Dark Paradise (5 page)

him. They may have seen her career as a court reporter as being a giant

step down from their expectations for her, but Brad had made a nice

consolation prize. They could look at him and still hold out some hope

that she would settle into the life of pleasant snobbery to which they

were all accustomed.

What a hypocrite she was. In her heart she knew she'd never really loved

Brad. He was right: they didn't want any of the same things - including

each other. She had gone through the motions, pretended passion, lied to

him and to herself time and again by saying she was happy, when the

truth was a partner at Hawkins and Briggs didn't come close to making

the list of things she wanted out of life. The time had come to admit

that.

She'd spent too much of her life as a square peg trying to fit into a

round hole. She'd spent too much time trying to fit into the lifestyle

her family thought of as normal.

She wasn't Annaliese or Elisbeth. She was Marilee the Misfit.

She'd spent too much time trying to atone for that. No more.

She sold her court reporter's equipment, sublet her apartment for the

summer, loaded her suits and her guitar in the back of her Honda, and

headed for Montana.

She had made no plans beyond summer, beyond basking in the glow of

enlightenment. She was free to be herself at last. Born anew at

twenty-eight.

Still, all the self-revelation of the past two weeks didn't completely

dull the sting of Brad's betrayal. Lucy would have understood that,

having won, lost, and dumped an astounding number of men herself. She

and Lucy should have been sitting on Lucy's bed right now in their

nightgowns, eating junk food and trashing Brad, and then trashing men in

general until they ended up laughing themselves into tears.

Dammit, Lucy.

Guilt swept through her, chasing a current of resentment. She wanted

Lucy to be there for her. How selfish was that?
 
She had a case of

wounded pride and jitters over finally finding the nerve to stand up and

be herself.

Lucy was dead. Dead was forever.

Feeling disjointed, disembodied, Marilee sank down on the edge of the

bed and put her pounding head in her hands. She reached out blindly for

the guitar, she had propped against a chair and pulled it into her arms

like a child, hugging it against her. She held it at an angle so she

could rest her cheek against its neck. The smell of the wood was

familiar, welcome, a constant in a life that had too often seemed alien

to her. This old guitar had been a friend for a lot of lonely years. It

never found fault in her.

It never cast judgment. It never abandoned her. It knew everything that

was in her heart.

Her fingers moved over the strings almost of their own volition,

callused fingertips of her left hand pressing down above the frets, the

fingers of her right hand plucking gently at a tune that came from a

private well of pain deep inside her. The emotions that fought and

tangled like wrestling bears crystallized simply in the music. In just a

handful of notes the feelings were expressed more eloquently than she

could ever have spoken them. Sweet, sad notes, as poignant as a mourning

dove's call, filled the stale air of the room and pierced her skin like

tiny daggers.

The tears came hard, almost grudgingly, as if she didn't want to give

them up without proof that her friend wasn't going to come waltzing

through the door with a smirk on her face. That would be like Lucy. To

Lucy, life was just one big practical joke perpetrated on the human race

by bored and cynical gods.

The joke's on you this time, Luce.

A dry, broken sob tore Marilee's throat and then she was spent,

exhausted, drained as dry as the gas tank of her Honda. She set the

guitar aside and fell back across the bed, staring through her tears at

the water stains on the ceiling. The silence of the night rang in her

ears. The loneliness of it swelled in her chest like a balloon. Above

her the moose from the starving-artist painting gazed down on her with

melancholy eyes.

She'd never felt so alone.

Her dreams were a jumble of faces and places and sounds, all of it

underscored by a low hum of tension and the dark, sinister sensation of

falling into a deep black crevasse. J.D. Rafferty's granite countenance

loomed over her, shadowed by the brim of his hat. She felt his big,

work-roughened hands on her body, touching her breasts, which were

exposed because - much to her dismay - she had forgotten to wear anything

but an old pair of boxer shorts and hiking boots. She glared at him,

detesting him with her brain while her body warmed to the consistency of

melted caramel beneath his touch.

Lucy lingered in the shadows, watching with wicked amusement. "Ride him,

cowgirl. He'll let you be on top."

Rafferty ignored her. As he massaged Marilee's breasts, he murmured to

her in a low, coarse voice.

"Man, Luanne, you've got the biggest tits I've ever seen."

She shivered. Her brain stumbled in confusion at the name. He pulled the

revolver from the holster on his hip and fired it over his head. Bang!

Bang!
 
Bang!
 
Bang!

Marilee jolted awake in time to see the moose descending on her. She

shrieked and brought her arms up to deflect the blow, knocking the

painting onto the floor. The banging she had interpreted as gunshots in

her dream went on without cease.

Luanne and Bob-Ray were at it again.

She tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed and discovered that

in her fitful sleep she had rolled into the grand Canyon of mattress

valleys.

"I think I saw this bed on The Twilight Zone," she grumbled, trying to

rock herself into a sitting position.

"People fell through it into an alternate universe."

Wishing fleetingly she had stuck with one of the dozen aerobics classes

she had signed up for in the last three years, she heaved herself out of

the chasm and tumbled onto the floor. A shuddering groan vibrated

through the room as the air conditioner kicked into high gear, blasting

arctic air and the smell of mildew. The control knob was missing and the

plug looked like something no certified electrician would touch without

first shutting down power to the whole north end of town.

Rubbing her frigid hands up and down her cold, bare arms, she peered out

through the separation in the drapes to see the first faint pink tints

of dawn streaking behind the snow-capped peaks to the east. At the edge

of the parking lot, the Paradise Motel sign buzzed and flickered.

Not a creature was stirring . . . except Bob-Ray and the Sizzler, the

Amazing Human Breakfast Sausage.

"I . . Goddamn, Luanne!
 
You could suck the white off rice!"

Marilee groaned and rubbed her hands over her face.

"I could never get enough of you, Bob-Ray."

"A sad truth that's been made abundantly clear in the last five hours,"

Marilee said through her teeth.

"Well, come on up here, then, darling. I'll give you all you can

handle."

Luanne squealed like a mare in heat and the banging - audio and

physical - began again.

Her temper frayed down to the ragged nub, Marilee grabbed the Gideon

Bible from the nightstand and used it as a gavel against the wall.

"Hey, Mr. Piston!" she bellowed. "Give it a rest, will ya?"

There was a moment of taut silence, then the perpetrators burst into

giggles and the bed springs started squeaking again.

Giving up on any hope of rest, she headed toward the bathroom.

She hadn't taken in more than a glimpse of the town of New Eden on her

way to Lucy's place. Coming back after her encounter with Rafferty, she

had gone no farther than the motel on the north edge of town. Now she

drove down the wide main street slowly, glancing at the ornate false

fronts of brick buildings that had probably witnessed cattle drives and

gunfights a century before.

They were mixed with clapboard storefronts and the odd, low-slung

"modern" building that had gone up in the sixties, when architects had

been completely devoid of taste.

New Eden had a rumpled, dusty look. Comfortable.

Quiet. A curious mix of shabbiness and pride. Some of the shops were

vacant and run-down, their windows staring blankly at the street. Others

were being treated to cosmetic face-lifts. Painting scaffolds stood

along their sides like giant Tinker Toys. Among the usual small-town

businesses Marilee counted four art galleries, three shops devoted to

selling fly-fishing gear, and half a dozen places that advertised

espresso.

In the gray early morning, a trio of dogs trotted down the sidewalk and

crossed the street in front of Marilee, looking up at her but not

seeming at all concerned that she wouldn't slow down for them. She

chuckled as she watched them head directly for a place called the

Rainbow Cafe. Trusting their judgment, she pulled her little Honda into

a slot along a row of hulking, battered pickups and cut the engine.

In keeping with its name, the front of the Rainbow Cafe had been painted

in stripes of five different pastel colors. The wooden sign that swung

gently from a rusted iron arm was hand-lettered in a fashion that made

Marilee think of teenage doodling - free-form, naively artistic. It

promised good food and lots of it. Her stomach growled.

A small, dark-haired waitress stood holding the front door open with one

hand, letting the smell of breakfast and sound of George Strait on the

jukebox drift out. The other hand was propped on a wide hip, a limp

dishrag dangling from the fingertips. Her attention was on the trio of

dogs that sat on the stoop. They gazed up at her with the kind of

pitiful, hopeful look all dogs instinctively know people are suckers

for. She frowned at them, her wide ruby mouth pulling down at the

corners.

"You all go around to the back," she said irritably. "I won't have you

stealing steaks off the customers' plates on your way through to the

kitchen."

The leader of the pack, a black and white border collie with one blue

eye and one brown eye, tipped his head to one side, ears perked, and

hummed a little note that sounded for all the world like a canine

version of please.

The waitress narrowed her eyes at him and stood fast.

After a minute, the dog gave in and led his cohorts down the narrow

space between the buildings.

"Moocher," the waitress grumbled, her lips twitching into a smile.

Someone should have captured her on film, Marilee thought, her artist's

eye assessing and memorizing. The woman whose name tag identified her as

Nora was pushing forty, and every day of it was etched in fine lines on

her face. But that didn't keep her from being beautiful in an earthy,

real way. Beneath the dime-store makeup, hers was a face that radiated

character, broken hearts, and honest hard work. It was heart-shaped with

prominent cheekbones and a slim, straight nose, lean-cheeked and bony,

as if the fat beneath the skin had been boiled away in the steamy heat

of the diner kitchen. Her mane of dark hair was as frizzy as a Brillo

pad, its thickness clamped back with a silver barrette. The pink and

white polyester uniform was a holdover from the seventies. It buttoned

over nonexistent breasts, nipped in on a slender waist, and hugged a set

of hips that looked as if they had been specifically designed for a man

to hang on to during sex.

"This must be the best restaurant in town," Marilee said, clutching an

armload of Montana travel books against the front of her oversize denim

jacket.

"You better believe it, honey," the waitress said with a grin. "If

there's a line of pickups out front and dogs begging at the door, you