Killing Bliss (31 page)

"They'll be fine. Let's not worry until we have to." He tipped her chin up, and the room suddenly went very quiet, very still, as did Addy when her eyes met his.

"I like that, you know," she said.

He cocked his head, raised a brow in question.

"What you said. That 'we' thing."

He ran his knuckles along her clear, smooth skin, then pulled his hand away. "You asked me to help, and I will. Nothing's going to happen at Star Lake."

"You really think my plan will work?"

No, he didn't, but he wasn't about to tell her he'd brought in reinforcements—and a loaded revolver. "We'll have to be careful—and smart," he said, noncommittally. "The trick will be to get your friends alone so you can talk to them." From then on, her scheme relied on heavy doses of wishes and dreams.

Addy planned to make Vanelleto and Beauty see reason, talk sense into them. Cade's role was to help in that process—and be "threatening" as a potential witness to what they planned to do. It hadn't occurred to her that her friends might decide to simply eliminate the witness and go about their deadly business. All she wanted to do, she said, was give them a chance to run, while holding Bliss—another of Cade's jobs—long enough to give them a head start. Naive in the extreme.

Her plan might work on Beauty, but Bliss was a vicious bastard, a man with a mile-long sheet that included assault, rape, and manslaughter. Chances were he'd be dangerously pissed off at being duped out of the money promised him, dangerous being the operative word.

And Vanelleto? Who the hell knew what to expect from him? He'd almost killed Bliss once; there was no reason to believe he wouldn't decide to finish the job, in spite of Addy's earnest, well-meaning pleas.

"Yes, we'll have to be careful, but it will work, Cade. I'm sure it will. Gus and Beauty aren't murderers. They're not." She shook her head firmly, and it wasn't the first time he wondered if her vehement defense of their innocence was more for her sake than his. "That whole night," she shook her head, "was a horrible mistake. They didn't do anything. If Bliss hadn't lied..."

Not knowing whether Bliss had lied or not, Cade interrupted. "They could go to the police. Maybe clear the whole mess up. Maybe you could talk them into it."
In your dreams, Harding.

"No. No police," she shot back. "They wouldn't have believed us then, and they won't now."

"You don't know that for sure unless you try."

Her whole face tightened, and she looked at him with a trace of the old wariness in her eyes. Her voice low and steely, she said, "Is that your idea of help? Call the police?" She waited.

"It's an option. One you should think about."

"I have thought about it, and I'm telling you it is not an 'option.'" She eyed him, her face now a mask of concern and distrust. "Are you going to help me do this my way, or not?"

"I said I'd help and I will." He hesitated. "But if we find out one of your old friends is a killer, or a kidnapper, all bets are off. Fair enough?"

Silence fell between them, and he sensed her fast-track, survivor mind going at warp speed.

"They're not either of those things." She set her jaw. "All I want is to give Gus and Beauty a chance to get away, start over, somewhere Bliss will never find them. I don't want them to... do anything stupid."

"By stupid you mean killing Bliss." He didn't miss the fact that she hadn't answered his question. He let it go.

She nodded.

"And you? What about you? You think Frank Bliss is going to leave you living happily ever after at Star Lake?" He shook his head. "It isn't going to happen."

She looked at him, her expression stern, filled with resolve. "If he decides to cause me trouble, let him. I've got my own plan."

"Does that plan involve a suitcase and a road map?"

She eyed him mulishly, said nothing.

She didn't have to. Cade's gut churned. The idea of never seeing Addy again, never loving her again refused to gel. "I don't think your running away will—"

The phone rang.

Addy picked up immediately. "Star Lake," she said, her voice not as bright with hospitality as it normally was, then she seemed to cave inward.

"Gus. Thank God." Her gaze, bright with relief, shot to meet Cade's, and she nodded. He saw her grip tighten on the phone when she turned back to it. "Where are you?... uh-huh... Good.... No, that's a bad idea..." She shook her head, listened. "I said no, Gus, I won't tell you where she is. You have to come here. That's the way it is." The phone pressed tight to her ear, she massaged her forehead. "Yup, that's me, stubborn as ever.... Yes, Bliss is still with her." She listened for a while, continuing to rub her forehead. "Tomorrow early? Okay.... That would be Cabin Twelve." She looked at Cade again, let out a breath. "Okay. Fine. I'll see you then." She clicked off.

Before turning back to face Cade, she dialed another number. Waited.

"Beauty, it's Wart. Gus is in Seattle... No, he didn't say where. What he said was he'll be here tomorrow, but that you're not to get here before nine o'clock.... Yes, in the morning. He'll be in Twelve, and he wants you to go directly there. He'll be waiting for you, he said—you and Bliss." She frowned. "Uh-huh, it will be great to see him again."

She put down the phone, her face paper pale, and somewhat dazed. "They're coming tomorrow."

Her crystal eyes were bleak when she raised them to meet his, and she hugged herself as if chilled to the core. "I swear, all Beauty can think about is seeing Gus again—and she's not about to let a little murder plan get in the way. Amazing." She tightened her mouth. "All I can think about is blood at Star Lake." She raised her eyes to his. "We can't let anyone die here. We have to stop it."

Cade walked up to her and took her in his arms.

She was stiff and fiercely controlled. Even within his embrace, she kept her arms locked across her breasts.

"No one's going to die." He stroked her hair, nuzzled its softness. "Everything's going to be all right."

She pulled back from him abruptly, as if an idea had sprung loose. "Will you do something for me?"

He didn't answer, cocked his head in question.

"Gus says he'll be here in the morning. But in case he arrives earlier—"

"You think he will?"

"I think he might do the... unexpected. He'll go to Twelve, right across from you." She stopped. "It has a good view of most of the cabins and the road in, which is what he asked for, so he can see Bliss and Beauty arrive. He said he'd let me know when he gets here, but in case he... in case something goes wrong, will you watch for him?" Her grip tightened on his biceps. "Let me know the second he arrives."

"You think he'll kill Bliss on sight."

"No, it's just that I..." She didn't seem to know where to go from there. Either that, or she was second-guessing her plan, particularly the part involving Vanelleto.

"You're not sure what he'll do." He finished for her.

"I don't think you can be 'sure' about Gus. He generally does things his way, and everything depends on me talking to him before he does anything."

Which, the way Cade saw it, wasn't much of a chance to begin with. He pulled her back into his arms. "I'll watch for him." Although what he'd do when he saw him wouldn't be what she had in mind.

* * *

Grover got home late. Very late. And he didn't damn well care. He'd been infused, reborn, transported...

He was also drunk—on alcohol and the best sex he'd had in years.

Sandra waited for him, her face contorted with rage, her tone arctic-cold. "Do you know what time it is?"

He wobbled slightly, put down his briefcase, had to pick it up when it fell over, then forced himself to stand tall enough to put them at eye level. "It's"—he looked at his watch, the face seemed to bleed across his wrist—"six minutes after ten o'clock."

"Yes, it is," she said. "And that makes you... what?"

He blinked, looked into the eyes of his personal hell. His stomach tried to knot, but the booze wouldn't let it. "That makes me late, Sandra. And tired. I'm going to bed." He turned his back on her and moved to the stairs. She trailed behind him like an black wraith. He didn't care.

Straight sex. He'd always known that's what he liked, somewhere down deep, under the beatings and lashes. Sandra and Belle hid it from him, hid it behind their own cruelty and need for domination. And he'd let them, feckless, cowardly asshole that he was. But no more. Now he had Linda Curl. Any way and any time he wanted her. Or so she said. And damn, the woman wore a garter belt. He'd only seen those in magazines. He took the first step.

Sandra's voice came from behind him, low and lethal. "Come back here. You'll go to bed when I say so, Wayne Grover. You know how things work. You're late, and I don't tolerate lateness. My dinner got cold, my calls to your cell phone weren't answered. Did you think you'd get away with that—without being punished?"

He turned back to look at her, scrunched his eyes to focus, and took in her blazing eyes, her compressed lips, her mean and scrawny body.

"But that's what you want, isn't it?" she spit at him. "You sick, stupid, cowardly man. To be punished. It's what you always want."

He didn't think, he moved—and it changed his universe.

He took her jaw in his hand, squeezed it hard, then lifted her contorted face to his. The stair step he stood on made him taller, stronger in some way. His grip twisted her thin lips to a sneer, pushed her cheeks up and under her slitted eyes. It was so easy. Why hadn't he done this years ago?

"Know where I was tonight, my darling. I was having sex with another woman." He bucked his hips. "Straight sex. In, out, in, out." He grinned into her widened eyes. "And I loved every damn minute of it, so much so that we did it twice. In and out, in and out. You get what that means, Sandra. It means my answer is no. I don't want to be 'punished'—ever again. I hated it when my mother did it, beating on me with her fat, cruel hands, no matter how many hugs and kisses she used afterward to make me 'all better.' And I hate your white bony hands even more."

He had to close his eyes a moment, work to blot out the sound of the whip, the sound of his disgrace, his mother's raging, venom-filled voice. When he could safely open his eyes again, he looked into the eyes of his wife and squeezed her face tighter, tighter yet. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her, held on, squeezed until she winced and snorted like an animal under his digging fingers.

He soaked up the power of giving pain. His new fuel.

"And Belle Bliss? She was an error in judgment. Had I known she was a prostitute..." He couldn't finish, because looking back in the mist of his mind, he didn't know whether it would have made a difference. He'd been so lonely then, needy and unwell. And in the beginning—like Sandra—Belle was kind to him, said she loved him. "But I'll say this for Belle, at least she smiled when it was over. But not you, you bitch, never you. All you've ever done is... assault me." He stopped, blearily considered his opportunity. "It's time I did some assaulting of my own." Yes. Brilliant, he was brilliant.

His heart jumped in his chest, bright with anticipation, and he brought his face to hers, so close he felt the intake of her breath. "So why don't
you
go upstairs and take out those toys of yours. We'll play a few games, and I'll show you what you've been missing all these years." He let her go, backhanded her, and she stumbled back, hitting the wall before she crumpled to the floor.

Her face raised to his was ashen, and blood oozed brightly from her lip. She blinked rapidly, her eyes black pools of terror. Grover wanted to drown in them, drain them, watch her eyeballs roll to white. "It's what you wanted," she screamed. "What's the matter with you? You're acting crazy—"

He studied her, cowering against the wall, and his throat thickened with loathing. "I hate you, Sandra." He said the words quietly, politely. "I hate all the years you made me so sick and afraid." He shook his head, feeling empty and terribly sad. "And now you just... sicken me."

With that statement came clarity, reason,
cer
tainty—and blood-coursing desire. And the power to make that desire his reality right now, here, in his own house of pain.

Grover didn't want to play any more games with Sandra.

There would be no prayers tonight.

What he wanted, finally, and with absolute conviction, was to make her dead.

* * *

Redge got to his feet with a growl. Fully alert, he barked and went out the open bedroom door.

Cade's head came up, and he peered through his open bedroom door into the darkness of the cabin's living room. When Redge growled again, he flicked off the reading light beside his bed and rested his hand on the bedside drawer where he'd put Susan's Glock.

He was certain he'd locked his door.

"Shush, you silly dog, it's me," a voice whispered urgently. Redge shut up instantly, and a shadow appeared at Cade's bedroom door. The rain, which had started in earnest an hour ago, made for a dark night, but he had no problem recognizing the silhouette cast by the light of the fire he'd banked in the fireplace earlier.

"Addy?" He pulled his hand back to the bed.