The Perfect Husband (39 page)

“Huh.” He still didn't sound happy. She got up off the bed and went to him.

The moonlight slashed across his face, shrouding his eyes in shadows. She touched his shoulders, then his cheek. She moved until her body was brushing his. His face was hard, his chin and jaw sculpted with resolute lines. He looked strong, and suddenly she needed that strength.

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hold me.”

“I'm not… I'm not…” His arms went around her. He held her, but a part of him remained out of reach.

She drew back and took his hand. “Let's go to bed.”

He simply stood there.

“J.T., this is our last night together. Tomorrow we're in Williamstown. I know you want me to do it differently, I know you're worried the worst will happen. I made my decision. I accept that risk. And I know I have this night and I would like to spend it with you. Can you give me that much?”

He couldn't find an answer.

Her face was pale and ethereal, her eyes huge, luminescent, and knowing. He thought if he remained silent and distant long enough, she'd give up and storm away. He'd forgotten just how well she'd learned to fight. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed her slender body against his.

He wanted to be cold. He wanted to be unfeeling.

Her lips feathered over his gently, and he succumbed. He slanted his mouth and devoured her.

She haunted him and he didn't want to be haunted. She consumed him and he didn't want to be consumed. The emotions rolled over one another, churning his blood. He kept hearing Marion's voice, the thin thread of vulnerability beneath her dispassionate words, the unspoken need he didn't know how to address. He kept seeing Tess, her eyes dilated with horror as the ventilation grate came off and revealed once more what Jim Beckett could do.

Marion and Tess. The women he loved, the women he was so sure he would fail. The women he wanted to hold close and the women he wanted to push away because he couldn't stand his own weakness. He couldn't stand the fact that Tess was right and he couldn't save the world all by himself or make it a better place.

Tess pulled herself closer to him, fragile and strong, needy and giving. He kissed her senselessly, trying desperately to overpower his desire, to crush true emotion beneath the leaden weight of pure lust.

He dragged her down onto the bed. He tasted the sweetness of her skin and inhaled the soft, secret scent of her body. He felt her rose-petal skin and unending warmth.

She thought he and Marion were the tough ones — she didn't understand. The fire that had forged them had made them too brittle. Tess was the one who'd emerged as true steel.

He gave in to the pull of her fierce embrace and the whispered urgings of her lips.

Suddenly their lovemaking became urgent and fierce, a war fought amid tangled sheets. She rolled him onto his back and straddled him shamelessly.

“I love you, J.T.,” she whispered. “I love you.”

Finally she moved. Tears glittered on her cheeks. She cried and she rode him and she let him see her cry as she did so. He couldn't look away.

“Don't do this,” he muttered. “God, don't do this to me.”

She kept moving. Suddenly his right hand was at her hip, his fingers digging into her flesh, his strong arm setting a furious pace. His heels dug into the mattress, giving him leverage as his hips thrust up hard. She had wanted to consume him, but now he consumed her because she was killing him with her silent tears and he didn't know what to do.

Her head fell back, her climax long and racking and ripping his name from her lips. He didn't relent, moving, moving, moving, and spiking her back up. He thrust harder, sweat building, teeth bared.

The climax eluded him. Fine tension corded his neck and rippled his body with unbearable pain. He wanted, he needed.

He didn't know anymore. The emptiness was endless and he was dying and she was the only person who could save him and he didn't even know how to say the words.

He rolled her over harshly, his body still joined with hers, and fucked her hard. She gasped. He couldn't stop. The release was so close, but he couldn't find it. He couldn't embrace it, he couldn't welcome it, because he knew when it came it would be like a spring rain and smell of the roses that reminded him of her.

“I love you,” she whispered against his sweat-soaked torso. “I love you.”

And he climaxed with a primal yell, his semen ripped from him and pouring into her.

He collapsed over her, shaking and trembling and fallen apart. She held him close, then stroked his hair.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

LATER, THE SHEETS tangled around their legs, the sweat drying on their bodies, he said, “I loved Rachel.”

“I understand.”

“She died.”

“I know.”

“I never told her that I loved her.”

“I'm sure she knew.”

“But no one ever told her. Not her parents, not the colonel. Not me.”

“But you showed it to her, J.T. That matters more.”

His head turned toward her. His fingertips brushed her arm. “Sometimes I hate you.”

“I know,” she told him honestly. “That's how I know that you care.”

IN THE MORNING the thin rays of a weak sun rapped at the window, illuminating the room in shades of misty gray. Tess crawled out of bed first, entered the bathroom, and closed the door without looking back.

He waited until he heard the scouring sound of the shower. Then he reached over to the nightstand and found his pack of smokes. His hand was trembling, making it difficult to get one out. Finally he dragged a cigarette to his lips, lit it with a plastic lighter, and inhaled deeply. He leaned back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and watching the rolling smoke slowly dissipate as it rose through the early morning air.

Alone, he had no more pretensions. He hadn't been the kind of brother he should've been. He hadn't been the kind of husband he should've been. His life had started with pain and he'd been adding layers ever since.

Tonight a new layer would be spread. He wanted to get this one right. He was afraid the beast in his belly would keep that from ever happening. He had too much anger in him. He wasn't good at leaving it behind. He understood all that and wondered if understanding it really made a difference.

His lips formed the words soundlessly three times before he trusted himself enough to add voice. Finally he whispered, “I love you too, Tess.”

And a second later: “Jim Beckett is a dead man.”

“WELL, HERE IT is,” Marion announced. She gestured to the house Tess had lived in for four years, her entire married life. The house had been sold two years earlier, but the police had commandeered it. The owners had been forced out with their furniture and the house hastily filled with garage-sale rejects.

Tess found the decor as dismal as her mood.

In the living room to her left, a sloping blue love seat had been stuck in the middle of the brown carpet. Dark brown shelves had been hastily erected and stuffed full of used paperbacks. An old TV sat on a coffee table with a more modern-looking VCR. The metal desk lamp perched on the fireplace mantel provided the only light. Stairs were straight ahead. The small brown kitchen to her right. Upstairs was the master bedroom and two extra rooms. She hated to think what kind of furniture was in them.

“The kitchen is fully stocked,” Marion said. “You also have a TV, bookshelves, and so forth. It'll be just like before—”

“Solitary confinement,” Tess stated.

Marion glanced at J.T. “Not quite solitary.”

J.T. didn't look at either of them. He prowled the living room perimeter, peering through the front bay of windows.

“We've been talking on and off over the police scanners,” Marion continued. “Not too many conversations, but enough to give the general idea that a ‘special package' is arriving in Williamstown and should be ‘handled with care.' Quincy is confident that Beckett monitors the police scanners. Sooner or later he'll hear the chatter and make his plans.”

“Which roofs have the snipers?”

Marion pointed them out for J.T. “One across the street with a clean line of fire on the front door. Other two on the corners of this side of the block.”

“Lots of chimneys and fancy archways. What are the chances of a clean shot?”

Marion shrugged. “Depends on where Beckett stands. Either way, they'll see him coming and the rest of us will mobilize.”

“Huh. Windows wired?”

“All wired. Bug in every room.”

“The bathroom?” Tess asked. Now she was beginning to remember all the details her mind had conveniently blanked from the last time. She'd hated last time.

“
Every
room. This is your life, right?”

“Lucky me.”

“You need anything, just speak up loudly. We'll be monitoring you from the van at all times.”

“I guess this means no sex,” Tess said. She was struggling for control.

“Only if you want an audience,” Marion said expressionlessly. “Any questions?”

“Did you pull sewage maps of the area? What about manholes, any underground systems?”

“J.T., we know what we're doing.”

“I don't want to see any utility trucks in the area. No cable company, no phone men, no electric company. Call and tell them to keep out or I'll personally give their driver the message. It's too easy for Big Bad Jim to use something like that.”

“We won't even permit door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen,” Marion assured him.

“Huh.” J.T. turned to Tess. “Fine with you?”

“Just dandy.” She forced a smile to take the sting from the words. It didn't work. She still felt like a rat in a trap.

She glanced at Marion. “Any news about Sam?” she whispered, though she knew there wasn't.

“Not at this time.”

“Difford's body?”

“Nothing.”

J.T. shook his head. Marion scowled. “The task force is working very hard, goddammit. We'll let you know as soon as we get a break. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some loose ends to attend to. I'll return by sundown.”

Marion headed for the door. J.T. followed, catching up with her in the doorway.

“How are you?” he asked before he lost his courage.

She didn't answer right away. “Fine.” She glanced toward Tess, then looked at him. “Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“She's a strong woman, J.T. I'm happy for you.”

He scowled, then gave it up. “Yeah. She is. Thanks.” He looked away for a moment. The sky had become unbearably bright and clear. “She deserves better,” he said.

“You're not so bad.”

“Not so bad?”

“Not so bad.”

“Marion…” His throat constricted. He couldn't say the words. It wasn't the way things worked between them. He settled for brushing her arm lightly. “Keep me posted about the stuff with Roger, okay? I'm not the best at saying the right things, but I know you loved him, Marion. I'd like to help. You know, if I can.”

Marion looked at the floor. “J.T., you know those mean things I said about Rachel?”

He nodded. He remembered each and every one of them.

“I sent her to you,” she confessed in a rush. “She came to me looking for help. And I — I just couldn't help her. I looked at her, and I wanted her to just go away. I couldn't even bear to look at her. Just this poor slip of girl, and I couldn't even look at her. Stupid, wasn't it?”

She shrugged. He began to hear the things left unsaid.

“I gave her your name. I told her you would help. I knew… I knew you would have the guts to do what I couldn't.”

“You did the right thing, Marion. Thank you.”

“Good,” she said quietly. She sounded better. “I wanted you to know.”

“I'll be there for you, Marion. When you're ready.”

She smiled again, faint and tremulous. Briefly she touched his face.

“I know.”

She left.

He turned back to Tess.

She still stood in the middle of the living room, looking ragged from her sleepless night. Her thumbnail had gone to work on her other fingers. She didn't seem to notice.

He walked toward her and brushed her mangled fingernails. She flinched, looking chagrined.

“Got your gun?”

“Yes,” she said, clearly startled.

“Want to practice now? We can do some shadow targeting without bullets.”

Her relief was palpable. “All right.”

He nodded, already reaching for the 9 millimeter holstered against the small of his back. He had a .22 around his left ankle and a hunting knife strapped against the inside of his left forearm cast.

He was ready.

Tess retrieved her gun from her purse.

“We're ready, Tess. We'll get him.”

Tess just smiled. “That's what Difford used to say.”

“YES, I UNDERSTAND the doctor is dead. We just need some way of verifying this death certificate. Yes, ma'am, twenty years is a long time ago. Do you have copies in the hospital files? Or maybe a nurse or someone else in attendance at the time still works at the hospital. Yeah, I'll hold.” Detective Epstein rolled his eyes. He hated this kind of grunt work.

Jim Beckett's foster parents had been dead less than ten years, so verifying their death certificates hadn't been tough. They'd gotten lucky with his birth father — a police officer who'd arrived at the traffic accident twenty years ago was still on the force. He confirmed James Beckett had been DOA, a victim of a four-car pileup.

Verifying the death certificate for Mary Beckett was more difficult. The doctor who'd signed the original certificate was dead and the hospital bureaucrats had bigger matters than hunting down records on someone who'd died twenty years earlier.

The person came back on the line. Detective Epstein stopped twirling his pencil.

“Archives? What do you mean by archives? In a
separate
storage facility. Well, sure I understand the volume of records you must have. Is there a system? Can you send some exhausted intern to search? Well, ma'am, I'd send an officer, but you're not really going to let us paw through your records unattended, are you? That's what I thought. So what time is good for you? Yeah, an hour it is.”