Edge of Midnight (34 page)

He followed words with action, driving himself deep, and jolting a gasping cry out of her. He waited, motionless, until she could feel his heartbeat throbbing deep inside her against her womb, until she started moving, twitching her bottom against his groin to get him going.

He let out a soft sigh. She realized that he’d been holding his breath, afraid that he’d hurt her. Not that he would ever admit it while he was playing his macho caveman games. She wanted to smack that arrogant look off his gorgeous face, but she needed that injection of heat and energy he was giving to her even more. His deep, thrusting strokes, made her feel so female, so alive. Their eyes were locked in the mirror. He slid his hand between her leg and stroked her clit as he pumped, pulsed, stoking that yearning glow with slow, sure skill.

On and on, until still more unbearable pleasure wrenched through her.

When she looked up, he’d withdrawn from her shaking body, and was waiting, massaging his rigid member with a rough fist. He scooped his arm around her belly and spun her to face him, leaning his damp forehead against hers. His thick erection prodded her thigh, insistently.

“Make me come,” he begged.

She sank to her knees, pulling him into her mouth, clutching his hips. She sucked him hard, flicking her tongue along the sensitive flare, swirling, teasing. Just a few long, voluptuous strokes, as deep as she could take him, deeper than she’d ever dreamed she could.

He exploded, pumping his salty male essence into her mouth.

He sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, giving her something to cling to so she wouldn’t melt into a puddle.

Some minutes later, she felt him shift and move, pawing at the bedclothes. He got up, and pulled her body down on top of his on the bed. Still in her shoes and stockings. Panties wound around her thighs.

She must have slept for a while, and woke up disoriented. Her only point of reference in the world was Sean’s big, hard body, holding her tightly against him. It felt so safe, so warm. But nature was calling.

He protested sleepily as she extricated herself, but she insisted, murmuring something soothing. She pried the sandals off and padded into the bathroom, took care of her business, and stood there staring at herself in the mirror for a long time. As if she’d never seen that woman before. Makeup smeared, hair big and wild and tangled. Tricked out in whorish lingerie. Private parts throbbing and hot and slippery, from hard, prolonged use. Badly in need of a wash.

She set the water running into the big tub and peeled off the underwear. The panties were a lost cause. Unwearable.

She went back to the bed and tugged Sean’s arm. “I ran us a bath,” she told him. “Come on.”

He followed obediently enough, and climbed into the tub. She shut off the roaring tap, sudsed her hands up and started in on his chest, his muscular arms, his long, gorgeous hands. Loving the way the soapy water made his streaks and whorls of dark blond body hair so sleek, so deliciously touchable, strokable. Kissable.

His penis rose up again, indefatigable. She gazed at it, impressed. He shrugged, gave her a what-do-you-want-from-me look, and closed his eyes. Well, fine. If he could ignore it, so could she.

She stepped into the tub, sank down and wound her legs around his. “So did you get your ya-yas out? Do you feel better now?”

He opened one eye. “Fucking you definitely helped,” he said blandly. “Do you mean, am I going apeshit? I don’t know, Liv. That kite was a dirty trick. I swear to God, it was the exact same image.”

“I believe you. But maybe Kev saw the image somewhere else.”

“Our father never let us off that place, except to go to town for supplies,” Sean said. “It’s not likely he would have seen it elsewhere.”

“That kite cannot have anything to do with Kev,” she persisted gently. “You do know that, right?” She waited. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He covered his eyes. “I just wish I could make it stop.”

“Make what stop?”

“This feeling.” He shook his head. “It was a twin thing. When one of us was in trouble, the other one knew it. It was like an itch, inside my mind. Fire ants, crawling through my nerves.”

“Brr,” she murmured. “Sounds uncomfortable.”

“Yeah. Anyhow, you’d figure that when he died, the feeling would die with him, right?”

She felt a shivery rush of goose bumps. “You mean…it didn’t?”

He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I feel it all the time. Not so much now as in the beginning. It drove me stark raving nuts the first few years. I had to distract myself by pulling crazy shit like jumping out of airplanes, blowing up buildings, getting tortured by warlords. That was what it took.” He leaned back against the tub, staring up at the ceiling. “They say people still feel pain and itching in limbs that have been amputated. Phantom pain. I guess that’s what I’ve got.”

“I’m sorry it hurts, but I envy you. I have good friends, but I’ve never been as close to anyone as what you’re describing.”

A faint frown creased his brow. “Guess what? You are now, babe.”

She blinked at him. “Hmm?”

“How do you think I knew to come after you? I woke out of a sound sleep full of adrenaline right before T-Rex stopped your car.”

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Ah—I—”

“Get used to it.” There was a possessive gleam in his eyes. “You can’t hide anything from me.”

“I have nothing to hide,” she said. “Not from you. You always get uptight when I say things like this, but that makes me feel…safe.”

Predictably, his smile faded. “Oh, God. Don’t jinx me, babe.”

“Why are you so twitchy about that?” she asked crabbily. “I couldn’t imagine a guy more protective or vigilant or heroic than you.”

“My father was, too,” he said. “But my mom wasn’t safe with him.”

“Tell me.”

“He didn’t hit her. Fuck, no. Dad would sooner have drowned himself than hit a woman. She was everything to him. But he fucked up. Kept her up there, pregnant, in the winter. Impassable roads. She paid the price.”

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away. “That’s terribly sad, but I don’t see what that has to do with us,” she said cautiously.

“Look at us, Liv. I’m doing the same thing to you that my dad did to her. I whisked you away, hid you, decided I’m the only one on earth who can keep you safe. Where have I heard this song before?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not like that.”

He shrugged. “I’m scared shitless those bastards will get you if you go back to your folks. I don’t think the cops have the resources to protect you, either. They’re spread too thin to intercept anybody as focused as T-Rex. That’s my gut instinct, but I can’t trust it completely. Not after watching what happened to my dad.”

“You put all the responsibility for what happened on your dad,” she said. “What about your mom? Did she have any opinions?”

His shrug was eloquent. “You didn’t know my dad.”

“No, but I know you. Besides, you’re my responsibility now, too.”

His eyes widened. “Hell of a responsibility. Ask my brothers.”

“High maintenance,” she teased. “Like a Ferrari. Or a fighter jet.”

“Speaking of high maintenance…” He leaned forward, and grasped her hips, pulling until she straddled him. He prodded the head of his penis against her, and let her sink down, enveloping him. “I’ve got a part that needs some focused attention.”

She wiggled in his grasp, giggling. “But I’m exhausted.”

“So rest.” A lazy grin made his dimple deepen. “You don’t have to do a thing. But if we’re going to lie around reminiscing and telling secrets, I’d just as soon do it with my cock shoved way up inside you.”

She wiggled around him. “You can converse in this condition?”

“Best condition there is. Hugged and kissed by the princess’s tight, cushy pussy. I can’t believe how good it feels.”

“I can’t think a coherent thought,” she confessed, shivering.

“So don’t think.” Sean jerked her down so her breasts dangled in his face. Her hair created a mysterious perfumed veil around them. He blew a lock of hair out of his mouth. “This is all your fault, you know.”

She giggled at his hot, tickling mouth. “Oh, yeah? How is that?”

“You keep saying sweet things to me.” He suckled her nipple into his mouth, swirling and pulling. “Makes my dick hard.”

“Get real. You get equally hard when I scream and pound on you.”

He pondered that. “Well, hell. That’s true,” he said, in a tone of mock discovery. “I’ll be damned. That’s remarkable. Angle yourself so your clit’s rubbing up against my…yeah. Just like that. Perfect. Ah.”

She gave in, moving over him, stretched taut between two poles of melting pleasure, the greedy suckling of his mouth against her breasts, and his thick phallus massaging inside her, with that slow, skillful glide and plunge. Her hair fanned out in floating clouds of suds. There was no sounds but the lap and splash and slosh of the water, the wet sounds of his suckling mouth against her, her gasping breaths.

The climax was long, and liquid, and endlessly lovely.

When her eyes fluttered open, he pulled her up and out of the tub, scooped her up into his arms. She clutched his shoulders with a squeak. She just couldn’t get used to this being swept up routine.

He carried her into the other room and laid her down on the rumpled bed, dripping wet. He spread her legs, smoothed the clinging wet hair back off her face. “I want to fill you up with my come.”

She tried to speak. The jerky hiccups were shaking her apart.

“Shake your head, if you don’t want it.” His voice was raw.

She caressed his face. He made a harsh sound, and let go of his control. Oh, God, she loved it when he went wild, when the tendons on his neck stood out, when he lost himself, ramming into her with deep, hard strokes that satisfied some crazy savage primordial urge.

The explosive rush of life-giving delight fused them together.

When she started noticing things again, she saw him rolling something small between his fingers. It glittered and flashed.

She peered at it. “Your earring,” she said. “Did it fall out?”

He held it out to her. “It’s yours.”

She shrank back. “Oh, no. I’ve never seen you without it.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s always been yours. I bought this stone for you fifteen years ago.”

She gaped, the protest she was about to make evaporating.

“I spent every dime I made that summer to buy it,” he said. “It was the biggest one I could afford. I opted for just the stone. Anything I could have gotten with a setting would have been just a pin-prick of a thing.” His eyes slid away. “I know it’s not a huge rock, but it’s good quality.” He pushed her wet hair back, fastened it into her earlobe.

Desperate questions welled up. She was afraid to let them out. Was it like an engagement ring? Was it just a sweet postcoital impulse?

She opened her mouth to ask, when his cell phone rang.

He flicked it open and barked into it. “You got something?…Grissom? Yeah, I know it. What’s the address?…I’m on it. Later.”

He clicked the phone shut. His eyes had focused, sharp and cool.

“Get dressed, princess,” he said. “Davy’s found our reporter.”

Two ferocious pit bulls were chained to a metal pole in the center of the yard. They snarled and lunged when Sean and Liv got out of the car. A garbage pail had been overturned long ago, and its contents were becoming one with the lawn, which had been dug up and excreted upon until it was just a few diseased patches of brownish yellow stubble.

The length of the chain and the ferocity of the dogs made it impossible to approach the door, but the dogs served as a doorbell, so he just twined his fingers through Liv’s and waited. He lifted up the heavy mass of damp dark hair to admire the diamond winking in her ear. She was so damn pretty. He wanted to drape her with jewels.

It pleased him, to see that rock on her. It was about fucking time.

The screen door of the house squeaked. The man who came out was thin, eyes hollow and reddened. What hair there was on his head was greasy and straggling. His jeans hung on him, his limp T shirt was stained and grayish. He hacked, spat. “What do you want?”

“Are you Jeremy Ivers?” Sean asked. “The reporter?”

The man’s eyes bulged. “Who wants to know?”

“My name is Sean McCloud. I wanted to ask you about an article you wrote for the Washingtonian, fifteen years ago.”

Jeremy Ivers had begun shaking his head before Sean finished speaking. He shrank in the door like a turtle retracting its head into its shell. “I never wrote any article,” he said. “You got the wrong guy. I’m not a reporter. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go away.”

The door was closing, the dogs flinging themselves frantically against their chains, barking madly with big, hoarse, hollow voices.

Sean pitched his voice to punch through the noise. “I’m going to kill those murdering sons of bitches,” he said.

The door stopped closing. It opened a crack. Ivers’s eye appeared.

“What murdering sons of bitches?” he called out.

“The ones that did this to you.” Sean gestured at the yard, the dogs, the garbage. The festering despair that permeated the place.

Ivers opened the door and stepped out onto the tiny crooked porch. “What the fuck do you know about what they did to me?”

Sean thought about the nightmares, about staring at the ceiling with a hole in his belly every four AM for fifteen years. About what he had done to Liv, in the jail. “They did it to me, too.”

Ivers looked him over, slowly, and snorted. “Yeah. Sure they did.”

“I mean to rip those murdering motherfuckers limb from limb for what they did.” He held the man’s gaze. “But I need your help to do it.”

Ivers rubbed his stubbly face. He looked lost. “I can’t help you with anything,” he said. “I’m no good to anyone anymore.”

“We’ll see,” Sean said. “Please. Let us come in and talk.”

Ivers shrugged. “Aw, what the fuck.” He shuffled down the steps, and grabbed the dogs’ collars. “Get inside. I’ll hold them until you’re in.”

The interior of Ivers’s home was much like the exterior. Dingy, reeking, with tattered thrift store furniture, an unbroken mass of clutter. Every surface was coated with a skim of oily dust and grime. There was a sour-sweet smell of spilled beer, dog urine and pot smoke.

Liv nudged a heap of junk mail gingerly off the cleanest looking sofa cushion, and perched right on the edge. Sean sat next to her.

Ivers shuffled in, and stared at them for a moment, as if two space aliens had sat down on his couch. “Uh, want a beer?”

He fetched himself one when they declined, and fell down with a crinkle onto a sliding heap of magazines on his sofa. He popped open his beer, glugged half of it down, and wiped his mouth. “So. What have you deluded yourself into thinking that I can do for you?”

“You wrote this article, fifteen years ago,” Sean said, holding up the photocopy. “I just want you to tell me what happened afterwards.”

Ivers closed his eyes, shook his head. His larynx bobbed in his lean, stubbly throat. “Look, you’ve got to understand. They can do what they want to me, I don’t give a fuck. But I’ve got kids.”

“I won’t put your kids in danger,” Sean promised quietly.

Ivers rubbed his wet, trembling mouth. “I was working on a follow-up article,” he said. “I’d poked around, found two more names. One kid from Washington State, the other from Evergreen.”

“How did you find out about the Colfax Building?”

“Ah. That was a stroke of luck.” He laughed. “Good or bad, depends on how you look at it. If I hadn’t talked to Pammy, maybe I’d still have a family. Maybe I’d still be a man. Not a piece of shit.”

“Tell us about Pammy,” Sean suggested gently. He had practice steering disturbed people gently away from the dead-end grooves in their minds, after all those years of trying to manage Crazy Eamon.

“She was the girlfriend of one of the missing boys. Craig Alden. She told me that he’d been doing drug experiments, getting paid good money for it, three hundred bucks a pop. She was into mind-expanding stuff like that, so he brought her up to the Colfax to see if he could sign her up. Double their money. To support her other drug habit, I expect.”

“And?” Liv prompted. “Did he? Did she?”

“No,” Ivers said. “The guy running the experiments didn’t want Pammy. She said the guy was pissed at Craig for bringing her there. Not surprising. She was a meth head. I wouldn’t have wanted her, either.”

“Did she remember the doctor’s name?” Sean asked.

Ivers let out a derisive grunt. “Like it could be that easy. All she remembered was that he was tall, dark and handsome. Helpful, huh?”

Sean shrugged. “It narrows it down a little. Go on.”

“So a couple weeks later, Craig didn’t come home. She figured he’d gotten bored, run off with some girl. I was curious at that point, so I followed up. The building was closed. I tracked down the janitor who’d worked there, but he didn’t know anything. I kept digging, found out the building was owned by Flaxon Industries. Big pharmaceutical company. I tracked down the local company rep. Guy told me there had never been any drug trials conducted there to his knowledge, so I figured Pammy had been dropping acid. But that night…” He stopped, rubbed his mouth. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I’m slitting my own throat.”

“No, you’re not,” Sean said patiently. “What happened that night?”

Ivers covered his eyes. “I woke up,” he rasped. “A guy with a mask was holding a knife to my wife’s throat. He told me I was going to stop writing articles, stop asking questions, or he’d cut her in front of me. Then he’d start in on my kids. Make it look like I’d done it. Three and six years old, sleeping down the hall. Those sweet, innocent little kids.”

Liv leaned forward and put her hand on the guy’s arm, making him jump. “I know how you felt,” she said.

He yanked his arm away. “How would you know?”

“He had that knife at my throat two days ago.” She nodded towards Sean. “He saved me. Or I’d be in a hole in the ground now.”

Ivers’s sharp laugh sounded bitter. “Whoop-de-doo for you, honey. Got you a big macho man, huh? My wife wasn’t so lucky. She was gone in less than a month. With the kids. Bye bye to the ball-less wonder.”

“I’m sorry,” Liv said quietly.

“She married again,” he said dully. “The kids have her husband’s name. The only thing I can do for them is stay away. I haven’t seen my kids in ten years.” Ivers sagged, putting his face in his hands.

Sean waited for Ivers to get his boozy weeping under control, and pressed on. “Do you remember the name of the Flaxon rep?”

Ivers mopped his face, gulping snot. “Charles Parrish. But I don’t recommend calling. Unless you want a nighttime visit from Godzilla.”

Sean hesitated a couple of beats. “Bring him on,” he said.

Ivers stared at him. “Fuck you,” he said. “I hope you get those filthy bastards. But fuck you anyhow.” He glanced at Liv. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she said.

Ivers got up, and yanked the door open. “It’s time for you to take your extra load of testosterone and get lost,” he said. “I’ll hold the dogs.”

Sean nodded, unoffended. The guy’s shame and anger made perfect sense to him. He and Liv got through the gate, but he stopped before getting into the car. “Hey,” he said. “If I get lucky and nail those guys, I’ll contact you. Give you the all clear. You can go find your kids.”

Ivers stared at him, his mouth turned down. “Too late,” he said. “I’m wasted now. I’m all fucked up. They’re better off without me now.”

“It’s not too late.” He had no idea where the intensity in his voice came from. “Those bastards put it to you for fifteen years. Do not bend over and let them do it to you again. It’s not too goddamn late.”

He got into the car, started it up. Ivers stood like a statue in the yard, the dogs snapping and lunging on their chains. His big, hollow eyes followed them as the car pulled down the street.

Liv was startled to see Nick at the bar, along with Sean’s brother Davy, when they walked into Tam’s kitchen.

“What’s with him?” Sean asked Tam. “What, haven’t you gotten that thermal imager installed yet?”

Tam grunted sourly. “He knows where I live. The only remedy now is to put him through the woodchipper and feed him to the pigs.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “You don’t keep pigs. You don’t chip wood, either. And you need to do something about that irrational hostility.”

“Where’s Con?” Sean asked hastily, before the bristling Tam could gather herself for a cutting reply.

Davy made a disgusted sound. “Scouring the streets for Cindy. He bawled her out for jumping into this investigation. She got her feelings hurt. Pried the beacon out of her phone and skipped out.”

“Oh, man.” Sean winced. “She picked a tasty time for it.”

Davy shook his head. “Glad it’s not my job to run herd on that hellcat. Poor bastard. What the hell have you guys been doing all day?”

“That’s easy,” Tam broke in. “She left this morning with a blond wig, and unfortunate panty lines. I meant to tell you to go with the thong, but it slipped my mind.” She lifted up the mass of Liv’s tangled hair. “She comes back with smeared mascara, whisker burn, no wig, and no panty lines.” She winked. “You do the math, gentlemen.”

Sean made a growling sound, not unlike Ivers’s chained dogs. Liv blushed fiery hot, and Davy spat out some incomprehensible epithet.

“Sean, do you think you could possibly redirect some small percentage of your blood flow from your dick back to your brain?” he snarled. “I know sex is your number one coping mechanism, but—”

“Shut up, Davy,” Sean broke in. “Do you want to hear about the janitor and the reporter, or do you want to waste time giving me shit?”

Davy subsided, his face furrowed with concentration as Sean recounted the details of their two interviews. He passed the photocopy of the article to his brother. Tam and Nick read it over his shoulder.

“I checked those names in the missing persons database,” Nick said. “Just like Ivers said. All male, all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three. None have ever been found. None had much family. Some reports were filed weeks later. No one noticed they were gone ’til the rent came due. There were no prints on that Beretta, other than hers and a couple of yours. Guy must have wiped it down.”

“He was wearing leather gloves,” Liv said.

There was a chilled silence. Sean took a deep breath and shook himself. “So,” he muttered. “What’s next?”

Davy steepled his hands together. “We squeeze Beck again. Cindy rattled him when she mentioned Kev, Con said. That makes me think we should go rattle him again. Harder. See what falls out.”

“Beck? You mean that chemistry professor that Kev—”

“Was teaching for, yeah. We talked to him fifteen years ago. You were still locked in the drunk tank,” Davy said. “He was worse than useless. A total zero. Makes you wonder how he became head of the chemistry department. You’d think a functioning brain would be a prerequisite.” He smiled thinly. “Let’s go ask him how he pulled it off.”

“We need to track down Charles Parrish,” Sean said. “Ivers’s contact with him is what touched off the hit man who attacked him.”

“Let’s leave for Endicott Falls tonight,” Liv said. “Then we can go see this guy first thing in the morning.”

Sean turned on her. “We? What’s this ‘we’ business? You’re staying right here. I thought we had an understanding.”

“Ah, no,” Liv said delicately. “I want to—”

“You are staying right here, and that is fucking final.”

Everyone flinched. Davy cleared his throat. “Ah, could you guys maybe have this particular conversation in private?”

“Forget it, Liv.” Sean ignored his brother completely, still staring into her eyes. “Just get it out of your head.”

Nick broke in. “Weird, how they were all science geeks, huh? And all short on family. So sad to be all alone in the world.”

“The guy must have been licking his chops when he met Kev,” Davy said. “Crazy brilliant, no parents, no money. But he didn’t factor us in. Maybe Kev didn’t even tell him he had brothers.”

“Why should he factor us in?” Sean said. “McCloud boys are easy to manage. Just tell them their brother went bonkers, and they’ll fall right into line. Yes, sir. No, sir. Anything you say, sir.”