With Every Breath (21 page)

She didn’t, he thought, not really, and there was no way he was going to enlighten her.

He went back to the Pathfinder, and she watched his taillights recede, her throat tightening, her hand like a claw on the doorknob. Very slowly, very carefully, Maddie closed and locked the door.

Joe pulled into his carport, turned the keys off in the ignition, and sat for a while. He listened to the dull roar of the sea as the west-side water churned and threw up spray. He let his eyes move around cautiously, not entirely sure that Gina wouldn’t have immediately turned her anger on him after she’d left Maddie’s. But nothing seemed out of place in the carport.

He finally got out of the truck and went inside, taking the stairs to the kitchen two at a time. Dusk was falling hard. He got a beer and stepped out onto the back deck. The sky was a mottled purple-black.

He had to work his way out of the mess he was in, Joe thought. He had to figure out what he was going to do about all of it. About the possibility of an old mystery resurfacing and a woman with vulnerable, searching eyes. About himself.

He felt as if he was treading water, more or less as Leslie had always accused him of doing, but it was an impossibility to keep it up indefinitely. Sooner or later, he thought, a body had to start swimming or sink.

He drank deeply from his beer, scowling as the sun finished its descent behind the western sea. He couldn’t see the mainland from there. In half an hour, the only telltale glimpse of its presence would be Jonesport’s lights. They would make the sky glow faintly there in one spot, with a gray-yellow tinge instead of steady, unrelenting black.

He thought about that, about a single almost-light in the darkness.

Sort of like Maddie Brogan was becoming for him.

He should have stayed up there with her tonight. He knew that. Or he should have brought her back to his place. The plea had been there in her eyes, and he had all but ignored it, had shut it out. But if Graycie—or a killer with a twenty-five-year-old conscience—was running around in the immediate vicinity, it was dangerous leaving her on her own, flares or no flares.

He probably would have stayed at that house tonight if she had been any other woman on the island, with the certain exception of Gina. But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because he was reasonably sure by then that he would end up in her bed if he tried.

Joe swigged again and went back inside. He sat down in front of the fireplace. And he admitted that he was afraid.

His unconventional parents had raised him to believe unrelentingly that a man’s only limit was his faith in himself. That he should find something he was good at, something he
enjoyed
doing, then figure out how to make a living at it. Great. In theory. Joe had believed his parents, and it had never occurred to him that he couldn’t be whatever he wanted. His life was his to control, so, as he had told her, he’d decided he was going to play football.

He missed it. He really missed the game, but more than anything he missed believing, really believing, that life was his to control.

The knee injury had been his first wake-up call. Then there had been his return to the island. No one from Candle had ever made it big at anything before. The island women had swarmed him, sought him, and they

didn’t just want a roll in the sheets like the women who had chased him around the rest of the country. God, no. Not the God-fearing Methodist and Catholic girls on Candle. They’d roll with the best of them, but they were always finagling for rings on their fingers and one in his nose. They needed to make it right in the eyes of their Lord.

Gina, he’d thought, had been different. He’d gone to school with all of them, except Gina Lucisano. She’d been barely a toddler when he’d gone off to high school on the mainland, and she had grown up very, very fine. Gina didn’t cling and grapple. She swung her hips and sent him sly smiles. Catch me if you can.

It had been easy, of course. She’d always intended that he should catch her. But she’d lured rather than finagled.

He’d chased her for a few short weeks, and she’d fallen willingly into his bed. Then he’d married her. It had been a combination of sexual attraction and analytical choice. She’d stood head and shoulders above the others, the only island girl who had even vaguely resembled the women he’d acquainted himself with during his football years. He hadn’t actually grown up with her, so he didn’t remember her with scabby knees, picking her nose.

She had finally taught him, had made him fully understand, that a man’s belief in himself was secondary. That his fate had not a damned thing to do with his abilities. That when outside influences heated up, when they set their eye on you and thought that maybe they might like to play with you a little, there was absolutely nothing you could do to change their minds.

It had been bad with Gina almost from the start. Even in the beginning, her tongue had been cruel when she got angry. Even then, he’d wanted peace. Even then,

the constant tension, the sudden eruptions, were more than he had been able to stand. Having Lucy hadn’t saved them. The baby hadn’t preserved the union, or made anything better, Joe had finally admitted that it would be best for all three of them if he just moved out.

But Gina wouldn’t release him.

She’d dogged him. pleading. She’d threatened. And just about the time he’d begun to even dread picking Lucy up, dropping her off again, encountering her mother for even so short a time, Lucy had been lost to them.

He hadn’t realized how much Gina had taken to drinking. That was his fault. He had shut her out by then, dealing with her perfunctorily when he had to, not really listening to her. He hadn’t listened to the rumors about her either, had blocked them out, too, with a stony glare that told whoever was gossiping about her that he really didn’t want to hear so much as her name. He hadn’t known how desperate her problem had become until the frantic call had come into the station— Lucy’s dead!—until he had gone to Gina’s condo—so still, so limp—and Gina had clawed at him, breathing into his face, while he held his baby. So cold, oh, Lucy, you’re so cold—and he had smelled it then, the stench of bourbon, stale and reeking. Please, Joe, please, don’t leave me. I’m sorry.

Joe got up fast and paced in the direction of the bathroom, sure he would vomit with the memory. But before he got there the nausea faded with the memory, because remembering was unbearable, and his mind was eager enough to push it away. He held one hand against the doorjamb, his knuckles white, and he swigged again from the bottle in his other hand, and he thought that even then, even on that day, Gina had not cared for Lucy, had not given a thought to that poor, cold, blue

baby, had only thought about keeping him, not losing him, had thought only about herself.

Love had gone viciously, horribly wrong.

And now he was left with all those unanswered questions he had asked himself again and again. Had Lucy cried out that night, gurgled, struggled against something unseen? Sweet God, was there something Gina could have done if she’d been sober enough? The doctor said no. and Joe’s head, his intellect, said no. And he would take his last breath of this lifetime wondering. Had she called out for him at the end? Would Gina have heard her if she hadn’t been drunk and heartbroken at losing him, if he had paid attention, if he had gotten her help?

He could not think what Lucy’s final moments might have been like. He could not do it and retain his sanity.

We can have another baby, Joe, if that’s what you want. Just come back. Don’t even try to screw around with anyone else.

He could tell himself that he was not getting involved with Maddie Brogan because he was protecting her from Gina’s craziness. It was at least partially true. Maybe he had sniffed a little here and there, maybe just a little bit, but he was absolutely determined that it would end right there.

Sooner or later you’ve got to take some kind of stand with your life, Joe. Do something. Break away from Gina and leave the island. Or get on with your life here in spite of her. Stop doing penance.

He turned away from the bathroom. He doubted if Leslie knew a damned thing about his penance. He had failed the only person who had ever mattered, and he couldn’t break away.

For three years, not counting college, he’d faced some of the biggest, meanest sons of bitches the nation

had ever spawned, eleven defensive pro football players, week after week, men who badly wanted to break his bones and twist his arms right out of their sockets to free a pigskin ball. Through it all, he had never understood fear. In one morning, holding his dead child, it had laid claim to his soul forever.

His parents had been wrong. His life was not his to control, not if he took too many chances. Loving someone was the greatest risk known to mankind. Caring could tear your guts out, could twist your mind around and make you insane. Loving, wanting, needing, and losing that person was unbearable.

So he stayed. He stayed alone. And he didn’t just do it for Gina. He did it for himself, because he was afraid to do Anything else, to care too much again.

It hadn’t escaped him that in all the days that had just passed, while he had been sniffing, circling, watching out for Maddie Brogan, he had admired her skin, her hair, her eyes, innumerable times. He had memorized her scent and could see her walk with his eyes closed. She was strong and brave, smart and sexy as hell.

He had never once allowed himself to look below her neck, at the swell of her breasts against whatever sweater she was wearing. He had never allowed himself to contemplate the way her narrow waist moved into long, strong legs. He didn’t dare start thinking that way.

Spend the night up there, watching over her? He laughed aloud, his voice bitter and raw. It would have taken a kind of courage he had long forgotten.

He could not endure spending much more time with her without touching her, he realized. All day his hands had reached in her direction with a will, an intent, of their own. Yeah, he had to come to terms with himself. Because for all his self-imposed solitude and all his

penance, sometimes he got lonely. Sometimes he craved.

And, he realized, feeling angry and helpless and cornered, what he was beginning to crave lately was Madeline Brogan.

He jabbed the light switch hard and with finality, and limped upstairs to bed.

Chapter 17

Maddie shocked herself by sleeping deeply and dreamlessly. But then, she had been exhausted.

She woke as the morning sun moved around to flood fully through the top half of the bedroom window. Josh was still asleep, on the floor, wrapped in his blankets. She’d made a game of it, and couldn’t be sure if he’d known how serious she was or not. They’d brought all his bedding in there, along with the flares and a pack of matches. She’d made sandwiches and sacrificed a whole bag of Fritos to the cause. She’d packed the Igloo cooler with six cans of Coke, then locked the bedroom door and moved the rickety old dresser in front of the single bedroom window. It didn’t block it entirely; the sun still came in, but no body would have been able to get through without waking her.

Looking at it in the fresh light of morning, she knew there were some who would call her crazy.

Still, her need to keep Josh safe was so much more immense than any shame she could possibly feel over her behavior. After what he had done to the cop, she knew it was entirely possible that Rick might kill her to get to Josh. He might kill Josh to punish her. There were any number of vile scenarios his obsessed mind could come up with. He had killed a cop.

"Hey, tiger," she said softly, getting hold of herself as Josh blinked and sat up. He looked around as though to get his bearings, and when he remembered what they had done last night, he seemed to nod to himself.

Maddie swung her legs over the side of the bed.

"Let’s go see what we can rustle up for breakfast." Coffee, she thought. She still felt half-asleep. She needed it badly before she could face another day of this.

She reached for the doorknob and hesitated, for one brief moment dreading what she might find out there in the rest of the house. Was Rick sitting quietly on the sofa, waiting for them? That would be his style, a hell of a funny trick. Her heart hammered at such a prospect, and she had to quiet it forcibly.

She had slept deeply, that was true, but she couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t have heard something if Rick had broken in. She jerked open the door, went down the hallway into the living room, and stopped dead.

There were flowers on the coffee table.

She noticed them right away. She scowled, fighting back a scrambling and immediate paranoia. Her pulse went off like a snare drum as she inched closer to them.

Black flowers, black . . . what? Roses. She choked back a sound of revulsion, pressing her fingers to her mouth. Her heart galloped harder as her mind stretched for the implications of what she was looking at. The flowers were bad, but in order to have left them there, she realized, someone must have been in the house.

She felt Josh behind her.

"Go back to my r-room, baby," she whispered.
Hang on, hold on, don’t fall apart.
"W-w-wait for me th-there."

She heard his footsteps patter away again fast. He knew as well as anyone that when she stuttered, something was wrong.

Maddie went closer to the table. "Oh, God," she whispered, then she gagged.

Worms crawled in the soil. Her skin itched with the feel of them. She scrubbed her hands over her arms convulsively and backed away again. She whipped about, looking around, and saw that the front door was open a crack. Sunlight seeped in.

He had come right in through her door? No! She had locked it! She knew she had locked it!

Damn it, Joe, damn it, why couldn’t you have just stayed?

She felt violated. Betrayed. This wouldn’t have happened if he had just been with them.

She went back to the table and grabbed the ceramic flowerpot, running into the kitchen with it. She held it away from herself as she tried to wrench open the back door, fumbling with the lock—this one had stayed locked, she thought wildly—then she finally got it open and stumbled out onto the back deck. She screeched a sound of protest and hurled the whole thing into the dunes, pot and all.

Rick had come right into her house! He had come silently and stealthily, had invaded her, in her sleep, while she had slept, playing games with her, taunting her, while she had felt so stupidly secure and proud of the measures she had taken.

She bent over, rubbing her bare legs beneath her oversize sweatshirt, scrubbing at herself, feeling dirty, almost as though she had been raped.

"
N-n-no,"
she moaned.

"Hello, hello."

Maddie snapped upright again. Angus came over the dunes.

She shook her head frantically and backed away from him. "N-not n-now, Angus." Breathe. Relax. "We’ll . . . visit ... later. Not n-now."

She whipped around again and left him standing there. She knew she had probably hurt him, but she couldn’t deal with him at that moment. She ran back to the bedroom for the flares.

Josh was sitting on her bed, wrapped in his blanket again. He had it pulled over his head so that only his small face peered out. Hiding again.

"Oh, baby," she whispered, sitting next to him for a moment, driving her hands into his hair, pulling his head close to her chest. "I . . . overreacted a little. I’m sorry I scared you. I do that a lot lately, don’t I? Someone just played a prank on me, and it made me mad."

He made a humming sound. It made her heart stop. She tipped his face up so he would have to meet her eyes. "Who?" she whispered for him. "Is that what you’re trying to ask?"

Mmmmmmm. It was all she would get. And after all that had happened, it was a miracle in itself.

Maddie hugged him again. "I don’t know, baby. It could just be Gina. I don’t know. I’m going to put one of the flares up and get Joe."

She hoped to God they were visible in daylight. She would shoot one up and wait fifteen minutes. If no one came, then she would damned well drive the Volvo.

She got the flares and went out on the back porch, firing one. She glanced at her watch. It was eighteen minutes past nine.

Angus was gone.

Joe had said that he’d check in with her first thing this morning. Where was he? She needed him. She wouldn’t feel safe again unless he was there. She knew that, and didn’t care why. She didn’t want to examine it. She just wanted him to show up. Please.

She held on to the deck railing with both hands, glancing at her watch every few seconds. Sweet God, Rick had been inside her house. She didn’t believe, not for a minute, that it had been Gina.

She wondered if he had tried the bedroom door, if he had turned that knob so quietly that she hadn’t heard it, if he had been that close . . . and her skin crawled all over again.

She choked back a sob.