The Prophet (Ryan Archer #2) (16 page)

“What’s the name?”

“Silas Sawbridge.”

“Should it ring a bell?”

“He lives in Los Angeles, and he’s the head of a church, if you want to
call
it a church. I was raised Methodist. My parents would have called the Church of the Narrow Gate a cult.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, I have too, but that’s about it. It has a reputation of being like Scientology. It’s big with celebrities. I don’t know how much religion is involved, but they apparently talk a lot about getting rich and
staying
rich.”

“What can you tell me about Sawbridge?”

“He’s a hard one to peg. He writes books and serves on a number of boards like NTW. Powerful corporations that need his networking power. Apparently he has tremendous influence in certain circles.”

“So, what are your thoughts?”

“I’m just here to provide a name. Might be nothing.”

“Call Webb and have him look into it. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

Archer exited onto a surface street. He stopped at a light where the air was thick with the smell of grilled onions. A young girl in a hoodie was waiting for the light to change so she could cross. Tatum Cloud blinked into his mind. They made eye contact, and Archer wondered if the girl’s parents knew where she was tonight.

* * *

The house smelled of stir-fry. The aroma hit Archer in the face the instant he pushed open the door. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “4-Way Street” was playing on the stereo. The lights were dimmed and there were candles lit. Smith was standing at the counter, chopping vegetables. She hadn’t heard him come in. Her hips were moving to the music. She was wearing a black tank over black silk panties.

Archer stopped in his tracks to stare. He folded his arms over his chest and watched how the contours of her legs rose perfectly to meet her thighs and flow into her hips and up to the smooth flesh of her lower back. Her dark hair was pulled up into a ponytail. Dinner smelled amazing, but it could wait if he had any say in the matter. He enjoyed the view for about a minute, then cleared his throat.

The knife blade stopped, and she twisted her neck until he caught her eyes, and she smiled.
 

He put his hands around her waist and kissed the side of her neck.

“Yummy,” he said.

“Dinner in ten,” she said, turning to kiss his mouth.

“Let it burn,” he said. Then he ran his hands up her shirt and found what he’d been looking for.

She nudged him away with a bump of her hip.
 

“Patience builds character,” she said. “Feel free to set the table.”

Archer opened a cabinet and found two dinner plates. He added flatware to the table, with bowls for salad.

“Wine?” he asked.

She nodded.

He set a bottle of red on the table and turned up the music. He wanted to hear it while he showered.
 

“I’m going to rinse off,” he announced, patting her on the ass on his way to the bedroom.

“Make it snappy, Mr. Archer.”

The day had left him feeling grungy. He stepped out of his clothes and turned on the water. He stepped in and lathered up, then stood in the spray and felt the last twelve hours wash from his body. He toweled off and dressed in long board shorts, no shirt. Smith met him at the table. Dinner was ready. She placed her hands on his chest and stood on her toes to kiss him. The kiss was long and deep. Her lips were soft and perfect and she was an expert with her tongue. He hooked his thumbs in her panties. She playfully tugged at his tongue with her lips, then pulled away.

“It’s getting cold,” she purred.

Archer held her face in his hands and smooched her forehead.

“Smells amazing,” he said.

He poured wine into her glass as Smith dished the entrée onto his plate. She noticed the abrasions on his arms and face, but didn’t comment.
 

“My sister called,” she said.

“The one in Phoenix?”

She nodded. “She’s pregnant. Her
third.
”

“Good for her,” Archer said. “How many do you want?”

She flashed a smile and pinched his thigh under the table. “I’m happily barren,” she laughed.

“You’d be a great mom.”

“You think? I tend to disagree. Shelly didn’t take naturally to motherhood, so why should I think I’d be any different?”

Archer picked through green peppers and sautéed mushrooms with his fork. “You might be surprised,” he said.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m not starting that adventure at my age. Plus, my occupation wouldn’t dovetail very well with family life.”

“You might be surprised,” she echoed with a wink and a grin.

Smith refilled her wine. The patio door was open and a gentle breeze moved through the room and disturbed the candle flames. The evening was cool enough that the flesh on Smith’s upper arms prickled.
 

Archer loved watching her. But sitting there he realized that he knew little more about Smith than he did about her sister. Why was that? Did she talk about herself? Did he ask questions? Did he show interest in her life? Did she care if he showed interest? He felt like he knew her well, but what did that really mean? He watched her sip the wine. He certainly enjoyed her company. And physically they were explosive. He could hardly look at her for more than a few seconds without wanting to strip off everything from her neck down and attack her streamlined body.

After dinner they sat on the deck and listened to insects call to one another in the night. Smith had brought the wine with her. She tended to be even more adventurous in bed after having plenty to drink. Archer had always been more aggressive when totally sober. The conditions seemed perfect. There was a party down the hill. Music rose up through the trees and reached them like a breaking wave. It was a playlist Archer didn’t recognize. Smith appeared willing to flow with anything. Archer reclined, bare-chested, bracing himself up on his elbows, legs outstretched.

Smith cast a glance at him, and smiled wickedly. She set the wine glass down and stood for a moment, shimmying out of the silk panties. Then she straddled him. She gripped the muscles of his shoulders and pressed her mouth to his. She could feel him responding beneath her body. She moaned, moving against him, purposely striving to drive him wild. It was working.

Archer sat up so that she was seated on his lap, and peeled her shirt off, dropping it to the wood planks of the deck. She arched her back as he moved his warm mouth down the middle of her chest to her toned belly. His light touch tickled her slightly, and she smiled as the muscles of her belly twitched.

“I want you,” she said.

Archer stood, lifting her, carrying her past the open patio door, through the kitchen to the bedroom. They reached the bed and he gently placed her on her back, legs still hooked around him. He pushed the board shorts down to his ankles, then kicked them aside. The bed was made, but he didn’t fuss with the bedding. Smith curled her fingers around his neck and pulled his face down within reach of her tongue. He placed his hands flat against the inside of her thighs and spread her legs wide. Smith moaned as he thrust against her and she felt what she’d been waiting for all day.

Archer was standing at the edge of the bed, but Smith wanted him on top of her. She wanted to feel the weight of his body pressing down. Archer grabbed her hands and pushed them out above her head. Her eyes were closed and her breathing became shallow.

“Breathe,” he whispered in her ear, his breath warm and masculine.

She smiled and ran her tongue between her teeth and traced her fingers along the outline of his shoulders. Then she sensed a shift and noticed his mouth moving down her tummy. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift.
 

By the time he came back up to kiss her, Smith was dizzy. The room was spinning. She tried to fix upon a focal point in the room to keep from passing out. Archer buried his face in the curve of her neck and she felt the muscles along the side of his body grow hard. Her vision blurred, but she didn’t care. He kissed her one last time. A deep, probing kiss that made her forget her name. Then he rolled off and stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling. He lay there with an arm across his brow and she snuggled against him, listening to the sound of his heart.

They fell asleep. But neither of them slept long. And then they did it all over again.
 

Later, as Smith slept beside him, her naked body awash in moonlight filtering in through the bedroom window, Archer lay on his back, staring at shadows shifting on the ceiling. He had one arm beneath her head across her pillow, his other arm folded over his own chest. His body felt cool with sweat. His eyes were open. He couldn’t sleep. His mind was filled with images of lovemaking. But the woman in those images was not Smith.

TWENTY-TWO

In another bed, in another part of the city, Jimmy Cloud lay awake as well. Like Archer, he could not sleep. He rose from bed, careful not to wake his wife, and went downstairs to pour a drink. He walked out across the sand to the water’s edge, the tide rushing in and crashing onto the beach as it had for endless centuries, manipulated as it was by the gravitational pull of the moon.

Jimmy stared at the moon. It was a clear night. He felt a breeze move across his chest. Jimmy didn’t sleep well. He didn’t require much rest. Or perhaps he was frightened to slow down enough to rest, afraid that his good fortune would catch up to him if he hesitated for even a moment. His success was his greatest burden. He was terrified that it could all go away.

He was born Tyler Toland. The son of an elementary school custodian in Philadelphia. His family was poor but his father always found enough money to come home drunk every night. His father was a mean drunk and Tyler was the favorite target of his rage. The beatings got frequent enough and bad enough that Tyler ran away at thirteen. Over a period of weeks he found his way to Los Angeles and lived on the streets until he made a few friends willing to let him crash on the floor or on a couch, here and there.

For ten years Tyler had lived his own personal version of hell. No one had ever worked harder and had less to show for his efforts. He had come to Hollywood full of dreams and optimism and energy. For ten years he plugged away. Tending bar, waiting tables, washing dishes, scrubbing toilets, picking up dog shit, delivering pizzas. He went to every audition in LA that his third-rate agent sent him on, but never got an offer. Never anything better than a day’s work as an extra every six or nine months.

Ten years of brutal rejection drained whatever hope had remained in his soul after escaping the misery of his childhood. So he bought a gun and drove to Las Vegas. The idea was to blow his last remaining couple hundred bucks then drive into the desert and punctuate his life with a bullet between the eyes.

It was at a roadside bar in the desert that Tyler stopped for one last drink before he planned to stick the gun to his head and end his misery. In that bar, sipping a beer from a dirty glass, a stranger in a black western shirt and black cowboy hat struck up a conversation with him, momentarily distracting him from the dark thoughts swirling through his mind.

“I’ve seen that look before,” the stranger said.

Tyler had glanced up, unsure at first where the voice had come from. Then he turned his head and spotted the dark, angular features of the face beneath the brim of the cowboy hat. The stranger met his eyes, and the corners of the man’s crooked mouth edged up in a spooky grin.

“What did you say?” Tyler asked.

“I’ve seen that look before,” he repeated.

“What look is that exactly?”

The grin widened. “The look that says you have already checked out.”

The sun had gone down an hour earlier but the heat of the day lingered, and there were no fans inside the bar to circulate the air. Tyler was sweating through his shirt and could feel the cotton blend sticking to his skin. Sweat ran down his neck.

Tyler had stared at him for a long moment. Then his thoughts returned to his beer and the .38 Special stuffed into the glove compartment of his old Mazda.

“It doesn’t have to end like this, Tyler,” the stranger said.

“How do you know my name?”

The bartender was a woman in a pink apron that didn’t appear to be overhearing the conversation. And there was no one else seated at the bar or at any of the tables. They had the place to themselves. Tyler had glanced over both his shoulders, and thought it odd that the place was so barren and quiet.

“What was your dream, Tyler? To be a movie star?”

Tyler ignored the question at first, tilting the glass to his mouth and closing his eyes. Then he shrugged. “Something like that,” he answered.

The stranger’s gnarly grin appeared to widen. “Do you have any idea what the odds are against such a thing?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

The stranger leaned forward on his elbows, the cowboy hat tipping over his face, and his shadow seemed to fall across the entire length of the bar.

“How did you know my name?” Tyler asked again.

The stranger, with his head still bowed, said, “Take the bullets out of the gun.”

Tyler felt a chill crawl up his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He stared down the bar at the man, dizzy from the beer buzz. How the hell had he known about the gun? Tyler glanced at the door, stared past the crusty windowpanes to the tail end of the Mazda parked in the dust beside the lonely highway. He had purchased the gun two days earlier with cash from a kid on the street and told no one. The suicide plan had been a secret, though in truth there’d been no one in his life to confide in.

His eyes blurred for a moment. The room swayed. Tyler placed both hands flat on the counter, steadying himself from pitching over backward. He made eyes at the bartender but she had her back turned to him, busy fussing with something he couldn’t see. His throat felt tight. He put his face in his hands and took several deep breaths.

“The answer to your problems doesn’t lie out there in the desert, my friend. Out there you’ll find plenty of coyotes and rattlers, but not the solution you are seeking,” the stranger said, his face still obscured by the brim of the black Stetson.