"But?" She was surprised the word emerged coherently. His husky voice was as much a caress as the touch of his fingers and her body, which had felt so cold only moments before, now seemed feverish.
"But I'm having a hard time convincing myself to be sensible about it." His mouth brushed hers very lightly and then retreated. "I want you, Cassie. I didn't plan on this, and God knows how it'll end, but I want you. And… I have this feeling that if I let go of you now, I'll lose you for good."
"I'm… not going anywhere."
"You've been trying to hold me off, shut me out. Do you think I can't feel it?"
Cassie resisted the urge to press her face against his caressing hand. "For your sake as much as mine. Trust me, Ben, I'm the one who'd make a lousy lover. I wouldn't be good for you. I wouldn't be good for any man." "Maybe I'm willing to risk it." "Maybe I'm not."
His eyes were heavy-lidded and darkened, and so intense they seemed to pull at her. "Somehow, I don't think either of us has a choice."
There was something almost reluctant in his voice, and it made her say, "You don't know me." "I know all I need to know."
"No, you don't. You don't know, Ben. I have too much baggage. Too many monsters dragging at my heels." She swallowed hard. "I can't – "
His mouth covered hers, warm and hard and so unexpectedly familiar that she was helpless to prevent her own instant response.
Hardly aware of moving, Cassie got her arms out from under the blanket and reached up to him. One of her hands pressed against his chest as though holding him off, but the other slid from his shoulder to the nape of his neck. Her touch was tentative but not shy, and when he lifted his head she made a sound of disappointment.
"Can't you?" he murmured.
"You aren't playing fair," she told him, bemused by the husky sound of her own voice.
"I'm not playing. Cassie, listen to me. For just a minute, forget about the rotten timing. Forget about that maniac out there. Forget about everything except the two people in this room."
That was not very hard to do, she thought. In fact, it wasfrighteningly easy. "All right."
"Tell me you don't want me."
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "You know damned well I can't do that."
He smiled. "Good. Then we go on from there."
Goon where? But she didn't ask what she suspected was an unanswerable question. Instead, she said, "Do you have any idea how crazy this is?"
"You'd be surprised." He kissed her, briefly but not lightly, then eased away from her. "I'd better go and let you get some rest, especially if Matt and I are coming back in a few hours."
She'd forgotten about that. She'd also forgotten that the sheriff waited outside, presumably in his cruiser with the engine running. Remembering made her protest die in her throat. "Right. Right."
Ben seemed a little amused, but his eyes were still darkened and his face still bore that oddly naked look she couldn't quite define. "I'll call before we come out here, but I'm guessing it'll be around four or five."
"Okay. I'll be here."
He took a step away but then hesitated. "Remember your promise. Don't try to reach this guy without a lifeline."
"No, I won't."
He didn't say good-bye. She watched him until he was out of sight and listened to the front door open and close. Then she just lay there on the couch, no longer cold or even tired, but uneasily aware that she had just turned an unexpected corner.
And had no idea what was waiting for her.
Matt folded up his newspaper when Ben got into the cruiser and lost no time turning the vehicle around and pointing it back toward town. Neither spoke until Cassie's snowy driveway lay behind them, and then the conversation was brief.
"If you want my advice – " Matt began.
"I don't."
The sheriff glanced at his friend, then murmured, "Okay. Then I'll just drive."
TWELVE
The Plantation Inn was not bad as motels went, though Bishop could have done without the plastic palms that seemed to sprout from every corner. Still, his room was clean and comfortable, limited room service was available – when the restaurant next door closed, you were on your own – and the desk clerk had been reassuringly knowledgeable when he had asked her about fax lines and data ports.
Accustomed to living out of a suitcase, he didn't bother to unpack his clothing, but he did get his laptop out and set it up on the fair-sized desk by the window, where the promised data port was available. By the time room service delivered his lunch, he had logged on and downloaded his mail and faxes from the office, as well as tapped into a North Carolina database that gave him access to past and current issues of virtually all publications from the area.
He ate a club sandwich while reading relevant articles and editorials from the previous week's editions of the local paper, then checked several larger newspapers throughout the state. He found that recent news from Ryan's Bluff was not mentioned anywhere else.
So. The sheriff had his town buttoned up tightly. At least for now.
Instead of speculating on that interesting fact, Bishop reread the information he had gathered earlier concerning Alexandra Melton. There was little enough of it, just deed and title information on her property, and the major points of her will. It did not appear that she had involved herself in any meaningful sense in town affairs, since her name made the local newspaper only when she died.
But Bishop's information went back further than Alexandra Melton's life in Ryan's Bluff. In fact, it went back more than thirty years. In his file were a number of detailed reports, including several from various West Coast hospitals and at least half a dozen from law enforcement organizations. He just glanced over those, since the information was familiar to him, but spent some minutes looking at a detailed family tree going back nearly two hundred years.
Except for husbands, the tree was almost entirely female. There had been few sons born to this line of women for generations, and seldom more than one daughter.
Cassie NeilPs name occupied one of only two boxes representing the current and only surviving generation.
After studying the tree for a time, Bishop closed the file and shut down his computer. He called room service to come get his tray, changed into the very casual clothing that was suitable for exploration, and left the motel.
He drove to the downtown area, since the Plantation Inn was some miles away. Snowplows had been at work to scrape aside the scant few inches of snow, even though the temperature had risen enough to begin melting it anyway; he avoided the slush in the gutters when he parked his car near the drugstore and got out.
For a few moments Bishop stood near his car and just looked around. There was a fair amount of activity on this Friday afternoon. Shoppers moved in and out of the stores, the car lot on one end of town seemed to be having some sort of loud and colorful promotion involving the giveaway of a television set, and the two restaurants he could see appeared to be doing brisk business.
But he noticed immediately that no woman walked alone, and that the few children about were kept close to their parents. And that it was quieter than it should have been, with conversations kept low and no audible laughter. Not too many smiling faces, which he knew was unusual in this part of the country. And more than one passerby gave him a distinctly suspicious glance.
He wouldn't have much time, he knew, before somebody official asked him what he was doing in town.
Bishop began strolling down the street, visiting several stores, making small purchases at each, and speaking politely if not affably to the clerks who waited on him. Aware that he had a face designed by fate to make others nervous at the best of times, he made no attempt to ask questions but, rather, listened in on various conversations going on around him. Or at least to those that didn't stop abruptly whenever someone caught sight of him, as they invariably did.
He heard the phrase "serial killer" spoken at least half a dozen times. He also heard several men declare that they were armed and ready should the bastard come aftertheir women.
It was a promise that did not appear to reassure those of their women present to hear it.
Bishop ended up in the drugstore, with coffee and a talkative young counterman who offered speculation about the three recent murders with ghoulish fascination. Neither encouraging nor discouraging, Bishop listened, saying only that it seemed like too nice a town to have such goings-on.
Apparently feeling that this placid reaction implied criticism, Mike the counterman was quick to add the information that they also had a witch.
Bishop sipped his coffee. "Really?"
"Yeah. Everybody's talking about her." Mike industriously polished the counter in front of his customer, just in case his boss was watching. "Some say it's her fault, these killings, but I got it from one of the sheriff's deputies straight that she couldn't have done it. With her own hands, I mean. Too little. Besides, I think she had an alibi when Miss Kirkwood was killed."
"If that's so, why would anyone blame her?" Bishop asked mildly.
"Well, because she's a witch." Mike lowered his voice. "Way I heard it, she knew there was going to be a killing and warned the sheriff about it. Judge Ryan too."
"Then why didn't they stop it?"
"Didn't believe her, is what I hear. Well, I mean – would you? But then Becky was killed, so I guess she knew what she was talking about, at least that time. What I want to know is, how's she doing it?"
"You mean – how does ESP work?"
Mike shook his head impatiently. "Naw. I mean, does she have a crystal ball? Some of them tarot cards? Or does she need the blood of a chicken or something like that? Keith Hollifield, over by the plant, he's missing a few chickens just since last week, and he's been putting it around that maybe the witch needs them to see the future."
"Has anyone asked her?" Bishop's ironic tone was lost on the young counterman.
"Not that I know of," Mike replied earnestly. "But I think the sheriff should, don't you?"
"Absolutely." Bishop paid his check for the coffee and left Mike a reasonable tip, then strolled from the drugstore.
A sheriff's deputy lounging against a light post outside straightened, eyed him speculatively, then politely asked if he was a stranger in town.
Out of time.
Smiling faintly, Bishop produced his identification.
The deputy's eyes widened. "Um. You'll be wanting to talk to the sheriff, I expect."
"Eventually," Bishop said. "But not just yet."
Though the temperature hovered just far enough above freezing to begin melting the snow, the picture outside Cassie's kitchen windows was still a winter wonderland when she sat down to a late breakfast. Ben and the sheriff had been gone nearly two hours, but it had taken her some time to rouse herself enough to get up from the sofa. And when she did finally get up, she discovered that she was more tired than she had realized, and still a bit cold.
A hot bath helped warm her, and by the time she apologetically fixed Max's breakfast and something for herself, she was feeling better. Physically at least.
She wasn't sure about emotionally.
Years of experience had taught her not to dwell on the horrific images and thoughts that came to her tele-pathically, so it was easy enough for her to think about the killer with a hard-won degree of detachment. But knowing he had chosen his next target and that he planned new torments for her was not so easy to dismiss from her mind.
Not easy, but entirely necessary in order for her to find some sort of peace. But this time it required more than concentration; it required distracting herself with thoughts that were, in their own way, nearly as emotionally upsetting.
Thoughts about Ben, and about what seemed to be growing between them.
Cassie was still astonished to recall her response to him, and even more surprised by his desire. She didn't know how to explain it, any of it. With what she'd learned of men and the things too many were capable of, she had thought it virtually impossible to contemplate a relationship with this… this absurdly dreamy longing. With curiosity and eagerness.
A sexual relationship, she assumed. Ben had made it clear he wanted her, though she was uncertain as to why that would be so. She was no fool – and she had read too many male minds not to know that they simply did not look at her and feel desire. She was too thin, not at all pretty, weighed down with the baggage of nightmarish abilities, and laughably lacking in experience when it came to romantic relationships.
In short, she was no bargain.
And Ben… No question that he could get virtually any woman he wanted, and probably always had, despite the walls that kept him distant emotionally. He was handsome, intelligent, sexy, both compassionate and kind. He was an important man in town, a man people looked up to. And he was an elected official, which meant his life was open to public scrutiny.