down the sink, its smell nauseating him. Rinsing the glass, he filled it with clear faucet water. Looking at the water, Sullivan wondered for the first time where that drinking water originated. He set the glass down and looked toward the gulf, which was driving shoreward beyond his shuttered windows.
Where else was dumping going on?
No wonder the bomb had been set in his car. Ignorantly, he’d been closing in on evil.
And evil, as always, had responded. Quickly and impersonally.
No. Not impersonal in his case. Someone wearing boots had found it amusing to try to kill him.
Eventually, he would have succeeded.
Sullivan returned to the bedroom. Maggie’s knees were drawn up to her chest as she slept on her side, facing him. He covered her with the sheet and turned back to the computer.
Long after Reid’s words and notes made sense, Sullivan saw several lines that had been left uncompleted. He’d read past them three times already, his tired brain not registering the words, when he read them once again.
Several of the conspirators had agreed to meet at the Riverfront Pier during the fireworks at tomorrow’s festival celebrating the landing of the Spanish Conquistadors and their discovery of the area that had become Palmaflora.
Reid had been interrupted before he’d been able to list the names of the people who were to meet.
Sullivan knew he had to stop. Reid’s notes might as well be hieroglyphics for all the meaning they had at this point. His brain was numb and he was making stupid mistakes on simple tasks like entering and exiting the files. If he didn’t watch out, he was going to delete the whole cotton-picking disk.
Blearily, he stumbled into bed beside Maggie, sliding his arms around her, curling into her warmth to dispel the chill deep in his bones.
Everything was blurred and surreal to him. Through the closed window he thought he heard the muted roar of the distant gulf. The ticking clock marked off the minutes in a rhythm as familiar to him as own breathing, and in the corners of the room, shadows drifted. The moment was filled with possibility.
As he looked at Maggie’s square face, soft and pillow creased, she opened her eyes and smiled, her face sleepy and unguarded. Caught in the undertow of sleep, she would reveal the last of her secrets. He would know for sure if he could trust her.
He would have proof.
Looking into her defenseless, drowsy eyes, he intended to ask her two questions. What can you tell me, Maggie, about Royal? What will you tell me?
He meant to. Every instinct he possessed urged him to ask her those questions.
But he didn’t. Instead, surrounded by the flowery fragrance of her hair and the scent of her, of them, he touched her cheek.
In the quiet moments before morning, he touched her, and she returned his touch in a silent reaching out that surmounted the barriers of rationality and distrust. Her murmured “Mmm” as he entered her was filled with contentment.
Holding her carefully in his arms, he let his body speak for him, let it speak to hers. To the slow ticking of the clock measuring the strokes of their coming together, he took her on a journey into the world of the senses.
His soul, lost somewhere in darkness, reached out at last, seeking, yearning, and led him down pathways of pleasure with Maggie Webster.
And there was magic in the night.
In the morning when he turned again to her, the bed was empty, the sheet where she’d lain cool. Maggie nowhere to be found in the cottage or on the beach, though he searched until he was convinced she was gone.
When he returned to the cottage, his feet tracking sand into the bedroom, he stared at the computer. On the last word of Paul Reid’s file, which he’d forgotten in his exhaustion, the cursor flashed steadily, mocking him.
*
Chapter 12
« ^ »
Following Maggie, Sullivan went to the police station. He arrived just in time to see her climb into Royal’s car and drive off.
Turning into traffic, he followed them, staying several car lengths behind and watching the traffic lights in case Royal decided to speed through on a yellow.
Or not stop at all. He grimaced as he watched Gaines take a red light with his siren wailing, steering into the oncoming traffic to pass and back into his lane again, while Sullivan remained stuck behind a van full of kids, surfboards and inner tubes.
Finally through the light, Sullivan checked each intersecting street, his head turning left and right as he tried to catch a glimpse of Royal’s car.
Gaines had lost him.
On purpose? With what he knew about Maggie’s partner, he suspected that the arrogant running of the traffic light had been for his benefit, Gaines taunting him and letting him know he’d been spotted.
He headed to the newspaper office. He wanted to let Walker know what was going on. Walker would need to contact the lawyers and start discussing the legal implications for the paper once Sullivan had finished the story and the paper ran it. Walker liked to be prepared. He’d have the lawyers in by tomorrow, and he’d be discreet about it.
Should he tell Walker about the meeting scheduled for the pier? Walker had called in the police about the threatening notes. Accustomed to using his own judgment, Walker would make his decisions based on what he considered best for the paper. He wasn’t careless, but…
Sullivan decided to leave a sealed note for Walker after they’d talked. He didn’t want anyone unexpected showing up at the meeting.
Later, he headed to Paul Reid’s. He wanted to ask Mrs. Reid again which detective had showed up.
This time when he rang the doorbell an older version of Paul Reid’s wife answered the door. “I’ll go get Suzy,” she said. “You can talk to her. She’s doing better today, but I think it hasn’t all sunk in yet.”
Like a little girl dressed in her best clothes, Suzy came to the door, Paulie riding her hip. “Hi, Mr. Barnett. Thanks for letting me sleep yesterday. I was plumb tuckered out.” Her smile was wobbly but there, along with tear tracks.
“Mrs. Reid, I could have called, but I wanted to stop by to thank you for letting me take the disk yesterday. It was a big help, but I had a couple of additional questions, if you don’t mind?”
“Of course not. I’m glad to help.”
“Do you remember, by any chance, which detective stopped by yesterday before I arrived?” Sullivan waited while she thought, her face wrinkling in her concentration.
“No, I’m sorry, I sure don’t. All I remember is how much Paulie liked his hair. Kinda gold with red in it, you know?�
��
He did.
“You missed him again today. He came by to ask me some questions about Paul’s work—who he knew, who he got phone calls from. But I couldn’t tell him much. Paul and I didn’t have time for socializing, with the house and the baby.” She shifted Paulie to her other hip.
“Did the detective have anyone else with him?” Had Maggie led Royal straight here?
“Gosh, I don’t know. Mama opened the door. I was in the baby’s room and she led him back there. We only talked for a few minutes. He said he was real sorry about Paul.” One fat tear hung at the end of an eyelash.
“Well, thanks, Mrs. Reid.” He’d dunked one, blown one.
“Sorry I wasn’t any help,” Suzy Reid said, holding Paulie’s hand up to wave bye-bye.
“You were a lot of help. Thanks again.”
Climbing into his car, Sullivan tried to decide what to do next. He could chase around all afternoon looking for Maggie, or he could come up with a plan. The best he could think of was to watch for her tonight when she went to the pier.
A lousy plan, but the only one that wouldn’t have him choking on Royal Gaines’s dust all day.
*
A bearded conquistador seized Maggie around the waist and swung her in a circle, lifting her feet off the ground. Her heavy purse swung with her, flying out with centrifugal force. She grabbed for it before it beaned someone, preferably the bearded celebrator holding her high.
“Bella señorita, come run away with me where the nightingales sing and the sun shines all day. We’ll eat coconuts on the shore, sip rum straight from the bottle and swim naked in the clear Caribbean.”
“Put me down or I’ll send you to the pokey.” Maggie motioned to the steel cages off to one side of the street. Several clean-shaven men clutched the bars, captive until they could coax or threaten a merrymaker into paying their fine for not wearing a beard during Palmaflora Days.
Lifting the visor of his silver helmet, Charlie Callahan said, “What say, Mags? Does that mean I can’t talk you into running off with me?”
SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE Page 20