by Nora Roberts
“I think you should know, you were right.”
“That’s always good to know. What was I right about this time?”
“I was tangled up about what was happening between us.”
“Oh.” It came out shaky; she couldn’t help it. “What was happening between us?”
His eyes darkened. She thought of the cobalt glass on display in the shop. “I was wanting you. I was wondering what it would be like to undress you, and to touch you, and to feel you under me. I was wondering if your skin tasted like it smelled.”
She stared at him while her stomach muscles danced. “Is that what was happening?”
“On my end. It was making me a little crazy.”
“And it’s better now?”
He shook his head. “Worse. Now I can imagine doing all those things in that bed. If you want to pay me back solid for last night, all you have to do is tell me you’re not interested.”
She let out the air that had backed up in her lungs. “Interested” wasn’t precisely the word she would have chosen. “I think . . .” On a weak laugh, she pushed both hands through her hair. “I think I’m going to say I’m going to consider your offer carefully, and get back to you on it.”
“You know where to find me.”
“Yeah, I do.”
He hadn’t expected to fluster her, but he was enjoying it. “You want to have dinner? We could . . . discuss the terms.”
The quick, wild fluttering of her heart made her feel very young, and very foolish. “I can’t. I have a date—with my nephew.” She picked up a silver-backed brush from her bureau, set it down again. “He’s at that stage where he detests girls, so every now and again I take him out to the movies or the arcade. A kind of guys’ night out.”
“You’re a girl.”
“Not to Richie.” She picked up the brush again, twisting the handle through her hands. “I don’t mind sitting through ninety minutes of Zombie Mercenaries from Hell—that makes me one of the guys.”
“If you say so.” He flicked a glance down to her nervous hands and grinned. “We’ll try guys’ night out later, then.”
“Sure. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I think I can work it into my schedule.” Gently, he took the brush from her restless fingers and laid it aside. “Why don’t we go get that list?”
When they’d passed safely out of the bedroom, Dora let out a small, relieved breath. She was definitely going to think this over—as soon as some of the blood returned to her head.
“Got your keys downstairs?” Jed asked her when they stepped into the hall.
“What—oh, yeah.”
“Good.” He turned the lock before shutting the door.
* * *
DiCarlo might have enjoyed his luxurious suite at the Ritz-Carlton, with its soft, king-sized bed, a fully stocked honor bar, excellent room service and masseuse on call.
He might have enjoyed it—if he’d had the painting in his possession.
Instead he fumed.
Without the man in apartment two’s ill-timed arrival, DiCarlo figured he would have had the painting—or known its whereabouts.
He hesitated to call Finley. There was nothing to report for the night’s work but failure, and he still had until January the second. Coming up empty for one night played hell with his schedule, but in reality it was only a delay, not a disaster.
He chewed another nut and washed it down with the Beaujolais left over from his lunch. It baffled him that the man knew his apartment had been searched. Leaning back, DiCarlo went over his moves of the night before step by step. He hadn’t disturbed anything. He’d resisted taking even easily fenceable merchandise from the two apartments. What he’d taken from the store below would be attributed to simple shoplifting.
Since the man suspected the woman next door had entered his apartment, his plans didn’t change.
All he had to do was go back in, DiCarlo decided. He’d do exactly what he had planned to do the night before—exactly. Only this time he would go in knowing he’d kill the woman when he’d finished.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
The temperature had dipped to a brisk fourteen degrees under a dazzling night sky splattered with icy stars and sliced by a thin, frosty moon. The shops along South Street were locked up tightly, and traffic was light. Occasionally someone stepped out of one of the restaurants, huddled inside a warm coat, and made a dash for a car or the subway. Then the street would be quiet again, with only the splash from the streetlamps to light the way.
DiCarlo spotted the police cruiser on his first circle of the block. His hands tightened on the wheel as he turned the corner to ride along the river. He hadn’t counted on outside interference. Cops were usually too busy to stake out a building because of a possible minor break-in and a little shoplifting.
So, maybe the lady was boffing the chief of police, DiCarlo mused. Or maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, it was only one more detail. And one more reason to take the shapely Miss Conroy out when he was finished with her.
To calm himself, he tooled around aimlessly for ten minutes, switching the radio off and running through various scenarios in his head. By the time he’d circled around to South again, DiCarlo had his plan formulated. He pulled to the curb in front of the black-and-white. Taking his Philadelphia street map out of the glove box, he climbed out of the car. DiCarlo knew the cop would see only a well-dressed man in a rental car, obviously lost.
“Got a problem there, buddy?” The uniform rolled down his window. The air inside smelled of coffee and pastrami.
“I sure do.” Playing his part, DiCarlo grinned sheepishly. “I was glad to see you pulled over here, Officer. I don’t know where I made the wrong turn, but I feel like I’ve been driving around in circles.”
“Thought I saw you drive by before. We’ll see if we can set you straight. Where you trying to get to?”
“Fifteenth and Walnut?” DiCarlo pushed the map inside the window. “I found it on here, fine. Finding it in the car’s been something else.”
“No problem. You just want to go down here to Fifth and make a left. You’ll run right into Walnut at Independence Square, make another left.” He reached for a pen. “Let me show you.”
“I appreciate it, Officer.” Smiling, DiCarlo pressed his silenced pistol against the uniform’s breast. Their eyes met for less than a heartbeat. There were two muffled pops. The cop’s body jerked, slumped. Meticulously, DiCarlo checked the pulse, and when he found none, quietly opened the driver’s door with his gloved hands, straightened the body into a sitting position. He rolled up the window, locked the door, then strolled back to his own car.
He was beginning to understand why his cousin Guido got such a kick out of murder.
* * *
Dora was disappointed that Richie hadn’t taken her up on her invitation to sleep over. It seemed he’d had a better offer, so she’d dropped him off at a friend’s after the movies.
She wished now that she’d swung back by Lea and John’s and picked up the other kids for the night. A nice noisy pajama party would have calmed her nerves. The simple fact was, she didn’t want to be alone.
No, she corrected, the complicated fact was, she didn’t want to be alone and a few easy steps away from Jed Skimmerhorn. No matter how attractive and charming he’d been that afternoon, she couldn’t let herself forget that he was a man capable of wild bursts of temper.
She believed—and accepted—his apology absolutely. She even understood a portion of his motivation. That didn’t negate the fact that he was a crate of dynamite set with a very short fuse. She didn’t want to be in harm’s way when and if he exploded again.
Then again, she had a temper of her own. She might have had a longer fuse, but pound for pound she’d gauge her explosive quality equal to his.
Maybe that was just what he needed, she reflected. A woman who would stand up to him, fight back, win as often as she lost. If he had someone who understood the need to kick inanima
te objects now and again, it might help him open up. It might help him squeeze out the poison in the wounds that troubled him. It might—
“Hold it, Dora,” she mumbled. “You’re getting this backwards. It’s not what he needs, it’s what you need.” And what she didn’t need was to take on a lover with more problems than a Eugene O’Neill play. She turned into the little gravel lot behind the shop. No matter how cute he was when he smiled.
The T-Bird was gone. Dora frowned a moment, then shook her head. For the best, she thought. If he wasn’t around, she couldn’t think about knocking on his door and inviting trouble.
Her boots crunched over the gravel, clattered up the back stairs that she usually took in a run. After entering the code into the alarm system, she unlocked the door, then secured it behind her.
She wouldn’t tempt fate and listen for Jed’s return, she decided, but make an early night of it. A pot of tea, a fire and that book she’d been trying to read: the perfect remedies for a troubled mind. And with any luck, they would also erase the effects of Scream, If You Dare—the horror movie she’d treated Richie to that evening.
She let herself into her apartment and turned on the Christmas tree. The cozy, colored lights never failed to cheer her. Once she had the stereo on low, she pried off her boots, peeled off her coat. Everything went neatly into her hall closet while she hummed along with Billie Holiday.
In her stocking feet, she padded into the kitchen to heat the kettle. Her hand on the tap jerked as a board creaked in the other room. Her heart made a beeline for her throat so that she stood frozen—water splashing into the sink—listening to the sound of her own racing heart.
“Get a grip, Conroy,” she whispered. Imagine, letting a silly film give her the willies. There wasn’t any seven-foot superhuman psychopath in her living room, waiting with a butcher knife. The building was settling, that was all.
Amused with herself, she put the kettle on to boil, adjusted the heat. She walked back into the living room, and stopped dead.
It was pitch dark, dark as a cave, with only the thin backwash of light from the kitchen illuminating the silhouettes of furniture. Which, of course, made the dark worse.
But she’d turned the tree on, hadn’t she? Of course she had, she assured herself as her hand crept up to her throat to soothe a jittery pulse. A fuse? No, no, the stereo was still playing and they were on the same plug. She reasoned it out slowly, waiting for her heart rate to settle. The tree lights had probably shorted. Shaking her head at her overactive imagination, she started across the room to fix it.
And the kitchen light went out behind her.
Her breath sucked in on a gasp that she forced back out with a slow shudder. Slippery little fingers of fear slid over her skin. For a full minute she didn’t move, listening to every sound. There was nothing but her own drumming heartbeat and shallow breathing. Lifting a hand to her head, she laughed. Of course there was nothing. A bulb blew, that was all.
Creative imagination was a killer, she mused. All she had to do was—
A hand clamped over her mouth, an arm snaked around her waist. Before she could think to struggle, she was yanked back against a hard body.
“You don’t mind the dark, do you, honey?” DiCarlo kept his voice at a whisper, for practical purposes, and to add another element to her fear. “Now you stay real still and keep real quiet. You know what this is?” He loosened his grip enough to slip his gun under her sweater, run the side of it up over her breast. “It’s a big, mean gun. You don’t want me to have to use it, do you?”
She shook her head, squeezing her eyes tight when he stroked her flesh with steel. All capacity for thought vanished.
“Good girl. Now I’m going to take my hand away. If you scream, I’ll have to kill you.”
When he removed the hand from her mouth, Dora pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. She didn’t ask what he wanted. She was afraid she knew.
“I watched you the other night, in the bedroom, when you took off your clothes.” His breath quickened as he slipped his free hand between her legs. “You had on black underwear. Lacy. I liked it.”
She groaned, turning her head away as he rubbed through the wool of her slacks. Watched her. He’d watched her, was all she could think, repulsed.
“You’re going to do that little striptease for me again, right after we take care of a little business.”
“I—I have money,” she managed. She kept her teeth clenched, her eyes straight ahead as she fought to distance her mind from what he was doing to her body. “A few hundred in cash. I’ll give it to you.”
“You’re going to give me all sorts of things. Does this one fasten in the front, too?” He toyed with her bra as she whimpered. “Oh, yeah, that’s just fine. What color is it?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed the barrel of the gun against her heart. “You want to answer me when I ask you a question.”
“R-red.”
“Panties, too?”
A flush of shame rose up on her clammy skin. “Yes, yes, they’re red.”
“You are a hot one.” He laughed, finding himself amazingly aroused by her trembling plea to stop. It was a bonus he hadn’t expected.
“We’re going to have a real good time, baby, and nobody’ll get hurt. As long as you give me what I want. Say you understand.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
She bit down on the terror. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Real good. First, I want you to tell me where it is, then we’ll get down to the party.”
Tears were shimmering in her eyes, burning them. She thought she’d been scared the night before with Jed. But that was nothing, nothing compared to the ice-edged horror that clawed through her now.
And she was doing nothing but whimpering, shaking and waiting to be victimized. She forced her trembling chin to firm. She wasn’t helpless—wouldn’t be helpless. He might rape her, but she wouldn’t make it easy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She didn’t have to fake the shudders, and hoped he thought she was completely beaten when she went limp against him. “Please, please don’t hurt me. I’ll give you whatever you want if you don’t hurt me.”
“I don’t want to have to.” God, he felt hard as iron. Every time he slid the gun over her flesh, she quivered, and his blood sizzled. Those bleeding hearts who called rape a crime of violence were full of shit, he realized. It was about power. All about power.
“You cooperate, and we’ll get on fine.” He slipped the barrel of the gun under the front hook of her bra, sliding it slowly up and down the valley between her breasts. “Now, I looked all through the place and couldn’t find it. You tell me where the picture is, and I’ll take the gun away.”
“The picture?” Her frantic mind whirled. Cooperate, he’d said, and he’d take the gun away. So she’d cooperate. But she wouldn’t be powerless. “I’ll give you the picture, any picture you want. Please, move the gun. I can’t think when I’m so scared.”
“Okay, baby.” DiCarlo nipped at her earlobe and lowered the gun. “That feel better?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t say thank you,” he said, and teased her by bringing the gun back up her torso again.
She shut her eyes. “Yes, thank you.”
Satisfied that she recognized who was in charge, he moved the gun again. “Much better. Just tell me where it is, and I won’t hurt you.”
“All right.” She cupped her left fist with her right hand. “I’ll tell you.” Using the force of both arms, she rammed her elbow into his stomach. He grunted with pain as he stumbled back. Dora heard a clatter behind her as she raced for the door.
But her legs felt numb with fear. She fell into the hall, nearly lost her footing. She’d reached the rear door and was dragging at the locks when he caught her. She screamed then and, with survival her only thought, turned to claw at his face.
Swearing, DiCarlo hooked an arm around her throat. “We’re n
ot going to be able to be so nice now, are we?” Deliberately he cut off her air and began to pull her backward toward the dark apartment.
They both heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. With one desperate swipe, DiCarlo smashed the fluted hall sconce and waited in the shadows.
Jed came in low, weapon drawn.
“Toss it down,” DiCarlo hissed, jerking on his arm to make Dora choke. “I’ve got a gun at her back. Make the wrong move and the lady won’t have a spine left.”
Jed couldn’t see a weapon, but he could see the pale outline of Dora’s face and hear her desperate struggle for air. “Ease off.” With his eyes fixed on DiCarlo, he crouched, set his gun on the floor. “She won’t be much of a shield if you strangle her.”
“Stand up, hands behind your head. Kick the gun over here.”
Jed straightened, linked his fingers behind his head. He knew Dora’s eyes were on him, but he didn’t look at her. “How far do you think you’ll get?”
“Far enough. Kick the gun over here.”
Jed nudged it halfway between himself and Dora, knowing the man who held her would have to come closer if he wanted it. Close enough, Jed figured, and they’d have a chance.
“Sorry,” Jed said. “Looks like I missed the extra point.”
“Back. Back against the wall, Goddamn it.” DiCarlo was beginning to sweat now. Things weren’t going the way they were supposed to. But he had the woman. And if he had the woman, he’d get Finley’s painting.
Shifting, he began to sidestep down the hall toward the open door, with Dora between him and Jed. When he reached for Jed’s gun, he pulled her down with him as he crouched to retrieve it. The movement loosened his hold around her throat.
Even as Jed prepared his move, she sucked in her breath. “He doesn’t have a gun,” she gasped out, and threw her body back.
Her foot hit the .38, sent it skidding out the door. Jed dragged her aside and braced for DiCarlo’s attack. But rather than attack, DiCarlo ran.