Killer Secrets

by Marilyn Pappano

  It was obvious from the paleness of Mila’s face that there already was, which made Sam’s decision an easy one. “We’ll stop by there before we go home.” He didn’t say it wasn’t her home he was taking her to. Her attacker knew where she lived. Might know where Jessica lived.

  Merry and Kerry began packing up their equipment. Sam stood and helped Mila to her feet. She nodded to the parking lot across the creek. “Gramma’s car is over there. So are our clothes.”

  His gaze automatically slid down her body. How had it escaped his notice until that very minute that she wasn’t wearing anything but water shoes and a black swimsuit that clung lovingly to her body in all the right places? The curve of her breasts, her narrow waist, the flare of her hips and her long, strong, tanned legs...

  God, he had it bad.

  She was watching him, one brow arched, waiting for...what? Oh, yeah, a response. He tried to remember what she’d said, though the faint snicker from Daniel wasn’t helping. Finally, the sound of Jessica’s voice as she approached triggered the memory. “We’ll drive Jessica over. She can pick up the car and your clothes.”

  Daniel leaned close. “Or maybe she’ll want her clothes before she waits in the ER for the usual couple hours.”

  This time it was Merry and Kerry who snickered.

  Sam’s face flushed. “Okay, yeah, we’ll figure it out. Daniel, keep me updated.”

  The detective nodded. He would do his job—interview everyone at the park, walk the creek on both banks looking for tracks, check out all the cars in the lot and so forth. The creek was deep enough in the center that a person could swim all the way past the city limits in both directions, which gave him probably six miles of shore to tramp over, walk into a neighborhood, into the woods, into a house or get into a car and vanish.

  Damn it, just thinking about it made Sam less than hopeful.

  It was tough for Sam to let Mila walk to the car with her stiff, battered, the-water-monster-almost-killed-me gait. Her wrist was the most obvious injury, but the way she cradled her arm against her suggested she might have strained some muscles or tendons while fighting her way free.

  But she didn’t ask for help until they reached his truck and she was faced with climbing into the high seat. He gave her a boost and fastened her seat belt, then gave Jessica a hand up into the rear seat.

  Gramma looked her age for the first time since Sam had met her. The idea of someone hurting Mila had shaken her to her core. She was so much the mama bear, and she wanted to put the fear of God into the bastard.

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  She held out her hand and watched it tremble. “No. Charles is going to meet us over there. I’ll get what I need, lock up the Bug and go to the hospital with him. He and his friends will deliver it to me later.” She clasped Sam’s hand. “What do you know about him, Chief?”

  “Charles is a good man. Owned an insurance business just down the block from you. His wife died about ten years ago. They didn’t have any children.”

  Jessica smiled, at least a little intrigued, and patted Sam’s hand again.

  It was a quiet drive, five blocks to get from the west side lot to the east side. Charles Brinkley was already there, collecting towels, sandals and a string bag with clothing from the grass. After securing the Bug, Jessica and Charles, in his Cadillac, followed Sam and Mila to the hospital.

  There in the parking lot, Jessica helped Mila into the shorts she’d worn over her swimsuit. Instead of her shirt, she wrapped their own beach towels, still warm from the sun, around Mila. Satisfied that she’d done all she could, Jessica took a step back. “You walk with her, Sam, in case her knees buckle or something.”

  “My knees aren’t going to buckle,” Mila said with an effort at a reassuring smile. Jessica wasn’t swayed. Sam wasn’t, either. Even Charles didn’t fall for it.

  Sam took hold of her right arm and started across the street with her. She seemed so fragile. Not because she was skimpily dressed. Not because she’d been attacked. Because the sad, quiet tones of her voice kept echoing in his head. I wasn’t thinking about being a witness. I just wanted to survive. The tones of a woman who, at least once, almost hadn’t survived.

  * * *

  In less than the two hours Detective Harper had predicted, Mila was snuggled onto the couch in Gramma’s living room. She’d wanted to go to her own house, Sam to his, so they’d compromised on Jessica’s. Besides the main entrance, there was only one other door into the building, one that led from the tenants’ parking out back. Only one person was needed to watch both doors and the stairs and elevator. Unless Mila’s would-be killer could scale walls or fly, there was no way he could reach her there.

  Gramma pressed a glass of iced coffee into her good hand. “Take a good long drink of that, sweetie, and you’ll feel better. Then we’ll see about getting you into the shower.”

  A shower sounded heavenly. She was pretty sure she’d brought home little bits of algae, slime and maybe even some minnows from the creek. Her eyes were still red, her nose smelled of muck and damp, and her mouth—

  She gladly took a big drink of coffee and cream to dispel the taste in her mouth and almost spit it right back out. After swallowing, she grimaced and coughed. “What kind of cream is in this?”

  “Just the usual,” Gramma said innocently.

  It amused Mila that Sam already knew better than to trust Gramma’s innocent face. He took the glass from her, sniffed it and said, “That’s Irish cream. A little heavy on the whiskey, isn’t it, Jessica?”

  “She’s had a tough day.”

  “Yeah, so let’s give her some narcotics, a little whiskey and then put her in the shower. Maybe she’ll break something else.”

  Jessica’s face wrinkled. “Well, I was thinking she would have help in the shower, but you’re right. We’ll save the whiskey for tonight.”

  She took the glass from Sam and returned it to the kitchen. “I’m going to take a shower, too. I think I’ll puke if I smell sunscreen and creek ick one moment longer. I’ve laid out towels and clean clothes and everything in the guest bathroom, Sam. Mila can help you find anything I’ve forgotten. I do so appreciate it you doing this, Sam.”

  Before Mila’s mouth finished dropping, Gramma disappeared into her bedroom. Mila stared at the closed door, then whipped around to look at Sam. “I can’t believe she just did that.”

  “You didn’t catch it when she said you would have help in the shower? Process of elimination leaves me.” He shrugged. “I’m a good choice in terms of not letting you fall. Maybe not so good in terms of modesty and privacy. But we can manage.”

  She had to admit the idea held enormous appeal under different circumstances. If no injury was involved, if it was totally his idea, if Gramma wasn’t down the hall, if they were bathing together...

  That last thought was enough to leave her starved for air once again but in a much lovelier way. Being naked, wet, soapy and steamy with Sam, his hands on her, her hands on him, touching and exploring... How many firsts would that mark off her list?

  How many other firsts would it lead to?

  Her heart was pounding, making her flush with every new influx of hot blood. She wanted a shower, wanted that shower, wanted everything with him, but...

  He was watching her, his expression level. “We can keep it clean,” he said softly. When her face flushed, he chuckled. “I know, clean is not my first thought when I think of you naked, but...you’re injured. Your grandmother’s here. But we’re adults, and we can behave appropriately until a better time.”

  All of that, and she truly heard only one thing: when I think of you naked. Before her brain could stop her mouth, she asked, “You think of me naked?”

  His only answer was a searing look that warmed her to her toes. He stood and offered his hand. “Come on. Let’s test my self-control.”

  She had no doubt
he possessed it in spades. Sadly for her, she had tons of it, too. She could come out of this undressing-showering-dressing again as innocent and untouched as she was right now.

  But she took his hand anyway.

  She’d left her flip-flops just inside the front door, so her feet padded soundlessly down the hall and to the bathroom the two guest rooms shared. Gramma had left the lights on, the water running to get it nice and warm, and a couple of scented candles burning. For ambience? Seduction?

  Then Mila caught a look at herself in the mirror above the vanity, and a look of woe crossed her face. She most definitely needed any help she could get. About 40 percent of her hair was still in a braid, but the rest hung in a tangled mess that looked as if it belonged with the other mucky roots at the bottom of Cedar Creek. The marks on her face from the goggles getting jerked off had turned to purple-hued bruises. Her swimsuit was mostly dry and stiff and smelled rich and ripe, like fertilizer she used in the garden.

  Her gaze flickered to Sam, who’d been adjusting the shower spray and temperature. “I guess we start with my hair.”

  He looked at her head, opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors, his brows arched, his mouth twitching with a grin.

  “You don’t scare me. The woman who cuts my hair loves me because I let her do whatever she wants.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It always grows back.”

  “I’d like to see it short someday.” He put the scissors back and began searching through the tangle for the rubber band that held her braid together. “Then down to your waist, then really short again, then maybe down past your hips.”

  A shiver went through her, and not just because he was pulling knots and tangles and the occasional leaf from her hair with such gentle movements. “They say hair grows only about six inches a year.” The sort of changes he was talking about would take time. Months. Years.

  “I’ve heard.”

  “That’s quite a commitment.”

  His gaze met hers in the mirror, his blue eyes serious and intense, his voice gone soft and husky. “I’m very good with commitments, Mila.”

  Right then, her heart stopped beating. Just for a couple of beats, just enough to make that instant significant. Enough for her to understand Gramma’s wistfulness the times she’d asked the boyfriend question.

  Gramma had had plenty of boyfriends before she met Grampa, and he’d won the universe for best boyfriend ever. If he’d made her feel any of the dizzy, breath-stealing, girly things Mila was feeling right now, he’d deserved the title.

  Gramma wanted her to feel these dizzy, breath-stealing, girly things, and she’d feared Mila never would. That was the reason for her wistfulness.

  “I—I’m...” Heat turned her face crimson. She searched her brain for the right thing to say, but she was too quivery and shivery, the room was too warm, his hands were too deliberate in their touch, and she had no experience with this kind of conversation.

  Ruefully, she gave up, almost smiled, almost laughed and said plainly, “Sometimes you take my words away.”

  “I think that’s only fair.” He reached the top of her head, combed his fingers through to loosen all the strands, then fixed his gaze on hers in the mirror. “Because sometimes you take my breath away.”

  Mila wanted that moment to last forever, was preserving it in her brain, every detail of it, when a song from next door filtered into the room. She forced air into her lungs, forced her gaze to move away from his. “Does it surprise you Gramma likes to sing in the shower?”

  “It doesn’t. Is that... ‘How Great Thou Art’?”

  “Gospel songs. Loudly. And badly. Wynona Novak calls it caterwauling.”

  “Wynona would. I hate to say it, but that woman can sing. It probably pains her to hear songs she loves mangled like this.” He winced as Jessica blared out a note she couldn’t reach with a ladder. “Well. Talk about breaking the mood.”

  Mila slid her right hand into the waistband of her shorts and gave them a tug before repeating the process on the left side. Giving her a chiding look, Sam pulled them the rest of the way off.

  “How do you want to do this?” he asked, his breath warm on her thighs as he straightened again. “Should I look but not touch? Touch but not look? Put on those vinyl cleaning gloves, drop a towel over my head so I’m blind and play it by ear?” He made a tugging motion on his ear. “Oh, wait, that could be dangerous.”

  Mila pressed her lips together to keep from grinning and encouraging him. The situation wasn’t supposed to be funny. She’d been attacked. And she’d rescued herself, her mind voice pointed out. And she’d wanted more intimacy with Sam. Well, wasn’t this scene intimate?

  “Just get my splint and the swimsuit off, please. I think I can manage the rest.”

  “Don’t I get to wash your hair?”

  She raised one finger threateningly. “Protect your ear.”

  Removing the plain black splint sobered him. The swelling was worse, and so was the bruising. The pain she couldn’t really speak to, since she’d taken a pain pill as soon as they’d picked them up at the pharmacy.

  With no more joking, he unfastened the hook at the neck of her swimsuit and peeled it off her. His gaze directed somewhere above her head, he helped her step into the tub, then pulled the curtain between them.

  She stood under the warm water, letting it pound her shoulders and spine, eyes closed, feeling better already with the creek water gone.

  “Who would want to hurt you, Mila?”

  Well, she was feeling better. That sounded like Chief Douglas, not Sam. “I don’t know.”

  “A former employer?”

  “My previous jobs were online. I work with Gramma in the shop sometimes—doing inventory, unpacking stock, cleaning—but I don’t deal with customers.”

  “A former friend or boyfriend?”

  She stuck the shampoo bottle outside the curtain, then flattened her palm so he could squirt some onto it. “They were online, too. The friends. No boyfriends.”

  There was a moment of silence. Was he wondering the why of that last part? “What about before you lived here?”

  She concentrated on lathering her hair one-handed. It couldn’t be someone from before Cedar Creek, because so very few people who’d known she existed had lived to tell. If her parents had had friends or fellow freaks, she had never met them. Her father, she supposed, had family somewhere, but she’d never met them, either.

  “I was eleven, Sam. Not an age when you usually make many enemies.”

  “So why the hell is this guy after you?”

  Her sigh was almost soft enough to get lost in the rush of the water. “I wish to God I knew.”

  * * *

  When the water shut off, Sam’s breath caught in his chest. He felt like he was fourteen and about to see his first real live naked girl, his whole body turned to nothing but anxious hormones and lustful thoughts. But he wasn’t fourteen, Mila wasn’t his first naked girl, and though he was anxious and lustful, he could control it. Hopefully. He handed a thick white towel over the curtain to her, then picked up another one as she swept the curtain back.

  Naturally, the bath towel covered more than the swimsuit, but she was naked under that towel. And beautiful. And wet. Any man alive who didn’t appreciate the image of a wet naked woman wasn’t really alive.

  She held on to his arm as she stepped out of the tub, then he dried her hair with the second towel. It streamed long and shiny down her back and smelled of summer jasmine. “Feel better?” he asked as he blotted thick strands of hair with the towel.

  “A shower makes everything better.”

  Draping the towel over her hair, he rubbed, shaking her head enough to make her giggle. Milagro Ramirez giggled. Another check in the red-letter-day column on his calendar.

  She looked so innocent and needy, and so beautiful and sensual, and he
was needy, too—so damn needy. His hands stilled, his breath locked in his chest and he lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. She had stopped breathing, too, and he wondered if she felt the same heat and desire and curiosity and lust that he did. He wondered if she had ever been naked with a man before.

  Judging by her edginess and awkwardness when they’d met, he would guess no. He didn’t care. He’d never been with a virgin before, but that didn’t stop him wanting her, oh, hell, so much.

  He wanted to take away the towel that hid her. To look until he’d memorized every part of her. To kiss her. Touch her. Show her. Claim her. He wanted...

  In the hallway, Jessica passed, singing a song with the lyrics of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” but nothing of the melody. Good Lord, if she really wanted to drive Wynona into a psychotic episode, all she had to do was show up at Grace Tabernacle in the morning and sing loud.

  He winced, closed his eyes and tried to gather enough oxygen that his voice wouldn’t crack like an adolescent boy’s. “She puts us in here together, then sings church hymns?”

  Mila’s breath came out warm against his cheek. “Gramma’s...unique.”

  “That must be where you get it from.” Reluctantly, he lifted his head, gave her a regretful smile and laid the damp towel aside. “Are you ready for some clothes?” Because Gramma or no, either you need to put some on or I’ve got to take some off.

  “I think I can manage except for the splint.” With her good hand, she gestured to the small pile of clothing: black gym shorts, a Cedar Creek Chieftains T-shirt and a pair of plain white but very tiny panties.

  “Those obviously didn’t come out of Jessica’s closet,” he remarked as he found a dry bit of towel and patted her left hand and wrist dry. It pained him when she winced, even more that she tried to hide it.

  “Why do you say that? Because the colors don’t scorch your eyeballs?” she teased. “No, I keep some clothes over here. Gramma’s got some at my house, too. Just in case.”