by Bush, Nancy
The clock inside her head suddenly ticked loudly. The seconds of her life rapidly flying past.
Not much time left.
Time to take care of Stefan Harmak, she thought, and turned the nose of her car back toward his mother’s split-level home.
Chapter Twelve
September sipped at the glass of red wine and watched Jake as he barbecued steaks in the rain. It was more a light drizzle, really—regular Oregon rain—but it was still wet and dark, and he wore a gray hoodie that obscured his face.
A few moments later he slid open the door from the back patio, a flurry of wind and rain following him inside. “Almost done,” he said, picking up his own glass.
“Don’t overcook mine. Please, God,” September said.
“Not a chance.” He smiled and she lifted one brow because the last time he’d barbecued they’d gotten distracted and her steak had turned into the proverbial shoe leather. Jake didn’t mind his meat well done, but September felt medium rare could maybe have been left on the grill too long.
“So, tell me what Pauline Kirby said,” he prompted her.
“Not until after you finish the steaks.”
“Huh.”
September didn’t really want to talk about the voracious reporter who’d called her just as she was getting ready to leave work. Kirby had wanted information on Stefan Harmak and had called September, who she felt was her liaison within the department, a situation Lieutenant D’Annibal had actually set up as a means of fostering good relations with the press. To that end, he’d given her September’s name, making her the sacrificial lamb.
“I threw Wes under the bus,” she admitted through the crack in the door Jake had left open. She watched him fork the steaks onto a platter before coming back inside, shutting the slider firmly behind him.
“How’d you do that?” he asked.
“I told her that Wes was investigating the attack on Stefan. Didn’t mention that I was working the Ballonni angle.”
“Wes can handle it.”
“I know, but his surgery wasn’t that long ago. The last thing he needs is Pauline climbing up his ass.”
“There’s an image.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” September said glumly. “She only wants to talk to me.”
“You’re her favorite,” Jake said with a grin.
“D’Annibal’s fault. He threw me under the bus and now she thinks she can only talk to me.” September reached into the refrigerator for the bowl of “salad in a bag” she’d mixed together. She set it on the table as Jake refilled their wineglasses. It was after nine by the time they were seated at the kitchen table. September cut into her steak, forked a bite into her mouth that felt like it was melting on her tongue.
“Mmm. You’re getting the hang of this,” she said with a sigh.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She could feel some of the tension dissolve from her shoulders. She hadn’t told Jake everything about the call from Pauline Kirby. It wasn’t just D’Annibal. The pushy reporter seemed to think they had some special bond since September had done the on-camera interview for her. Or, at least that was the tack Kirby took whenever she wanted something, and today she’d wanted information about Stefan Harmak. September had braced herself, expecting Pauline to have made the connection between herself and Stefan, but that hadn’t happened. Maybe she didn’t know yet, or maybe Pauline was playing her, which wasn’t above the woman’s tactics.
“She started out asking me a lot of questions about the fire at my dad’s place,” September admitted. “I thought, wow, really? The fire? Maybe there is something to July’s theory. But it was just to show some interest. Like we’re buddies and she had to ask.”
“Ahh. What was she really after?” he asked.
“What they all want now. Information to connect what happened to Stefan with what happened to Christopher Ballonni. Like I said, I tried to give her to Wes, but she wouldn’t go there. When I stalled her, she even moved on to questions about the suicide victim, Carrie Lynne Carter.”
“That’s definitely suicide?” Jake asked.
“It looks that way. Carrie Lynne’s mother’s convinced her daughter committed suicide, and maybe she did. Pauline was just fishing around, asking me any questions she could think of, but the real story she was after was Stefan’s.”
“Does she know yet that you and Stefan were related?”
“Nope. She didn’t bring it up, and she probably would’ve if she had known. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. Verna, Stefan, and I are not friends.” She finished up her plate and picked up her glass of wine, heading toward the sink. “She’s going to think I was purposely holding out on her when she does find out.”
“You are.” Jake followed and helped her clean off the dishes and load the dishwasher. Then September wiped down the table while Jake went at the grill with a steel brush.
Afterward, they moved into his family room with their wineglasses. September eased herself onto the couch, lying the length of it, while Jake took the recliner in front of the massive television. Once settled, they looked at each other and laughed, and Jake said in mock horror, “My God. We’re like an old married couple.”
“It’s only because of my shoulder,” September disagreed firmly. “As soon as I’m 100 percent I’ll prove you wrong.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll wrestle you for the recliner.”
“You’re going to have a fight on your hands,” he warned her.
“Just so you know, this is all an act. I’m tougher than I look.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You don’t believe me?”
He was looking at her, his eyes full of amusement. September felt her breath catch a little as she smiled back. Sometimes she could hardly believe she and Jake were together and she was moving in. Actually, she was moved in already, really. Tomorrow they were just bringing in the final pieces of her furniture.
The wine created a pleasant lethargy and when Jake turned on the television her thoughts wandered to her work, her mind reviewing all the pieces of the cases that she’d been working, picking at loose threads. She was drifting off to sleep when a cell phone started ringing somewhere, and she jumped awake before she realized it was Jake’s, not hers.
His phone was still in the kitchen, so he made a sound of annoyance as he got up to answer it. While he was gone, she eased onto her side and faced the television. Jake had turned the sound down low, probably when she started to fall asleep, and she could hear him as he answered his cell.
“Hello,” he said in such a cautious way that September’s ears pricked up. He was silent for a few moments, then he said, “Loni, I really can’t talk right now.” A pause. “Well, I’m kind of tied up this weekend, but maybe next week.”
Jake’s tone was polite but disinterested. It was clear he was just trying to put her off. September tried to tamp down her anxiety about Loni; Jake and his ex-girlfriend had been together too long for her to consider it nothing whenever Loni contacted him. But she could tell Jake didn’t want to talk to her and it wasn’t because September was in the other room.
Loni, apparently, heard it, too, because after another long silence, Jake’s voice remarked, “I’m not available this weekend. That’s all I said.” Another pause while Loni spoke, then, “Sure. Just call. I’m around.” After several attempts at trying to say good-bye, he was able to finally hang up.
A few minutes later he returned with a full glass of wine. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
“Loni wants to see you.”
“Man . . .” He shook his head, then seeing her empty glass, said, “I’ll get you another.”
“No. No, thanks.” She pulled herself to a sitting position. “I don’t think I can handle another glass. I’m already passing out.”
“Go ahead and pass out. Get some rest because we have a big moving day tomorrow.” He came over to her and leaned in and kissed her, holding her tight. “Don
’t let her bother you.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” she denied.
“Yeah, it does.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Okay, it doesn’t bother you.” He pulled back to look at her.
“Well, shit,” September muttered, which made him laugh.
“One of these days she’ll get the message,” he assured her.
“Yeah.”
“I’m serious.” He kissed her on the mouth, then said lightly, “But I might have to marry you to get it across.”
“Who says I’d marry you?”
“Will you marry me?”
She looked at him sideways. “No.”
“Yes, you will.”
“You’re an arrogant son of a gun,” she muttered.
“Oh, come on. When it’s time, it’ll be a yes, right?”
“What are you saying? Is this something I should be worrying about?” she asked.
“Worrying,” Jake repeated on a groan. “That’s not the word. Anticipating.”
“Is this something I should be anticipating?” she asked.
He gazed at her hard, the smile slowly disappearing from his lips. “Yes,” he said, and then he studiously ignored her while he channel-surfed, and September tried to tamp down the sweet feeling spreading through her like a hot wave.
Graham was sick with fear and excitement and a kind of latent desire left over from Jilly that he was seriously trying to channel toward Daria, though he was afraid if she pushed things, he wouldn’t be able to perform. It was a delicate balance with him trying to trick his mind into believing she was something she wasn’t, and he was afraid he was getting worse at it.
She’d come home unexpectedly and had damn near given him a heart attack. What if he’d been scoring with another girl and brought her home? God, he could just imagine Daria walking in on that!
The vision of what could have happened had left him on edge from the moment he’d walked in the house to find her already home. Her bags were on the dining room floor and he’d asked in a voice pitched much too high, “How did you get back?”
“I called a taxi.” She’d come toward him then, but he’d turned to the living room, needing some space. She’d caught him in front of the window and embraced and kissed him.
“I meant, how did you get back so soon?” he said.
“I’ll tell you later. I see you’ve been driving my car instead of your old station wagon,” she added, a soft rebuke.
The Chrysler wagon was one of his dad’s cars that Graham had appropriated. It wasn’t that old, really, but it was a station wagon. He wanted a sports car, and he was determined to have one. He just didn’t have the money right now. He’d been sucked into an investment that had turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, and he was still fighting his way out of it.
“C’mon,” she’d said, clasping his hand and dragging him forward.
His pulse had fluttered in his head when he saw she was dragging him toward the bedroom—would she see the semen stain he’d quickly wiped off the cover? He’d dropped her hand, made some excuse and headed for the kitchen instead. A few moments later she’d returned, questions in her eyes, and for a moment he’d thought the gig was up. But then she’d said, “I’m hungry. Anything in the refrigerator?”
“Uh . . . some leftover pizza?”
“Good. Anything.” She flopped a slice of pizza on a plate and put it in the microwave, then pulled out the stainless steel pot from the coffee maker and began making some of the horrible coffee she brewed.
Then his throat tightened when she said, “Something sticky here on the floor.”
He didn’t answer. Pretended he didn’t either hear or care.
But she persisted. “What spilled?”
“Huh. Oh, some lemonade.”
“Since when do you make lemonade?”
He shrugged. “I was thinking of making us some lemon drops. . . .”
“Well, look at you,” she said, amused, which got under his skin.
After the pizza, he kind of thought he was home free, but suddenly, as if drawn by a magnet, she’d walked over to the mantel and picked up the Maori figurine, fingering it lovingly for a few moments.
Shit. Fuck! He’d thought he might die. He’d actually stumbled toward the entry hall, his gaze frantically searching for any telltale sign that would give him away: a drop of blood, a strand of long hair, anything he’d forgotten.
His movement only drew her closer to him, closer to the scene of the crime. He’d stiffened when she’d suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist and drew herself against him, purring, “I missed all this, and you most of all.”
She’d been gone less than three days.
“I missed you, too,” he lied, his eyes traveling to the entry hall floor.
Then she was nuzzling his neck, but his mind was traveling. The one who hadn’t been missed, apparently, was Jilly. There’d been nothing on the news about her disappearance. Maybe no one would report her. Maybe the douche bag she’d been with would just think she went home, wherever that was, and not worry about her. He sure hadn’t seemed all that interested in having her around. Maybe she lived alone and it would be weeks, or months, before anyone thought about her again.
But no. That was fantasy shit talking. He couldn’t lie to himself. Too dangerous. She’d been a student in his sixth-grade class, for God’s sake! She’d gone to Twin Oaks ten years earlier. My God. Ten years. It made him feel old and now, being with HER, just made him feel older.
And Jilly . . . someone would realize she was gone and it could happen as early as tonight, twenty-four hours after he’d picked her up. Then what? They would trace her back to the guy with the BMW and probably then to Gulliver’s. Mark, the bartender, would remember him, but he’d left without her. He’d made certain of that. She’d driven off with her boyfriend, or whatever he was, and no one knew about him, so he should be safe, he really should, but if they believed the boyfriend’s story that he left her in the parking lot, and Mark talked too much, and the police started looking around, and—
“Graham,” Daria said, breaking into his frantic thoughts.
“What?” he bit out. Everything about her just put his teeth on edge.
“I’m talking to you. Good heavens, where are you?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, smiling, but though she was teasing, he wanted to smash his fist into her mouth.
“Right here. What do you think?”
“No need to bite my head off. I just thought you’d be a little happier to see me.”
She’d looked at him suggestively and had waggled her brows, letting him know she was ready to get laid. Graham had deliberately ignored all that, asking instead why she was home so early, both because he really wanted to know and to gain himself some time to work up some enthusiasm, since she clearly expected him to perform.
“Louisville canceled,” she said, pursing her lips. “Not a big enough turnout, they said, but that just means the promoters didn’t do their job. So, I just turned around in Phoenix and came back to surprise you.”
“What about San Antonio?”
“No, that’s next week, honey,” she chided him. “You have to open your ears.”
Open his ears? Bullshit. He kind of thought she’d purposely misled him. Maybe to check up on him? If that was the game she was playing, the stakes were getting higher by the minute.
Which made his dick suddenly jump up and now he found he did want to fuck her. Good. He would be able to perform and then she would get her trained circus animal to go through all his tricks.
But he didn’t want to go to the bedroom. He wanted to throw her down in the entry hall, right there, where Jilly had fallen down. With that in mind, he grabbed her, sliding his hands up her arms.
“Oh, my,” she said, in a kittenish tone that nearly turned his stomach, and he had to concentrate on the memory of Jilly’s body, recalling the way it fell in a heap, the crunch of her skull cracking.
When he
tried to move Daria from the window to the entry hall, she murmured, “What are you doing?”
“Shhh . . .”
“The bedroom’s that way,” she said, inclining her head in the other direction.
Like he didn’t know that. His anger leaped upward and it took all he had to keep from hitting her. With an effort, he said tautly, “Just go with me, here. And shut up,” he added, trying to make it sound light when his nerves were screaming at the sound of her metallic voice.
“Well, let me just get the blinds, Romeo.”
Easing out of his arms, she drew down the blinds over the front window. It gave him a moment’s pause when he thought about how he’d grabbed the Maori figurine and slammed it into Jilly’s head in full view of anyone looking in. But Daria’s house was down a long, winding private drive, and there was no way anyone had seen him.
But what if they had?
A ribbon of fear ran like ice through his veins, yet it only served to make him harder. He grabbed Daria again as soon as the blinds dropped and spun her around.
“Hey,” she said, surprised.
Before she could protest further, he pushed her into the entry hall and up against the wall, pressing his hot body against hers, letting her feel his rock-hard cock.
“Baby,” she whispered, thrilled, and he couldn’t . . . listen . . . anymore. He practically yanked her off her feet and onto the floor. She went down like wax, melting along the wall, and he climbed on top of her and shimmied up her skirt, running a hand up her leg. There was a moment of tangle with the pantyhose but he got them down to her ankles and undid his own zipper.
Then he was on her, grabbing her ass and pulling her hips upward. She gasped when he slammed into her and he had to close his ears to the sound.
Jilly . . . Jilly . . . Molly . . .
She was moaning and thrashing and clawing at him and he wanted her to stop being so aggressive.
“Ulysses,” she breathed.
His first name. The one he detested and never used. Placing his hand over her mouth and pressing down, he pumped hard and fast and it was Molly who filled his vision with her soft green eyes and ponytail and he came with a loud groan of pleasure as he spilled into her....