Just Fall (12 page)

This particular murder showed remarkable care and forethought. The bedroom and bath were wiped down, devoid of prints. The lip had been removed some time after death, which would seem to negate a crime of passion. It also created less mess. Had the murderer known the blood would cease to pump, so that the mouth, normally an area prone to heavy bleeding, would create less blood flow? But why would a killer care if the victim bled less
after
death?

The woman to whom the hotel room had been registered was one Eleanor Larrabee, of New York City, described by the hotel staff as a blonde. Unfortunately Miss Larrabee has not surfaced elsewhere on the island since Carter Williamson’s body was found. By the time they were looking for her, hours had passed since the time of death. She could have flown out, or been a passenger on one of the many cruise ships that dock here each day. Eleanor Larrabee
could
be the person who stabbed Williamson to death, but nothing Lucien has been able to find out about her adds much strength to this theory. He has run her information through a contact in New York and learned that Eleanor Larrabee is a playground designer from New York, quite recently married, supposedly honeymooning in Bali. Lucien suspects identity theft, even as he flags the name with customs and immigration—if indeed the blonde is the killer at all. One has to keep an open mind. After all, a man and a blonde could end up in a hotel room for any number of reasons. More often than not, the reason isn’t premeditated murder.

It was night. Ellie slept peacefully, her hair spread across the pillow, her body curled into a fetal position, her breathing even and slow. Rob watched her sleep. Gently stroked a wisp of hair from her cheek. God, she was beautiful. And God, was he fucked.

He was in love with her. The thing he knew he should never have allowed had happened—he had let someone in.

Ellie sighed and turned, burrowing deeper into the bed. Rob got up and walked out of the bedroom, letting her sleep. He was resigned to sleeplessness. Try as he might, he struggled to sleep with Ellie in the bed. Years of building walls, paranoia, and necessary loneliness kept him in a state of perpetual monitoring. He was exhausted, but also used to operating on fumes.

As he poured himself a cognac, carrying it onto the small terrace of his apartment, he asked himself how he had let it all go so far. There had been that first date. The banter that had come so easily, the sense of connection he had felt instantly with her and that had rocked him to the core. He had been so careful up until this point. He had moved frequently, blindly following Quinn’s instructions about where he was supposed to go and who he was supposed to be once he got there. He never allowed any relationship to go too far, taking care of his needs, both animal and emotional, on a surface level only.

Ironically, he well knew his very distance served as catnip to some women. His refusal to allow intimacy was a siren call that only drew them deeper toward him, which more often than not resulted in anger and tears. He stoically withstood any and all such onslaughts—there was nothing he could say. These women were right—he was aloof, emotionally unavailable, unwilling or unable to let them in.

But then Ellie came along. He walked her home after that first date. Their conversation had rippled and spun, they found humor in the same things, discovered they agreed on all the important basics: Indian food, yes, indies over mainstream movies, coffee as an essential food group. Of course, even as he engaged in the data mining that is part and parcel of early dating, he was aware that he was presenting a fiction, that even to this girl with whom he connected so easily, he must never reveal who he really was. But still. There was something that linked them. By the time they had gotten back to her apartment building, he knew he didn’t want to say good night.

Outside the building, she paused. “This is me.”

“Really? You’re an apartment building? How’s that working out for you?”

Her lips quirked. “Not too bad. The tenant in 4G has an unfortunate tap dance addiction that has wreaked havoc on my parquet flooring, but other than that, my life as a building has been pretty chill.”

He looked up at the rows of windows, wondered which set was hers. Wanted more than anything to take her up to her apartment even though he knew he was fast spiraling into dangerous ground. He realized she was watching him, that delicious pink tongue once again darting out to skim her lips.
Walk away,
his brain screeched, right before he reached for her and kissed her.

The kiss was explosive. They melted into each other, lost in the thrilling new sensations of unfamiliar lips and tongues. The street faded away, the rumble of traffic disappeared, everything in the entire world narrowed down to the feel of this delicate-looking but surprisingly sturdy woman, the taste of her mouth (both sweet and salty), the brush of her blond hair against his cheek. He felt his prick grow hard and pulled away slightly so she wouldn’t feel the pressure of his erection against her. To his surprise she pulled him closer, subtly shifted her body into his, let herself shift back slightly so he could tilt her head and kiss her even more deeply.

Finally, as if it had been rehearsed, they both pulled away at precisely the same moment, their breathing shaky. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, he was unwilling to let her go.

“Well,” she said. She traced the scar above his eyebrow with a fingertip.

“Exactly my thought,” he replied hoarsely.

Suddenly she seemed to take stock of herself. She stepped back, slipping away from his hands.

“Look,” she said, “I’m not so good at this part. I had a really nice time tonight, but I’m not going to ask you up, and I just want to be clear about that.”

“I wasn’t expecting to come up.”

“Oh.” She seemed a little disappointed.

“But I would like to see you again. Are you free tomorrow?”

The look of slight disappointment on her face transformed to a look of delight. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

In the seemingly endless hours before he was to see her again, she tantalized his thoughts. Her hair, her scent, the curve of her waist. The press of her body against his, her laugh, her clever mind. He felt light-headed with excitement when he saw her waiting outside the agreed-upon restaurant.

They ate Indian food and drank beer; conversation was effortless, the laughs plentiful. She kept surprising him. Her wit was sly, her sense of confidence palpable. She had strong opinions about current events and a real passion for her work designing playgrounds for a small firm that specialized in green construction.

At one point in the evening, as their conversation zinged and buzzed and tingled, Rob observed to Ellie that they had brain speed. Without missing a beat, she agreed, “We do, don’t we?” Rob felt his shell splinter. Brain speed. His own private term for the rare instances when conversation with another person was so much on the same wavelength that all awkward pauses disappeared and the flow of words ebbed and eddied, peaked and drifted, dipped and crescendoed at an identical pace. The fact that she understood the term without explanation seemed just another example of how extraordinary their connection was. But as he relaxed with her more and more, his brain fired electric neon hazard warnings. He fought to quell them. Why wasn’t he entitled to love and companionship? Why couldn’t he have the things so many others took for granted?

He emerged from his thoughts to find Ellie studying him quizzically.

“Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m right here.” He reached across the table and took her hand. He looked deeply into her eyes and had the sensation he was free-falling from a great height. Nothing had ever felt like this. Without another word, he signaled for the check. They left the restaurant and he put his arm around her shoulders. They fell into step with each other, as easily as if they had done it a million times before. At the corner they turned to each other and kissed. The urgency that arose in both of them was crazy—crazy good, crazy scary. By the time they were in the lobby of her building their hands were everywhere, their clothes loosening. A button popped off his shirt and landed on the tile floor with a ping.

As they pushed open the front door of her apartment after a frustrating fumble with the keys, he lifted her, and her legs wrapped around his waist, her small shoulder bag bouncing and swinging against her ass. He carried her, kissing her, not looking where he was going and not caring. The first room he found was the tiny kitchen and he sat her down on the little table. She watched him, her eyes wild, her hair mussed. She kicked off her shoes and yanked up her skirt, impatiently tearing at her tights until they puddled on the floor. Then she sat back a little, her bare legs open just a hint, her creamy white thighs an invitation.

“We need to be safe.”

For a second he was bewildered. Had she somehow read his mind? Did she too know that safe was the last thing he was? But, no, she reached into her little bag, which was now on the table beside her, and pulled out a condom.

Relief flooded him. And the rush of that relief coupled with the heat of his desire left the events that followed a strange pastiche of sharp, discrete memories: the surprising sight of her strawberry-blond, neatly trimmed bush, darker than her hair color, the feel of her small breasts with their large nipples, kissing the jagged little scar that ran along her left hip, the feel of her mouth on his neck, on his belly, on his cock. How free she was with her body and with his.

Now they stood facing each other. A pause. An assessment. How far had they gone? How far were they going? She was naked; he still wore his button-down shirt. She slid it off his shoulders so they were both completely bare.

He laced his fingers through hers. Raised her hands above her head. Backed her against the wall, pinning her there, kissing her, hungry. Overpowering her, on the edge of domination, the brink of violence. He pulled away, teasing her, reassuring himself. She linked her arms around his neck. He wanted to look into her eyes, he was afraid to, he had to, he did.

She met his gaze evenly, openly. Fearlessly.

He saw intelligence and thoughtfulness, wit and spark, frank confidence and also vulnerability. The unasked but potent question:
If I let you in, will you hurt me?

It was too much for Rob. He dived to kiss her again, then turned her to face the wall. He entered her from behind, rough. She softly bit his thumb. She boldly reached between her own legs to rub her clit as he thrust into her. Their rhythm increased. And then he was grabbing her hair when he came silently. The weeping sound, he realized, was Ellie, coming right along with him. It was sacred. It was profane. It was dirty and dangerous, wondrous and exalted.

Afterward, she took his hand and led him to her bedroom, gestured at the adjacent bathroom as if to say, “it’s right there if you need it,” and then took him into her bed. She fell asleep almost immediately. He lay there next to her, thinking how improbable and impossible this was, thinking that he had always believed that people are attracted to each other because they recognize each other’s pain, and what did that mean about her? Because his pain was deep and wide, his past dark and ugly, and all of it tucked into a secret compartment that was rarely, if ever, opened.

So what was in her secret compartment that made her feel like home to him?

He looked at her delicate neck, crooked on a soft down pillow. So exposed. So fragile. He caressed it with his strong fingers. His large hand circled her throat. He could snap her bones. That would solve the problem, just like that. It wouldn’t be the first time. He snatched his hand away, unnerved by the black smoke drifting virulently through his brain. He was a monster.

He contemplated stealing back into the kitchen, gathering his clothes, and easing away into the night. He would be quiet; she wouldn’t even know he was gone until she woke.

Then he reached a tentative hand back toward her and cradled her skull gently, her silken hair and the smooth skin of her forehead, willing himself to be tender, to be loving, to be kind. She made him want to feel these things. They were desires alien to him, drawn from some murky, deep place, terrifying, thrilling. He watched the shallow rise and fall of her breasts, the ripple of her eyes beneath their almost translucent lids, the blue vein that pulsed next to her seashell of an ear. He should walk away. He knew this. He also knew that he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He must. He stayed.