by Ana Barrons
“Yes.” She turned her hand over and frowned at her opal ring. “Just like this one.”
“Where did you find this?”
She swallowed. “On my bed.”
This was bad. “Show me,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
She stopped at the foot of the bed, hugging herself. A small, square envelope was propped against her pillow, with a name written on it. John moved closer to make sure he’d read it correctly. Belle. What the hell?
“The necklace was in the middle of the bed,” she said. “The chain was laid out like…a heart. I picked it up, and then I heard footsteps on the porch.” She raised frightened eyes to him. “I was hoping it was you.”
He stroked a soothing hand over her hair. “Do you have a couple pairs of tweezers?” She nodded. “Go get them and bring them to me.”
She went into the bathroom and returned in seconds with the tweezers. John plucked the envelope off the bed and turned it over to see if it was sealed. It wasn’t. He held the envelope over the bed and used the other tweezers to very carefully pull out the card. It was white with a picture of a seagull, and below was written a message in blue ink.
A necklace to match the ring that binds you to me, my lovely Belle. Very soon, now.
It was signed, simply, B.
John laid them both on the bed and stepped back. “We need to call the police.”
“Someone thinks I’m a woman named Belle.” She was even paler than when he’d first come in. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“None of the students, or their mothers? Former teachers?”
She shook her head slowly. “I’ll have to ask Arthur. Oh God, I don’t want to alarm him. He doesn’t need to be worrying about me.”
John pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “You would be more concerned about Arthur than yourself. Just let me hold you for a minute and then we’ll call the cops.” Her arms came around his waist and she held on tight.
He rubbed his cheek over the top of her head, inhaling the lilac smell of her hair. If he didn’t make love to her soon, he was going to flip out. And it wasn’t just that he needed sex.
He wanted Hannah. Period. And that was a very bad sign.
“I guess I should call them now.” She pulled away. “I want to get it over with so I can get some sleep before I fall down.”
“You won’t be staying here alone. I can bunk on the couch if you want. If he decides to come back, he’ll have me to deal with.”
She looked up at him. “I’d feel a whole lot safer if you stayed, but it doesn’t seem fair.”
“I’m offering. No, make that insisting.”
He stood beside her when she called the sheriff’s office, and when she hung up he pulled her into his arms and captured her mouth in a kiss so deep, so hungry, he was half-afraid he was scaring her. But she clung to him, tangling her tongue with his, digging her fingers into his back, as caught up in the passion of the moment as he was. She was the first to pull back from their embrace.
“Oh God,” she said on a long, shuddering sigh.
The sound of a vehicle on the dirt road had her finger combing her hair, trying to look like she hadn’t just had the breath kissed out of her. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen and red. He turned away from her so he could concentrate on making his erection go down rather than on how desperately he wanted to be inside her. The trusting look on her face when she took his hand made his chest go tight.
If he had a shred of honor left in him, he would tell her to run for the hills, tell her that if she made the mistake of believing in him she would most certainly be hurt. And that he would leave her to bleed because he’d been bleeding so long he didn’t see any other way.
Chapter Thirteen
It was the thought of losing her that hounded John throughout that long evening and night, while the sheriff’s deputies—incompetents, in his mind—took Hannah’s statement and made forensic errors in their evidence collection. While he fixed her tea and an omelet and ate it himself because she was too tired to eat. While he drew her a bath and ordered her out of it forty-five minutes later after he had to nearly break down the bathroom door before she woke up and assured him she hadn’t drowned. And while he sat on the couch with her head on his lap, stroking her hair and gazing into the fire, telling himself what he was feeling for this woman couldn’t possibly be real.
It was after midnight when she went to bed, and he returned to the living room. He dropped onto the couch, exhausted and too wound up to sleep.
“John?”
He raised his head and realized he must have dozed off. She was standing by the hearth, in a tank top and plaid sleep shorts that hung off her hips. His mouth went dry at the sight of her, his chest aching.
Could he really use this beautiful, precious woman so ruthlessly?
She came toward him and he sat up straighter. He could see the lines of worry on her face. When she was standing directly in front of him, she lifted one soft hand to his face. He grabbed it with both of his and kissed her palm. Her frown deepened.
“What’s wrong, John?”
“I’m okay,” he lied. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I’m finally hungry,” she said, with a wry grin. “Want anything?”
He stood. “No, but I’ll come into the kitchen with you.”
They walked into the kitchen hand in hand, and he leaned against the counter while she opened cupboards and pulled out cereal and a bowl. She kept glancing at where he stood watching her. When she had it all laid out, she sighed and went to him, laying her head against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her slim, sleep-warmed body and felt her arms slide around his waist. Their bodies fit together like two halves, which they were, in a way. Two damaged children, survivors of a hideous crime, brought together after all these years only to be torn apart. But right now, they were a man and a woman who wanted each other, for comfort if not for sex.
When she tipped her face up, he could see the passion in her eyes. Christ, he wanted her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him. His hands slid down to her bottom, and he lifted her, pushing his erection between her thighs. The feel of her breasts against his chest and her tongue inside his mouth pushed aside every civilized thought, leaving behind only instinct and raw need. He raised her higher and yanked her tank top over her head, then took one plump breast in his mouth. She cried out and he slipped a hand inside her boxers and between her legs. Hot cream covered his fingers immediately.
“John,” she gasped. “I don’t…I’m not on the pill.”
He pulled his mouth off her breast to answer. “I’ve got condoms.” He set her on her feet and peeled her sleep shorts down her legs, knelt in front of her and began to kiss her belly, moving lower and lower.
“Oh God, John. Oh my God.”
He kissed her through her panties, driving her wild, driving himself wild with the feel and scent of her. By the time he pulled her panties down, she had arched her body back against the counter and spread her legs for him. He slipped a finger inside her wet heat and ran the tip of his tongue slowly upward, teasing, tasting. She cried out, writhing in pleasure, muscles tense, her fingers tugging his hair. After several seconds she pulled his head closer, telling him in that most basic way that she wanted more, that the teasing was over.
He lifted one of her feet to his shoulder, spreading her wider, then covered her completely with his mouth. She was swollen and so sweet inside as he sucked and laved, increasing and decreasing the pressure as her body signaled him. She came apart with her head thrown back, her hair spilling out on the counter, her naked breasts heaving. Just the sight of her like that nearly made him explode.
Her taste was on his lips as he tore open the foil packet and rolled down the condom. He stood and peeled off his clothes and pulled her to him. “I’ve never eaten anything so delicious,” he whispered against her neck. “Now I want your breasts.”
; She thrust her breasts forward, and he took them in his hands, kneading and suckling like a starving man. Hannah was as wild with passion as he was, and it wasn’t long before she began to beg. “Please, John,” she whispered, rocking her pelvis against his. “Please, come inside me.”
“I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.”
Her legs trembled as she wrapped her fingers around his cock and one leg around his waist and guided him inside her. He entered her slowly, inch by inch, savoring her tight heat. She kissed him deeply, groaning her pleasure until he was in her up to the hilt. They stood like that, connected to one another, until he had no choice but to move. He pulled most of the way out before thrusting inside her, pacing himself at first, and then giving in to the need to go faster and faster while she clung to him, begging and crying out his name. She came again loudly, and he followed, her name on his lips.
They managed to stay on their feet long enough to stumble into the bedroom and collapse on the bed. John scooped her into his arms and kissed her long and passionately, something he had never had the urge to do after sex. Nothing about making love to Hannah was as it had been with other women. Sex had never touched him this way before. When she pushed against his chest, he realized with horror that he was probably hurting her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice strained and breathless. “Are you okay?”
“Are you?” She was as out of breath as he was. “You were squeezing me like I was trying to get away.” She smiled. “Like I’d be going anywhere after that.”
He raised himself on his elbow and smiled down at her. “It was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.”
Her expression grew serious. “My life has gotten very complicated all of a sudden. Someone’s leaving me flowers and jewelry and weird notes…and dead animals. I had the police in my house a few hours ago, and before that I learned that a man I consider a friend—” She broke off. “And now I have you in my bed and, well, in my head.”
Her words thrilled him. He stroked her cheek, wishing he could come clean with her about everything, who he was, why he was here. All of it. “Back up. You learned that a man you consider a friend…?”
“It’s a long story.” She sighed heavily. “A long, weird, disturbing story I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“Am I still just anyone?”
She touched his face. “Oh, no. You’re a lot more than that. I wouldn’t be here with you, like this, if you were just anyone.”
He kissed her eyelids, the side of her mouth, her neck. “Then you’ll tell me your long, weird story about this other person? Is it anyone I know?”
“Not now.” She moved down his body and ran her tongue over his nipple.
Oh, Jesus. He sucked in a breath and rolled on top of her, fully aroused. It was a good thing she had napped, because he had a feeling neither of them would get much sleep tonight. When she wrapped her legs around his back, he knew he was right.
“Make love to me again,” she whispered.
It was barely dawn when John slipped out of bed and walked quietly out of the room. The cottage was dark and still, which suited him just fine. He was going to do this quickly, without thinking about it, because it was the anticipation that had led to failure every time. As he walked by the kitchen window, he spotted a doe and fawn pulling at the tufts of grass that poked through the light frost. He punched the numbers into his cell phone and forced his attention to the scene on the lawn.
Don’t think.
The man who answered the phone didn’t sound happy. No doubt he’d been sleeping. John told him it was a family emergency, which was why he was calling so early. The man coughed and cleared his throat and said it was no problem, the professor didn’t sleep much anyway.
The professor.
There was a note of respect in the man’s voice when he said it, and it moved John.
This is not the time to get emotional.
He waited. His palms grew sweaty.
Don’t think. Don’t think…
“Is everything all right, John?”
His father’s voice startled him. He had asked a question, and a reasonable one considering it was still dark outside. It should have been easy to answer, but the very idea of having a conversation with this man who had abandoned him to his mother…
How could you do it, Dad?
“Oh, Johnny.” His father’s voice was so low and so sad it nearly made him cry. “I could no more have killed her than I could have killed you.”
Had he asked the question out loud? “But you did kill me, Dad,” he heard himself say. “And Mom. You killed us both.”
“I betrayed you both by falling in love with Sharon. I know that,” Sam Daly said in that sad, sad voice. “But I never would have left you behind, John. Never. I would have stayed close. I would have stayed in your life. Didn’t you read my letters? I tried to explain—”
“What letters?” The anger in those two words surprised John. He was a psychologist, for Christ’s sake, and he didn’t realize until this moment that it wasn’t fear of the truth that had held his tongue all these years. He had never really believed his father capable of murder. It was anger. Hurt. The white-hot pain of abandonment.
His father made a choking sound on the other end of the line. “You mean…your mother didn’t…? Oh my God, John. Oh, no. I never thought she would do that to you. Oh God…”
John’s chest burned. For twenty-three years he had grieved for this man who never made any attempt to contact him, only to learn now that he had. It had been a lie, his mother’s lie. Her selfish, cruel lie to punish the man whose crime, be it murder or simply infidelity, had ruined her life. She had succeeded brilliantly, and had sacrificed John in the bargain.
Hadn’t either of them loved him enough to be true to him?
His father’s voice was more of a rasp. “I couldn’t understand, at first, why you never wrote back. I knew how much I’d hurt you, and it killed me to imagine what you must be feeling. What your twelve-year-old mind must be thinking. But we were so close, Johnny, and I missed you almost more than I could bear.”
The lump in John’s throat felt like a golf ball. “Give me a minute, Dad,” he managed to say, but his voice, like his father’s, was little more than a rasp. “This is a kinda tough to take.”
There was silence on the line as the two men struggled, each in his own way, to comprehend the enormity of John’s mother’s betrayal. Of the years they had suffered one another’s loss. The damage to John’s self-esteem, his sense of identity as a man. He wanted nothing more than to scream and rant, break down walls—anything to dispel his rage over the pain that bitch had caused both of them.
It was several minutes before he was able to talk. He swiped angry tears off his cheeks and cleared his throat. “I want to get you out, Dad. I want to find the bastard who killed her and get you out of there.”
His father made a sound like a cross between a sob and a chuckle. “Oh, that’s a lovely thought. But I gave up hope of getting out a long time ago.”
“Dad. I’m a criminal psychologist with the FBI.”
There was a long pause. “My God,” his father said slowly. “I don’t know what to say. I’m just…so proud of you. I always was. And…I’m so sorry, John. So, so sorry. I’ve missed you every day for the past twenty-three years. I’ve missed watching you grow up, becoming the man I always knew you would be.”
I’m half a man, Dad. But he didn’t say that. “I need to know everything about that day. I’ve read the newspaper accounts, and I know you were convicted on circumstantial evidence. I haven’t been able to access the police records and it wasn’t an FBI matter, so—”
“Are you married? Is there a woman in your life?”
John hesitated. “Not exactly.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
“I know you didn’t have an alibi, but—”
“I know who killed her.”
John stopped breathing. “What did you say?”
John leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter and held one hand over his eyes. He knew! His father knew who the murderer was. “Why didn’t the police arrest him?”
“There were two people who knew about him. Sharon and me. She felt sorry for the guy, insisted he was harmless. Back then, remember, the term stalking had barely entered the lexicon. It was after that actress was murdered. I can’t remember her name.”
“Did Sharon know the guy?”
“A little. From school, I think. I mentioned him a couple of times, but she always just laughed and said there was no harm in someone admiring her from afar.” He was silent for a moment. “She was so wrong.”
“Did you see him?”
“No. And I didn’t know his name. No one really noticed the guy. Sharon described him as completely forgettable.”
“I don’t understand why the police never did anything.”
“To be honest, I didn’t give him much thought until I’d been in prison for a while and did some reading. A lot of what we had was old magazines, and I read about that actress—Rebecca Schaeffer, I think—who was killed by a stalker, and suddenly it computed. People began to recognize a pattern of escalation from the so-called peeping Tom to rape and murder.”
“Did you even mention the guy when they first arrested you? Did anyone ask you, or did anyone speculate that—”
“The district attorney’s office wanted a conviction, John. They wanted a murderer behind bars so they could assure people they were safe in their beds, that there wasn’t a madman roaming the streets, slicing up beautiful young women.”
His voice shook at the end, and John realized that his father had never gotten past the pain of Sharon Duncan’s death. What kind of hell had the man been living in all these years?
To add to his pain, his wife had abandoned him and taken his son away when he needed them both the most. John had a lot to process, on his own and, someday, with his mother. But for now he pushed aside thoughts of her. He didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to deal with what she had done to them.