Mystery Dance: Three Novels (56 page)

“Let’s just call it ‘right next to impossible.’“

“Works for me. Sounds like we need to do a little digging on Mr. Snead.”

Julia stood, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. Her stomach muscles had clenched without her realizing it. She was on edge, wound tighter than the strings inside a baseball. She wanted to keep moving so the panic didn’t have a chance to swoop down over her.

“We’ll have to leave that job for later. I owe you a lunch, remember,” Julia said, though she herself wasn’t hungry.

“A reporter never turns down a free meal,” Sue said. “It’s a long and honorable tradition.”

Julia smiled at her friend, though their closeness had waned through the geographic distance. Julia would be back in Elkwood this evening, in that strange land of mountains and forests and cold water running over boulders. How different this city was, with its plate glass and steel and asphalt, its teeming strangers. She longed for a breath of the sweet mountain air she’d quickly come to love.

They ate at The E-String, as elegant a lunch counter as Memphis could offer. Sue agreed to do a little background on T.L. Snead, and then asked when Julia and Mitchell were “gettin’ hitched.”

“I don’t know anymore,” Julia said. “He was so supportive for so many years, but lately he’s been acting strange.”

“Honey, I hate to say it, but you haven’t exactly been jumping into his arms every chance you get. Can you really blame him? If guys aren’t getting their pipes cleaned out often enough, they get a little cranky.”

Julia pushed her plate away, her chicken salad half-finished. “I know. I feel awful about it. Six months ago, I couldn’t imagine life without him. He was so kind and supportive. But lately he’s been impatient, trying to rush me into marriage. I just wish he’d understand that once I’m better, I’ll be able to give him all of me.”

“Probably in the meantime, all he wants is a piece of you.” Sue leered and wiggled her eyebrows.

Julia looked outside at the crowded street and the bumper-to-bumper traffic. “He’s too desperate. He wants to own me.”

“A lot of women would kill to have Mitchell own them.”

“That’s one thing that worries me. The more possessive he gets, the more the little warning bells go off in my mind. It’s almost Creepy. Why is he so afraid of letting me get away when he can have any woman he wants? And he said something yesterday that made it sound like I’m important to his financial stability, which is odd since you know how lousy reporters’ salaries are.”

“Maybe Mitchell is more complicated than you think. I hope it works out, though. You deserve to be happy.” Sue glanced at her watch. “Hate to eat and run, but I got to get back to the office.”

Julia had a momentary urge to tell Sue about the ring she had found, but decided against it. She felt as if she was deceiving her friend, but she promised herself that she would tell Sue just as soon as Dr. Forrest found out. The safest place to share secrets was Dr. Forrest’s office, not over a lunch table.

They hugged good-bye on the sidewalk, with Julia promising to e-mail more often. Then Julia caught a cab back to the hotel. She rode the elevator up, distracted by the thoughts of packing for her flight. The hallway was empty and quiet, the business travelers already checked out. As was her habit, she glanced around to ensure she was safe before swiping her key card in the door lock and entering.

The door didn’t close behind her, even though she had given it a shove. Confused, she started to turn.

A whisper at her back.

Movement of shadow.

CREEP.

Ohgodohgodohgod, a Creep for REAL.

Then a hand was over her mouth, encased in a glove that tasted of bitter leather. An arm snaked around her waist, pinning her right arm to her side and knocking her purse to the floor. The door slammed shut.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She tried to scream, but the glove mashed her lips against her teeth.

The arm around her waist tightened like a boa trying to squeeze the life from a rodent.

Her attacker loomed over her, a powerful stack of darkness. Leg muscles tensed against her, his erection pressed hot against her back.

Not a Creep, a rapist. A goddamned RAPIST.

Julia folded her leg backwards, hoping to kick the attacker in the groin, but he was too fast. Her heel struck harmlessly on the side of his calf. The attacker shoved her toward the bed.

God, right here in the hotel room. Not in the damned alley or shadows or dark parking garage. Right here on clean pressed sheets.

Her eyes bulged, dimmed by tears, as she fought to break free, to stand upright and not let the Creep on top of her. He grabbed the front of her shirt, jerked, and two buttons popped to the floor. One of the buttons rolled across the carpet and disappeared under the desk.

This wasn’t happening.

This was
not
happening.

Not to her.

Someone else, not her.

She nearly collapsed as the panic swelled in her throat and joined the gloved hand in suffocating her. The darkness was so tempting. She wanted to grab the edges of those mental shadows and pull them over her head until the rapist was finished. She wanted to disappear like the button had, to be swallowed by the cold, soothing blackness.

God, where are you? If you’re up there, why do you let things like this happen?

No answer.

The rapist drew his hand across the bare skin of her belly, and the glove raked across one of the scars. The pain of memory brought Julia back, fueled a fury that had been building since she was four years old. She couldn’t fight then, not against ropes and two dozen hooded bad people, but she could fight now.

She drove her elbow into the side of the attacker. He grunted but kept his grip around her waist.

He wrapped a leg around hers, trying to force her onto the bed. Her shirt was now fully open, the flesh goose-pimpled by fear. The man grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed roughly. She screamed against the glove, but all that came out was a soft, agonized wheeze.

Julia twisted, evading that horrible, insistent heat. She reached her left hand to grab at his hair, but the man wore a covering of some kind.

A HOOD.

The man’s breath was hot on her ear, rasping in a ragged rhythm. His lips trailed wetly across her neck. A shiver of disgust raced up her spine.

The man pressed her closer to the bed. Her knees bumped against the mattress. She braced her legs as he grabbed for the waist of her skirt.

When his hand was occupied, she attacked. She bent her neck down and suddenly drove the back of her head into his face. Due to his height, she only managed to hit his chin, but the blow gave off a satisfying crack.

The man groaned and his grip eased slightly. Julia took the opportunity to spin, nearly breaking free. Then the arm was around her, crushing more cruelly than before.

As they shifted, Julia saw their reflections in the dresser mirror. Her own pale, frightened face glared back through her tears, the black glove gagging her.

Behind her grappled the man in the hood. It was the gray hood of a jogging pullover, not a hood from her dreams. He wasn’t one of the bad people from the past.

Just a miserable, pathetic, run-of-the-mill Creep.

Maybe that’s your answer, God.

Julia relaxed her legs, letting him hold her full weight for a moment. Then she snapped upright and tried to squirm away. He held her firmly, though, and used the momentum to flop her onto the bed.

He pulled his hand from her mouth, but before she could draw in enough air to scream, he cupped his other hand over her lips. He rolled her onto her side, pinning her between his knees.

Julia flailed her legs as he sat on her thighs, his elbow digging into her chest. She could smell him, sweat and a raw animal scent, and beneath that, a faint, familiar, sweet aroma.

She looked at his face, but saw only the bright glint of eyes through the hood’s opening. He wore some sort of ski mask beneath the hood.

Her free fist pounded his back. She may as well have been punching a sack of mud.

The Creep hissed under his breath, a harsh, evil sound. “Bitch!”

He wrenched her shoulder until she was flat on her back, his palm crushing her lips. The elbow on her chest pressed harder, and Julia thought her ribs would crack. Then the pressure eased and the arm moved away and Julia heard the sound of a zipper.

She wedged her knee toward his crotch. No good. She couldn’t even turn her head away. All she could do was close her eyes, run for the long darkness inside.

Surrender.

Just like always.

The Creep forced her dress up, exposing her panties.

Gloved fingers tugged at the elastic.

No. Surrender isn’t an option this time.

She wriggled, grappling for the edge of the mattress, the headboard, even a pillow. His odor came again, the offal of his lurid excitement. Pungent sweat and–

And cologne.

Jovan Musk.

The brand she’d bought him for Christmas.

Mitchell?

She glanced at the gap of skin between glove and sleeve and saw the Rolex.

Oh my God, it’s MITCHELL.

Mitchell, who could have his pick of smartly dressed, curvaceous beauties, who could go down to his country club in Colliersville and have a woman undressing within the hour. Mitchell, who could afford the highest class of call girl if he wanted to get his rocks off.

Mitchell.

A Creep.

Mitchell must have seen the recognition dawning on her face. She couldn’t disguise the horror, no matter how deeply she fled into the inner darkness. And her anger fueled her, allowed her to twist beneath him, get one knee planted, and simultaneously drive up and away from him.

He bellowed in rage as she slipped from his grasp, her blouse ripping and a button popping free. The slack gained by the torn cloth allowed her to reach the nightstand and grab the neck of the heavy wooden lamp.

Betrayed.

Always goddamned betrayed.

What had she ever done to deserve betrayal?

Easy. She’d opened the door and let someone into her heart. Trust was a sucker’s game.

But her heart was cold now, and so was her nerve.

She slammed the lamp against him, the awkward swing knocking the lampshade against his head and swiping back his hood. The blow stunned him more than hurt him, but Julia seized the opening and spun to her feet, the lamp raised like a club.

You’re throwing a curveball but I’m knocking this bastard out of the park.

This seemed like the absurd but logical conclusion to their eight-year relationship. The final swing in the bottom of the ninth. Bases loaded. And the game was over.

Not from blushing, fumbling first kiss to cold, uncaring abandonment. Rather, the end would be a farewell of malice, a last touch that left scars.

A good-bye that bled.

Mitchell shoved himself to the far side of the bed, perhaps recalling the power of her tennis stroke, or maybe just considering how a bruised face might look in the courtroom next week. She stared into those specks of light that marked his eyes.

Julia worked her jaw sideways, scraping her tongue against her teeth to remove the bitter taste of leather.

“Why?” she asked, not allowing the lamp to dip an inch though it quivered in her anger.

He batted the gray hood back and jerked the ski mask off his head. His always-perfect hair now stood like a shock of dark cornstalks in a field. He rubbed his face in his hands.

“Is that all you ever wanted, you bastard?” she said.

A tremor ran through Mitchell’s muscular shoulders, and she was afraid he was going to renew his attack. Julia thumped the base of the lamp against the mattress, her force punctuating the pain she was ready to deliver. The wood was heavy enough to break bone. She grinned at the thought, and perhaps that scared Mitchell more than the weapon.

When he finally spoke, it was as if he were addressing someone outside the room, some all-hearing ear, though his words were cat quick and mouse quiet. “I just…I can’t afford to lose you.”

Julia made no attempt to cover herself. “You’d rather keep me broken?”

“I’m sorry,” Mitchell said, keeping his gaze on his feet. “After yesterday….”

Julia glanced at the floor. The contents of her purse had spilled across the carpet. The wooden box was plainly visible, the carving of the pentagram delivering a hundred and ten volts to the chest.

The skull ring.

Mitchell’s voice rose, the quick mood shift catching Julia by surprise. “Why did you have to go out there? Why the hell can’t you just forget it all? You’re
mine
, Julia. You belong to me, not the past and those damned hooded people.”

He lifted his face. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. But Julia felt no sympathy, only a shudder of revulsion that she had ever let this pathetic specimen of the male gender hold and kiss her. To think that she had nearly married this creature and spent a life with him.

“I’ll never be yours,” Julia said, surprised by the chilly strength of her words. “Do you want to know why?”

Mitchell looked like his own evil twin, hair wild, fly open, eyes red. Or was this the
real
Mitchell Austin? The one that hid inside the power suits and lurked behind the smug mask of self-righteousness, a control freak who couldn’t even control himself?

His lips moved like those of a hooked fish gasping on a riverbank. Finally, he managed to answer. “Why not?”

“Because there’s no
room
inside your house, Mitchell.”

His mouth fell open. He didn’t speak, but his eyes said, “What the hell?”

Julia got to her feet, pulled her blouse closed and smoothed down her skirt. “You’ve got your house stuffed so full of yourself, there’s no room for anyone else. And I’m not going to live in anybody’s basement.”

Except my own. In that place where bones are buried. But that has nothing to do with this jerk.

Mitchell backed away as if she were the Creep. He zipped himself and tried to gather his slick judicial composure. “Listen, you’re not to going to press charges, are you? I’ve got a lot of friends in the D.A.’s office. You’ll be smeared until you won’t even be able to recognize yourself in the mirror.”