Shadowed Paradise (30 page)

In one broad sweep of Brad’s callused
hand the top sheet joined the cotton blanket and bedspread that had
hit the floor an hour earlier. The next instant he was inside her,
filling her, taking control with a vengeance. Just a little plain
old-fashioned Slam-Bam-and-Thank-you-Ma’am. Except that he kept it
up until Claire joined his driving need, losing her schemes and
fears, losing herself more completely than she ever had before,
plunging with every stroke into some mindless cauldron of
sensation. Knowing only that she could never go back. Never be the
person she had been before. That she didn’t want to go back. She
only wanted to
be
. To be like
this. Forever.

The world fell away. As she convulsed, with a
cry of triumph Brad let himself go, joining her in their journey
into oblivion.

What seemed like hours later Claire gathered
enough strength to crawl out of bed. She tripped over Brad’s shirt,
idly slipped it on over her nakedness, then opened the balcony door
and walked out into the seabreeze that cooled the star-filled
night.

The smell of damp earth, tropical flowers,
salt water, the faint tang of chlorine from the pool permeated the
cool night air. Quiet, beautiful, peaceful. Palm Court—one of the
more idyllic spots on earth.

“
Nice,” Brad murmured against her hair,
his arms encircling her, one hand coming to rest over her breast,
the other flat against her abdomen. He was not, Claire knew,
referring to the view across the bay. When he pressed against her
from behind, she could feel his arousal growing even as he spoke.
“How about marrying me for my house?” he inquired
blandly.

“
Don’t be silly!”

“
Well, wealthy, good looking, and good
in bed don’t seem to be enough.”

“
You are the most spoiled, arrogant . .
.” Words failing her, Claire jerked out of his grasp, moving to the
edge of the balcony. “I have to go,” she said briskly. “I’ll fall
asleep over my computer as it is.”

“
Give notice.”

Claire swallowed hard. “I’ve been thinking
about it,” she admitted.

“
Tomorrow.” He was behind her again,
fingers closing possessively on the back of her neck, lips moving
against her ear. “Give Phil a week, two if she insists. Then you’re
mine. Do it, Claire, it’s time.”

She murmured something, anything. He was
right. It was time. She wasn’t saying yes to marriage. Just a
job.

A risky job.

This time Claire’s drive home wasn’t
lonely. It was peopled with ghosts and fraught with whispered
words. Jim Langdon, the ultimate pragmatist, was first and
loudest.
Go for it, Claire. You’ll never
get a better offer.

. . . But I like him, Mom!

. . . Claire Hilliard Langdon, you’re a fool
if you let that man get away . . .

. . .Your husband’s colleagues are desperate,
Mrs. Langdon. They’re not going to let the boy go . . .

. . . Mrs. Langdon . . . Claire, I’m sorry,
really sorry. Your husband’s plane went down . . .

A voice crackling over the
radio.
We’ve got him! The boy’s okay. He’s
alive. Ms. Langdon, are you listening? We’ve got him . .
.

. . . Look, Mrs. Langdon, we don’t go for
this innocent act . . . you must have met Anton Schawabe . . .

. . . Come on, Claire, Jim Langdon would
never have left his family penniless. Give it up, girl, where’re
those secret bank accounts . . .?

“
. . .Claire, Ms-s-s.
Langdon, you must recognize this photo. Claire? . . . hey, Claire,
pay attention . . .

Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. She
nearly hit a support beam as she eased the Toyota into its space
beneath Ginny Bentley’s house. Dear God, would she ever be rid of
the ghosts?

Could she come to Brad a whole person?

Would he settle for what he could get?

It was two in the morning and all Claire
could do was sit frozen on the edge of her bed. Listening to
ghosts. The living as well as the dead.

He should have known Brad Blue would be
trouble. Fucking government stooge. Charging off to save the world
while better people stayed home, trapped in their miserable little
jobs. Couldn’t keep him down on the farm. Not Brad Blue. No matter
how loud Wade Whitlaw yelled, Brad Blue was his precious
fair-haired boy. A Whitlaw, no matter what fake name his commie
father gave him.

Not that Whitlaws had all the
influence. He’d heard about the cross almost as soon as the
sheriff. If you knew the right people, it was a very small county.
They said Blue’s little bitch tripped over it.
Mom’s cross
. It should have stayed there, right
where it was. They’d moved Mom, the fucking bastards, but the cross
should have stayed. They also said that dumb mutt Burt must have
dragged it off. Burt. What kind of a name was that for a
dog?

They never should have found it. Now every
poor bastard who couldn’t produce a living mother was a suspect.
Well . . . maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. There were lots of men
without mothers. Including himself.

He was invincible. Untouchable. No one would
dream . . .

Not ever.

Brad Blue might.

Little bitch!

The nostalgic high-pitched sounds of a
calliope drifted through the central food court of the mall as
Claire watched, fascinated by the sculptured beauty of the antique
horses on the half-size carousel moving in lazy circles in front of
her. A boy several years younger than Jamie clung to the sturdy
black mane of his colorfully painted steed, his face split by a
broad grin. Behind him stood a young man who scarcely looked old
enough to have fathered two children, his beaming face directed
toward a little girl of perhaps three. He was holding her in the
saddle of a pink and white horse whose wooden legs were poised
forever in mid-flight. The only word to describe the little girl’s
wide eyes, her mouth fixed in an “oh” of surprise, was awe.

Claire’s appreciative eye took in the superb
carving of the carousel figures, the quality of the painted finish,
which made the horses leap into life until it seemed their black
eyes gleamed, a snort or a whuffle just a breath away. At any
moment they might spring down from their wooden base and charge
into the crowd, scattering the mall’s Sunday afternoon patrons like
dust before a whirlwind. She must bring Jamie here.

The young man lifted his little girl down,
softly urging both children to thank the tall white-haired senior
who acted as the carousel’s guardian, operator, and general
ambassador of goodwill for the mall. Tears stung Claire’s eyes as
she moved abruptly away, suddenly finding herself standing at the
ice cream bar. An hour earlier, her grandmother had ordered her out
of the house. Told her she needed to lose herself among the
noticeably younger, livelier working age people who came to the
mall on Sunday.

And Ginny had been right. Even if Claire
hadn’t appreciated her parting shot: “The mall is crawling with
people your age, and you can be sure everyone you see probably has
a problem worse than yours. They’re bound to, for how anyone could
be foolish enough to think an offer of marriage from Brad Blue is a
problem, I cannot imagine! Go. Shoo! You’ve overcompensated with
Jamie so much this past week he’s suffocating.”

So, feeling a total failure as a mother, a
granddaughter and a potential wife, Claire had done as she was
told. Now here she was, licking a sugar cone of Mocha Almond Fudge
and wondering what to do with herself. The one thing the government
had not confiscated was her clothing. She had enough to last a
lifetime. So what else could she find at the mall?

A new Celtic CD? A paperback or two? A
lottery ticket? Claire considered the colorful posters advertising
the latest films at the mall’s eight theaters. No, she didn’t want
to be away from home that long. She paused to look in the window of
an elegant men’s clothing store. A black silk shirt, artistically
displayed, positively screamed its designer label, every stitch
proclaiming its superiority. Claire’s feet moved toward the open
storefront . . . stopped. Brad was who he was. He would admire the
shirt, thank her, then fold the black silk into a drawer where it
would never be seen again. Perhaps after they were married . .
.

And wasn’t that the scary thought she’d come
to the mall to escape?

A New Age shop beckoned. By the time Claire
left the store, her weekly paycheck had taken a severe hit. In
addition to the newest Enya and a Loreena McKennitt, she had
succumbed to a rocks and mineral collection and a 3-D puzzle for
Jamie, plus the Taj Mahal of handmade birdhouses for her
grandmother. Time to go home before her week’s supply of cash
disappeared in a single afternoon.

A trip to the ladies’ room seemed a good idea
before she started the half hour’s drive back to Golden Beach.
Spotting the restroom sign just off the food court, Claire pushed
open the door and walked through. The moment the steel gray double
door clanged shut behind her, she was in another world. Instead of
the outer lobby of a busy ladies’ room, she was in a bleak,
deserted corridor, the mall version of a back alley. Nothing but
institutional cream walls, functional gray tile floor and a long
series of matching steel fire doors set into the walls to the left
and right. Unnerved, Claire moved forward, certain the comforting
sight of the word RESTROOM would appear at any moment.

After perhaps forty feet the corridor took a
sharp turn to the left. Still no sign of a restroom, not a single
sound to indicate that she was in a shopping mall full of Sunday
afternoon shoppers. Only the hollow echo of her low heels clicking
on the battleship gray tile. Finally, confronted by a second set of
double steel doors, Claire pushed on the bar. Brilliant August
sunshine flooded the deserted corridor, revealing a glimpse of a
green dumpster beyond.

Claire’s hands were far from steady as she
quickly stepped back, allowing the heavy door to swing shut. With a
determined, somewhat annoyed shake of her shoulders, she turned
back the way she had come. Okay, so she’d missed the ladies’ room.
Obviously, she’d been blinded by her inexplicable attack of
nerves.

She was about twenty feet from the right
angle bend in the broad hallway when she heard the metallic swish
of a door opening. Ahead of her. Surely the sound meant that
someone else had entered the corridor in search of the restroom. Or
perhaps someone had just left?

Claire’s feet came to a stop, seemingly of
their own accord. There were no echoing footfalls. Nothing moved.
If anyone had been in the hallway a moment earlier, the person had
had better luck finding the restroom than she had.

Idiot! Just because this corridor is empty
doesn’t make it evil. Creepy, maybe . . .

Creepy she could handle. She’d survived Pine
Grove, hadn’t she? Claire firmed her shoulders, ordered her feet to
move, turn the corner. An empty corridor stretched in front of her
all the way to the double fire doors she had originally entered.
This time she read each sign carefully. Every fire door was marked
with the name of business, obviously the workers’ back entrance to
their establishments. She was most certainly not alone—behind each
door live human beings could immediately be found. She only had to
open one . . . but of course she wouldn’t. She’d keep on looking
until . . . and there it was.

An obscure ill-marked indentation in the
corridor wall, ladies to the left, men to the right. Neither door
sign was easily visible to someone walking down the hall.
Nonetheless, Claire felt like a fool as she pushed open the door
marked Ladies and entered the brightly lit room with its long line
of gray stalls, a gray countertop inset with classic white sinks
topped by a spotless mirror and flanked by silver towel dispensers.
All so ridiculously normal.

And absolutely empty.

Maybe. Claire walked the full length of the
stalls, looking for the telltale sign of shoes under the stall
doors before finally selecting a stall where the bolt actually
worked and there was a hook on which to hang her purse and shopping
bag full of packages.

She was zipping up her slacks when she
heard the door open. And no sound to follow. Merely the feeling of
a presence. Someone was in the room. Someone who was not quite . .
.
right
. Fear swamped common
sense. Sensible or not, Claire scrambled onto the rim of the toilet
seat, balancing her hands against the sides of the stall. The
faintest of footfalls, moving along in front of the stalls, coming
back, pausing before her closed door. The feet moved closer. She
could see the tips of sneakers. Large sneakers. Male-type sneakers.
She froze, holding her breath.

The stall door rattled.

He knew
. Knew
she was there. Claire considered screaming, but it was hopeless.
When those outer fire doors shut behind her she had entered a
soundproofed world. And the ladies’ room was yet another door
removed from the teeming life in the heart of the mall.

She prayed to keep her balance, prayed he’d
go away, that it was all a mistake.

Surely it was only a maintenance man, as
embarrassed as she was terrified. Even so . . . she remained
motionless.

Abruptly, the sneakers disappeared. The outer
door opened, groaned to a close. Silence. Still Claire didn’t move.
He could still be there. Waiting.

Quietly, cautiously she readjusted her feet
and held on, palms flat against the walls. Oh, God, she’d tell this
tale to Brad and they’d end up laughing about it. It was
ridiculous. She was making Mount Everest out of molehill.