Beneath the Skin

by Melissa James

  ‘Be a hypocrite if you want. I don’t have to play along.’

  ‘Fine,’ he conceded. ‘You know the truth anyway. I’m jealous as hell. You’re driving me crazy, and seeing other men touching you, or coming near you—even a top guy like Rick—brings on a primitive urge to ram my fist down his throat. Is that what you want to hear?’

  Her defiance died. A hand lifted, reaching for the air at her waist again, before she forced it to fall. When she answered him, her voice was cold and flat. ‘No. Another crazy, possessive man is the last thing I need right now.’

  Her deliberate comparison shocked him; she saw his anger fade. ‘I’m not Spencer. If you like Rick, I’ll back off.’ He trailed a finger over her cheek and her lips parted on a rush of air—a rush of wanting. ‘I just want the truth, darlin’,’ he whispered. ‘Talk to me.’

  With the touch, and the endearment he’d never used before, she could no longer fight the truth. ‘You know the answer already. I didn’t ask him to be taken off the case because I like him.’ She sighed. ‘Rick’s a handsome man. I’d have to be dead not to see that. But when he touches me, it’s—it’s just not there for me.’

  ‘He was very close to you when I got here. What did he do to you?’

  ‘He called me Jane Larkins,’ she whispered. ‘Jane Ann Larkins. He knew me.’

  ‘It’s all on your case file, Elle,’ he said softly. ‘So tell me, what really scared you? What does he know about you that I don’t?’

  Elle. The cutting of her nickname was an intimate act he hadn’t done since he met Sharon. ‘The seesaw,’ she reminded him, just as softly. ‘You’re confusing me, Adam. Are you the cop, the friend or the lover now?’

  ‘I’m bloody confused myself, but I know one thing. We belong together,’ he said, voice rough. ‘We’ve always belonged together. Even while we were apart, sometimes I’d think of you, and I felt you there with me.’

  When you were with Sharon. She didn’t say the name, didn’t dare to. ‘I never felt you.’

  ‘Never?’ he whispered, moving closer.

  ‘Never. I wish I had. I tried, but—’

  ‘She was there.’

  Elly almost gasped, for his voice had lost the harshness; he wasn’t locking her out when speaking of his wife. ‘Yes.’

  He bent, moving his cheek against hers, his bristle scratching. A memory to hold onto when she was gone, when she was alone.

  ‘You never left me, Elle. A part of you was always with me. Even when it made life too bloody hard, I couldn’t let go of you.’

  And she always knew it. That’s why she destroyed us. They stood holding each other, and she wondered when she’d put her arms around his waist.

  ‘I wish you’d been with me,’ she said, not knowing which admission was safer, only that this one wouldn’t make him lock the door on her.

  ‘I don’t understand why you don’t hate me.’

  The answer was too big and terrifying to admit, even to herself. This moment was too big and terrifying, when she knew the future as clearly as if she was a seer. So she broke it.

  ‘I hate you for leaving me with Rick tonight.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ And there he was, Adam the cop, jealous-as-hell Adam, not her Adam, her Claudius, who broke her heart every time she glimpsed him.

  She almost laughed. ‘You came home not five minutes after he brought up my name. Do you think I told him my life story?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  She shrugged. ‘He talked to my family.’ He said I’m going to love him … he warned me off believing in you.

  He swore, and she reared away from him, feeling as defensive as if he’d accused her.

  ‘It wasn’t through any wish of mine! I don’t want them to know about this. Danny knows where they live. If he thought the family knew anything, he’d slash his way through them to find me. I wouldn’t have come to you if I thought he knew about you and Zoe!’

  His eyes softened. ‘How long has it been, Elle?’

  Confused by his return to the manner of the boy she’d adored, she frowned savagely. ‘Don’t talk in riddles. Say what you mean.’

  ‘How soon after you realised how dangerous Spencer was did you start isolating yourself to save the people you love?’

  That he understood why she’d isolated herself where Rick had only accused her of abandoning her family hurt as much as it was a sweet relief. Yes, Adam still knew her—no matter how much she wished he didn’t.

  ‘I changed phones the next day, and haven’t contacted anyone since.’

  ‘And he put the chains around you. No wonder he’s convinced you love him. You’ve done everything he wanted.’

  ‘Running doesn’t exactly denote love.’

  ‘I wasn’t criticising you, just giving you a cop’s perspective. By isolating yourself, you’re playing right into his hands,’ he said, still tender—but it was as if a door had been opened in a long-dark place; the light he poured on her sent blinding pain through her head. She closed her eyes, rubbing her temples.

  ‘Stop it.’ It was a plea. ‘I left you alone.’

  ‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll call Sarge.’ He hesitated. ‘Rick should be part of the case, since he already knows so much. He’s an excellent cop, and a good man. I swear he won’t hurt you, Elle. He only wants to protect you. We need all the help we can get right now.’

  Even with her eyes closed, she felt him willing her to say yes. Adam had always been a bulldog when he believed something was right. There was little to do but give in.

  ‘All right,’ she said, tired of fighting. ‘Just don’t leave me alone with him. I’ll go to bed.’

  She looked up, and then she didn’t want to go. She could stand there all night, looking into his eyes, filled with the tang of outlawed desire. So much hunger in a single look.

  ‘Good night,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Adam was caught: snared by her, inside the expression in her eyes. So long since—no, he’d never seen this, the beautiful helplessness of a woman trapped inside her desire for him. He’d never known it could happen for him, least of all with the girl who’d been the other half of him all those years ago. His Elly, who was still all he couldn’t be, but would give anything to become.

  Had this always been inside two grubby, defiant children playing in the bush? Had they been blind to all they could have had?

  With unsated hunger burning his gut, and lingering shards of hot jealousy filling his brain, he had little will left to resist. His hand trailed in delicate possession down her jaw, butterfly fingertips over her throat and shoulder. ‘Good night, Elly.’

  Her tiny gasp flashed into his body at the speed of light. The last shreds of jealousy disappeared. Her yearning was his. Her need was his. Her taboo no less compelling than his: her memories of rejection equalling his burden of guilt, his sworn vow. Elly wouldn’t stay while Spencer remained alive. She’d never risk his life, or Zoe’s. How could he think of endangering his beautiful daughter, when there was a murderer on the loose? Could he? Would Elly stay with him, even if he stopped Spencer?

  The impossible choice. Heart and soul, he was bound to her—and if he’d almost forgotten it once, he never would again. Janie and Adam, Elly-May and Claudius—the love always half-forbidden, the call from heart to heart defiant, inextinguishable. And as adults—

  You are what you are. You’ll destroy her, just as you destroyed—

  He turned away, the fury and need tearing his heart, gut, loins apart. ‘Go to bed, or I’m going to do something very stupid.’

  He felt the wild, sweet call of her heart grow cold with despair. After an interminable silence, her gaze fell. She nodded, and walked into her room without looking back. Would that moment ever come again? He couldn’t go to her, he couldn’t tell her—

  A scream tore the heavy curtain of silence, shearing it into jagged slices. ‘Adam!’

  ‘Elly?’ He bolted to her room and kicked th
e door open. Checking her over first, he saw she was unmolested, but she was pale, her eyes wide. With an unsteady hand, she pointed to the half-open window. On the top pane, in dripping red letters, were the words:

  BLACK SLUT

  He tore out the front door. A pale sedan was screeching around the corner, its true colour impossible to name in the deep darkness of an unlit country night, its plates obscured by mud.

  He ran back inside. Elly stood where he left her, still transfixed by the macabre decoration. As he snapped the blind shut he heard a high-pitched gasp and swung around. ‘What is it?’

  One hand on her chest, she pointed at the mirror on the 1920sera dressing table that had come with the house. The sticky trickle of red dribbling down the mirror’s slightly dusty surface was not paint.

  As if hypnotised, she moved to the dressing table, fingers stretching to the foreign substance. He gently drew her out of the room. ‘Don’t touch anything. I need to collect evidence.’

  She turned away. And then he saw the tremors start.

  He forgot he was a cop. He forgot about calling the station, or getting his kit out of the car to sweep and print the room. ‘Ah, Elle.’ He dragged her against him, loving the feel of her against his skin, the earthy, natural essence of woman that radiated from her. ‘You’re not alone. I’m here.’

  She snatched him close, breathing into his shoulder. Tears dropped onto his skin. Then she moved away so fast she almost fell into the wall.

  ‘I–I’m okay.’ She scrubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘Go call Jonas.’ When he resisted, she added, ‘Please, Adam. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

  ‘Elly, don’t—’

  But she’d turned away, unwilling to fully share her burdens, even this fear. She still needed to learn trust.

  Sighing, he pulled out his phone, dialled his boss’s number, and described the incident to the sarge. ‘Jen Collins has a light-coloured sedan,’ he reported grimly. ‘I think I saw a Toyota symbol on the boot.’

  ‘Many people own light-coloured Toyotas around here, including Mendham.’

  ‘He just left.’ He stilled, feeling the unwanted suspicion coming down the line. ‘We’re only hurting ourselves by leaving him out of this. Elly’s given permission to let him back in.’

  ‘Good,’ Sarge said grimly. ‘We need some good news. The situation is already getting out of control. Whoever this is, they’re bloody clever. Everything could either be an accident or a kid’s prank. They’re not doing anything threatening enough to warrant backup, or to prove Spencer’s in the area. In fact, we know he isn’t. A white man asking questions about an Indigenous doctor was reported to be in Pitjantjatjara lands, and his acts were crazy enough for it to be Spencer.’

  ‘So who the hell is doing this?’

  ‘We’ll get them,’ Sarge promised, voice hard and dark. ‘As we thought, Sydney’s dismissing the drive-by as a prank, because of the BB gun – and so would we, but for the other incidents. Sydney’s got the usual amount of problems to deal with there, so they won’t act until they know Spencer’s close to here. Suits from Sydney will arrive Monday, so collect the evidence in Elly’s room and take shots for them.’

  Knowing his boss had more to say, Adam waited in silence.

  ‘You know what I have to say, Jepson. From Monday, you’re out. Your relationship with Elly puts your objectivity in question. She needs you. So stick with her day and night until we find out who’s targeting her. If anything comes up, we’ll contact you.’ A little pause. ‘Correction: I’ll contact you. Take orders from CIB, or me, or Mendham when it comes to his area of expertise. Make your reports to me, or Albertson at CIB. If anyone else—anyone at all—contacts you, play dumb and give me the details.’

  ‘Got it.’ The irony wasn’t laughable. Days and nights with Elly, the one woman he couldn’t resist, ignore—or have.

  ‘Just look after Elly.’

  Adam hung up, the words ringing in his head.

  He found her in the kitchen, finishing the dishes, a Sphinx-like calm hovering around her.

  ‘Are you okay? Pretty scary thing to happen.’

  A little shrug of her shoulders.

  ‘Think that’s blood on your mirror?’

  She shook her head, emptying the sink, taking up a tea towel.

  ‘I’ll do that.’ He reached for the tea towel, but she snatched it back, wiping each piece of crockery with meticulous care.

  He let her go. In a life where nothing was under her control, she could do dishes.

  ‘Spencer was reported to be in Pitjantjatjara lands yesterday, six hundred miles southwest of Ayer’s Rock. Apparently a kid you’d stitched up told him you’d headed north in a light plane.’

  ‘Uluru.’ Her quiet answer showed no sign of emotion. ‘Ayer’s Rock reverted to its real name in the 1980s.’

  Relieved she was speaking, even if she’d given no acknowledgement of what he’d said, he replied, ‘Sorry, keeper of the Indigenous flame.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘I believe in truth, not in hiding it behind prettily packaged words and terms. It’s a habit I picked up from my people, even if the Jepsons ignore it!’

  ‘Okay. Sorry. Where did you go after Uluru?’ he said, to get them back on track.

  ‘I went north. Then I hitched a ride to Charleville in Queensland, flew to Sydney, and caught a train to Broken Hill. Then I bought the car, and came here. And yes, I stopped at the Koori communities on the road here, so he can trace me. Satisfied, Detective Sergeant Jepson?’

  And just like that, her walls were back in place. He repressed a sigh. ‘I’ll collect evidence from your room.’

  A few minutes later, she came into the spare room and stood at a distance, watching him work.

  Crawling from under the dresser, he held up a spatula with a gloved hand. ‘I’ll send this for testing, but I’m certain it’s fake blood. The capsule was left outside the window.’ Switching on his phone torch, he opened the window again and showed her. ‘You can’t sleep here tonight, Elly. We’ll dust the room tomorrow, but I doubt we’ll find any prints but ours.’

  ‘They left the capsule as a warning,’ she stated, in a flat voice. ‘Next time it will be real.’

  ‘The blood at the station was real.’

  When guilt turned her eyes to pools of pain, he wanted to kick himself for opening his big mouth. ‘Whoever’s doing this knows the law—but it isn’t Spencer,’ he said more softly. ‘We know that much. Looks like they never entered the room. They painted the words back to front, and squirted the fake blood from outside. See the traces of it along the carpet? So we can’t even get ’em for break and enter, just malicious damage—and that’s if we’re lucky. Again, most judges would treat it as a kid’s prank. Almost everything so far has been pranks that would be dismissed in court, maybe with community service.’

  ‘Slashing my tyres wasn’t a prank,’ she argued. ‘And surely shooting out the station window was an attack against the police. Two of you were injured.’

  ‘A BB-gun shot is teenage territory. A kid would probably get a suspended sentence for it. And the tyres—any judge would rule it as the act of a jealous kid. Unless we find a connection between the three incidents, proving otherwise won’t be easy.’ He sighed. ‘If someone wants you out of town, they’re being bloody clever about it.’

  Her face still held that unusual hardness, the determination. Her foot was back out the door already. ‘Well, they’ve got what they want. I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘Why are you giving in to them? Do you imagine the danger will disappear with you, since there’s little chance of this being Spencer?’

  She looked at him, defiant. ‘Yes. I do. So do you, or you wouldn’t be dismissing the pranks for my sake, to make me think there’s no real danger.’

  Damn her for still knowing him so well. ‘And what happens when you’re on that lonely stretch of highway between here and Broken Hill or Echuca, with no one to help you for miles?’

  ‘Let him kill me
. At least you and Zoe will be safe!’

  He closed his eyes, hearing the truth in her words: she loved him still. She even loved his child. Sharon’s child. ‘How the hell do I live with letting you die alone?’

  ‘Ssh. You’ll wake Zoe,’ she whispered harshly.

  ‘Answer me, Elly, damn it,’ he growled. ‘How do I live with your death?’

  ‘Like you did last time. Just forget I exist!’

  He reared back. ‘I never forgot you, Elly!’

  ‘Yes, that was obvious from the day you met Sharon. Talk’s cheap, Claudius, but actions reap. I’m going.’

  ‘So you want me to bury another person I care about?’

  She put a finger to his lips, but her face remained hard. Determined. ‘You don’t want to bother, don’t. Just send my body back to my people in Sydney, and forget me all over again. After all, they’re my people, aren’t they? Like you said. They might even tend my grave.’

  ‘I never forgot you. I never wanted to leave you. I’ve never had a friend like you, before or since.’ He dragged her against him. ‘Dear God, Elly, don’t you know how much I missed you? Don’t you know I never stopped caring—that I still care now? I buried your memory because it hurt too damn much to be without you.’

  She stilled as he stiffened. But she didn’t speak, so he was forced to go on.

  ‘The hole in me was miles wide. I was a fool to let them—let her—’ He stopped, but he knew she’d hear it, the taboo, the name he couldn’t say aloud. ‘If you run, this time I’ll follow you. This time I will protect you. You got that?’

  She shuddered against him. ‘Can’t you understand? He’s already killed one man. I couldn’t bear it if he hurt you.’ She gave him a brave smile. ‘And Zoe’s our first priority. I can’t put her in danger any more than you can.’

  ‘Elly—’ He groaned under the weight of an anguish that seemed never to end, no matter how much he wanted to change it. ‘I’ll send her to Mum’s. There’s too much danger here.’

  She looked stricken. ‘No! I won’t let her lose her security! She’s only in danger if I stay.’

  He shook his head. ‘She’s been wanting to see her nanna for months. We do a Skype call with Mum every Tuesday and Friday. They’re dying to spend time together. I’ll call Mum tomorrow, and give Bowral police a heads-up.’