Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2)

by Miles A. Maxwell

  “Maybe . . . Everon. When we were kids. Tesla coil? I don’t know . . .”

  “That’s the guy,” she answered. A small smile. “Well, he once had this long-distance thing going with a very beautiful woman. Years of letters, seeing each other here and there, they finally got together. And after one night — spending the whole night talking, holding hands — there was definitely this spark, if you’ll pardon the pun — they agreed to be married the following week.

  “But then a friend wrote him a letter, describing women in a generally unappetizing way. He broke off the engagement — never spoke to her again. She was the only woman who ever —” she paused, “he was only physically touched, ever, by that one woman. Only that once in his life. That one close female friend, just that one time —”

  Not a question, he repeated, “His entire life — ”

  Staring at her.

  She approached from the right side of his desk, stepping out of her shoes as if going for a dip in the ocean. She hiked up the tight tan skirt, and gripping his desk to support her weaker leg, sharply threw the other, long and smooth, over both of his to sit on his lap.

  Subtly, uncontrollably, his head jerked back. “I’ve never —”

  “No reason to talk about that now,” she said, gripping his shoulders, fingertips searching out his shoulder blades through his leather jacket.

  The corners of her full lips turned slightly upward. They were swelling, he noticed. He couldn’t, wouldn’t move. And he felt a vague pressure — farther down. She was angling her head to the right, downward, allowing her to gently kiss his cheek, smoothing over to his lips — sucking slowly, softly on the right side of his upper lip. Then both.

  He couldn’t think, couldn’t say anything. He could not avoid noticing her nipples, smoothed by a bra, he thought vaguely, pushing out against the fabric of her shirt. She arched her chest, her breasts toward his face, sliding her fingers through his long dark hair. Then moved in, farther, wrapping her arms around his head. Pulling him to her.

  He felt his entire body becoming an ultra-sensitive series of receptors, feeding her directly to him — information pouring in, overloading his awareness without conscious thought. His body felt every sensation, and a compulsion to return them back to her.

  She felt his fingertips brush her neck, the bulge of her collarbone, right where she had not realized she needed to be touched.

  How did he know to do that?

  She stopped thinking — relaxing, more deeply opening her awareness to him. His touch so wonderfully sensitive for someone with such strong hands.

  How does he know how —

  They kissed again. Deeper. He took his mouth from hers. Two of his fingers brushed her lower lip. “I — I,” he stuttered softly, “have to be able to feel the differences in texture between one rock and another.”

  Did I ask him that out loud?

  “My life depends on it,” he whispered. “Grab onto the wrong type, it crumbles and I fall.”

  She could feel the blood rushing to where he touched her. How did he know?

  And as he did these things, he began to whisper, uncontrollably . . .

  Duet

  Words into her right ear, words that penetrated, deep inside down into her . . . “Smooth . . . deep . . . placid . . . delicious . . .”

  To her they made no sense.

  And yet, made total sense.

  As he held her face, circled his arms around her, he had no idea what he was doing. He let himself feel her, noticing everything, reacting to what she was, how she was, what she was becoming. All the pain, the frustration came out, flowed away from him.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. She felt the thick twisted ropes that were Franklin’s arms fold across her back. Strong, she thought. Wiry. A racehorse.

  But he had never traveled to where she wanted to go.

  She ran her fingertips against his hair, then gently began to push down on his shoulders, to pull his head down. She pushed herself up and back onto the surface of his desk, knocking off everything — pens, papers, stacks of books, a Bible — went crashing to the floor. Her stocking feet came up on the arms of his chair.

  She pushed his head down. He resisted only for an instant, then allowed her to push him where she wanted him to be, pulling that thin strip of cloth out of his way.

  He could feel her, taste her there now too. She was wet, sweet and salty. He moved his tongue in circles searching for the spot he thought must be there, something he’d never — waiting for her reaction.

  When he found it, he was surprised. She shuddered. Her hips bucked. She let a soft moan escape.

  He concentrated on that one protrusion, circles, a figure eight. Using the tip of his tongue, long movements flowing his lips upward, the wide flat slope of his tongue. Her reactions were clear. When she moved away he lightened up. When she moved closer he kept the pressure even, intensified it slightly. It was more than one spot, and it kept changing, but he followed her energy, suggesting new ways for her to feel what he felt she hoped for.

  He let her rest only for a moment. They went on again, an adventure he didn’t know — he could hear her breathing, moaning louder now, until her rocking, bucking, twitching, moaning grew, a crescendo of intensity, an orchestra reaching its peak. And as she let it all go, a long low moan released that went on and on.

  But he kept on lightly while she let out long groans of pleasure, almost like pain. He lightened still more, her pleasure going on, longer and longer until he thought she could no longer bear it.

  And he was right.

  Victoria let loose a wail like the midnight call of a coyote bitch in heat. “OOOOOOHHhh . . .”

  What am I doing here? In my office! Franklin thought.

  “Ohhhh!”

  He could just see Marjorie out front at her desk, listening to Victoria scream.

  “Ahhh!”

  The reactions of Mrs. Tavitt, old Mrs. Astor to the sounds of their sex.

  But no one was out there. Not this late.

  Her eyes opened. Franklin’s hair was loose now, flowing about his neck, his face. The look in his eyes. Penetrating, intense.

  She reached down, undid the buttons on his jeans, released him. He was hard.

  “Give it to me,” she said softly. Begging? A command, a desire, a desperate need. He didn’t know which — it was not a request.

  He slid up between her thighs, until he was over her. With her other hand she opened herself to him. A tight wet space. He gasped. Her long legs, a vise around his back.

  She felt him slide into her. Then deeper as she took him in. “Ohhhhh,” she let out involuntarily, “Ohhh — thank yooooooo . . . ”

  Franklin could feel inside himself what Victoria wanted from him, wanted for herself, and he gave it to her. His own breathing deepened, becoming vocal, an open-mouthed moan, and they went bucking, sliding, moving this time together. She pulled him downward, engulfing him, surrounding him. And by her acceptance, all was swept away. Until his own moan became the roar that joined with hers.

  In The Wrong Light

  Buttons on a shirt, lowering a skirt. Kissing. Touching. They helped each other dress.

  She helped him put the mess that had fallen on the floor back into some semblance of order on his desk. He didn’t bother to make it too neat, to organize it too much, but he folded Cyn’s papers inside his jacket pocket.

  Finally they left his office.

  In the hallway, Franklin switched off his office light. Closed his door. Turned. And froze.

  No!

  The light was on under Ralph’s door.

  Was it on before? Franklin couldn’t be sure. Through the door he thought he heard paper rustle inside. Quickly, silently, he led Victoria from the building.

  When they went to get his jeep from the visitor’s spot where they’d left it, he saw Ralph’s blue Taurus tucked into its space. It hadn’t been there when they pulled in. He was sure of it.

  He sai
d nothing to Victoria. At least Ralph hadn’t busted in on them.

  But Franklin knew. There’s going to be hell to pay tomorrow.

  The Hack

  “Ah’ve proven mah loyalty to th’ race,” the big man said. “You should do th’ same.” Seated in the back of a black SUV, Billy Bob took in Agent Paul Esposito. “You a spic or a PR, boy?” he asked as the four agents rushed him to the FBI’s Albany field office.

  But as soon as they had Billy Bob’s ankles locked to a chair in INTERVIEW THREE, the arrogance wilted and he began singing like the Vienna Boys Choir. His voice even rose half an octave.

  “Death’a millions a’ blacks ’n’ Jews. Two dang good reasons ta be happy ’bout New York! Got a helluva lotta dem Meslims too. City ’uz filled wit’ ’em!”

  The things that came out of the fat guy’s mouth! Puking up vitriol by the bucket. “Some party!” Russ encouraged, “Eight garbage trucks?”

  “Really, it’s all in th’ book. Th’ Turner Diaries. Y’all should get a copy. Th’ movement’s leaders been trying ta get started on New York fer years. Prove white people ’r smarter, more trustworthy ’n better ’n blacks ’n every way. ’Cept maybe’n certain contac’ sports,” he admitted grudgingly.

  They began to suspect the fat man was having them on. He wasn’t offering a single word to address what they needed him to talk about: the blue garbage trucks; about what was inside. He was deliberately side-stepping, going off on some disgusting tangent every time they tried to bring things back to the big blue trucks.

  They were getting nowhere.

  “He’s running a delaying action on us,” Esposito said quietly outside the interrogation room. “He’s trying to buy time for something.”

  So Russ went back in and took a different angle. Went in the opposite direction.

  “Maybe we whites are smarter, Billy Bob, but you can’t get us to agree on anything — not even food — for more than a weekend campout.”

  “Ha! Shows what ya’ll know. This thing been buildin’ up fer months. We had a real big meetin’ at a hotel last year. Got along jes’ fine.”

  “Big?” Russ scoffed. “Three guys holed up with hookers in a room in Atlantic City or Vegas.”

  Something flashed in Billy Bob’s eyes. A sudden look. Like Russ had gotten too close.

  “What — Vegas?” Russ asked.

  Billy Bob wouldn’t say another word.

  Agents got on the phone. Called all the hotels on the Vegas strip. Then downtown. Lacking any positive responses they expanded their range to a thirty-mile radius.

  An hour later, they found it.

  The meeting hadn’t been held in Las Vegas. The general manager of a high-rise B-grade casino-hotel along the highway halfway to Henderson remembered hosting four hundred oddballs in April. Security had been tight, but some of the kitchen wait staff described the meeting as “the whitey movement’s modern-day rebirth.” Apparently plans had been formulated. A great deal of money had been collected they thought too.

  Following these tidbits, two of the FBI’s top hackers were able to find a money trail and follow it. Payment for rooms and food charged to the hotel. Large deposits into Nevada banks.

  Digging in, the computer agents found some of those same bank accounts connected to expenses around an even bigger event four months later in Idaho. State park records showed a sudden influx of seven hundred campers in August. Bank deposits in cash of more than a million dollars.

  From there it all opened up.

  “Look! This account here!”

  “Transfer . . . Yeah, the account’s on the watch list! Benoit Kalagi — Ben-wa Ka-LA-kee,” he pronounced.

  “Shit! Kalagi’s a major arms dealer out of Algiers!”

  “With that much cash, these people could —”

  “Let’s bring this back to Russ Bezier right now.” He lifted the phone.

  Russ and Cheryl appeared in the computer room with FBI Liaison to the CIA Lance Bolini.

  “Holy —” Bolini paused. “Are you sure about this, guys? The CIA’s following the plutonium. And they’re saying Pakistan.”

  “Exactly,” one of the hackers said. “But this leads in a totally different direction. This much cash going to Kalagi, has to be nukes.”

  “We’ve got to find out for sure what’s in those trucks!” Russ urged.

  “There are over a thousand people at that farm,” Cheryl said. “Even pulling in state and local police — a raid would take every field agent we have in the surrounding five-state area.”

  “This is some very scary stuff,” Bolini agreed. “But putting this kind of takedown together is way beyond what I can authorize on my own. Let me get with my CIA contact on the Joint Task Force.”

  An hour later, Lance Bolini handed over everything the FBI had on white separatist activities in New York, Las Vegas and Idaho to CIA Liaison Greg Claus.

  “The director isn’t going to like this,” Claus said doubtfully.

  “It doesn’t matter what Sloat likes, Greg. The bomb delivery and detonation appear to have nothing to do with Pakistan. This is a pretty strong indicator. More nukes — in those eight garbage trucks still on the property? We’ve got to move on this, now!”

  The Manse

  When they got inside the tiny white house his church provided him, and he’d closed the door behind them, she was already by the rear windows, looking out at the leafless old grandfather trees scattered across the snow-covered backyard.

  She turned to see the tiny creases in the corners of his brilliant cobalt-blue eyes, smiling at her the same way they first had in his office.

  He kissed her lips, her palm.

  Minutes later, they were naked. He wore only a small gold cross with a triangle base on a chain around his neck.

  She lay down with him and brought a warmth, a softness to his bed. Her scent was like . . . like — sweet desert creosote after a refreshing Nevada rain.

  In her eyes he felt he could hear her internal voice, the things she said to herself about them. He felt wonderful. She felt wonderful. Like they were one. As if he knew what she was thinking, feeling, even. He began to whisper softly: “And she said to him, ‘ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine — ’ ”

  Self-consciously, he hesitated.

  Victoria turned her head, eyebrows raised — as if to say, That’s all?

  Franklin shook his head.

  “And he replied, ‘ Thy lips are a thread of scarlet. ’ ” His fingertips trailed along Victoria’s full lips as they swelled; traced the right side of her face along her hairline. “Thy cheeks as the blush of pomegranate within thy locks.” Franklin’s feet, his knees, touched each part of her as he spoke: “How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter! Your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful artist . . .” His right hand brushed along her belly, “Thy navel is a rounded goblet, lacking only wine. Thy waist, a tie of wheat set about with lilies . . .” Fingers lightly across her nipples . . . “Thy breasts like two fawns, twins of the gazelle. Thy neck, an ivory tower, thine eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim.” A finger circled up around one ear . . . “Thine hair is like the purple; a king is held captive by its tresses. How fair and pleasant thou art, O love of my delight! Thy stature like a palm tree, and thy breasts are like its clusters.” His head dipped, his tongue flicked, “I will go up to the palm, take hold its fronds. Oh, thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, the fragrance of thy breath like apples, and the roof of thine mouth the best of wine . . .”

  Franklin kissed her and she flowed with his consciousness . . . yet he spoke and whispered: “Me baise des baisers de ta bouche, ma bíen-aímée — Kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth my beloved.

  “Moving gentle lips, the sleeper whispers: I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields; let us lodge in the villages. Dés le matin nous irons aux vignes, nous
verrons sí la vigne pousse — Let us go up early to the vineyard; let us see whether the vine has budded, whether the blossoms have opened, sí le grenadiers fleurissent — if the pomegranates are in bloom. There, will I give you my love.”

  When she sensed he’d stopped, Victoria whispered, “That’s lovely. What is it?”

  “Song of Solomon. Old Testament.”

  “The Bible? That’s pretty hot. I had no idea religion could be so romantic.”

  She drummed her fingers lightly across his tight abs. His midsection was a rippling six-pack. “How’d you do this?”

  “Crunches. Two hundred a day.”

  “Two hundred? What!”

  “Eight minutes a day. That’s all.”

  “What equipment?”

  “No equipment,” he shook his head. “A towel’s nice to lay on, I guess, but not really necessary. The nice thing is you can do them anywhere.”

  She laughed, frowning, shaking her head. “Sit-ups.”

  “Crunches. Sit-ups don’t do anything.”

  “Crunches. I might have to try it. But two hundred?”

  “Used to be people would ride horses. Walk, chop wood. Now we just sit around. And when they do exercise they have to go to the club. Wear a special outfit. Work with a trainer. Like, ‘Now it’s time to exercise!’ It’s a big thing.”

  “Well, maybe, if I could get a stomach as hard as yours.”

  “Twenty-five crunches takes about a minute. If you think about how much you don’t exercise and then just spread it out, a minute here, a minute there, eight minutes in a whole day is easy.”

  She told him something of her past, her job at CNN. That she preferred producing to being in front of the camera — though she’d done that too. They talked for hours.

  He found himself appreciating the things she understood and thought about. He noticed himself wondering what this amazing woman found so interesting in him. He told her how the sight of her affected him, what her lips felt like. The way her body felt. What her mind felt like touching his.