Her Last Chance (12 page)

Despite being early October, the
temperature was in the high nineties and the humidex was off the charts.
Moisture clung to his upper lip and rolled a pathway down his body.

His hand tailored wool suit might
be perfect for the insidious cold of the eastern seaboard, but was like wearing
a wet blanket in Savannah, Georgia. He took off his jacket, waited for Thomas
Brown to finish pouring a glass of iced tea. The cool liquid condensed on the
outside, pooling on the dark wood for a moment before Brown handed it over.

“Thank you.” He took the glass from
the neat little man and swallowed half of it in one gulp. His body temperature
dropped a fraction of a degree.

“You’re welcome.” Brown smiled
back. “More?”

Marsh accepted gratefully.

Brown was nothing like the hotshot
Marsh had expected. The guy had the look of indentured manservant about him.
Meek, mild, nothing like Pru Duvall.

“Is it always this hot in the
fall?” Slowing down, he sipped politely. The cool brew slid down his throat
with icy welcome.

A ceiling fan whirred softly
overhead, sending waves of hot air back to the ground and providing all the
relief of a hairdryer. A curtain twitched in the light breeze. The sound of
children’s laughter rode the sultry atmosphere with featherlike snatches of
delight. Marsh was impatient for answers, but experience told him a little
small talk and courtesy would get him further, faster, than barking demands.
Especially in the south.

The room was stuffed full of period
clothing and antiques. Enough to start a store. Mothballs, musty and pungent,
were scattered around the place like little white marbles. Marsh
surreptitiously dug one out from beneath his thigh, dropped it to the floor,
wiping oily hands onto his pant leg.

“Keeps the cats off the chairs and
moths out of the clothes.” Thomas nodded toward the railing full of old dresses
that looked like they came from the film set of
Gone With The Wind
.

“Excuse me?”

“The mothballs.” Brown’s eyes
crinkled softly in amusement. “Keeps the cats from damaging the fabric.” On cue
a fluffy Persian stalked out from behind the desk, tail straight up in the air
as it sashayed past Marsh.

“Are you some kind of collector?”

“No, sir.” Thomas smiled. “The
opposite in fact. This all belonged to Miss Pru’s parents and grandparents. She
asked me to get rid of the lot.” He took a seat behind the small desk that was
cluttered with papers and files, a big hulking computer monitor and an old ring
dial telephone.

“Does this house belong to Mrs.
Duvall too?”

The house was a moderately-sized
Regency, painted a ghostly pale-blue. Shutters and intricate iron balconies
added to its visual appeal and it faced onto a square with a stone fountain at
its center and giant oaks providing shade and shelter from the relentless heat.

Thomas nodded. “Yes, sir. Was her
grandmother’s house originally, but Miss Pru had all her things moved here when
her mother, Miss Virginia, died. She grew up in one of the big mansions on
Abercorn Street, but she sold it. It’s a hotel now.”

Marsh nodded. He could see Pru
growing up in decadent style and splendor, much like himself. But what he
didn’t see was Pru selling up and moving to this house, which though beautiful
and historic, wasn’t magnificent or grand like her childhood home must have
been. Mansions were good for entertaining political cronies.

“Any idea why she sold up?” Marsh
queried.

The whites of Thomas’ eyes were
tinged with yellow. “I don’t rightly know, sir. Miss Pru doesn’t confide in me,
just pays me to look after her property down here for which I’m very grateful.”

Thomas Brown was at least fifteen
years older than Pru—Marsh wondered what family skeletons he knew about.
Had
they been lovers?

“How often does Miss Pru come down
here, Thomas?” Marsh asked.

The other man looked down at his
brown leather shoes that stuck out the side of the desk. They were well worn,
but not shabby, a bit like the man himself.

“Not often.” Thomas glanced over,
squinting his eyes as if considering. “Maybe twice in the last three
years…well, she’s been living in Australia on and off for the last little
while.”

The lovers angle seemed a bit of a
stretch.

Marsh pulled out a photograph of
Admiral Chambers’ painting. “You sold this painting to a company called Total
Mastery NY about six months ago. Do you remember it?”

Thomas sent Marsh a look that
suggested he was an imbecile.

“Of course, I remember.” Thomas
folded his hands across the front of his belted pants. “I was mighty pleased to
get such a good price.”

Marsh didn’t tell the man that it
was worth many times what he’d received for it—or nothing at all if it was
stolen.

“Where did you get the painting,
Thomas?”

“From the mansion.” Swollen
knuckled fingers rubbed slowly through close-cropped black hair. “Miss Pru told
me to sell anything that wasn’t needed to furnish this house. She’d already
taken any pictures she wanted to keep.” The man nodded toward the clothes and
porcelain that cluttered every space. “It’s taken me five years, but that’s all
that’s left of it now.”

This wasn’t helping. “Do you
remember when that particular painting first arrived at the mansion or how it
got there?”

Chocolate eyes gleamed. “I don’t
even recall exactly where I found it,” he said, frowning. “But I figured when I
did find it, it might be valuable because it looked so old. I sent it off to a
local firm to get it cleaned.” He shrugged, bony shoulders stretching the thin
cotton. “When it came back it was almost unrecognizable. All that black dirt
gone.” Those wide lips smiled. “The only thing I cared about was getting the
money back for the restoration and making a tidy profit. What’s all this about,
Agent Hayes?”

The painting had been cleaned since
it was stolen from the admiral. “Do you know if Mrs. Duvall saw the painting
after it was cleaned, but before it was sold?” Marsh scrubbed his hand over his
face, recognizing a looming political nightmare. Establishing provenance was
going to be much trickier than he’d anticipated. Could there be two identical
paintings in circulation?

“I don’t rightly know, sir.” The
gentle eyes held a hint of pity. “But I don’t think so.”

“Do you have any proof of
provenance?” Marsh asked. This was rapidly turning into a waste of time.

Thomas smiled, cheeks balling into
tight brown apples. “All the important papers were lost in a fire after the War
Between States.” Thunder rolled in the distance and white light flickered
around the room. He pushed back his chair and peered out the window as the clip-clop
of horses’ hooves passed by. “Ironic to be spared by Sherman only to be brought
low by a scullery maid, don’t you think?

“Here comes that storm,” Thomas
commented.

Marsh nodded. His whole life felt
like a storm right now and here he was sitting in Savannah learning absolutely
nothing. His phone vibrated in his pants pocket.

He checked the number—
shit
.

He returned the unanswered phone to
his pocket. He had one more question. “How do you sell the items, Thomas? At an
auction house?”

“Miss Pru sent a shipment of finer
antiques and such to a fancy auction house, left me to deal with the rest.”
Thomas nodded toward the computer. “I put them on the web.”

Surprised, Marsh’s eyebrows
stretched high. “You sold that painting online?” Holy crap.

“Yessir.” Thomas slowly nodded his
head up and down. “The beauty of the Internet.”

Folding his jacket over his arms,
Marsh thanked the man and said goodbye. There were no answers to be found in
Savannah. Only another layer of old wealth and a mystery that was screaming at
him through the distance of time and space. The journey here was nothing but a
waste of time. Marsh’s cell rang again and this time he had to answer it.

He stood on the front steps
overlooking a moss-draped Savannah square. “Hayes here.”

“Marsh…”

It was Josephine, and his heart was
kicked into high gear by a bolus of adrenaline and then jolted by a crack of
thunder overhead.

“Are you all right?” He told
himself not to panic. Vincent wasn’t some chump.

“I’m fine. Vince is right here
beside me.” She lowered her voice, the words becoming muffled as if she’d put
her hands over her mouth. “Did the FBI talk to you about the latest murder
yet?”

“We can’t talk about this over the
phone.” They were on an unsecure channel. He didn’t intend to give anything away
to some bastard listening in.

Josephine’s swallow was
audible—more of a gulp. “It was your date. The girl you took to the art gallery
opening. He killed Lynn Richards.”

Chapter
Ten

_____________

D
arkness filled the unlit
stairwell. A thin strip of light shone beneath one doorway, but the others were
black and empty. Propping a hand against the doorjamb, Marsh concentrated on
breathing. In and out. Deep calming breaths that slowed the blood in his veins
to a stultified roar.

The murder of Lynn Richard had
shifted something fundamental within him, like the slow grinding of a tectonic
plate at a geological precipice.

He’d caught the last connecting
flight back from Atlanta. And though it was nearly midnight, he’d gone straight
to the Richards’ home to express his condolences. It hadn’t gone well. Their
daughter was dead—because of him. Marsh balled his fists with rage. Targeting
Josephine was bad enough, and Angela Morelli, and all the other women the
bastard had brutalized. But he’d planned the sadistic murder of that young
woman based purely on nothing more than her photograph on the front page of a
newspaper…

She was so young.

Christ
. In the Navy he’d
lost men under his command and regrets over their loss sat like shrapnel in his
chest. But
this
? He rubbed his eyes, wanted to rage, but instead pushed
himself upright and slipped the key in the door. It swung open, Vince’s Desert
Eagle pointed directly at his heart.

“Good thing I called first, huh?”
Marsh recognized the empathy in the other man’s gaze. Vince had done
god-knows-what, in more war zones than they had states and he understood loss.
They stared at each other for a silent moment before Marsh looked away.

“Pays to be extra vigilant in the
kill zone, Marshall. And now is the time to remember that.” Vince holstered his
weapon, picked up his overnight bag and slung it over his shoulder. “See you in
the morning.”

“Watch your back, Vince.”

The other man nodded sharply.
Walked away, his rapid footsteps echoing off the walls with clipped efficiency.
Marsh closed the door behind him and locked up. Rested his head against the
cool wood as emotion washed through him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Josephine
said out of the darkness.

He spun at her voice. Watched her
shadow hover uncertainly beside her bedroom door.

“Yeah.” His voice was gritty. “It
was.” He rubbed his throat, hoping to rid himself of the knot that threatened
to choke him.

Josephine crossed over to the
windows and looked out into the dark street beyond. Footsteps echoed faintly
along the street, probably Vince hurrying back to his other life. “You can’t
control everything.”

“I never even wanted to go out with
her.” The memory of how he’d treated her, because she wasn’t Josephine, because
his mother had set them up, ate at him. He’d been a spineless prick and now she
was dead.

His eyes followed her movements
hungrily in the dark. The moon caught the edge of her nightshirt, rimming her
profile in silver. The outline of her body was visible through the backlit
fabric, her shape filling him with an aching need. Bitterness ripped through
him; self-loathing crawling through his body. Even Lynn’s death couldn’t turn
off his desire for her; if anything it made it worse. These hours might be all
they shared. She might never be his and although he’d die to protect her, there
were no certainties in life. The only certainty was death.

“I didn’t want to go on a date with
her because she wasn’t
you
.” The words spilled out when he’d thought
they’d stay silent inside his head.
Shit
.

Her hands gripped the material at
her breast. “I—”

“Don’t say it.” He dragged his
hands through his hair and moved woodenly down the stairs. “I don’t want your
fucking pity.”

She came toward him, stopped a few
away. “I’ve never pitied you, Marsh. I’ve hated you and the things you make me
feel, but I have never pitied you. This wasn’t your fault—”

“It was my fault,” Marsh said
quietly. “If
I
hadn’t taken her to the gallery opening she wouldn’t be
dead.”

Her shoulders tensed and her chin lifted.
“If your mother hadn’t set you up on a date, if the photographer hadn’t taken
your picture, if the newspaper hadn’t put us on the front page together.” She
advanced until there was nothing between them but polarized molecules of
electricity. “If I hadn’t survived.”

Pain tore his chest wide open.
Jesus
.
It
was
his fault. He dropped down to the couch, hands over his face, the
smell of naphthalene still embedded in his skin despite endless hand washing.
Repugnant. Stomach clenching. Disgusting.

He took a deep, shuddering breath,
felt Josephine’s arms slide around him, lightly, uncertainly, as if she had no
clue how to comfort someone. “That bastard killed her like she was worthless.
Slaughtered her because he wanted to give the FBI the finger. She was eighteen.”

“I want to help. Please tell me
what I can do to help.”

Handcuffs would be good. Tie him up
and fuck his brains out. That’d work.
Shit
. He wanted to sink into her
flesh. Bury every desperate thought in soft folds wrapped around him so tight,
no guilt could steal inside his head. Then he could pretend evil didn’t run
rampant and unchecked through their world. He could pretend the law would
prevail and they’d nail this sick bastard and she’d be safe. But it might never
happen. They might never catch him.

Josephine cradled his head to her
breast and rocked him.

She was rocking
him
.

He raised his head so their eyes
were level, the usual vivid blue of hers just another shade of gray in the
moonlight. The skin around her mouth was tight, her lips compressed, as if she
held emotion forcibly inside, unable to release it, unwilling to express it. He
cupped her cheek, rubbed his thumb across the hard line of her lips and felt
them relax a fraction as she released a breath. She smelled of grapefruit as if
she’d recently showered, skin still slightly damp.

She never railed against fate or
the terrible things that had happened to her. No matter what this killer threw
at her, she didn’t give an inch and Marsh didn’t think it was because she
didn’t feel the fear, but because she’d barricaded herself behind so many
emotional defenses she was almost impenetrable.

Almost.

“I think you’re a better man than
most.” Her hand caught his, pressing it into her cheek.

That’s what he wanted—to be better
than most—to be good enough to fill the void left by an older brother whom he’d
loved. Good enough to catch the bad guys.

His fingers slipped around her
cheek, brushed her ear and delved deep into the silken tresses of her hair. He
drew her closer to him. Felt the resistance in every muscle, every vertebrae,
in every staggered breath she drew.

“I want you.”

“I can’t—” She pulled back
slightly.

“You did last time,” he said. The
drumbeat of his heart snarled through his ears, scorched blood streaming
through his veins making him want to dive in and devour her. But no violation
was allowed. No coercion. No drugs. No guilt. Nothing but honest desire.

Lightly stroking the delicate skin
of her wrists, he leaned back so his shoulders rested against the couch.

Released her.

She wasn’t a coward. She’d put
herself firmly in the bulls-eye of the mob last spring helping Elizabeth and
hadn’t flinched, but when it came to the passion that burned between them, this
crazy crackle of heat, she always ran.

“Go to bed,” he told her. Baring
his teeth in a humorless grin, frustrated and pissed, needing something from
this woman that she didn’t want or need from him. He closed his eyes so she
couldn’t see his weakness.

Silence rang loudly. The only noise
was her breath, a light indecisive sound.

He didn’t want indecisive. “Go to
bed, Josephine.”

Cool fingers touched him through
the soft wool of his pants and he jolted violently, the caress turning a silky
ache into volcanic heat that forced a noise from between his gritted teeth that
sounded like he was dying.

She hesitated as if unsure.

“Don’t stop.”
Mr. Cool
.
Lightly he moved her slender fingers over flesh that begged for her
attention—he didn’t want anyone else and he was probably going to freak her
out, scare her away, but he needed her to touch him. He needed her to want to
touch him.

With one hand she pushed him back
against the couch. Moonlight washed in and out of the high windows, leaving her
as insubstantial as shadow, as powerful as a prophesy. He let her pin him,
knowing he was doomed, knowing she could rule him with nothing more than the
pressure of those slender hands or a soft word.

Her hair shone, drifting down to
cover her expression when he damn well wanted to see her face. Then she touched
him again—an exploration that made him jump and bump his elbow on the wooden
arm of the couch. He gritted his teeth, sweat beading along his brow, every
pleasure neuron in his body latching onto her touch like iron filings to a
magnet. She withdrew her hand and for a second he thought he might howl, but
then she tugged on his belt, damn near cut off his blood supply before she
undid the buckle and slid the leather free.

Soft fingers brushed his stomach as
she undid the button, drew the zipper down with a rasp that sounded hotter than
his most erotic fantasy.

“I’ve never done this before.” Her
mouth was close to his as she whispered in his ear, sliding her hand along the
swelling heat of him.

He couldn’t breathe let alone talk.

Her hands moved silkily over his
flesh, a hiss of steam rising in their wake. “Tell me if I do something you
don’t like.” Insane laughter rang inside his head. Not possible.

Kneeling beside him on the couch,
her knees dug warmly into his thigh and she ran her fingers higher, over the
tight drum of his stomach and undid a button of his shirt.

Unable to stop himself, he pulled
her across his lap, sensations of light flashing behind his eyes as she
straddled him, adjusting their intimate fit in a way that made his brain
meltdown—especially when he realized she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

His hands gripped the firm flesh of
her thighs, fusing her to him, refusing to let her move even though he could
feel her desire to do just that in the quivering of her muscles.

“Josephine.” His voice was rough.

Opening her eyes, she looked as if
she’d come out of a trance. Not what he wanted, but he wasn’t playing games
tonight and he wasn’t having any misunderstandings getting between them.

“I don’t want to fool around like a
teenager. I want to take you to bed and—”

“Fuck my brains out.”

“There’s more to it than that.” The
vehemence in his voice shook them both.

“I don’t want there to be more to
it than that.” She reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Can we just
do this? Have sex. Like normal adults? Or are we gonna screw this whole thing
up again?”

He grabbed the edge of her t-shirt,
too quickly for her to protest and jerked it over her head.

“Normal well-adjusted adults get
naked when they have sex,” he told her. Neither of them was normal or
well-adjusted but he didn’t care.

“Normal people don’t look like
this.” Her hands came up to cover her torso.

“Don’t,” he said, “Please don’t.
Your scars don’t bother me.” He palmed a small perfect breast and she rocked
toward him. Her head fell forward, hair trailing in a long swathe over her
shoulders.

Reminding him she was naked and he
was pretty much fully clothed.

A fantasy come true. If he got any
hotter he was going to ignite. He ran his hands over her back, skimming the
area where he’d implanted the transmitter all those months ago, unwilling to
draw attention to the spot but curious. The skin felt satin smooth, no hint of
the microchip hidden beneath the supple flesh. Shuddering, he moved on to
cradle the soft swell of her breasts with her own palm, letting her feel the
beauty and sensuality of her own body. A soft moan escaped slightly parted
lips.

Tracing a silver scar, he rubbed
lightly the spot where it ended, right on the point of her hipbone.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“No, I’m not.” Her head came up,
fire flashing in her eyes in the moonlight. “You don’t have to flatter me. You
are
getting lucky tonight.”

“Exactly.” Dealing with this woman
was always a challenge and when no blood circulated his brain it was downright
impossible. “So why don’t you believe me when I tell you, you’re the most
beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?”

He held her gaze; saw distrust
warring with insecurity.

“I’m going to have you anyway.” He
trailed his hand lower, slowly trailing his finger down her body and then
between her legs. He dipped one finger inside hot flesh. “Why would I lie?”

“Oh god,” she whispered as her
hands braced against his chest. “I don’t know.”

She was slick and wet and the
desire to dive inside nearly overcame him, but he wanted to give her
everything, make her view sex as a thing of wonder, not a pit of depravity.

He held her in place with one hand
low on her back, bringing her closer. Gently, he took a puckered nipple into
his mouth, and suckled her gently, rasping his tongue across the knotted
areole. A breathy moan resonated through the room, bouncing off the high
ceilings. Tight panting breaths echoed the rhythm of his fingers. She dug her fingers
into his shoulders, nails biting deep as he pressed his palm against her
clitoris and found the spot that made her writhe in his arms. She exploded
against him, lips parted, eyes closed as she shuddered and trembled naked in
his arms. She slowly quieted and rested her forehead on his shoulder. The feel
of her breath against his neck had satisfaction ripping through him. A vital
piece of his life shifted back into place.