“I’d like to put them out of business, too,” she said. “Of course I would. But . . .”
“But?”
She put a hand on my arm. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. I’m afraid you’re determined to be a hero.”
“Nope, not me,” I answered mechanically, my mind on her hand, not her words.
She squeezed my arm. “Please be serious.”
“Okay, I’ll be serious. Of course I’ll be careful. Why wouldn’t I be—after all, this is my hide we’re talking about. I have a plan for tomorrow night. I know how to get in and how to get out.” I thought of my .357, lying in its shoebox. “And I’m going to take a friend with me.”
“You are?” she said hopefully. “Then you’re not going in there alone after all! Caitlin, I’m so glad.” She squeezed my arm. “Come inside, now. Emma said you were supposed to rest.”
With the agility of a gazelle, she got out of the car and ran up the steps. When I figured she couldn’t hear me, I moaned, unfolding my protesting limbs and limping after her, feeling as ponderous as a pachyderm.
I surveyed the four steps up to Alison’s house with all the enthusiasm of a patient anticipating periodontal surgery. On the first step I decided my left calf from which Fang had nipped his pound of flesh hurt worse than anything I’d ever endured. On the second step I amended that decision—my right foot which he had mangled in an unsuccessful attempt to part it from my body surely hurt worse. On the third step my head began to pound as though someone were inside beating enthusiastically on a sheet of metal, and I decided it was unendurable.
“Coming?” Alison said brightly, sticking her head out the door to see what was taking me so long.
“Just enjoying the night air,” I said just as brightly.
While Alison locked the front door, I navigated a none-too-steady path to the living room and sat down on the couch. Sitting felt so good I decided I’d lie, so I scooted down a little and got horizontal.
“Caitlin!” a voice called from very far away.
“No,” I whimpered, refusing to open my eyes. “Not now. Please.”
The voice fell silent. I felt ill, hurt, and hopeless. I wanted oblivion. Someplace dark and still. Someplace where no one could find me. I let sleep wash over me in a black, oily wave, and when it ebbed it took me with it, pulling me under. I went willingly.
“Caitlin,” someone said, shaking me.
I swam up through layers of sleep, finally breaching the surface of consciousness, coming awake. “Mmmph,” I grunted, opening an eye.
Alison sat on the floor by the couch, one hand in my hair, her face inches from mine. “Emma said you weren’t to sleep too long at any one time,” she said apologetically. “It’s been two hours. And you never did have that soup.”
I looked into her silver eyes and took a deep breath. Soup was not exactly what was on my mind at the moment. “Great idea,” I lied, sitting up. Swinging my sore foot gingerly onto the floor, I put my weight on it and winced.
“Let me help,” she said, standing up beside me. Slipping an arm around my waist, she looked up at me questioningly. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, acutely conscious of her nearness. I must have telegraphed this to her in some way, because all of a sudden, she was in my arms.
“Caitlin,” she said, putting both arms around my waist, pulling me close.
“You’re taking advantage of my weakened condition,” I said shakily. “I’m drugged. I’m feeble. I’m non compos mentis.”
“Good,” she said, laying a finger across my lips. “That might be the only way I’ll get you into my bed.”
I couldn’t think of a good reply for this, so I bent down and kissed her. Once. “Listen,” I said, “I want to know that you’re . . . sure about this.”
“Sure?” she asked fiercely, looking up at me. “Who can be sure about anything? All I know is that I want you to come upstairs. I want to hold you. I want you to hold me. Dammit, I want to go to bed with you. That’s enough for me.”
She was probably right—who could be sure about anything? And the fact that she wanted me, was, at that moment, good enough for me, too.
Upstairs, in the light of a little lamp with an amber shade, she pushed me gently onto the bed. “I know what you meant downstairs,” she told me softly. “But I am sure. Very sure. I turned my back on Mary, and I’ll always regret it. I don’t want to do the same thing with you.” She lay on the bed beside me, head propped on one hand, the other hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been attracted to you since that first afternoon at Victoria Jane’s. And finally I asked myself why. Why shouldn’t I want you? I’ve gotten into the habit of denying myself pleasure. Well, I’m tired of it.”
And all along, I had been fighting my attraction for her. What irony. I raised one hand and put it behind her head. Under my fingers, her hair felt as fine and curly as a child’s. “I’m tired of it, too,” I told her. “Very tired.”
I pulled her head to mine and kissed her gently on the lips. At least I began to kiss her gently. Alison, though, had other ideas. As our mouths met, she opened her lips under mine, touching my tongue tentatively once with hers, then drawing away. She buried her face on my shoulder, leaving me surprised, and more than a little confused. She wanted me but she didn’t want me? What was going on? Suddenly, though, I understood. Cool Alison, calm Alison, in-control Alison wanted, needed, permission to be passionate. I put my fingers under her chin and lifted her face to mine. “It’s all right,” I told her. “You deserve this.”
She looked at me in the amber light, eyes enormous, and I kissed her again. I was not quite so gentle this time, and as her mouth opened under my kiss, I noted how eagerly her tongue sought mine. I held her tightly against me, and when she moaned, deep in her throat, I felt my stomach clench in desire.
Running my hands over her back, I bent to kiss the soft skin of her throat, inhaling her, the scent that was Alison. She put her head back, hands in my hair, and I unfastened one shirt button after another, kissing an imaginary line that led from the hollow of her throat to the top of her jeans. With an inarticulate sound, she pushed me down on the bed and knelt over me, straddling my legs. I put my hands on her warm flesh, and she closed her eyes as I caressed her back, her ribs, her stomach. When I cupped the soft weight of her small breasts in my hands, rubbing my palms over the hard little nipples, she gasped.
“Oh, God,” she said, panting a little, leaning forward. “I can’t stand it.” Quickly, fiercely, she fitted her mouth to mine, kissing me deeply, urgently. I unfastened the top of her jeans and pulled the zipper down as far as I could. She shivered, and as I brushed the skin of her stomach, my probing fingers finally reaching the crisply curling hair between her thighs, she cried out, rolling onto her back, pulling me atop her. She slipped a knee between my legs, then arched her body to mine, hands clutching my shoulders. “Caitlin,” she said hoarsely, rubbing her body against mine. “I can’t . . . wait much longer.”
I pulled her shirt off and tossed it on the floor. Putting both hands inside her jeans, I peeled them off her and flung them after the shirt. As she slipped beneath the covers, I very cautiously took off my borrowed sweatpants, wincing as my hands brushed my wounds. Alison pulled my turtleneck over my head and held the blankets for me as I slipped into bed beside her.
She came into my arms like she belonged there, and I gasped at the almost electric shock I felt as her warm, naked body met mine. For just a moment, she let herself be held, then she moved against me, demanding, eager. I felt the wet warmth between her thighs as her legs gripped mine, and I rolled her over onto her back.
I kissed her mouth, her throat, her nipples, and trailed my lips down her body to her thighs, brushing the fine, curly hair in passing. She raised her hips to meet me, and I parted the fine hair, my tongue finding that hard little bud hidden like a pearl in an oyster. I kissed her silken folds, my tongue opening her like the petals of a flower, and she cried out, her hands in my hair.
“D
on’t . . . stop,” she panted. My fingers slipped inside her and I began a rhythmic stroking. She cried out again, and I felt quick, strong spasms under my fingers as she tightened her hands in my hair, her body rigid. Then she relaxed, the spasms quieted, and I gathered her into my arms and held her.
“Caitlin,” she said in a choked voice, turning her face up to mine. “Tell me everything will be all right. That it will all turn out. That no one else will get hurt.”
I looked and saw tears on her eyelids, sparkling like diamonds in the lamplight. “Sshh,” I told her, holding her close. “Everything will be fine.”
She ran her hands over my arms. “You feel good,” she said shakily. “Strong. Competent. I think I’ll believe you.”
I kissed the tears from her eyelids, and was about to tell her something else, something reassuring, something profound, but fatigue like a giant’s fist scooped me up and crushed me, and I fell into darkness.
Chapter 15
The smell of coffee woke me. Groggy, disoriented, I opened my eyes. Then I sat up in bed and panicked. Where was I? I recognized nothing. I felt as though I had been on a long and arduous journey and had returned to find that someone had redecorated in my absence. The mirror on the dresser showed me a tousle-haired, pale-faced apparition in a lavender pajama top. I fingered the flannel material in bewilderment, then, squinting, looked twice in the mirror to be sure it was me. Oh yeah, I said in relief to the reflection, I remember you. But where in hell are you and whose pajamas are these? Then it came back to me. Alison.
I rolled to the edge of the bed, then very slowly eased my legs over the side. Next I stood. Hmmm. Not too bad. I flexed, then took an experimental step. My wounds still hurt, but they were bearable.
I looked around for my clothes and found them folded neatly on a chair by the window. Recalling clearly how the clothes had been shed, I blushed. Sighing, I got dressed, went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face, combed my hair, then went downstairs. I found Alison in the kitchen, scrambling eggs.
“Hi,” I said, feeling foolish.
Looking over her shoulder, she smiled. How could she make an old blue Chambray shirt and jeans look so terrific, I wondered. “Hi, yourself. Would you like to squeeze some oranges?”
“Sure.”
“There’s a bag of oranges in the fridge. The juicer is in the second drawer beside the stove.”
I took the fruit, a knife, and the juicer and sat down at the big pine kitchen table. I was happy to have something to do. Morning afters are always so awkward.
“I called the towing company,” Alison said. “They brought your car back from McDonald’s about half an hour ago.”
“Hey, thanks,” I told her. As I juiced, I stole a furtive look at my watch. Good grief—it was almost noon! As though she read my mind, Alison spoke up.
“I know you have things to do,” she said, “and if you hadn’t come downstairs by noon, I’d have gone to wake you. But I thought you needed your sleep. I checked with Emma and she said it was okay.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I do feel better.”
Alison spooned the scrambled eggs onto two plates, added some fat slices of whole wheat toast, and brought the plates to the table. While I poured juice into two glasses, she got cutlery, a ceramic crock of butter from the fridge, and a glass container of jam. I suddenly realized I was starving.
She raised her glass of juice to her lips and looked at me across it. “Last night was very nice,” she said. “You have no idea how nice. But I don’t think this is the time to talk about it. Later, once this business with Living World is over . . .” She trailed off, looking miserable.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “Neither of us made any promises. I understand.”
“I hoped you would,” she said. Then smiling brightly, she held her glass for a toast. “To success.”
I clinked my glass against hers. “I’ll drink to that. To success.”
The Oak Bay Video Emporium was only too happy to rent me a nice, compact video camera and to give me a rudimentary course on how to operate it. Gwen, the store manager, took an impression of my VISA card as I fiddled with the camera. I figured the lighting would be as bad in the Living World lab as it was here in the video shop, but we seemed to be getting a fine picture. With a little practice, I found that I could even put the thing on my shoulder and hold it halfway still.
“We could set you up with a tripod,” she suggested.
“No thanks,” I demurred. “I’m going to be moving from place to place. Too much trouble.” Besides, with my luck, I’d trip over the bloody thing, make a ferocious ruckus, and bring Fang slavering after me again. I chuckled, just thinking of him. Boy, did I have a treat for old Saber Tooth. “So how much will this be for, say, a day?”
“For this particular model—that’ll be fifty-four dollars. Not including tax.”
I winced. “Hey, I just want to rent the thing, not send it through school!”
“Well,” she said huffily, “it is state-of-the-art. And you did say you wanted something that would record broadcast quality. Three-quarter-inch tape, you said.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said ungraciously. “Okay. I’ll take it.”
“Fine,” she said brightly. “Just have it back by tomorrow at five o’clock.”
I let myself into my silent, cold house feeling about as low as I could recall having felt in a long time. I wandered around the living room, touching familiar objects, trying to make myself feel better, but it didn’t work.
Some of my depression had its basis in fact—I was worried about how I would get this job done tonight. But the rest of my ennui seemed to have little to do with reality. Oh, I missed Repo, but he’d soon be home. I eased myself gently into my favorite armchair and decided I’d just sit there and brood. Maybe if I wallowed in the Slough of Despond for a while I’d get thoroughly sick of it. Like the time I ate too many caramels when I was nine and threw up my toenails. I couldn’t eat a caramel today if my life depended on it. Maybe I’d try the Caramel Cure and OD on self-pity.
So all right, already, I said to my worries—do it to me. Report in. I closed my eyes and waited for the onslaught.
An image of Alison rose up out of my memory—my very recent memory—and I felt weak as I recalled the circumstances. Lamplight behind her made her hair the color of honey, and her eyes shone like silver coins. She bent over me . . . Enough, I told myself roughly. That was probably a once-only experience. Stop mooning over her. Right, I said obediently. I will. I sure will. Just as soon as my heart stops hurting.
I put my head back and stared at the ceiling. Caitlin, you’re getting too old for this sort of thing, I told myself. All this adolescent swooning. The one night stands. Into and out of women’s beds with the speed of light. You’re probably getting a terrible reputation. I sighed. Dammit anyhow—I never wanted to behave like this. As corny as it sounds, I crave monogamy. I’d love to meet a woman with whom I could spend the rest of my life. Someone to go to movies with, to make popcorn with on winter nights, to plant flowers with in the spring. But the women I meet, the women I become involved with, are invariably unsuitable in some way. Either they’re involved with other people, like Tonia, or just passing through, like Alison, or they turn out to be really not my type after all.
I’ve given this phenomenon of mismatching quite a lot of thought, and have concluded that the problem lies in the way I meet other women. Our liaisons just “happen.” My God, we shop for coffee-makers more carefully than we shop for potential life partners. And the latter is surely a much more important investment because, unless you’re particularly ruthless, you can’t turf your new partner if the brew isn’t as savory as you expected.
Okay, what else, I asked myself. Well, maybe Emma had put the thought into my head, but the way I made my living was beginning to get me down just a tad. Heck, I could see right now that I was never going to get more than a few thousand dollars ahead. Thank God I had bought my house—and
had put a hefty chunk of change into the down payment—when I was still a real person. The rent I charged Malcolm and Yvonne covered my mortgage payment, so my real out-of-pocket living expenses were taxes, insurance, and maintenance. Whew. The rescuing, thwarting, and interdicting business just wasn’t one of the world’s better-paid professions. I gnawed a hangnail and pondered the implications of insolvency. What did it mean, anyhow? And did it matter? Well, it meant no expensive holidays. It meant no new car. It meant few luxuries. On the other hand, it meant no set hours, no time clock, no “have-tos,” and no pressure save that of my own devising. It meant freedom, of a sort, and that mattered. And the intangible benefits—seeing good people happy again and knowing I did it—they mattered, too. I sighed. If things got really tough, I could always open up a law practice, I guessed. After all, that was what I had paid a whole lot of money to get trained to do.
The phone rang, interrupting my musings, and it was with a certain relief that I limped into the kitchen to answer it. Enough navel-gazing was enough.
“Home at last, I see,” a fussy tenor voice said.
“Francis!” I exclaimed eagerly. “What have you got for me?”
“Quite a lot, actually.”
I felt my optimism’s Dow Jones rise a point or two. “Oh yeah? What?”
“You must be psychic, my dear. Your friend Evan Maleck aka Ivan Malecki aka Yvon Malik is, it appears, just a smidgen in arrears on his taxes.”
I chortled. “Atta boy, Francis! How long is this smidgen?”
“Long,” he said, snickering. “Very long. Nine years.”
“All right!”
“And there’s a certain James McLaughlin in the Ottawa office of investigations for Revenue Canada who has been working on the Yvon Malick case for quite some time now. I think it would be marvy if he were to hear about Mr. Maleck’s alter egos, don’t you think? Just an idea, mind you.”
Ninth Life Page 15