Carolina Moon (23 page)

“And I was nearly asleep. Sometimes it can sneak up on you when you’re drifting like that. You had an image in your head. It was a very clear, distinct thought, and it just came through. Candlelight, music playing, the two of us standing by the bed. I saw it in mine.”

“So … what were you wearing?” When her head snapped up, he shrugged. “Never mind. I can think that one through for myself. You get images, pictures of thoughts.”

“Sometimes.” He looked so relaxed, so at ease. Where was his anger? “God, you confuse me.”

“Good, it’ll keep you on your toes. Is that the way it always works?”

“No. No. Because if you have any decency, you don’t go poking into someone else’s private thoughts. I block them out. It’s simple enough, as they only come through with effort anyway, or if there’s a great deal of emotion on either side. Or if I’m very tired.”

“All right, then I’d say the next time we make love and you’re drifting off to sleep, I’d better keep any fantasies about Meg Ryan out of my head.”

“Meg …” Baffled, Tory sat up again, automatically crossing an arm over her breasts. “Meg Ryan.”

“Wholesome, sexy, smart.” Cade opened his eyes. “Seems to be my type.” He cocked his head, studied her. “Just trying to picture you as a blonde. It could work.”

“I’m not going to be a party to some prurient fantasy you’ve cooked up about a Hollywood actress.” Miffed, she started to climb off the bed, and found herself flat on her back again, and under him.

“Oh, come on, darling, just this once.”

“No.”

“God, you giggled. Meg, she’s got this sexy little giggle.” He nipped Tory’s shoulder. “Now I’m excited.”

“Get off me, you idiot.”

“I can’t.” He rushed wild kisses over her face, foolish and sweet as a puppy. “I’m a victim of my own helpless fantasies. Giggle again. I’m begging you.”

“No!” But she did. “Don’t! Don’t you even think about—Jesus.” Her laughing struggles stopped as he slid
silkily inside her. Her hips arched up, and her hands gripped his hips. “Don’t you dare call me Meg.”

He lowered his head, chuckling as he took her.

They ate Lilah’s casserole and washed it down with wine. And tumbled back into bed with the eagerness and energy that fuels new lovers. They made love at moonrise, with the light shining silver over their joined bodies. Then slept with the windows open to a fitful breeze and the ripe green scents of the marsh.

“He’s coming back.”

Hope sat cross-legged on the porch of the Marsh House. The porch that hadn’t been there when she’d been alive. She tossed her handful of silver jacks, then began bouncing the little red ball while her hand darted, deft and quick, plucking the star-shaped metal.

“He’s watching.”

“Who? Who is he watching?” Tory was eight again, her thin face wary, her legs bruised.

“He likes to hurt girls.” She scooped up the last jack, tossed them again. “It makes him feel big, important. Twosies.” In that same steady rhythm she began snatching up pairs.

“He hurt other girls, too. Not just you.”

“Not just me,” Hope agreed. “You already know. Three-sies.” Jacks clattered, the ball thumped methodically on wood. A light breeze danced by, twined up with the scent of rambling roses and honeysuckle. “You already know, like when you saw the little boy’s picture that time. You knew.”

“I can’t do that anymore.” Inside the child’s chest, Tory’s heart began to swell and bump. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“You came,” Hope said simply, and moved onto four-sies. “You have to be careful not to go too fast, not to go too slow,” she continued, as she swiped a set of four and nipped the ball on the bounce. “Or you lose your turn.”

“Tell me who he is, Hope. Tell me where to find him.”

“I can’t.” She swept for another set and knocked a finger against another jack, sent it spinning. “Oops.” She looked over at Tory with clear eyes. “It’s your turn now. Be careful.”

Tory’s eyes shot open. Her heart was knocking against her ribs and her hand was curled into a tight fist. So tight she was nearly surprised that a little red ball didn’t roll out when she spread her aching fingers.

It was full dark now. The moon had set and left the world black and thick. The little breeze had gone with it so the air was still. Hushed.

She heard an owl, and the shrill bell sound of peepers. She heard Cade’s steady breathing in the dark beside her, and realized she’d moved to the edge of the bed, as far from him as was possible.

No contact in sleep, she thought. The mind was too vulnerable then to permit the luxury of casual snuggling.

She slipped out of bed and tiptoed into the kitchen. At the sink she ran water until it chilled, then filled a tumbler.

The dream had given her a desperate thirst, and had reminded her why she had no business sleeping with Kincade Lavelle.

His sister was dead, and if she wasn’t responsible, she was obligated. She’d felt obligated before, and had followed through. The path she’d taken had brought her great joy and shattering grief. She’d slept with another man then, given herself out of careless and innocent love.

When she’d lost him, lost everything, she’d promised herself she’d never make those choices, those mistakes again.

Yet here she was, opening herself to all that pain a second time.

Cade was the kind of man women fell in love with. The kind she could fall in love with. Once that step was taken, it colored everything you thought, everything you did and felt. In the bold hues of joy. In the drowning grays of despair.

So the step couldn’t be taken. Not again.

She would have to be sensible enough to accept the physical attraction, enjoy the results of it, and keep her emotions separate and controlled. What else had she done, nearly all of her life?

Love was a reckless, dangerous thing. There was always something lurking in the shadows, greedy and spiteful, just waiting to snatch it away.

She lifted the glass to her lips, and saw. Beyond the window, beyond the dark. In the shadows, she thought dully. Waiting. And the glass slipped from her fingers to shatter in the sink.

“Tory?” Cade shot out of sleep, out of bed, and stumbled in the dark. Cursing, he rushed toward the kitchen.

She stood under the harsh light, both hands at her throat, staring, staring at the window. “Someone’s in the dark.”

“Tory.” He saw the sparkle of broken glass that had jumped from the sink to the floor. He grabbed her hands. “Are you cut?”

“Someone’s in the dark,” she said again, in a voice much like a child. “Watching. From the dark. He’s been here before. And he’ll come back again.” Her eyes stared into Cade’s, through them, and all she saw were shadows, silhouettes. What she felt was cold. So much cold.

“He’ll have to kill me. I’m not the one, but he’ll have to because I’m here. It’s my fault, really. Anybody could see that. If I’d come with her that night, he’d have just watched. Like he’d done before. He’d have just watched and imagined doing it. Just imagined until he got hard and used his hand so he could feel like a man.”

Her knees went out from under her, but she protested as Cade swept her up. “I’m all right. I just need to sit down.”

“Lie down,” he corrected. When he put her back on the bed, he hunted up his trousers. “You stay in here.”

“Where are you going?” The sudden terror of being left alone brought strength back to her knees. She leaped up.

“You said someone was outside. I’m going to go look.”

“No.” Now the fear was all for him. “It’s not your turn.”

“What?”

She held up both hands and sank down onto the mattress. “I’m sorry. My mind’s confused. He’s gone, Cade. He’s not out there now. He was watching, earlier, I think earlier. When we were …” It made her queasy. “When we were making love, he watched.”

Grimly, Cade nodded. “I’ll look anyway.”

“You won’t find him,” she murmured, as Cade strode out.

But he wanted to. He wanted to find someone, and use his fists, use his fury. He switched on the outside lights, scanned the area washed in pale yellow. He walked to his truck, got a flashlight out of his toolbox, and the knife he kept there.

Armed, he circled the house, sweeping the light over the ground, into the shadows. Near the bedroom window, where the grass needed trimming, he crouched beside a flattened area where a man might have stood.

“Son of a bitch.” He hissed it between his teeth, and his hand tightened on the hilt of the knife. He straightened, spun around to stalk into the marsh.

He stood on the verge and strained against impotence. He could go in, thrash around, work off some of his anger. And by doing so leave Tory alone.

Instead he went back inside, left the knife and flashlight on the kitchen table.

She still sat there, her fists bunched on her knees. She lifted her head when he came in but said nothing. She didn’t have to.

“What we did together in here was ours,” Cade said. “He doesn’t change that.” He sat beside her, took her hand. “He can’t, if we don’t let him.”

“He made it dirty.”

“For him, not for us. Not for us, Tory,” he murmured, and turned her face to his.

She sighed once, touched the back of his hand with her fingers. “You’re so angry. How do you tie it up that way?”

“I kicked my truck a couple of times.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “Will you tell me what you saw?”

“His anger. Blacker than yours ever could be, but
not … I don’t know how to explain, not substantial, not real. And a kind of pride. I don’t know. Maybe it’s more a satisfaction. I can’t see it—see him. I’m not the one he wants, but he can’t let me stay, he can’t trust me this close to Hope.

“I don’t know if those are my thoughts or his.” She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. “I can’t get him clear. It’s as if something’s missing. In him or in me, I don’t know. But I can’t see him.”

“It wasn’t a drifter who killed her. The way we thought all these years.”

“No.” She opened her eyes again, turned away from her own grief and toward his. “It was someone who knew her, who watched her. Us. I think I knew that even back then, but I was so afraid I closed it up. If I’d gone back the morning after, if I’d had the courage to go in with you and your father instead of telling you where she was, I might have seen. I can’t be sure, but I might’ve. Then it would’ve been over.”

“We don’t know that. But we can start to end it now. We’ll call the police.”

“Cade, the police …” Her throat wanted to close. “It’s very rare that even the most forward-thinking, open-minded cop listens to someone like me. I don’t expect to find that particular breed here in Progress.”

“Chief Russ might take some convincing, but he’ll listen to you.” Cade would make sure of it. “Why don’t you get dressed.”

“You’re going to call him now? At four in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Cade picked up the bedside phone. “That’s what he gets paid for.”

P
olice Chief Carl D. Russ wasn’t a big man. He’d reached the height of five-feet-six-and-a-quarter when he was sixteen, and had stayed plugged there.

He wasn’t a handsome man. His face was wide and pitted with his ears stuck on either side like oversized cup handles. His hair was as grizzled as a used-up scouring pad.

He had a scrawny build and topped the scale at one thirty. Fully dressed and soaking wet.

His ancestors had been slaves, field-workers. Later they’d been sharecroppers eking out stingy livings on another man’s land.

His mother had wanted more for him, and had pushed, prodded, harangued, and browbeat until, mostly out of self-defense, he aimed for more.

Carl D.’s mother enjoyed the fact that her boy was police chief nearly as much as he did.

He wasn’t a brilliant man. Information cruised into his brain, meandering about, taking winding paths and detours until it settled down into complete thoughts. He tended to be plodding.

He also tended to be thorough.

But above all, Carl D. was affable.

He didn’t bitch and moan about being awakened at four in the morning. He’d simply gotten up and dressed in the dark so as not to disturb his wife. He’d left her a note on
the kitchen board, and had tucked her latest honey-do list in his pocket on the way out.

What he thought about Kincade Lavelle being at Victoria Bodeen’s house at four in the morning, he kept to himself.

Cade met him at the door. “Thanks for coming, Chief.”

“Oh well, that’s all right.” Carl D. chewed contentedly on the stick of Big Red gum he was never without since his wife had nagged him into quitting smoking. “Had yourself a prowler, did you?”

“We had something. Let’s take a look around the side, see what you think.”

“How’s your family doing?”

“They’re fine, thanks.”

“Heard your aunt Rosie was down for a visit. You be sure to give her my best, now.”

“I’ll do that.” Cade shone his flashlight on the grass under the bedroom window, waited while Carl D. did the same, and pondered.

“Well, could be y’all had somebody standing there playing Peeping Tom. Might’ve been an animal.” He scanned with his light, chewed contemplatively.

“It’s a quiet spot, off the road a ways. Don’t see that anybody’d have good cause to be wandering ‘round out here. Guess they could come across from the road, or out through the swamp. You get any kind of a look?”

“No, I didn’t see anything. Tory did.”

“Guess I’ll talk to her first, then do some poking around. Anybody was out here’s hightailed it by now.”

He got creakily to his feet and swept his light over the darker shadows where the live oaks and tupelos closed in the swamp. “Yeah, this here’s a quiet spot, all right. Couldn’t pay me to live out this-a-way. Bet you hear frogs and owls and such all blessed night long.”

“You get used to them,” Cade said, as they walked around to the back door. “You don’t really hear them.”

“I guess that’s the way. You get so’s you don’t hear the usual sounds anymore. And something that’s not usual gives you a kind of jolt. Would you say that?”

“I suppose I would. And no, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Me, I’m what you call a light sleeper. Least little thing pops my eyes open. Now, Ida-Mae, she won’t stir if a bomb goes off.” He stepped into the kitchen, blinked at the bright lights, then politely removed his cap. “Morning, Miz Bodeen.”

“Chief Russ. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Would that be coffee I smell?”

“Yes, I just made it. Let me pour you a cup.”

“Sure would appreciate that. Heard you had a nice turnout at your store yesterday. My wife sure enjoyed herself. Got one of those wind chimes. Fussed about it the minute I got in the door. Nothing would do but I hang it up right off the bat. Makes a pretty sound.”

“Yes, they do. What would you like in your coffee?”

“Oh, a half a pound of sugar’s all.” He winked at her. “You don’t mind, we’ll sit down here and you can tell me about this prowler of yours.”

Tory shot Cade a look before she set out the coffee and sat. “Someone was at the window, the bedroom window, while Cade and I were …”

Carl D. took out his notepad and one of the three chewed-up pencils in his pocket. “I know this is a mite awkward for you, Miz Bodeen. You try to relax now. Did you get a look at the person at the window?”

“No. No, not really. I woke up, and came into the kitchen for a drink of water. While I was standing at the sink I … He was watching the house. Watching me, us. He doesn’t want me here. He’s stirred up that I came back.”

“Who?”

“The same man who killed Hope Lavelle.”

Carl D. set his pencil down, and tucking his gum in the pocket of his cheek, picked up his coffee to sip. “How do you know that, Miz Bodeen?”

Oh, his tone was mild, she thought, but his eyes were the cool, flat eyes of a cop. She knew cops’ eyes, intimately. “The same way I knew where to find Hope the morning after she was killed. You were there.” She knew her voice was belligerent,
her posture defensive. She couldn’t help it. “You weren’t chief then.”

“No, I’ve only been chief for going on six years. Chief Tate, he retired, moved on down to Naples, Florida. Got himself a motorboat. Does a lot of fishing. Chief Tate, he always was one for fishing.”

Russ paused. “I was a deputy the summer little Hope Lavelle was murdered. Terrible thing. Worst thing ever happened around these parts. Chief Tate, he figured it was a drifter did what was done to that little girl. Never found any evidence to the contrary.”

“You never found anything,” Tory corrected. “Whoever killed her knew her. Just like he knows me and you and Cade. He knows Progress. He knows the swamp. Tonight he came up to the window of my house.”

“But you didn’t see him?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

Carl D. sat back, pursed his lips. Considered. “My wife’s granny on her ma’s side holds whole conversations with dead relatives. Now, I’m not saying that’s the true case or that it’s not, as I’m not the one having those chats. But in my job, Miz Bodeen, it comes around to facts.”

“The fact is I knew what had happened to Hope and where she could be found. The man who killed her knows that. Chief Tate didn’t believe me. He decided I’d been out there with her, then had run off when I got scared. Left her there. Or that I found her after she was dead, and just went home and hid until morning.”

There was kindness in Carl D.’s eyes. He’d raised two girls of his own. “You were hardly more than a baby yourself.”

“I’m grown up now, and I’m telling you the man who killed Hope was out there tonight. He’s killed others, at least one other. A young girl he picked up hitchhiking on the way to Myrtle Beach. He’s already targeted someone else. Not me. I’m not the one he wants.”

“You can tell me all this, but you can’t tell me who he is.”

“No, I can’t. I can tell you what he is. A sociopath who
feels he has the right to do what he does. Because he needs it. Needs the excitement and the power of it. A misogynist who believes women are here to be used by men. A serial killer who has no intention of stopping or being stopped. He’s had a run of eighteen years,” she said quietly. “Why should he stop?”

“I didn’t handle that very well.”

Cade closed the back door, sat back down at the table. He and Carl D. had walked the property, scouted the edges of the swamp. They’d found nothing, no fresh footprints, no handy torn swatch of material on a tree branch.

“You told him what you know.”

“He doesn’t believe me.”

“Whether he does or not, he’ll do his job.”

“Like they did their job eighteen years ago.”

He said nothing for a moment. The reminder of that morning was always a quick, sharp jab to the gut. “Who are you blaming, Tory? The cops or yourself?”

“Both. No one believed me, and I couldn’t explain myself. I was afraid to. I knew I’d be punished, and the more I said, the worse the punishment. In the end, I did what I could to save myself.”

“Didn’t we all?” He pushed away from the table, went to the stove to pour coffee he didn’t want. “I knew she was out of the house that night. Knew she planned to sneak out. I didn’t say anything, not then, not the next day, not ever, about seeing her bike hidden. That night I considered it the code. You don’t tattle unless you’re going to get something out of it. So what if she wanted to ride off for a couple of hours?”

He turned back to see Tory watching him. “The next day, when we found her, I didn’t say anything. That was self-preservation. They’d blame me, as much as I blamed myself. After a while, there just didn’t seem to be a point. We were all missing a piece, and could never get it back. But I can go back to that night, replay it in my head. Only this time I tell my father how Hope’s stashed her bike, and
he locks it up and gives her one hell of a talking-to. The next morning she wakes up safe in her bed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Tory. So am I. I’ve been sorry for eighteen years. And over that time I’ve watched the sister I have left do whatever she could to ruin her life. I saw my father pull away from all of us as if being with us hurt more than he could stand. And my mother coat herself with layer on layer of bitterness and propriety. All because I was more interested in my own affairs than seeing to it Hope stayed in bed where she belonged.”

“Cade. There would have been another night.”

“There wouldn’t have been that one. I can’t fix it, Tory, and neither can you.”

“I can find him. Sooner or later, I will find him.” Or he’ll find me, she thought. He’s already found me.

“I have no intention of standing by this time while someone else I care about takes foolish risks.” He set the coffee aside. “You need to pack some things, go stay with your aunt and uncle.”

“I can’t do that. I have to stay here. I can’t explain it to you except to say I have to stay here. If I’m wrong, there is no risk. If I’m right, it won’t matter where I am.”

He wouldn’t waste time arguing. He’d simply find a way to arrange it as he thought best.

“Then I’ll pack a few things of my own.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m going to be spending a lot of time here. It’ll be more convenient to have what I need close at hand. Don’t look so surprised. One night in bed doesn’t make us lovers. But that,” he said, pulling her to her feet, “is what we’re going to be.”

“You’re taking a lot for granted, Cade.”

“I don’t think so.” He caught her face in his hands, kissed her, sliding her closer until her lips softened, warmed, beneath his. “I don’t think I’m taking a thing for granted. Most particularly you. Let’s just say you get your feelings about things, Tory. Things you know without being
able to explain them. So do I. I’ve had one of those feelings about you, and I’m going to stick close until I can explain it.”

“Attraction and sex aren’t such a puzzle, Cade.”

“They are when you haven’t found and fit in all the connecting pieces. You let me in, Tory. You won’t get me out again half as easy.”

“It’s a clever trick. How you manage to be annoying and comforting at the same time.” She drew away. “And I’m not sure I let you in at all. You just pretty much go where you please.”

True enough, and he wouldn’t bother to deny it. “Going to try to kick me out?”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Good, that saves us an argument. Well, since we’re up and dressed, why don’t we do some business?”

“Business?”

“I’ve got those samples out in the truck. I’ll bring them in, and we can negotiate.”

Tory glanced at the clock. It was still shy of seven. “Why not? This time you make the coffee.”

Faith waited until half past ten, when she was certain both her mother and Lilah had left for church. Her mother had long since given up expecting Faith to attend Sunday services, but Lilah was bullheaded about God and often considered herself His drill sergeant, whipping the troops out of bed and into church with threats of eternal damnation.

Whenever she was home, Faith was careful to hide and hide well on Sunday mornings. She made up for it by occasionally putting on a demure dress and presenting herself in the kitchen so Lilah could shuffle her off toward redemption.

But this particular Sunday she wasn’t in the mood to be obliging, or to sit on a hard pew and listen to a sermon. She wanted to sulk over a breakfast bowl of chocolate ice cream, and remind herself what bastards men were.

When she thought of all the trouble she’d gone through for Wade Mooney, she could just spit. Hadn’t she slathered
herself all over with perfumed cream, slithered into the sexiest lingerie money could buy—and would have been perfectly willing for him to rip those bits of satin and lace right off her body, too. She’d dug out four-inch heels and had strapped herself in an excuse for a little black dress that shouted “I want to sin.”

She’d raided the wine cellar for two bottles that cost more than a college education, and when Cade found out, he was going to skin her for it.

And when she’d arrived at Wade’s, primed, polished, and perfumed, he hadn’t had the decency to be home.

Bastard.

Worse, she’d waited for him. She’d tidied up his bedroom like a little hausfrau, had lighted candles, put on music. Then had damn near nodded off during the vigil.

She’d waited another hour, till almost one in the morning, primed for a different purpose. Oh, how she’d wanted him to walk in the door so she could have kicked his inconsiderate ass all the way back down the steps.

It was his fault that she’d gotten half drunk on the wine, and certainly his that due to the alcohol content in her blood she’d misjudged the turn through the gates and had scraped the side of her car.

So it was absolutely his fault that she was sitting there on a Sunday morning, miserably hung over and stuffing ice cream in her face.

She never wanted to see him again.

In fact, she thought she would just give up men altogether. They weren’t worth the time and trouble they drained out of a woman. She’d just cut them out of her life, and find other areas of interest.

Cade walked in the door as Faith was digging her spoon back into the half-gallon carton, and since he knew what mood dictated that particular behavior, tried to slip right out again.