With Every Breath (31 page)

Heat sluiced through her, making her legs seem to tremble. "Yes, please."

He laughed.

She realized how rarely he did that, and the sound was rich and good. He leaned sideways to look fast over the breakfast bar.

"Josh is back outside," he murmured, then he returned, sliding his hands up her thighs, pushing his shirt up over her hips, exposing skin. "Give me a minute here. Just give me ... a minute."

The air kissed her. He cupped her bottom and slid a finger between her legs and she ached there, instantaneously and suddenly. His mouth found her neck, and she sank her fingers into his arms to hold on.

"Oh," she whispered, and then his mouth took her voice.

He pushed her back against the counter a little too hard. He lifted her. Maddie wrapped her legs around his hips, and had the sudden intense need to tear his jeans off, to feel him hard and deep inside her immediately. She couldn’t ever remember feeling need so deeply, and wondered if it was just another way of hiding, of escaping into oblivion.

"God, I want you," he groaned against her mouth, then he pushed the shirt up higher to find her breasts, to cover them with big, strong hands.

If I'm hiding, Maddie thought, then I’m doing it in heaven. She tightened her legs around him and gave herself over to kissing him back in the brief moment they had before they heard Josh open the deck door.

Joe fought a hard-on through most of the day.

They took the ferry over to the mainland. They stood on the pilothouse deck, talking idly with Harry, and he

watched the wind whip her hair. A strand caught in her mouth, and she used her finger to peel it away, and heat tried to gather low inside him.

When the ferry docked in Jonesport, she bent over the front seat of the Pathfinder he’d reclaimed to make sure Josh’s seat belt was fastened. He glanced sideways, out of the comer of his eye, at her bottom, and heat tried to gather low inside him.

Driving to Leslie Mendehlson’s mainland office, they caught a mention on the news about what had happened on Candle. They both reached for the radio volume at the same time. Their hands touched, and heat tried to gather low inside him.

He was feeling like a teenager. He was astounded, shaken, euphoric. He felt like he was walking on air. He felt hungry and strong, and willing to kill the person who tried to take all this away from him.

His mood didn’t waver until they reached Leslie’s office. He parked and let the engine idle.

"Why do I feel like I’m sticking my hand into Pandora’s box?" Maddie managed finally.

"Because that’s pretty much what you’re doing."

"So what’s going to come flying out? All the evils in the world?"

"A few, probably," he answered mildly. "And then they’ll be gone. Do you remember what was left at the bottom of the box?"

Maddie flinched, then sighed, nodding.

"Hope," she whispered.

"Yeah." He turned the ignition off and reached for the door handle. "The last good thing in the world."

Chapter 25

Leslie wasn’t expecting them. They hadn’t called ahead. Maddie felt strongly that they shouldn’t give the woman time to devise lies and excuses.

Her Jonesport office was much like the one on the island. It had a large waiting room and a small office in the rear, and the office looked out into the waiting room through a pane of glass. Pale, flowered draperies bracketed it to afford privacy when it was needed.

Leslie was working at her desk when they entered the waiting room. She looked up through the glass, and, for a second, Maddie was convinced the woman looked wary.

"What’s this?" she called out, coming out of the office. "Hello there, Josh."

Josh looked up at the doctor and tried to ease behind Joe’s legs. Joe let him.

"I need to talk to you," Maddie said quietly.

"Of course." Leslie looked at her watch. "I’ve got about twenty minutes before my next appointment." She led the way into her office, glancing back once, frowning very briefly when Joe and Josh didn’t follow.

"We’ll wait here," Joe told her.

Leslie hesitated a moment longer, then she closed the office door carefully behind them.

"Josh seems to be doing well," she said, sitting down, waving Maddie into one of the chairs. "Still not speaking?" "No," she said too shortly, then forcibly softened her tone. "But he seems to like Joe."

"Joe’s a likable guy, once you get to know him." "Yes."

"So what’s up?"

"Rick is ... on the island."

If Maddie had been trying to shock her, she was disappointed. Leslie only nodded. Maddie realized that she’d probably heard it on the news.

"So it has
been him, Leslie," she went on, lying. "Rick is the one who’s been tormenting me. I was right, and it had nothing to do with my parents. And now that I know that, I guess I want to know why you felt it prudent to tell me about them on a morning when it could very easily have pushed me over the edge."

She waited. Leslie didn’t answer.

"Given my ... history, I should think that remembering suddenly like that could have unhinged me," Maddie pressed on. "Especially considering the fear I was already experiencing at that time because of Rick."

Leslie’s fingers closed hard around the pen she held. "You think I performed negligently," she said at length. Maddie hesitated, then nodded. "In a word, yes."

"I had good reason to believe that you would not . . . unhinge, to use your word."

"What good reason?"

"You said you pulled yourself out of your silence on your own."

"Aunt Susan’s camera did that."

Leslie waved a hand. "A fine point. I also witnessed

your behavior that day we talked about Josh. You’re far too strong now to regress."

"Whatever I saw that day must have been horrible."

I agree.

"Remembering it could require more strength than anyone
could possess. You could have been wrong." "What’s your point, Maddie?"

She laced her fingers together tightly in her lap and forced herself to hold Leslie’s gaze. "You took a risk," she answered. "I’ll give you that it was an educated, calculated one. But as near as I can tell, you had absolutely no good reason to do it."

A quick frown touched the woman’s eyes. "I did it because Joe and I had talked. We thought it would be better if you heard it from me. I told you that then." Maddie leaned forward in her chair. "I don’t think that’s the reason. I’ve thought about it and thought about it. And I just don’t buy it."

Leslie took a deep breath. She moved the pen around in her fingers some more, then she tugged down the blazer of her dark blue suit.

"Well?" Maddie said harshly.

"I’d like to see you remember."

"That’s apparent."

"For your own sake, of course. You’re blocking, Maddie, and that’s not healthy. You won’t ever be free of it all until you remember. I’d like to help you."

"Okay. That’s one reason. What’s another?"

"I don’t believe in people getting away with murder. I have my suspicions about who killed your parents, and I don’t think that person should be permitted to walk off scot-free."

Maddie’s heart skipped. And for the first time, she wavered. There was finally a ring of honesty to the woman’s voice.

"So tell Joe who you think it is," she countered. "Tell him and let him look into it. That’s what he gets paid for."

"I can’t do that."

"You’ve walked around with these suspicions for twenty-five years, and you’ve never breathed a word?" It was beginning to sink in on her.

"That’s right. If you
can remember, then you
can point the finger. That’s what I was angling for."

"Why?" Maddie cried. "Why won’t you just do it?" And then she understood. She opened her mouth and closed it again very carefully.

Leslie gave her a not entirely pleasant smile. "If you want to call a spade a spade, I can certainly be blunt and honest as well. I love Candle, Maddie. I would like to continue living there. For all its faults, it’s my home. If I point a finger and say ‘That person there killed Beacher and Annabel Brogan,’ then that person would almost certainly see me drummed off the island. As it is, the people there tolerate me. They pretend I’m a spinster. They do not acknowledge my sexual preferences in any way. Given the temperament of such people as Mildred Diehl, that’s a minor miracle, and I think the only reason they have that attitude is because I was born there. I’m one of them. And my proclivities are far easier to ignore than to deal with." She paused and took a steadying breath. "I’m sorry, but I can’t rock that boat, Maddie. I have a certain amount of thoroughly human selfishness, and this is my life we’re speaking of."

Maddie sat back thoughtfully. "But you wouldn’t have to do it publicly. This . . . person . . . needn’t know that you’re the one who accused him. Or her. Whatever." "Oh, yes," Leslie said. "They would know."

"How?"

"A few days before you were found, I was up on The

Wick. I was walking the beach. It was May. The beaches of the big island don’t tend to be very private at that time of year. I needed to be alone, to think, to come to terms with what I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I was twenty-five years old, and it was time.

"So I was walking the beach, and as I passed your house, I saw someone leaving it. And that someone saw me as well. We’ve never spoken of it, and because I made my decisions that day, I’ve never said a word."

Everything inside Maddie stiffened. Her blood ran first cold, then hot, and she was overwhelmed with a feeling of righteous anger. For her parents?

But if they had died, she realized, if they had not abandoned her, then she had no cause to hate them, did she?

But why, she had to find out, did she so instinctively hate them, why had she always hated them, if they had not abandoned her?

I don’t want to get into this. She looked out the window into the waiting room, at Josh and Joe. Her heart squirmed. Oh, God, I love them. I have to do this. For both of them.

"You know who killed my parents," she repeated evenly, "and for twenty-five years you’ve done nothing? You’ve let this person get away with it?"

"I don’t know anything. I suspect."

"That’s one way of justifying it to yourself," Maddie snapped.

Leslie shrugged. "Perhaps. But all I actually saw was someone leaving your house." She took a breath. "Still, I’ve experienced my share of ... guilt over the issue. When you came back here, I thought it was a perfect way to clear the slate. You must have been in that house that day. You must have seen that person leave as well as I did. And I wouldn’t think you’d be concerned about being

drummed off the island. I’ve never gotten the impression that you were going to stay on Candle indefinitely."

Maddie felt a hard shiver course through her. Leslie knew. "You won’t tell me who you saw, either, will you?"

"No." Leslie gave a brief smile. "At this point, that would be as good as telling |oe."

"It might make me remember."

"There are other ways I can help you do that." "What?" she asked suspiciously. "Hypnosis?"

Leslie hesitated, then shook her head. "No, I don’t think that would be safe with you, in this situation." "Why not? You thought I was strong enough to survive getting blasted with the truth that day."

"That was entirely different. I was jolting you, trying to form a crack in the wall on the off chance that something would slide right through of its own volition. Hypnosis means prying a mind loose more or less against its will. I wouldn’t try that with you."

"What would you try?"

"To establish what you do remember and radiate out from there, chipping away at the wall in places where it’s already broken."

Maddie stood up carefully. She knew in her heart that there was no way the woman was going to say any more. She’d made her decision long ago, and she had lived with it all this time, and she certainly wasn’t going to change her mind after all those years.

"I’ll let you know," she said quietly. Actually, she thought, chipping was something she could pretty much handle on her own.

If she did it on her own, she could stop whenever she wanted to.

She looked out at Joe and Josh again. "I’ll be in touch."

"Good." Leslie glanced at her watch then stood up. "And Maddie ... I am
sorry if what I did to you that day has hurt you in any way."

"It didn’t hurt me." She sighed. "It just bothered me because it seemed unprofessional."

Leslie nodded, allowing that.

Maddie went to get Joe and Josh. She needed to touch them both as soon as she could. She needed it very badly.

They had lunch at McDonald’s. Joe pointed out that in this comer of the world, fast food was a delicacy. Big Macs were luxuries. Considering that the ferry didn’t always ran with any reliability, it was difficult to get across the ocean to buy one.