Twin Offerings

by Ruth Parker

  Her fear and awkwardness evaporated as he held her close and kissed her. His tongue was confident and sure, and she followed his lead. The heat was building between her legs, throbbing and incessant, the sort of nagging ache that demanded a response. When he broke their kiss, she was embarrassed that a little whine escaped her lips. She hadn’t wanted that kiss to end, and she struggled to catch her breath. He grabbed her shirt and pulled it over her head. Her breasts tumbled free as he threw her shirt on the floor. He took them in both hands, squeezing tight. This was it. This was what she needed. It didn’t matter that he would be leaving town in a few days. It didn’t matter that he would probably write about her and her sister in one of his books and make piles of money off of it.

  And it especially didn’t matter that she’d been lying to him from the second they’d met.

  All that mattered was that he was tearing off her clothes and she was willing to accept his hard, eager flesh inside of her.

  She was panting, needing more than just his hands on her body. Seemingly able to read her mind, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the couch. As he held her, stumbling awkwardly to the couch, Laurel felt a blossom of something inside her chest that was not lust, was not desire.

  It might have been need. Worse. It might have been love.

  He threw her down on the couch and grabbed her waist. “Fuck,” he said. “I wanted to do this the second I saw you.”

  She arched her back, allowing him to pull off her sweatpants. He tore them off with a ferocity that made her stomach weak. She’d never been with a man who was this eager, who wanted her this much. And it was driving her crazy. “Please,” she whispered, not sure, exactly, what she was asking him.

  He knelt before her, prying her legs apart. Not that she put up much resistance. He spread her legs and trailed his hands down her thighs. As she squirmed, he pulled her panties over to the side and probed a finger between her hot flesh. She pushed against his hand, feeling his thick finger slide inside her. It was like magic, his finger finding the right spot, stroking, teasing, making her scream.

  “Please,” she gasped again. She looked down and saw him, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  “Please what?” he asked.

  “I’m close,” she panted.

  “Well that’s too bad, because I’m not,” he said. He withdrew his finger and yanked off her panties. “I need to taste you.” He buried his head between her legs, slowly, carefully finding the right rhythm and the right speed. His stubble was rough and scraped against her soft, shaved skin.

  He worked his lips, his tongue, sucking gently until she felt it coming, her orgasm building and ready to break. He pulled away. She felt his breathing, hot and fast against her skin. “Maybe we should stop,” he said. There was mischief in his voice. “Unless, that is, you want me to keep going.” She felt his tongue, gentle and slow, between her legs.

  “Yes,” she screamed. “Don’t stop.” She was ashamed of herself, but couldn’t help it. All her life she’d fought to maintain strict control, and here she was, letting it all out the window the second a hot guy got her out of her clothes.

  “If you insist,” he said, and latched back on to her, his mouth warm and wet, his tongue working with a soft finesse that she’d never experienced before.

  It was enough to push her over the edge. She reached down and grabbed his hair, holding him in place. He kept his pace and soon she felt the heat gathering, then—explosion. She tried to contain it, but could not. She ground her hips against his face, pushing, feeling every taste bud scrape against her in the most sensitive and glorious way.

  As it faded, she felt the shame begin to creep over her. What the hell did she just do, other than make a fool of herself in front of the profiler from D.C. who was finally going to catch her sister’s killer?

  “Fuck,” he said. “That was too hot. I’m not going to be able to last.” He got up onto his knees and wedged himself between her legs.

  He grabbed his length and pushed it against her, rubbing it back and forth against her sensitive nub. She squirmed beneath him, trying to angle herself to accept him. She wanted to feel him inside her.

  “I want it,” she gasped. “Now.” She was more than half-mad with desire. Not the desire for sex and the release that would come with it. She wanted Fletcher—and she wanted him inside her.

  “Fuck,” he said again. He put himself between her lips and she felt herself being held open by his erection. It was a delicious, maddening, frustrating tease.

  “Please,” she said. She tried to push into him, but he pulled back. His hands caressed her face.

  “Look at me,” he said. She opened her eyes, which she didn’t realize she’d been closing. She looked up, into his dark and stormy eyes. He held her gaze, piercing her very soul with his stare. This was the man who’d been trying to find her sister’s killer, who’d put himself in danger, who’d understood and thought of the connections that no one else had.

  And none of that mattered. All she wanted was for him to fill her up. Completely.

  As if on cue, he thrust inside her. All the way. She screamed out.

  “That’s tight,” he said, and thrust faster. He was like a madman possessed. His desire, his fervor was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was like he wanted her. All of her. Her very essence.

  And he couldn’t get enough.

  It was too much. She didn’t want to come again so quickly, but she couldn’t help it. With every thrust, every push deeper inside, she was closer and closer.

  She closed her eyes and then felt it—from the center of her being, spreading quickly outward to engulf her entire body. She exploded, screaming and thrusting her hips beneath him. He grabbed her by the waist and she relished the feel of his strong hands around her. She screamed out, not caring if she was going overboard. It had never felt like this before, this intense. This real.

  Instead of fading, the feeling intensified as he quickened his pace. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer. She hadn’t had the feeling of a strong man on top of her in a long time. His skin against her skin was warm and welcome.

  “Here you go,” he said. He let out a long groan and shuddered deep inside her. He collapsed on top of her, breathing hard. She wriggled down off the couch, her arms still around him, and the two of them fell to the floor.

  There was a cold draft coming in through the cracks, and the wood floor was hard and rough, but she put her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. She’d never been more comfortable, more warm in her entire life.

  Nineteen

  Laurel was sitting at her dinner table, drinking coffee, when her cell phone rang. Her laptop was open to the Tribune website. “New Slayings Related to Cold Case,” was the headline. It was a long article, light on fact, but the writer had an imagination and was not afraid of making assumptions. Laurel didn’t need to read it, but she read it anyway. Three times.

  Fletcher had made her call out of work. She’d protested—she still hadn’t properly analyzed the paint samples from the orange nail polish—but his face was so stern that she knew he would brook no argument. He’d also made her promise not to open the door, not to step foot outside the house for any reason, and to keep her gun at her side at all times. He thought he could finish up early at the Sheriff’s Department early and bring the rest of his paperwork back to her house.

  At nine, he’d texted her. At the beep of her phone, she felt a thrill, hoping he was texting to say he’d be home soon. She knew that giving in to her lust last night had been a mistake, but if she was going to screw up, she might as well go all-in. She knew that he cared for her, but all that would change if he knew how she’d really escaped from the killer. But he would be going back to D.C. soon and none of that would matter. She could at least enjoy his company for the time being.

  Instead of texting her that he was coming home soon, he’d texted the link to the Tribune article. Be prepared for the shit storm, he’d writte
n.

  After she read the article, she’d become cagey, antsy. She didn’t know what she would do with herself all day long. She couldn’t stay in the house and watch courtroom reality shows and local action news at noon. But she had promised Fletcher. She put down her coffee cup—it was too oily and bitter this morning—and paced her living room. She wanted to find this jerk. Not just analyze paint samples and run immunoassays—actually find him in the flesh. She wanted to bust down his door and make him hurt. Cut and poke and slice until he told her what had happened to Leigh.

  Her phone rang. It was on the dinner table, next to her laptop and gun. She didn’t recognize the phone number on the display, but it was a local 541 area code. “Hello?” she asked. She could hear the white background noise, loud and warbling in her ear.

  “Laurel Gates?” It was a woman. She was shouting, the way some people always shouted when they were on a cell phone. The loud voice combined with the loud background made Laurel’s teeth ache.

  “Who is this?” she asked. Now that the Tribune had rehashed all the details of her sister’s abduction alongside the gruesome details of the new crimes, Laurel was prepared for the rest of the vermin to come out of the woodwork looking for a tasty scrap. If it bleeds, it leads—wasn’t that the news media’s motto?

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” the woman shouted. “Listen to me. Do not hang up. I’m from the Tribune—”

  Laurel hung up.

  The shit storm had rolled in. The first raindrops were starting to land. Soon it would start to pour. Laurel really wanted to be in the lab today. Being sealed up in layers of double-locked doors, phones restricted to inter-office calls, work absorbing her every thought—that was the only time the tight fist of her brain could unclench and she would think of nothing else but her work. There was no room for other thoughts, no room for the guilt, the sickness.

  In the lab, she could stop the thought that was behind all other thoughts: I killed my sister.

  Her phone rang again. She looked at the screen. It was that same number, the reporter.

  “What?” Laurel said, answering the phone. “Are you driving or something? The background noise is terrible.”

  “I’m on my way to your house, you idiot. Don’t hang up, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You’re on the way to my house? Who the hell are you?” Laurel pushed away from the table, leaving her laptop and her coffee. Damned vermin. She frantically went through her house, pulling all the curtains, locking all the doors, racking the slide on her Glock.

  “My name is Meredith Turner. I’m the editor at the Tribune. I got a package from the Tea Party Killer,” the reporter yelled.

  “You got a package from who?” Laurel asked, but she knew. No one had given the unsub a name yet, but Tea Party Killer was as good as any.

  “The guy who took your sister. He called me—he fucking called me!” The reporter was triumphant.

  Laurel couldn’t think of anything to say. Fletcher’s father was right. Unless this reporter was lying. Although Laurel couldn’t imagine anyone being able to fake this sort of enthusiasm; even over the phone, it was clear that this reporter was half out of her mind with holy journalistic fervor. Laurel wouldn’t be surprised if the reporter started speaking in tongues.

  “What did he say?” Laurel was surprised at how calm her own voice sounded. Her entire adult life she’d lived carefully and secretively—her caution often bordering on delusional paranoia. Except, you’re not paranoid if they really are after you.

  He was really after her.

  Fifteen years later, he hadn’t forgotten the girl who’d climbed out of the bathroom window while her own sister lay passed out and vomiting on the photography studio floor.

  “He dropped off a package at the Tribune office,” the reporter, Meredith, said. “He called my desk to tell me to go outside and get it.”

  Laurel had been checking the locks on her bedroom windows when she stopped, her hand hovering above the latch. All her fear and dread was forgotten and anger burned hot in her chest. “Why didn’t you call the cops? They could trace the call.”

  “Honey,” the reporter said casually, “I can trace the call. And you bet your sweet ass that I did. It came from a burner cell phone, one of those disposable jobs you get at 7-Eleven for twenty-five bucks. Those SIM cards you pop into the phone are prepaid and untraceable.”

  “They can access the sales records, subpoena the phone company,” Laurel protested. She knew that it was a slim chance to find out the owner of the phone, but it wasn’t unheard of. “You’re withholding evidence.”

  “Oh, don’t start on me about withholding evidence. I learned a lot from that little package that our mutual friend dropped off—I researched your sister’s disappearance and there were a few things that didn’t quite add up.”

  Laurel’s heart sank. This old bird was going to blackmail her. Why else was she speeding to her house? If the newspaper printed a story about Laurel’s past—all of her past—then her career would very well be over.

  There were only two people on earth who knew exactly what happened that day fifteen years ago. Laurel and the killer. How much had he told the reporter?

  “How long until you get here?” Laurel asked. Maybe it was for the best that everything came out. Once Fletcher found out the truth about what she’d done, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her anymore. She’d been stupid to get involved with him, knowing that they could have no future together. All she’d managed to do was cause more pain between the two of them.

  “I’m turning down your street,” the reporter said. “Get your hiking boots on.”

  The woods were cold. The thick copse of trees blotted out what scant sunlight managed to slice between the clouds. Even inside the lined leather gloves, his hands were stiff and aching with the cold damp air. He pushed the discomfort out of his mind. He had learned how to focus, how to block out all sound, all feeling. He waited behind the trees. The reporter would come. She would bring Laurel.

  Everything was going to go according to plan. They were playing right into his trap. It had been so easy to pull the strings. He had been careful selecting the reporter who had the most adversarial relationship with the cops, the reporter who did the most independent investigations. He’d combed through archives of the Oregonian, the Herald, and the Tribune and read the editorial pages. Meredith Turner was clever, connecting dots and breaking many stories before anyone else. He could count on her to go off on her own, not involve the cops. Turner’s disdain for the police was clear. Meredith Turner’s disdain for everyone was clear. She would want the glory all to herself.

  Laurel… well, it was obvious what she would want. It was the only thing she’d wanted for the last fifteen years: to know what happened to her sister.

  Though his hands ached with the cold, he felt a warm glow at the thought of taking Laurel home and introducing her to the girls. After all these years, he’d finally have a family.

  They would drink the tea and then they would be able to stay together. Forever.

  It would be perfect this time. He had thought of everything. He’d made plenty of mistakes along the way—his first and most egregious had been killing that man after spending a cold, cold night locked out of his house. He should have killed his mother instead, but he’d been so angry he hadn’t been able to think straight.

  After he’d killed the man, his mother owned him. He had to do whatever she said—if he even looked at her funny, she threatened to go to the police and have him arrested for murder. If it had just been him, he would have called her bluff. At least in prison he could eat three meals a day and get a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t just him, however; there were his sisters to think about. At least if he stayed at home, he could be there to look out for them, to try and mitigate the horrible things his mother wanted to do to them. He was able to protect them. For a while, at least, his mother stopped bringing men to the house.

  One night he was sitting at the dinner table, trying
to answer his stupid history questions for his stupid homework assignment. It was so pointless; the questions were easy things any retard could just look up. What was the name of the treaty, who was the leader, where was the battle—terms and names that were literally in bold typeface just a few paragraphs earlier. Waste of fucking time. His mom had brought him a soda and that, at least, was an unexpected treat.

  The next thing he knew, it was morning, the sky bright gray in the window. He was so thirsty; his mouth felt like the inside of a dirty microwave. He was still wearing his sweatshirt jacket and jeans, but his shoes were off. What time was it? What day was it? He opened a crusty eye and looked at the red glowing numbers of his alarm clock. It was ten-thirty. So much for going to school today. His head felt like it was filled with hot throbbing blood, his eyes like they were on the end of a tight bowstring ready to play a note of agony.

  He rolled out of bed, every muscle aching and every tendon creaking, his body not wanting to move. He willed his spine to straighten. He looked at the droopy, rumpled bed across the room. The girls were not there. Of course they weren’t; they were at school. Then why did he have such a hot ball of sick, squirming dread in his stomach? He should have known when his mother brought him a soda. She never did anything nice for anyone. It must have been spiked with a few of those pills.

  He charged out of the bedroom, stepping on something sharp. There was a loud crack as he felt it give way and pierce into his skin. He yanked his leg back up and examined the bottom of his foot. His dingy white sock was turning bright red with spreading blood. On the floor were the broken white shards of a teacup. The realization that he’d broken one of his sisters’ beloved teacups hurt much more than the cut on the bottom of his foot.

  Voices in the living room. The curt, angry voice of his mother and the softer pleading of his sisters. He hobbled into the living room, leaving a smear of blood on the carpet every time he put his injured foot down. He didn’t care—the house was a fucking dump anyway.