She had a body that was almost as beautiful as her face with those wide cheeks and perfect green eyes. And those green eyes were focused on me right now, moving slowly down the length of my body. I was glad the comforter was pulled up over my waist, glad she couldn’t see the proof that it’d been a very long time since I’d last seen a woman in this degree of undress.
“Sorry,” she muttered, rushing back across the room to disappear behind the closed bathroom door.
I sat up and held my head in my hands, wondering what the hell I was doing. How could I find this woman attractive? Her brother confessed to killing my wife. My Jesse. I loved her more than words could ever begin to express. The day we met, I knew she was the girl for me. She was shy, but so beautiful. The way she looked at me made my heart pound and my fingers tingle. We did nothing more than share a few, chaste kisses during our courtship, like a couple from the Big Band era. But on our honeymoon, we made up for that.
I’d tried to be with another woman after everything happened. She was a nice lady I met through a grief group I attended a year or two after the funerals. Jesse’s mother had actually directed me to the group, to the young woman in question. She knew her through church and knew that she lost her husband in a car accident. She thought we could help each other. But she sobbed the entire time and I just…it just didn’t seem worth it.
My life ended when Gracie and Jesse died. I’d only been going through the motions, waiting for my opportunity to make Mickey Connors pay for what he’d done. Gray Wolf had been a distraction, a happy distraction, but at the end of the day, I always came back to this.
I needed revenge. And then I needed to be with my family.
Harley came out of the bathroom, fully dressed in jeans and a loose top that only hinted at the great outline of those breasts. She didn’t say a word to me, wouldn’t even look at me. And I didn’t say a word to her as I made my way into the bathroom, my bag slung over my shoulders.
I stepped into the shower and turned on the warm water, my thoughts immediately going to the fact that Harley had been standing in this exact spot, naked and warm, her nipples hard as a rock. The image was one I had trouble shaking from my thoughts no matter how badly I wanted to shake it. In fact, my imagination took it a step further by putting me in the picture, my hands sliding over her sides. I pulled her back against me and kissed her shoulder, her neck. They were gentle kisses that belied the need that was roaring through me. I needed her, needed the feel of her body against mine.
I closed my eyes, telling myself that I was simply lonely. It’d been so long and then to sleep with her in the same bed…just the thought must have pushed me over me over a line I wasn’t completely aware was so close. No matter what the reason, the excuse, I needed this.
In my mind, my imagination making it so vividly clear, Harley had her hands pressed against the wall of the shower, her hip pressing back against me. My cock, harder than it’d ever been, slipped up between her thighs, seeking out that sweet spot that every man loathes and loves with the same level of passion. And then she twisted, her breasts coming to rest against my chest, her nipples like little knobs against me. She ran her hands over my neck, pressing her fingers into my hair. I loved the urgency in her touch, the way she tugged me closer to me. I knew by that touch that her need was burning as hot as mine was. And that made my heart pound and made me want her that much more.
I lifted her up and pressed her roughly against the wall of the shower. Our mouths sought and found one another, our tongues doing a dance that only lovers would know. She wrapped her legs around me as I slid my hard cock inside of her, the strength of her legs forcing me to thrust hard and deep inside of her. She cried out, breaking our kiss as she arched her back, rolling her head on the top of her spine. I kissed her neck, feeling the vibration of her pleasure rushing underneath.
Fucking heaven!
There was nothing better than being inside a woman. And when that woman met you stroke for stroke…so much the better. It was the hottest fuck I’d ever imagined in all my life, even compared to the frenzied wet dreams I’d had as a kid. Reality could never be quite this good. Never. As much as I loved Jesse…we were good together and I would have been perfectly content to spend every moment of the rest of my life by her side.
Jesse was only the third girl I’d ever been with. She was the only one I was with longer than a few months. And she was the only one I could honestly say I loved. She was all I wanted.
Sex was sex. Love and commitment were a totally different thing.
Maybe that’s how I reconciled in my head that this fantasy…oh, God!
My imagination was lost in the perceived pleasure of fucking Harley. I had her trapped against the wall of the shower and we moved in perfect concert with one another, our bodies flexing and thrusting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible, but were. And when she cried out with the orgasm that rushed through her lower belly, making her cunt quiver around my cock, I lost my head. I bit down on my bottom lip to stop the real cries from escaping as I came like a teenager, jerking off in a hotel shower like a loser who couldn’t entice a real woman into his bed.
What a fool I was.
I was just getting my breathing under control when Harley knocked on the bathroom door.
“I’m going out to get some coffee. Want anything?”
“No, thanks,” I called, forcing myself to remember where I was and why I was there.
I had to get my head into the game. We were here to prove, once and for all, that Mickey Connors killed my wife and daughter. And, if we couldn’t, we were here to find the monster who really did it. That was it.
I finished my shower, gave myself a quick shave, and dressed. When I stepped out of the bathroom, my stuff repacked, Harley was sitting at the low table by the window, eating cantaloupe from a plastic container.
“I got you some coffee in case you changed your mind.”
I dropped my duffle on the bed and made a great show of digging in it for my handgun. I pulled the 9mm Glock out and checked the clip, making sure, of course, that the safety was on the whole time. Then I slid it into the waistband of my jeans, pulling my untucked shirt over it. I wanted to be clear with her and make sure she knew I was armed. But I didn’t want the bad guys clued in too soon.
But, again, was she a good guy or a bad guy? That fact had yet to be determined.
“Let’s go.”
She was watching me, her eyes a little rounded with surprise. But she got up and followed me out the door without a word.
***
It was a dollhouse, one of those places that looks like a child should be maneuvering dolls throughout its rooms instead of an entire family of real people living inside. It was two stories, and it had these little useless shutters that ornately hung from the sides of each window. It was a bright blue with white trim, rose bushes growing quite successfully in flowerbeds along the front wall of the house, and a trellis laden with morning glories. It was too pretty, too girly of a house for a former Green Beret to own. But it was her dream house.
I hadn’t been to the house in a long time, but it seemed like the most logical place to begin this. It was, after all, where everything began.
“Is this…?”
I glanced at Harley. “This is it.”
“You still own it?”
I shrugged. “No one wants to buy a house where people were murdered. Besides, it was Jesse’s dream house. It just seems wrong to sell it.”
She looked at me with an unreadable expression, but there was clearly something like shock in her eyes. She didn’t understand. That was fine. I didn’t understand her obsession with helping Mickey either.
I got out of the SUV and walked up to the front porch.
“According to Mickey’s confession, he came to the door around eleven o’clock and tried the front door knob, but found it locked.”
“So he went around to the back. I know.”
I ignored the snark in her voice and walked down the
side of the house, letting myself through the squeaky gate that I’d put up myself not long after we moved in. I’d meant to oil that hinge when I got back from Afghanistan. Jesse complained about it a few times, commenting that the damn thing scared her a few times when the meter reader pushed it open to read the meter.
Another thing I’d failed her on.
“He came around to the back door, broke out the bottom pane of glass.” I touched the pane that had been repaired long ago with my fingertips. “He then reached inside to unlock the door.”
Instead of following Mickey’s actions completely, I pulled my key ring out of my pocket and unlocked the door, stepping back so that Harley could enter first. She stepped onto the white laminate flooring, her tennis shoes squeaking just slightly as she moved. I followed, seeing this room as it had been the last time I was there: awash with light, the round kitchen table covered in dirty dishes because the sink was clogged again, Jesse at the sink with the plunger and Grace at her feet, playing with a little Barbie doll she’d just gotten at the store. In truth, however, the house was empty of all personal items, the furniture, pictures, and kitchenware taken out and placed in storage not long after Connors was sentenced to life in prison.
I couldn’t stand to see all that stuff sitting around, gathering dust. She wouldn’t have wanted that, either.
“He came in through this door and went into the sitting room,” I gestured to the long room right beside the kitchen, “and pulled the flat screen off the wall there.” I pointed to the holes that were still needing repair in the wall where the television once hung. “Then he went up to the front of the house.”
I led the way, not even pausing to see if Harley was following.
“At this point, your brother said that he began the complicated process of disconnecting all the electronic equipment in here. We had another flat screen television, a cable box, a sound bar, and an old-fashioned stereo system to play Jesse’s collection of CDs and records.”
I could see it even though it was no longer there, the only suggestion that it had ever been there were the faint lines in the paint that indicated where the shelves had stood. But I could see it. I could see the couch and the coffee table, the big, heavy recliner that Jesse claimed to hate so much. I could see us curled up on the couch, laughing together, whispering about Grace and the future, dreaming about the life we would have together, not aware that those moments were all the life we were going to get to have.
Harley cleared her throat, forcing me to look at her. She looked nothing like my Jesse. Jesse was a tall woman, slender, her curves much more subtle. She was blond, and she had blue eyes that were like cobalt, especially when she was angry. And she had this laugh that was so infectious. Harley had that deep, rich, mahogany-colored hair and green eyes, and those curves. She was smaller than Jesse, shorter. But she had a strength about her that made her seem larger than life while Jesse was timid, shy, the kind of girl who could disappear in a crowd if she wanted to. They were so different, but there was something about Harley that drew me in the same way Jesse once did.
I shook my head to try to dislodge her from it, gesturing to the subtle marks on the wall.
“He claims it took him hours to untangle all the cords because he was suffering withdrawal symptoms and his hands weren’t steady.”
“That could be true. I’ve seen him in withdrawal.” Harley shook her head. “Not good.”
“Yes, well, he claims that Grace came down the stairs while he was still working in here. He claims he carried her back upstairs and convinced her that she was just dreaming and she should go back to sleep. But the coroner’s report suggests that when he lay her in bed, he strangled her.”
Harley’s color changed a little, her pale skin becoming just that much paler.
“He then claims that he carried the items he’d finally unplugged and unhooked into the kitchen, lying them on the floor of the sitting room. Then he went into my study.”
I led the way across the entryway through the glass doors that led into the small study. There was once a heavy desk in the far corner—the impressions it’d left in the carpet still there—a bookshelf against the far wall, and a large portrait of Jesse and Grace above the fireplace. Not anymore, of course. The portrait was in the home of Jesse’s parents, but the rest was in storage with all the other furnishings from the house.
Jesse had laughed when I insisted on having an office. “What does a Green Beret need with a desk?” she’d asked me over and over again. But the idea of having a study was at the heart of homeownership for me back then. It was the only thing I asked for when she began searching for a home. And she made sure I had it.
It killed my soul a little to stand in this room. She could have turned it into a sewing room, or she could have created a nice little playroom for Grace in here. But I’d insisted on my own space, and she’d bent over backwards to make sure I had it without ever once complaining. If I’d known…
“If this is too much for you, I don’t really need this.”
“You do need this,” I said, biting the words out like chewing through a piece of wood just to show how tough I was. “You need to know what happened here. You need to know what he did here.”
She inclined her head slightly.
I gestured to where the desk had been. “There was a computer in here, a printer, and a few other things. Little things. He took it all, and that apparently took him several more hours.”
I turned and led the way to the stairs. Harley’s footsteps were heavy behind me, almost as heavy as mine were. At the head of the stairs, there was only one of two directions to go. Right would take us to Grace’s bedroom. Left went to the master bedroom.
I took a deep breath, not sure I could do this.
I pushed open the door to Grace’s room and was instantly blinded by the bright sunlight that filled the room.
“We’ll have to get some heavy curtains to keep all this light out of here.”
“No. Babies love sunlight.”
The pink walls nearly glistened as we stepped inside. I painted these walls, moaning and groaning about it the entire time.
“Too much estrogen. I’ll suffocate!”
Jesse just laughed at me.
“Her bed was there,” I said in a low, unsteady voice, pointing to the far right wall. “It was one of those low beds that was designed for toddlers. Jesse had bought her a proper twin=sized bed for her birthday, but she was waiting for me to put it together when I got home.”
Pain burst through my chest as I said the words. So many plans Jesse had made for me in the eight months I’d been away from her. So many things we were supposed to do together. Family time. Picnics. Chores around the house. And long discussions about retirement.
I’d already decided I wasn’t leaving the Army, but I hadn’t yet figured out how I was going to tell Jesse that.
“She was lying on her bed, the blankets pulled up over her like she was just sleeping.”
“I know,” Harley said softly. “The crime scene photographs…”
I wasn’t listening. I could almost see it…even though her body had been moved to the morgue by the time I got home. I could see my little girl lying in her princess pajamas, under her princess comforter, her precious little throat covered in bruises from some monster’s hands.
The strength threatened to go out of my knees for a moment.
I turned and left the room, marching across the wide hallway to the door of the room I shared with Jesse. When I was here. I should have been here more. I should have devoted every second of every day to her. We fought in this room for weeks before my last deployment, fought because she was done with Army life. She wanted out.
“I’ve done this all my life, followed my father from base to base. I want to have a normal life now. I want to settle down like my parents finally have.”
“Then you shouldn’t have married an Army man.”
“I married a drill sergeant, a man who had a steady job and no plans
to go off into the middle of the battle.”
“You know I go and do what is asked of me. You know that’s how it works.”
“But I thought…I thought after we married…”
“What? That I’d change my mind? I’m career Army, Jess. You knew that.”
I regretted those fights. I regretted every word I said to her. I should have listened. I should have stayed by her side. But I didn’t and look what happened.
I put my hand on the doorknob, but I couldn’t make myself turn it.
“Kipling, really, you don’t have to do this. I know this crime scene forward and backward.”
The sound of her voice, the sympathy that dripped from her words, spurred me forward. I pushed the door open and nearly lost it when I saw the blood stain, faded, but still visible in the center of the room.
My wife’s blood.
“That’s where the bed was,” I said, ashamed of how quiet and weak my voice was. I cleared my throat before I continued. “She was found lying sideways on the bed, her nightgown removed, three bullets in her body. One in her head, two in her chest.” My voice was stronger, but my stomach had turned over, threatening to throw up what was left from last night’s decadent dinner. “Your brother’s confession said that she confronted him with a gun when he came upstairs to search for loose cash, more electronics, and jewelry. He said he shot her and then he blacked out, finding himself back downstairs in the sitting room when he came to. He said he had no memory of raping her, but that he must have.”
I bit my lip, afraid I was going to lose control right there, right in front of Harley. I couldn’t let myself do that.
“Kipling,” she said softly.
“He was sick. In withdrawal and desperate. But to do this to Jesse…”
“Enough.”
Her voice was low, but it was determined. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back, tugging me out of the doorway of my bedroom, my wife’s bedroom. Of the death room where my wife was brutally attacked. She pulled me back and put both hands on my chest, pushing me toward the head of the stairs.
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