by Sharon Sala
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. There was a sick lassitude spreading from the ends of her toes upward and she knew that when it reached her throat, she might die.
But Brett was too deep into his own rage to see the panic on her face.
“You know… sometimes you walk out without so much as a note to tell me where you’ve gone. Most of the time you don’t bother to call, and when you do, you never ask what I’ve been doing, or even if I’ve been sick. Usually all I get from you is a pissant message on an answering machine.”
He leaned over her, yanking open the drawer on the bedside table then thrusting his hand inside. Seconds later, a handful of tiny cassette tapes showered down upon her head.
“Do you know what those are?”
Tears were pooling in her eyes, shattering her vision of his anger. She shook her head.
“Your messages. That’s what they are. About a year’s worth, actually. And do you know why I’ve kept them?”
She shook her head again, spilling a tear down her cheek.
His voice broke as he tossed the last of them onto the bed. “Because I can’t bear to tape over the damned things for fear they’ll be the last sound I’ll ever have of your voice.”
“Oh, Brett, I’m sorry. I—”
“Goddamn it, Tory, why don’t you keep in touch? Do you ever think about the fact that I could be dead and buried before you’d know it? One of these days you’re liable to come home and I won’t be here. Then what will you—”
When her eyes rolled back in her head, Brett choked on the last of his anger. The sound that came up her throat, then out of her mouth, was something between a scream and a shriek—a cry unlike anything he’d ever heard. He flinched at the sound, trying to find the Tory he knew in the high-pitched, childlike wail of despair. And in the midst of it all she kept saying the same thing.
“But you promised. You promised you would love me. You can’t break your word, ’cause you promised.”
Her panic was his undoing. He’d known Victoria Lancaster for four years—had lived with her for the last three of those years—and he’d never, not once, seen her lose control like this.
Panicked by what he’d unintentionally caused, he pulled her into his arms, rocking her against his chest as he soothed her terror with a gentle hand.
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I never said I didn’t love you. Of course I love you. You’re my world. You’re my life.”
She clutched at his arms, staring blindly into his face. At that moment, he had the strangest feeling she was looking somewhere into her mind, rather than at him.
It took the better part of an hour before Brett had her calmed, and then she refused to look at him. He didn’t know whether she was embarrassed by her outbreak or hurt by what he’d said. When she rolled over and away from him, a knot twisted in his gut.
“Victoria.”
Her answer was little more than a whisper. “What?”
“I love you.”
She rolled onto her back, wrapping her arms around his neck and clutching at him with a desperation he didn’t understand. Moments later, she turned him loose as abruptly as she’d held him and then looked away. Brett sighed. Something was going on that he didn’t understand, and she was obviously not in the mood to talk about it.
“I’m going to shower. Be back in a few minutes,” he said.
She watched him intently as he moved around the room. When the bathroom door closed behind him, Tory stared up at the ceiling, her mind a total blank. Then, as if nothing untoward had occurred, she got out of bed and went into the living room to retrieve her bag. But she had a week’s worth of dirty laundry inside and no clean underwear, so she came back into the bedroom, confiscating one of Brett’s T-shirts and a clean pair of sweats.
She was tall, but her body structure was nothing like Brett’s. On her, the sleeves of his T-shirt were inches too long and hung well below her elbows, and the pant legs of his sweats drooped around her ankles. Everything sagged in all the wrong places, but being inside something that belonged to Brett gave her a strange sense of peace. With a pair of his tube socks serving as house shoes, Tory gathered up her dirty clothes and headed for the kitchen. She would start her laundry while breakfast cooked.
A short while later, Brett came out, taking careful note of her empty duffel bag, as well as the tangled covers on the bed. He stood for a moment, anxiously listening for the sounds of her presence. It was the smell of brewing coffee that made him relax. Following it to the kitchen in the hopes of finding Tory, all he found was a pile of her dirty laundry on the floor by the washing machine.
“Tory?”
She didn’t answer. He walked out of the kitchen, thinking she might be on the patio instead, but when he heard the familiar clunk of metal against metal he stopped. It was the lopsided sign hanging on the darkroom door that told him where she’d gone.
Do Not Disturb.
And it meant what it said. The significance of the closed door between them was more than accidental. Without thinking, Brett reached out, putting the flat of his hand against the surface of the door, then splaying his fingers across the wood, as if trying to hold on to Tory in the only way she would let him.
A few moments later he turned away with a weary sigh and headed for the kitchen. He needed coffee, and he needed to hurry or he was going to be late for work.
A day-old bagel with his last cup of coffee was breakfast. Then he headed for the bedroom, his mind already moving toward what he would do for the day.
As an investigator for the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office, his job was never dull. And, for the last few days, the entire investigative force, as well as the Oklahoma PD, had been on the lookout for a missing witness for the prosecution in a murder trial.
Don Lacey, the county district attorney, was bound and determined to win this trial and, in doing so, prove a long-suspected connection to a local named Romeo Leeds. Every cop on the force suspected Leeds was behind a large part of the area-wide criminal activities, but so far, they had yet to prove it.
Nailing Manny Riberosa, the man who was coming up for trial, was the best chance they’d had in years. A known thug who would do anything for money, Riberosa had long been suspected of being Leeds’ right-hand man. And the murdered man had been Romeo Leeds’ stiffest competitor. If they could prove that Riberosa was guilty of the murder for which he’d been arrested, then they would have the link they needed to pursue Leeds. And finding that link was part of Brett’s job.
He took a clean shirt from the closet and then stood before the mirror to slip it on. But when he looked, he didn’t see himself. He was looking at the reflection of the bed behind him and the condition of the covers, remembering the near-desperate manner in which he and Tory had made love. His jaw clenched as he tucked his shirt into his slacks; then he reached for a tie, slipping it on beneath the collar of his shirt.
This is one hell of a way to love a woman. Waiting and hoping she doesn’t forget to come back.
He leaned closer to the mirror, making sure his tie was straight and his collar points buttoned. One more item and he would be out of here. He opened the bedside table and took out his gun. The Glock, an Austrian-made, double-action automatic, felt light in his hand as he slipped it into the holster, then fastened it to his belt. He picked up his suit coat and headed for the living room. But as he passed by the darkroom, he paused, staring intently at the door she’d shut between them. The urge to call out to her was great, but he respected her need for privacy too much to interfere with what she was doing.
With a heavy heart, he opened the front door and stepped out, closing it quietly behind him.
Two
For Tory, being a photographer was like being a magician, only better. The darkroom was her top hat, the place where the magic was created, yet she produced no rabbits or doves out of the air. The magic came from the pictures she’d shot.
When the developing process be
gan, the first images were little more than faint, ghostlike shadows. But as she watched, they became so lifelike that she could almost hear the sounds of laughter coming from them. It was then that she knew she’d captured the moment precisely. But unlike a magician, what she created wasn’t illusion. When Tory was finished, she had something concrete to hold.
Each time she took a finished print out of the rinse, she would eye it carefully before clipping it on one of the lines strung about her darkroom, adding it to the dozens upon dozens of new prints drying above her head.
So engrossed was she in her work that she never heard Brett pause outside the darkroom door, and if she had, she wouldn’t have stopped to respond. If someone had asked her how she felt about Brett Hooker, she wouldn’t have hesitated to say she loved him. But if they’d asked her why she kept walking in and out of his life with little regard for his feelings, she couldn’t have given them an answer. Even she didn’t know why. All she knew was that the closer their relationship grew, the more intense her panic became.
She slid a new print into the pan of developer, eyeing the fuzzy image that began to appear, then watching with growing anticipation as the shadows became darker and darker until a complete picture had developed. It was a shot of a crowd taken at a fair somewhere in the Midwest. She looked closer, taking note of the old Ferris wheel in the background, and realized the photo was one she’d taken while following the broken-down rigs of Amherst Entertainment.
Her gaze went back to the crowd and the collage of expressions she’d caught on the people’s faces. Excitement hit as she slipped it into the stop bath and then the fix. When she ran it through the rinse, her anticipation grew. She could hardly wait to look closer, and in better light. Instinct told her that this piece was going to be one of the best she’d done to date.
Step by step, she finished printing the last of the rolls that she’d shot. Only after she’d begun to clean everything up did she realize her back was killing her and her stomach was growling in protest of the fact that she hadn’t eaten since four o’clock yesterday afternoon.
As she started to leave, she glanced back at the pictures hanging in her darkroom, a testament to the six weeks she’d been gone. With a weary sigh, she flipped off the safe light and closed the door.
“Brett?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. Her shoulders slumped. He’d been gone for hours, and she’d never even told him good morning, let alone goodbye.
As she wandered into the kitchen, her thoughts went back to last night and their lovemaking, and then to the unexpectedness of his anger. When she reached for a cup, to her surprise, her hands were shaking, but she attributed it to hunger, rather than nerves. Yet if Tory had been honest with herself, she would have had to face the fact that, for the first time in the three years they’d been together, she was afraid. Afraid of losing him and—even worse—afraid to care that it could happen.
Angry with herself and the situation, she put the cup back in the cabinet and decided to do her laundry. After starting a load, she went to the phone. She was in no mood to cook, and getting dressed to go out was out of the question.
I know. I’ll order in a pizza.
She dialed the number, listening absently as it began to ring. Tonight she would make it up to Brett. She would fix all of his favorite foods, and after that…
Just thinking of the wild, uninhibited ways in which they made love made her flush. She closed her eyes, letting herself remember the feel of his mouth on her skin, the gentle rasp of his tongue against her belly as he moved lower and—
“Mazzio’s Pizza, can I help you?”
Tory jerked, almost dropping the phone as she struggled to remember what she’d been doing.
“Uh… um, yes.” She raked her fingers through her hair in an absentminded motion as she quickly gave her order.
About a half hour later, the doorbell rang. Tory bolted for the door with money in hand, assuming it would be the pizza delivery boy with her food.
“Here you—”
She paused in midsentence with the twenty-dollar bill still hanging from her fingers. Before she could react, Brett swept her into his arms, kicking the door shut behind him and grinning as her money fluttered to the floor.
“You can pay me later.” And he stole a kiss.
The knot in her belly began to unwind. Brett was here, and he was no longer angry. Everything in her world was suddenly all right.
He began carrying her toward the bedroom.
“I ordered pizza,” she said.
“You can eat later,” he growled.
Just as he lay her in the middle of the bed, the doorbell rang again. Brett’s eyes glittered. “Don’t move,” he said, and when she smiled, he added, “Hold that thought.”
Tory listened to the exchange of polite conversation as Brett paid for her pizza. Then the door shut, and when she heard the unmistakable sound of locks turning, her pulse quickened and she closed her eyes, savoring the anticipation of what was to come. Moments later, the bed gave beneath his weight as he crawled on top of her.
“Tory?”
She opened her eyes.
“Who loves you, baby?”
A rare peace settled within her as she reached for his face. “You.”
Brett growled beneath his breath, his mouth only a fraction of an inch from her lips. “And don’t you forget it.”
Tory gave herself up to his touch, relishing the weight of his body pressing her into the mattress, savoring everything there was about this man who was her world.
He tugged at the waistband of her sweatpants, grinning to himself as they all but fell off of her.
“These look vaguely familiar.” He grinned again as he tossed them aside and then ran his hands beneath her oversize shirt. “And so does this,” he added, pulling the T-shirt over her head and adding it to the pile on the floor.
“I like to wear your clothes,” she said softly, stretching when he ran a hand up her belly, gently cupping her breast.
“Yeah, because all of yours are dirty,” Brett said, then circled her nipple with his tongue until it began to harden and peak.
Tory locked her hands behind his head and pulled him closer, arching toward his mouth and that constantly seeking tongue.
“No. Because it’s like being inside your skin.”
Her admission startled him. To hear Tory admitting something that personal was rare. He raised his head, staring intently into her eyes. She met his gaze without flinching, and Brett couldn’t help remembering the panic he’d seen there earlier.
“I know just what you mean,” he said softly, and brushed his mouth against the curve of her cheek. “You’ve been under my skin for years.”
She laughed softly.
“And I have to admit, having you there feels pretty damned good.” He moved his hand to the juncture of her thighs.
She gasped and then sighed. “Ummm… Brett.”
He grinned. “What, honey?”
“So does that.”
***
The scent of pizza lingered in the apartment long after he’d gone back to work. Tory wandered through the rooms without aim, absently putting away her newly clean clothes and trying to focus on writing a grocery list. As always, after being gone on one of her trips, she’d found that Brett had let the stock of fresh foods dwindle. He said it was because it was more convenient for him to grab a bite to eat before he came home for the day, but Tory suspected it was because he didn’t like to come home to the empty apartment and then eat alone.
She liked to cook, and when she was here, she spoiled him with an abundance of home-cooked food. Yet as long as she’d been sharing Brett’s apartment, she wouldn’t let herself think of it as home. She had her share of the closets and dressers, and Brett had willingly given up his office space in the apartment to her darkroom, but it wasn’t her place, it was Brett’s. And he was her lover, not her husband. The only permanent fixtures in Tory Lancaster’s li
fe were her cameras. They were the walls behind which she hid, the boundaries that kept her safe. They were her eyes to the world, and she never left home without them.
In spite of the dozens of odd jobs that needed to be done, she couldn’t get her mind off the new pictures in the darkroom. She kept telling herself she needed to shop, but the closed door beckoned, and before she could talk herself out of it, she was inside and taking down the photographs.
A few minutes later she emerged with the stack of prints in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. Like a child with a new toy, she crawled into Brett’s easy chair near the window and began to go through her work.
The assignment she’d been on had been simple but hectic. It was a piece on carnivals. To keep up with their grueling schedules, she’d had to travel back and forth within a five-state area, taking pictures and getting the necessary information on two separate carnivals. One was privately owned and operated on a shoestring budget, the other was a corporately owned, five-star operation.
But the story she’d been sent to do had taken a different twist than the one the commissioning magazine had requested. Tory’s story was no longer about carnivals. Two weeks into the project she’d realized the real story was in the people who came to them and the hard-earned money they were willing to spend for a fleeting moment of pleasure.
As she sorted through her pictures, her eagerness grew. She got out her notes, coordinating names with faces and places. She was as thorough with her paperwork as she was with taking pictures. When necessary, she had a file of signed consent forms from the subjects to go with the shots she’d taken.
After sorting through them twice, she picked up the stack on her right and began going through them again, picking out the ones she liked best, and the crowd shot she’d taken while traveling with Amherst Entertainment was one of her favorites. She had about a month until her deadline and would need every bit of it to do a proper job. For Tory, taking pictures was a snap. The real work began with the writing.