The Real Mrs. Price (19 page)

Y
OU WOULD THINK THAT
having a beautiful woman knocking on your door at three in the morning, barefoot and wearing nothing but panties and a T-shirt, and falling into your arms would be a good thing.

“Eddie's not dead!” Marlowe said crying. “He's not dead!”

He blinked a couple of times to shake loose the fact that he was still half-asleep when he answered the door. Plato turned on the light, reluctantly peeled her off him, and took a good look at her. Marlowe looked like she'd been through some shit. Red marks and welts swelled on her cheeks and neck. Her arms and legs were all scratched up. Plato shook the cobwebs from his brain and repeated what he thought he'd just heard her say.

“Eddie? Ed Price?”

She nodded and shakily walked over to the bed and sat down on the side of it. “He was … in the … the house,” she struggled to say. The woman was shaking uncontrollably. “I woke up, and he was in my room.”

Price! Fucking Price had finally shown his face. It was as if a switch had been flipped on inside Plato. He'd been spinning his fucking wheels for weeks, dicking around and playing cat-and-mouse games with Marlowe, and finally, Price appears like the ghost he was.

“The police have to know,” she said, trying to calm down. “I need to tell them.” Marlowe swallowed. “I need to call them and tell them that he's alive.”

She made the mistake of reaching for the phone by the bed. Plato covered her hand with his and knelt in front of her. She was terrified. Price had scared the shit out of her, and he'd obviously hurt her. Compassion was not a trait that Plato possessed. At a time like this, it would've come in handy. It would've been what she needed. But he was empty.

“No police, Marlowe,” he said calmly, evenly, and with warning.

She sniffed and dried the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “But they need to know,” she reasoned. She stared at him with a look so vulnerable, so fragile, that he knew it wouldn't take much more to break her. “If they know, then they'll know that I didn't kill him,” she hiccupped. “They'll go looking for him.”

He didn't want to scare her any more than she already was. He didn't want to alarm her, but Marlowe had to know exactly what was at stake here. Plato had been messing around long enough. It was time for him to do what he'd been paid to do, and Marlowe was an obstacle that needed to be moved out of his way.

He gently removed her hand from that phone, gazed deeply into her lovely eyes, and said in a tone that he knew would only solidify her belief that he was her worst nightmare, “No cops.” Plato yanked the cord to the phone from the wall. “Price doesn't belong to them, Marlowe,” he said gravely. “He belongs to me. And I can't let you give him away.”

Games like this were never fair, and no one was exempt from the consequences. In his mind, there was no such thing as an idle threat. If he said it, then it meant that he would have to follow through. In the grand scheme of things, Marlowe was collateral damage. Truly, she was of no consequence here anymore. She'd never been more than a pawn and a means to an end. Hurting this lovely woman was never his intention, but he had a job to do, and no one, not even she, could get in the way of Plato doing what he'd come here to do. She shuddered, and he could tell immediately that she knew she'd made a mistake in coming here.

He took her keys from her hand. “I'm going back to your house,” he explained. “I want you to wait here.”

The spirit of Marlowe recoiled like a snake back inside her, withdrew from him as if all of a sudden he was poison. And he was.

*   *   *

The front door was wide open when Plato got to the house. Of course he didn't expect that Price would stick around and wait for somebody to show up here after Marlowe got away from him, but now that it had been confirmed that the man was alive, Plato was like a bloodhound, and he needed to pick up Price's scent. The faint scent of pepper spray lingered in the main room of Marlowe's house, and it stung his nose and eyes.

The coffee table was flipped over, the sofa pushed out of alignment, and broken glass and other shit that Marlowe kept on tables and shelves was strewn about. He walked into the kitchen to find water still running in the sink and splashed on the counters and floor. Price must've tried to wash the pepper spray off his face.

Plato turned off the water and then paused. An unsettling sense of warning came over him. A feeling of being watched. Plato stood perfectly still, momentarily shut his eyes, and listened. Price was still here. He noted that the back door was closed and locked. Plato turned back toward the dark living room. He'd left the door open on purpose. He pulled out his gun. The fucker was in here somewhere. Upstairs? No. It'd be too much of a risk for him upstairs. Price would have to get past Plato to escape. He was down here. Watching. Waiting for an opportunity to run because he was that kind of coward. Plato backed over to what he believed was the storage closet, braced his shoulder against it, and turned the knob and slowly pulled it open. If Price was inside, he'd try to bolt, but he'd have to be a strong enough man to push past Plato, and Plato doubted seriously that he'd be able to. He wasn't there.

Movement in Plato's peripheral caught his attention, and suddenly, Price appeared out of the shadows in that living room like a ghost. Gunshots! Plato dropped to the floor and fired back, but not before he saw the screen door shut. He bolted to his feet and took off after Price, who vanished, disappeared like he was never even there. Plato stared across the road at the open field on the other side of it. There was no sign of the man. He ran out to the actual road and looked from one end to the other. Nothing. What the hell? Had he sprouted wings and flown away?

He turned back to the house and then ran around back. Marlowe's property extended out a good acre beyond where the grass ended, opening up into a field of weeds almost as tall as Plato. That's where he'd gone. It's where he'd disappeared to, but Price had the advantage, and Plato wasn't stupid enough to follow him into what was probably snake heaven in the dark. He could easily lie in wait and get the jump on Plato, too. And he was probably watching him now. The thought of Price having that gun aimed at Plato didn't sit well with him, so he ducked down a bit and backed away. Price was in the wind again, but likely not far.

Half an hour later, he came back to his hotel room to find Marlowe sitting exactly where he'd left her.
Good girl,
he thought.

She started trembling at the sight of him. He pulled a chair up in front of her and sat down. “That simply will not do, lovely,” he said as sincerely as he could. “Don't be afraid of me, girl.” Plato offered a smile. His gaze drifted over her body. Marlowe pressed her knees together and cupped her hands in her lap as if she suddenly realized that she barely had any clothes on.

He should've felt sorry for her. But those kinds of things, things like sympathy, were a waste of time and energy. He took it personally that she was afraid of him, though. The way she stared at him didn't sit well with him at all, but then, even that had more to do with him than her.

“It's chilly in this room,” he said as if it were a revelation. Marlowe was cold. “I tend to run a little hot, so I need it cool. The air is always running, even in the wintertime.”

Defensive Marlowe eyed him suspiciously, cautiously. He'd made so much progress getting her to let her guard down, and now she'd hurried back behind that wall of hers and all his hard work had been for nothing. Plato got up, went to the drawer, pulled out a clean T-shirt, and held it out to her.

“It's clean. I just washed it,” he assured her. He motioned his head toward the bathroom. “Why don't you take a shower, Marlowe. It'll warm you up and make you feel better.”

She moved robotically, standing up and disappearing into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, Marlowe sat curled on the sofa across from the bed, wrapped in a blanket.

“What did he say to you, Marlowe?” Plato asked, sitting on the edge of the bed closest to her.

She'd showered. The water had warmed her, and he hadn't made any sudden moves. All in all, he figured that the two of them were maybe back to being on the same tracks, if not the right ones.

“He … he was looking for that thing you found,” she said pensively. “That drive.”

Made sense that if that thumb drive wasn't hers, it had to have been his.

“He thought I had it.”

“Did you tell him I had it?”

She shook her head. Marlowe had tamed that wild mass of hair and braided it down the back of her head. She looked like a teenager, and for the first time, he noticed that she had freckles.

“He wanted to know who you were.” Her voice trailed off, and the tears came back and rested inside her eyelids. Marlowe blinked until they vanished. “He's seen you.”

“He's been watching the house.”

She shrugged and then nodded, pursing her lips together to keep the crying at bay.
Courage, Marlowe. Courage.

“How'd you get away?”

“I lied and told him that it was in my purse,” she admitted.

He chuckled. “And you pepper sprayed the hell out of him.”

Damn! She was poetic.

“He's going to come back,” she whispered. “Isn't he?”

Plato saw no reason to lie to her. “He thinks you have something that belongs to him. Obviously, it's important to him, because according to the news, he's been dead for over a month. He could've left a long time ago and nobody would be the wiser.”

She swallowed. “If he thought I had that thing, why is he just now coming back for it?”

“He might not have known right away that he'd lost it. Or if he did, maybe he thought he'd dropped it inside his car.” Plato explored all sorts of possibilities for why Price had waited so long to come looking for that thing. “Your house has been crawling with reporters and cops, Marlowe. He could've just been too damn scared to show up before now.”

“Are you going to kill him?” she asked, those honey-brown eyes glazing over, almost as if she were in her own kind of trance.

This time, those damn tears started falling. Plato suspected that Marlowe had known all along what his role was in this theater, but she'd stopped short of wrapping her mind around it because a part of her didn't want to believe that the devil had really shown up at her door and that those damn possum bones were right.

“You should try and get some sleep,” he said.

She didn't move at first, but then she pensively nodded and lay down on the sofa, curling her legs underneath her.

“The bed's more comfortable, Marlowe,” he said. “That air vent blows right above you.”

Marlowe stared curiously at him. “And you'll take the couch?”

Plato frowned. “Hell no. First of all, I'm too tall for the couch. And second of all, I'd catch my death of cold sleeping underneath that air vent.”

“You could turn off the air conditioner,” she reasoned.

“I could.” Plato left it at that and climbed back into bed.

She curled up even tighter. “Don't worry about me,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “I'll be fine.”

Plato shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The sun would be coming up soon, he was tired, and she was determined not to give him the opportunity to get any, so he figured he might as well go to sleep.

 

Born Sick

E
D
'
S HEART HAD NEARLY
beat a hole in his chest by the time he made it back to his car. He hadn't been followed, though. Ape man wasn't foolish enough to follow Ed across that field. The mother fucker was huge, though. Too big to physically engage in a fight with. The best Ed could hope for was a decent shot to get him down, either for good or at least long enough for Ed to get away.

Ed drove back to his motel room and collapsed on the bed. He was sick of this fucking town, this fucking room. How long had he been in this one? A week. Only a week, but it felt like an eternity. Living off burgers and tacos because they were cheap. It was time to move again. Ed just had a feeling that it was time to move. Marlowe. Marlowe would tell somebody what happened. The police. They thought he was dead and that she'd killed him. And that all was well and good. He wanted everyone to think he was dead. He hadn't thought that anyone would blame her, though. But it didn't matter.

Ed did love her. He loved her, and he loved Lucy. Two very different types of women, but that's what made it interesting. Fun. Pretty Lucy, tall and elegant and practical. Practical to the point sometimes of being boring. Practical to a fault. Unimaginative and unwilling to venture beyond what was reasonable to experience the unreasonable. Unlike Marlowe, who was unreasonable in every way. She was almost cartoonish in how damn impulsive she could be, but he loved it.

One kept him balanced, grounded, and focused. The other … the other let the beast roam free and do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, and nothing was too absurd.

Was she fucking him?

Ed raked his hand through the tangled mass on his head, growling low in the back of his throat at the thought of that mother fucker in his bed, in his wife. Of course he was. Ed grabbed the front of his shirt, pressed the material to his nose, and sniffed. He could smell her all over him. Sex was her nature. Her body, the way she spoke, the way she looked at you, all of it reeked of sex and sensuality, raw and hot and sticky sweet.

Marlowe's sex drove him mad. It made him want her in ways that weren't natural. She'd told him about it once.

“The women in my family are cursed,” she'd told him. “Men love us too quickly and easily. They can't help it. They chase us, catch us, make love to us, and the trap is set. The spell is cast, and just when it all seems that everything is ripe for a happily ever after, something happens to them.”