Fade To Midnight (52 page)

Kev tugged at her arm. “Come on. Let's go rest.”

He led her out into the night. The soft, rustling chill of the forest surrounded them. Her shoes crunched on the spongy carpet of pine needles, but Kev's feet made no sound. She didn't have the strength to wonder how he did it. It was all she could do not to fall on her face.

The cabin was simple and spare. Inside was just a big king-sized bed with a comforter and a few pieces of furniture. Kev locked the door, peered out the windows, threw open cabinets until he found a pile of towels. He tossed one to Edie. “Want a shower?”

She wondered if she could stay on her feet that long, and decided being clean and fresh was worth it. Once under the stream of hot water, she took longer than she'd meant to and when she came out, her hair twisted into a tangled wet rope, Kev was stripping the sheets off the bed.

She was startled. “You have the energy to change sheets?”

“You think I'm going to let my woman sleep on sheets that another naked man has wallowed in? No fucking way.”

She snorted with laughter. “Mr. Rigorous Hard-ass is back. I was wondering when he was going to show up.”

“He's never far away,” Kev said curtly. “And I'll warn you. It's not going to get better. I'll probably get worse with age. And the more I care, the worse it gets. So brace yourself.”

If we live that long.
They both left it unsaid, but it rang in the silence like an iron gong.

“Shouldn't we be coming up with some sort of plan?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I'm done in,” he said. “Maybe you'll have a psychic vision that'll give us an idea. We need all the help we can get.”

“It doesn't work like that,” she said snappishly. “I told you. It's not a precision instrument. It's more like a kick in the head.”

“Whatever.” His voice was thick with weariness.

She moved to help with the bed, and they worked together silently. Kev tossed the comforter on top, and grabbed another towel. “I'm as rank as a goat,” he said. “Get into bed, so you don't get chilled. And be ready to talk, when I get out of the shower.”

“About what?”

His blazing gaze rocked her backwards. “About why you sneaked out of your dad's house and went to the Parrish Foundation building all by yourself,” he said. “I'm real interested in your motivation for that.”

The bathroom door clicked shut behind him.

Edie sat down on the edge of the bed, chilled to the bone by his tone of voice. She waited, her back very straight.

He finally came out, and carefully did not look at her. She waited, while he dried off. He was covered with scrapes, bruises, scabs. He checked the gun he'd laid on the bedside table. Peered out the window. Sidestepping the can of worms he'd opened.

“Stop stalling. Finish what you started,” she said. “You asked what I was doing at the Parrish Foundation. It's not obvious?”

“No,” he said. “The rest of the world thinks that I'm a kidnapper, brainwasher, and killer. What I want to know is if you thought that, too.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “But I…no!”

“Then why did you go to the Parrish building? You didn't know about Des and Ava. We hadn't even spoken yet. But you knew there was a killer out on the loose. So why run out into the dark by yourself, just to verify what I said? Were you having doubts about me?”

She shook her head frantically. “No! I just wanted to see for myself that the boxes were there, like your text message said!”

“So my word wasn't enough for you?”

She bristled with outrage. “Well, it certainly isn't enough for the police! I wanted proof I could show to Detective Houghtaling! I wanted her to see that it was a trap! I sent her fifteen pictures, much good it did me. Now she thinks I set up the scene myself.”

But Kev was not to be sidetracked. “Were you relieved?”

She tightened the towel and stood up. “Yes,” she said flatly. “I was. I was so relieved, I cried. OK? Happy now? Satisfied?”

“So you did doubt me.”

Edie felt lost. The look in his eyes, so faraway and cold, made him seem like a stranger. Hard and closed to her. She shook her head.

He took a step toward her, fists clenched. “You actually thought that I would seek you out, fuck your brains out, lie to you, use you, and then murder your father. Oh, and don't forget the violent kidnapping attempt I arranged, to terrify you into bonding with me.”

“If I thought that, I wouldn't have gone anywhere,” she told him crisply. “I certainly wouldn't be here with you now. I'd have stayed home, and done as I was told. How dare you criticize me?”

He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Imagine how I felt when Bruno told me he'd left you at your dad's house. How I felt while I was being mind-fucked by Cheung. While she was telling me what she had planned for you. How much fun it was going to be.”

“I had to go to Ronnie. That was not a bad decision,” she insisted. “That was necessary! You'd have done the same!”

He ignored that. “Then I find you in the Parrish building, alone, with Marr stalking you. Yeah, Edie. I do dare to criticize that decision.”

She flung her arms up. “So sue me! I'm doing the best I can! I wanted evidence to clear you, for the police! I was trying to help, and if that isn't enough for your hard-ass rigorous high standards, then fuck you, too, Kev! Fuck you too!”

They stared at each other. Both were breathing hard.

“So here it is,” Edie said, her voice tight. “Our first real fight. The moment of truth. I warned you, Kev. I told you from the top that I'm not a shining angel. I'm a normal person. I make bad calls, dumb decisions, but I'm doing my best, and I deserve a goddamn break!”

His mouth twitched. “So I'm not the righteous superhero, either?”

“You certainly are not,” she said sharply. “You're unfair and suspicious and negative and mean and horrible.”

His face was a hard mask. “Yeah, well. It's been a tough day.”

“Tough?” She laughed. “That's your excuse? You want to do a tough day one-up-manship? Go ahead. Shoot the starting gun, Kev. Let's see who comes out ahead.”

He snorted. “That could get ugly.”

“It's already ugly,” she replied.

Kev sat down on the bed, and dropped his face into his hands. He stayed there, motionless, until she wanted to pound on him. “Goddamnit, Kev. Stop that,” she begged. “Look at me. Finish this!”

He looked up. The raw pain in his eyes made her chest seize up. “How could you think that about me?” His voice was thick. “I thought you knew me. It was the first time I ever…ah, fuck it. Never mind.”

Manipulative bastard, wringing her heart like a dishrag. “Don't you dare make me feel guilty, on top of everything else!” she yelled.

But he kept looking at her as if she'd just driven a knife into his chest. “Stop it, Kev!” she yelled. “Just…stop looking at me like that!”

He broke eye contact, looked at the floor. Which was no better.

“I will say this much,” she finally offered, her voice wobbling. “I do know you, Kev. All except for that part of you that nobody knew. The part you didn't know yourself. I wondered if that hidden part might…” She dragged in air and forced herself to finish. “…might have another agenda. I thought it for, oh, a minute and a half. Then I got over it.”

“What, like a split personality?”

“It occurred to me,” she admitted. “Briefly. That's all.”

“I'm not a killer,” he announced. “I remember everything, after what happened with Ava. I broke that wall down.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Do you think I'd be here if I didn't?”

He lifted his head, and stared past her, like he was bracing himself. “My father was a paranoid schizophrenic,” he said.

She was taken aback. She struggled with it, her mind blank. “Ah. Wow. I'm, ah, sorry about that,” she faltered.

“I'm not asking you to be sorry. I just thought you should know. In case it's a problem for you. There's a genetic component, you know. I was raised by him, with my brothers. In complete isolation. Homeschooled. He died when I was twelve. It was a bizarre upbringing.”

“It can't be much more bizarre than my own,” she said quietly.

His chest jerked. “That's a generous way of looking at it.”

“We're not to blame for our parents' insanity,” she said. “It's hard enough to take responsibility for our own.”

“I've been trying to do that for eighteen years,” he said.

She let out a careful breath. “You did a fine job,” she ventured.

“You think so?” He raised his eyes to hers, bright with challenge. “Then draw me again. Draw me right now.”

Her legs gave out. She sat down, heavily. “Kev. Please. I don't know what you're trying to prove, but you don't have to—”

“Do it, Edie.” His voice had that metallic edge it got sometimes, when things were dangerous.

“I don't even have paper or pencil,” she hedged.

“There's paper on the dresser,” he said. “There's a ballpoint pen next to the phone. Make do with those. Just do it.”

She stared at his masklike face. “What do you want from me?”

He held out the paper and pen, with a clipboard that lay beside the printer. “Trust,” he said.

The anger in his voice made her shiver. She took the clipboard and the pen, and sank down onto the cold floor, cross-legged. The towel fell from her body. Icy water dripped from her hair. She was careful to position the paper so it wouldn't get wet. Wet paper sucked.

“Get dressed first, if you're cold,” he said.

“Oh, how generous,” she muttered. “Let's just get this over with.”

She gazed at his face, and began to draw. The image took form swiftly, the stark bones of his face, the shadowy intensity of his eyes.

But her inner eye did not open. The mysterious harmonics did not swell and come into focus. She kept drawing, waiting. It didn't happen.

Her pen paused, as a flash of insight suddenly revealed what the problem was. She almost laughed, but it just wasn't funny. “You're too angry,” she told him. “You're jamming the airwaves.”

He didn't reply. His throat bobbed, as he swallowed hard.

“You want trust from me, but you don't trust me back,” she said.

She got up, laying the drawing down on the dresser. The cold space between them felt vast. This was stupid, and she was having none of it. She walked over to him. Touched his face, tenderly.

He turned away, avoiding her touch. “Try fucking me, then.”

She jerked her hand back like she'd been stung. “Excuse me?”

“You said once that your psychic communion thing happened when we had sex,” he said. “So let's try it. I'm all for that.”

He was. It was impossible for him to hide, being stark naked. His cock had swelled out, long and reddened. His eyes were hot with lust.

She took another step back, oddly unnerved. “I don't think so.”

He gazed at her body. The heat of his hunger licked across her skin, like tender flames. She could feel its buzzing, ticklish electric pressure against her skin. His energy was so powerful, even when he slammed his doors shut. And in spite of the violence and death and danger, she wanted him, too. Angry as he was, he was real and warm and solid. He was Kev, behind that thick wall, and she ached for him.

But she'd be damned if she'd make it easy for him. Arrogant dog. How dare he. She turned her back on him, walked around to the side of the bed, and slid under the coverlet, turning her back to him.

Silence stretched for several minutes. She lay there, eyes frozen wide. The weight of his gaze was like a hot hand on her body.

“Freezing me out?” he asked softly.

“No, Kev. That's what you did to me. This is the result.”

The bed shifted as he got into it. He slid across the mattress, and grabbed her, pulling her back against his body. “I'll melt you, then.”

She stifled a moan of delight at the contact of his body. So warm. Her skin shimmered with pleasure, everywhere that his skin touched hers. She shook in his arms, racking spasms, as if she were coming.

Kev nuzzled his face in her damp hair. His cock pressed against her thigh, hot and insistent. “This is a switch,” he said. “Usually I'm trying to resist, and you're coaxing me. Against my better judgment.”

“It's time I stopped acting like an eager little puppy,” she said. “Those days are over. No more begging and pleading.”

He parted the hair on her neck, pressed his warm lips to the back of her neck. “I can beg and plead, too.”

“Beg away. See how much I care.”

His lips were so soft, moving over her nape. His hand stole around to cup her breast, and the other slid underneath her, in the curve of her waist, sliding over her thigh to cup her mound. His fingers stroked the seam of her vulva, delicately seeking out her clit.

She shivered, trying not to whimper. Not fair. He came at her from every direction. Overwhelming her with his hot, urgent embrace, his soft kisses, fingertips caressing and circling, teasing her open.

She was racked with unreleased tension, thighs locked, but the hot liquid rush of arousal betrayed her. Kev slid his finger into her slick well of lube, thrusting, petting. A growl of triumph vibrating his chest.

He dragged her closer, so his glans touched her labia from behind, an urgent, pleading caress against her softness. Sweet, coaxing kisses to her nape made her shiver and squirm, softening even more.

She didn't mean to let him do it, but a little pushing and wiggling, and his cockhead nudged just inside her slick folds, rubbing and caressing, bathing in her liquid warmth while his fingers worked her from the front. She was wound so tight, like wires about to break, but he was tender, relentless. Insisting.