Honorable Rogue

by Linda J. Parisi

  “I know. And I can’t thank you enough, Frank. You know I can’t. But you also know I don’t have much of a choice.” One tortured inhale. An exhale. Another brick. “Lately I’ve been wondering if it’s even worth continuing the search. It won’t bring Kelly or my folks back.”

  Tori struggled. Sometimes the construction didn’t go so well. Sometimes pieces of the wall fell down. Sometimes entire pieces of her fell into the heap. And yet no matter how badly she shattered, she kept trying to put the pieces back together.

  They’d found Kelly slumped against the wall. Her neck snapped like a matchstick. When Tori had found out, she’d thought the world ended. But there was more, so much more.

  Tori’s eyes fluttered open to a semi-sterile hotel room. She wondered for a moment what she was doing in one. Weak light filtered through two not-quite-closed curtains. She stared at the ceiling, trying to swallow past a tongue two sizes too large.

  Hotel food. Ugh. Too much salt.

  She reached for the half-empty water bottle on the nightstand and drained it. She sat up, feeling odd and a bit woozy, thanking her common sense for not going with everyone for a last nightcap.

  Swinging her legs over the bed, she reached for her phone. Five missed calls? Her stomach hollowed. She shook her head to concentrate. She didn’t recognize the number. Then she asked the most important question. Why hadn’t she heard her phone go off? She hit the Volume button. Damn. That last meeting. She’d turned it down and forgotten to turn it up.

  Her heart pounded. The hollow in her belly became a pit, ready to sink her at a moment’s notice. She scrolled through her received calls. Pain shot through her brain. She ignored it. No voicemails, no calls from her father. She drew in a pure sigh of relief. All quiet on the Tuckerton front.

  Tori leaned back and rubbed at her face. She waited for the pounding in her brain and the trembling to subside. Then she looked at her phone again. Just the same number. Breathing carefully to keep her head from exploding, she trudged into the bathroom, took a couple of pain relievers, downed more water, walked back by the bed, and then she called.

  “Hello? You called me?”

  “Dr. Roberts?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Detective Whitlock.”

  Whitlock? Her brain drew up a picture of a stern, serious-looking young man with a buzz cut. “You called several times. A little early to be working on a Sunday morning, isn’t it?” Then she realized. CST. She was an hour ahead.

  “Where are you, Doctor?”

  “Chicago. At a conference. Why?”

  He drew in a deep breath. Her fingers tightened on her phone. “I’m sorry to have to inform you, but there was an attempted robbery at your parents’ house last night.”

  Her hand shook in earnest. Her heart pounded in her ears. The water in her stomach flipped over, sloshing like a rough sea. A little bile rose up her throat. She swallowed the sour taste back down. “A robbery? Is everyone all right? Was anyone hurt?”

  “I’m afraid your father was badly injured. Your mother was knocked unconscious.”

  Tori shook her head no. Her dad? Images of her father broken and bleeding flashed through her mind. Her knees gave way, and she fell onto the edge of the bed, mind racing. She needed to hold him. Tell him she was there. He’d be okay. No, she needed to call Frank and tell him to get them on the next flight home. Then her brain fired on all eight cylinders. If her father and mother were in the hospital…

  “Detective, who has my daughter? Where is she? Did she see any of it? Please tell me you have her and she’s safe.”

  A long silence. Why? What was going on? “We have her.”

  Thank God. But something was still off. “Detective, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? Where’s my daughter? Where’s Kelly?”

  A very deep breath. “Your daughter is dead, Doctor. I’m sorry.”

  NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. Impossible.

  “You need to get back to New Jersey as soon as possible. We’re doing everything in our power to find the men who did this.” Her turn not to answer. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Frank! Pick up, dammit! “Hello?”

  “Frank. It’s Tori. I don’t even know where to begin. I just got a call from the Tuckerton police. Kelly is…Kelly is…” If she said the words, they’d be true. But they couldn’t be true. No. Not possible. This was all a mistake. A terrible mistake. She didn’t believe it. She wasn’t going to. “Something about a robbery.”

  “Oh my God, Tori.” Silence. Did he understand? Could he? They were wrong. That’s all. Kelly was fine. She was sleeping in her bed. With Teddy. “Listen. I’ll call the airline,” Frank said. “Just get dressed and pack. We’re out of here as soon as possible.”

  How did a person know when they were truly broken? Did the pieces all fall together in a heap, or did one section slough off at a time?

  Tori walked into the morgue, more than familiar with the room. The bubble that had surrounded her through the flight and the drive home kept reality out. She walked over to the table. They lifted the sheet. Her hand lifted to tuck it back in. Just as if she was home.

  “She needs Teddy, Frank. She always has Teddy with her when she sleeps.”

  Next to her, Frank drew in a ragged breath. “C’mon, Tori. We need to get you home.”

  “Yes,” she mumbled. “Home. Kelly is home.”

  There was a reason why she worked with the dead. It was easier to live this way.

  “I’ll need a couple weeks’ emergency vacation,” she continued, finally halting the torture inside her brain.

  “A couple of weeks?” Frank echoed with chagrin. “Really?”

  She nodded. “I know my request puts you on the spot.” God, she hated lying and hoped her face didn’t reveal her deception. “But it’s not like I take vacations.”

  He looked away but not before she caught the commiseration. “I know.”

  “Listen, Frank. You lived with this too. First Kelly, then my dad going a couple weeks later and then my mom. I know the police have tried,” she sighed. “But I’m warning you. If this isn’t settled for good, I might just end up in a not-so-expensive rest stop. So be prepared. The vacation might end up permanent.”

  Frank shook his head and tsked. “You do realize I can’t let you do that, don’t you? I really need you? I need you alive and working? Here? Sane? Not in an institution? Yes?”

  “Thanks for the genuine note of caring,” Tori muttered back. “You’re a real treasure.”

  Frank laughed gently. “I know.”

  Was she really tired of the pain or tired of fighting? When had she changed? In the beginning, the fire of hatred kept her body functioning, kept her mind filled so she hadn’t had to feel. And she had every right. Now? Funny, for the first time Tori wasn’t so sure.

  But then she thought of Hunter. Was it right to be like him? So cold and unfeeling? Hating humans? And, it seemed, even hating existence? Tori shook her head. So much effort. And where would all that expended energy get her?

  Her boss, friend, and confidant drew in a deep breath and let out the air slowly. “All right. Two weeks. Not a day more. That’s all I can cover.” His brows drew together almost into a straight line. “And I’m not bailing you out of anything you get yourself into, do you read me?”

  Would she trade her life for a taste of revenge? Tori mock-saluted. No. There was still a part of her deep inside that believed in the oath. And a part of her was bone weary from asking why all the time. She swallowed her feelings. It was either bury her pain or break down completely. “Yes, sir.” She turned to leave.

  “Hey, Tori?”

  She swung her head around. “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry. Deeply sorry.”

  As if he hadn’t told her those very same words already about a thousand times. “I know. Thanks.”

  Tori hated using Kelly and her folks as an excuse. Talking about them only dredged up the pain. Kind of like whip marks on your back that never healed, then
got whipped again. Stinging and biting and ending with an ache deep inside. But it was the only plausible excuse she could come up with. Frank knew her too well to believe she would just up and go on a trip to Greece or something.

  Tori walked back to the car, filled with those old wounds and a new wave of heartache. She tried to control her thoughts and failed. Hunter’s seat was upright, and there was compassion in his gaze as she got in. She didn’t want to explain, but he already knew her pain. She put it into words for the first time in a long time.

  “Peter and I were engaged to be married. We were searching for places where we could do our residencies together. He was going to be a surgeon. I was sticking with pathology. My birth control failed, and I got pregnant. He left. Decided he didn’t want kids. But I had Kelly.”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then he asked, “How did they die?”

  Tori choked out the words. “I went to a conference out of town. My first ‘vacation’ in I can’t tell you how long. While I was partying and having a good time, my parents were murdered and my daughter discarded like a piece of garbage. Home invasion. The police said my folks were easy targets.” She drew in a deep breath. “My dad. He—he kept a baseball bat by the bed. The police think he tried to go after the robbers, and that’s when everything went south.”

  Tori pictured another brick and another, slapping down mortar with a vengeance. It didn’t help. For a moment she wanted to double over and start screaming, never to stop. The cold in his tone had the same effect as a bucket of ice water. “I’m sorry.”

  “Really,” she drawled.

  Was she being unfair? Perhaps he wasn’t just cold and unfeeling. Maybe he was trying to get her to buck up by not playing into pity. At least the question helped her get back on track.

  She tightened her fingers around the steering wheel before letting go. “So am I.” Rather than let him see her confusion, her weakness, Tori filled her mind with an evil picture. “I’m sure what I’m thinking right now isn’t exactly legal.”

  His mouth quirked. Yet his gaze told her he knew pain. This kind of pain. “I’ve done worse.”

  Tori swallowed hard. “My mother and father were old fashioned, normal, regular grandparents. I was told they went shopping in the afternoon to buy Kelly a present. That was how the thieves marked them.” Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t help thinking if they hadn’t gone shopping that day. If they’d stayed home. If I’d stayed home. If my father hadn’t tried to go after them. So many ifs.”

  Tori shuddered, locking down on the breach. “They loved her so much.”

  “And you?”

  She didn’t answer. How could she put into words the hole he was trying to find? Love? Such a paltry word. Kelly had been her everything.

  And they still couldn’t find the other men who’d done it. Maybe this was why she couldn’t speak. Some kind of closure, any kind of closure would help fill the hole in her heart. Wouldn’t it?

  His hand reached out and covered one of hers for a moment. “Again, you have my sympathies, Tori. Your justice system is complex. And perhaps rather lacking. Should you wish, I can look into the matter for you?”

  With a bitterness that would never heal her she shot back, “Lacking? Right.” Tori shook her head. “No thanks. You might bite first and ask questions later. I wouldn’t want the wrong person hurt.”

  He snorted. “We don’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

  Horrified, Tori shot back, “I don’t profess to be prescient. Why do you?” She paused. “Or maybe the question should be how can you? What—or should I ask—who gave you that right?”

  The answer to her questions was because he could. All of the above. Which made her mad.

  She started the car and drove to her house using the need to focus to calm down. His singularity frightened her. He constantly cut to the chase, centered on a purpose without deviating. So did his arrogance. She couldn’t understand what it was like to be that sure of something. Then she did. He could read minds.

  “I come from a simple place, a simple time,” she began, doubting very much if he’d understand. “A community where people don’t lock cars or doors. Where neighbors watch out for everyone’s kid, not only their own. We all belong to one another. I wouldn’t have the temerity to become judge and jury.”

  Because his eyes were closed, she couldn’t read his exact meaning when he murmured, “Maybe you should.”

  Wouldn’t feeling entitled to those judgments become revenge and not justice? She almost posed the question out loud. Then she thought better of the idea. Hunter wouldn’t understand. Then she realized once again he probably heard it anyway. Yet he didn’t answer, and she appreciated his discretion.

  As they pulled into her parking lot she said, “I have to clean, close up, do laundry, and pack. Not exactly exciting.”

  “Not a problem. I shouldn’t go outside until late afternoon or so. I’ll just doze.”

  They went in, his coat and a broad-brimmed hat protecting him. He hung up both in her closet, unlike most of the men she knew who would just throw them on or over the back of a chair. Then he sat down and made himself comfortable on her couch. Just once, she wished she could know what was going on in that head of his. Way better than what was going on in hers, she imagined.

  But she did have a question. “You know, if you can’t go outside and I get attacked…?”

  He laughed softly. “I have sworn to protect you. Do you really think a little sunburn would stop me from saving you?”

  “Just curious,” she answered, although the tiny sear of warmth at his words made her next statement a lie. “Wondering how far your allegiance would go.”

  “I made you a promise,” he insisted.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “No, I didn’t. But I did so enough. Trust me.”

  Yeah. The little word that meant so much. “Right.”

  Chapter Nine

  Hunter watched her work through half-closed eyes. The house seemed spotless to him, but she wiped and scoured and dusted until the place sparkled. Humans called it obsessive-compulsive behavior, but Hunter called it coping.

  Pain. He understood his own but had never really considered another’s before, or that there could be such varying degrees from so many different causes. Did different causes make one type of pain less than another? No, he decided, simply different and no less hard to bear.

  A load of laundry went into the washer, then she went into her bedroom. He listened to the shower run. He rose, knowing what was going to happen. In Tori, he found a kindred spirit. They both knew loss. They even shared a common pain, the loss of a loved one, though she didn’t know that yet. He knew of only one way to ease such incredible pain.

  He opened the bathroom door quietly, watching steam surround her body. His heart stopped. Just that fraction-of-a-second missed beat, that jolt of awareness. All too familiar but in a different context. Always with the need, with the blood. Never with a woman, until now.

  So brave to continue, to go on despite the devastation. He tried to imagine. Was it better to be so far away and not know the actual events, or was it better to have the horror happen before your very eyes? Hunter decided the best thing for both of them was to block out the pain by seeking succor. He opened the shower door and stepped inside. Droplets of hot water snaked down his skin. Every cell the fluid touched woke up, took notice, and drank in the water as he did the blood.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

  Hunter hated painted faces. He hated the smell of makeup, cloying and stifling. Both sight and smell reminded him of the rich wives who’d paid his master for his services. Women with their fawning fingers and men with their furtive glances, they’d owned him, therefore what had been wrong had become right. But with her hair slicked back, Tori looked fresh, alive, and real. She looked right. And she smelled clean, of citrus and herbs.

  Her gaze met his, searching. Her eyes were so soft, so round, they seemed infinite, yet they were fi
lled with disbelief. Tori was intelligent enough to understand the consequences of his actions. They both knew she should push open the door and demand he step back out to drip onto the rug and shiver as the water turned cold on his skin. But all she did was acknowledge the danger. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  Even as she said the words she was working at the buttons on his shirt. He helped undo his trousers, letting them fall. She splayed her fingers across his chest, exploring, learning every muscle. He shucked his shirt and stood naked before her.

  “I’ve done many things in my existence I shouldn’t have done,” he replied, deciding they were both wrong. He pulled her into his embrace. “This isn’t one of them.”

  She stared up at him with the innocence of a doe and the strength of a lioness. He bent to one knee to pay homage. Not just to her body but to her.

  Hunter started at her breasts, lathing each nipple into a tiny rock and then nipping just enough to make her jump. He kissed his way down her belly and over the soft curve of her hip, never touching her core, simply licking the outside of her folds until she was so aroused she’d come if he but breathed on her.

  Somewhat satisfied, Hunter rose. She nearly jumped on him to get him inside her, clawing and begging. But he had other plans. He turned off the water and sluiced the droplets from their bodies with his hands. She lifted onto her toes to kiss him. He held back. She cocked her head, fingers caressing his cheeks, thumbs grazing his lips. By sheer will, she pulled his head closer and closer until their tongues began to mate. Each time she grazed one of his incisors, he jumped, a shiver of pleasure racing through him.

  Leaning back, she broke the kiss. “That is so fascinating.”

  “Mood killer,” he groused.

  She laughed softly. “Never,” she whispered as she brought his head back down again. She kissed the hell out of him, and Hunter realized he didn’t want it to end. Then it did as she jerked back, fell to her knees, and paid homage to him.

  Uh-oh.

  Oh, he’d been the recipient of talented tongues. And sucked off more times than he cared to remember, especially by other men. But never worshiped. No one had taken the time, not the painted patrons, the whores, not even the one-night stands. Yet each time she nibbled, each time she teased, each time her tongue snaked out to tantalize, he knew. She was taking the time to learn his body. No one had ever cared what he wanted or what he felt.