She looked at him and thought about how much Sam would like him. Would like him for her. How much she liked him for her.
Benton must have seen her face change. He said, “What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking about my brother.” She swallowed and stared at the ocean. “He would have—”
She could not make the words come. The lump in her throat—not there a second ago, now everywhere—was huge, enormous. She gulped it back, hard, and then the words did come, no stopping, pouring out. “Do you know what the last thing was that Sam wanted? The very last thing that he asked for?”
Benton shook his head, not even sure she was addressing him.
“Well, he couldn’t ask,” Imogen said, slapping away her tears. “He couldn’t really speak. But he kept . . . he kept . . . Oh God—”
The syllables were wrenched from her. Benton went and put his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head into his chest and balled fistsful of his sweatshirt. “At the end, he kept raising up his arms in a circle, and I didn’t know what it meant. I tried everything. Everything I could think of. Except the right thing. All he wanted was a hug. That was what the circle meant, it was a hug. All he wanted was for me to hold him. And I didn’t figure it out. And he died.”
Imogen was sobbing, crying harder than she ever cried. The thought of Sam, dying cold and alone because she had been too stupid, too selfish to know what he wanted, wrenched through her entire body. At the ultimate critical moment, her understanding had failed her. She was no good. She was impotent. “I didn’t figure it out and he died,” she repeated, pulling out of Benton’s arms. “Don’t you see? That’s what is going to happen to Rosalind. I’m not going to figure it out and she’s going to die.”
“No,” Benton told her. “It is not just you. It’s all of us. A team. And we are going to figure it out.”
“How? I’m stuck. I’ve stared at that collage until I see pieces of it everywhere and I can’t find the right answer.”
“You will. We will. There’s still time.” He gathered her back into his arms. “There’s still time.”
They stood on the beach like that for a long time before turning and heading back. Neither of them noticed the homeless man hunkered down low behind the garbage can as they made their way up the beach to Benton’s house.
“Do you want to fly back to Vegas tonight?” he asked when they had dusted off their feet and were standing on the terrace.
Imogen thought about it. “No. You are right, it is too noisy there. I feel like my thoughts are clearer now. I want to go to bed, though. I feel a little fragile.”
She could not believe the things she was telling this man. Benton reached out and touched her hair and she did not mind. “You don’t look it. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”
He led her up a set of Lucite stairs to a bluish-white corridor that ended in a floor-to-ceiling window. On either side of the corridor was a single door. “That’s my room.” Benton indicated the door on the left. “That’s your room.” He pointed to the right. “And the balcony, which you can’t really see in the dark, runs across the front of the house. If you follow it around you’ll get to an outdoor shower if you want to rinse off from your swim. It’s actually nicer in the morning, though. Of course, there’s a regular shower in your room.”
“Thanks,” Imogen said.
“Thanks,” Benton repeated.
He was halfway down the stairs when she did it. She took a deep breath and said, “Breakfast at seven-thirty?”
“Yes,” he called back. She could hear the smile in his voice.
Imogen stayed up late listening to the ocean and thinking about Benton.
But not as late as Benton stayed up thinking about her.
CHAPTER 69
At two A.M., with a stinging neck and aching knees, after hours of false starts that felt like an eternity, Rosalind rolled onto her back on the dusty carpet of her prison and wept. The bobby pin slid from her mouth to the floor but she did not care. She did not need it anymore.
She’d picked the lock on his desk drawer. Now all she needed was to get the zipper on the manicure set open. Then she would be free.
She fell asleep.
CHAPTER 70
4 days left!
Benton woke abruptly with the knowledge that he was being watched. He’d left the sliding glass doors of his bedroom open the night before so he could hear the ocean. Now there was someone standing there.
He reached for his glasses and something to use as a weapon. Saw it was Imogen in the door, and put down the water bottle. She was wearing the terry-cloth robe he had put in her bedroom for her, but it was too long and dragged on the ground like a train. She was barefoot and her hair was a mess and he’d never seen a sexier woman in his life.
“Hi,” he said. Glanced at his clock. It was only a quarter past six. “It’s a little early for breakfast.”
She nodded.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded again. Took a deep breath. And said, “I was wondering if you wanted to take a shower with me.”
Then somehow they were together, standing wrapped around each other in the middle of his bedroom floor and she was saying, Benton I can’t stop thinking about you and he was saying, I don’t want you to not ever, and she said, Your socks don’t match, and he said, I love you Imogen and whatever you are going to say you are wrong.
Holding her face in his hands to say, “I do love you.”
She looked at him and said, “I never thought the best day of my life would be in the middle of a murder investigation,” and then, “I can’t believe I just told you that,” and he couldn’t stop kissing her.
His hands slid under her robe and touched her naked skin, and she made a little noise that made him want to keep touching her everywhere. She wasn’t wearing any panties, and when he pushed the robe off of her saw she wasn’t wearing anything at all and he almost lost it right there, her looking up at him through lashes giving him a mock foxy look and then cracking up, cracking him up.
They were on the bed.
She pulled herself up so she was even with his ear and said, “Knock, knock,” as her hand moved down his chest, toward his crotch.
“A man could get hurt with what you’re doing,” he told her as her hand circled his penis.
“That’s not your line,” she said, her finger tracing the length of him.
He squeezed out, “Who’s there?”
“Fido.”
“Fido who?”
She climbed astride him and said, “Fidon’t get to have you inside me soon, Benton Arbor, I am going to explode.”
Benton pulled her so she was lying still on top of him. “Did you make that up right now?”
“Yes.” She pawed his chest. “And I meant it. Woof-woof.”
“That has got to be the worst knock-knock joke ever created.”
She moved her hips against him. “Let’s see you do better.”
“Not now. Later. Much lat— Damn.”
“What is wrong?”
“Protection,” Benton said. “This is so unexpected that I hadn’t even thought about it. I don’t have—”
“Don’t move,” Imogen ordered, climbing off of him. She slipped through his bedroom door and came back a minute later holding a box of condoms. “I hadn’t thought of it either, but Reggie had.”
“I’ll have to write him a thank-you note.”
She climbed on top of him and ripped one of the foil packages open with her teeth, which almost made Benton come right there. Moving down his body, she knelt in front of his penis, put the condom in her mouth, and slid it all the way down.
Benton thought he was a goner but held on, and then he was inside her and their eyes were locked and he said, I’ve never felt— and she said, Me either. Not like this. Then her eyes closed and she was making the little noises again, sometimes saying his name, and he wanted to hold on to it,
this moment, this feeling, forever.
He stopped moving.
Her eyes came open slowly. “What are you—”
“Knock, knock,” he said.
“No,” she shook her head. “Not now.”
“Knock, knock,” he insisted.
“Who’s there?”
“Ida.”
“Ida?” Imogen repeated.
“That’s not your line—”
“Ida who?” she corrected.
Benton smiled triumphantly. “Ida slow down if you want this to last more than another twenty seconds.”
Imogen stared at him in disbelief and struggled to push down her laughter and failed. She collapsed on his chest, saying, “That was terrible,” and laughing even more.
He was laughing almost as hard as she was. “I know. I made it up right on the spot.”
Soon they were both crying they were laughing so hard, and then laughter gave way to moans and they were panting and gasping and clinging together. Arms and legs twined together, the pressure between them mounted until they were both making a lot of noise, and she said, “Oh God,” and Benton said her name over and over again.
Afterward, they lay tangled together chuckling, holding hands. Benton pushed her hair off her forehead and let his hand rest on her cheek. “You aren’t going to regret this.”
“I know.” Her eyes shifted to the clock. “It’s almost time for breakfast. Now do you want to take a shower with me?”
He kissed her, and without taking his lips from hers picked her up, walked into the bathroom for two towels, and carried her outside. Her back pressed against the wall of the shower and his leg came up beneath her, anchoring her as he adjusted the water. Imogen felt one of his hands groping for something along the wall, and the sound of Tom Jones singing “She’s a Lady” filtered into the shower.
They danced under the shower with Tom Jones singing over the sound of the Pacific Ocean, and the sun rising to the east behind them and whispered to each other and both felt spectacular. Then they dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and flew back to Vegas.
“What do you taste when we are making love?” Benton asked as his plane taxied to its parking spot at the Vegas airport.
Imogen blushed. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Juicy Fruit gum.”
“I thought you didn’t like the way that tasted.”
“I do now.”
CHAPTER 71
Benton and Imogen managed to keep their hands off each other as they walked through the lobby, barely, but when they got to the empty elevator bank Benton pulled Imogen into his arms and kissed her. He was still kissing her when the doors of the elevator opened, and when they closed, and reopened on the thirty-fifth floor. He kept kissing her all the way to the door of her room.
They stopped there and looked at each other in silence for an instant. A flicker of discovery crossed Imogen’s face and she said, “You just took an elevator.”
Benton frowned. It had been twenty-six years since he had been in an elevator. “I guess I did.” His mouth was just coming down on hers when Bugsy opened the door of her suite.
“I thought I heard you out here,” he said, trying hard to pretend he had not interrupted anything. “I’m sorry to butt in, boss, but there’s someone on the phone you should talk to.” He cleared his throat. “Someone angry.”
“ ‘Bye,” Imogen said to Benton.
“ ‘Bye.”
He kissed her on the lips. “See you at lunch.”
“Um-hmm.” He started walking down the corridor and she said, “You’re going the wrong way. The stairs are in the other direction.”
“I’m taking the elevator.”
Imogen hugged herself as she walked into her room.
Benton went and stood in front of the elevator bank. He pushed the down button. The doors opened. He took a step in—
Nobody loves you, you little freak! a voice shouted in his head. Nobody cares about you! You’re a disgusting shit! PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!
—and stopped.
He fumbled in his pocket for a piece of Juicy Fruit and turned, retracing his path to the stairs.
CHAPTER 72
The voice on the other end of the phone was so loud Imogen had to hold it away from her ear. “Just what the hell are you doing out there, Imogen?”
She tilted the mouthpiece toward her. She could not stop smiling. She said, “Hi, Lex, how are you today?”
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone for the last half hour?”
“I was on an airplane. Is there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about? I’m sort of busy.”
“I know you’ve been busy. Have you checked your fax machine?”
“Not yet, I just—”
“Got home. I know. Go look at what I sent you. I’ll hold on.”
Imogen crossed to the fax machine and picked up the six sheets of paper. They were dark and each appeared to be part of a larger image. She organized them on the surface of the table and stepped backward.
It was a setup of the front cover of a tabloid. The photo showed a couple on the beach, each of them half-naked, embracing. The headline said “LOVERGIRL?”
It was her and Benton. It had to have been taken the night before, on the beach, when he was drying her with his sweatshirt. Beneath the headline the caption read: The Inside Scoop on How the FBI Really Spends Its Time. The publication date was the following week.
Imogen picked up the phone. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
Lex said, “Well, what do you think? Are you proud of yourself?”
Oh golly, yes, she was tempted to say. I’ve always wanted to be a cover model. She said, “I think it’s libel. Can you kill it before it hits the stands?”
“Yes. In exchange for dropping the charges you brought against that woman. Leslie Lite, the reporter.”
“Do it.”
“We are going to. And now I’ll tell you what you are going to do. You are going to stay the hell away from Benton Arbor. You are not going to see him. You are not going to be in the same room with him. I don’t even want him in Vegas. Do you understand?”
“Yes. You’ll have to tell him.”
“Elgin is on the phone with him right now. You’re not going to see him before he leaves either, got that?”
Imogen nodded but said nothing.
“What did you think you were doing, Gigi?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” Imogen answered honestly. And she wasn’t sorry either.
She listened through another ten minutes of Lex lecturing her. She hung up and called Benton. “Did you hear?” she asked when he answered on the first ring.
“Yes. I’ve got my walking papers. I’m leaving for Detroit in an hour. I’m not even allowed to come up and see you to say good-bye. They’ve got someone here baby-sitting me.”
“I’m sorry, Benton.”
“Me too. I was looking forward to having breakfast with you tomorrow.”
Imogen smiled into the phone. “There’s always next week,” she heard herself say, and could not believe the words had come out of her mouth.
“That is what I like to hear. Look, I know you don’t need me, but call if you just want to talk. Or if there is anything I can do.”
“I will.”
“Don’t forget about me, okay?”
He sounded so much like a lonely child that she laughed. “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”
Long pause.
“I love you, Imogen Page,” he said and hung up, fast.
Imogen was still smiling when she put down the receiver. Then she turned to where Bugsy had repinned the collage to her wall. The smile vanished.
Not Loverboy’s smile. His was big big big. He thought: Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ve got Rosalind, and now, Imogen, I’ve got you too.
CHAPTER 73
Rosalind did not know how long she had been asleep, but she was sure it was too long. She h
ad learned to recognize the different times of day from the amount of noise that filtered in from outside, and the faint sounds she heard now said it was daytime. He could be back at any moment. She had to rush.
She used her knee to open the heavy drawer of the drafting table, and picked out the manicure set with her teeth. She dropped it on the drafting table and bent over the zipper. It was tiny and recessed between the two sides of the leather case. Using her tongue, she was able to make it stick out so that her teeth could almost reach it. Almost.
Not good enough. She was losing precious minutes.
Her heart pounding, she turned around and propped her bound wrists on the edge of the table. Her fingers were numb and awkward from being without blood for so long. She closed her eyes and pictured the manicure set. There, right there, she could touch it, her right index finger could just make out its edge. Good, she told herself. Keep going, Ros, you can do it.
Her finger slid along the edge of the zipper until she found the pull. Come on, thumb, she urged her fingers, as if they weren’t part of her. Come on, dammit, come—
Her index finger and thumb closed on the zipper pull. But every time they moved, the manicure set moved too. She fought back the urge to cry. When did simple things become so hard?
She fumbled blindly with the zipper, anchoring the case against her back, pulling her arms as far down as they would go. From a great distance she heard the quiet hiss of the zipper coming undone. It was the best sound she had ever heard.
She pushed the manicure case open. Clumsy hands touched each piece in turn, as she tried to guess what would work best to cut through the duct tape he’d bound her wrists with. After four tries she managed to get her fingers into the holes of the nail scissors and turn them toward the tape.
They slipped off and fell onto the floor and as she bent to get them she heard the footsteps.
CHAPTER 74
Dannie leaned over the table and handed her report around. Her cheeks were slightly flushed with excitement. “He did it in every city. The Florida case is less sure because they thought they had someone for it and the body was found in a swimming pool instead of a bathtub, but it sounds like our guy. They’d rather this didn’t get out. Anyway, same MO, woman strangled after sex and left in a body of water. In every case where sheets were recovered, they had been sprayed with Poison perfume.”
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