Authors: Toni Anderson
“They set up the adoption in secret.” Susie avoided his eyes.
“And what happened to the guy who committed statutory rape?” He watched humiliation slide over her features. “Jack shit, right?”
Tears flowed down her cheeks as she nodded. “Nothing. He was a colleague of my mother’s. He wasn’t married at the time.” She stared at the ground as if she deserved to be whipped. “I seduced him.”
Nick grabbed her hands to stop her nails digging into her own skin. “So where’s the kid now? Is he happy? Safe?”
“He grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.”
It sounded fantastic to Nick. Memories of the tiny council house he’d shared with his granny flickered through his mind, edging out the squalor of his mother’s flat. But Susie was still self-flagellating. He bet she spent every day beating the crap out of herself for one lousy lapse in judgment, a mistake most teenagers were capable of making.
A little fissure cracked in his heart. She took life so seriously. Cared too deeply. He wished he had more time. He wished he didn’t have to track down a killer and a disorientated pensioner. He let out a slow breath and pushed Susie’s hair behind her ear. “You were just a kid, Susie. The child was looked after. You need to forgive yourself.”
She took a step back, the wind molding her clothes to her body like a second skin.
“That’s it? That’s all you can say?” Her eyes were wide with anger, but it beat the hell out of tears.
“You want me to tie you up and give you a good spanking, I’m game, but don’t kid yourself it has anything to do with your past.” And it shocked him that he wanted her, right here, right now. His hands started shaking so badly he stuffed them in his pockets. “There are plenty of kids who’d be grateful for a good home and people to love them.”
“Like you, you mean?” Her words were ice against his soul.
One side of his mouth curled because Susie might be softhearted but she had guts.
“I lived.”
Just
. After his mother had got hold of him it had been touch and go, and after Chrissie…well, maybe
existed
was closer to the truth.
What about now?
The question taunted the edges of his mind.
Susie gazed at the rippling ocean. “I don’t know how to forgive myself.”
“Susie, people do worse things than that every single day and never give a monkey’s.” He rubbed the sting of salt from his eyes. “I’ve done things that would make you run screaming in horror. I’m not some hero who always does the honorable thing.” And there it was, the perfect weapon to drive her away, even though he didn’t want her to go. But he couldn’t stay and he didn’t want to hurt her.
“That night I drove you home from Dougie and Leanne’s dinner party?”
“The night Tracy was killed?” She frowned, a tremor of emotion running through her voice. “What about it?”
“When I kissed you that first time on your doorstep?” He waited for her nod. “It was great, wasn’t it? So damn hot I only just remembered to lift your wallet and steal your keycard.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. He held up his hand to stop her speaking, determined to finish this. To wreck the illusions that kept them afloat.
“I used your keycard to break into the Gatty and search Sizemore’s office for evidence that he killed Chrissie.”
“You used me? You…you lied to me and questioned me about that stupid card!” She thrust away from him, staring at him wide-eyed. “You sonofabitch. What about Tracy?”
“What about Tracy? You think I killed her?”
“Did you?” She bit her lip uncertainly.
“Bloody hell, Susie, I’ve spent my entire adult life looking for justice for one murdered woman. What makes you think I’d kill another?” He was breathing hard, guilt hurting his chest and thick emotion blurring his vision.
“I’m sorry.”
He backed away. “No. It was a smart question, exactly the sort of question you should be asking. But if I had killed her, I wouldn’t have told you about the keycard.” The smile he sent her was wolfish as he strove to hide what he was really feeling.
“Is your wife’s death the only reason you became a cop?”
“Yes. That’s why I became a cop.” Some cop—he couldn’t even nail one lousy killer. “I promised Chrissie I’d get her justice.” Twelve years of resentment reached out to suffocate him and he could barely breathe. “And I know who killed her. I just can’t prove it.” He’d failed. So where did that leave him?
“So.” She took a deep breath. “I take it we’re finally done? You got everything you wanted?”
Not even close
.
Susie tucked her head down and started walking away. But he couldn’t let her go without telling her the whole truth.
“Chrissie was pregnant with Jake Sizemore’s child when she died.”
Susie stopped walking and he caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “The last time I felt like this about a woman I married her.” He turned her to face him, wishing he could hold back the words but needing her to know how much she mattered.
Damn, there were tears in his eyes again and she was crying. “I can’t go through that again.”
She flinched. God, she must hate him.
“Get out of my life, Nick. Leave me the hell alone.”
There. It was over. They were done. He squeezed shut his eyes against the pain. He followed her back to her cottage in silence as the moon shone down with a malevolent gleam. Emily was missing, two women had been murdered and he was breaking Susie Cooper’s heart.
Susie’s Mini sat beside his Subaru, and Rocket was asleep in his backseat. Ewan had been here. Nick grabbed his belongings, unable to meet Susie’s gaze. She deserved a man who’d support her and love her the way women were meant to be loved. And the thought that it wouldn’t be him gouged his heart.
Bile rose in his throat as he shifted the car into gear, and shame slithered through his gut.
A helicopter buzzed in the distance. Search and Rescue looking for Emily out at sea.
Mick Jagger crooned a solemn lament as the tires crunched slowly over gravel. Nick’s throat worked and his vision swam and he wished to hell he was out of tears.
Expecting trick-or-treaters, Rafael opened his door with a bag of candy and a grin. Instead, he found Lily in tears. Exhausted. Incoherent. Dripping with sweat. She had no money, no keys, just her cell phone clasped in a tight fist. She stuffed it against her lips, trying to smother her sobs.
“Lily? What is it?” Rafael hugged her to his chest and rubbed his chin in her hair. “What is it,
gata?
”
He’d been angry with her yesterday, but now he was concerned. A helicopter sounded in the distance, the boom of rotors bouncing off the surface of the water. He maneuvered her inside until her knees hit the couch and she collapsed upon it.
“I can’t find my mother, Rafael. She’s missing.” Sobs tore through her, rising from deep inside, big painful wrenching sounds that ripped into him like hatchets.
“I help you look for her.” He went to grab his jacket but she stopped him.
She shook her head. “No. It’s no good. I just spoke to Nick. We searched everywhere and there’s no sign.”
“Did you tell him you come here?” The policeman was a complication Rafael didn’t need.
She shook her head, quivering in his arms, delicate, needy, a mess. Nothing like the girl he thought he knew. His
friend
. Her heart was shattering. He didn’t know what to do. There was only one form of comfort he was good at.
He kissed her.
He didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t her hands slipping around his neck as her legs wrapped around his waist. He’d expected her to slap him, to insult his
pinto
again. Because they were friends. The only friend he’d had in years.
He didn’t expect her to ignite in his arms like a maelstrom and turn his comfort into a conflagration. Her lips slid along his skin as she pushed him back onto the couch. Her hands ran over him and he jerked and trembled when she touched him.
“Stop.” He tried to grab her hands as she yanked the button of his jeans open and inched his pants down his thighs. Her eyes were brilliant with emotion.
“Lily. You are upset. We not do this.” Urgently he tried to capture her hands.
She shook off his grip, yanked his pants lower. He tried to pull those lips away from his betraying
caralho
, but she was there, her hair soft as silk against his stomach, and her mouth sliding over him like one of the deadly sins. He groaned like an animal as she consumed him, pleasure screaming through his veins.
No!
He came back to himself just as his body primed for release. He thrust her away, breathing hard, his lungs bellowing for oxygen. Then she stepped out of her panties and the small triangle of ebony hair was as dangerous as any steel trap. But he didn’t want to fall again. Not with her.
She stopped and narrowed her gaze. Must have seen the reluctance fighting his arousal. The doorbell rang and he tried to get up, but she stopped him.
“I need this, Rafael. If not you, I’ll find someone else.”
Anger made his teeth lock. How could she do this to him? She was the one person in the world who knew what this did to him. He looked at her tear-drenched face, furious blue eyes, and then between her thighs as she parted her legs almost in a dare.
Sweat broke out on his brow and he throbbed. How could he refuse? He could never refuse.
The doorbell rang again, but this time he ignored it. Holding her tragic eyes, he caught one of her knees and drew her to him, stretched her across his body and then shimmied down the sofa. Her hot tears fell on his face. He felt her impatience and irritation.
“It is my way or not at all,
gata
.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just buried his mouth in her soft dark curls and devoured as she bucked and writhed above him. He tasted heat and sweat and woman. Her scent filled him, the feel of her flesh beneath his fingers more precious than all his father’s gold, silver and oil. She pulled away and he let her. Her eyes blazed fierce blue as she rolled a condom over him.
She was in control. The determination in her eyes as she guided him inside her made him ache. The chains that bound him were moist and volcano hot. The iron manacles that imprisoned his soul were soft floating breasts. She arched her back, stripping the rest of her clothes as she went. Took his hands and cupped her breasts, rubbing his fingers over perfect nipples as she pressed deep inside him. Deep. Inside. Him.
Oh, merda
. It felt so good.
He finally began to breathe, finally began to enjoy it.
Reverence of her breasts took time. He had to force her to slow her frantic pace. Rafael Domenici knew all about making mistakes. Sometimes the best were the biggest ones, the ones that blew up and exploded in your face.
He took her nipple in his mouth and feasted until she writhed on top of him. With his other hand he slipped the belt from his jeans, grabbed her hands and pinned them behind her back, binding her wrists with thick leather.
“What are you doing?” Her eyes changed from fierce to fearful in a heartbeat.
“Giving you what you want.” He cinched the leather tight and she flinched. Tomorrow there would be marks.
“I never said anything about bondage…”
“You want me to punish you, Lily.” Just as he’d punished Tracy Good. “Otherwise you’d have gone somewhere else.” The words hung suspended like tears on a lash.
He jerked on the leather and though she was above him, he was in control now. He smiled into her eyes and met her fury. But he was an expert at the exquisite balance between pleasure and pain, and knew exactly how hard to push before ecstasy became torture. Within minutes she was begging.
And he’d never felt so lonely in his entire damned life.
Hearts did
not
break.
Susie had lived through terrible things. Depression. Giving up her baby. Holding Dela as she convulsed and died in her arms. Decompression sickness. And no matter how badly she’d hurt, her heart had always beat in perfect synchrony, all autonomic nervous control and physical precision.
Hearts did not break, but parts of you died. Little pockets of hope and light perished. And maybe that’s what the aging process was? The destruction of hope and light.
It seemed an appropriate epiphany for All Hallows’ Eve.
She’d always known Nick was a brief fantasy and it was time to get on with her life. But he was right, she did need to forgive herself, to heal herself, rather than expect some other person to make her whole.
She wasn’t over him—the awful numbness inside her chest suggested it would be a long time until she was over him. But it was time to go to work, to throw herself back into research and forget she’d fallen in love with a man who knew all her secrets, who’d made her feel as good as she would ever feel, and who still wouldn’t stay.
Her fingers grasped the handle of her laptop case as she headed to the door. A knock stopped her midstride and she stared, hope springing inside for one blinding instant. Then she remembered Nick didn’t knock.
The lump of emotion blocking her throat was the size of a football. She strode to the door, pulled it wide open before she recalled that only a week ago a woman had been bludgeoned to death.
Two skulking jack-o’-lanterns guarded the portico of the Sizemores’ home and reminded Nick it was Halloween. Tea lights cast fluttering shadows that danced within the gourds like evil sprites. Nick should have gone to the police station. He should have steered clear of the Sizemores’ property. Pounding the large brass lion knocker, Nick knew all about shoulds, woulds and maybes. But he had to do something to stop himself from crawling back to Susie on bended knees and begging her forgiveness.
“Trick or treat,” he called. Misery ate at him as though he was slowly being devoured by poison. He needed a distraction and he needed answers.
The door opened and a single apprehensive eyeball peered through the crack before Jake’s angry face filled the gap.
“Who is it, Daddy?” Callie’s high-pitched voice reached Nick. Breezy, unconcerned.
Why would she be worried when she’d gotten away with her crimes for so long?
“Leave us alone!” Jake hissed as he tried to close the door.
Nick’s size-eleven boot somehow got in the way. “I just need a quick word with your daughter.” Looking into Sizemore’s washed-out eyes, Nick was startled by the lack of antipathy he felt for the man. No rage. No guilt. Just business. “I have a couple of questions to finish up.”
Behind Jake, Callie smiled. Her oversized eyes in that gaunt face made it more expressive than it actually was. An optical illusion. Her glance swept him from head to toe, and her lips twitched slightly as if she held back amusement.
“Go on, Daddy, he can’t do anything to us now.” Callie touched her father’s arm. “Fetch us a cup of tea.”
“You’re sure?” Jake took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead when she nodded. “Don’t say anything he can twist. Today has already been bad enough.”
“I don’t think D.I. Archer has come for a confession of murder, Daddy.” Her laugh was sugary—and turned Nick’s stomach.
Jake grunted and walked away, disappearing into what must be the kitchen at the back of the house.
“How’s your mom?” Nick asked, stepping uninvited into the hall. There was a rack of coats hanging on the wall, a shoe stand beneath, and an antique table topped by a vase full of dead roses.
“She’s taken a sleeping tablet and gone to bed.”
“I’m surprised your brother and sister didn’t fly home?”
“I told them not to. There was nothing to worry about.” Callie smiled and went into the parlor where he’d first talked to Judy.
He followed her in. She bent over to plug in a lamp, showing her skinny ass to its best advantage.
“I suppose you have a recorder in your pocket? Hoping to trick me into a confession?” Her laugh lanced his soul.
“You can search me if you like.” He raised his arms and offered her a slight grin. She eyed him thoughtfully.
Everyone had a weakness. Even sociopaths. What was hers? The door banged open as Jake came in with a tea tray rattling in his hands. He glared at Nick, looked over at Callie as if to make sure Nick hadn’t strangled her or nailed her against the wall. There was more than one type of revenge, but Nick didn’t think he’d have the stomach for the latter.
“Just leave the tray, Daddy.”
“How often did you watch them together, Callie?”
She blinked slowly, like a kid’s doll tilted backward and forward.
“What the hell are you talking about now?” Jake grumbled, setting out cups.
“You and Chrissie, screwing each other’s brains out.” It didn’t taste bitter anymore. He actually felt at peace because there was nothing left of his feelings for Chrissie, just the sadness she’d died so young. “Was it just once or did you spy on them regularly?”
One side of Callie’s mouth curled in amusement as she leaned against the mantelpiece. Jake went beetroot red, squared his shoulders and took a threatening step toward him.
Nick straightened. “You know better than that, Jake,” he warned. The older man hesitated and Nick felt the first measure of pity. “Are you telling me you didn’t know your daughter was getting a biology practical from the two of you?”
Jake swung to face Callie, his features stretching with growing horror. The silence felt like an extra person in the room, but Callie killed that too.
“They used to take me out in the cruiser with them.” She smirked before walking over to the couch and sitting down, crossing her legs. “I think Mom thought I’d be their chaperone. But they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”
The blood slowly drained from her father’s face, leaving skin the color of used chewing gum.
“They’d set me up with a fishing rod and a book and trot into the cabin, all smiles. ‘Just going to check the equipment.’” Callie huffed out a laugh as she poured herself tea. “Like being a kid was the same as being stupid.”
Jake reached out a hand to the arm of the couch before lowering himself down. He rested his face in his hands. “Oh, God.”
“I could hear them at it, and yes…” The look she slipped Nick was sly as a fox. “I admit I was curious. I peeked a few times.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Her father’s face crumpled. He finally seemed to appreciate that his libido had caused a cascade reaction that ended in disaster.
“That must have been difficult for you as a kid, watching your dad cheat on your mom.”
“My dad was slumming.” Callie’s eyes went hard, and something sinister swam in their depths. “Your wife screamed like a whore every time she came, but I assume you knew that.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder.
Jake stared at his daughter, slack-jawed, and Nick wondered if the man was going to have a heart attack.
“She couldn’t seem to help herself, not even when Dad put his hand over her mouth.” She narrowed her eyes. “She screamed. A lot.”
It hurt but Nick had been playing with monsters since he was a kid. “Well, at least she enjoyed it, aye?”
He looked at the pathetic figure who’d made Chrissie scream. Jake’s face muscles had lost their firmness years ago and gathered bags and wrinkles. Tears streamed down his face and he looked as if he was trying to form words but had lost the ability to speak.
“It would have pissed you off if your mom and dad had split up, wouldn’t it, Callie?” Nick pushed her. “If you’d had to share Daddy with someone else’s brat?”
“That was never going to happen.” She tapped her toe with the self-assurance of God.
“The only thing I haven’t figured out is how you got off the boat after you pushed Chrissie into the water? Was she conscious?”
Jake staggered to his feet. “Now just wait a goddamn minute!”
Callie’s eyes gleamed with intelligence and a punishing smile curved her lips. “I always figured
if
your wife was murdered the way you said she was, the killers just towed another boat behind the cruiser, maybe a little tin boat with an outboard? Then returned before anyone knew they were gone.”
Killers
. Plural. “Your mother knew. She tried to cover for you.”
Callie just blinked as her father blustered.
“Don’t come in here trying to destroy my daughter with your wild accusations.” Jake rallied. “First it was me, then Judy, now Callie? I had a relationship with Christina, I admit it. But you were the one who broke her heart. You tossed her out. She made one mistake and you wouldn’t have her back!”