If Wishes Were Horses (6 page)

“Look at this.” Sarah withdrew the palm-sized book, the type that card shops sold in a basket next to the cash register. “
Best-Loved Poems.
”  She cracked it open and in the center was a photo, just slightly bigger than  a postage stamp, of a newborn infant. The poem on the page was from 1 Corinthians 13,  Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

Love is not selfish…

Sarah turned her gaze from the passage that had been read at her wedding and focused on the picture.

“Looks like  a hospital photo, the kind they  take the day the baby's born and staple

to the file,” Eric observed. “Odd. It's the only thing really personal in the pack.”

“Not so odd. An addict will trade everything for the next hit.  This wouldn't have

had value to anyone but her.”

Sarah sat back on her heels. They  all started  as infants, as fresh and unmade as the photo in her hand, but for some it ended the way it had for the woman behind her. The  ache in her  gut intensified, the telltale burn  of her ulcer. It was a signal, a part of her

intuition, and she didn’t welcome it. The woman in the circle had not overdosed. She

and Eric Wassler had a murder case. She’d bet on it.

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Joey W. Hill

Chapter 4

Sarah didn't avoid what scared her or pissed her off. Herne had done both and shewas going to confront him, on several different levels. He'd picked the wrong day tohave himself associated with a murder.

Even so, she made herself roll Wassler's words over in her mind because she didn't know how  much her distrust and animosity  toward Herne had to do with what had happened last night. He’d thrown off her instincts. Damn him. Why did the man have to be potentially connected to a murder? It  was as though he were determined to make her crazy.

She had imagined Herne's store as the typical aged brick or clapboard storefront commercial structure,  with no windows and  an asphalt parking lot and cheesy sign asthe sum total of the store’s exterior embellishment.

Though Wassler had prepared her for something a bit different, she was surprised to turn down a drive shaded with large water oaks hung with Spanish moss. A solidwood sign painted silver gray with a white border marked the entranceway off the rural highway. The carved rose in a deep  red hue underscored the sandblasted navy blue lettering of “For Her”.

The house was attractively landscaped with  beds of spring tulips and lush weeping cherry trees around the gravel parking area.  They framed the old rambling farmhousewith its wide porches and white columns.  Candlelight glowed behind jewel-toned stained glass in the front first level windows.  Bright green acres of marsh stretched out behind the property, and Sarah watched a heron take flight out of the tall grasses.

She pulled into a parking space. As she got out and walked toward the front door,she passed  a side courtyard which could be  accessed from the parking area through a trellis of wisteria. It was cobbled in stone,  and had a wishing pond  and a fountain as the centerpiece. The water  poured over a bronze  sculpture of a long-haired mermaid and a winged man, an angel. They clasped one another in an intimate embrace. One of the angel’s wings was wrapped around the mermaid's bare back, his other hand cupping her breast. Her fingers tangled in  his shoulder length hair.

The courtyard was enclosed in the trappings of an English garden. There were a couple of discreetly placed benches, purple  phlox tumbling over artfully placed piles ofsmooth large rocks, white lilies coming up from  the cracks. The branches of an old liveoak formed a shaded canopy over the back of the courtyard.

He had wanted to create a mood  before  his clients ever crossed the threshold of his

store, and Sarah felt it as much as saw it. She turned to look back the way she had come,  and saw how carefully he had transitioned  from the reality of the  highway. The  atmosphere gently pried open the senses  to other possibilities, other adventures.

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If Wishes  Were  Horses

That surprised her again, but it paled next to her shock when one of Lilesville’s well-respected octogenarians stepped out onto  the porch. Mrs. Jenkins carried a warm smile and a brown bag with an artful arrangement of straw poking out the top. The handles of the bag were tied with a ribbon and a fresh gardenia bloom to screen the contents.

She came through a  door propped open with  a gargoyle statue bearing a big grin and a penis so long Sarah thought it was a tripping hazard. Along with the statue, there was a cluster of spring flowers in a tin  bucket and a bird feeder, a Goddess figure offering the winged creatures sustenance  out of her  generous lap, just under herpendulous breasts.

Mrs. Jenkins neatly avoided the statue's  overendowed genitalia in her sturdy black heels.

“Hello, Chief Sarah,” she said. “It's good  to see you this morning. Doing some shopping?”

“A…a gift for a friend,” Sarah said, deciding  she didn't want anyone to know she was here on police business. The murder would be TV and radio news by dinnertime,  and she didn’t want speculation to run rampant.

Mrs. Jenkins nodded, a twinkle in her eyes  “Y.  ou  come  by  my  house  sometime  soon and I'll hem that dress you wore to church  last  Sunday.  It's  coming  down  in  the  back. You young women have such busy careers,  you don’t have time to attend to  these  things anymore.” She pressed Sarah's hand with a bony hand covered in soft flesh and  went on down the steps, humming to herself.

Sarah watched her go, mildly mortified that Mrs. Jenkins had the impression the police chief was shopping for sex toys or  lingerie for herself and too embarrassed to  admit it. The lady who did alterations to  supplement her Social Security check carried  her gloves and wore her hat as if she'd planned to stop at a church meeting. Her delicate blue-veined legs rose above her shiny black  shoes. The  hem of her blue  dress was trim  and neat.

Would she ever be  a Mrs. Jenkins, face  lined and content, her soul quietly wise and

accepting of past mistakes? Weariness settled  on Sarah’s shoulders. The stress of what had happened with Herne and another murder to solve weighed her down. She straightened her spine, chastising herself for the moment of weakness, and turned on  her heel.

Justin Herne was framed in the doorway.

In daylight, she had expected him to be different, the spell broken, just a handsome man who by some trick of moonlight and  a  primitive  ritual had worked magic on her

senses.

Her heart caught in her throat. He
 
was
 
different in daylight. He was more magnetic,because the reality of  him was more immediate and stark, those harsh, pale planes ofhis face, straight nose and thin lips more potent in their full detail. He wore a black, close fitting T-shirt tucked into  fitted black  slacks. A small silver pendant of a stag's

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head fused  to a pentagram hung on a slender silver chain around his neck. His dark  hair was swept off his forehead and tied back  as it had been before, but it did not give him the veneer of civility such a style should have suggested.

The short sleeves of his shirt revealed what  she had felt last night. There was little

softness to him, his muscles  corded and lean, giving his body a tensile appearance.  Strangely that made her heart hurt, as if she  could stroke those arms, take away some of the tension and give him peace.

Where the hell had that come from? She was not a soft woman. The man broke into  her house and she was here to scope him out as a possible murder suspect. Yet there

was something here, just like last night, something more  she could not begin to define.

“Chief Sarah,” he said at last, a quirk to  the corner of his  mouth. “I like it.”

“It's a liberty only afforded to senior citizens and people  I like.”

“Another reason to look forward to growing old. Would you like to come in, Chief?  I admit, I'm surprised. You don't seem like the sex aid type.”

“I thought one of those hopping penises would make a great stocking stuffer for my great-aunt.”

“Sorry, none in stock. I've heard  the local mall novelty store is selling them, along  with velvet black light posters. Of course, you might be interested in the massages we  offer on Tuesday nights for relaxation or stimulation.” His expression remained bland.  “Pedicures on Thursdays. With or  without restraints. Your choice.”

“I'm armed, Herne. Don't provoke  me.”

She wondered if he'd taken the time to shower and flushed, remembering his husky  voice against her ear, promising to enjoy the feel  of her juices drying on his testicles as  he drove home. She knew the convertible BMW  in the  lot was his,  and so it made it  impossible not to imagine him sitting in it just a few hours ago, her climax drying upon  his genitals.

He stepped aside and let her pass into the  open foyer. It was filled with an exotic scent, masculine and arousing all at once, like him.

Okay, so he'd created a classy façade. She didn't trust façades.

“Hmmm. Maybe you should try  this.” He picked up a frosted crystal atomizer and  misted the base of her neck with  it before she could duck away.

“Hey.” She swiped at herself, and the light  aroma of peaches and lilies wafted up to her nostrils. An expensive, haunting fragrance, no cheap chemical odor. She liked it, but  she frowned at him. “What is that?”

“Let me demonstrate how it works.” He  leaned forward, his eyes daring her to  retreat. She firmed her jaw and her resolve and was annoyed to feel her pulse rate  increase exponentially  as he blew on her neck, his lips only a few inches away, his hair  brushing her temple.

The skin beneath his breath grew pleasantly  warm. “It has a delightful effect when  used on nipples. Are you pierced, Chief? I can’t seem to recall.”

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A pair of ladies stepped over the threshold, forestalling her retort.

Sarah made a note to find out if Lilesville  had a dentist, because she was certain she had just ground the enamel off her bottom row  of teeth. With a look that should havesliced off his legs at groin level,  she stepped aside into the lingerie room to give him time to handle his customers.

The room was set up like an  intimate boudoir. Silken sheer  floor length gowns that would have turned any woman into a lush  Jayne Mansfield were displayed in an antique armoire, samples hung on the open  doors. Scattered across a brass bed with a white eyelet coverlet were offerings of various bras, panties, camisoles and garters. Sarah's attention went to the wall beside the  bed. In a mounted series of small curio

cabinets, on crushed velvet under lighting that made things sparkle and catch the eye,  were scrolled ben-wei  balls and several varieties of bullet-shaped clitoral stimulators in silver or bronze. All were showcased in  heart-shaped carved mahogany  boxes and carried a five-year guarantee on workmanship. In the middle mirrored cabinet there  were handcuffs, from polished police issue to  those with a soft inner lining, both kinds  resting on folds of soft blue gauze material, a stark contrast from how she usually saw handcuffs. Until this morning,  when she had seen them on  her bedspread, garnished  with wildflowers.

Two privacy screens provided a changing area in a corner of the room, with a simple linen drape that would suggest the silhouette of the woman changing behind it.

Justin and his clients were moving toward  the lingerie  room, so Sarah stepped into the next display area, an old-fashioned washroom possessing a clawfoot tub with brass fixtures, a washstand and pedestal sink.  Here she found the aromatherapy candles,arranged as if in preparation for the bather,  lavender soaps, skin smoother creams, and other items to pamper and prepare the body  to  be touched. Interestingly, this was where Herne chose to display his  adult book  offerings. Sarah paged through a couple of the selections stacked artfully in the nook  shelves above the tub and found erotic romances, geared to a woman’s tastes. She read a few pages out of the middles, enough to tell her that Herne understood quite  well that a woman’s mind was the key to stimulating her body. No cheap pulp porn  selections. A basket  containing fluffy,fragrant towels was placed next to the tub. There was also  an arrangement of waterproof vibrators and elegant shower head fittings with multiple settings in the same basket.

If a woman had this room and all its accoutrements at her disposal, why would sheneed a man? Sarah chuckled at the thought, though she immediately and vividly remembered Herne's touch on her body. The ravaging insistence of his mouth, his scent, his hunger, and her body's response to them.  She knew the answer to the question, one that would reassure men everywhere.  When a man took a woman the way she hungered to be taken, no machine could ever replace him.

She couldn't help but listen to the timbre of his voice, or notice from the corner ofher eye how he reached out and slid his hand down the older woman's arm in a waythat was entirely proper, and yet gentle and sensual at the same time. The woman

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looked like  she was the age of Sarah's mother, but she blushed like a girl. Her rueful  chuckle at herself only a second later suggested she had reached the point in her life  where she could be comfortably amused with  her reaction to a handsome man. Sarah  envied it. Herne’s knowing smile didn’t seem smug, but a  gesture of affectionate  communication.