Edge of Midnight (14 page)

But his liaisons rarely lasted more than a week. Usually less.

In a way, he loved them all, even the Staceys and the Kendras. He knew they deserved better. He hated to hurt their feelings. Sometimes, he reflected wistfully how great it would be if he could just decide, by brute force of will, to make some girl’s unrealistic fantasies come true.

Just pick out some nice girl who made him laugh. Make some goddamn promises to her. Try like hell to keep them. Simple. Right?

What were all the guys around him doing but just exactly that?

No. Something always stopped him whenever he was tempted to try it. A presentiment of doom. Or maybe it was watching his brothers and their lady loves, wallowing in the big bubbly bathtub of true love.

It made his teeth hurt, sometimes, but damn, it looked like fun. They looked so relaxed. Like they didn’t have to try and fool anybody.

He wished he could convince all those girls of how beautiful they were. How much more they deserved from the worthless, doglike men in their lives, himself included. But he couldn’t argue with that sucking ache in his gut. Couldn’t control it, banish it, ignore it.

It felt like grief. And Christ, he should know.

As soon as he felt that ache, and it never took long to show up, he was history. If he forced the issue, if he tried to stick around out of guilt or stubborness or loneliness or whatever, it just got worse, and worse, until it was incapacitating. And oh, that was bad. Oh, how that sucked.

It didn’t matter worth a damn how much he liked the girl, how much fun the sex was, how much he wished that things were different.

He wondered why he felt compelled to endlessly repeat the whole depressing drama. He loved sex, but he hated slamming into that brick wall. Knowing even before he met the chick how it was going to end.

Not tonight. What happened in Liv’s bedroom was a movie he’d never seen. A pulse-pounding cliff-hanger. He saw her naked body when he closed his eyes. He could smell her scent on his hands. It was like she had a homing beacon, and he was tuned to its frequency. He didn’t even need X-Ray Specs. He could just follow his dick, like a dowser.

A strange feeling brushed over him. Ghost fingers, sending a cold, tickling shiver down his spine. He froze, listening. Slowly turned three hundred and sixty degrees, not that he could see fuck-all in this dark.

His skin crawled. His heart rate increased. On this stretch of road, he was wide open to a gunman sitting up on that bald knob of hill overlooking Endicott House. If the guy had an infrared scope, that is.

Yeah, and that was just old Crazy Eamon’s hypervigilant, paranoid jive talk, forever jabbering in the back of his head. He knew it, but even so, instinct and training together were too strong to resist.

He dove over the shoulder and down the hill, sliding in the gravel scree, choking on the dust he kicked up. He hit the scrub, arms out-spread to break his fall, and whack, scratch, slap, shit and ouch.

He was relieved when he fetched up on the washed out creek bed where he’d parked his shiny new Jeep Wrangler. Pain in the ass, having paranoid genes.

He fired up the computers and the X-Ray Specs receiver in the office as soon as he got home, and entered the beacon codes.

The map spread over the monitor screen. A cluster of icons pulsed in the location of Endicott House. His chest seized up. He had to cool it.

One, Liv was engaged to be married to a venomous snake. Two, she’d screwed him for the fun of it, because she felt like it. Three, there would be no chance to redeem the past, because she didn’t give a shit. Four, she did not want his protection or his help. Five, she was leaving.

He’d just sit and watch those flashing blips move out of range.

So there it was. No reason for him to sit here, watching his own sweaty hand tremble on top of the computer mouse.

The only way she could come back and rebuild her bookstore would be if someone flattened this piece of shit. And since he was a suspect, he’d be doing himself a favor by clearing up the matter. Which gave him a face-saving justification for sticking his nose in. Or any other protruding body part. He choked, thinking of Davy’s lecture. Sorry, bro.

He pulled up a document and started transcribing Liv’s stalker e-mails from memory. Getting to work made him feel instantly more cheerful. It would be a visceral satisfaction to bring T-Rex to the door of Endicott House. Hold the scaly bastard by the scruff of the neck while he wiggled and squawked. Drop him on the colonial style porch. Splat.

Here, folks. A small token of my esteem.

He had to laugh at himself. The faithful hound, bringing a dead rabbit to its master. Wagging, jumping, hoping for a pat on the head.

Lovesick chump.

Fate had just offered him a chance to make this job’s profit-to-risk ratio skyrocket in his favor. He’d let his breath slow, his mind settle into that deep stillness preparatory to squeezing the trigger, vaporizing that troublesome fuck’s skull. Then McCloud stopped, throwing off Gordon’s tracking. When he nailed the guy in his sights, he was looking up the hill, right at Gordon. His bright eyes were like a timber wolf’s.

And then the guy dematerialized. The image in the scope bobbed and wavered. It rattled him. It was a moonless night, there was a wooded mountain slope between them, and the pisser had got wind of him. Gordon was going to be relieved when he was turned into meat.

Jarring, to have a kill snatched out from under him. All jacked up, and nowhere to blow his wad. Killus interruptus. He giggled at his own wit. A vehicle started up. Headlights sliced through the trees, jogged over the rise. Taillights rounded the curve, disappeared.

Maybe it was better. Killing him now had been a last minute decision with as many cons as pros. The rifle made a mess, and this was a main road, though lightly traveled. The cops would hear the shot, call for backup. He would have to clean up McCloud’s shattered skull in record time, hoping no cars passed, hoping that what remained on the asphalt would be taken for an unlucky deer, and then find and dispose of McCloud’s vehicle. Better that the impulse had been blocked.

Before McCloud walked out that gate, Gordon had been toying with the idea of executing the cops with his sniper rifle, blasting his way into Endicott House, and spraying everyone inside full of bullets. Then he’d kill Sean McCloud, hide the man’s body where no one would ever find it, and let the cops speculate as to what made McCloud snap ’til they were blue in the face. That was the hallmark of a perfect job.

Tonight, that scenario had gotten even more perfect. McCloud had probably fucked Olivia, too. His DNA would be in her every orifice.

His dick swelled angrily at the thought. Nasty slut, spreading for whoever came along. The high-profile media aspect of a mass killing would make Chris squirm, but Gordon had that fucker by the balls.

The only problem with this scenario was that he wouldn’t get to punish Olivia in any meaningful way for the wrong she had done him.

He put a hand on the bulge at this crotch. If he thought long enough, he would think of an excellent reason to justify kidnapping her first. But he didn’t think real well when his dick was this hard.

Ever practical, he jerked his pants open.

He panted as he wanked away, picturing Olivia naked, on her hands and knees, gasping and squealing. Chris would tell him he was indulging himself. And so? What if he was? That was what life was about.

Indulging himself. Every chance he got. Until those spineless fuckers finally got the balls to hunt him down and make him stop.

The glare of three pairs of eyes made Liv feel stark naked.

“Bart? Blair?” Her mother’s voice was hollow. “Would you leave us, please? I would like to have a private word with Olivia.”

Blair stomped out of the room. Her father followed him, throwing a baleful glance back over his shoulder. Liv braced herself as her mother climbed the steps. She looked her daughter over, lip curling.

“My God,” she said. “You had sex with him, didn’t you?”

Liv opened her mouth, and closed it. Anything she said would be used against her. Silence was her only defense, and it was a poor one.

Amelia drew her hand back and slapped her, hard.

Liv’s head snapped around. Tears sprang into her eyes as she touched her stinging jaw.

“You idiot,” her mother hissed.

Well, hell. She couldn’t dispute that, Liv reflected, with a tremor of laughter, quickly suppressed.

“You’ve been waiting for your chance to debase yourself with that lowlife trash and then rub my nose in it for years, haven’t you? Did you plan this dirty rendezvous this afternoon? Under our noses?”

“No,” Liv said simply.

“I cannot believe it.” Her mother’s eyes glittered with tears. “Blair is such an exceptional man. He’s been waiting for you for years.”

“I did not ask him to wait for me.” Liv’s voice was quiet.

Her mother made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “I doubt he’ll want you now. I am repulsed, Livvy. This is so vulgar. So sleazy.”

Liv’s arms tightened across her chest. “Sorry you feel that way.”

“That man was poison from the start,” her mother fumed. “From the summer that you met him, that’s when you became so difficult and contrary. You had a complete personality change!”

Yes, she reflected, with detached clarity. That summer, she had discovered her spine. And just in time.

“But I never expected something like this. I would never have dreamed you’d go this far. Under our very roof. With your father and myself and Blair downstairs. Brainstorming ideas to keep you safe.” Amelia flung her head back and dashed tears away, careful not to smear her perfect makeup. “I cannot believe you are my daughter.”

The words rang, like an iron-plated door slamming.

“Neither can I,” Liv replied quietly.

Amelia’s hand flashed out again, but Liv blocked it, grabbing her mother’s wiry wrist. “Do not hit me again,” she said. “Or I will hit back.”

Amelia yanked her hand free. “You already have, Livvy,” she whispered, her voice thick and froggy with tears. “You already have.”

She swayed at the top of the stairs, caught herself on the newel post, clutched it for support. She descended, her back ramrod straight.

“Be ready to leave at six,” she announced. “We will do our duty to you as best we can, even when you spit in our faces.”

Liv drifted back down the corridor to her room. She hadn’t thought it possible for her life to be more wrecked than it had been, but there were always more weak spots, more hidden tender bits. Between them, her mother and Sean had found and exploited them all.

She flung off the robe. She caught sight of her naked body in the mirror, and paused, looking at it as if she’d never seen it before.

Maybe she never had. She usually saw her body through a veil of self-criticism. Those big boobs, all over the place. That belly, not flat at all. Those hips, too broad. That butt, ay yi yi, don’t even go there.

But Sean’s passionate appreciation had been utterly genuine. There was no faking it. She’d felt his sincerity in every cell of her body.

She looked at her body, still pulsing with residual excitement, still jittery with the memory of all that incredible pleasure, and she liked what she saw. She looked pretty. Voluptuous, not fat. A woman that a sexy fantasy guy would scale fences, evade burglar alarms, climb trees and break laws for a chance to sneak into her room and ravish her.

She was tempted to call him right now, just to explain the whole stupid engagement fiasco to him, but she didn’t dare.

Why should I care if you’re engaged or not, princess? What’s it to me? That was probably what he would say, and she couldn’t take it.

She shivered. Tonight, that would shrivel her to nothing.

She put her hand between her legs. Her tender, inner bits were sore, muscles aching from being spread so wide open. Not even when she lost her virginity back in college had she felt so overwhelmed.

No, not even close. Her body was still charged, shaking. All she had to do was think about him, clenching her thighs, and pleasure burst through her, like a torrent of foaming water. Rippling through her thighs, right down into her toes. She caught her breath, wobbling.

Her hand slid deeper. Amazing, touching herself with Sean’s electric presence behind her. His hot body arched over hers. His voice, muttering sexy words into her ear. And that huge penis wedged inside her, so deep, she could feel his heartbeat throbbing against her womb.

That set her off, and when she recovered, she was crouched on the ground. The very thought of the man brought her to her knees.

Her private fantasy world was all about Sean, but the scenarios had to be just so. Hot encounters in hotel rooms, where she reduced him to rubble with her sexual prowess—hey, it was a fantasy, right?

Then she’d take a shower, and pull her complex underwear back on with aplomb while he sprawled on the bed, licking his lips. She’d dress, briskly but sensuously buttoning, zipping, snapping herself into her clothes. A slick of red lipstick, a toss of her hair. She’d throw her purse over her shoulder. A bright, impenetrable smile, a fluttery wave of her fingers. “Have a nice day,” she would say, ever so sweetly. “Bye.”

In her fantasies, he begged her not to go. Demanded to know when he could see her again. She shrugged. Cruel Liv. “We’ll see how I feel,” she’d say, merciless. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you…if I want to.”

And snick, the door swung shut in the face of his pleading.

There was a lot of latitude for variation in that hotel room theme, but the key element, that crucial power dynamic, was always the same.

She swallowed over a quivering in her throat. If she had that affair with him, it would be her lying on the bed, destroyed, watching him pull on his clothes. Her, begging to know when she could see him again.

How many times could she survive that? She struggled to her feet, stared at herself. Her body was marked everywhere. Almost invisible but sensitive scrapes on her face and breasts from his beard stubble, lips puffy and red from his kisses. Faint marks on her hips from where he’d held her in place while he thrust into her. Her face grew pink. But not pink enough to cover the angry red splotch on her jaw from her mother’s slap.

Wow. It was her day, written all over her body. All the high points.

She wound her hair up into a roll. Back into the shower. Enough of this bullshit. Dithering over to-have-or-not-to-have sex with a dangerous guy? She had real problems, thanks very much.

Somebody was trying to kill her. A dab of perspective, please.

She thought the situation through as she soaped herself up. It was true that she’d turned rebellious the summer that she’d met Sean.

He’d started the process himself, egging her on. Then, the episode in the jail had served as an emotional vaccination. Her fear of making people angry vanished. It simply held no more terror for her. She’d experienced the worst, so why cower, why cringe? To hell with them all.

From then on, she’d suited herself. Enrolled in the classes that interested her, chose the major she wanted, hung out with the friends she liked, applied for jobs she wanted. Her mother had been hysterically frustrated by this new, inexplicably difficult Liv. She’d even cut off all the family funds in an effort to control her. But that had backfired.

Being forced to earn her own living had freed Liv completely. Maybe she ate beans and ramen, and shopped in thrift stores, but at least she could breathe. Her mother wanted to love her, but compliance was the only fuel that could make that machine function. Liv’s refusal to comply was a refusal of her mother’s love. Period. A tragic dead-end.

She was startled to find herself sobbing under the stream of hot water. She thought she’d given up the fantasy of maternal acceptance years ago. She must still be grieving for it. Maybe she always would.

So she was on her own. No surprise. She had been for a long time. She’d just never been on the run from a killer on her own.

Brr. It made that lonely-bird-in-a-gilded-cage scenario look almost good by comparison. Almost. She didn’t have much money. Her credit cards were all maxed. Every penny she’d ever saved was sunk into Books & Brew. Her vehicle was evidence in a police investigation.

She had some jewelry she could pawn. She’d go to a resort town. Wait tables, work for tips. She’d contact the police when she got settled, ask for advice. There should be a system in place that might help her.

If she was going, it had to be soon. She stuck her head out the bedroom door. Still a low hum of activity downstairs. Not yet.

She packed and repacked her bags. Her main dilemma was her stash of unread novels. She finally tossed out a pair of jeans and a handful of underwear to make room for all of them. First things first.

Four o’clock found her, dressed and packed and vibrating with nerves, staring fixedly at the little clock on the bedside table.

She’d opted for jeans, schlumpy sandals. A plain blouse. She’d composed a careful note, apologizing and explaining as best she could.

The second hand ticked to four. Goodbye to life as she knew it.

She stuck her head out the door. It was utterly quiet.

She staggered down the corridor loaded like a donkey, lugging her purse, her laptop, her backpack, her suitcase. She made noise, but no one came bursting out to stop her.

Part of her must have been hoping someone would.

She left her bags by the back door and nicked the spare keys to her parents’ Volvo sedan. She would leave it in long term airport parking and mail the keys back to them. Now to slip past the police who were parked on both sides of the property. It felt disrespectful to their efforts to protect her, but there was nothing she could do.

She silently apologized to them in her head.

Fortunately there were enough hedges and foliage to plan a sneaky route down to the riverfront garage where the Volvo was parked. She’d had plenty of practice doing that as a girl, avoiding her mother’s eagle eye. No one should see her leave from there.