Divine Evil (20 page)

“More?”

“They want to commission you to create a sculpture that will stand outside the building to celebrate women's contribution to art.”

“I'm going to sit down now.”

“They expect the new addition to be completed in twelve to eighteen months. They'd like some sketches from you before September, and naturally they want you at the opening for press and photo opportunities. Jean-Paul and I will fill you in on all the details when we get there.”

“Get there?”

“We're coming down.” Angie let out a quick sigh. “I'd hoped you would come back up here to work, but Jean-Paul feels we ought to wait until we see what you've been up to.”

Clare put a hand to her head. “Angie, I'm trying to take all this in.”

“Just chill some champagne, Clare. We'll be there Monday afternoon. Is there anything we should bring besides contracts and blueprints?”

“Beds,” Clare said weakly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Jean-Paul will call you for directions tomorrow. Congratulations, girl.”

“Thanks.” Clare hung up, then scrubbed her hands over her face. This was the next step, she thought, the step she'd been working for, the step Angie had been pushing her toward. She only wished she could be sure she was ready.

She worked through the morning and late into the afternoon. When her hands began to cramp, she stopped. It was just as well, she thought. She needed to go shopping, for beds, sheets, towels. All the little niceties guests might expect. She could swing through town, and with luck, Cam would be able to go with her.

Wouldn't that prove she wasn't afraid of where their relationship was heading?

Sure. And burying herself in work all day proved that she wasn't afraid of being offered the biggest commission of her career.

She started upstairs to change and found herself climbing the attic steps again. The door was open, as she'd left it. She hadn't been able to lock it again, to lock the memories away again. Instead, she stood in the doorway and let herself go back. Back to when her father had kept his big ugly desk piled with papers and pictures and gardening books. There had been a cork bulletin board covered with photos of houses and newspaper listings, phone numbers of plumbers and roofers, carpenters and electricians. Jack Kimball had always tried to nudge work along to friends and townspeople.

He'd had an office in town, of course, tidy and organized. But he'd always preferred to work here, up in the top of the house, where he could be accessible to his family. And smell his flowers from the garden below.

There had been stacks of books, she remembered. Along the wall the shelves had been piled with them. Stepping into the room, Clare began to open other boxes, to
go through all the things her mother had packed away but hadn't been able to toss out.

Real estate books, studies in architecture, her father's ratty old address book, novels of Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. There were heavy volumes on theology and religion. Jack Kimball had been both fascinated and repelled by religion. She pushed through them, wondering what had driven him to turn so fiercely back to his childhood faith near the end of his life.

Frowning, she dusted off a dog-eared paperback and tried to remember where she had seen the symbol drawn on its cover before. A pentagram, its center filled with the head of a goat. Its two top points held the horns, the sides the ears, and the bottom tip, the mouth and beard.

“
The Left-Hand Path,”
she read aloud. She shuddered and started to open the book when a shadow fell over her.

“Clare?”

She jolted, dropping the book so that it fell facedown among the others. Without thinking, she moved her hand, shifting another book on top of it as she turned.

“I'm sorry.” Cam stood in the doorway, searching for the right words. He knew being in this room had to cause her pain. “Your car was here-and the radio's on. I figured you were somewhere in the house.”

“Yeah, I was just…” She rose and dusted off her knees. “Going through things.”

“You okay?”

“Sure.” She looked down at the books she'd scattered over the floor. “See, one person can make a mess.”

He laid a hand on her cheek. “Hey, Slim. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Be careful.” She closed her fingers over his wrist. “I'll start leaning on you.”

“Go ahead.” Gently, he drew her to him and rubbed a hand up and down her back.

“I loved him so much, Cam.” She let out a long breath and watched the dust motes dance in the sunlight. “I've never been able to love anyone else like that. When I was little, I used to come up here after I was supposed to be in bed. He'd let me sit in the chair while he worked, then he'd carry me down. We could talk about anything, even when I got older.”

She tightened her grip. “I hated it when he started drinking. I couldn't understand why he would make himself so unhappy, make all of us so unhappy. I would hear him crying some nights. And praying. So lonely, so miserable. But somehow, the next day, he'd pull it all together and get through. And you'd start to believe that it was all going to be okay again. But it wasn't.” Sighing, she pulled away, and her eyes were dry.

“He was a good father, Clare. I spent a lot of years envying you and Blair your father. The drinking was something he couldn't control.”

“I know.” She smiled a little and did what she hadn't been able to do alone. She moved to the window and looked down. The terrace was empty, swept clean. Edging it were the early roses her father had loved.

“I've been through all the groups, all the therapy. But there's one thing none of them could tell me. There's one thing I've asked myself again and again and never found an answer. Did he fall, Cam? Did he drink himself senseless and lose his balance? Or did he stand here, right here, and decide to stop fighting whatever demon was eating at him?”

“It was an accident.” Cam put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

“I want to believe that. I've always tried to, because the
other is too painful. The father I knew couldn't have killed himself, couldn't have hurt my mother or Blair or me that way. But you see, the father I knew couldn't have cheated, couldn't have bribed inspectors and falsified reports the way he did on the shopping center. He couldn't have lied and taken money and broken the law so arrogantly. But he did. And so I don't know what to believe.”

“He loved you, and he made mistakes. There's nothing else you have to believe.”

“You'd understand, better than anyone, what it's like to lose a father when you need one so badly.”

“Yes, I understand.”

She tightened her fingers on his. “I know it might sound odd, but if I could be sure-even if I could be sure he had killed himself-it would be easier than wondering.” She shook her head and managed a smile. “I warned you I'd lean.” She linked her fingers with his, then brought his knuckles to her cheek.

“Any better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Tilting her head, she touched her lips to his. “Really.” “Anytime. Really.”

“Let's go downstairs.” She started out ahead of him but put a hand out when he would have closed the door. “No, leave it open.” Feeling foolish, she went too quickly down the steps. “Want a beer, Rafferty?”

“Actually, I was going to see how you felt about going into town for dinner, maybe a movie, then going back to my place and letting me make love with you for the rest of the night.”

“Well.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “It sounds pretty nice, all in all. One thing, I'm having guests next week, so I have to buy a couple of beds-and a chair, and a lamp or two, some sheets, food-”

He held up a hand. “You want to skip the movie and join the horde at the mall?”

“Well, the mall-and there's this flea market.” She gave him a hopeful smile.

He would have done quite a bit to keep that smile on her face. “I'll call Bud and see if I can borrow his pickup.”

“God, what a man.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him, hard, then dodged before he could make the grab. “I'll go up and change.” The phone rang as she headed for the stairs. “Get that, will you? Tell whoever it is

I'll call back.”

Cam picked up the phone. “Hello.” There was a minute of humming silence, then a click. “They hung up,” he shouted, then dialed Bud.

When Clare came down again, he was standing in the garage, studying the work she had done that day. Nervous, she stuck her hands in the pockets of the long gray skirt she wore.

“What do you think?”

“I think you're incredible.” He rubbed a hand over the polished curve of wood. “These are all so different.” He glanced from the completed metal sculptures to the fisted arm of clay. “And yet they're so unmistakably your work.”

“I guess I should apologize for jumping all over you this morning for having the good taste to buy one of my pieces.”

“I figured you'd get around to it.” Idly, he paged through her sketchbook. “Oh, by the way, I got you that burl.”

“You-the burl?”

“You did want it, didn't you?”

“Yes, yes, very much. I didn't think you remembered. How did you do it?”

“I just mentioned it to the mayor. He was so flattered, he'd have paid you to cut it down.”

She rewrapped the clay in its dampened cloth. “You're being awfully nice to me, Rafferty.”

He set her sketchbook aside. “Yeah, I am.” He turned, studied her. “You clean up good, Slim. I hope to hell you're not a finicky shopper.”

“I'll break the county record.” She held out a hand. “And I'll pop for the champagne we're going to have with dinner.”

“Are we celebrating?”

“I got some news today. I'll tell you about it over dinner.” She started to get into his car, spotted Ernie across the street, and waved. “Hey, Ernie.”

He merely watched her, keeping one hand closed over the pentagram around his neck.

“W
HAT IS THAT SMELL?
”

“That,
ma belle
, is a sweet, pastoral bouquet.” Jean-Paul's grin split his face from ear to ear as he sucked air in through his elegant nose. “Ah, c'est
incroyable.”

“I'll say it's incredible,” Angie muttered and scowled out of the car window. “It smells like horse shit.”

“And when, my own true love, have you ever smelled the shit of a horse?”

“January 17, 1987, in a freezing carriage clopping around Central Park, the first time you proposed to me. Or maybe it was the second time.”

He laughed and kissed her hand. “Then it should bring back beautiful memories.”

Actually, it did, but she took out her purse bottle of Chanel spray and spritzed it in the air anyway.

Angie crossed her long legs and wondered why her husband got such a charge out of looking at grass and rocks and fat, fly-swishing cows. If this was pastoral bliss, give her Forty-second Street.

It wasn't that she didn't like scenery-the view of
Cancun from a hotel balcony, the streets of Paris from a sidewalk cafè, the swell of the Atlantic from a deck chair. But this, while it had a kind of rough, rural charm best viewed in primitive paintings, wasn't her idea of visual stimulation.

“A seelo!”

She glanced over, sighed. “I think it's called a
silo
, though I have no idea why.” Angie settled back while Jean-Paul practiced the pronunciation.

She hadn't minded the drive, really. Jean-Paul was deliciously sexy behind the wheel of a car. She smiled to herself-a purely feminine look of satisfaction. Jean-Paul was deliciously sexy anywhere. And he was all hers.

The fact was, she'd enjoyed driving down the turnpike, windows open, Cajun music blasting. She hadn't felt obliged to offer to take a turn at the wheel, knowing that her husband rarely had the opportunity to put on his cute little cap and leather gloves and let it rip.

Just past exit nine on the Jersey turnpike, they'd gotten a ticket, which Jean-Paul had cheerfully signed-right before he pulled out into traffic again and cranked the Jag up to ninety.

He was happy as a pig in slop, Angie thought, then closed her eyes. She was even thinking in rural analogies.

The last hour of the drive had made her nervous. All those fields, hills, trees. All that open space. She much preferred the steel and concrete canyons of Manhattan. A mugger she could handle-and had-but a rabbit dashing frantically across the road sent her into a panic.

Where was the noise, for God's sake? Where were the people?
Were
there any people, or had they crossed through the Twilight Zone into some version of Orwell's
Animal Farm?

What the hell was Clare thinking of, actually choosing to live in a place where you had cows for neighbors?

She was restlessly twisting the thick gold links she wore around her neck when Jean-Paul gave a whoop and swung the car to the shoulder. Gravel splattered and smoked. “Look! A goat.”

Angie dug in her bag for Excedrin. “Jesus, Jean-Paul, grow up.”

He only laughed and leaned past her to stare through the passenger window at the ratty gray billy goat who was chewing grass. Billy looked as unimpressed as Angie. “You were very fond of goat when I gave you the angora wrap for Christmas.”

“I like my suede jacket, too, but I don't want to pet a sheep.”

He nuzzled his wife's ear, then sat back. “When is the next turn?”

Angie shot him a look. “Are we lost?”

“No.” He watched her gulp down two painkillers and chase them with Perrier straight from the bottle. “I don't know where we are, but we can't be lost because we're here.”

His logic made her wish she had Valium instead of Excedrin. “Don't be perky, Jean-Paul, it only depresses me.”

Angie took out the map and Clare's directions so that they could study them. Her annoyance faded a bit as Jean-Paul massaged the back of her neck. As always, he sensed precisely the right spot to touch.

He was a patient man and an enthusiastic one. In all things. When he had met his wife, she had been the assistant of a rival art dealer with ambition glittering in her eyes. Cool and remote to the most casual of flirtations or the most overt of suggestions, she'd been an irresistible challenge to his ego. It had taken him six weeks to convince her
to have dinner with him, another three frustrating months to ease her into his bed.

There she had not been cool; she had not been remote.

The sex had been the easiest hurdle. He had known she was attracted to him. Women were. He was artist enough to recognize that he was physically appealing, and man enough to play on it. He was tall with a body he cared for religiously with diet and training. The French accent-and his often deliberately awkward phrasing-only added to the attraction. His dark, curling hair was worn nearly shoulder length to frame his bony, intelligent face with its deep blue eyes and sculptured mouth. He wore a thin mustache to accent it and to keep it from appearing too feminine.

In addition to his looks, he had a deep and sincere affection for the female-all of them. He had come from a family of many women and had since childhood appreciated them for their softness, their strengths, their vanities, and their shrewdness. He was as sincerely interested in the elderly matron with blue-tinted hair as he was in the statuesque bombshell-though often for different reasons. It was this openness with women that had led to his success in bed and in business.

But Angie had been his one and only love, though not his only lover. Convincing her of that, and of the advantages of a traditional marriage, had taken him the better part of two years. He didn't regret a minute of it.

His hand closed lightly over hers as he cruised down the two-lane road again.
“Je t'aime,”
he said, as he often did.

It made her smile and bring his hand to her lips. “I know.” He was a precious man, she thought. Even if he could make her crazy. “Just warn me if you decide to pull over for any more goats or other animal life.”

“Do you see the field there?”

Angie glanced out the window and sighed. “How could I miss it? That's all there is.”

“I would make love with you there, in the sunlight. Slowly. With my mouth first, tasting you everywhere. And when you began to shudder, to cry out for me, I would use my hands. Just the fingertips. Over your lovely breasts, then down, inside you where it would be so hot, so wet.”

Four years, she thought. Four years and he could still make her tremble. She slanted him a look and saw that he was smiling. She shifted her gaze downward and saw that he was quite sincere in his fantasy. The field no longer seemed so intimidating.

“Maybe Clare can direct us to a field that's not so close to the road.”

He chuckled, settled back, and began to sing along with Beausoleil.

Because she was too nervous to work, Clare was planting petunias along the walkway. If Angie and Jean-Paul had left New York at ten, as discussed, they would be driving up any minute. She was delighted at the thought of seeing them, of taking them around the area. And she was terrified at the idea of showing them her work and discovering that she'd been wrong.

None of it was any good. She'd been deluding herself because she needed so badly to believe she could still make something important out of a hunk of wood or scraps of metal. It had come too easily at first, she thought. Both the work and the acceptance of it. The only place to go was down.

Do you fear failure, Clare, or success?
Dr. Janowski's voice buzzed in her head.

Both-doesn't everyone? Go away, will you? Everyone's entitled to a little private neurosis.

She pushed all thoughts of her work aside and concentrated on turning the soil.

Her father had taught her how. How to baby the roots, mix in peat moss, fertilizer, water, and love. By his side she had learned how soothing, how fulfilling the planting of a living thing could be. In New York she'd forgotten the pleasure of that and the comfort of it.

Her mind wandered. She thought of Cam, how intense their lovemaking was. Each time. Every time. It was like feeding on the most basic of levels. They went at each other like animals, hungry and feral. She'd never been so, well, lusty with anyone else.

And, God, she thought with a grin, what she'd been missing!

How long could it last? She shrugged and went on with her planting. She knew that the darkest and most intense of passions were supposed to fade the fastest. But she couldn't let it worry her. Wouldn't. However long it lasted would just have to be enough. Because right now it was hard for her to get through an hour without imagining getting her hands on him again.

Lovingly, she patted and firmed the dirt around the red and white petunias. The sun beat strong against her back as she covered the soil with mulch. They would grow, she thought, and spread and bloom until the first frost shriveled them. They wouldn't last forever, but while they did, it would give her pleasure to look at them.

She glanced up at the sound of an engine, then sat back on her heels as Bob Meese pulled his truck into her drive. “Hey, Clare.”

“Bob.” She stuck the spade into the dirt and rose.

“Nice flowers you got there.”

“Thanks.” She spread dirt from her palms to the hips of her jeans.

“Told you I'd bring the lamp on by if I got a minute.”

Her brow wrinkled, then cleared as she remembered. “Oh, right. Your timing's perfect. My friends should be here anytime. Now they can actually have a lamp in their room.”

And what a lamp, she thought, as he pulled it out of the back. It was about five feet high with a bell-shaped red shade, beaded and fringed, on a curving, gilded pole. It looked like something out of a nineteenth-century bordello. Clare sincerely hoped it was.

“It's even better than I remembered,” she said, and tried to recall if she had paid him for it or not. “Could you take it on into the garage? I'll get it upstairs later.”

“No problemo.” He hefted it inside, then stood studying her tools and sculptures. “I guess people pay a bunch for stuff like this.”

She smiled, deciding he was more baffled than critical. “Sometimes.”

“The wife likes art,” he said conversationally as he squinted at a brass and copper sculpture. Modern shit, he thought, sneering inwardly, but as an antique dealer, he knew there was no telling what people would plunk down hard cash for. “She's got this plaster donkey and cart out in the front yard. You do any stuff like that?”

Clare bit down on the tip of her tongue. “No,” she said solemnly. “Not really.”

“You can come on by and take a look at ours if you want some ideas.”

“I appreciate that.”

When he started back toward his truck without giving her a bill, Clare figured she must have paid in advance. He
opened the door, then propped a foot on the running board. “I guess you heard Jane Stokey sold the farm.”

“What?”

“Jane Stokey,” he repeated, hitching a thumb in a belt loop. His mood lifted considerably when he saw he was the first to pass on the news. “Sold the farm-or she's gonna. Word is she might move on down to Tennessee. Got a sister down there.”

“Does Cam know?”

“Can't say. If he don't, he'll know by suppertime.” He wondered if there was any way he could mosey into the sheriff's office and drop the bombshell, real casual like.

“Who bought it?”

“Some hotshot realtor down to D.C.'s what I heard. Must've checked the obits and seen Biff's. Made her a good offer from what I heard. Hope to shit some developer don't plant more houses.”

“Can they do that?”

He pursed his lips, lowered his brows. “Well, now, it's zoned agricultural, but you never know. Money greases the right palms, and that could change quick enough.” He stopped, coughed, and looked away, remembering her father. “So, you, ah, settling in?”

She noted that his gaze had veered upward, toward the attic window. “More or less.”

He looked back at her. “Not too spooky here for you, all alone?”

“It's hard to be spooked in a house you grew up in.” And where all the ghosts were so familiar.

He rubbed at a spot on his side mirror. There'd been a light on in her attic once or twice. Certain people wanted to know why. “I guess with all the stuff you're buying, you're planning on being around awhile.”

She'd nearly forgotten how important it was in small
towns for everyone to know everything. “I don't really have any plans.” She shrugged. “The beauty of being unfettered.”

“I guess.” He'd been fettered too long to understand. Casually, and cleverly, he thought, he wound his way around to his purpose for being there. “Funny having you back here. Makes me think about that first time I took you out. The carnival, right?”

Her eyes went flat, her cheeks paled. “Yes. The carnival.”

“That sure was-” He broke off, as if he'd just remembered. “Jesus, Clare.” Sincerity shone in his eyes as he blinked. “I'm awful sorry. Don't know how I could've forgotten.”

“It's all right.” Her cheeks hurt as she fought with a smile. “It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, a long time. Man, I feel like a jerk.” Awkwardly, he reached for her hand. “It must be rough on you, having people remind you.”

She didn't need anyone to remind her, but managed a restless movement with her shoulders. “Don't worry about it, Bob. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't handle it.”

“Well, sure, but…well,” he said again, “I guess you got plenty to keep you busy. Your statues.” He gave her a sly wink. “And the sheriff.”

“Word travels,” she said dryly.

“That it does. I guess the two of you are hitting it off.”

“I guess.” With some amusement, she noted that his eyes kept cutting back into her garage, toward the sculpture she'd titled
The Inner Beast.
“Maybe Bonnie Sue'd like that to put next to her donkey.”

Bob flushed and shifted his foot. “I don't think it's her style. Can't say I know anything about art, but-”

“You know what you like,” she finished for him. “It's all right if you don't like it, Bob. I'm not sure I do myself.”