Fire In The Mind: Leonard Wise Book 1

by Arjay Lewis

  “Now that is a pity.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time for a change.”

  She pulled close to me, and our lips met, first as gentle as a whisper, and then harder. Finally, our mouths opened, and our tongues began to explore each other. I felt the hard nub of her tongue stud and heard small moans in the back of her throat. Meanwhile, visions of Cathy and Jenny both danced naked through my brain.

  Her hand gingerly stroked my leg, and my hand touched the naked flesh in the opening on the back of her dress. I delicately traced her spine with my fingers, touching her so softly that I created goose bumps as I caressed my way to her neck.

  “Mmm!” she said, then pulled her head away and took a sip of brandy. “You have a great touch.”

  “So do you,” I said, the image of the other women still in my mind.

  She kissed me, and her hand slid down to my crotch.

  “Looks like I got the desired effect,” she said with a smile.

  She wriggled out of my grasp, grabbed her drink, and took my left hand. “Why don’t we continue this upstairs?” she said and pulled me to my feet.

  She went up the stairs ahead of me as I hobbled up one step at a time.

  “Second door on your right!” she said, as I braced myself with my cane and plodded up.

  I reached the top of the stairs, and the hall was dark except for a flickering light past an open door. I stepped in to see about ten different sized candles illuminating the room. The bedroom was huge, with fabric covering the walls and arcing like a tent to the center of the ceiling. In the middle of the room was a huge round bed, where Wendy sat under the covers, her drink in hand.

  “I feel like I’m walking into the Arabian Nights,” I said.

  “And I’m your Scheherazade! Come on, it’s not nice to keep a lady waiting.”

  I left my cane at the door and limped to the bed, tossing my jacket aside as I went. This made her giggle and hide deeper under the covers, which appeared blue, though it was hard to tell by candlelight.

  I sat on the bed and kissed her, my hands going under the covers to discover that she was naked.

  “You’re not wearing anything,” I whispered.

  “See, you do catch on,” she kissed me and began to unbutton my shirt. “Why don’t you join me?”

  I all but leaped out of my clothes. I threw my socks, shirt, and pants to the floor and got under the covers with her. We kissed and clung, touched and tasted, moved our fingers to the other’s most sensitive regions, tantalized our bodies as if we were one creature that fought to pleasure itself in a hundred different ways at once.

  But I couldn’t have that much alcohol without it affecting me. My extra senses were shut down, but my imagination played havoc with me. With my eyes open, I saw Wendy, her naked pert body soft under my touch. With my eyes closed, it was a jumble of Cathy and Jenny. The mental images didn’t match the physical, and I had to keep bringing myself back to Wendy, her room, her bed.

  She took me into her mouth, and I moaned, the images confused as they collided with memories of Cathy doing this same act and then an imagined Jenny giving me her wicked smile as she swallowed me.

  We kissed more, touched, and turned, and all at once, I was entering Cathy, as Jenny moaned with delight and Wendy sighed. We began the most ancient of dances. We writhed with each thrust and parry, as the woman under me changed and transformed, caught between the reality and my fantasies.

  Our tempo increased, then slowed as she moaned words of encouragement. I groaned and gasped, while sweat glistened on our skin as our pace built and built. Finally, we were both overwhelmed with pleasure, cries ripped from each of us as the moment of release was achieved.

  We lay in the dim light and looked up at the ceiling. It was so much like a tent, I expected a trapeze to be hanging down from it. My heart still pumped fast. I was drunk, sated, and still not sure which woman I was in bed with.

  “Hmm,” she said, her cheek against my chest. “That was even better than the meal.”

  “I’m honored,” I said, turning to look at her. It was Wendy, without a doubt, though her makeup was a bit smeared and her hair was a mess. But seeing her a bit askew only made her look sexier. I kissed her and only her, hoping the illusions were gone.

  “I’ve never…” she said. “I mean, I thought I made noise, but you screamed when you—y’know.”

  I nodded and held her. “Guess I had a lot pent up. It’s been about four years.”

  She raised her head. “Four? Jesus, I thought my one year was tough enough. How did that happen? I mean, you’re an attractive guy.”

  “Just didn’t have the interest, I guess,” I replied.

  “Oh, yeah, your dead fiancée.”

  “There were a couple of women after that, but I was a mess—I mean psychologically. I threw myself into my studies.”

  “Oh, right, forensics. That must’ve taken a lot of books.”

  My rational mind quickly was brought back to the lie McGee told her, that I was with forensics, and I let Wendy go on believing it.

  I ran my fingers through her hair and felt guilty for my deception. And I also realized that she was actually quite a woman. My time of study was over, I’d earned my PhD, and now I’d met a charming girl who was an exciting lover. Maybe it was time to let go of the past, and that included getting involved with someone who wasn’t a mirror of my lost love, who was instead her own person. But you can’t begin a relationship with a lie.

  “Wendy, there is something I have to tell you…”

  “Can it wait until morning? You wore me out, I’m ready to snooze.”

  Morning would bring McGee and the warrant.

  “No, it can’t. Look, that day we met, I wasn’t entirely honest with you…”

  A candle sputtered out on the nearby dresser.

  Wendy rose up from the bed, her eyes wide in fear. She stared at the dresser.

  “Oh God!” she whispered. “No.”

  I followed her frightened expression, but all I saw was the candles.

  “It’s all right. A candle just went out,” I said, but I could feel her trembling.

  Another candle winked out. No flutter of the flame, no sizzle or movement of a wick in hot wax, it was just gone. Then another went out.

  “Get your clothes!” Wendy whispered harshly, throwing the sheets off and looking at the floor for her dress. “Now!”

  I stumbled out of the bed, my body tired from the exertion and uncoordinated from the booze. I clumsily pulled on my underwear as another candle, then another, went out, leaving only one burning.

  “HURRY, HURRY!” she said, as she pulled the spandex over her head in one motion, and I pulled on my pants.

  The one remaining candle began to burn brighter, emitting a light as bright as all the other candles combined. The wax began to melt, and all at once, a flame shot out from the center of it, rising at least a foot into the air.

  “Jesus,” Wendy yelled as she bolted barefoot for the door.

  The flame ignited the cloth hanging all around the bedroom, and the fire climbed up it as if there were gasoline poured on it.

  “Wendy!” I yelled as the flames crawled up the wall. I followed her out the door.

  She didn’t stop in the hall. “Come on, come on, we have to get out of here!” she said, as she ran for the stairs.

  “Have you got a fire extinguisher?” I asked.

  She looked up at me and let loose a maniacal laugh that bordered on madness. “That won’t do any good! RUN!”

  Down the stairs she went as I followed. Clambering down is faster for me, but the air was already beginning to cloud with smoke. She met me at the bottom with both pairs of our shoes in her hands.

  “We can’t get to the car! The garage is on fire!” she shouted as she pushed my shoes at me.

  “Then we have t
o go out the front door!” I said, coughing, as I slipped my feet into my loafers.

  “No, no, we can’t. That’s what he wants,” she said, the haze thickening.

  “Who?”

  “Go out a back window, try to sneak out.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Who is it? Who are you afraid of?”

  “The m-man I used to go out with—he did this.”

  “Is it Lonny?” I asked as we moved toward the back of the house.

  “W-who’s Lonny?” she stopped talking and fell into coughing.

  I knelt on my good knee and pulled her closer to the floor. “Stay near the floor. You go for a back window, I’m going out the front!”

  “He’ll kill you!” was the last sentences she ever spoke to me. I crawled toward the front of the house, pushed with my hands and one good leg, and dragged my stiff leg behind, my cane under my armpit. If there was someone waiting for us, the sword inside might be my only weapon.

  It was easy to lose my bearing in all the smoke, but I could think more clearly. The adrenaline pushed away some of the effects of the liquor. Now I wished I hadn’t had anything to drink. If not, I could have sensed the danger before it got here and we ended up trapped in this fire hazard. I found the main stairway and crawled directly across. Then I reached up to feel the handle of the door.

  It was cold to the touch.

  I turned it, and nothing happened. I pulled myself up and undid the locks. The door opened easily onto a vestibule of some kind, where stained-glass windows let in light from outside.

  I fell into the vestibule and shut the door, letting myself breathe the fresh air. I couldn’t believe how quickly the fire engulfed the house. And how did that one candle burn so hot that it set an entire room ablaze?

  I stood up, my cane at the ready. I didn’t know what was behind this front door, but I might be in for the fight of my life.

  I turned the handle, then pushed at the door. It didn’t open, so I tried pulling it. I searched for a lock. Nothing. The door was jammed. Whoever did this had wanted us to try this way out and be trapped. I looked back; smoke was beginning to seep in under the first door.

  The stained glass was two enormous windows on either side of the door. I examined them. It wasn’t real stained glass, just ordinary glass covered with a plastic decorative wrapping, which created the illusion of stained glass and kept prying eyes from looking in. I stepped back and smacked the glass with the metal head of my cane. It made a cracking noise, and I hit it again. Now the glass bowed out, still held together by the plastic. This was my one way out. I backed up, took whatever space there was, and with my hands over my head and face, leaped against the glass, shoulder first.

  The glass gave, and I could feel myself flying through the air. I was up and over the bottom of the short windowsill, and I rolled as I hit the front porch. But I was still drunk, and my coordination was off. I couldn’t get my feet under me, and I kept tumbling. I struck stone or brick steps with my back as I went down a short flight of stairs. When I unrolled onto the sidewalk, my head struck concrete with a “thud” I could hear inside as well as outside my body.

  I was reeling, but the air felt fresh and cold in my lungs. I wanted to reach out with my befuddled brain, but the alcohol dulled any of my abilities. I raised my head and looked back at the house. There was fire coming out of the windows on the second floor, and flames flickered behind curtains on the first.

  I fell back and felt something wet at the back of my head. I wanted to reach up and touch it, but I knew what it was: blood. I lay there bleeding, and unable to move, except for my eyes. And I fought to remain conscious.

  Just then, Wendy came out through the hole in the glass, coughing as she went. She stumbled, then pulled herself to her feet. She saw me on the ground and took a step toward me, to the top of the stairs, then her head snapped up. She looked at something out on the street that I couldn’t see.

  “JACK!” she shrieked.

  I wanted to raise my body, look at who she yelled at, but I just lay there, helpless to do anything but watch.

  All at once, Wendy burst into flames with a scream. I could feel the intense heat from where I lay. She howled in pain and anguish as her hair became lit strands of fire, smoke rolled off of her, and the orange light consumed her.

  Her hands went to her face, which was turning as black as burned wood. The thin outer layer of skin fried away as the flames danced over the surface, and her screams faded into a strangled gurgle. The lifeless corpse, still ablaze, fell to the porch and smoldered, black smoke rising from it.

  I could hear sirens in the distance as I blacked out.

  ten

  Shiny steel rails were around my bed as I opened my eyes. My head was in such pain that I fought to remain conscious. Slowly, I raised my right hand to my head and felt a bandage wrapped around it. I lifted my left arm to discover I was handcuffed to the railing.

  When I tried to sit up, a female voice spoke. “You’re all right, just lie still.”

  “Where…?” I tried to ask, my voice faint and faraway.

  “You’re in Mountainview Medical Center. You should rest.”

  I lifted my left hand to show the manacle.

  “Why?” I gasped.

  “That was the policeman’s idea, though I told him you weren’t going anywhere. He’s outside, wants to ask you questions, but I told him—”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll talk…”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I really should ask the doctor.”

  “Sit me up,” I said. My voice became clearer, as did my thoughts. It must be McGee out in the hall, but why would he cuff me to the bed?

  She handed me a control, and I pushed one of the buttons and began to rise into a sitting position. It made my head ache more, but I wanted, needed to tell McGee what I’d seen.

  A man came in the door, standing just outside the radiance of the light so that I couldn’t see him. For a moment, there was something familiar in a shadow just beyond where I could see, and I was suddenly afraid.

  The man, the man with the red eyes…

  The figure walked closer and spoke. “OK, Nurse, you can leave us alone,” he said.

  It wasn’t McGee. I looked hard at the man who spoke.

  Tice.

  “I’m staying here until I’m sure that Doctor Wise—” the nurse began.

  “If that’s even his real name—” Tice interrupted.

  “—Is all right,” the nurse went on, ignoring him. “You chain him to the bed and post an officer at his door. What has he done?”

  “Murder, lady. Maybe even two. Now, why don’t you take a coffee break. I’m not going to beat him, I’m just going to ask some questions,” Tice said.

  The nurse’s lips grew tight, but with a sympathetic glance to me, she left the room.

  Tice sat on the edge of the bed, all chummy.

  “So, you want to tell me about it, Doc? If you really are a doctor. Forensics, my ass, they never heard of you. You know, you came in with your blood alcohol at point one-six.”

  “Didn’t know I was driving,” I croaked.

  “Yeah, funny. So, you were hitting the sauce pretty good. I don’t know why McGee was working with you, helping you. But if you tell me how he fits in, maybe we can make the charges manslaughter instead of murder.”

  “The house,” I said, my memory returning to the strange images. “Wendy…”

  “The house is burned beyond repair, and the broad is dead. But you should know that. You killed her and burned the body, thinking we couldn’t figure out how she died.”

  “No.”

  “Pretty neat job. What was it, you killed Mishan, and then the girl wouldn’t share the insurance money with you, so you had to kill her too?”

  “No,” I insisted.

  “You might not be fo
rensics, but first thing this morning, our forensic guys got on that house like ants on an anthill. They’re going to go over every inch of it, and what’s left of her, until they find out what you used to make it burn so fast. Then it’ll be my pleasure to arrest you.”

  “I didn’t do anything…”

  “So you say. What were you doing at her house?”

  “Date—we went out on a date. We had dinner at the Manor—there—has to be—witnesses.”

  “Yeah, but once you were alone at her place, what happened?”

  “We—we made love,” I said. “That was all. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Sure, sure. Did you know she was getting served with a warrant in the morning? If so, you had to remove her then and there.”

  The door blew open as if an explosive was behind it, and into the room came the hulking shape of Bill McGee.

  “Tice, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” McGee barked.

  “I’m questioning a witness,” Tice replied icily, his eyes still on me. “One who appears to have too many ties to the local police.”

  “Uncuff him, for Christ’s sake,” McGee said in a low and menacing voice.

  “He might make a break for it. After all, he’s connected to two murders, and he’s been getting information from you…”

  “He wasn’t even in town when Mishan died. I have witnesses who saw him on the train. Of course, if you want, read my report.”

  “Oh, believe me, Detective, I will. And I’m gonna find out everything there is to know about this guy. Then I’ll bring anything I think is important to the lieutenant—and Captain Harris,” Tice said.

  “In the meantime, until the lieutenant or the captain say otherwise, this is still my case. So uncuff my witness and get the hell out. And take Hastings with you.”

  Tice pulled out his keys and opened the cuffs in one well-practiced motion. As I rubbed my wrist, he faced McGee and rose defiantly. “Yeah, go ahead, give orders while you still can. Let me tell you something, Mr. FBI, this whole case is going to blow up in your face. Then we’ll just see who gives orders to who.”