Skin Heat (28 page)

“I saw you two together at the party today . . . and your father had a . . . talk with me after you left,” she added. “I admit it. There’s no spark. I know why Ben wants the marriage . . . and I understand why you don’t. We’ve been using him as a stand-in for Luke, and asking you to marry under those circumstances is just . . .” Lillian grimaced. “A hundred kinds of wrong.”

She didn’t even know what to say. Part of her feared the woman was just setting her up for something worse, but she appeared sincere. So she made an effort, too. Her dad would be happy, at least.

“It wasn’t your fault. Zeke has some stuff to work out.” To put it mildly. “He’s a hard man to understand.”

“They all are. Do you love him?”

“It’s a little early to be throwing that word around. We hadn’t been together very long.” A shrug.

“Did I ever tell you how I met your daddy?”

Hell, no.
Since she got old enough to talk about such things, Lillian had been the last person she’d want to share them with. As a little girl, she’d loved her mother’s tales, though. But since she was really trying, Neva could do no less.

“Uh-uh.”

“Would you like to hear the story?”

“Of course.”

“This isn’t the story we tell people, but I was at a honkytonk in Birmingham.” Her expression said she sympathized with Neva’s current plight. “I met a handsome man, wearing a blue-check shirt and worn-out Wranglers.”

“Dad?” she guessed.

Lillian laughed. “No, he comes later. I did some dancing with that fella I probably shouldn’t have and it gave him . . . ideas about my intentions.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle, too. “Really? What happened next?”

“I’d had too much to drink by that point, so I wasn’t thinking right. I let him edge me out to his truck. We were kissing up a storm, and if he’d finished the job, your last name might not be Harper.” Her mother grinned a little, less formal than she’d been in years, and Neva wondered if she had been drinking
today
. “As he rounded second base, some of the liquor wore off and I thought better of what I was doing. I’d only wanted to dance and be a little wild. Not
that
wild.

“So I started to fight and scrambled out of the truck. He chased after me, but before he could do more than call me a tease and give me a shove, another man came out of the bar. He had an open Jack Daniels in one hand, and he was drunk as a skunk, singing some Johnny Cash song, ‘Oh Lonesome Me,’ I think it was. He saw I was in trouble and came charging in. He whacked that cowboy upside the head with his bottle and he went down.”

Neva could picture the scene so clearly, dark parking lot, an old truck. It made her parents seem more human, somehow, but it was hard to picture her mother wearing jeans. She hadn’t seen her in anything but pastel suits for so long. Her doubt must’ve shown because Lillian smiled and shook her head.

“I wasn’t born wearing Dior, you know. Your daddy was so drunk, I had to drive him home that night. If I’d known we were going all the way to Harper Creek, I might not have offered.”

“You had no idea who he was.”

“Lord, no. I’d never heard of the place. I just knew he’d done the right thing and saved me, even though he could hardly walk straight. When I pulled up in front of Harper Court, I like to died. I had to help him up the walk and the housekeeper thought I was some cheap floozy with my lipstick all smeared and my hair gone wild. My mother-in-law never let me live that down.”

“Grandmother Harper?” Funny, she’d never wondered what it had been like for her mom. The Devereaux family had some money—enough for her maternal grandparents to send her to college—but nothing like the Harpers. They certainly didn’t have any towns named after them.

The older woman nodded, her mouth pulling tight. “I won’t say I was sorry when she passed on.”

Realization dawned, and it explained a lot. Everything, in fact. “And that’s why you were so hard on me. You probably heard about how your daughter was showing your common roots.”

Which was funny. Her mother’s people weren’t trailer trash by any means. But Grandmother Harper had made her assessment based on one night’s events, and hadn’t let anything in subsequent years change her mind. Neva just wished Lillian hadn’t allowed the old woman to leach all the life from her. But habits formed over time, and a brittle shell grew where affection used to be. Only her husband had been spared the ice.

“Yes. But it was worth it.” Remembered warmth kindled in Lillian’s eyes. “I fell in love with him that first night. Oh, we courted and didn’t marry for two years, but I knew, right then. And I’ll tell you: I never regretted a minute I spent with him, even with Mother Harper carping on every little thing I did. How I spoke, walked, dressed, ate, and raised my children. I’m only sorry—” Her voice broke.

“Oh, Mama . . .” Tears stung Neva’s eyes, and she reached out.

She couldn’t remember the last time they’d hugged. Maybe when the deputies came to tell them they had found Luke’s car abandoned on the highway. She had no clear memories of that day, just residual shock. Today Lillian didn’t smell like Chanel; she wore a floral scent, something light and sweet. Her mother’s hands stroked her back as they had when she was a little girl and had a nightmare.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Lillian said softly. “And if your daddy had turned out not to be such a catch, if he had been a miner or a mechanic, I would’ve married him anyway, no matter what my parents said or thought. I guess I got so wrapped up in being worthy of this name of ours that I forgot it doesn’t matter a damn unless you’re happy.”

That did it. Neva started bawling. It had been years since she’d broken down this way; she could handle anything in the world except her mother being sweet. In between quiet sobs, she got out, “I want to come home.”

“Anytime, baby. Anytime. We’ll pay off your lease on the apartment.”

Maybe it was weak, but Neva didn’t demur. She had been brave and stoic and dealt with Luke’s loss on her own. She had forged her own path, and chosen a career she loved, but she just couldn’t deal with a breakup, business trouble, and a dying father all alone. There was no reason she should, either. They held each other for a long time, sniffing into each other’s shoulders. She’d missed this.

“It warms my heart to see my girls together . . . and not fighting.” Her father spoke from the doorway, wearing a melancholy smile.

Neva became aware there might not be many opportunities like this left. She got off the bed and hugged him, too. “I guess you heard I’m moving back in.”

“With the problems you’ve had at the clinic, I’m glad. That girl they found—”

“That’s nothing to do with me,” she reassured him.

In his condition, he didn’t need to be worrying about her. But she knew better than to say so. He hated fussing, even when he had a minor illness. With this, Neva suspected he’d prefer to pretend nothing was wrong, until the very end.

“I hear you brought kittens. Maybe your mother will let me keep one.”

She expected Lillian to protest the trouble or the mess, but her mother nodded. Apparently her dad could ask for anything, now, and get the wifely seal of approval. “Can we see them?”

Neva nodded, feeling like she would wake up soon. Neither of her parents had ever shared her interest in animals. But she went to get the box and brought it to the bed. The kittens were adorable balls of fluff now, eyes open, and full of curiosity. The biggest one had medium fur, patterned in black and white. His brother was mostly gray with white feet, and their sister was an orange marmalade tabby.

“They’re all adorable.”

A devil made her say, “You should keep all three. You have the space and the resources to feed them and pay for their medical care.”

To her surprise, her mother shrugged. “How is three worse than one? At least they’ll have each other to play with . . . and they’re used to each other.”

That was true. Cats from the same litter tended to cohabitate better once they were grown with less territorial conflict than if they were integrated later. And it was how she knew her mom had really changed—or maybe it was more accurate to say she’d thawed. Because she hadn’t always been so frozen.

And she understood. Sometimes you had to suffer loss in order to remember what mattered.

Zeke found a
body in the woods.

And he couldn’t be the one to bring it to the attention of the authorities. Not after his tip led to the girl in the trunk. They just wouldn’t believe he had nothing to do with it. But he didn’t feel right about leaving her here, either.

She hadn’t been in the wild long. No animals had touched her. Tear tracks had been wiped from her cheeks, but in the moonlight, with his extra-sharp vision, he made out the signs of where she’d cried. Her lips were cracked, as if she had been denied water. Water made a woman piss and reminded a murderer she was only human, not a symbol or a vessel, or whatever he wanted from her.

The killer had surely painted her face after death because no woman would make herself up like this: eyeliner too thick, shadow too dark, lipstick too bold. Stage actresses wore it like this from what he remembered, and maybe so did whores. Zeke didn’t know enough about the latter to be sure.

Ribbons twined around her arms and legs like creeper vines, and someone had placed a bouquet of daisies on her crotch. From two flowers, the white petals had been plucked, and the yellow eye covered each of her nipples. They must be glued or stapled, or the wind would’ve carried them off. He took care not to get too close and certainly not to touch her.

The only marks came from where someone had strangled her. Deep, livid bruises glowed against the pallor of her throat. He didn’t know enough about corpses to tell if it had been done with bare hands. Maybe the sheriff could, or the uptight agent from the ABI.

Zeke only knew he couldn’t put it off anymore. He had to call someone. First he made a note of where he was, exactly, and then he ran back to the house for the truck. Sweeney’s Service Station had the nearest payphone, but he drove fifteen miles farther to a convenience store, where nobody knew him, and the phone was outside and around the corner from the cashier. He felt a little sick at what would surely be called cowardice, but he couldn’t be open about this.

He slipped from the truck and deposited his coins. The call connected. On the other end, the county dispatcher asked what he needed. Zeke deepened his voice as much as he could. “There’s a body in the woods.”

“Quit,” the woman said. “This isn’t funny.”

Maybe they’d gotten prank calls? He hadn’t figured on that. Now he needed to find the best way to persuade her—and fast. An edge, born of nerves and impatience, came into his voice. “Write it down, woman. I’ll only tell you where, once.”

Her breath caught. “Oh, crap. You mean it. Wait, I’m getting a pencil. Don’t hang up.” Rustling noises came across the line. “Go ahead.”

Zeke gave the directions as best he could and waited while she scratched them down. The sounds told him she did take him seriously now. If their county had any resources, he might worry about a trace but it would take a while to set something like that up, and he’d have to call a second time. He didn’t intend to do that.

“And there’s where you’ll find her,” he finished.

“Why are you killing these women?” she asked. “What do you
want
?”

Shit.
She thought she was talking to the murderer. It was a reasonable guess under the circumstances, but he did not want to be caught in that net. Zeke cut the connection and sprinted for the truck. He was nearly back to Sweeney’s when blue and red lights whizzed past him, heading in the opposite direction. The car used its sirens, too. Maybe they couldn’t trace a call, but they could use caller ID and then get an address for the number. He hoped nobody had seen him, but if they had, he was royally fucked, because they would remember the truck. Maybe the deputies wouldn’t ask the right questions early on, and the clerk would forget.

By the time he pulled up at the farm, he was shaking. His first thought was for the kittens, but . . . they weren’t here anymore. Not his responsibility. Like everything else sweet and good, they belonged with Neva. Not him.

Zeke didn’t sleep much. He kept waiting for engines in the night and a knock at his door. And anytime he closed his eyes, he saw the dead girl in the moonlight; she haunted him with her painted face and her staring eyes. In the morning, he worked around the farm at jobs that didn’t call for his brain to kick in.

He managed to show up for work on time, but he didn’t speak to Neva. She didn’t look him in the eye when he went past her. Sadness covered her from head to toe, smelling of lemons and vinegar, and he couldn’t get away from it. Since he lacked the courage to do it to her face, he stopped at Julie’s desk while Neva saw a cocker spaniel with a piddling problem.

“Giving my two weeks,” he muttered.

The redhead slammed her pen down on her desk, and her brows pulled tight with anger. “They got to you, too, huh? How much did they offer?”

He raised a brow. That was the last thing he’d expected her to say. “What?”

“You mean you’re not quitting because they bribed you?”

“What the hell—”

Neva stuck her head out of the exam room and called to Julie to bring her something, ending the conversation. It left Zeke with more questions. Somebody had been paying the help to quit on her? That made it seem like she had an enemy, and he’d be a real piece of work to leave her drowning in trouble. But did it have anything to do with these gift-wrapped dead girls?
Shit.
The one he’d found in the woods had been a bit younger and slimmer, but she’d had brown hair and brown eyes. Could be it didn’t mean anything. But his animal self growled in warning.
Nobody better try and hurt her. She’s still ours.
Maybe he could stick it out for another month or two. Do his job and not think about how sweet she smelled, or how good she felt. If it hurt him, then he had it coming for making her so sad.