Darker Than Desire (26 page)

Sybil closed her eyes as the tears started to burn. “Like I said,” she whispered thickly. “We're kinda not talking right now.”

The silence was thick and heavy. After a minute, she opened her eyes to look at Taneisha and she found the other woman watching her with hot, angry eyes. “That son of a bitch.”

“Neisha,” she said, her voice rough.

“No.” The other woman shook her head with a fury that had her curls bouncing around her pretty face. She shoved upright and started to pace. “I get that he's had a shitty life and I want to punch people around town who are treating him like a leper. I feel bad for him, but that doesn't give him the right to treat you like that.”

“We…” Sybil fumbled for the words.
Broke up?
It wasn't like they'd ever committed.
We aren't sleeping together?
Finally, she settled on the truth. “He doesn't love me. Ten years, Neisha. That's what we had, and in the end it doesn't matter enough to him.”

Just saying it brought a knot to her throat and smashed her heart into pieces all over again. “He doesn't love me,” she whispered, forcing herself upright. She met Taneisha's eyes, surprised to realize her own were dry. It had been … what, three? No, four days since he'd walked away. Part of her had kept hoping something would change. That he'd realize this wasn't any way of solving
anything
. But she'd been an idiot. “Somewhere inside me, I was holding on, thinking maybe he'd start to miss me. Start to realize he's just being…” She laughed sourly. “A man. An idiot. Whatever. But this drives it home.”

He'd been shot and hadn't even bothered to call her. She'd never heard. The past few days had been slow—she'd had a rehearsal dinner to shoot in Jeffersonville on Thursday night and the wedding on Friday and she'd worked from home on Saturday. The honest truth was that she'd been
hiding
, tucked up inside her house so she didn't have to worry about seeing him, but what did it matter, really?

Numb, aching cold spread through her. “When did it happen?” she asked softly.

“Friday.”

Her lashes swept down and she rested her head against the porch railing behind her head. “Yesterday. And he doesn't bother to let me know. Yeah, I'd say this drives it home, all right. David really doesn't love me.”

“Honey.” Taneisha reached for her.

“No.” Sybil held up a hand. “Don't. If you hug me now, I'll start bawling. Okay? I'd rather do it later. Once I'm alone and in the tub, with a glass of wine.”

“You—” Taneisha stopped, blew out a breath. “I can take Drew with us. You can go have that bath now.”

“No.” She rubbed her hands down her arms. “I haven't seen him enough as it is with that wedding in Jeff. I'll be fine.” She went to open the door and the sound of the boys geeking out on the video game she'd picked up made her smile, just a little, despite the misery that spread through her like some insidious disease. “Besides, listening to him is the best medicine.”

Maybe she shouldn't have said that, Sybil realized thirty minutes later. She now had
two
boys in her living room while Taneisha was out doing her “running” or whatever she had to do.

The boys were yelling up a storm, too, and after another ear-shattering screech Sybil decided she couldn't handle any more. Grabbing some clothes, she locked herself in her shower. Five minutes of privacy and then they'd go down to the diner for some lunch.

No, she didn't want to be alone with herself, because if she were—

He'd been shot
.

She stumbled against the shower wall. Shoving a fist against her mouth, she muffled the sob as it ripped out of her. The tears followed soon after.

You son of a bitch
.

Sinking to the floor, she curled her legs against her chest and pressed her face to her knees as the misery tore and dug into her, like a rabid beast.

The pain, she thought, it just might kill her.

You son of a bitch
.

Then softly she whispered, “Why do I have to love you, even now?”

*   *   *

“She loves you, you know that?”

The voice cut through the air, shattering the silence. David closed his eyes for a second and then opened them, focused on the work, on the pain in his shoulder.

“You hear me, you overgrown son of a bitch?”

David hefted another bag of mulch out of the back of the truck and threw it on the ground before looking down at the woman standing at the foot of his truck.

His shoulder was screaming at him, but he refused to see a doctor for it.

He'd spent the morning working on Mary's flowerbeds and he'd kept his ears peeled for the noise in town. He could hear the cars, the occasional shout. If there were sirens, he'd hear those, too. Sooner or later, Clay Brumley would show his sorry ass. It had been almost twenty-four hours. How could a man hide in a town the size of Madison?

That
thought infuriated David, though. Because he knew better than most just how easy it was to hide. He'd done it, for twenty years. But Clay's truck was still here. Nothing missing from his home. He'd taken off down the sidewalk and—
bam
. Just gone.

“You going to stand up there like Paul Bunyan and act like you don't hear me talking to you?”

Sighing, he straightened and slanted a look down at the slim black woman. “Paul Bunyan. Giant, with an ox and an ax?”

“You're probably as stubborn as an ox.” She curled her lip, craning her head to glare up at him. “And you're standing up there like a damn giant instead of moving your ass down here. So yeah. Paul Bunyan.”

He went to shove a hand through his hair, but pain shrieked through him and the limited range of motion had him lowering his arm. Finally, he hopped down off the bed of the truck to stand in front of her.
What in the hell does she want?

She was a nurse; he remembered that. Had taken care of Max—the name clicked a minute later.
Taneisha. Fuck.

Running his tongue around his teeth, he turned away. “I'm busy, ma'am.”

“You and your busy self can shut the hell up,” she snapped, marching around and planting her body in front of him.

She was built like an amazon—nearly six feet in her tennis shoes and she was all long, lean curves. The look in her eye told him that if he wanted her to move he'd have to move her.

Pissed off as he was, he wasn't about to go that far.

“I've got things to do,” he said, cutting off the sidewalk to go around her.

“You couldn't even take five minutes,” she said softly. It was the sheer lack of fury in her voice that had him going still. “Five minutes out of your busy day to call her and tell her what happened. She heard it from me, and the way she looked, you'd think I'd punched her right in the gut.”

Guilt grabbed him by the throat and he spun around, already snarling. “Then why the fuck did you tell her?”

“Did you think she wouldn't
hear
?”

If his fury scared or startled her, Taneisha didn't let it show. She closed the distance between them and slammed the heel of her hand against his chest. “Have you
seen
the size of this town, David? It didn't grow much in the past twenty years. What did you think would happen? You'd get shot and nobody would talk about it?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“Or did you think she wouldn't care?” Taneisha's voice was softer this time and the look in her eyes had him wanting to just jerk back. Get away. Put some serious miles between him and those dark, knowing eyes. “That's it, isn't it? Some part of you thought maybe this wasn't that serious for her. If it isn't serious, it wouldn't matter that much to her, right?”

“There's nothing—”

“Don't.” Taneisha shook her head. “You don't look at me and lie to me that way. Maybe on
your
part, you look at it and see nothing. But that's because you're blind. But hey…” She shrugged and turned away. “You got your wish, big guy. You wanted to push her away, you did it. You ripped her heart out and left her feeling like she was nothing—you made her
into
nothing.” A bitter smile curved Taneisha's lips. “Goal accomplished. She's gone now, man. You win.”

When he reached out and caught Taneisha's arm, he didn't know who was more surprised, her or himself. The second she looked back at him, he dropped his hand, barely able to believe he'd even touched her. He was losing his mind. That's all there was to it. He looked at his hand for a second before looking back at her.

“Don't,” he said, barely resisting the urge to rub his hand against his jeans to wipe away the feel of another person's skin on his.

“Don't what?” she challenged. “Don't tell you what you did?”

“That's not…” He stopped, floundering for words. “I don't want her hurt.”

“Hurt?” Taneisha stared at him. Then she shook her head. “You think she's hurt? You ripped her apart. She's loved you for years and you pretty much crushed her. All by not calling.”

He clenched his jaw and averted his eyes, staring out over the river. It was dark and grey, echoing the overcast sky. “What's the fucking problem? I'm not even
hurt
.” Hell, he'd been hurt worse than this by the time he was thirteen.

“The problem is you didn't think about her. Not once.” Taneisha shrugged. “It doesn't matter. She said you two weren't talking and I guess that's a good thing, since this is how you feel about her.”

“You don't know the first thing about how I feel.” The words tore out of him before he even knew they were there. But he couldn't take them back.

A black brow arched over dark, knowing eyes. “Do you?” she countered. Cocking her head, she said, “Let me ask you this: If she was the one hurt, hurt or sick or scared … whatever, and she didn't call you, how would it make you feel?”

Something twisted in his heart and a feeling he knew all too well started to crawl through him. Shame. But this time, he deserved it and he couldn't blame anybody but himself.

“If you two are over, then you're over.” Taneisha started to walk away. “But I don't look at either of you and see somebody who is
over
anybody.”

David dropped down. He hit the ground and curled his arms around his upraised knees, staring at nothing. Vaguely he heard the roar of Taneisha's engine.

Then there was silence.

The noise from town sounded like it came from a tunnel.

Something pricked against his skin, but he ignored it. It was that weird, eerie feeling he'd had a hundred times. Like somebody watched him.

But he didn't care.

All that mattered was what Taneisha had just said … and Sybil.

You ripped her heart out and left her feeling like she was nothing—you made her
into
nothing. Goal accomplished.

“Fuck.” He shoved the heel of his hand against one eye while images swam through his head.

Sybil's eyes, wide with hurt.
The bottom line is you don't want me enough. So fine. It's over.

Are you really going to choose the past over
me?

Somewhere off in the distance, he heard a siren wail.

Slowly, he lifted his head.

A siren.

But instead of rising, he just sat there. And waited.

*   *   *

“Oh, shit.”

Jensen thought she might just get sick.

The uniform who'd been the first on-scene was Officer Luther Gardiner, and while the black man didn't look like he was getting ready to hurl his cookies, he looked pretty tight around the mouth.

Wanly she smiled. “That is a person, right?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Then he grimaced. “Or it was.”

He came closer and she hated to admit it, but he had a stronger stomach than she did. Of course, he'd worked in Louisville for about five years before transferring here. Maybe he was used to scraping people off the pavement. Kneeling down just a few inches away from the bloody mess of pulpy skin, broken bones and blood, he blew out a sigh. “And I hate to say this, but I think it might be Clay Brumley.”

Swallowing back the gorge, she glanced up at Thorpe. He looked as pale as she suspected she was. “Why?”

“The hair.” Gardiner looked at the smashed skull. “Not many people had that reddish mess of curls.”

Jensen had to breathe shallowly as she shifted her gaze to his head. Or what was left of it. If she was careful—looking at him without thinking about
what
she was looking at—she could see wiry ginger curls.

“Okay.”

Backing away, she gave herself a minute. She didn't think she was being weak, not at all. She'd never seen a body so thoroughly destroyed before, save for the four-car pileup they had one New Year's Eve a few years back. A car full of drunken idiots had left Belterra, instead of letting the casino call a cab. They killed themselves and four others. Sorting out the body parts had been something of a nighmare and Jensen still had bad dreams about that.

Hearing the shallow breathing coming from just behind her, she looked over at Thorpe. He'd been on the job for less time than she had, and she realized he hadn't been there for that New Year's crash, either. “If you need a minute,” she advised, “take it.”

“I'll be fine.” He set his jaw, focusing on the wall.

She didn't argue with him.

Her stomach was raw when she turned back to look at the body, the ruin of it.

“Well,” she murmured, shaking her head. “One thing is certain: If he was involved in Cronus, we won't have any shortage of suspects.”

Gardiner slid her a smile grim with dark humor. “That's not helping.”