Zack and Pepper burst into laughter.
Hope's expression went through various perambulations before it settled on disgust. "All right," she said grudgingly. "So he's having the time of his life. Can you blame me for worrying about an old man?"
"We expect nothing less, darling." Zack hugged her shoulders, and, after a moment of stiffness, she laid her head on his chest.
Before Jason could make kissy noises—juvenile, he knew, but so necessary when two men had known each other so long—the video went dead.
Gabriel had cut the transmission with Boston.
As Jason got ready for bed under the watchful eyes of Senator George Oberlin's flunkies, he managed to look worried, but when he shut off the light, nothing could stop his grin.
Griswald was right. This sort of vigilante justice was fun, especially if it succeeded in reuniting the Prescott family at last.
And Jason cherished a secret dream, because although everyone knew the truth, no one talked about it. Yet the unalterable fact was—someone had murdered Bennett and Lana Prescott, and that person needed to be brought to justice.
George Oberlin should be brought to justice.
TWELVE
That is one damned clumsy kiss.
It was two in the morning. Teague sat parked in front of Dean's house with the headlights fixed right on Dean and Kate while Dean tried to get more than a peck on the cheek out of his date.
Teague was not in the mood to see Dean Sanders put his hands on Kate and discover for himself what she hid beneath her skirt.
God. Nothing. She had nothing on under there.
Teague put his hand on the door, ready to leap out and pull her free of Dean's embrace.
But Kate pushed herself away, gestured toward Teague, and shook her head.
"Good girl," Teague whispered. He watched as she walked carefully back to the car. He opened the door for her and watched her slip inside. "Did you make another date?" he asked roughly.
"Let's go home." She slid her hands down her thighs as if smoothing the wrinkles out of the fragile silk of her dress.
Yet Teague couldn't tear his gaze away. "You know, for such a prissy girl, you're good at torment." Jamming the gearshift into first, he roared away from the curb. The dark streets whipped past them. "Did you make another date?"
"No. Slow down. We don't want the police to stop us."
"I know them all." But he eased off the gas and made his way sedately to Kate's loft. Because he didn't want the police to stop them. He didn't want to take the time to prove he was sober. He didn't want to show his ID and explain what he was doing with Kate. He just wanted to get to Kate's home, into Kate's bed, and sate himself with her body.
He pulled the car into her marked parking place. He surveyed the well-lit sidewalks, the small patches of grass, the meager planter beside the door. His gaze lingered on the Dumpster, the only place where anyone could hide. But nothing moved. For the moment, they were safe.
Yet while Kate's safety remained of paramount importance to him, his own safety meant nothing. He didn't care about professional ethics. Beyond all sense, he had to have her.
The faint light painted Kate in shadow like a classic drawing created in the dusk. Her large eyes watched him, but he couldn't discern her expression. Trepidation? Excitement? Triumph? He didn't know. He couldn't guess. He only knew she'd been teasing him all night with the motion of her sleek, clean body, her knowing laughter, the rich scent of her lavender perfume. She embodied every dream he'd never allowed himself to have . . . and she had agreed to his terms. She had offered herself to him.
He had been holding himself in check for hours. Now, with a deep groan, he reached across from his seat to hers. He pulled her into his arms. The console with its emergency brake was between them; he didn't care. He didn't care about the discomfort of their positions. He had to touch her.
He cradled her neck in his hands. Her heart beat rapidly against his fingertips, her breath hurried through her lips. He kissed her and she kissed him back, giving everything, keeping nothing.
She was pliant, leaning into him, her hands tangled in his hair, her fingers palpitating with some inner rhythm he recognized as akin to his own. Her tongue pulsed in his mouth; she was aggressive and yielding at the same time.
The slow, wet kiss tested the limits of his endurance. He'd watched her all night. When he had discovered she was nude beneath her gown, each step she took became torture for him. He had imagined touching the silk of her gown and the more intriguing silk of her bare shoulders, imagined sliding one slender strap down and freeing a taut breast.
Now with his eyes half closed, he smoothed his palm across her back. His fingertips skated across her shoulder blades. He moved along each vertebra, worshipping the strong muscles and sinews of her back. With each touch, an anguish of anticipation shot through him.
And her, for she broke away. Her voice was breathless, husky, dangerous. "Are we going to have sex in here? Because if we are, I get the top. That gearshift would be murder." She was laughing, yet she was serious, too.
"Do you want to have sex in the car?" His mouth watered as he imagined immediate payback after the hours of torture.
"I don't know . . I don't know if I can wait any longer."
Her admission allowed him to take a long breath. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. She was as desperate as he was, and that . . . that gave him the power to break free of the enchantment that bound him.
"Come on," he said roughly. "We've got to go in. I want to make love to you all night long. I can't do that here."
And it wasn't safe. Her stalker was still at large. Since Teague had come on the job, there had been no contact at all. That made him hypervigilant. Before he lay down with Kate, he needed to be somewhere protected by locks and alarms. For once he slid into the depths of her body, he would be blind and deaf to every threat.
All his life, oblivion had beckoned. He had challenged death, taunted death, not caring whether the darkness took him or not. But now . . . he wanted to live with a fierceness that burned his soul. He had to have this chance with Kate. He had to taste her once before he died.
And then, if he was lucky, he would taste her again.
Once more he surveyed the parking lot. Nothing had changed. Nothing had moved.
"Come on," he said again, and started to open the door.
She grabbed his lapel, jerked him back, and kissed him. My God, how she kissed him! Her tongue separated his lips, took his mouth with a thunderstorm of brilliant, superheated lightning. For too many long seconds, the only thing in the world that existed was Kate Montgomery and the way she branded him with need and lust.
Pulling away, he leaped from the car. The weight of sexual desire was so heavy he almost staggered as he moved quickly to her side to help her out.
She let him assist her, sliding her legs from the car and standing in one graceful exercise.
She strode toward her building and didn't look back, appearing regal and cool. Yet he knew the grip of excitement carried her along. As he watched her the reality hit him—he was going to press her into the mattress and take her, and when they were done . . . his whole life would be different. He didn't want that change, knew it would result in anguish for him, but damn it, he couldn't resist her.
He hurried to catch up with her, herding her with his hand in the middle of her back. She leaned into him, surrendering to him as completely as he surrendered to her. Her breathing, her warmth, her beauty overwhelmed him.
Yet . . . his instincts could never be completely subdued. As they passed the Dumpster, he went on alert.
A blur of motion drew his gaze to the right.
A blade flashed in the dim light.
Someone rushed at them. At Kate.
This was it. Her stalker.
Sexual frustration transformed into rage.
Teague shoved Kate out of the way. He whirled and met her attacker, knocking the knife away, taking the oncoming body down with all the f
inesse of a linebacker.
At once he registered the thin, fine bones of a woman. He couldn't halt his rush, but he didn't twist and break her wrist as he had intended. He only held her as they bounced on the grass.
She screamed, a thin, high-pitched sound of terror that was cut off as his weight momentarily crushed her. She smelled of fine perfume, velvet, and vodka. He flipped her on her stomach, arms behind her back.
"Who is it?" Kate demanded from beside him. Then, "Mrs. Oberlin!"
Yes, of course. He held pathetic, tearful Evelyn Oberlin. The senator's wife began weeping violently, tears pouring out of her as if a dam had broken. "I'm s-s-sorry." Her teeth were chattering. She shuddered in great convulsions. "I'm s-so sorry."
"Me, too, lady." Grimly, Teague ran his hand down her body, looking for more weapons. She had none. He found nothing more than a fine silk bag hung on a string around her neck.
Taking it off, he handed it to Kate. "What's in there?"
Kate glanced inside. "Pills. A lot of pills."
"Yeah." This lady was so skinny she was on the verge of starvation. She shook like she had the DTs, and he would bet if they checked her medical records, she'd been in a dry-out facility more than once.
"I d-didn't mean t-to hurt you." With her free hand, Mrs. Oberlin clawed at Kate. "I just . . . I just didn't want him to kill you again."
Teague exchanged a significant glance with Kate. This lady was an alcoholic drug addict, and crackers to boot.
"So you tried to hit her with your car?" he demanded.
"A few b-bruises are better than dying!" Mrs. Oberlin managed to make that sound like good sense.
"Good Lord," Kate blankly said to Teague. "I didn't think she'd really done that." "Did you see the knife?" Teague asked. "That wasn't a bouquet she was holding." "You don't understand." Mrs. Oberlin's tears dried. Her voice rose to a shriek. She struggled to get up.
Teague wouldn't release her wrist.
"What doesn't Teague understand?" Without a care for her expensive, sexy dress, Kate knelt beside Mrs. Oberlin. "Tell me."
"Kate, this is no time for a goddamn interview." Teague was so furious he could scarcely speak. He wanted to crush Mrs. Oberlin into the dirt for threatening Kate. If she hadn't been a woman, hadn't been impaired, he would have. As it was, he could scarcely contain his rage. "Call the cops."
"In a minute." Kate stayed on the grass, her voice so kind Mrs. Oberlin stopped fighting and pressed her head to the grass. "What doesn't Teague understand?"
"He was going to kill you again. He did it before." Mrs. Oberlin enunciated each word with painful clarity. "I wanted to chase you away, that's all, because otherwise he was going to kill you again."
"Damn it, Kate!" Teague fumbled in his jacket for his cell phone.
"You're not the only one, you know." Mrs. Oberlin kept her gaze fixed on Kate. Softhearted Kate, who listened as if she could make sense of that mumbo jumbo. Teague dialed 911 and instructed the operator to send a squad car now.
"Mrs. Blackthorn realized it first. Before I did, even. She thought . . ." Mrs. Oberlin panted as if she were hyperventilating. Then she pulled herself together. "The old woman thought she was invincible, so when I came home, she was at the . . . at the . . . at the . . ."
"Take a breath." Kate stroked Mrs. Oberlin's hair back and waited while she did as she was told. Then she prompted, "Where was Mrs. Blackthorn?"
"At the bottom of the stairs. Her skinny neck was broken. They said . . . the sheriff said . . . he said she smelled like whiskey, that she was a secret tippler. But she wasn't. Then when I said so, the sheriff said"—Mrs. Oberlin stopped, groaned as if she were recalling some great pain—"he said maybe I pushed her. But I didn't! I wasn't home!"
"I believe you," Kate said soothingly.
Teague couldn't decide if Mrs. Oberlin knew something or had a marvelous imagination. Then he decided he didn't care. This damned crazy Evelyn Oberlin had interrupted his night with Kate.
"Then he said he wasn't there when she died." Mrs. Oberlin looked around as if she were afraid someone would get her, and she whispered, "But he was."
"Senator Oberlin?" Kate questioned.
Mrs. Oberlin screamed so suddenly Kate jumped back. "Of course, Senator Oberlin!"
Teague tightened his grip.
Mrs. Oberlin struggled briefly, then subsided.
As if she'd never exploded in excitement, Mrs. Oberlin said, "Then . . . then . . . then I started to be afraid . . . and I knew it was my fault."
"What was your fault?" Kate signaled to Teague to let the old lady up.
He refused with an emphatic shake of the head. He'd seen cases like this before. People so berserk and strung out on drugs they could rise from frailty to attack and tear and maim. This old lady admitted to stalking Kate—for Kate's own good, of course. Now she was blaming her husband—who Teague knew to be a pompous ass, but without a whiff of scandal attached to his name—for her problems, and babbling about how she had prevented him from killing Kate again.
"That he killed you. I should have known." Mrs. Oberlin closed her eyes as if she were in agony. "I should have told them, but I love him." She started blubbering again, and her words were so slurred Teague had to struggle to understand her. "I love him so much. So I try not to think about it, but the ghosts are always there, staring at me, their flesh all ragged and their eyes . . . their eyes . . . their eyes empty . . . Lana, I'm sorry Please . . . I'm so sorry."
Mrs. Oberlin gazed into thin air as if she saw a ghost now, stared so fixedly the hair rose on the back of Teague's head.
He couldn't help looking, also. Nothing was there.
Kate looked, too, and shook her head.
Spooky.
In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens.
"He's going to kill me. He hates it when I . . . when I . . ." Mrs. Oberlin started to convulse beneath him, and at last Teague let her go.
Bleakly, he and Kate watched her vomit in the grass.
"Go upstairs." He didn't look at her. "Put on some jeans, make some coffee—the cops will want it. I'll take care of her."
"What's going to happen?" Kate whispered.
"She's going to a hospital to dry out. There'll be a big scandal. Oberlin's going to let it die down; then he'll divorce her." All of Teague's latent cynicism came out. "She's a liability to his position."
"She thinks he's a murderer." Kate watched her with sorrowful eyes. "Do you think . . . ?"
"Damn it, Kate, she thinks he killed you. She's been stalking you for your own good." Teague didn't want to touch Kate right now, but he had to take her hand. It trembled in his, and her fingers felt like ice. "Honey, she is so crazy, and he is so fastidious. I don't know why she fixated on you, but she's hallucinating. You saw her do
it. She thought she saw a ghost standing right there." He pointed. "You know she did. Go upstairs. Make yourself comfortable, and settle yourself in for a long siege because the police are going to want to question you for quite a while."
"Okay." Kate lingered still, and she sounded guilty and torn when she said, "I have to call Brad. This is a tragedy, but it's a story, too. He'll break me into tiny pieces if I don't."
"Do what you have to do."
She heard the tone in his voice, saw the way he half turned away. "This is the end, isn't it?"
He didn't pretend. "Yeah. It's a good thing this happened, because you and me together . . . that's stupid."
"I don't think it's stupid."
"We've got nothing in common."
"Since when did you become the voice of reason?" she asked bitterly. He tried to reply, say something else superficial and soothing, but she slashed the sounds with her hand. "You and me would be the best thing that ever happened."
Now he pretended he didn't know what she meant. "Obviously, the reports are overrated. I'm not that good in bed."
Because she wasn't talking about sex. She was talking about the ties that bound them, and how making love would cement those ties
.
"Yeah. Sure." She tugged her hand away from his.
He held it for a second too long. "Go call your mother. Tell her you're all right." Then he let her go. He watched her walk away, then turned his attention to the wailing police cars as they swung into the parking lot.
She'd be happier. He'd be happier.
It was better this way.
Softly, he heard Mrs. Oberlin say, "Lana, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry"
"Get me the car." George Oberlin put the phone down gently, oh so gently, and turned to Freddy. "I've got to go."
"Yes, sir." As George tried to shrug his way into his discarded dinner jacket, Freddy caught the collar and assisted. "I hope it's not an emergency, sir."
"Don't be ridiculous," George said angrily. "Why else would I go out at this hour?"
It was two-thirty in the morning. The anniversary guests were all gone. The caterers were still cleaning up and carrying dishes to their vans. Servants wiped up wine spills and moved closer so they could listen.
And George was livid. That stupid bitch he'd married had really done it now.
"Is there anything I can do to assist you, sir?" Freddy asked.
George wanted to snap at him. But he had a reputation for being calm in a crisis. It was a distinction that had served him well when it came to public appearances. "No, thank you, Freddy. This is something I have to do for myself. I'll let you know if I require aid."
He headed for the door, and somehow Freddy got there before him to open it, a courtesy that annoyed George so much he could scarcely breathe.
Then Freddy followed George down to the car and opened that door for him, too, and that almost sent George over the edge.
But it wasn't really Freddy who aggravated George. It was Evelyn. According to the cops, she'd tried to attack Kate Montgomery with a knife. Worse than that, it wasn't the first time she'd attacked Kate. Kate had been in fear for her life. She had had a stalker, and Teague Ramos had been her bodyguard. . . .
George bent to enter the car, then slowly straightened.
Of course. Now that they'd caught her stalker, now that they'd caught Evelyn, Kate would be done with Ramos.
CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) Page 13