He shook his head. “You want me to deny it, don’t you. Reassure you. Tell you ‘Don’t worry, Melissa honey, I’m not a serial killer.’”
She bit back a sob. “That would be nice.”
“What’s the point?” He gestured wearily, but managed to keep his gaze steady. “Aren’t sociopaths supposed to be consummate liars? You think you’d know whether I was telling the truth? No way, Melissa. We serial killers are pros. You’ll never know until you wake up one morning with my hands around your throat. Right? Isn’t that the way you see it?”
“Riley…” Her voice shook, like a little girl getting a scolding.
“Go ahead and make the call if you want.” He gestured disgustedly at the phone. “But not an ambulance, just a cab. At worst I cracked a rib, probably have a concussion.”
“Riley…”
“Call, Melissa. Or use my phone. I’m hurting.”
Melissa went to Rose’s phone while he dragged himself into the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink. Every instinct had been screaming at her not to trust Watson, not to believe what he told her. She hadn’t listened. Hadn’t listened to her own heart, her own feelings. Her world, her values, her expectations had been turned inside out and become practically unrecognizable.
She fumbled over the keypad and stuttered to the taxi dispatcher, exhausted, overwhelmed, wanting only to crawl into bed and make everything go away. Sleep for a day or two and try to regain some perspective.
Except she wasn’t sure even that would work.
Riley emerged from Rose’s bathroom. Melissa replaced the receiver carefully, as if everything she touched was as close to breaking as she was.
“They said ten minutes.”
Riley nodded, sat back in the chair and leaned against the lace antimacassar, eyes closed. Even with the blood and dirt gone, he looked like a beaten warrior who’d popped in for a brief out-of-place visit to civilization. It came home to her suddenly and finally that for all their former intimacy, he was a stranger. He’d always be a stranger.
She sank onto the edge of the rocker opposite and watched him, too heavy with despair to stay on her feet, not realizing until that second how she’d still held out hope some miracle could make things possible for them.
But they couldn’t leave it like this. Something had to be said. At the very least she needed to hear his side.
“Why were you investigating Rose?”
“Watson asked me to.” Riley didn’t open his eyes, spoke without emotion. “He suspected she had valuable evidence the Feds need to link a Massachusetts VIP with Allston. Evidence that started this case as a gift from crime boss to politician with major strings attached, in the form of political favors.”
The portrait. “Why didn’t Watson get his own detectives to find the evidence?”
“Because there was a leak to Allston in the force.” Riley’s good eye opened. Even coming out of that wreck of a face, his gaze was compelling, drew her numb heart to him. “Guess who that leak turned out to be?”
“Watson.” She knew before Riley even finished his sentence. She’d probably always known.
“His word against mine, Melissa. That’s all I’ll give you.”
She nodded dumbly, tears coursing down her cheeks. She’d been fighting so long and so hard against this man. Because acknowledging that he wasn’t a super-hero, or James Bond, or a fabulously horrifying deviant, acknowledging that he was an ordinary guy with a job to do, meant she had to stop living in a made-for-TV drama and face the truth: she was in love with a man who didn’t fit into her life any more than she fit into his.
The tears came harder.
Riley cursed and lifted himself off the chair, knelt at her feet as he had that first night when he thought she was Rose, and slid his hands along her thighs to her waist in a familiar strong grip.
“I’m not going to make your decision for you,” he whispered. “But I can’t sit here and watch you cry. I’m not going to hurt you, now or ever. When they were working me over, when I came to after they left, all I could think of was you, how I could get to you, how I could protect you, keep you from—”
“Riley.” Oh God, he cared for her. She touched the strong lines of his jaw with a shaking hand, not believing it was possible to feel any worse until hopelessness cheated her out of the euphoria of the discovery.
She took his hand, brought the portrait out of her pocket and pressed it into his palm. At least she could show him her trust. “I think you’ll know what to do with this.”
He inhaled sharply, closed his fingers over it, and turned his face away. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Riley. This is all so…strange to me. But I know you’ll do the right thing by the portrait. Why I know that, I haven’t a clue.”
He lifted his head and smiled into her eyes until her heart almost cracked. “How long have you had this?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Where was it?”
“In the giraffe’s…butt.”
He blinked, then a slow grin spread across his handsome, battered face. Melissa broke into a slightly hysterical giggle.
“Do I need to ask what you were doing rooting around a giraffe’s butt?”
She gave in to more crazy, painful laughter. “It was an accident. I knocked the statue over.”
“Rose will be devastated.”
Rose. Melissa’s giggles died. She put a hand to her churning stomach. “Oh, Riley. Rose called me. She said someone kidnapped her. She gave me directions—she wasn’t sure they were right. I didn’t know what to do…so I called Watson.”
Riley swore softly. “When was this?”
“A few hours ago.” Melissa slumped in the rocker. How many lives could she screw up in one evening?
“Did you happen to tell Watson she wasn’t sure of the directions?”
Melissa nodded.
“Good.” Riley fumbled for the phone in his pocket and dialed, his fingers swollen and clumsy over the tiny buttons. He had a brief conversation with someone named Ted Barker, signaled for paper and scrawled wobbly notes on the pink pad Melissa moved to the table next to him.
“Okay.” He punched his unit off and put a hand to his temple, his complexion going a shade grayer. “Go to your place and call Watson back. Tell him Rose just phoned with new directions. Give him these. I have to get downstairs for that cab.”
Melissa clutched the pink paper and nodded. She should go with him. Make sure he was okay. She couldn’t let him leave like this, knowing they wouldn’t be together again. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.” He struggled to his feet. “They’ll put me to bed and watch me. Nothing you can do. Stay here. Call Watson. Get some sleep. You can come see me in the morning.”
She stared at him miserably. He moved toward her, slid his arms around her and held her gingerly against his injured body. She could barely breathe, barely think. She didn’t belong in these arms anymore. She had no right to be in them when she didn’t intend to stay there.
He pulled back, took her chin in his hand. “This means it’s over, Melissa. My part in this investigation. We’ll get Rose back, the Feds will get Allston, it’s all over. Now you and I can start.”
She bit her lip, looked down at her bare feet. How the hell could you reject a man who’d been through such hell?
“Melissa.” He backed up against the doorjamb and rested his forehead on his hands, as if holding up his head was suddenly too much effort. “Something tells me I’m about to get hit harder than anything those guys could throw.”
“You should go get your cab, Riley. We can talk about this when you’re feeling—”
“No.” His voice rose and he winced. “Tell me now.”
“Riley, for God’s sake, look at you. You’re a wreck, you need a doctor. Who knows when you slept last, what horrible places you’ve been. You’ve had criminals pummeling you all evening. This is not the time to—”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” He lifted his h
ead, his normal eye dark with frustration. “It’s my job. I saw it in your face at the hospital when I told you what I do.”
Melissa shook her head, letting her eyes plead with him. Please, Riley, not now.
“You still can’t give up on that suffocating ideal you’ve programmed yourself to want.” His voice came out hoarse and strained. “Can’t give up on your dreary deskbound Prince Charming.”
“That’s who I am.” She tried to speak gently and firmly, but the words came out cracked and shaky.
“Oh, really? What about the Melissa that wants to go around the world? Dress in black leather and explore physical pleasure for the hell of it?”
“She was just a tiny part of me. An experiment, an adventure.” She gestured helplessly. “I’m not happy in her skin.”
Riley pressed his temples as if he were afraid his head would burst. “Same house, same job, same routine day after day with Business School Bob until you can’t tell whether you’re living this year or last year, and your whole life just slips away. Is that what you want?”
Melissa gritted her teeth. “Maybe it sounds dull to you, Jonny Quest, but at least I won’t have to wait up every night for the knock on the door so I can see whether it’s you or the mob or the police. Whether you’re in handcuffs or in the hospital or in the morgue. At least Business School Bob can come home after a tough day and talk honestly about what he’s doing.”
She paced back and forth in short, jerky laps. “What the hell do I know about the world you operate in? I don’t want to know about that world. I want to be surrounded by honesty. I want trust. I want optimism and touches of idealism. I want normal people being decent to each other. Maybe you think I’m living in a happy-mouse theme park. Maybe I am. But so are most people, and we like it here. Just because there’s ugliness in the world doesn’t mean I want to invite it into my house. You and I are from different planets, we want different things. It just wouldn’t work.”
He let her finish, then stood watching her until she started to fidget. However hard she told herself to stand still and take it, the power from his gaze was too strong, made her feel as if he’d caught her in a lie when she knew she was finally in direct contact with the truth.
He moved away from the door, walked to her and took her wrists, pinned them behind her and brought her close, kissed her slowly and thoroughly, the way he had in her apartment two nights ago. His mouth was warm, sure and achingly familiar; he smelled like himself and, somewhat absurdly, like Rose’s pink floral soap.
Melissa turned her head away. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” He moved her closer, until their bodies came together, then planted a line of soft kisses across her forehead. “Why, because it reminds you that you have feelings for me?”
“Lust doesn’t count.”
He kissed her again, a sweet gentle kiss that made a volcano of emotion erupt through her body. “Does that feel like lust? Was it lust that kept you wanting me on top of you, inside you, the old-fashioned way you were so scornful of?”
“Riley…”
“Let me make love to you, Melissa. Not tonight—I can barely stay conscious right now. But let me at least do that. Then you can decide.”
“No.” She said the word through a longing so fierce she could barely stand it. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
Rose’s buzzer sounded, a harsh noise intruding on their tense whispers, making Melissa jump.
Riley didn’t flinch, still gripped her with his hands and with his stare. “Why?”
“Because…” She shook her head as if it needed clearing, as if she was still confused, rattled, uncertain. He’d kissed her, that’s all. Kisses couldn’t change the facts. Kisses couldn’t build a life. They were only kisses.
The buzzer sounded again, impatiently, twice. She glanced over at the panel by Rose’s door. “Your taxi. You should get to the hospital.”
“Okay.” He sighed, released her and stepped back unsteadily. “I’m going. But not for good, Melissa. You need time? Take it. But I’m not giving you up until we at least get the chance to try.”
Melissa stepped with him into the hall and watched his beautiful damaged figure stumble toward the elevator, her heart as bloody and bruised as he was. She’d done the right thing. It would hurt like hell for a while, but sooner or later she’d be free of regrets, happy she hadn’t allowed herself to get more entangled in a relationship that couldn’t make her truly at peace, either with him or with herself.
The elevator doors began closing over Riley’s stony, swollen face. Melissa turned away, unable to handle the devastation of watching him disappear so completely. She clutched the paper he’d given her and walked back into her apartment, promising herself to call the hospital every hour to check on his progress.
In the meantime, she had two jobs to do. Number one, practice calling Captain Watson and lying through her teeth. And number two, quell the nagging fear that tonight she might have gotten all the practice she needed—lying to herself.
14
ROSE PROPPED THE NOTE carefully on her pillow, moved soundlessly into the kitchen and stood next to the back door, ears straining in the blackness for the slightest noise that would indicate Slate might be awake and hear her sneaking through the house. By some miracle, that evening he realized he’d forgotten to go out and pump water. She’d been able to grab his phone and get through to Melissa, pass along Rajid’s number and the directions for her rescue.
But when Slate came back into the house and she was faced with the enormity of the acting job ahead, she realized there was no way in hell she could sit here and wait for Rajid to come get her. No way in hell she could disguise hurt this deep. Last night, when Slate was upset and distracted by his friend’s trouble, she’d managed to, but not today. Not even Rose was that good.
Best just to leave. Best just to make it seem like she’d gotten bored with him, and sneaked away to avoid a scene. After all, women like her didn’t stay with any man too long, right? Women like Rose wanted their relationships easy, carefree and disposable, like frozen meat loaf dinners. She’d find some guy, hitchhike back to Boston, pick up a few things and disappear. Easy as pie. Snap of the fingers. Women like Rose always landed on their feet.
She swallowed to try and ease the sharp sickness in her stomach, then twisted the knob and pulled the door open, hating the fact that noises traveled so clearly through the thin pine walls of the house. Slowly, gently, she pushed open the screen—only so far, to avoid the squeak—and stepped out into freedom and away from betrayal and hurt and love.
Fifteen minutes later the tears hit. She stumbled off the road, instinctively seeking the shelter of the woods, fell onto the soft ground and gave over to the deep wracking sobs, hating the animal sounds she made, the loss of control and the dark tight pain in her chest. She drew her knees up, writhing, gasping for breath, afraid she was going to vomit, literally spew her grief out into the moss.
The sound of a truck and the glow of headlights shocked her into silence. Slate. He’d already discovered her gone. Followed his quarry in his truck like a redneck hunter. She lay as still as possible, her breath coming in high, irregular gasps. A high-powered flashlight beam swung over and past her; the sound of the motor and of tires crunching over pebbles gradually faded. Gone.
Rose jumped to her feet and started running. Ten miles of dirt road. Ten miles to the nearest town, unless she could intercept an early rising lobsterman coming down the point and ask for his help. Of course he would help. Men always helped if you knew how to read them. Knew which ones to flirt with, which ones to plead with, when to play daughter, mother, saint or whore. Rose knew. It was her gift.
She pictured a clean honest fisherman, with a nice family, good business and a healthy fear of God. He’d help her. But they’d all help her. They always had. They always would.
Revulsion hit her so strongly she stopped, stunned,
in the middle of the road. The wind whispered overhead, tossing the treetops silhouetted against the barely lightening sky.
To hell with men. To hell with all of them. To hell with their needs and their fragile egos and their big hairy bodies. She’d get to the bus station on her own two feet. Pay for a ticket and ride back to Boston. Pick up a few things and hit the road, find somewhere else to settle. Maybe somewhere like here; she’d grown to love the Maine coast. A small town where she could know her neighbors, become part of a community. She’d get a job, a good one, maybe go back to school to study writing, support herself. Learn her lesson from loving Slate, get through the heartbreak somehow and make the change. Become stronger. Be her own woman.
A thrill ran through her, right there in the middle of nowhere in the woods of Maine, and she lifted her fists into the air and gave a triumphant shout.
Alice Rose Katzenbaum was back for good.
SLATE REACHED ROUTE I and turned in a tight circle, wheels flinging gravel from the shoulder to ping on the truck’s metal underside. Damn. When had she left? What kind of headstart had she gotten? Thank God the wind had blown branches against his window and woken him this morning, or he might still be in bed. Thank God he’d given in to his instinct to check on Rose, and had found her gone.
He calculated the hours he’d been asleep. Not more than three. But in three hours she could have gotten to the highway on foot. Even if she’d left more recently, she might have heard his truck and hidden in the woods as he went by. Ten miles of road, probably five of them dense wood. Needle in the haystack. Hopeless.
Damn.
She also could have gotten a ride with a lobsterman. They were up and around by first light. God knew Rose could get a ride with any man on earth.
Jealousy twisted inside him, until he felt like he’d swallowed barbed wire. As he felt when he’d read that god-awful note and realized she’d left him.
The Wild Side Page 18