by Rebecca York
"Did you get his license number?"
"It was smeared with dirt," she said, suddenly feeling as if she should have tried harder.
He wrote that down, then said, "I may get back to you with more questions. Here's my card, in case you think of anything."
She accepted the small white rectangle, flexing it in her hand as he walked toward the door.
He hesitated for a moment, as though he wanted to say something more, and she felt her nerves jangle as she waited to find out what he was thinking. Was he going to mention that first charged moment when they'd faced each other at the door?
To her relief, he remained silent, then left.
She closed and locked the door behind him, then moved to the window, standing back where she thought he couldn't see her, since he'd already caught her watching him when he arrived. But he didn't look back as he climbed into his car and drove away. When the vehicle was out of sight, she let out the breath she hadn't known she was holding. She'd wanted him to leave, but now that he was gone, she felt strangely let down. Backing away from that part, she went over the rest of the encounter. After those first few moments, she'd kept herself together while he was here, until she'd seen that magazine he'd pulled from Heather's drawer.
Before that, she hadn't known that Heather had any interest in sadomasochism. If she'd had a clue, she would have told her to run—not walk—away from that sick bastard Gary as fast as she could.
Unfortunately, Heather hadn't said anything. Or asked for help. And now Kathryn was left with a clenched feeling in her gut. And the sneaking suspicion that she didn't know Heather DeYoung as well as she'd thought. Or Gary Swinton. She'd had bad feelings about the guy. What else was he hiding?
Stiff-legged, she crossed to the kitchen and filled the kettle at the sink. While she waited for the water to boil, her mind flashed back to Detective Thornton.
Something had happened when she'd first opened the door to him and they'd stood facing each other across four feet of charged space, something she couldn't explain—a sudden awareness of the man that had taken her breath away.
So many impressions had assaulted her at once—with no time to sort them out. Now she took a mental step back and tried to analyze why the encounter had been so arresting.
He'd been wearing a tweed sports jacket over a light blue shirt and dark slacks. She wasn't the kind of woman who went around mentally undressing men. But she sensed that there were taut muscles under the conventional outfit.
She stopped thinking about his body and called up his head and face. His hair was dark and thick and probably a little too long for a police detective. His eyes were dark, too. Dark hazel, almost black. And she'd have to describe his features as chiseled.
With her art training, she was interested in faces, in what they told about people. She'd guess he was in his early thirties. Yet there were lines fanning out at the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines, although she had the feeling he didn't laugh often. Along with the deep creases carved between his nose and mouth—they told her he'd done some hard living.
Everything about him—small and large details—had riveted her attention in the few seconds he'd stood there in the doorway. Not just visual impressions. She'd caught the scent of his body, too, a mixture of soap and man and subtle aftershave. She'd heard his indrawn breath. And for a moment out of time, she'd thought she sensed the beating of his heart.
She shook her head. Now that was going a little far.
Yet she'd felt a connection that went far beyond a conventional first meeting. An emotional connection. A sexual connection. Oh, yes, sexual. That had been a strong component.
She could remember no other incident like that in her life. It was like being caught in a sudden cyclone, wind whirling around them, cutting them off from everything but the taut, sharp awareness of each other.
And it wasn't just her. Detective Thornton had stared at her as if she were the focus of every need he'd ever felt—every longing that had ever made his chest clench.
He wasn't married. He'd told her that while they were talking about the magic wand. She knew his marital status shouldn't matter. But it did. More than she wanted to admit.
She sighed, picked up the mug of tea, and cupped her hands around the smooth porcelain, feeling the warmth seep into her bones. Then she lifted the mug to her lips, taking small sips, focusing on the soothing flavor of the tea.
As she started back toward her desk, the Alma-Tadema painting caught her attention. She knew the title. It was called Under the Roof of Blue Ionian Weather. She also knew it had been called one of the artist's finest paintings of sunny indolence.
The description made her grin. She'd always liked the picture. Now she focused on details that she'd simply skimmed over in the past. Taking up most of the picture was a circular, tiered white marble structure called a lounge. Sir Lawrence had so meticulously rendered the marble that she could imagine running her fingers over the smooth surface. The sea was in the background. And, as in many of the artist's works, a flowering bush softened the hard lines of the marble. In this case, she saw it was a pink oleander, rising from behind a low marble wall. Six handsome young men and women lounged in various comfortable poses. Some wore flower garlands in their hair. All were dressed in flowing classical raiment.
Her eye went to the two women at the center of the painting. One was dark. The other had curly red hair and creamy skin—similar to Kathryn's own. Nobody in ancient Greece would have had that coloring. But Alma-Tadema had been famous for mixing women from his own Victorian England with darker Mediterranean types.
It had been a long time since she'd studied a painting with such attention to detail. She leaned forward, admiring the exacting depiction of the scene. It was so very real that she suddenly had the odd feeling that she could step right into the sunny afternoon scene and mingle with the men and women there.
What an idea!
And all because Thornton had drawn her attention to the picture that she'd walked past dozens of times every day.
She made a small sound. Determined to get her mind off Thornton, reminding herself that she didn't particularly like the man—even if she wanted to make wild, primitive love with him.
PERHAPS money couldn't buy happiness, but it could buy all the creature comforts of the twenty-first century, Simon thought as he climbed the wide stairs to the second floor of his primary residence, running his hand along the smooth wooden banister.
He loved the polished wood. Loved everything about his house. It was full of little details that made life here so fulfilling.
The place was a mansion, really. The most opulent of his houses and apartments. He used the others at his convenience, but this was his real home—on five prime acres in eastern Montgomery County, in a development where every edifice was custom built. There was a wide green lawn in front and natural woods in back, and the house was set in the center of the property. Far enough from his neighbors for the privacy he needed, the mansion had been built for a guy who was flush with success in the dot-com boom of the late nineties. He'd sold drugstore products online. But he'd had to give big discounts and free shipping to get sales. When his financial structure collapsed, he sold off his estate to pay his debts.
Mr. Dot-Com's financial crisis had been Simon's windfall. He'd scooped up the house for a fraction of its value.
The exterior was classic redbrick Georgian, with graceful white Ionic columns supporting a triangular portico.
Entering the library, he stood for a moment, breathing in the scent of old books—a mixture of leather, paper, and mold. A pleasing combination to his senses.
After absorbing the atmosphere of the room, he crossed to the sculpted leather chair where he liked to read and practice the rituals he used in his ceremonies. Propping his feet on the footstool, he leaned back and closed his eyes, chanting the words of power that he had memorized, making sure he had the difficult syllables and the intonation right.
"SOTOU AR ATHOREBALO MRIODOM ARO-GO
GORUABRAO AEOOU OOO PHOTETH MA GAIA."
His voice was sonorous, the words beating and swelling and reverberating in the room as he gave them a life of their own. He knew how to perform an effective ritual. The words themselves must have importance—they must flow like an epic poem from the mouth of the master magician. They must roll from his lips like water coursing down a mountain channel.
He knew the meaning of each word, knew their derivation from his study of the ancient texts. SOTOU. Thou, the Savior! From the Greek soter. ATHOREBALO. Thou Goddess of Beauty and Love, whom Satan beholding, desireth!
The ritual was called Liber Samekh. He was only practicing now, only making preparations for the real event. Yet he felt his own excitement. Reaching down to the soft silk of his pants, he stroked his fingers along the hard shaft of his cock. Only a light, teasing stroke. Because he was a man of discipline. Because this was only foreplay. Only a rehearsal for the real thing—the ritual in the basement ceremonial chamber that would end with a blood sacrifice and his own shattering sexual climax—releasing the energy that would bring him unimagined power. Power kings and dictators had only dreamed of. Because he would command the obedience of a demon. The creature would be forced to steal for him. Spy for him. Terrorize his enemies. Kill them if he asked. Do anything if he wished it.
From Ayindral. He had spoken the other words of power in a strong, clear voice. But he only whispered the demon's name.
As always, when he uttered the syllables, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. The reaction sent a surge of anger coursing through him. Anger at himself, because he was never less than honest—on his own terms.
A tiny kernel of fear still lodged within the strong fortress he had built around his negative emotions. Fear he should have conquered long ago, through the hard work and discipline that had been the focus of his life for the past ten years.
He had studied long hours to divine the demon's name. He knew that the name was the key to enslaving the supernatural being—to harnessing his incredible power. Yet each time he thought about the capturing ceremony, a small prickle of doubt scratched at his will.
His hands balled into fists at his sides, and he willed himself to be calm. Willed himself to that place where he knew that victory would be his—very soon.
Despite his efforts at self-control, the unsettled feeling hung over him like a cloud of poison gas.
He knew how to make it go away. Rising from the chair, he crossed the room and switched on the monitor that gave him a view of the basement cell.
The woman was huddled on the narrow bunk, dressed in the white cotton gown he'd left in the cell for her. While she'd been asleep from the drug in her food, he'd taken away all her clothing and her jewelry, stripping the rings from her fingers and removing her ankle bracelet. When she'd awakened, she'd had a choice. She could stay down there naked and exposed. Or she could put on the gown he'd left for her. She'd chosen the latter. It wasn't a sexually provocative garment. It was like a gown a child might wear for a baptism. Modest, long, embroidered with lace. It would be her shroud.
Watching her lying on her side with her head bent and her arms clasped around her knees soothed him. She was helpless. She was his to use as he desired.
And he would—when he was ready.
Of course, she hadn't been the one he'd really wanted, not in the beginning. The object of his desire had been her good friend. The redhead. The moment he'd seen her, she'd reminded him of the girl in school he'd… liked.
"Patience Hampton." He whispered her name aloud.
He'd never forgotten her. Never. They'd both been lonely, and they'd studied together in the school library, where they'd shared some of their secrets. He'd thought she liked him, but then an older guy had showed an interest in her, and she'd shut her friend Simon off. Well, not Simon. That wasn't his name back then. He'd been…
He clenched his teeth and bit off the memory. He wasn't that pitiful boy.
Today he was Simon Gwynn, self-made man.
But no matter how far he'd come, he'd never forgotten Patience Hampton. His first victim had looked a lot like Patience. Red hair. Creamy skin. Green eyes. Every time he saw a woman who reminded him of her, he felt that tug in his chest, that tug to use her in a ceremony. But it was too dangerous to repeat a pattern. He never repeated himself.
So he'd done the next best thing—switched his focus to the redhead's friend. Because he knew it would hurt her. Disturb her. Frighten her.
JACK figured there were probably two hundred Starbucks in the Washington, D.C., area, all with the same moss green and beige interior appointments and the map and compass stuff printed on the rounded platform where you picked up your order.
How many of them were there around the world? Five thousand? There must be a whole factory set up in Mexico or some other cheap labor country where they produced Starbucks furniture twenty-four, seven.
On the way back to police headquarters, he stopped at one of the coffee shops and indulged in the blend of the day—laced with a good shot of half-and-half. A little rich for his blood—but he figured he could use it this morning instead of the crankcase sludge in the squad room.
He took the steaming paper cup out to the unmarked and sat with his eyes unfocused, still trying to understand what had happened between himself and Kathryn Reynolds. Something weird. Something he might have explained away as a delusion sixteen months ago.
Back then, he'd been the kind of guy who didn't believe in anything beyond his own experience in the rock-solid natural world. Then he'd started investigating a private detective named Ross Marshall, who often brought him information on hard-to-solve cases. Missing person cases and murders, usually.
Jack took a small sip of the hot coffee, thinking back to the events of the spring evening that had changed his perceptions of the universe.
When Dr. Megan Sheridan, the woman Ross loved, had been kidnapped by a serial killer, he and Jack had sped to her rescue. And he'd discovered a startling fact about his friend. Ross Marshall was a werewolf.
If he hadn't seen the wolf in action, he wouldn't have believed it possible. That night, he'd become a believer. The knowledge might have sent him running as fast as he could in the other direction. But he'd known that Ross was governed by his humanity, not his werewolf heritage. They were still good friends and still working together, the two of them solving cases where the enhanced faculties of a wolf made the difference between success and failure.
In fact, the shirt he'd taken from DeYoung's closet was for Ross, who used his wolf sense of smell to track people who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
Now his knowledge of Ross Marshall's double life made it possible for him to wonder if there was something extraordinary about Kathryn Reynolds.
Like—was she a witch? Did she have some sort of supernatural powers, different from those of Ross Marshall but no less potent?
Was there a quirk in her genetic makeup that set her apart from other human beings? Something besides that wild red hair that his fingers itched to stroke? Simply standing in front of her, meeting her for the first time, he'd wanted her with a strength that rocked him to the core.
Had she snared him in a net? Was she a temptress making the first move on another victim? He snorted and almost spilled the coffee. Carefully he set the cup down on the console as he thought back over that astonishing first encounter.
Maybe her feelings hadn't exactly matched his. But she'd looked startled and confused, as if she'd been caught up in an encounter completely beyond her previous experience. Something strange. Like an obscuring cloud of smoke from a peyote fire that had enveloped the two of them—then just as quickly blown away.
So where did that leave him with Kathryn Reynolds? He didn't know. Part of him wanted to run as fast as he could in the other direction. And part of him wanted to explore what had happened between them in those strange, out of reality moments—and go beyond them, to something more substantial.
His face
contorted. Whatever personal connection the two of them had felt was hardly the point of their meeting. She'd called the police because her tenant, Heather DeYoung, was missing.
His mind jumped to the cache of porn in DeYoung's drawer. Reynolds had reacted strongly. She'd given him a plausible reason for her response. She'd seemed surprised. And he was a pretty good judge of people's reactions. But she still might have known about DeYoung's interest in S and M. And been shocked that the woman was keeping such literature in a dresser drawer.
He'd like to find out what Reynolds really knew. Was she telling him the truth—or was she an accomplished liar?
He was still mulling that over when his cell phone beeped. He saw from the number that it was Granger calling.
"Where are you? I want to know what you've dug up on that suicide," the captain said as soon as Jack identified himself.
"The suicide. Isn't the coroner's office handling that?"
There was a small pause on the other end of the line. "Yeah, that's right. You were interviewing that woman who reported her tenant missing."
"I'll start doing a background check as soon as I get to my desk."
"Right. And you're going to look for a connection to those other cases."
"Yeah."
The captain clicked off, and Jack lowered the phone, staring at the speaker, his brow wrinkled. It sounded like Granger had had some kind of memory lapse. Was the guy just working too hard, or was he due for some medical leave?
AFTER Starbucks, the coffee in the squad room tasted as bad as he'd expected. Still, Jack was used to having the stuff available on his desk. So he poured himself a mug and got down to work, putting in requests for information on Heather DeYoung.
He might have done some more poking around DeYoung's apartment, but he'd had the feeling that finding any coherent records would take hours.