Quiet as the Grave (21 page)

It wasn't fair. How was she supposed to protect herself against that?

“Suzie,” he said again. He moved her hair off her shoulders, then ran his hands down her neck, from her jaw to the edge of her shoulder where she had that bony tip because she was too skinny. It gave her goose bumps.

He dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her closer. “Don't be angry,” he said. “I don't want to fight right now.”

“Oh, yeah?” She refused to soften her spine, although his hands were so warm they almost decided the matter by melting her from the inside out. “What do you want to do?”

His eyes were dark. “I want to make love to you.”

Oh, no
.

But her body was already saying yes. She hadn't given her backbone permission to bend, but suddenly she was up against him.

“Why?” She concentrated on a spot on the wall behind his right ear. If she looked right at him, she'd be a goner.

He laughed, and bent down to kiss her neck.

“I mean why right now?” She tilted her head away. “I'm serious.”

He looked at her with a half smile. He didn't look
cocky, exactly, but he didn't look terribly worried, either. He knew what he did to her, damn him. He'd always known.

“I'm not sure,” he said, and to her surprise his voice was husky and gentle. “Maybe because we've been finding so much ugliness, and I need something beautiful. Or maybe I finally just ran out of willpower. I've been using it up pretty fast these past couple of weeks.”

The honesty of his answer caught her off guard. She did feel herself melting a little, and then suddenly he was kissing her neck. Over and over. He slid behind her ear, behind her hair, then came back to the pulse under her jaw.

Shivers of delight ran down her body in overlapping waves.

She shut her eyes. Maybe if she pretended she was dreaming, she could let this wonderful thing happen. Maybe if she just didn't fight it…

But then he stopped. He took her face between his hands. “Open your eyes,” he said.

When she did, she nearly drowned in the dark beauty of his gaze. She made a sound…she was helpless, damn him. She couldn't have moved away from him now, no matter what the cost.

He brushed her mouth with his thumbs. “Do you want this to happen?”

She closed her eyes and tried to catch his thumb between her lips. It was torture, this soft touch that was so disturbing, and yet so clearly not enough.

“Do you?”

She leaned toward him. Let her body say what needed to be said. This wasn't about words. It was about hands, and mouths, and bodies burning with need.

But he wouldn't let her get close enough. His hands stilled on her face

“Damn it, Suzie, look at me.”

She opened her eyes one more time. “What do you want me to say? You know I want you, how could you not know that? Do I have to say it, too?”

“Yes,” he said. “You have to say it, too.”

She turned her face away. “It's hard for me, Mike. You know I'm not very good at—”

“At being vulnerable?”

She didn't answer.

“I love your strength, Suzie. I think you're funny, and wonderful, and goddamn amazing. But tonight…” He began to massage the small of her back lightly. “Tonight I need you to open up to me. Every time we've ever been together, there's been a wall. Even when I saw things that made me think you might care, the wall was always there.”

“I know.” She reached back and tried to stop his hand. If he kept this up, if he massaged the starch out of her, she might cry. “I can't help it. It's just who I am.”

“No, it isn't,” he said. He lowered his lips to her neck once more. “You're so much more than that. I want you to relax, sweetheart. Because you and I are going to tear that wall down tonight.”

She felt herself shivering, as if he'd removed a layer of skin. “I don't know if I can.”

“I'll help you.” He kept kissing, leaving soft, melted places in his wake. “We'll do it together. There's nothing to be afraid of. “

But there was. There was. If she saved a part of herself, if she kept it private, behind the wall, then nothing he did could destroy her. Even if he took her,
used her and then rejected her, it wouldn't matter. Because he would never really have
had
her.

His mouth was moving lower, down across her collarbone. Down toward her breasts, which were swelling and tightening, anticipating. She moaned and waited, her thoughts focused on the moment when his lips would reach the aching places and make them warm again.

He stopped just short.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me that you want this.”

She arched her back, showing him.

He licked once, and caught the fabric, moving it roughly against her tormented skin. “
Tell
me.”

“I want you,” she said hoarsely. “Please, Mike. I want you.”

With one swift movement he reached his hands under her T-shirt, shoving it up. The air was cold, and then his mouth found her, covering her with wet heat and a perfect pressure. She trembled, driving her hands into his hair and holding him close, as if she feared he might not be real, as if she feared he might disappear.

But he didn't disappear. He seemed to grow more real, more physically real—less an idea, a memory, a dream, and more a flesh-and-blood man. She felt his need pressing against hers, and it made her feel strangely safe. She knew he ached, too. He was vulnerable, too.

“I've wanted this for so long,” he said, lifting his face from her breasts to claim her mouth. His lips were hard, and his tongue was harder, and she opened her mouth to take whatever he had to give.

“Tell me, Suzie,” he said, between kisses. “Tell me you've wanted it, too.”

“You know I have. For so long.”

“How long? When was the first time you knew it could be like this?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Too long ago to remember.”

“I knew that night in the greenhouse,” he said. “I wanted you so bad I thought I'd die when you said no. I wanted to smash every piece of glass in the building.”

“I knew before that,” she said softly.

He looked at her, his eyes burning, but she couldn't go on.

He began to stroke her gently, as if he could coax the words out of her.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me when you knew.”

She had to breathe through her mouth now. Desire was this huge, coiling power inside her, and it took up all the room in her body.

“I was fifteen,” she said. Even now, she couldn't believe she was telling him this. “I didn't even know what sex was, not really. But I dreamed about you, and you were touching me, and this amazing warmth was flooding through me—”

“Like now?” His fingers stopped, and it was like putting a stone in the ocean…waves of desire backed up and crashed and spilled all over each other. She needed him to start again, or she'd fall apart.

But he wouldn't start again, not until she put it into words.

“Yes,” she said. “Like now. It was the first time I ever felt this. I thought it was the most beautiful feeling in the world, and somehow it got all tangled up with the idea of you.”

He groaned. “If you knew how many dreams like that I had.”

She laughed softly. “But you're a boy. You're supposed to have dreams like that. Girls aren't.”

“Lies.” He moved his hand again. He knew exactly where she needed the touch. “Girls are just like boys. They just pretend they don't think about sex all the time.”

He stilled his hand, pressing gently against the perfect spot. Electricity streamed up into her body, as if he had opened a fiery circuit. “But you're not going to pretend anymore, are you? Not tonight.”

“How can I?” She rocked against him. The geyser of sensation was almost too much. It had to stop, or it had to find its outlet. “Mike, I—if you don't stop, I—”

He took his hand away. She took a deep breath and squeezed her legs together, trying to calm the pulsing ache he left behind.

“Come,” he said. “Let's go upstairs.”

Upstairs… She hesitated. Just for a split second, but he saw it.

“Suzie, I—” He frowned, as if he were in pain. “God, Suzie…I don't think I'll make it all the way to a hotel.”

“Let's just stay here,” she said. “There's room. I don't need a pillow. I just need you.”

He looked at the cold tiles, the hard cabinets. “Damn it, I didn't want it to be like this—”

And then, he smiled. “I know the perfect place.” He took her hand. “Hurry. Come with me.”

He pulled her behind him out into the night air, down the stairs, down into the boat slips, where they'd spent the morning wrangling with Rutledge. He flicked on the small lights hanging from the exposed roof beams.

She looked around, bemused. What was he
thinking? There wasn't even a sofa down here, not even a cot. But she wanted him so badly she didn't care. The bare floorboards would do….

He took her over to the boat. She looked at him. “Here?”

“You'll see,” he said. “It's perfect. And it's all ours.”

He climbed in first, and held out his hand to help her in after. He ducked gracefully around the mast and slid open the cabin door.

It was very dark inside. They went past a neat galley with table and chairs, all the way back to another door. This room, the berth, must be right under the pointed bow.

When he opened the door, and they took the few, narrow steps down to the cabin, it felt as if they were entering an unknown world. A secret world that no one even knew existed, except the two of them.

The bed took up almost the entire space, its blue spread shining in the watery light that seeped in through the bow windows. Teak cabinets and lofts rose above it, but there was no doubt—this room existed only for this bed.

“It's beautiful,” she said, holding tightly to his hand. “I know it's foolish, feeling strange about your bedroom, but—”

“Shhh.” He put his finger over her lips. He shook his head. “Nothing is foolish tonight. Tonight anything you feel is right.”

“Yes,” she said. She lifted his hand and pressed it against her heart. “But see how my heart is racing? Right now what I feel is afraid.”

He grew still. “What are you afraid of?”

“I—I don't know.”

But she was lying, and somehow he knew that.

“Suzie,” he said. “We said no walls. Tell me what scares you. You know I would never hurt you, don't you? Nothing will happen unless you want it.”

“Oh, no” she said. How terrible that he should think she doubted him. “I think—I'm just afraid that I won't please you. That somehow, I won't be enough.”

He smiled. “Is that all?”

He lowered her onto the bed, and then he knelt in front of her. She could see his eyes gleaming in the lamplight. The boat undulated sensuously in its cradle of water.

Oh, yes
, she thought. Her whole body began to pulse and flood again.

“Not enough for me?” He stroked her knees with his firm, hungry hands. “Lie back, sweetheart. I'm going to show you how very wrong you are.”

I
T MUST BE ALMOST ELEVEN
,
Suzie figured. The storm had completely passed. The full moon floated slowly through the black sky over Tuxedo Lake as if it had nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there.

She stood at the edge of the swimming dock and watched it, recognizing that fat, peaceful feeling. She knew that, tomorrow, she'd be the same old tumultuous, irritable Suzie, and the problems of the unhappy world would once again clamor for attention.

But tonight she was just a big white moon floating in an infinity of bliss.

She heard Mike walking slowly toward her on the dock, and she closed her eyes. Even the sound of his footsteps was sexy. In her mind she could see his long legs, so strong and yet so graceful—that must be the athlete in him. She wondered if he was smiling.

His arms closed around her easily, as if they belonged there. Pulling her in, he lowered his lips to her shoulder, and she reached back with one hand, to welcome him. She let her head fall against his chest, which was bare.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” he said.

“I watched you for a long time.” She tilted her head, so that her ear touched him, and she could hear his
heart. “But I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you, so I came out here.”

He chuckled. “Good decision,” he said. “If you'd started me up again, I don't think I would have survived. You sure know how to wear a man out, lady.”

She knew he was exaggerating. Nothing wore him out. Each time they'd made love, he'd outlasted her by a few critical seconds. Even that last time, when he'd collapsed beside her shimmering with sweat and trying to catch his breath, even then if she'd wanted more he would have given it to her.

But she hadn't needed anything. By the time he was through with her, she'd been drained and shaking, too, emptied of need or thought or fear or shame.

It had been amazing. Not since she was a child could she remember ever existing so completely in the moment.

The water lapped at the pilings, making soft, wet noises. She recognized the rhythm. It was the same gentle lift and drop they'd felt in the boat. The slight motion had given their lovemaking an exciting edge. You couldn't ever be lulled into complacency, thinking you could anticipate what was coming next. The pulse, the pressure, the angle…everything was always subtly changing.

“I don't know why everyone doesn't make love on boats,” she said. “It's far superior to anything else.”

He laughed. “Maybe we'll try it in a car next time.”

“Or an airplane,” she said. “Or a runaway train.”

The rains must have raised the level of the lake, because little wavelets occasionally licked up between the boards of the dock. She suddenly found that unbearably sexy.

“Mike,” she said, turning her head farther, so that
she could rub her cheek against his warm skin. “I was thinking—”

“Wait,” he said. “Before you say anything, I need to ask a favor.”

“Of course. Anything you want.” She smiled. “Although I do hope it's that wonderful thing where we both…”

“Suzie.” He tightened his arms, and she looked up, surprised by his tone. “This is serious. There's something I want you to do for me.”

She tried to tilt her head so that she could see his eyes. She had learned to read so many things in his eyes. “What?”

He paused.

“I want you to go home.”

 

T
HE DREAM CAME
every night now, even though sometimes the dreamer didn't go to bed at all. He couldn't escape it. He could pray all night. He could sit up in a chair till dawn. He could leave lights burning everywhere.

Nothing protected him anymore.

He must have fallen asleep in the chair tonight, because in his dream he was back in the cave again, but this time he was sitting down. This wasn't right, he told himself, feeling that familiar crawl of fear when the dream decided to create its own reality.

The rest of the men were here, too, wearing their black robes and hoods. They were all in chairs.

Wrong. Wrong
. He tried to reprogram the dream. The men always stood. There were no chairs down here….

But the dream didn't change, of course—it never did. It lived in his head, fed on his fears, but he had no power over it.

The men were absolutely motionless, and he wondered if they were strapped in place. He wondered, with a sudden jolt of panic, if he was strapped in place, too. But he couldn't tell. He found himself unable to bend his neck, unable to look down at his body. Something, whether it was leather straps or a terrible enchantment, held him immobile.

Justine was the only one standing. Her naked body was new again, as perfect and mesmerizing as it had ever been. He wanted to cry out, to scream, because it was wrong that she should be beautiful when she'd been dead so long, and buried with maggots and worms.

“I never broke my silence,” he cried, but no sounds came out. His lips didn't even move.

He realized then that he could do nothing but wait.

And he wouldn't be put out of his misery quickly. She was dealing with the men one at a time.

He was the very last.

She stopped in front of the first man and smiled. She knelt before him, her full, wine-tipped breasts grazing his knees under his black robe. She stared into his black mask a long time, so long that the dreamer wondered how the man could bear it.

Finally, she put her hand into the robe's opening and the dreamer knew what she was doing. Her long, pale arm pumped slowly, like a machine, without mercy. The man had no hope. He jerked, and slumped, his hooded chin slack against his black-robed chest.

Justine shook her head, disappointed.

And then she killed him.

The dreamer writhed inside, but nothing moved.

Someone, please. Help me
.

So this was how they were to be judged. Obedient
silence wouldn't save them anymore. They would be judged only by their animal desires. If, when she came to them, in her dead and impossible beauty, their bodies responded, if they rose up, disgusting and aroused, they would have to die.

He tried to bend his head. He was frantic, desperate to know whether he, too, was helplessly swelling. He wanted to ask the man beside him—
am I erect, am I guilty, oh, God, do I have to die?

It wasn't fair, he screamed in his head. It wasn't fair that she could come to them, voluptuous, naked, tantalizingly evil, offering things no one else would ever give them, and then punish them for wanting her.

One by one, the men failed the test.

Until finally, she was upon him, and it was his turn to die.

 

“I'
LL HAVE A DOUBLE
cheeseburger, everything but onions and large fries.”

Keith Quigley had been trying to stop eating so much crap, maybe take off a few pounds. But he'd had a really bad day, and a lettuce and tofu healthfest just wasn't going to cut it right now.

Did he say bad
day
? Make that bad week, bad month, bad year.

And if he didn't get what he needed from his anonymous tipster tonight, he was going to have a bad rest of his life.

He propped his elbow on the edge of the car window and tapped his fingers on the roof while he waited to give the drive-through kid his money. But the pimply kid seemed to be totaling up his drawer. For so-called “fast” food, every phase of this transaction was taking forever.

Finally the kid finished counting pennies and allowed Keith to trade him a fistful of money for a sackful of grease without ever once making eye contact.

“Have a nice day,” he mumbled as Keith pulled away. In his rearview mirror, Keith saw that the moron was already picking at a sore on the side of his neck and getting ready to keep the next customer waiting.

Keith had an urge to get out of the car, go in and give the manager a few tips on how to run a goddamn business. But why bother? He didn't really give a flip how this greasatorium was organized. He was just in a hellish mood, and he wanted to take it out on someone.

Though he still had an hour to go, he decided to drive straight to the rendezvous point and eat his burger there. He didn't want to risk being late. This might be the most important appointment he'd ever kept.

He wished he knew more about the informant. Even knowing whether it was a man or a woman would help. Instead all he had was a letter that had come in Friday's mail.

It had been marked Personal. Inside, there was a generic sheet of white paper with two lines printed on it, no doubt by some generic, untraceable printer.

The letter had read:

So here he was, on the wrong side of town, his mouth full of the worst hamburger he'd ever tasted, trying to believe in a miracle.

He had to get something new on Frome. The hairs the evidence guys had found were promising, and the results on them would be in soon. But that smooth-talking shyster Harry Rouge could argue it was purely an accident that the devil's DNA had ended up in hell, and the jury would believe him.

So far, Keith had nothing else.

The letters for which Millner had dragged him all the way to Firefly Glen had turned out to be useless. In one letter, Mike had come right out and said he couldn't stand to look at his wife, but that didn't prove anything. If every man whose wife made him sick got convicted of murder, they'd have to build a jail on every corner.

The most promising tidbit had been a line that said, “if you've got issues with the custody arrangement, call Parker.” Keith had salivated over that one, until they sent a detective to talk to Parker Tremaine, who'd represented Mike in the divorce. Tremaine said his understanding was that Justine had planned to give Mike more time with Gavin, to free up some socializing time for herself. Unfortunately, Justine's lawyer had confirmed that, too.

Which left Keith with a big fat nothing.

And time was running out.

He'd made a promise to himself the day Justine's body was found. If he could find out who killed her—and prove it—within a month, he could keep the Mulligan Club a secret. If a month went by without an arrest, he was going to tell the truth.

He'd promised, and he'd meant it, at the time. He'd been overcome with emotion. He had always known Justine must be dead, of course, he wasn't a fool. But seeing her body—or what was left of it—had knocked a hole in his gut the size of a cannonball.

He had loved Justine. Even though she hadn't returned the feeling, wasn't capable of it, really, he had loved her with all his ugly, thwarted heart. He didn't mind that she was what others—like that stupid husband of hers—called “sick.” He understood the sadomasochism that drove her. The same beast drove him, too, and he knew it couldn't be denied.

It was like being a fire-filled dragon. When everything inside you burned, a constant internal torture, sometimes you just had to open your mouth and roar out a little of the pain. It helped, like lancing a boil. For days, sometimes even weeks, afterward, he cherished the relief.

Maybe that made him a freak. But it didn't mean he couldn't love, just like everyone else.

He could. He had.

And loving Justine meant that, if it became necessary, he would give up his life for her. To find her killer and make him pay, he would expose the one secret that would ruin him.

The Mulligan Club.

The club must have led to Justine's death, one way or another. He'd been so sure, at first, that Mike must have found out about it and, in his injured male ego, or perhaps his puritanical disgust, he had lashed out, killing her.

But now Keith had to face the fact that he might have been wrong about Mike. If so, he would have to tell the truth, and it would be the end of his career. Perhaps, even, the end of his freedom. What they'd done to Loretta Cesswood was only one small moral step removed from murder.

Why not be completely honest? It wasn't what “they” had done to the girl. It was what “he” had
done. He had been the chosen one that night. Loretta had been
his
mulligan.

He had seen how young she was. How scared. He knew she'd been drugged. It would be easy for people to say he should have stopped. But what did they know? They were not dragons. They were not tortured by fire every day of their lives.

When she'd begun to writhe under him, trying to escape, he'd known he had to have her. He had opened his mouth, and somehow her screams and her blood had saved him.

If he had to die for that, so be it. He would have died without it.

He felt himself near tears, and he jerked himself up roughly. He didn't have to start this kind of thinking yet. He still had hope. This anonymous letter writer…suppose he really had some evidence?

It was possible.

Someone might have seen something. A driver passing by, who had hoped he could stay out of it, but had finally come down with an attack of conscience. A boater on the lake, who had seen Mike Frome digging in the flowerbed late at night.

It was possible.

He let himself begin to hope. He would sacrifice his career, his pride, his life for Justine if he had to, but he was human, wasn't he? He couldn't help hoping he wouldn't have to.

He almost said a prayer,
please let the proof be good enough
, but he stopped himself. Unless he was bartering a deal with the Devil, there really wasn't much point.

Just after eleven, he heard a car pull up behind him under the concrete overpass. He couldn't tell what
kind of car it was. In an old police trick, the driver left the high beams on, so that Keith was blinded and couldn't see anything except a shadow walking toward him.

A gloved hand reached down and opened the passenger door. Quigley jumped, spilling the bag of cold French fries in his lap, around his feet.