by Sandra Brown
Several moments elapsed before she continued in a faraway voice, "I had
just begun to develop. My breasts were tender. He ... he was I
whispering ... horrible things. His breath smelled bad, and his fingers
[ pinched, and I couldn't breathe. He pushed his hand inside my
underwear and ... Well, he was hurting me. I tried to call out, but my
face was covered and I couldn't breathe."
Gasping again, she laid her left hand on her chest. Gradually, her
rising panic subsided."Angel woke up and saw what he was doing.
She raised a ruckus and threw him out."
"Did she report him, have him arrested?"
Simultaneously they turned their heads toward each other. Remy gave him
a strange look."Angel wasn't angry at him. She was angry at me.
I got a lashing for luring her boyfriend into my bed."
"Jesus Christ."
"I was lucky she woke up before he could do more than fondle me.
Actually the episode gave her the idea of putting me to work.
I guess she saw more earning potential from a child prostitute than a
child pickpocket. She never actually shared the idea with me, but I knew
what she was thinking. I'd catch her watching me with a thoughtful,
speculative expression.
"After that night, I began sleeping with a butcher knife. I cut two of
her friends and threatened several more. But I knew that it was only a
matter of time before one of them raped me.
"Then Angel got pregnant. She was furious because she didn't realize she
was pregnant until too late to have an abortion. As her pregnancy
progressed, she dealt more drugs to make up for the lost income from
dancing and ... the other. When Flarra was born, she put me in charge
of the baby so she could go back to work. She never got around to
implementing her plans for me. I was lucky."
"Wasn't any of this ever reported? Where were the child protection
people?"
"An agent from social services came around regularly." Wryly, she added,
"She bought drugs from Angel until the agency found out and fired her.
They never assigned a replacement."
Burke covered his eyes with his right forearm. A good part of his
childhood he'd been without a father, but, as he recalled, the main
challenges facing him had been to get his homework turned in on time and
to keep his half of the room he shared with Joe reasonably straight to
avoid a lecture from their mother, who was affectionate and attentive
even though she had to work very hard to support them.
Remy had faced daily challenges just to survive. The creep who'd fondled
her when she was twelve years old had left her with a legacy of
nightmares, a pathological fear of suffocation, and self
consciousness. The story explained why she frequently crossed her arms
over her breasts.
But that didn't gel. She wore low-cut dresses and outfits that
emphasized her bosom.
Lowering his arm, he sat up and looked down at her."Why'd you tell me
that story? Did you make it up so I'd feel sorry for you?"
"It's the truth, but I don't care whether or not you believe a word of
it."
"So long as it kept me off you, right?"
"Go to hell," she said angrily.
That was the first time he'd ever heard her use even a mild curse and it
stunned him into a more rational frame of mind. He believed her story.
Three times he'd seen her panic when her breathing was hampered.
Besides, who could have invented such a tale? It was too horrific not to
be true.
Slightly mollified, he asked, "Okay, why'd you tell me?"
"Because you're the man who has me handcuffed," she shot back.
"I've been a victim. I didn't like it. I refuse to be your victim, Mr.
Basile."
"Have I harmed you?"
"Harmed me?" she repeated on an incredulous laugh."You don't understand
anything, do you? For a street-savvy narcotics officer, you're not very
smart. No, you haven't beat me, or raped me, or starved me, or
physically hurt me. But, after this, do you really think a man as
fastidious as Pinkie will have me back?"
"Why in hell would you want to go back?" he asked, angry in his own
right."He's got you locked into a relationship that's goddamn medieval.
I didn't know such a thing existed in the free world. Why in God's name
do you stay with the son of a bitch?"
"Don't you think I've tried to leave?" she cried."I did. Once. I saved
enough money to buy a bus ticket that's right, Mr. Basile. I don't have
any money of my own. I get an allowance. Spending money.
I can afford to buy oranges in the market, but not much more than that.
"It took me months to scrape together enough to buy that ticket, and I
did so by stealing money from Pinkie's wallet a few dollars at a time so
he wouldn't notice. My bodyguard at the time was a man named Lute
Duskie. I slipped away from him inside Maison Blanche.
"I got all the way to Galveston, Texas, where I got a job watering
plants in a nursery. I found an inexpensive boarding house that rented
rooms by the week. I took long walks on the beach, relishing my
freedom and making plans on how I would send for Flarra and we'd start a
new life. I was on my own for four whole days.
"On the fifth day, I glanced up to see Pinkie walking toward me down the
aisle of the greenhouse where I was watering flats of begonias.
I'll never forget the expression on his face. He was smiling. He
congratulated me on my cleverness. It wasn't often that someone put
something over on him, he said. I should feel very proud of myself.
"Naturally, I was flabbergasted. I expected him to be furious.
Instead, he said if I no longer wished to be married to him, he had no
intention of holding me. If I'd only asked, he would have let me go with
no hard feelings. If I wanted my freedom, I could have it."
"There was a catch."
"Yes. There was a catch," she said, her voice hoarse with emotion.
"He asked me to walk back to the car with him. I only had to look beyond
the tinted windows in the backseat of the limousine to know the price I
must pay for my freedom. Flarra.
"He'd brought her with him. She was about the age I was when my mother's
johns began to notice me. I was free to go my own way, Pinkie said, but
Flarra would remain with him." Finding his eyes with hers, she said,
"You talk of choices, Mr. Basile. Tell me, what choice did I have?"
He expelled an expletive."She would replace you."
"That's the best I could hope for her."
"The best?"
"From the day Pinkie became my guardian, he coddled me because, in his
mind, he loves me. He has no such feeling for Flarra. He's generous and
kind to her. But his kindness is extended only to pacify me and has
nothing to do with an emotional attachment to her.
"Pinkie knows I love my sister more than anything in the world. If I
ever left him, he would use her to punish me. And I'm afraid that for
getting myself kidnapped, that's what he'll do.
"Oh, one more thing. On our return trip home from Galveston, we stopped
for something to eat. Pinkie took Flarra inside the cafe, b
ut asked that
I remain behind and lend a hand to Errol, Lute Duskie's replacement.
What Errol did was take several heavy plastic bags from the trunk of the
limo and throw them into a Dumpster behind the restaurant I never saw or
heard of Mr. Duskie again." She paused and looked at him insistently. "I
think, Mr. Basile, that the best you can hope for is to die quickly."
This was a night for firsts. She began to cry. Throughout the ordeal, if
she hadn't shed a single tear. He'd seen tears well up in her eyes, but
she'd never actually wept.
He almost touched her, caught himself just in time, and withdrew his
hand. But then he saw tears leaking from the outside corners of her eyes
and rolling down her temples into her hairline. He moved his hand
nearer, until his knuckles barely touched the side of her face and
brushed the tears away. She didn't recoil, so he wiped the tears from
the other side of her face as well.
"I can't let Flarra be damaged on my account" she said in an urgent
whisper."I love her. From the day she was born I've loved her and tried
to protect her. She's all that is mine on this earth. Even my baby was
taken from me."
Burke suddenly understood that, when he'd seen her in the gazebo, what
he'd mistaken for a display of her sensuality had actually been an
expression of unbearable loss. She repeated the gesture now, splaying
her left hand over her lower abdomen.
Reacting impulsively, not stopping to think about it first, he covered
her hand with his. Stunned by the intimacy, she stopped crying
instantly. Burke was rather astonished himself. He stared at their
stacked hands to confirm that what he was feeling was real.
A stillness settled over them. Each was aware of the other's suspended
breath, of heartbeats, chaotic but oddly in sync, of spreading heat
beneath their skin, of the pressure of his hand covering hers.
He raised his head and looked at her. The darkness was split by their
searching gazes, eager to connect.
"Did you love your wife?"
Her whisper was so faint, he could barely hear it above his pounding
heart."Barbara?"
"Did you love her?"
Barbara had made more of an impact on him than any woman he'd met up to
that point. She had excited and stimulated him. He had felt better when
with her than without. But through courtship and years of togetherness,
all the times they'd had sex before and after marriage, through every
bitter quarrel as well as the good times, he had never felt what he was
feeling now. It was a total, complete, saturating, all-encompassing
passion for another human being.
"I thought I did," he answered, baffled by the misconception he had
lived under."Maybe not."
Slowly, he repositioned himself until his face hovered above hers, until
their hands, those handcuffed together and those not, were clasped on
either side of her face, and he could feel her breasts rising and
falling beneath him, and taste her breath on his lips.
He laid his cheek along hers, rubbed his nose against her earlobe,
inhaled her scent. For one forbidden moment, he imagined his mouth being
intimate with hers, his hands exploring, that demanding part of himself
being enveloped by her body.
The images were so real, he moaned with longing. But he pulled back.
When he did, she opened her eyes. Tears still glazed them. They also
reflected her confusion."Basile?"
"God knows I want you," he said raspily."But I won't take you. I won't
give you a reason to hate me."
Dredd saw him coming and was standing at the edge of his pier."
Bout time you showed up. I gave you up for a thirty."
"Nobody's killed me yet," Burke said, responding to the policeman's term
for a murder victim."The rain kept me away." Noticing Burke's primitive
repairs, he asked, "What happened to my boat?"
"It got me here, didn't it?" Burke snapped, immediately defensive.
He was in the worst of moods, and the sooner his friend understood that,
the better. Ground rules for any dialogue should be laid now, so there
wouldn't be hard feelings later.
His malcontent stemmed from the night he'd spent lying next to Remy
while upholding his resolve not to touch her. What-he'd told her last
night was only partially true. If he made love to her, she would hate
him. He would be like all the other men, including her husband, who had
exploited her.
The flip side to that coin was that if he made love to her, he would
hate himself.
Five days ago, he'd been contemptuous of her for maintaining a
relationship, any relationship, with a bastard like Pinkie Duvall.
His contempt had shielded him from his own attraction. But now, knowing
what he did about her life before and after Pinkie entered it, his
opinion of her had changed. Drastically. Disturbingly. He could no
longer rely on his contempt to keep him honorable.
"How's it going?"
As the boat drifted toward the pier, Burke tossed the rope up to Dredd.
"Don't ask."
Dredd maneuvered his cigarette to the opposite corner of his mouth.
"Hmm. I'd ask, What's up?" but I think I can pretty well guess that.
The pichouette is getting to you, is she?"
As Burke climbed onto the pier, he shot his friend a sour look.
"What makes you say that?"
"I weren't born yesterday, that's what makes me say that. If she'd been
a butt-ugly ol' gal, this still would have been a bad idea. But seeing
as she's "
"I get your point," Burke said testily.
Dredd wheezed his chain-smoker's laugh."I'd gauge by Father Kevin's
scowl that he hasn't broken his vows of chastity, but he's sure as hell
been tempted to."
Burke ignored his teasing and strode along the pier toward the
building."Have you got any coffee?"
"Do gators shit in the water?"
"I don't know. Do they?"
"Where's Remy at?"
"I left her in the cabin."
"Alone?"
"She'll be okay."
Dredd's dubious look made Burke feel even more uneasy about a decision
that had made him uneasy in the first place.
"How long will you be gone?" she'd asked before he left.
"As long as it takes me to get to Dredd's place, pick up supplies, and
get back."
"Hours."
"You'll be fine."
"Take me with you."
"Bad idea."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know what I'll find when I get there. I
might have to be ... flexible, and I can't be if I'm worried about you
getting hurt."
"I could get hurt here."
"If a boat comes by, stay out of sight. I'll get back as soon as I can."
"What if they arrest you, and I'm stranded here?"
"I'll tell them where you are."
"What if you're killed, and I'm stranded here?"
"Dredd knows where to find you."
The argument continued for another half hour, but he had remained
resolute Now, as he sipped Dredd's strong coffee, he was still haunted
by her little-girl-lost expression as she stood in the doorway of the
> shack and watched him leave. He wouldn't draw an easy breath until he
got back and found her safe. He hadn't forgotten about the men who'd
happened by early last evening looking for Father Gregory.
He mentioned Gregory to Dredd now."Did he by chance come back here?"
"After stealing my boat? Not bloody likely. I'd've shot him on sight."
Burke related the story he'd heard from the search party."I'll be
goddamn," Dredd cackled."A wedding?"
"That's what they said." Burke gestured toward the vintage black
and-white TV set. Dredd disdained communication with the outside world
and turned on the TV only if there was a hurricane brewing in the Gulf.
But Burke had asked him to monitor the local news.
"Anything about us?"
"Nary a word."
"As I thought. Duvall doesn't want anyone to know his wife's been
abducted. Bad publicity."
"It appears that way. But how long can his wife be gone before somebody