Kim and I walked down a hallway with linoleum the color of soured milk. The lights overhead buzzed like the beginnings of a migraine. At the instruction of a series of signs, we entered a waiting room whose stained, gray carpet look like it might have been the scene of some of the crimes that had landed the building’s occupants in jail. I picked up the phone provided and dialed as the faded plaque on the wall instructed.
“I’m here for Dean Barger and Liam Whatshisface.”
“I still can’t believe that’s the guy’s real name,” the tinny voice on the other end declared. “I’m re-running the background check.”
Good luck with that, I thought. If legal paperwork were coloring books, Liam’s artistic endeavors tended to move outside the lines. I suspected any searches would return exactly and only what Liam wanted them to.
After filling out a thick sheaf of paperwork slid to me through a metal tray and sending back an equally thick stack of bills procured from a 24-hour bail bondsman, a heavy metal door swung open to a maze of desks and cubicles.
Kim opted to linger behind in the waiting room while I collected Dean and Liam.
“Wouldn’t believe what we took off your friend.” The uniformed officer’s shoes squeaked in time with the sway of his impressive paunch.
“He’s a ghost hunter,” I said, feeling a defensive rush for Dean. “It’s just an EMF meter.”
“No,” he said. “The other one.” He came to an abrupt stop and pointed through a reinforced glass window to a table in an unused office where an array of weapons had been lined up like a makeshift artillery shrine.
The Smith and Wesson 1911 I recognized. As well as the curved blade Liam had used to cut the museum’s phone wire. The additional three knives, two pistols, garroting wire, and brass knuckles were a surprise. The two sets of handcuffs caused a lotus of pleasure to bloom in my stomach. I had perhaps a little too much fun imagining where Liam might have hidden all his toys under his simple suit.
“Shouldn’t those be locked up?” I asked.
“They are,” he said, jiggling the door handle for effect. “Wouldn’t fit in a personal effects bag. Some of the guys thought I was kidding until laid it all out.”
I squelched an image from Silence of the Lambs as we approached the cellblock.
“Looks like you’re in luck,” the officer announced. “This nice lady’s here to bail you out. I’m just going to grab some paperwork and we’ll be all set.”
“Dr. Schmidt!” Dean, feet clad in black prison-issue Crocs, flew from the edge of his cot and grabbed onto the bars. “Boy am I glad to see you!”
Liam was stretched out on the opposite side of the room, arms folded across his chest. I couldn’t see from my vantage point whether his eyes were open.
“I’m so sorry, Dean. Are you okay?”
He nodded vigorously, barely restraining a toothy grin. “This has been the coolest night ever.”
“Come on, kid.” The officer had returned with a set of keys and a manila folder of discharge paperwork. “We’ll do you first.”
When they had returned to the desk, I turned to the cell and cleared my throat. “Liam? Are you okay?”
Silence.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for this to—”
“I didn’t used to believe in God.” His voice startled me, seeming to come from somewhere other than the motionless body on the cot.
“Excuse me?”
He sat up and stared straight ahead. “I didn’t used to believe in God,” he repeated. “But I’m almost certain now that He exists.”
A single bead of sweat dripped down my ribs. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Because the only explanation for what happened tonight is that there is a God, and He’s punishing me.”
That ashen stare came to rest on me, and I found myself swallowing around a golf ball.
“Now, Liam. Don’t you think that’s just a little—”
“Eight hundred forty-seven,” he said, rising from the cot with an eerily robotic smoothness.
“What?”
He walked over to the bars, each step measured. “Eight hundred forty-seven hits,” he whispered. “And never, never have I so much as been pulled over for a speeding ticket.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving my skin numb and tingling. Eight hundred and forty-seven. All dead. All his.
“Liam, don’t—”
“One fucking time I help you bust into a museum in butt-fuck nowhere central, and I end up in a county jail.” I felt his breath on my cheeks. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the bars.
“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think. Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Ph.D.-toting psychologist didn’t think. My whole life depends on anonymity. Everything I have, everything I’ve built. I do you one favor and it’s all shot to fucking hell!”
“I sure as hell didn’t choose your career for you,” I spat back. “And you didn’t have to help me. You could have left.”
“So it could be you in here instead of me?”
“I could have gotten those pants without you.”
“Okey dokey,” the officer announced, returning with Dean. “Your turn.”
“We’ll just be in the waiting room,” I said.
My heart fluttered when Kim and Dean engaged in an extended, if awkward hug. “I’m so glad you’re all right!”
“You too,” Dean agreed.
“Don’t forget your gadget.” Another officer rose from her desk and slid Dean’s EMF meter through the metal tray.
“Thanks,” he said, clicking it on.
Almost immediately, the line began to hump and the sound of crackling static fizzled out from the speakers.
“I should have known!” Dean’s eyes were glassy with excitement. “Old jails are great for ghost hunting!”
“You got that right.” Kim produced a camera from her shoulder bag.
Dean caught a stray hair and tucked it behind her ear. “You want to take a look around outside?”
“I’d love to.”
“We’ll walk home.” Dean sent me a wink that even the legally blind could have seen. Luckily, Kim had wandered over toward the room’s only small window. “It’s not that far.”
“And it’s a beautiful night.” Kim blushed as she looked down at her sneakers.
Their hands caught as they pushed their way through the glass door.
Liam emerged minutes later, his all-black uniform and shoes restored, if not his sunny disposition. He walked past me and out to the parking lot.
“Hey,” I called. “Where are you going?”
“Away.”
I jangled the car keys at him. “We can at least drive back to the bed and breakfast together, can’t we?”
He snatched the keys from my hand and stalked over to the car, barely giving me time to get in before he stomped on the gas and rocketed us forward.
“Would you calm down?”
His jaw worked in my peripheral vision as he wound through the town and took a sharp, unexpected right turn toward a rising hill.
“Where are we going? The inn is back that way.” My emphatic gesture in the opposite direction was utterly ignored.
We whipped around corners at a speed that made the engine growl in protest as we climbed upward. Gravel flew as we fishtailed into an empty parking lot overlooking the bay.
Liam cut the engine and stared out over the ocean, alight with the reflected glow of dying stars.
“You brought me to a make-out spot? You can’t be serious.”
“Give me a break, lady,” he huffed. “I’ve been in jail, but I’m not that hard up.”
“Does that mean you’ve been sleeping with someone?” The question was out before I could give it a second thought.
He turned and leveled me with a cold stare. “Have you?”
“Technically—”
His growl startled me, as did the fist smashing down on
the dashboard. “You’re my wife!”
I could taste copper on my tongue. If I had bitten my lip, I couldn’t yet feel the pain. “Only because you filed that paperwork to get information when you planning on selling me to Stefano the Fathead. Let’s not pretend this is anything other than what it is.”
“And what is it?” It was more than a question. It was a challenge.
“You’re asking me?”
“I am.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to ask me to define it. The first time I met you, you stuck a gun in my back. You kidnapped me. You came back to protect me. You’ve looked after my mother.” I hesitated, staring out over the water to let the sudden tightness in my throat release. “I’m grateful for that.”
“Is that all?”
“Not all, no. We’ve also…slept together.”
“Jesus,” he sighed. “Even now, you can’t say it.”
“Say what?” Liam’s acuity for noticing even the smallest changes in speaking patterns and behavior rivaled my own. A skill that Crixus hadn’t managed to hone in all his years on the planet. But then, the two had drastically different ways of achieving their desired goals.
“We fucked. And call me crazy, but it seems like you were pretty okay with the thought of doing that again up until a couple hours ago.”
“I am. I was. I—”
The car suddenly felt stifling, claustrophobic. I opened the passenger door and got out, taking greedy gulps of air still perfumed by rain.
Liam followed, coming up behind me in the dark. “What is it?”
“This is why I came on vacation,” I said, not turning to look at him. “This is why I needed to get away. The blackmailer. The clients. Crixus. You.”
“What about me?”
I pulled the cleansing sea air into my lungs. “Liam, you kill people. Am I just supposed to be okay with that? Pretend I don’t know about it?”
“Are you asking me to stop?”
“Liam, I—”
“Because I will.”
“What?” Disbelief rose goosebumps over my scalp.
“I’ll stop, if you’ll stop.”
I turned to face him. “If I’ll stop what?”
“Seeing paranormal clients.”
“That is totally unfair,” I insisted. “You can’t use that as a tool to control me.”
“It’s not about controlling you, Matilda. I don’t even care if it’s not me you want. What I do care about is how I see you acting.”
“I’m not acting like anything.” I sat down on the car’s warm hood. “I’m fine.”
“Are you? I saw, Matilda. I saw you doing that séance in your room. I heard the things you were saying. The voices you were talking to.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Matilda…” His prolonged pause stopped the breath in my throat. “You’re acting like her.”
My face stung as if it had been slapped. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare compare me to my mother.”
“Let’s diagnose the patient, shall we? Speaking to people who aren’t there. Seeing things. Paranoia in the extreme.”
“Crixus can see them too. So can Kim.” My sentences sounded like the short, sing-songy defense of a kid on the playground.
“We’re not talking about Crixus or Kim. We’re talking about you. Your practice is falling apart. Julie told me about all the appointments you’ve been canceling.”
“So now you’re spying on me?”
“Not spying,” he said. “Caring.”
“How noble,” I snorted. “The hit man has a change of heart and decides to protect his former target. Is that your idea of penance?”
“You think I give a shit about penance?” His fingers closed on my upper arms in an almost painful grip. “You think I’m here to make up for some sin? To atone for something?”
“Then why are you here?” I stared up into those eyes—now the gray of the storm clouds that had left the blades of grass weeping on my ankles.
He shook his head, exasperated. “For a psychologist, you sure as fuck aren’t all that observant when it comes to your own life.”
“And for a hit man, you’re sure having a hard time killing our fake marriage.”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
I blinked.
My mouth hung open long enough for me to taste rain on my tongue. I could feel the perplexed expression on my own face but couldn’t seem to remember how to change it. “You…” I stammered.
“Are in love. Ass-over tits, stupid-crazy, balls to bones.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Why I am I in love with you?”
I nodded.
“There is no why. I just am.”
“You can’t be.”
“You don’t get to argue with me about this. Shouldn’t you be validating my feelings?”
“I’m not your therapist.”
Lightning painted the sky seconds before thunder rumbled through the night. The image stayed on my retinas when I blinked to clear the stinging.
My throat constricted, squeezing tears into my eyes. They were warm on my cheeks as the first cold droplets of rain began to fall.
“Let’s get back in the car.” Liam shrugged out of his black suit coat as he slid into the driver’s seat. They had returned his weapons, as I saw from the holster beneath his arm. He unbuckled it and stashed it in the glove compartment.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he assured me. “Not for you.”
“How can you say that?” Unable to return the words, I had already begun an inventory the evidence. The burning jealousy at the thought of his being with another woman. The hollow ache when he went days without contact. The heady lust that came on the heels of his very scent. The feeling of peace when I leaned against him, leaned on him, let him care for me.
Was this love?
“Because I don’t expect anything from you. Other than to not die. And maybe to let me lick your pussy, if it pleases you.”
We sank into silence with that sentence hanging between us, listening as rain pattered on the sunroof.
Intentions. I’d had plenty of them. Ideas about what my life would be like. Things I would have accomplished by now. They slid from me like the droplets winding their way down the windows. Tears for a life not lived, the dying of a dream.
“Liam?”
“Hmm?”
“It pleases me.”
He looked at me. Maybe deciding if I was in the correct frame of mind to make this statement. Maybe deciding he didn’t care.
His hand moored itself in the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling me across the armrest to bring his lips to mine. There was no gentleness in it. No tentative expression or question of acceptance. For this moment and however many after it I would grant him, Liam owned me.
Months, it had been. Months since I had tasted the desire on his tongue. Since I had let him devour me like a drowning man devours air. He dragged me into his lap, reclining the driver’s seat until I straddled him. I pulled my shirt over my head while he worked my pants down my hips to my knees. Panties quickly followed as I worked to free him.
He impaled me without preamble.
My single, unguarded cry of pain met his low groan of pleasure.
“Did I hurt you?” he panted. “I forget—”
I kissed away whatever resurrection of my inexperience he meant to apologize for as I settled deeper.
His apologies died in my mouth, replaced by a strangled growl. I ground my hips against him, welcoming the budding friction and its attendant heat.
In this moment, with his body beneath me, his entire length inside me, I was made real. Bound to the flesh he worshipped with his mouth. Anchored in the world and my place in it.
My movements became more frantic, limited as they were by the steering wheel digging into my back. In mutual desperation, we rolled together in an ungraceful tangle to
the car’s back seat. He pushed me down on the leather, reaching behind me to tuck a buckle into the seat’s cushions.
The buttons on his shirt scattered into crevices I would later think of future drivers finding when they searched for keys or cell phone. He grabbed a handful of undershirt and pulled it over his head.
I brought my mouth to his bared skin, tracing with my tongue the tendons at the base of his neck while the flat of my palms skimmed over the tensing muscles that fed into his open trousers.
He braced a hand against the door and found me again, burying himself in slower increments. His ragged breath came in staccato bursts as his sweat fell on me like summer rain.
I came up to meet him, greedy, wanton, wanting. Willfully drowning myself in the scent, the taste, the sound of him. I gripped his hips with my knees and scored the curve of his pistoning buttocks with fingers curled by the unbearable pressure.
“Matilda, don’t…I can’t—”
I bit his neck, marking him as he had marked me, sucking his salty skin as I tightened around him in time with every pulsing advance. Wanting that unfailing control to break under my power. Proof of my existence and the fallibility of his.
“Christ.” Any resistance in him evaporated, and he was driving into me with reckless demand. He fell upon my neck, wild as any animal in his complete surrender.
While the car holding us remained parked the edge of a cliff, we drove each other over. His name came to my lips in the moment of my shivering release. I repeated it like a prayer. “Liam, Liam, Liam…”
My undoing was his as well. His body enfolded mine, his arm curled around my face, bicep hard against my cheek, palm cradling my head. Victory, I felt. Complete and entire as he exploded inside me, the hot jets impeded neither by material or interruption.
Awareness of this arrived for him too.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered. “I didn’t—we didn’t—are you…”
“On birth control,” I said.
He pulled himself up on his elbows. His expression betrayed both fear and wonder as he looked down at me. “Since when?”
“Since always. Medical reasons.”
“Endometriosis?” he asked.
The shock on my face must have been apparent. He shook his head as if there was nothing miraculous in his pinpoint diagnosis. “My sister has it too. Doctor put her on birth control when she was a teenager. It helped with the pain.”
Unassailable: The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist #5 (The Case Files of Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist) Page 8