Lover in the Shadows

by Lindsay Longford

  His expression was unreadable, maybe slightly interested as she spoke.

  “Or would you like to explain to your supervisor?” Molly lifted the white phone and listened to the buzz in her ear as she waited for his reply. Looking at her arm holding the sheet, she lowered the phone. There were faint bruises on her arm, just above the elbow—barely noticeable and not in the same location he’d held her during the identification of Camina. Molly’s gaze flew to his. “What happened?”

  “You tell me.” He stepped to the side of her bed in one long stride and sat down, his weight pulling at the sheet, entangling her in the cloth in such a way that she couldn’t move away from him. “What do you remember after Sergeant Ross left, Ms. Harris? What do you think happened?” He leaned forward, intimidating her with his presence.

  Yesterday she would have been paralyzed with fear. Today, having gone beyond fear to a different plane, she felt only bone weary, empty and strangely peaceful. But she was aware of the male scent of him swirling to her from his T-shirt as he loomed over her, aware of the bristly stubble of his beard on his pale skin, his disheveled black hair. She looked down at the smudges on her arm. “I think I want you off my bed.” She held his gaze. “Now.”

  “Ah.” He lifted her hand. “The kitten has claws.”

  Jerking away, no longer caring what he thought or suspected, Molly said, “I don’t have to answer any questions unless you’ve brought an arrest warrant with you. I’m lodging a complaint against you for illegal entry into my house.” She reached for the receiver again, hostility lending her temporary energy.

  “Go ahead.” Amusement flickered, sharklike, under his politely even tones. She heard the hint of knowledge he wouldn’t reveal until he was ready to pounce. He tapped in the first three numbers. “Be my guest.”

  Even in her terror and confusion yesterday, she’d known he liked to play games, and he was taunting her now with something he knew that she didn’t.

  She hung up the phone.

  He smiled, that slight lift at the corner of his thin, almost cruel mouth. “Ah, a wise woman, after all.”

  In passion, those lips would be clever, hot. Molly frowned as she stared at his mouth. “Why don’t you come right out with whatever you’re suggesting, Detective Harlan?” Her throat was still raw from screaming, and it tightened with tension as she spoke. “I’m not in the mood for your games.”

  “What are you in the mood for, Ms. Harris?” He slanted his head toward her. “Tell me. I find I’m inordinately curious about you.”

  In spite of herself, she leaned back.

  His smile was a thing of beauty, ironic, knowing. “Ah. Not forthcoming? Suppose I start?”

  “Go ahead.” She curled her fingers into the sheet. He was too sure of himself.

  “It wasn’t illegal entry.” Tracing circles on the sheet, he tilted his head. “You let me in.”

  “No.” She was certain about this. “Absolutely not.”

  “Yes.” The detective nodded once. “You did, you know.”

  She shook her head violently. “I know I didn’t.”

  With one index finger, he stopped her grip on the sheet. “In fact, you did.” He tapped her clenched fist. “Your turn, Ms. Harris. Perhaps this question is easier. Why is your kitchen like the aftermath of a hurricane?”

  “I was angry.” She eased her hand free. When she’d finally quit screaming, fury had flooded her—fury that she’d been weak for so long, a captive in her own home, a prisoner of the night when she’d never had a nervous bone in her body. “I had a temper tantrum.” Making fun of herself, she forestalled his comment. “And, yes, I enjoyed it. You might say I found my inner child.” Her smile, she discovered, was genuine. She had found peace in the release of her anger. Anger was better than paralyzing fear, she’d found as she threw glasses onto the floor.

  “And a very destructive child it was.”

  “Well…” She lifted one shoulder dismissively, keeping the sheet around her. “But you haven’t told me how you happen to be in my house, in my bedroom.” The rejuvenating anger she’d experienced last night percolated in her.

  “Oh, but I did,” he mocked, walking his fingers across her knuckles. “You chose not to believe me.”

  Anger evaporated like drops of water sizzling on a pancake griddle. Absolute truth shone from his amber eyes.

  She remembered that the cat had stayed with her until her screams had dwindled to racking sobs. She’d dreaded losing control, believing that once she did, she’d never stop screaming until they took her away in a straitjacket.

  But she’d underestimated her own mettle. In those moments when the cat had leapt up behind her, she’d touched bottom. There, with no place to go but upward to the light, she’d discovered some heretofore unknown strength and kept madness at bay.

  That strength, and the presence of the cat, his large, muscular body a barrier against the terrors of the night. The cat had stayed while she gibbered for mindless lengths of time. Then, as she raged through her kitchen, flinging pots and dishes with healthy anger, letting that rage supplant all the feelings of helplessness that had held her paralyzed for months, the cat had disappeared, somehow going back wherever he’d come from.

  Truth in the detective’s eyes, though. Molly blinked as she sorted through her memories. Crystal sharp the exhilaration of flinging dishes and pans. And after that? She rubbed her forehead. After that, what had she done?

  “You don’t remember going to the bayou, do you, Ms. Harris? You don’t remember—” he paused, lifted one shoulder “—almost making love with me, do you?”

  Molly shook her head. She hadn’t left her house. “You’re lying.”

  “No.” He stood up. “You know I’m not. What happened after Ross left, Ms. Harris? Tell me.” Turning suddenly, he squatted beside the bed and cupped her chin. “I know something happened, because when I came here, you walked right past me out your kitchen door, leaving it unlocked. You walked out onto the dock and let me kiss you, touch you here—” he held the tip of his finger over her breast, not touching her “—there—” he gestured lower, and she shuddered “—until I thought we would leave scorch marks on the wood.”

  Molly shook her head violently. “No. It’s not possible that I would…” She scrubbed her wrist across her mouth, which suddenly burned. “I wouldn’t have. Not with you. Never with you.”

  “But you did. With me.” He lifted her arm scornfully. “That’s why you have those marks.”

  She didn’t want to believe what he was saying, couldn’t begin to take it in. She rubbed the bruises apprehensively. “I don’t believe you. You must have rules against that kind of action on your part—regulations, something? Ethics, maybe? Wouldn’t that bother your department?”

  “Probably.”

  “I know you think I murdered Camina! Doesn’t it bother you that you came on to someone you consider a suspect?”

  “I’m sure it should, but I confess,” he said agreeably, “that it didn’t disturb me at all last night. I discovered that my principles weren’t up to the rigors of resisting the appeal of you in the moonlight.” He shrugged. “I’ve never claimed to be perfect. I’ve never found any advantage in virtue for virtue’s sake. Chalk it up to irresistible impulse, Ms. Harris.” He paused and then added in a voice that skimmed the surface of the acid underneath, “That’s what crooks claim, isn’t it? Irresistible impulse? But I’m the detective, while you’re—”

  “Not a criminal.”

  “No?” His smile was caustic. “Whatever you say, Ms. Harris.” He touched the sheet exactly over her nipple. Against the swift brush of his finger, her nipple peaked. He looked down at the small point under the sheet. “All right.” His eyes glinted as he looked at her. “Whatever you say.”

  His ruthlessness chilled her. In that moment, she feared him in a way she hadn’t before. This was a man who walked outside the boundaries, a man who respected only the limits he set. He was more dangerous to her than she could have imagine
d.

  Ignoring the tremors running from her breast to the center of her being, Molly called on the remnants of anger-generated energy from the night before. “If what you say is true—and I don’t believe you, not for a second, but if it is—I’ll file a complaint so fast—”

  “Go right ahead and file a complaint.”

  “Believe me, I will.” She thumped the bed.

  He lifted one dark eyebrow. “But if you check, Ms. Harris, you’ll find scratch and cut marks on your feet. From walking barefoot across the lawn and down to the bayou. There’s mud caked on the bottom of your pajama legs, too,” he added carelessly. “Look for yourself.” He lifted the sheet as he stood up. “And then tell me I’m lying.”

  With his negligent pull on the sheet, Detective John Harlan opened the door to the unimaginable and made it real.

  She’d been wrong after all. There was a level of terror beyond endless screaming.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Molly rubbed her hands over her arms. It was true. What she’d feared must have happened. In the watery light of the morning, though, she could face truth, no matter how frightening, and move on. It had been the not knowing that had pushed her to the edge.

  And over.

  At least she knew now that the events that had been happening to her weren’t figments of her imagination, that no one had slipped past bolted doors and windows. She could deal with the truth, however disturbing it seemed to be. While she didn’t understand what had caused her to wander down to the bayou, apparently in her sleep, she at least had a real question that would have a real answer. An odd mix of apprehension and elation bubbled within her.

  Although she didn’t trust Detective John Harlan on any level, he was telling her the truth. She’d known that as his gaze had held hers. Once he’d mentioned the cuts on her feet, she’d become aware of her stinging soles and had known there was no possibility that he was lying. He’d witnessed her behavior, actions she had no memory of, but needed to discover if she were to save herself.

  Pacing leisurely in front of her, he stopped, leaning against her dresser. “No comment?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can believe me or not.”

  He ran his long fingers along the edge of her dresser, stroking the bleached oak, fiddling with the brass knob of the top drawer. “Perhaps I do.”

  “You believe me?” Molly couldn’t help the skepticism in her voice. She knew he didn’t.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” He slid the drawer open a quarter of an inch. Closed it. “Perhaps I’m willing to consider that you might not remember anything about last night. Tell me, Ms. Harris,” he said, never taking his gaze from hers as he toyed with the second drawer, “what drugs are you taking?”

  Molly recoiled. “Drugs?”

  “Hmm. Yes. Uppers, downers, mood-altering buzzies. Junk.” With his fingers under the bottom of the drawer, he edged it open all the way. The drawer, filled with her panties and bras, tilted toward the floor. He rocked the drawer gently with his forefinger as he watched her. “Yes, drugs.”

  “I don’t do drugs, Detective.” His accusation came out of left field. So unexpected and preposterous was his question that Molly relaxed. “I never have.”

  “Commendable.” His smooth voice turned the comment into an insult. “Not on any medicines?” Once more he rocked the drawer, watching her with that look of an animal closing in on its prey.

  “None that are any of your business.”

  “Murder’s my business, so I get to indulge my curiosity. So, yes, as reluctant as you may be to—” he shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded black jeans “—tell all, everything about you, is, in fact, my business. And I have a prodigious curiosity about you, Ms. Harris, as I said.”

  “Well, we all know what curiosity did to the cat, don’t we?” she said nastily, pulling the sheet up around her and sliding lower on the bed.

  “Ah, you’re threatening me?” Again that courteous tilt of his head as he steadily regarded her, unfazed by her aggression.

  The air was rain chilled. No matter how tired she was, she had to remember to stay on guard with this man. The stakes were desperately high. “No, Detective, simply making an observation.”

  “You grow wiser by the minute, Ms. Harris.” A peach-colored bra dangled from his finger, the lace cups brushing the hair on his wrist. He ran his thumb over the satin strap. “Lovely as well as wise. A dangerous combination.”

  Molly inhaled and tried to ignore the prickling of her skin. “I don’t like the games you’re playing, Detective.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. But, Ms. Harris,” he said, “murder’s not a game with me. I take it very seriously.” Returning her bra to its original spot, he flipped through a stack of folded slips, their pastels flashing in front of her eyes like an elusive rainbow.

  “Fine,” Molly said, hostility and weariness nibbling at her caution in spite of her efforts. “I’m relieved that my tax dollars aren’t being wasted.”

  “And you contribute a lot of tax dollars, don’t you?” He eased the drawer shut so quietly that she almost missed the sound of wood meeting wood.

  “My fair share. Like everyone else.”

  “But more now? Right? With your inheritance after the death of your parents?”

  Molly blanched. Stunned, she felt the blood draining from her face. Even weary as she was, she understood his oblique accusation. “You think I killed my parents, too?” She wadded the sheet in her hand, holding on to it. Everytime she thought she’d faced the worst, he attacked from a different direction. “Camina and my parents?”

  “You had a motive, certainly.” He held out a tray of folded nylon stockings, their smoky grays and off-whites shading into each other.

  “No. Never. Not for Camina. Certainly not for my parents.”

  “Ah, but money’s always a motive. For lots of things, but especially for murder,” he said, letting the nylons slip through his long fingers, slide against his palm as he held the sheer hosiery up to the light. “I like your taste in underwear, Ms. Harris. Very elegant. And very expensive.”

  “You can’t think for a second that I would murder my parents!” Molly stared at his angular face, at his mouth, which tightened in cynicism with her outburst. She’d scarcely borne the horror of their deaths, emptiness and desolation swamping her with the discovery of their bodies. Shortly after, her brother, Reid, had returned to the Costa Rican ranch and she’d been utterly bereft of family. Remembering, Molly fought the tears of loss. “I loved my parents.”

  “And Camina Milar was your friend. Yes, I remember.”

  “Why would I have killed Camina?” With every ounce of her energy, Molly was trying to follow the twisting threads of his suspicions.

  “She worked for your parents and stayed on after their deaths. Perhaps she saw something. Knew something.” He was at her bedside table, lifting the lamp, looking at its base. “Or she might have overheard something you didn’t want her knowing?”

  “That’s preposterous. You have an evil mind, Detective.” Recoiling at the sludgy depths to which he’d taken her with his suspicions, Molly closed her eyes.

  “If I do, Ms. Harris, it comes from the company I keep. I’ve been around a fair number of folks who are wicked and frequently evil—evil from the moment of birth, something kinked in their nature. I understand human beings like that. I know how their greedy, selfish, angry little brains work. And I enjoy catching them.”

  Heat enveloped her. The detective was leaning over her toward the table on the far side of her bed. She understood he invaded her space on purpose in an effort to throw her off balance, recognized his ploy and still pushed against her headboard in a vain attempt to remove herself as far as possible from the heat that curled invitingly around her. That heat teased her with the possibility of letting go, drifting in its warmth like a cat on a windowsill soaking up the sunshine.

  Again she closed her eyes, to shut out his sardonic face inches fro
m hers, to diminish the impact of that heat that drew her irrationally, to draw a curtain between herself and Detective Harlan’s amber eyes, which tantalized her with the possibility of surrender. Her mouth gone dry, she said, “Would you mind letting me change, and then finish your search quickly, please? Or shall I add this harassment to my list of complaints about your investigative techniques?”

  The bed dipped as he supported himself with one outstretched arm on either side of her. “Are you feeling harassed, Ms. Molly?”

  Her eyelids flew open. “I said I was.”

  He was near enough to her that her eyes crossed slightly as she saw the crescent-shaped scar at the corner of his mouth. A scent lured her, clean, warm, male. John Harlan’s scent.

  Bubbling up from her unconscious came a sensation of that mouth against her, his thin lips hungry, urgent.

  Pleasure speared her.

  And revulsion at her weakness in the face of his threat to her. She focused on the shiny horizontal dent at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like the way you’re trying to intimidate me. I don’t like anything about the way you’re investigating Camina’s murder, and I don’t like you. Now let me up.”

  He angled closer. “You don’t like me?” His breath feathered along her neck.

  “No.” Her throat closed.

  He smiled, the side of his mouth rising infinitesimally, letting her know he saw through her defenses. “Not even a little?”

  “No,” she choked out.

  He tilted his head and let his gaze roam over her. “Then why did you let me touch you last night, Ms. Harris?”

  Her voice rising, Molly covered her face. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t remember letting you touch me, letting you into my house! I don’t know, I don’t know!”