That Was Yesterday

by Vella Munn

  Mara pressed her free hand to her throat. “What will you be doing?”

  “How long would it take you to get to the beach place?”

  “Reed?” She breathed his name. “You can get away? It’s safe?”

  “It’s as safe as it’s ever going to be until it’s over.”

  “When?” Mara asked with her heart pounding.

  “Friday night?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Two cars were parked in front of the cabin when Mara arrived. One was Reed’s Jag, the other a nondescript Ford. Fighting back her disappointment at having to share Reed with anyone, Mara rang the doorbell. She recognized Captain Bistron when he opened the door. Reed stood behind him.

  The police officer stuck out his hand and shook Mara’s. “I’m glad to see you again. Things getting back to normal, are they? I was telling Reed. Except for, maybe, that one time, the patrols haven’t seen anything to make them suspicious.”

  Mara nodded noncommittally. Unlike the Captain, Reed wasn’t smiling. But he was coming toward her, and that was all that mattered. Reed was wearing canvas pants and a shirt he’d left partially unbuttoned and tucked into his pants, drawing her eyes to his waist, and lower. Mara had dressed carefully, a soft yellow blouse and white skirt. Both blouse and skirt had been bought for this weekend. “I don’t understand,” she said as Reed took her hand. He squeezed; she squeezed back but kept her voice neutral. “Are the two of you having a meeting?”

  “A strategy planning session,” Reed explained. “Bistron’s spending the weekend on the coast himself. We figured if he came here we could talk without interruption. I’m sorry, but it shouldn’t take long.”

  Mara nodded and then sat down. Despite her need to be alone with Reed, it helped to have the captain in the cabin. This way she would listen and maybe learn something about the alien world that consumed Reed.

  From what she gathered, Zack and his partner left for Reno to straighten out some problems with one of the middle men. If Reed had accurate information, whoever was responsible for taking stolen cars into the Midwest had gotten greedy.

  “I’m hoping intimidation will do the trick,” Reed explained. “If they have to get rid of the guy, that means I’ll have to wait until someone has taken his place.”

  “Is there that much money in this…whatever it is?”

  “There’s a lot, Mara. A lot,” Reed said and then explained that most auto thefts were major headaches for the police. The majority of stolen cars were sold as parts after the chop shops were done with them. If valuable autos like the ones involved in this ring weren’t stripped, they were sold with altered ID numbers. If the autos didn’t go through reputable auto dealers, the police or department of motor vehicles might never be able to track them.

  “This ring’s got us both ways. Cut a car into pieces and we’ll never patch it together. Change the VIN and how are we going to trace it?” Captain Bistron explained. “The buyer who gets a great deal is going to keep his mouth shut. And the guy who sold it to him? He isn’t going to admit what he did.”

  Reed grunted. “Especially since he has a pretty good idea what his life is worth if he rats.”

  “Enough,” Captain Bistron groaned after they’d been at the table for the better part of an hour. “You’re right, Reed. We still don’t have everything we need. I just needed to be brought up-to-date. I know I don’t have to say it, but be careful.”

  Reed glanced over at Mara. With an effort she kept her features expressionless. “I am,” he said simply, then continued, “Captain, the other thing you and I were talking about. Mara needs to hear about that.”

  “Yeah.” Captain Bistron drew out the word. “You saw that TV bit about the supermarket rapist? For the record, the station got the bare minimum from us before they ran the piece.”

  “You don’t approve?” Mara asked.

  “I don’t approve of the way they handled it. They’re after sensationalism. It’s a ratings game. To hear them talk, you’d think we’d doubled the force so we can get this scum. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

  Mara nodded. “What are you saying?”

  “What I’m saying is, if this joker watched that program, maybe he’s thinking there’s too much heat. He could back off. There’s a chance we’ll never catch him now.”

  Never.

  “They won’t be able to keep the patrols coming by my place indefinitely, will they?” Mara said after the captain left. “If he isn’t caught in a few days or weeks, if there’s no proof he’s been around, the police are going to back off.”

  Reed locked the cabin door and turned toward her. He looked wary and resigned. “I don’t see as they have any choice. Mara, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she told him. “I’ve never been convinced of the effectiveness of having the police drive by, anyway. He’d hear and hide before they got anywhere near him.”

  Reed stopped with his hand poised over the light switch. “What are you saying? You think he’s been around?”

  “Of course not.” Despite her attempt to defuse his dark mood, her tone sounded stilted even to her. Mara wondered if Reed noticed. “I’m simply stating the obvious.”

  The light was off. He came toward her, not rushing, but not holding back, either. “You have the gun,” he said into the dark.

  “Yes.”

  “And Lobo. He’s a good warning system.”

  “Reed,” Mara said, “I got an hour’s worth of advice from Clint’s parents the other night. My secretary was almost as bad. I don’t need any more.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” Reed said, his hands settling, warm and alive, on her shoulders. “I don’t want this conversation any more than you do. I want to forget there’s anything in the world except us being together. But, Mara, I’m surrounded by men without conscience, men who’ll do anything if the price is right.”

  Abruptly, Mara pulled away and paced to the glass door leading to the deck. It was too dark to see the ocean, but she could hear its timeless rumble. The ocean couldn’t share its strength with her. Neither could Reed. He was only human. She loved him and lived for these moments when they were together, but her strength and courage had come from within her.

  Reed joined her, bringing with him the challenge she felt whenever he came close. “I understand how you feel,” she told him. “The things you hear, what you’ve seen. But, Reed, I’m not dealing with a man who thinks nothing of killing someone else.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “He isn’t that brave,” Mara protested. She wasn’t sure whether the argument was for him or her. “He’s an opportunist. A coward. That’s what the TV program said.”

  “And they know?”

  As Mara tensed in response to Reed’s words, she could see he already regretted having brought the subject up.

  “I’m sorry. That’s not why I asked you to come here.”

  “It isn’t?” Mara asked, knowing the answer.

  “I wanted to see you. I like what you’re wearing. It’s lovely. You’re lovely.” A few seconds later, with his mouth inches from her ear, Reed whispered, “I thought the captain was never going to leave. You really are here.”

  “I’m really here.” And so are you.

  “And no one except Bistron knows where we are.”

  “Clint has a pretty good idea.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He didn’t have to,” Mara admitted. “All he had to do was look at me.”

  For several minutes they simply stood, touching, while Mara cleared her mind of everything except awareness of Reed’s presence. At length she looked up at him. There were a thousand promises in that look. Reed threaded his fingers through her hair, testing her self-control. For three, maybe four heartbeats they remained motionless with need arcing and Mara focusing on nothing except Reed’s gentle strength. Then Reed lowered his head and covered her mouth with warmth and life. And she molded, melted into him.

  For the
next hours she would think about nothing except making love and the sound of the ocean.

  Because she knew he wouldn’t be able to give her an answer, Mara didn’t ask Reed when he’d get in touch with her again. Instead she used their time together to memorize his embrace, his words, the solid lines of his body as he stood watching the ocean early the next morning. Then she got in her car and drove off without looking back.

  She didn’t cry during the drive home. She walked into her house and turned on the stereo to Reed’s favorite station. Although there couldn’t possibly be a message from him, she ran her answering machine. Several would-be students had left messages, but she couldn’t be bothered to jot down names and phone numbers now. She hit the Save button, and carried her new blouse and skirt to the washer, and stood, watching it fill. When her clothes started sloshing, she closed her eyes and pressed her palms against them, denying her loneliness.

  On Sunday Detective Kline called. There’d been another attempted kidnapping. “It might not be our guy,” he explained. “But I thought you should know. Apparently this girl’s a member of her high school track team. When he pulled the knife she took off like a scared rabbit. Unfortunately her car wasn’t so lucky.”

  With her hand clamped over her throat, Mara asked him to explain.

  “She’d left it unlocked. Kids! They think they’re invincible. Anyway, by the time she got to the police and they came back to the parking lot, her seats were ripped.”

  Mara swallowed. “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Mara didn’t want to hear that. She asked the detective a few more questions about the investigation, but it was obvious that the police were frustrated. A man who didn’t leave fingerprints, who was cunning enough to alter his appearance, and who was continuing his sick game despite public awareness, wouldn’t be easily caught.

  Mara weeded her flower garden, cleaned house and gave Lobo a bath, but those activities weren’t enough to distract her. Her body remembered Reed, Reed who’d left her after their night of lovemaking because he had had no choice. She’d told him about getting her purse back but not about throwing it away. She’d said nothing about her reaction to finding ice cream smeared over her car, or why she’d sat alone afterward with his gun in her lap.

  A little after ten on Monday morning, Mara was standing on the track with Clint and a half-dozen new students when a police car came down the long drive. She moved, not toward the car and the uniformed man getting out of it, but closer to Clint.

  If Clint hadn’t taken her hand, Mara wasn’t sure she could have faced the patrolman. What if something had happened to Reed? The patrolman’s first words dispelled that worry.

  The police had arrested a suspect. Would Mara come to the station to take a look at him?

  “Now? He’s in custody?”

  “We picked him up last night. He was hanging around the supermarket where Mrs. Chambers was grabbed. But if we’re going to make a case stick, we need a positive ID.”

  “I told the detective, I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “We’d appreciate your coming down, Ms. Curtis.”

  Mara took a deep breath, trying to make sense out of what she was feeling. Today the sky was touched with high, trailing clouds. There weren’t any hawks out, but she remembered the night when she had had only the winged creature for company and then he’d flown away.

  “What’s wrong?” Clint asked.

  “Nothing.” The lie came too easily. “But what if it isn’t the right man, or I can’t help?”

  “You’ll never know if you keep standing here. Do you want me to go with you?”

  Mara wanted to tell him yes, but their students were waiting. In a voice that belonged to a woman far braver than she believed herself to be, Mara assured Clint that she was capable of attending a lineup on her own. Still, when the policeman offered to drive her and see she got home afterward, she took him up on it. She was too distracted to drive safely. She gave Clint unnecessary instructions on how to conduct the afternoon lessons. Then, finally, her hands tight around her middle, Mara slid into the police car.

  Detective Kline was waiting for her. Rennie Chambers was already there, her arm still in a cast, her husband seated next to her. Mara and Rennie exchanged nervous smiles as the detective explained the situation. The earlier victims had already seen the suspect but hadn’t been able to help. The teenager’s parents felt their daughter would be traumatized if asked to come to a police station.

  Detective Kline was still hopeful that Rennie or Mara could help. The man in the lineup had made a female employee nervous when he started following her as she was getting ready to leave work. The young woman had decided not to risk going to her car. Instead she hurried back into the store. When she returned with the manager, the stranger was standing near her car. He started to run, but a patrolman, alerted by the manager, took off after him.

  “Our suspect had been drinking. Not enough to make him legally drunk. Did either of you notice liquor on the breath of the man who attacked you?”

  Mara remembered foul breath but not the smell of alcohol. Rennie was even less sure. “Look at me,” the nurse said and held up her hands. “I’m shaking.”

  Mara was shaking, too, but she managed to hide that from everyone except herself.

  “It’s natural to be nervous,” the detective said as he got to his feet. “You’re getting close, maybe, to someone who hurt you. It’s bound to bring back memories.”

  Memories. Thousands of them. Some she wouldn’t put a name to. The others were waiting for Mara to join them, but for a moment she could only sit. Rennie had her husband with her. When she was done, Rennie would go home to her family who would help her regain the courage that monster had stripped from her. Mara was alone.

  Then the detective opened his office door and Reed stepped in.

  Mara stared. She started to speak, but nothing came out. Reed.

  “Detective Kline told me about the lineup,” Reed explained, gripping the doorjamb. His eyes were warm and caring. “I didn’t want you to go through this alone.”

  Alone? How could she feel alone with Reed beside her? Mara stared at him, her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions. Despite the magnetism between them, a single message emerged. He was an incredibly brave man. He’d come here to be with a woman he believed his equal. Somehow she had to convince him that he was right. “Thank you,” she said calmly, getting to her feet. “How you manage to keep track of everything amazes me.”

  “I’m just glad I was able to make it.”

  “Well, it should be interesting,” she said with a flippancy she didn’t feel.

  When he placed his arm around her shoulder as they left the office, she resisted the urge to lean against him. Instead she gave him a squeeze and forced a quick smile.

  Rennie Chambers and Mara took seats in front of a darkened window. Frank Chambers and Reed stood behind them, silent. After giving the two women last-minute instructions, Detective Kline ordered the lights in the lineup room turned on.

  Mara was vaguely aware that the men were all approximately the same height and build and casually dressed. Although she tried to concentrate, her muscles contracted. There, maybe, was the man who’d robbed her of so much!

  “You turn me on. Say it. You turn me on.”

  Mara noticed that Rennie was holding her breath. She turned away from the six men. Frank Chambers had his hands on his wife’s shoulders and he was whispering something to her.

  “Party time.”

  When a shudder claimed her, Reed spanned Mara’s shoulders with his own strong, warm fingers. “Take your time,” he said. “There’s no rush. Think carefully. Very carefully.”

  The words helped. Those in the lineup were on the opposite side of some kind of heavy glass wall. The men standing in front of her were unarmed, and if the one who’d abducted her so much as moved, Reed was there to come to her aid.

  Detective Kline instructed the men to turn slowly. Despite
the distraction of Reed’s presence, Mara concentrated on their movement, looking for something familiar. If she could touch an arm or study fingers wrapped around a knife, that might help. Could she ask the men to speak?

  “You turn me on. Say it. You turn me on.”

  Mara remembered fear. And she could still see and feel that intimidating knife. But sounds and gestures, mannerisms, those things were beyond her recall.

  It had been night. The man had worn dark clothing. He’d stripped her of everything she’d spent years fighting to believe about herself. He’d degraded her.

  With her palm pressed to the tiny scar at the base of her throat, Mara’s mind caught on the act of driving, recalling a cold knife on her flesh, her body’s solid impact on the ground and then the incredible freedom of being able to run. The utter necessity of running.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He ordered me not to look at him.”

  “I wish—” Rennie filled in the silence. “He was bald. There aren’t any bald men here.”

  “He might have shaved his head, Mrs. Chambers, or worn a skinhead wig. Think. Surely you recall something about his features.”

  Rennie swallowed. “He hit me and he hurt me.”

  “I know,” Detective Kline said reassuringly. “I’m sorry. But what did he look like?”

  “I don’t know! God! I don’t know. Please.” Rennie stumbled to her feet and reached for her husband. From the safety of his arms, she managed a whisper. “Can I get out of here?”

  Although she was standing in the sunlight outside the police station with Reed beside her, Mara felt sick. The detective’s discouraged dismissal echoed in her ears. Once outside the room, she and Rennie had held on to each other, and in that moment, Mara understood that she wasn’t the only one who’d been forced to say the unspeakable. But now Rennie was gone. Frank Chambers was guiding his wife toward their car.