When Secrets Die

by Lynn S. Hightower

  “Look, I need to go now,” she said, and hung up.

  Emma put her head down on her knees so that Blaine would not hear her crying and wake up.

  Oh, God.

  She had smoked a cigar and drunk too much wine and stuffed herself with an expensive dinner and a rich dessert—this to celebrate the birthday of her dead child? This had not been a celebration of life, it had been the bravado of a disgusting woman. The Commonwealth Attorney’s Office had it all on tape, herself sitting at the skinny rectangular table, the edges of the ironed white tablecloth just brushing her thighs across the slit in the silky black dress where the slippery material pressed against her nipples and outlined them for everyone to see. The slender spaghetti straps slid sideways over her shoulders and she was too buoyed up by the wine to care about pulling them up. She had been seductive, she had worn dark lipstick, overlaid with moist and heavy gloss, and left an imprint on the side of the glass. She had been a glutton. She had eaten a steak, she had drank a bottle of wine, she had smoked, and kissed her ex-supposed-but-not-really husband in the parking lot. She had felt the night wind on the back of her neck when she lifted the hair off her shoulders.

  And the evening hadn’t stopped there. Oh, no. She’d just been getting started.

  She had gotten out of her car and walked over to Clayton’s, had leaned her hip up against the door handle and drummed her fingers on the top of the side-view mirror. She had parted her legs and given him the look, and he’d opened the car door immediately and put a hand on her knee.

  “Just my knee?” she’d told him, but had taken hold of his wrist when his fingers slid upward. She let him touch the black lace top of the stocking, then traced the garter and satin strap with his forefinger, and told him, in a whisper, to put the seat back.

  And he had.

  He’d have signed away his retirement, he’d have cut off his right arm, he was caught in the glare of her desire and intent. It was unlike him not to take the lead, it was unlike him to take orders, and it was unlike him to enjoy doing both.

  The car seat glided way way back and he frowned but seemed definitely intrigued when she’d strapped him into the seat belt. It wasn’t that she had a plan or a fantasy she was acting out, it was just that she was wide open to obeying the urge wherever it took her. And it took her places that night.

  It is a wondrous thing, the endless stream of orgasms a woman can have when she is hot and slippery with desire.

  She had stood within the embrace of the open car door, and pulled her dress up to her waist. Held up a hand when he reached for her, and said wait.

  She liked the way he watched her every move. She liked the way his eyes followed her hands as she peeled the little snippet of panty down over her legs and let them hang about her ankles. She was sweaty inside her dress, and the night had cooled and felt amazing against her legs. She still wore the garter belt and the stockings, but she was bare everywhere else and the feeling excited her.

  Once he was strapped tightly into the seat, she unbuckled his belt, undid the trousers, and pulled them down below his knees. She’d kneaded the erection that pressed tightly against his briefs and rubbed a finger across the damp spot that topped the arc of his flesh against cotton. She’d kissed him through his underwear, and he had moaned, and closed his eyes, and said her name over and over again.

  Damn right.

  And then she’d peeled the briefs down and faced him, knees tight against his hips, rubbing herself up and down but not allowing him inside, putting his hands on her hips, and letting herself slide wetly up and down, pressed against the hard erection, just taking her pleasure against him. It felt amazing, and she closed her eyes, but not before she saw that he had a ferocious little half smile and that the more she enjoyed herself the harder he got.

  You like that? he’d whispered.

  I do.

  And when she’d come, the first time, flesh throbbing gently against him, he’d groaned and kissed her, and she liked the wine and tobacco taste on his tongue.

  She took his finger and placed it gently in her mouth, running her tongue up and down the side, and he thrust himself at her but she just smiled and dipped her tongue in and around the crevices on either side.

  You’re killing me.

  Enjoy it.

  She pulled the dress down beneath her breasts and guided his mouth to her nipple.

  Gently, she told him. Then hard.

  I remember how.

  And while he sucked at her breasts she balanced herself right over the tip of his erection. He tried to pull her down, tried to thrust himself inside, but he was strapped pretty tightly by the seat belt and stopped when she told him to behave.

  Just a little ways down. Halfway. He breathed hard and his head went back and he groaned and closed his eyes very tight.

  You could think of baseball.

  She pulled off, then was back up again, sliding slowly down until he was deep deep inside her.

  Be still, she’d told him. Be still.

  She’d bitten him gently on the side of the neck, then ran her tongue in and out of his ear.

  And then she pulled herself off him, slowly of course, and somewhat regretfully, and moved off his lap, and over to the other seat, where she could take him into her mouth without interference from the steering wheel.

  She knew exactly how to get him where he wanted to be, but first she let him enjoy the feel of her mouth all around him, moving slowly up and down, her tongue flicking from one side to the other. She did not want to hurry him. She wanted him to enjoy.

  And pretty soon she had a rhythm going, a rhythm that was literally making him curl his toes inside the expensive leather shoes, because he’d honored her tonight by dressing in his very best.

  And once the rhythm was going just so, she did that little thing that he loved, where she tugged ever so lightly at the base of his erection with her bottom lip, creating just the right whisper of friction, while her mouth slid up and then down. It had the desired effect, as she knew it would.

  Blaine touched her shoulder and made her jump; she hadn’t heard her daughter get up, hadn’t heard her come into the living room.

  “What’s wrong, Mama, did somebody die?”

  Emma looked at her daughter’s tense little face and sighed. She’d have to tell her.

  “It’s not good news, honey.”

  “What?”

  “Okay, first, nobody died.”

  Blaine nodded but did not look relieved, and she sat down on the couch next to her mother.

  Emma did not go into the details. She watched her daughter’s face for shock, disapproval, and disgust. But Blaine had tossed her head and snorted.

  “How dare they, Mama? Those assholes! Sex isn’t sinful, it’s an expression of love between two adults who have a deep and lasting relationship.”

  Emma hiccuped, then grinned at her daughter.

  “That’s what you told me, right?”

  “Right.”

  “They have no right to do this.” Blaine patted the edge of the couch. “Come on, Wally. Come up. See, Mom, she’s upset because you’re crying.”

  The dog scrambled up onto the couch beside Emma, looked soulfully at both of them, and belched loudly. Emma and Blaine both laughed right in the middle of their drama.

  “Hang on, Mom.”

  Blaine returned quickly, lugging a blanket, a box of tissues, and her secret stash of chocolate.

  Emma thought she should stop her daughter when Blaine picked up the phone and called Great-Aunt Jodina—but she knew she needed help. And Blaine hung up and told her with a smile that Aunt Jodina would come as soon as it was light enough to see, and that no, they hadn’t woken her up, she had heard a noise and was sitting in her living room loading her shotgun when the phone rang.

  And then Blaine refilled Emma’s wineglass and poured herself a glass of milk. How healthy of her daughter, Emma thought. Look how she does not take advantage. They sat together on the couch sharing the Cadbury’s Mi
lk Chocolate bar, and Emma started to feel a little bit better. Not a lot, but definitely a little. Especially when Blaine had hugged her and said, “Oh, Mom, this is so unfair. You’ve been through so much.” It was nice to be understood, even for a little while. And in the mom chamber of her heart she was pleased to see that she was raising such a fine little girl.

  FRANKLIN

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tired—the word nailed him. He was too tired to stop on the way home from work for toilet paper or cashews or the dark robust Belgian beer he favored. He was too tired to cook, too tired to go out, and too steeped in professional experience to be attracted by the neon lure of fast food promises that littered the drive home. He spent a significant portion of his work time observing the slippery globules of weighty yellow fat that padded the interiors of the men, women, and children who made the detour to his stainless steel tables on their final road home, revealing their innermost privacies to his swift, benevolent blades.

  No, thanks.

  The other pathologists, the techs who worked with him at the state lab in Frankfort, Kentucky, would have been surprised by the description of Dr. Marcus Franklin as tired. Punctual, maybe; workaholic, definitely. Precise to the point of rudeness, brusque when preoccupied, a distant boss whose face lived in a frown. A brilliant man with a stick up his butt. None of these descriptions would have given his coworkers pause.

  The exception, of course, was Lucca, his secretary and younger sister. He’d pulled strings to hire her, broken a few of the rules he usually followed, and had expected a lot more kick from the staff and management than he’d gotten. Nepotism was business as usual in the South, and Kentuckians were as good at it as anyone else.

  There could be no question that Lucca was more than qualified for the job—not with an MBA from Northwestern, experience running the fencing business she started with her ex-husband and signed away in a divorce, and a personal warmth and charm that was a direct contrast to her brother’s distracted brusqueness.

  As it turned out, nepotism or no, the staff in Franklin’s pathology department would have died on the hill to keep Lucca running the admin end of the department. If anyone had rolled their eyes or worried about her competence when she was hired, they’d never admit it now. Lucca could do the job standing on her head. She had a good work ethic, organization was her specialty, and her ease in lifting the load of minutiae from the staff, combined with the sheer fun of having her around, made her the department darling. She humanized Franklin, kept on her desk a preschool-era picture of the two of them dressed in Halloween costumes—Lucca as a pig, Franklin as a cow. She treated her brother with offhand affection and casual insubordination. She referred to his directives as suggestions and turned into an instant tornado if they were not couched in tact. Whenever Franklin’s preoccupation with the job got in the way of his recognition that he was dealing with a staff of human beings, she called him on it, but always in private between just the two of them.

  On the other hand, anyone who was unwise enough to speak critically of Franklin in earshot of Lucca received the immediate brunt of her personal fury concerning this one subject where she had no sense of humor. You could never call his sister shy.

  Lucca was the other person who knew Franklin was tired. You couldn’t see it in his walk—not the way he went down the corridors like a man on the road to salvation. And not in the way he pursued prosecutors and/or defense attorneys when he thought they were on the wrong page. Not from his tireless court appearances, and his house brand of peculiarly ferocious politeness that masked the rage that washed over him when dealing with a litigator who was trying to spin the science.

  But the energy, the fizzle, it wasn’t there anymore. Lucca had gotten used to him not looking happy. But now she did not think her brother looked well. His skin was tinged red, he looked flushed more often than not. He’d put on weight, and he looked puffy—the wristband of his watch straining around the swollen joint.

  Nothing new in his eating habits. No breakfast, peanut butter crackers and Sprite for lunch, if he didn’t send out for something. His face was taking on a worn look, as if he didn’t sleep well, though when she’d asked, he’d said he slept too well, and was having trouble getting up.

  Not that he’d see a doctor. Marcus had a horror of hypochondria, and always seemed convinced that no one believed him when he complained. Since he was rarely sick, but usually deathly ill when he was, this worry made no sense. But that was Marcus, and had been since they were little. Lucca remembered him bellowing at their mother when he was eleven about being hauled to the ER to get stitches in a cut on his head. He’d had a severe concussion, his pupils had contracted to pinpoints, and he was bleeding like a pig. Still, he was sure the doctor would think he was, making a big deal out of nothing.

  So Lucca did not bother to suggest her brother see a doctor. If he got miserable enough, he’d go. Maybe he just needed some sleep, or better still, a long vacation. Her diagnosis was emotional exhaustion and not enough fun. No surprise, with a job like his.

  Marcus had no idea who she was, this woman who’d called him up at seven-thirty, well past office hours, and who did not seem surprised to find him working late. From her voice he could tell that she was old, from the accent that she’d grown up in the coal mine regions of eastern Kentucky. She knew his name, the number of his private line, and talked to him as if they’d just resumed a conversation that had been interrupted but was still on track.

  “Ma’am?” he said.

  The flow of her conversation slowed and eased away, like she’d gently applied mental brakes.

  “I didn’t catch your name. Did you say Calhoun?”

  “I did, sir. Jodina Calhoun. I met you seven years ago when my daughter died. You remember when that ambulance got hit at the railroad crossing?”

  The image was instantaneous, a flashback launching the posttraumatic stress that had haunted him more and more these last years. A flicker of images moved through his mind like pictures rotating on a Rolodex, until he was in the middle of the memory, and he was once again listening to the crunch of his boots on the snow and ice.

  A deputy led the way with a flashlight, the cone of illumination jittering as the man’s hand shook. It was a long walk, because they had to approach from the back of the train and thread their way past sixteen boxcars. The intermittent rotation of emergency lights lured them toward the wreckage. Every police car in the county was there, as well as a fire truck, and two ambulances—one on its side, crumpled like a wadded ball of tinfoil, the top of the ambulance sliced open and lying upside down in the snow. And still the lights from the roof flashed, and the glow of red played against the frozen road, as if the ambulance were a living creature, dying slowly now, only able to light the way to disaster.

  The deputy was muttering something that sounded like a prayer. There were none of the swift and mumbled pleasantries common between professionals at disaster sights, the familiar and worn groove of surface-friendly greeting used to separate the worker bees from the victims, their way of assuring themselves that their world was still intact.

  There were no macabre witticisms or dark dirty humor, because no one ever indulged rude humorous tendencies in Franklin’s presence more than once. Kentucky was a small state, professionally speaking, and word had gone out fast. Marcus Franklin was infuriated by disrespect to civilians, in life or in death, and words came to him like bullets when delivering a reprimand. That part of socializing he found effortless.

  The professionals hadn’t liked him the first years—the cops, the doctors, emergency techs. He wasn’t good with people. His world had settled heavily on his shoulders before he’d taken the state medical examiner’s job. He was awkward with people he didn’t know well, resigned to the shy and out-of-place feeling that had dogged him from birth.

  Gradually the friction had worn smooth. Too many people had a friend or a family member who remembered Marcus with sober gratitude. He returned their phone calls. He answered awkward
questions. If you wanted to know how much your loved ones suffered, what it was that really killed them, he would be honest and as easy as he could. He returned the suicide notes after an investigation closed, and no juicy details got out of his office with any degree of regularity. Anyone on his staff prone to gossip didn’t last. Reporters were treated with terse civility, guilty until proven innocent, but if they were careful with their words and more so with their facts, he’d open up a little if he could; otherwise they might as well not exist.

  A lot of the patrol officers didn’t like him. The ones who did had been the few who had been unable to control their physical reactions to mayhem, and found not humiliation but steadiness, tolerance bordering on actual kindness, and a strong presence that made them confident, as if the good guys were still in charge.

  His presence made everyone stand up straighter and watch their language, but it also gave them the lift of spirit and sense of relief one feels when the cavalry arrives. He inspired confidence, if not affection. Marcus knew it and accepted the responsibility, and it rode him hard, like all the other responsibilities that kept his chin close to his chest and his shoulders slightly hunched.

  The sheriff had told him that an ambulance had tried to beat a train, a tragic decision that had cost the life of the patient they were trying to save, as well as the entire crew. That’s how it looked, in the beginning. Later they would learn that the crossing arm had been torn away and the signal lights had not flashed, though the bell had rung. The train was part of the coal line, running without lights and no scream of the horn as it crisscrossed the countryside, so as not to disturb the handfuls of houses and farms in the area. Near the interstate it was another story, with lights and noise and as much commotion as possible. But the trains ran constantly out in the rural areas, and the locals did not appreciate listening to the horn day in and day out. The ambulance driver had never known the train was there. Not until impact, when the roof of the ambulance was ripped off, the driver decapitated. The attending tech and nurse in the back of the ambulance, bent over the woman whose heart was refusing to start, were thrown sideways and crushed. The conductor applied the brakes as soon as he saw the first flash of light, but the train had been going in excess of forty-five miles per hour, and he didn’t see the ambulance until the train was upon it. The metal apron of the engine caught the edge of the metal gurney where the patient lay and dragged her three hundred feet down the track. When the train finally stopped, her head and upper torso were still wedged into the side of the train, the gurney had shattered, and Marcus Franklin had to insist that the track and the ground around it be gone over again and again until every mutilated piece was found.