True Bliss (38 page)

"Vic!" Bliss cried. "He'll fall."

"I've got him. He's not going anywhere. Grab the fish, Plato."

In an instant of total clarity Sebastian knew exactly what Vic planned. "Can't do it," he said. "Ease me back a bit so I can move around." Blood pounded inside his skull. Each breath cost him too much.

"You can get it," Vic called. "Just take a piece in each hand and I'll pull you up."

Let go to take a hunk of pottery in each hand so Vic could "accidentally" drop him to death.

"Okay," Sebastian said. "But hold on."

"I'm holding."

Sebastian braced his weight on one arm, an arm that began to shake, and picked up a piece of the broken fish. "Got it!"

"Use your right hand for the other one."

"Bring me up with this first"—the innocent act shouldn't hurt—"I feel safer with a handhold."

"Get back, Bliss!" Vic said, his voice rising. "And send the kid home—and that damn dog. They make me nervous."

He was nervous?

Bobby said, "I wanna watch."

"Go on, Bobby," Bliss said. "Go on back, there's a good boy."

Sebastian jammed his elbow against rock and tried to steady his arm.

"Hey!" Vic shouted, shifting as if Sebastian were jerking his legs. "Relax, buddy. I'll haul you back up."

The piece of pottery Sebastian dropped shattered in the darkness. "Darn it," he said. "Vic, I dropped the thing. Geez, I can't believe it."

"Pull him up!" Bliss was beyond panic.

Vic waved Sebastian's legs wildly back and forth, pumped his ankles as if trying to hang on, but losing the battle.

"Don't look, Bliss," Vic almost screamed. "Don't look." He let go, but not without a final downward shove.

Bliss's scream tore through the blackness, and the pain that surrounded Sebastian.

His arms gave out, collapsed.

His back cracked against unyielding, clawing daggers of stone.

One shoulder, his left shoulder, slammed into the same ledge that had stopped Liberty's fish.

Consciousness wavered.

"Sebastian! Sebastian!"

Over the sound of Bliss's voice, he heard an engine roar to life.

With his one hand trapped beneath his shoulder, his other arm spanning the width of the chute, Sebastian hovered, then slid.

His head and body curled toward his legs.

He'd fall now.

"Sebastian!" Her tears distorted his name.

Not yet. Not again. He would not leave her again.

He jammed his knees to his chest and drove his feet against the wall. And stopped his sliding fall.

He hung upside down, his back and his feet and the power in his bent legs holding him above oblivion that wouldn't come soon enough.

The flashlight beam blinded him.

"Oh, my goodness," Bliss said. "Oh, please, don't let go."

He couldn't speak.

"Vic left. You fell, and he left!"

Sebastian put more pressure on his feet. Shifting millimeters at a time, he pushed his back upward, wincing at each fresh gouge into his flesh. He felt around for cracks, tested for any loose scree ready to foil him, and eased up some more.

Then he moved first one foot, and then the other.

The progress was slow, but the goal dimmed the pain.

"Yes',' Bliss said, shining the light to help as best she could. "You're fine, Sebastian. You're fine, sweetheart. Come on."

Inch by inch he groveled up the chimney.

"I love you, Sebastian," Bliss whispered, and her words whispered again and again, whispered around him, folded around him.

Every gain he made took too long, sapped too much energy.

Blood from somewhere trickled across his temple. He felt its warm stickiness.

One of his feet hooked over the rim of the hole.

Hope welled—and his right hand lost its grip.

He flailed, strained to reach upward.

A strong hand, two hands, caught his. More hands closed on his ankles

"We've got you."

"It isn't your time to go. Too soon."

Then he was hauled and enfolded and borne away, away from the yawning space.

Voices exploded.

Bliss wrapped him in her arms and held on, sobbing meaningless phrases, crooning.

Sebastian found the strength to hug her back. He removed what he'd carried in his mouth throughout his horror journey, and smiled over her head at William. "You've got great timing."

"Great self-preservation skills," William said, cracking a rare, wide grin that faltered just the slightest bit. "I need this job. You scared the hell out of me. Zoya's on a rampage. We've got pickets outside the building. I couldn't find you so I came here."

Sebastian couldn't make himself care about Zoya, or pickets right now.

"I felt your need." His other, and even more unlikely rescuer, was Venus Crow. Her sun yellow harem outfit fluttered in the wind. "But I was right. You are not good for Bliss or for Hole Point."

"No Point," Bliss said unevenly against his chest. "There isn't going to be a hole anymore."

"Thank you," Sebastian said, smoothing Bliss's hair with shredded fingers. "Thank you, William. Thank you, Venus, even if you do think I'm trouble, I think you're wonderful."

She lifted her chin, and her heavily penciled brows. A slight smile ruined the effect. "I'm glad I could help you."

A growl and a tug at his jeans destroyed any trace of warm unreality. Spike straightened her legs and pulled on one ankle of Sebastian's pants.

Bliss laughed and hauled her off. "Now she's protecting me instead of trying to scare me to death. Let him go, Spike. He's Beater's dad, remember?"

As if she understood, the dog released him and sat down with a thump. Her bared teeth let him know he'd better not step out of line.

Bliss frowned and worked strands of white from inside Sebastian's sleeve. "My scarf," she said, revealing what was left of the beautiful, lily-patterned silk. "Where was it?"

"Inside the fish, I think," he told her. "Pushed through its mouth and inside. I'm sure Liberty gave us the fish to bait— sorry about that—to scare Vic into taking notice of her."

Venus closed her eyes and said, "I feel evil here."

"You're probably very astute," Sebastian told her. "This was wrapped in the scarf. If we're lucky, it'll fill in the missing pieces." He held aloft the slightly damp canister of 35mm film he'd carried to safety inside his mouth.

Twenty-seven

Taken with the aid of a special night lens, auras—magenta and green—fuzzed the edges of photographed images.

Bliss watched Sebastian spread the shots on his desk, and she watched blood-stained, tattered broadcloth stretch over his battered back.

"We've got to get you to a hospital," she told him. She'd told him the same things many times in the two hours since they'd left the Point. "You're bleeding from everywhere."

"I've bled. Past tense. I'm fine. Look at these."

"William?" Bliss pleaded. "Can you help me?"

"Thanks for everything, William," Sebastian said. "Now go back to work. I'll call if I need you."

William gave Bliss an apologetic shrug and left the office.

"Come and look at these."

"I can see them from here." She didn't want a closer look.

"No, you can't. The police are on their way over to pick them up. I want you to take a good look first."

Reluctantly, she did as he asked. "Poor Mr. Nose. Wrong place at the wrong time. He was too dedicated, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Sebastian sounded as tired and empty as she felt. "He caught Vic draping pieces of your scarf on the wire around the hole and that was his death sentence."

Bliss did look closer then. One shot showed Vic hooking lengths of sparkling silk to the barbed wire. The next was of Vic looking directly at the camera. His face was folded in fury.

"Maybe Vic didn't mean to push Mr. Nose over the bluff, just get the camera away."

"Maybe. Could have been the same sort of accident I almost had today, huh?"

She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Probably. I just can't figure out why he did it."

"We will. Look at this one."

Bliss stared and exclaimed. "Liberty. I didn't see her at first. She looks horrified."

"I'd say so. But she's there, and those aren't cookies in her hands."

Liberty held what was clearly a bell—no doubt Aunt Blanche's Steuben bell. Something white hung between her fingers. "I see the bell. What's the other thing, though?"

Sebastian shook his head and took a magnifying glass from the desk to study the photograph. "Didn't you tell me about a white mask that first night?"

"Yes. Inside my rooms."

"Well, here's your mask."

Bliss said, "Mmm," and pulled another photo toward her. "This was taken at the Wilmans'. At their party that night. In the conservatory." She'd never forget what had happened to her when those lights went out.

Sebastian leaned over her shoulder. "How the hell did he get in?"

"Nose?"

"Vic. Nose was a pro. His business was getting in wherever he needed to get in. That's Vic." He pointed to a figure in a white waiter's coat. The man's hair was pulled back and tucked beneath the jacket. "And that's you with your back to him. He posed as a waiter. Must have dealt with the lights, then dealt with you."

"The pieces come together," Bliss said. Each picture unraveled her composure a little more. "He wore rubber gloves. I felt them, and smelled them."

Sebastian used the magnifying glass again. "Yup. There they are."

"Oh, how awful." Bliss took her lower lip in her teeth. "He must have been the one who threw his coat into that closet. We were right there and we didn't know. If we had, Nose might not have had to die."

"Vic wouldn't have been easy to stop."

"But why?"

"We may never know. This is up to the police now. You're going to be my main job from here on."

"It isn't going to be that easy, Sebastian. You know that."

"I know nothing's going to scare me after what almost happened to you last night—and to me today."

"Liberty's gone, too."

"Are we surprised?"

"She wasn't with Vic when ... I can't talk about that. I want to take care of you."

"All I need is a shower."

"Do you think Vic caused the fire?"

Sebastian shifted the photos around. "Maybe. I wonder how much longer it'll be before we find out more details about that."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure."

The door opened to admit two police officers. "This is Officer Vegasan," the first man through the door said and added, "Miss Lovejoy already came in on her own." Evidently he didn't think he needed to remind them of his own name.

Sebastian told William to go home, locked the office doors, and faced Bliss. "Just you and me, kid," he said, and felt as jumpy as a teenager on his first date. "We've got a lot to do. All of it good."

"Now we know what happened with Vic it doesn't make any sense that he'd try to kill me in that trailer. I don't feel good about any of this."

Neither did Sebastian, but he wished he could protect Bliss from more anguish. "Liberty's blown the whistle on Vic. He

was afraid if you and I got together, he's lose his cushy living situation—and his hopes of—"

"Don't say it. I heard what Ballard suggested."

"Avoiding the truth doesn't help. Vic wanted you to marry him. He wanted you to make him secure. I was a complication he never expected. And I do believe Liberty was right when she said he loves you."

"Poor Liberty." Bliss came to him and began unbuttoning his shirt. "Women don't do well when the men they love turn on them."

"I didn't turn on you, love." He waited patiently while she took off his shirt. "Bliss, I didn't—"

"I know you didn't turn on me."

"It was hell after I left." He winced as she pulled his shirt off. "I want to marry you, Bliss. As quickly as possible. Tonight, if possible."

"Well, it isn't possible. We'll have to go through the same official motions as everyone else."

He caught her wrists to his chest. "But you are saying you'll marry me?"

Her smile, the endearing tumble of her hair around her pointed face, the grimy sweatsuit she still wore—he loved everything about her.

Sebastian lowered his face to kiss her, but Bliss stepped away. "Yes, I'll marry you. If I don't, I'm a ruined woman."

He laughed. "Is that a fact? In that case I'd better call the jeweler I keep talking about."

"No need." Bliss shook her head. "You've still got the world's smallest condom in your wallet, don't you?"

"Uh-huh."

She reached beneath her sweatshirt. "I put this on again." The chain he'd bought so many years ago, with so much love and so much hope, glistened. On the chain hung the ring with its three small diamonds. Bliss undid the chain and gave him the ring. She extended her left hand. "It's about time I wore it permanently."

Sebastian turned the ring over and over in his palm. "You kept it."

"Did you ever doubt I would?"

Swallowing wasn't easy. "I didn't have the right to think you would."

"Put it on for me."

"Don't you want something more spectacular?"

"Never. It's amazing it isn't worn out from all the times I've looked at it."

The ring still fitted perfectly. He covered it on her hand and brought it to his mouth. "I'm a lucky man."

"Some men might not think so. I've brought you nothing but trouble."

"You didn't bring me that. I did." He looked into her eyes.

Bliss stroked his chest. "Are you going to let me get you to the hospital?"

"Nope. I'm scratched and scraped. I'll heal. I will let you wash my wounds—eventually."

She went to the wall of windows and trailed from one bank to another, closing out the light with vertical blinds.

When no more daylight showed, she wandered back, pulling her sweatshirt over her head as she came. She wore a creamy lace bra that barely covered her nipples.

He braced against a jolt of arousal.

The sweatshirt landed on top of his desk. "Those cuts have to be washed now. It'll be easier in the shower. Thank goodness you've got one here."

"Thank goodness," he agreed, reaching for her. She evaded him. "Bliss? Come here."