A Taste of Love and Evil (8 page)

“What dogs?”

“The woman next door has two yappy dachshunds. I’m surprised Linda’s husband hasn’t killed them by now.”

“You’d shoot tranquilizer darts into two helpless little dogs?”

“They’re not helpless. They’re fierce little devils. The tranq doesn’t do any long-term damage, and there’s no other way to shut them up. Also, there’s no cover in front of the house and damned little at the rear.” He grimaced into the sunset. “Linda won’t sleep at night unless she thinks she’s disappeared without a trace.”

“So why did she pick this bookstore? Why not Wal-Mart or some other place where she’d be lost in the crowd?”

Jack shrugged. “Everybody has their own weird logic. I
need to go to her house and take a look. She probably chickened out, but since we’ve come this far, I have to make sure. Give me the keys to the van and I’ll take care of it.”

“No,” Rose said. “I don’t trust you any more than you trust me.”

“I
do
trust you,” Jack said. “What I said back there at the truck stop…It was completely unwarranted. I should be horsewhipped for my rudeness.”

She cocked her head to one side. “No, a funky little flogger should do the trick.” She huffed. “Stop trying to bullshit me. I’ll go get Juma.”

Jack banished the image of Rose with a flogger and shook his head. “I’ve only seen Linda once—I insist on meeting my rescues first, to verify the situation—and it was obvious she’d been beaten, and badly.” An appropriate uneasiness crossed Rose’s face. Good. “This might get ugly, so it makes more sense for me to go alone. I’m used to this stuff.”
If one ever gets used to it.
“I’m not a thief. I’ll bring your van back.”

“No,” Rose said. “I’m driving. And I don’t see why Juma can’t just wait in the van.”

“And I don’t see why you can’t just stay here,” Jack said, but Rose deigned no more than a glare.

He threw up his hands. “Juma can’t come because it might be dangerous. I don’t anticipate any problems, but Juma’s a minor and I can’t take chances with her. At least you’re an adult, and you have your own built-in weapons.”

That’s right. Think of the damn things as weapons, not instruments of pleasure most supreme.

“Not that I want you to use them,” he said, putting up a hand.

That was dumb. Really dumb, because in a flash the tenor of their conversation changed. Rose laughed, and her smile lit up the dusk. Their eyes clashed, and heat swept over Jack. “Of course you don’t.” She ran her tongue across her upper lip, holding his eyes.

Jack dragged his gaze away, cleared his throat, and focused on the pink and gold sky behind the pines. This was yet another of the things he couldn’t stand about vamps. Sex was always in the air,
always,
even when it should be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Which was a mighty hypocritical attitude for Jack Tallis, since what had attracted him to Titania was her appetite for plenty of sex. More than that—almost a surfeit of sex. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Jeez, Jack. Don’t freak out. I was joking.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell Juma what’s going on.”

Rose followed Jack’s directions to a rundown strip mall containing a convenience store, a church in a tiny storefront, a dry cleaner, and a nail salon. Jack pointed past the Dumpster and a sagging wooden fence to the backyards of a subdivision. “See that white house? Her place is across from it, a couple of houses down. I’ll cut through, scope things out, and be right back. Half an hour, forty-five minutes tops.” He jumped down into the gathering dusk. A chill wind sneaked into the van.

“Be quick. I’m really worried about Juma.”

Jack lifted a shoulder. “She’s a survivor.”

“She’s frightened, and she was
not happy
at being left there alone.” Rose rubbed the gooseflesh on her upper arms.

“Was that my change you gave her?”

“Sure, so she could get a Coke or something if we take too long.”

He blew out a breath, shaking his head. “You gave her too much.” But before she could tell him what she thought of his stinginess, he jogged away and disappeared behind the Dumpster.

She thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she saw him climbing over the fence. Straining her eyes, which were far better in the dark than a normal person’s, she still couldn’t tell whether that flutter in the leafless vines at the lip of the gully was Jack.
Impressive,
Rose thought wistfully. Not only
that, he was educated, read poetry, liked music, wore a football jacket…and didn’t want her for sex.

Be careful what you wish for, Rose.

She turned her mind to practical matters. Poor Miles had lost his wife recently and now was worried sick about his little shop, perhaps with good reason. Rose knew almost nothing about Violet, only that the Louisiana woman, more than anyone else in the online vamp group, had been a lifesaver in the insane period after Lou’s death: a font of practical advice on allure management, boyfriend control, and so on, down to details like the optimal care of fangs. Rose shut out all traitorous suspicions of Violet and called Miles instead, hoping to at least soothe him.

No answer, but she couldn’t just sit in the van worrying. She scanned the stores in the strip mall, rejected offering herself up for ritual staking at the church, fretted some more, and gave up in favor of the only outlet she could think of: a run. She scrunched her ponytail under a ball cap, tucked a note under the windshield wiper, performed minimal stretches, grabbed the walking stick she routinely carried for protection, and took off through the parking lot onto the main road. So what if she accidentally ended up near Linda Dell’s? Even Jack couldn’t object to her jogging along a public street.

Forty minutes’ gentle run later, through a well-lit neighborhood of aging brick ranch houses, Rose passed what should have been Linda Dell’s house for the third time. For the third time also, she passed the house before it and approached the house after, gritting her teeth and clutching the walking stick. Still no dachshunds. She’d passed a growling retriever in one fenced yard and a feisty little Yorkie in another. In any case, this couldn’t possibly be Linda’s house. On a porch swing under a yellow bug light, a couple now sawed back and forth, cuddling close, sharing a beer and whispered conversation in the cool evening air.

Rose slowed to a walk. He
really fooled me.
Jack had deliberately pointed out the wrong house, because he didn’t trust her. She seriously hadn’t thought he would lie. Make excuses for himself, sure, but downright lie…? Disappointment and relief jostled each other, and relief should have won, but annoyingly, disappointment pricked her.

A torrent of yapping careened into the night and hurtled across the lawn. Rose swiveled, clutching the walking stick, terror riding up into her gullet. Two snarling, yapping dachshunds tossed themselves against the fence and Rose clutched harder, her chest heaving, fighting her fangs.

They’re just dogs.

Noisy little dogs behind a fence.

Grow up, Rose.

So he hadn’t lied after all. That comfy scene on the porch meant a reconciliation, and Jack was probably back at the van. Just as Rose had calmed herself enough to walk with dignity past the little fiends, all hell really did break loose at the house next door.

Jack hovered inside Linda Dell’s house, camouflaged against the curtains, watching Rose approach for the third time.

Enough, he decided. Enough of listening to Linda weep all over the man who only this morning had beaten her almost senseless. Enough of the man’s slobbering apologies and excuses.
I need you, Linda. I
need
you. You
have
to stay with me. Till
death
do us part.
Which it surely would before long. Whatever had transpired between this morning’s desperate call to Gil and now, she was back with her husband, her one chance gone. She’d have to turn to others: police, women’s shelters, groups that helped victims get new lives. If Jack left now, he could cut through the woods and get to the van about the same time as Rose. Maybe they’d talk a little on the way back to the store. Maybe he’d convince her that he really wasn’t as hateful as he’d seemed. Maybe he’d find a
way to help her. Start regaining the balance, even if it took years. According to some cultures, he would never stop owing her. She had almost certainly saved his life. Up till now, he’d thought owing his father was as bad as it could get.

Next door, the neighbor let the dachshunds out for a run. They barreled across the lawn, barking furiously. Tall and pale under the streetlight, Rose whirled, gripping her stick. He hadn’t thought of Rose as the easily startled type. Quickly, though, she relaxed her posture, glancing from the dogs to Linda and her husband on the porch swing.

“Goddamn!” Bingo Dell sprang off the swing, toppling his wife with a thrust of one fist and grabbing his shotgun with the other. The beer bottle crashed to the floor. “That’s him, isn’t it? This is the third time the bastard’s jogged past our place.” Red faced, panting with rage, Dell slammed a shell into his gun.

Panicked, Jack shot out of camo and ran for the door. For a terrifying instant, Rose gawped at the shotgun. Then, thank God, she threw herself into a crouch and duck-walked against the neighbor’s wire fence, away from Dell’s toward the shrubbery. The neighbor lady hollered, “Missy! Lupe! Get in here
now!”

Missy and Lupe barked even harder, leaping and snapping at Rose through the wire. She stumbled and sprawled away from the fence, recovered, and kept moving. Jack resumed his camo, opened the door, and crept forward. Rose reached the driveway next door and squatted behind the bushes.

Dell stomped down the steps, raising the gun. “I see you, you sniveling, motherfucking home-wrecker. I’ll blow you to kingdom come, buddy.”

Linda Dell scrambled after him. “There is no other man!” She pulled at the shotgun. “I told you this morning, Bingo baby. I never wanted any man but you.”

“You lying, cheating bitch.” Dell belted her hard and kicked her as she crumpled to the ground.

Shit. Jack went softly down the stairs. Linda sobbed into her hands. The neighbor shrieked, “Missy! Lupe!” but the dogs kept barking.

Rose finally made it behind the neighbor’s car. A spray of shot hit the lawn only a foot from the dogs. One dachshund took off into the backyard; the other scrambled up the steps to the porch. The neighbor dragged the dog inside and slammed the door. Rose stood up, and Jack almost lost his camo again.

“You lunatic! Why are you shooting at those dogs?” She strode forward before Bingo Dell had a chance to reload, throwing her ball cap to the ground, tossing her hair free. “Can’t you tell I’m not a man?”

Dell, poor bastard, had never had a taste of allure before. The shotgun hung limply while he stared. Jack let out a long breath, dropped his camo, and moved forward. “Linda,” he whispered.

The woman gaped at him, gibbering.

“Linda, it’s me, Jack. This is your last chance. We can run for it while she keeps him busy.” He took her arm and dragged her to her feet.

Linda backed into the house. “But…my stuff. I had it all packed, but then Bingo came home.”

“No stuff,” Jack said. “I told you before, it’s a fresh start. A new life.” He pulled her, resisting, through the living room. “You forget the past and move forward.”

“I don’t want to forget the past,” Linda whimpered. She snatched a photo album off the coffee table and clasped it to her heart. “I just want Bingo to be nice to me.”

“Bingo doesn’t know how to be nice,” Jack said. “Come on.”

“He does, too,” Linda whined. “I need him to love me. What is that woman doing?”

Slowly, tantalizingly, Rose ran her hands over her breasts and down to her hips. Bingo’s fingers lost their grip and the shotgun fell to the grass.

“Distracting Bingo,” Jack said. “Let’s
go.”

“No way in hell.” Linda dropped the photo album, flung open her purse, pulled out a handgun, and hared through the front door. “Get away from my husband, bitch!”

“Closing in five minutes,” the store clerk said. He was a big dude, middle-aged and slow moving, who looked liked he’d forgotten how to smile.

“Five minutes?” Juma said. “The sign says you’re open till eight!”

“Not if I don’t have any customers,” he said. “I want my supper. Make your decision now and come up to the front and pay.”

“But my friends aren’t back yet,” Juma said. “They probably won’t be here for at least a half hour.”

“You can wait for them in the burger place across the road.” He moved away down the aisle, tidying as he went, facing some books out, straightening others. Juma watched him go, and when he was around the corner, looked hopelessly down at the copy of
Beowulf
in her hands. It was a fabulous translation by Seamus Heaney with the Anglo-Saxon text and the English translation side by side. The seniors assigned it for summer reading had no idea what a treasure they possessed.

Juma wanted the book. Since she was stuck doing all her
college prep herself, she needed it, too. She’d do a lot more with it than those of her contemporaries who were lucky enough to be in school. Education was what really impressed college professors, and well-disposed profs could ease her way through all those hoops. Who wouldn’t be blown away by a freshman who read Anglo-Saxon?

Juma really,
really
wanted the book, not to mention a bunch of others, but she’d never get away with taking more than one. She flipped pages back and forth, thinking, rethinking, deciding, and undeciding, and the clerk kept lumbering past the end of the aisle at the wrong moments, so she never quite got it into the big side pocket of her jacket. And although shoplifting had been a useful way of getting her grandmother’s goat in the past, it wouldn’t have that effect in a strange town where Grandma had no influence. If she got caught, she’d end up in Grandma’s clutches again, only with a police record as well.

And of course Jack would disapprove, which would mean the end of her one chance. Rose would be disappointed in her, and for some weird reason Rose’s opinion mattered. Not only that, a girl had to be practical, and Rose was an ally Juma didn’t want to lose. If she ever saw Rose again. Almost thirty dollars for a Coke? Yeah, right. Guilt money for sure, and they’d never come back to get her. Juma needed to keep every penny.

I really need this book,
she thought in despair. She was almost done with trig and world history. How could she prepare for college without any books?

The clerk scowled from the end of the aisle, said, “One minute,” and moved on.

Juma gave up. The clerk wasn’t going to give her a chance to steal the book. If she sucked up enough, Rose might buy her one in Bayou Gavotte. She put
Beowulf
reverently back on the shelf, picked up her book of poetry from the stool beside her, and dropped it in her jacket pocket.

“Aha!” Moving way faster than she would have believed possible for such a big, old dude, the clerk grabbed her by the wrist. “Caught you, you thief.”

Juma yelped and tried to yank her hand away, but the man held hard. He plunged his other hand into her pocket and got her book. “Hey!” she shouted. “That’s my book. I didn’t steal it! It’s mine!”

“And a liar, too,” the man said, breathing hard. He stank of stale cigarettes. “Just like every other damn teenager that comes in here. Liars, vandals, and thieves.”

“You’re hurting me!” Juma twisted and turned in his grasp, lunging for her precious book of poetry. “That’s my book. I had it when I came in.”

“Bullshit. I saw it on the shelf just this morning. I know every book in the store.” He tightened his grip and she squealed in pain, but he ignored her cries and dragged her toward the desk. “I’ve been watching your every move. Do you know how hard it is for an independent bookstore to keep going these days? I don’t put up with thieves. So you, little girl, are going to jail.”

“No! Please!” Juma stumbled after him. “I’ll do anything! I’ll wash dishes. I’ll clean the whole store!” The clerk made a derisive noise, set her poetry book on the counter, and picked up the phone.

Juma knocked it out of his hand. It clattered to the floor. “Please, please don’t call the cops. I mean it, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll sleep with you. I’ll give you head, I’ll—”

The clerk let go of Juma’s wrist as if she carried the plague. “You disgusting little whore. I hate teenagers.” His foul breath washed across her and she backed away, gagging. He bent to pick up the phone.

“I’m not a whore.” She grabbed her book and took off for the front door, yelling, “I’m not a vandal. I’m not a thief.”
Okay, so I used to be, but I’m not now.
She stuffed the book into her pocket as she ran.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” He moved way too quickly after her. “The door’s locked. You’re not going anywhere.”

Juma reached the door and tugged hard. It rattled, but it wouldn’t budge, and the clerk had almost caught up to her again. She sidestepped him and dashed between the book bays, looking for something to use to smash the window. Up and down the bays she ran, and the clerk followed, wheezing and cussing.

Nothing but books! The clerk loomed in front of her. She leaped to the side and shoved a cardboard display across his path. He tripped and fell heavily. She pushed hard, then harder, on a bookshelf. It crashed down in front of the clerk before he could get up. She ran to the other end and knocked another bookshelf over behind him. Okay, now. There had to be another way out.

Duh. The back door.

Juma scrambled behind the counter and through the doorway that led to the rear. The clerk clambered up from under the display, shouting, “You can’t go that way!”

She scrambled past a bathroom and through the stockroom. A dark corridor yawned ahead, with a low-lit room to the left, but at its end was Juma’s goal: a kitchen with a screen door leading into a yard.

The clerk shouted frantically from the store. Juma plunged into the corridor. A huge shadow loomed on the wall, jaws and teeth and slavering tongue. She stumbled, her shriek of terror drowned out by the baying of an enormous hound.

The enraged woman with the gun in her trembling hands ran jerkily across the lawn, and as she neared Rose, the lurid glow from the streetlight reached her face. Linda Dell was a scrawny little thing; she couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. One entire cheek was purple and hideously swollen. Blood trickled from her nose and across her split
lip. Her other eye was bloodshot and edged with purple and black.

Jack stalked across the lawn behind Linda. He looked extremely pissed off.

“Oh, my God,” Rose said. “Look what your husband did to you! Why don’t you leave him?”

“So you can have him? Never, bitch. I’ll kill you first.” Linda glared at her husband and waved the pistol his way. “God damn it, Bingo, stop staring at this whore or I’ll shoot you, too.”

“You’re not going to shoot anybody.” Gently, Jack took the gun away. Linda hardly seemed to notice. Jack opened the chamber, clicked it shut again, and tucked the gun into his waistband. With the slightest flick of his chin, he told Rose to go.

No way.

“I’m not after your husband,” Rose told Linda, letting up a little on the allure. “I’m just distracting him for a minute or two.” Bingo got a bewildered look on his fleshy face. “So you can leave,” Rose urged. “Right now, while you have the chance.”

Beside Linda, Jack was shaking his head. Rose scowled back at him.

“You’ll be safe,” she continued. “Bingo will never beat you up again. Please, go now.”

Linda’s eyes flicked to Jack and then to her husband, who still stared at Rose. Linda limped slowly closer, licking blood off her lip. “You can’t have him!” She swung a fist at Rose. “He belongs to me!”

Rose sidestepped easily and reeled in the allure. Linda stumbled, gathered herself, and charged, fists flying.

“You stupid woman.” Rose dodged again, fending Bingo’s wife off with the walking stick. “Don’t you understand? He’ll kill you!”

Bingo, somewhat free of the allure now, finally noticed Jack. “So you’re the bastard,” he roared. “I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

“No!” Linda veered away from Rose. She grasped at her husband’s arm. He flung her to the ground and kept going.

“Stop right there.” Jack pulled out Linda’s gun and leveled it.

Bingo Dell laughed. “That gun’s never loaded. Can’t trust a dumb bitch like Linda with a loaded gun.” He kept coming. “You’re a dead man.”

“Worth a try.” Jack tucked the gun back in his belt. A second later Bingo was flat on his belly, Jack on top of him, cranking the man’s arm up behind his back. Bingo cried out.

“Don’t hurt him!” Linda dragged herself up off the grass. “Please don’t hurt him. Don’t call the cops!” She broke into hysterical sobs.

Without even a glance Jack said, “I won’t call the cops.” His dark, furious eyes grabbed Rose and shook her by the throat. After an endless second he let her go, motioning with his chin toward the shotgun lying on the grass. “Take it and get the hell out of here.”

Rose picked up the shotgun, hesitated at Linda wringing her hands and weeping, and at Bingo gasping in pain.

“Run,” Jack ordered.

This time, Rose did as she was told.

Juma ran headlong down the corridor. She swerved left, into a large sitting room lit by a standing lamp and two sconces on the far wall, and slammed the door behind her. The baying faded. She glanced from a flat-screen TV to a red leather couch and recliner to a heavily curtained window on the far side of the room. She could shove the couch against the door, climb out the window, and run.

Oh, my God.
What
did
this dude have on his walls? She found a light switch by the door. The ceiling fixture lit up
the whole room. Juma snickered. She didn’t have to worry about him calling the cops, not with what she could hold over his head.

She walked slowly around the room, taking it all in. She’d seen some of it before. It was almost like being home with Dad, except this guy had collaged it all over his walls. He’d done a simply fabulous job. Then she saw the poems of the Earl of Rochester on the coffee table and lost interest in the vintage porn as wallpaper.

She was perched on the arm of the red leather couch, totally absorbed, when the clerk opened the door a few minutes later. He stood in the doorway, gasping, a hand over his heart. Juma felt almost sorry for him.

But not quite. She stood and motioned to the decor. “I won’t have any reason to tell the police about this if you don’t call them.”

The man’s face drained. “This isn’t illegal,” he wheezed.

“With me in here it just might be. Even if it’s not illegal, when the whole world knows about it, your bookstore will be finished.”

The man sagged against the doorjamb, ashy white.

“I don’t mean you any harm,” Juma said. “I know how stupid people get about porn, but I won’t have any choice unless you let me go—with my book, because it really is mine. My father gave it to me. I’ll show you where he wrote in it.” Reluctantly, she laid Rochester’s poems on the coffee table. “I need you to lock up your dog and let me out the front door, right now.”

The man staggered over to the red leather couch.

“You’re not having a heart attack, are you?”

“No.” He dropped heavily onto the cushions. “I’ll be okay.”

Juma perched at the far end of the couch. This was
so
not good. If the old guy died, Grandma would find a way to use it as leverage. For the moment, Juma couldn’t see how, but
that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. “Are you sure? Should I call a doctor? Do you want water or something?”

The man shook his head. He fumbled in his front pocket. “Keys. Go. Dog’s in the back, not a problem.”

“I can’t just leave you like this. What if you die?”

“We all die sooner or later,” the man said as if he didn’t care much one way or the other. He slumped against the arm of the couch.

“Not because of me,” Juma said, and then she figured out how to play it. “There’s a mega mess in the store, and you’re in no shape to go lifting bookcases and stuff. Not that it wasn’t your own fault, but since I have to wait for Rose and Jack anyway, why don’t I put the books back where they belong? I’m good at both genre and alphabetical order. I’ll get everything right.”

The dude stared at Juma as if she were insane. “Not necessary. I found my copy of that poetry book. I apologize. You should go.”

“Okay, how about in exchange for this book?” Juma pointed to Rochester’s poems. “Honest work for honest pay.”

“Definitely not. I may be into porn, but I don’t give obscene poetry to children.”

I’m not a child.
But no adult ever agreed with that, so she grinned and said, “It was worth a try. My dad won’t give me Rochester until I’m eighteen, either, but that’s because he’s scared Grandma will find out.” She swept an arm to indicate the cool walls. “My dad has scads of vintage porn, only his brain is so blown he’d never think up anything creative to do with it. My grandma used the porn—and the drugs, of course—to have him declared an unfit parent. Which he is, but not because of the porn. It’s not his fault I snooped through his stuff and stole some.”

She stopped, waiting, hoping. The man didn’t look angry anymore, or freaked out, or in imminent danger of a heart
attack. Finally, he said, “If you clean up, you can have that copy of
Beowulf
you were planning on stealing.”

Yes! Indignation wasn’t worth the effort, so she only said, “I didn’t steal it, though.”

“Because I was watching.” The guy pried himself up off the couch.

Juma shrugged. “There were other reasons.”

The clerk opened a box of Altoids mints, popped one in his mouth, and offered the box to Juma. “Seems like a strange book for a kid to steal. Or buy.”

“I’m a strange kid,” Juma said, bristling. She took a mint.

The man almost smiled. “None of my business, huh? While you tidy up, we’re going to have a little talk.”

“Sure.” Nothing mattered now that she was getting that fabulous book. Anyway, she didn’t have to listen. She’d had plenty of practice at that.

When Rose reached the van, Jack was already there. She dropped the shotgun and the walking stick, dashed behind the Dumpster, and vomited next to the fence. And vomited again, and retched and heaved until nothing was left.