Authors: Carolyn Haines
Officer O’Neill studied the badge and identification the man handed him. There was something about the old ruin he didn’t cotton to, but maybe it had more to do with the initials after Marshall Lovecraft’s name than anything else. From past experience Tim O’Neill believed that CIA stood for Cesspool In Action. That perfectly described the agents he knew about and the work they did. Of course, he didn’t know a single one of them personally, but in the badge business, intra-agency gossip got around fast.
Drawing his dark eyebrows together, he looked again at Marshall Lovecraft. He was well-preserved but long in the tooth, and he had the most annoying habit of viciously clicking his teeth together three times, as if he were trying to cement his dentures into place.
“Why is the CIA interested in a local tragedy?” O’Neill was determined not to let Lovecraft get the idea that his hot-shot federal employment gave him any special privileges in Biloxi, Mississippi. Hell, based on Congress’s recent accomplishments, most of the folks he knew would just as soon try secession for the second time around.
“What about tissue samples?” Marvin ignored the question as he swept his gaze over the black-clad ATF agents who were sifting through the larger pieces of debris. Surely there had to be a clot of Lucille Hare somewhere. And he intended to have it. “Have they found anything?”
“I’m sure you can look at their report, once it’s all finished.” O’Neill felt a strong compulsion to thwart this man.
“The report isn’t good enough. It’s a matter of national security.” Marvin felt his irritation grow. He wanted one simple thing, and he was wasting valuable time manipulating this backwoods Marshall Dillon.
O’Neill watched Marvin’s eyes. They were filled with a dead blue light, as if whatever had once lived behind them had curled up and died long ago. He glanced over to the other federal agents. The ATF guys were being remarkably quiet and civil. Usually the feds all hung out together and treated the local cops as if they were shit on the bottom of their shoes. A terrible thought struck O’Neill. Was there something romantic between this well-preserved fossil and the hot, red-headed writer? The very thought was depressing.
“Officer, I asked you a direct question.” Marvin longed for a cattle prod. The man in uniform who stood before him was a dolt. A uniform-wrapped affront. The desire to hurt him was almost irresistible, but Marvin fought it back. He could not afford to draw the attention of the ATF agents. One of them might actually be sharp enough to run his credentials. At that thought he edged away and was brought up sharp by the voice of the cop.
“Buddy found a hand. We thought for a while it belonged to the writer who lived in apartment 111, but it belongs to the cookie maker. She was in the middle of a batch of chocolate chips for her youngest son. She was on the other side of the wall where the bomb went off. Little chips of chocolate were embedded into her cheeks and forehead. At first I thought they were moles, but no, it was the chocolate. When she realized her hand was gone, she got a bit overwrought and the chips began to melt.”
“Enough!” Marvin couldn’t contain his impatience any longer. The policeman standing before him was an imbecile, a total rube, a fool, a cretin with no functioning brain cells. “What’s been found of the Ha … the writer who lived here?”
O’Neill pushed his hat back. It had been a long night. The man was old enough to be Lucille’s father, and his interest in her was obviously personal. “Listen, mister, you want to act like a jerk, I suggest you take it somewhere else. As far as I know, the CIA has no authority in a local bombing. These folks were our friends and neighbors. Hell, I was dating the writer woman. You’re not from around these parts, so if you can’t act with some respect, maybe you’d better get back in your car and head for D.C. We don’t have much use for the likes of you down here.”
“Do they pay you to make speeches or uphold the law?” Marvin lifted his finger. He could kill Officer O’Neill with one well-placed plunge of his digit. He gritted his teeth against the need to do so. “I advise you to clear out of my way or your career will come to a screeching halt.”
“Oh, I’m terrified.” O’Neill held his hands up and gave an exaggerated tremble.
“I’d like to see the tissue samples.” Marvin spoke through clenched teeth. It was age. He’d always hated the local game, but he’d played it well as a younger man. Now he simply wanted the Hare sample and he wanted to disappear. But he was never going to get it if he antagonized this cop further. “Please.”
Officer O’Neill nodded. He’d detained the CIA agent as long as he dared. “I’ll see what our guys have turned up.” He left the old man standing at the perimeter of the disaster as he went toward the white and latex clad forensic team.
“Got anything, Jeff?” O’Neill asked a tall, thin man.
“If she was here, she’s been vaporized.” Jeff looked up over his mask. “What a mess. Whoever set this bomb wanted her dead, and he didn’t care if he took out half the state with her.”
O’Neill nodded. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder as he returned to the CIA agent. “Nothing. He believes the woman was vaporized.” O’Neill shook his head. “This is going to be hard on her brother. They were very close.”
“I’m sure,” Marvin said. He looked beyond O’Neill and slowly moved past him to the edge of the wreckage. A bank of television lights exploded into dazzling white life. A hastily clad young woman took up a pose with her microphone while the camera crews zoomed and panned the area. Marvin drew back into the shadows. Lucille’s apartment and eight others looked like a gaping wound in
the building. On each side of the blast-crater, jagged walls reared up, harsh in the unnatural light of television crews. Out on the lawn a baby whined and a dog began to bark.
The bomb had been a disaster. It brought to mind the time he’d blown up the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, a failed attempt to frame the Sandinistas.
Those were the breaks, though, in the covert operations business. Here in Biloxi he didn’t expect a backlash. He’d been careless not learning more about the explosive substance. He’d been excessive. But who would care about a dozen apartment dwellers? Hell, the trailer parks were brimming with replacements.
The real problem was that he hadn’t been able to find any remnants of Lucille. At least not yet.
“Excuse me, sir. Have you lost a loved one in the blast? Are you a resident of Marina Apartments?”
The microphone was thrust into his face and the lights swung around to blind him before he could react. Marvin had failed to keep a wary eye on the scavenging media.
“No,” he answered, pushing the microphone away.
“Where were you when the apartments were bombed? Were you close enough to feel the impact?”
“Get out of my way.” Marvin tried to step past the woman, but she used the microphone like a baton, punching him in the chest with it to hold him steady.
“What is your business at the site? Are you a sightseer?” she persisted.
The woman had turned ugly. The insinuation in her voice was clear. He had to think of something, and quick. Something that would stall her and make her back off. “I’m here in an official capacity.” Marvin tried to sound soothing. “I’m here to minister to the injured.” He made the sign of the cross. “These poor victims of tragedy. They need the comfort of their Maker.” He smiled benignly. “Excuse me.” He drew back into the fringes of the crowd that had begun to grow larger and larger on the perimeter of the apartment lawn. This night was not going well at all. Now, on top of vaporizing Lucille, he was going to have to get that video tape from the reporter. Too bad Americans had such a thing for members of the fourth estate. In other countries, it would be a minor problem. He’d simply shoot the cameraman and make the attractive newswoman his guest for several days. At the end of that time, she would have willingly forgotten ever being at Marina Apartments. Well, reporters were just one of the many nuisances wrought by the Bill of Rights and upheld by pinko fools who had no faith in their government.
Watching the young reporter as she talked earnestly into the camera, Marvin felt a growing rage. The night had been a mistake. Part of it was his fault, but not all. The only good thing was that Lucille Hare was no longer walking the face of the earth. If he had done nothing else, he had cleansed the earth of a fool and an idiot, and he had done it before Lucille Hare had reproduced! That had not been his primary goal, just a little bit of lagniappe thrown to his government for a lifetime of fun and games and a great retirement system.
That small success put a grin on his face, one which caused the young television reporter to turn away from him.
The rim of the sun slipped over the horizon, a core of molten gold that colored the sky mauve and pink. Marvin sighed. The night was finally over. He’d have to figure out a scam to get to the morgue and find a few cells of Lucille. Either there or the forensic lab, where something of her might be in a jar, pickled. That thought widened his grin. Lucille should have been jarred when she was born. She would have been a perfect attraction at a country fair.
Even as he watched, the sun inched into the sky, casting light over the desolation of the apartment complex. Several apartment dwellers who stood on the fringe of the disaster began to sob as the total devastation became clear.
Marvin held back his chuckle. It always amazed him how surprised the victims of violence were. They acted as if they didn’t expect to be shot or stabbed or blown up. No matter how often they saw it on television or in the movies, they were somehow shocked when it visited them.
“Hey! Hey you! Lovecraft?”
He recognized the voice of the Biloxi cop and wiped the amusement from his face.
“Where can I get in touch with you?” Officer O’Neill asked. “In case we come up with something that might connect this bombing to the KGB or some other bogeyman agency.”
“I’ll be in touch with you,” Marvin said smoothly.
“Suit yourself.” O’Neill lost interest in the old fart. Two women far back on the horizon had caught his attention. One of them was slender with a bee-hive hair-do that held solid even in the brisk breeze that had begun to blow up with the dawn. The other was plump, or statuesque, as he preferred to think of it. He looked closer. He could swear he knew both of them. He did. He did know both of them! One was the head librarian, and the other was … Lucille Hare. Even with one side of her hair-do crushed in, which gave her head a busted melon look, he was certain it was her. “Hey, there she …” He stopped, remembering the old man’s unprofessional interest in her.
“What?” Marvin turned to look in the direction the cop was looking. “That isn’t possible.” His voice went from angry and arrogant to dead. “This can’t be happening. She’s dead. Blasted into the ozone.” Keen disappointment was mixed with another emotion he couldn’t fully place, but one that felt like what he’d often imagined fear to be. He had never been foiled. Never. Not in fifty-odd years of service to the cause. And especially not by a woman who didn’t have the sense of a cantaloupe.
“That’s Lucille Hare, standing over against the line of trees, isn’t it?” O’Neill asked. “I guess she wasn’t home last night. Hey!” Officer O’Neill stepped forward, his pace increasing as he headed toward the women. “Hey!” He yelled, waving his arms. “Lucille! Is that you?” He started to run.
Marvin saw his moment and drifted behind a stack of rubble. The two women turned and fled. They disappeared into the same neighborhood where he’d sat and watched the apartments blow. Even as fast as he could run, there was no way he could catch them. The bayou ran between him and them, and the marsh grass looked solid but was often floating on nothing but water.
Tim O’Neill recognized the futility of running after the women, too. He stopped and stared into the distance, shading his eyes with his hand. Perhaps it had been a hallucination. Why would Lucille run from him? He turned back toward the CIA agent. Maybe Lucille wasn’t running from him; maybe she was running from the fossil who’d shown an extraordinary interest in her. And why would the CIA be interested in a bank teller from Biloxi? Tim felt the short black hairs on his forearms prickle and stand on end. He searched the area beside the apartment building where Marshall Lovecraft had been standing only seconds before. There was no trace of the man.
The worn, slick leather felt exquisite to Mona’s inner thighs. She clamped down hard, loving the thrust of the saddle against her bare skin as she brought the crop down on muscular white flanks. She closed her eyes and for a moment she was transported back to the smell of sawdust and livestock, to the blare of a bad PA system and the feel of a powerful animal between her legs. “Buck, damn you,” she urged, swinging the crop again and again as the stallion beneath her reared and plunged.
To her surprise the stallion reared straight up, throwing her off balance and out of the saddle. She landed in a pile of red satin pillows, and in a moment the beast was upon her.
“Now, Mona,” he demanded. “I want you now. The rodeo is over.”
“I was getting ready to stoke the branding iron,” she whispered, eyes closed with the pleasure of his hands on her body.
“When I’m done with you, you’ll wear my mark,” he answered, biting the top of her breast with passion.
Mona peeked through passion-swollen lids just enough to see the blue intensity of Michael’s eyes, the thick honey-streaked brown hair that crowned his head and curled about his handsome face. Her fingers played across hard, swollen pectorals. As she reached around him, she felt lats that tapered to a narrow waist and the tight swell of small, perfect buttocks. She’d been right to abandon the emergency room and move to the docks for a new partner. It had been far too long since she’d had a specimen who could stand up to the rigors of her rodeo fantasy.
She reached up and expertly uncinched the girth that had held her old rodeo saddle to his back. When she was a young girl she’d been Queen of the Mississippi Rodeo and All-Round Cowgirl of 1980. Since her rodeo days her saddle had seen a handful of talented studs, but none to match Michael Fornia. As the leather loosened, the saddle fell away, and Mona reached lower. Michael’s moan of pleasure made her smile. While he was lulled into oblivion, she rolled out from under him and scrambled across the room to the lariat she kept hanging on a hook.
Fondling the rope, she smiled at him as he gained his feet, an expectant glimmer in his eyes. Mona loved the chase. Running her quarry to ground was the most delicious of all sports, but sometimes, when she’d met a worthy opponent, it was fun to be the one pursued.
With an unexpected flick of her wrist, she tossed the rope to him. “Catch me, if you can.” She headed for the back door and the three acres of manicured gardens she maintained just for the purpose of her privacy and her games.
Michael gave a whoop and took off after her, his bare feet slapping the hardwood floors of the hallway as he ran toward the sound of the slamming screened door.
Lucille grabbed Jazz’s hand just as it fisted up and started to knock at the front door. “Listen!” Several wild cries came from the back of the house. “Maybe someone’s trying to rob her. Maybe we should call the police.” She stepped to the right and tried to peep through the window.
Jazz hesitated. Lucille might be right. But then again, the cries sounded wild, exuberant.
Sexual.
Wantonly sexual.
“Maybe we should just leave,” Jazz said. The idea of Mona in all of her glory was unsettling. The thought of Mona’s reaction to being disturbed in the middle of research was enough to send Jazz down two steps as she edged toward Lucille’s dirty Camaro.
“Not on your life.” Lucille was already moving to the gate of the privacy fence that had turned a bleached silver in the bright light of the morning sun. “Let’s take a look around.”
“Mona is very sensitive about her privacy.” Another loud cry made Jazz feel hot all over.
“What if Mona’s in there? A captive?” Lucille tried the latch and found that it was locked from the inside. “We should do something. Like break in.”
From the back of the house, Mona’s throaty voice rose in a high squeal of panic that turned into a low chuckle.
“I don’t think Mona wants to be disturbed,” Jazz said. “She sounds busy.”
Lucille turned to face her. “The motto of WOMB is one for all and all for one. Right?” She waited. When Jazz didn’t answer, she asked again, “Right?”
“Right.” Jazz didn’t like the glint in Lucille’s eyes.
“Well, if she doesn’t need our help, we need hers. That old fart blew up my apartment complex with my computer in it. He’s down there now, looking for something. Of all the members of WOMB, Mona is the only one who can find out what.” Lucille jiggled the latch of the gate. It seemed to give and she put her weight against it, pressing and rattling the latch.
“You haven’t known Mona very long. She takes her research very seriously.”
“I take my computer very seriously.” Lucille knelt down to peep through the keyhole. She saw a neat gravel path lined with vivid azaleas. The shrubs were as tall as a man and were planted close together so that the colors of lavender, fuchsia, pink, purple, coral, red and white were like an impressionist palette. Lucille whistled softly. “Either Mona has a green thumb or she’s keeping a colony of gardeners as love slaves in her back yard.”
Grasping the black handle of the gate, Lucille gave it a mighty shake. To her surprise the latch slipped, and the wooden gate opened on hinges that were smoothly oiled.
“Gotcha, you frisky little heifer!”
The male voice came from the back of the yard and was followed by the sound of Mona laughing and gasping for air. There was the rustle of leaves and the splash of water and a long, pulsing moan of pleasure.
“Oh, baby, I did the rodeo circuit all over Wyoming, but I never met a woman like you.” He laughed, a hungry sound. “You can’t get away from me.” A soft, tuneless whistle cut the air. “I’m pretty good at bull-doggin’ and when I finally get my rope on you, I’m going to truss you up and put my brand on you.”
“You talk big, cowboy. Let’s see some of that fancy rope work.” Mona’s voice was a challenge.
Lucille started down the path.
“We shouldn’t go back there.” Jazz grabbed Lucille’s arm.
“We’re going.” Lucille turned on her, head lowered. “Who’s back there with Mona?”
“One of her research projects.” Jazz shrugged. If Mona discovered they were spying on her, she’d be furious with them. “Let’s go before she finds out we were here.”
Lucille listened for the man’s voice. There was something about it, something that rang a bell. It wasn’t Bo or Driskell, but she had the distinct feeling it was someone she knew. As Jazz started to edge back toward the garden gate, Lucille grabbed her. “The whole idea of watching Marvin was yours. You and Andromeda. Now my apartment is blown up and my computer destroyed. It took me four years of saving to buy that computer, and now there’s not even a microchip left.”
“Your book!” Jazz couldn’t believe it. As terrible as the apartment bomb was, something good had come of it.
“Oh, I’ve got back-up disks tucked away in a safe deposit box in the bank.” Lucille turned back to the open gate. “But I don’t have a computer anymore. And someone is going to pay.” Before Jazz could make a move, Lucille started forward at a lope, gravel scrunching beneath her dirty sneakers.
“Saints preserve us,” Jazz said, uttering the only religious invocation she could remember as she ran after Lucille’s retreating back.
Lucille followed the gravel path that wound through dense walls of frilly foliage. Mingled with the azaleas were bridal wreath and hydrangeas, honeysuckle and jasmine. The gardens were a jungle of Southern colors and scents, and in the distance was the splash of what sounded like a small waterfall. She was brought up short on the path by an uncoiled lariat in the gravel. Beside it was a leather vest and a man’s worn leather glove. Lucille picked up the rope with a sense of impending doom.
Rising rhythmically above the sounds of the water were soft moans, little cries, gurgles, and threats. Mona’s voice grew suddenly clear. “My God, you are one helluva cowboy,” she said. “I love your branding iron.”
“I’ve never been thrown out of the saddle,” a laconic male voice answered, “but you’ve got more buck than any woman I’ve ever met.”
“Ride me,” Mona urged. “Use the spurs!”
The male voice was hoarse, passionate. “Now, baby, now! Ho–ly cow!”
Lucille froze. It was not possible. It was totally impossible. But she knew that voice. She’d heard it hundreds of times before. She knew the quick wit and the way with words. The wonderful rhymes like
now
and
cow.
Dear God above, it was him! “Slade.” The name escaped through her pale lips. She veered off the path and charged through the flowers. A wall of azaleas stopped her cold. The branches were so thick they made an effective barricade against her efforts at penetration.
“Mona, we’re here!” Standing in the middle of the path, Jazz bounced up and down as she cried out as loudly as she could. “Yoo Hoo! Mona, you have company.”
Lucille swung around. The sounds she heard were having a strange effect on her. A red tide was building behind her eyes, giving everything in the garden the color of carnage. And in the middle of it she saw Mona. Mona who had made a play for Driskell. Mona who had somehow slipped into the paragraphs of her book and was now bucking the stuffing out of the man of her dreams.
“Lucille, don’t go back there.” Jazz reached after Lucille, who neatly ducked her hand.
“After an encounter with Mona, Slade will never be the same again.” Lucille grabbed several large azalea branches and broke them, clearing a path as she spoke. “We have to stop him, Jazz. He can’t do this. Angelita was bad enough. Once Mona gets hold of him, he won’t be fit to be the hero of anyone’s novel!”
“Mona!” Jazz cried even louder. “Lucille and I have to talk to you!”
Lucille plunged forward into a wave of lacy lavender azaleas. She was halfway through the bush, the moans growing louder, faster, more wanton, when her foot caught in a blackberry vine growing among the azaleas. The thorny vine grabbed her shoelaces and held, throwing her to the ground. In the distance the moans abruptly ceased. In the sudden silence there was only the splash of water.
Lucille struggled to her knees. “I’m coming, Slade,” she called out. “Don’t do it! Don’t lose your soul!”
“What … in … the hell … are … you … doing here?” Mona came down the gravel path, her bare feet leaving little wet, shell-shaped imprints in the white pea gravel. Her skin glowed a pearly pink, and there were red marks on her bare thighs. A black towel bound her from chest to thigh.
Lucille reared up out of the azaleas and stumbled to the path. “What have you done to Slade?”
Mona looked at her blankly. “Slade? Slade who?”
Lucille started toward Mona, her hands held out at chest level, the fingers working. “I heard him. I heard you. He’s a cowboy. I heard him. He made a poem.” The words rushed out, and she made no effort to link them. “Slade will never be able to love a normal woman after he’s had you!” She lunged at Mona.
The bushes behind Lucille parted with a snapping of branches and the fluttering of azaleas. “Hold on, there, woman.” Michael Fornia reached out with long, brawny arms and caught Lucille just as her fingers clutched at Mona’s startled throat. “What in the hell is your problem?”
Lucille swung around, ready to do battle. As she met Michael’s piercing blue gaze, she went limp. “Slade,” she whispered. “It’s you.”
“Slade?” Michael looked past Lucille at Mona, who shrugged.
“Slade Rivers. The hero of
Forbidden Words.”
Jazz shot Mona a scathing look. “You know, the cowboy-slash-poet.”
Mona’s eyebrows shot up half an inch as she turned to confront Jazz. “Lucille is an idiot. I expect this kind of behavior from her. But what are you doing here?”
Jazz lifted her chin. “Marvin blew up the Marina Apartments. He was trying to kill Lucille. We’re going to catch him and we need your help.”
Mona pulled her towel tighter and started toward the house. “Well have to finish this another time, Michael. I have WOMB business to attend to.”