I Can See You (59 page)

He despised a whining woman. His mother had whined.
All the time. Finally, he’d grown tired of her. He imagined the world was weary
of listening to Virginia Fox, too.

Soon, the world would be a little bit quieter.

Thursday, February 25, 1:45 a.m.

Eve lay with her head pillowed on Noah’s shoulder. Her
fingers toyed with the coarse hair on his chest that rose and fell as he slept.

But she was wide awake, mind and body. Noah hadn’t
lied. They’d both enjoyed it a lot more the second time. She shivered,
remembering, mind and body.

A whole lot more.
The first time hadn’t been a dive into a cold pool, as much as a
protracted glide. The second time? Most definitely a dive, fast, furious, and
satisfying.

She stretched sinuously, aware of every well-earned
twinge. It was as if he’d used up all of his slow and gentle the first time.
He’d finally lost control, plunging hard and deep, ruthlessly dragging her
along for one hell of a ride.

When she’d come, she’d felt alive.
Invincible
.
And when he’d come, she’d watched his face and finally felt beautiful again.
Whole
.
For the first time in a very long time.

And now, in the quiet, she wondered if she’d ever have
gotten to this place with anyone else. She thought about Callie’s theory that
she’d trusted him because he was “the one.” Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whether that
was true or not long term, he was definitely the one for now and Eve felt a
gratitude that she suspected he would reject.

Her eye caught a small picture on the nightstand and
gingerly she reached across him to grab it, taking care not to wake him. They’d
turned out the bedroom lights, so she rolled away from him to hold the picture
up to a shaft of moonlight coming through the curtains. It was a woman with a
small child and she felt the slickness of the wood, worn smooth by a caressing
thumb, and she pictured him sitting in his bed staring at the family he’d lost.
Her throat closed and the hope and beauty she’d felt fizzled a little.

He’d never get a family like this again.
Not with
me
.

“That’s Susan,” he said quietly and she jumped. “And
Noah,” he added. “My son.”

She pulled the blankets up to cover herself. He eyed
the movement, his eyes taking on that blank expression she now knew hid his
heart.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said as he sat up,
pushing a pillow behind his head.

“I wasn’t asleep. I was just enjoying holding you. It
was a long time coming.”

“Yes, it was.” She held out the picture and he took
it, his eyes still blank.

“Susan was a clerk in ballistics,” he said. “I’d just
finished the academy, and didn’t have a hundred dollars to my name. Somehow,
she was still interested in me.”

Eve’s throat tightened. She had no problem visualizing
any woman falling for Noah Webster.
I did, the first time I saw him.
“She was beautiful. So was Noah, Jr.”

He smiled then, wryly. “Noah the fifth. Poor kid.”

His smile loosened the vise around her throat, just a
little. “So your mother wasn’t being professorial when she named you Noah
Webster. I wondered.”

“My mom can’t spell ‘professorial’ without Webster’s
dictionary,” he said, genuine affection in his voice. “She’s a smart woman, but
can’t spell to save her life. There’s no actual family connection to the
dictionary Noah, other than some great-great way back who thought it was a name
with stature.”

“It is,” she said. “And it suits you.”

“It’s my name, like it or not. Mom had to name me
Noah, and I had to name him Noah.” He studied the picture with a sigh. “I
thought my life was over when I lost them.”

He seemed to want to talk, so she obliged. “You said
there was an accident.”

“Yeah. Stupid teenager driving a car packed with his
friends, coming home from a football game. The radio was too loud and they were
having too much fun. Ran a red light. I swerved to avoid them, skidded on some
ice, ran off the road, rolled down a hill.”

He’d recited the story as if it were a police report.
“And the stupid kids?” she asked.

“They fled the scene, but one of my friends from the
force caught up with them later.”

Beneath the blankets she felt cold and pulled her
knees to her chest. “And then?”

“We’d landed upside down and I’d been knocked out
cold. When I came to, Susan was bleeding out, begging me to wake up, to help
the baby. But it was too late.” He swallowed hard and deliberately put the
picture back on his nightstand. “I heard her voice in my mind for a very, very
long time.”

Eve’s cheeks were wet. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No. Didn’t change the end though.”

She rested her chin on her knees. “Winters is like a
bad song that won’t get out of my mind. He died in prison. Some con stabbed him
in the showers.”

“I know. I’m glad, because I would have been tempted
to do it myself.”

He was totally serious and bizarrely that made her
feel safe. “The day I found out he was dead, everyone had gathered at Caroline’s,
you know, Tom’s mother. They were having a picnic. I wouldn’t go, so Dana
stayed home with me. I couldn’t face anyone.”

“Understandable.”

“Perhaps. I wonder what would have happened if someone
had shoved me out of the house that day. If I’d have hidden in the dark for so
long.”

“You can’t second-guess, honey. Trust me, I did it for
a long time. And every time I’d just find myself staring at the bottom of an
empty bottle.”

“You’re right. I know that and I’m not blaming anyone.
Except maybe myself.”

“Well, that needs to stop, here and now.” He swiped at
her wet cheeks with his thumb. “You beat him, Eve. You survived.”

“So did you.”

“Barely, and with a lot of help from my family, but I
did. And here we are.”

So where will we go?
Eve looked across him to the picture of the beautiful family he’d
lost. “I can’t give you a family like you had.”

His jaw tightened. “And I told you that didn’t
matter.”

“And I still don’t believe you. You’re such a good
man. You should be a dad. I just wanted you to know that if you change your
mind… that it’s okay. I’d understand.”

Even in the darkness she could see his eyes flash.
“Eve, you are really pissing me off.” Abruptly he slid down, lying flat on his
back, glaring up at the ceiling. Then he sighed. “Are you going to sit over
there all by yourself all night?”

“Probably not,” she said cautiously.

“Come here.” He waited until she complied, settling
her head against his shoulder. “You might decide you don’t want me,” he said
pragmatically, although she heard the vulnerability in his voice. “Some young
guy comes along… you may decide that’s what you want. We can’t know what will
happen, Eve. For now, this is what we have.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “For now,
this is what I want.”

Too many emotions shifted in his eyes for her to read
any of them. “Good,” he said. “Now go to sleep. I have it on good authority
that you can only live one day at a time.”

She cuddled closer, her palm resting atop the coarse
dark hair that covered his chest. She was absurdly happy he had a hairy chest.
It wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d experience, this tickling against
her palm, the feel of his heart beating steadily beneath her fingertips. The
smell of a man as she nuzzled, satisfied. And she realized she was simply,
absurdly happy.

“Eve?”

“Hmm?”

“What was it like to die?”

She lifted her head to look into his face, unsurprised
to find his green eyes blank, waiting. “I’m sure it’s different for everyone.”

“What was it like for you?”

Her eyes flickered to the photo. How excruciating to
know those he loved most were in pain, be forced to hear his wife’s desperate
cries, and be helpless to save them.

“It…” She searched for the right word. “It lured.
Come. Rest. I wasn’t afraid, but I was angry. I was only eighteen and I didn’t
want to go. I flatlined twice. The time in between I could hear the medics
yelling to stay with them and I wanted to scream, ‘
I’m trying
.’ It was
then I became afraid. It was like… quicksand and I couldn’t get footing and it
all slipped away again. The second time was harder. I wanted to just rest. But
I fought. And I made it back. I hope that’s what you wanted to hear.”

“I always hoped she wasn’t afraid,” he said hoarsely.
“But I wanted her to fight.”

Eve brushed her fingertips over his cheek. “Did she
love you?”

“Yes.”

He said it with an assurance that made her eyes sting.
“Then I’m sure she fought. But when she was too tired to fight anymore, I’m
sure she felt safe. As did your son.”

He swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

She kissed him, softly. “You’re welcome.” She’d
started to slide back to his shoulder when his hands gripped her face, pulling
her back to his mouth for more, and she gave it to him, in seconds the kiss
exploding. He grabbed her hips and, as in the backseat of his old car, swung
her over to straddle him.

“Please.” The word ground from his throat as he ate at
her mouth. It was he who begged this time and Eve felt powerful. The first time
he’d been patient, the second he’d lost control, but this time he needed her.

He was suddenly, fully aroused and Eve lowered herself
onto him, taking him inside her. Her breath caught when his fingers dug into
her hips, bringing her down hard, making her feel every inch of him. She sat
back, and he went deeper still.

“You feel so good,” she whispered, hissing out a
breath when his hands covered her breasts and she began to move. He matched the
frantic rhythm of her hips, her name a chant on his lips as he begged her not
to stop.

She couldn’t stop. It was a wave, an incredible
towering wave, and she rode its crest until he groaned, rearing up to close his
mouth over her breast, hungrily suckling, his hands hard on her back pressing
her down, his body twisting up.

Then the wave broke and she cried out. She wrapped her
arms around his head and held him close as she rode it in, barely hearing his
cry as his body went rigid, jerking against her. His shoulders sagged and he
buried his face between her breasts, his muscles twitching as he came back to
earth with her.

Without a word he sank back against his pillow,
bringing her with him, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. A
laugh bubbled up and out of her, a purely happy sound of delight. “Are you
always so… functional, Detective Webster?”

“No.” He pressed a weary kiss to the top of her head.
“You’re good for me, Eve.”

And somehow it was that simple. That easy. “You’re
good for me, too.” Her arms slid around his neck and his hands moved down her
back to close over her butt possessively, kneading so very gently. And finally,
sleep came.

Thursday, February 25, 3:15 a.m.

He let out a shuddering breath mixed with a groan.
God.
After killing Virginia Fox, he’d needed that. His heart pounding in his chest,
he released the throat he clutched and sat back, staring at the woman on the
narrow, filthy bed in his basement. He didn’t know her name and he didn’t care.

He climbed off her, his body still twitching in
climax. He’d nearly lost it at Virginia’s house, holding on by a mere thread as
he’d silenced her for eternity. Because it hadn’t been Virginia’s face he saw,
but Eve’s. He’d imagined it to be Eve’s throat, Eve’s terror.

As he’d dressed Virginia, staged the scene, then
hoisted her body onto the hook in her ceiling, his hands had been shaking like
a schoolboy’s. But he’d maintained control, even as he’d completed the final
detail on his final victim. The pièce de résistance.

He had finished with Virginia, finished with his six,
but a fire had raged within him, his mind churning too violently to think. So
he’d driven blindly into the city, chosen another that no one would miss. Now,
he could think again. He looked at the dead stranger in his bed. Soon, he
wouldn’t have to pretend to see Eve’s face. Soon it would be Eve in that bed,
her terror that propelled him upward.

Tomorrow, he’d have the look on Webster’s face when he
gazed up into Virginia’s face. The sight of her remains would remain in the
cops’ minds for a very long time. They would feel responsible. They’d been so
certain that they understood him, that they could predict him. That they’d
warned the potential victims.

They knew nothing. It would eat at them, taking apart
their confidence brick by brick.

It had been a good night. Once he cleaned up, he could
go home and sleep. He was tired, but it was a good tired. The sixth of his six
was finished. The Hat Squad would be exposed for their hubris and incompetence.
And he would relax and enjoy the show.

He pulled back the concrete slab and frowned. He’d
have to lay off for a while after this. Apparently too many bodies at the same
time slowed the process. He grimaced at the sight of Jeremy Lyons’s hand poking
up out of the layer of dirt and lime.