Finding Claire Fletcher (3 page)

Connor carried her through the doorway holding her lengthwise against him, past the living room and down the hall to his bedroom, kissing her, knocking their fused bodies against door frames and walls.

When they reached the bedroom, he freed one of his hands to flick the light on. He set her standing at the foot of the bed and dropped to his knees. He slid her jeans down gently. She put her hands on the top of his head like a saint granting benediction and stepped out of her pants.

Claire’s legs were smooth and well-muscled. Connor kissed her thighs and the front of her plain black cotton panties where they lay over her hips. He lifted her shirt to kiss her stomach. Claire’s hands slid down his back and pulled insistently at his shirt. As he hurriedly pulled it over his head, she sat on the bed and pushed herself back toward the head of the bed.

Claire’s eyes were ablaze, but in the little green flecks, Connor saw a deep sorrow. “Claire,” he said.

She pulled his shoulders, guiding him over her, opening her legs. “Here,” she said. “I want to feel you.”

Connor crouched over her, and she ran her hands down his chest. She lifted her head to kiss him. Her tongue teased his neck. She reached for his fly, but he brushed her hands away. “Claire,” he repeated.

“Here,” she said again. She pulled her shirt over her head. He looked down at her, naked except for her underwear. She was exceptional. Mostly angles and taut muscles which only served to accent the curves of her breasts and hips. He bent to kiss her breasts, and she bucked impatiently beneath him, lightly scratching his shoulders and arms in her effort to draw him down to her.

Connor slipped his arms under hers, his hands curving over her shoulders, his fingers resting on her collarbones. As he lowered himself onto her, her legs scissored his waist. He stopped, face to face with her, and watched her. She tried to kiss him, but each time he buried his face in her neck to avoid her mouth. Finally, she lay still.

He looked into her eyes again, wanting to look away but training his gaze. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t want to do this.”

She bucked her pelvis against his. “I think you do,” she said.

He laughed. “Well, you are very compelling”—he kissed the tip of her nose—“but I don’t think I want to do this tonight.”

For once, she was at a loss for words. Connor kissed her face—forehead, eyes, chin, and finally her mouth. “I know nothing about you,” he said.

“Tell me about the man you shot—about his victims,” Claire said.

“You have to give me something, Claire,” Connor replied.

“Tell me about them,” she insisted.

Connor sighed and rolled off her. He lay on his side. Claire wiggled up against him, curling her back into his chest. He pulled her in and wrapped her in his arms, settling his chin on the top of her head.

“Okay,” he said. “There were five—five that we know of. The first was a fifteen-year-old girl. She was walking home from a party with a friend. A guy no less. The perp—that’s the rapist, the perpetrator—he came out of nowhere and grabbed her. They were walking past a convenience store. He held a knife to her throat and told this kid that if he didn’t do what he said, he’d kill her. So he takes them behind the store, puts the kid in a dumpster and throws a bunch of crates on top of it. Then he rapes the girl right there in the back of the store. Leaves her there. Eventually the kid gets out of the dumpster and goes for help.”

Claire shivered in his arms, goose bumps rising along her arms. “You sure you want to hear this?” Connor asked.

“Yeah.”

“The second two were college girls. They were sitting in a car outside this guy’s house. One of their boyfriends. I guess they thought the boyfriend was cheating and wanted to see if any other chicks were coming or going. They had the windows rolled down. The perp comes right up to the passenger’s side window, same thing, knife to the throat. Makes them drive out to this abandoned factory. Makes them take off their clothes. Binds them with the clothes and rapes them one by one.

“The fourth was a thirty-six-year-old housewife walking home from a PTA meeting. Perp grabbed her on the sidewalk, bashed her head off a tree, stuffed a sock in her mouth and raped her right on someone’s front lawn. The last one was a twenty-two-year-old bank teller. She left work at six, was walking to the bus station, and the perp came out of a doorway to an apartment building. Grabbed her, put the knife to her throat, and raped her in the stairwell.”

“You killed him,” Claire said.

“Yeah.”

“How did it feel?”

Connor shifted and nuzzled her ear. “It felt...strange. I mean in a way it felt really good knowing what he’d done, but still—I shot an unarmed man. And after all these women went through to get this guy and then bam—he’s dead. No reckoning. No day in court.”

“You think you denied those women justice,” Claire said.

“In a way.”

Her voice was edgy. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt them again. He can’t come back or go after them or people they loved. That’s justice.”

“Maybe,” Connor said.

They were silent for a long time. Claire nestled deeper into his arms and sighed. Connor moved one hand up to cup her breast and felt himself stir for the second time that night. Claire moaned and moved her rear against the front of his pants.

“Now would be a good time,” she said.

“Yeah?”

She squirmed in his arms. She reached behind her for his pants, but again he stopped her. He held her against him. “No,” he whispered.

Connor moved his fingers downward from her breast, sweeping his hand along her thigh and back up, gently stroking her skin. He trailed his fingers along her neck and collarbone, down her arm, across her stomach and over her hip. He caressed her skin until his arm ached and he felt Claire’s frame relax. Finally he loosened his grip on her body.

She turned into him, her curls tickling his bicep. She smiled a languid smile of pleasure, her eyelids at half-mast. “That feels so good,” she whispered.

Connor pushed her wild brown hair away from her face and traced her jaw line with his fingers. “Now tell me something about you,” he said.

Claire closed her eyes, her smile lingering as Connor continued to run his fingers lightly along the contours of her body. In a voice growing heavy with sleep she recited, “Claire Fletcher likes peanut butter and hot dogs made on a grill. She has a great sense of humor. She likes to read all kinds of books. She loves animals. She’s great at math, and one day she wants to be a veterinarian. She’s kind. Her favorite color is purple. She loves summer the most. She’s a really good swimmer…”

Claire drifted off to sleep in Connor’s arms. He watched her face go slack. He wanted to ask her why she referred to herself in the third person like she was reading about herself in a high school yearbook, but he didn’t want to wake her. Once more, he ran his hand down the smooth whiteness of her skin from shoulder to hip. She sighed softly and nestled deeper into his arms.

He watched as she slept deeply and peacefully. When he could no longer feel his left arm, he disentangled himself, trying not to rouse her. He brought a blanket from the closet and draped it over her. Then he brought a chair from the kitchen and turned it backwards so he could lean his arms on the back of it. He set it next to the bed and watched her sleep.

Connor had never watched a woman sleep before, not even Denise. He’d never felt compelled to. For some reason, he didn’t want to go to sleep and let this beautiful, enigmatic woman out of his sight. He chuckled softly. The day hadn’t been so bad after all. It ended with a naked woman lying in his bed.

Connor rested his chin atop his folded arms and began to doze. In the early morning hours, Claire called to him. He opened his eyes and saw her holding out a hand to him. “Come here,” she said.

Wordlessly, he climbed into the bed next to her. She snuggled her long body next to his, and he held her against him, pulling the covers over both of them. Connor tried to stay awake, but soon her scent and the delicate warmth of her body lulled him into a deep, peaceful sleep.

It took me exactly fourteen minutes to walk from Connor’s house back to the bar where I had left the truck. The sun was coming up. I rolled the window down and sped toward the highway. The cool morning air was a salve. I felt like all of my skin was laid open, sliced neatly from my scalp to my little toe and then pulled gently from my body. I gulped the air in as it rushed through the window, trying to calm my nerves. My heart beat wildly, like a washing machine off balance, threatening to careen through my breastplate with an annoying bang.

When I got to the highway, I pushed the truck as hard as I could. It was at least twenty years old. It had been painted so many times there was no telling what the original color might have been. Now it was a dull camouflage green, laced with rust. I pushed it to sixty-five but dared not go any faster. At that speed, the old beast shimmied and swayed, the springs blaring an operatic melody as if the truck might break apart at any second.

Although it was futile, I pounded the steering wheel with the palm of my right hand. “Shit,” I said through gritted teeth.

I was dangerously close to not making it back on time and astonished to find that I didn’t know what felt more frightening—not getting back on time or leaving Connor behind forever. I knew that leaving again was a risk. My first attempt at escape and my previous three outings had cost peoples’ lives. But I’d never stayed out this long. I’d never fallen asleep before, certainly not with one of them.

I felt something that I’d never felt before, although I often watched the girl I used to be experience the phenomenon in her parallel life. I felt something for Connor.

I had a crush.

I was both relieved and disappointed. I thought for certain that men were ruined for me, but last night I wanted to sleep in Connor’s arms. I wanted to stay there, nestled in that space against his warm torso. I never imagined feeling that way about a man. A tiny sapling of hope shot up in my heart only to be immediately crushed by the reality of my life.

My hand met the wheel angrily in time with my muttered words. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

I had to return before he realized I was out of town. He would find out. He always found out. Then sooner or later he would find out about Connor. A flashbulb memory lit up my brain: stubble on Connor’s chin, his lips weaving a sleepy smile as I tickled his neck, a kiss.

He would track Connor down and kill him.

The word “no” strangled itself round the lump in my throat.

Again, the bulb flickered: Connor’s face. His short brown hair standing in all directions after he runs a hand through it. Blue eyes betraying his constant assessment of everyone and everything. His mouth turned up more on the right side when he smiles. A hard jaw. Long, lean body. Toned muscles beneath lightly tanned skin.

I chose Connor because I sensed something in him that would be smart enough to avoid any danger or repercussions that followed my visit. He was a police detective. He shot a man. Surely, Connor could survive
him
.

Like the others?
asked a spiteful voice in my head.

I chewed my lower lip, wishing that Connor didn’t fill every ounce of my mind. I’d never felt attracted to a man before. I’d never actually wanted to have sex with any man before Connor. He surprised me by not giving in. I’d never been treated that way before.

The other three had not been like him at all. There was Rudy—he was first. I didn’t actually pick him, I stumbled upon him. He was kind of nerdy and his loneliness was palpable. I felt badly for using him, but I was much younger then and not as skilled at reading people.

The second man was far older than me, which was precisely the reason I chose him. He was unmarried and childless, lonely and bored with his life. The third man, Jim, was just a regular guy, also a little lonely and down on his luck. I picked him because, like Martin, the older man, I knew he could be manipulated easily. I knew that within a week he would do what I required.

Now it was Connor’s turn. I knew that he too would do my bidding, and sadly, I knew it wasn’t because I manipulated him to do so. I wanted to see him again. I wished I could explain things to him, and this was a compulsion I’d never been rocked by before. I wanted to kiss him again and feel his arms around me.

Something was breaking inside, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I didn’t know there was anything left inside me to be broken, but there it was. It was too late though. I had already set things in motion and there was no turning back. Maybe Connor would be smarter than the others.

“God, please,” I murmured.

My mind was so consumed with thoughts of Connor that I nearly missed my exit. I swerved madly off the highway, over the gravel median and onto the exit ramp. The truck tires squealed indignantly and the entire vehicle lurched right to left before I was able to right it. I was grateful there were no vehicles close behind.

As I got closer to the lonely, rural road and tiny trailer I inhabited, the air became dirty and heavy in my lungs. I was loathe to breathe it in. I didn’t want to return but if I didn’t, there would be consequences. There always were.

I had to go back. This was my ugly life. My name was Lynn now. He had christened me Lynn, and I could not escape him.