Текст книги "The Last Victim"
Автор книги: Karen Robards
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
Because she had Daddy issues as a result of having the opposite-gender parent absent for almost her entire life, and because she had trust issues as a result of having an alcoholic and totally unreliable primary parental figure, she somewhere deep inside believed herself unworthy of being loved. Therefore, she chose to enter into relationships that were programmed from their outset to fail. She sabotaged them herself, subconsciously but consistently, by choosing a male partner who for some reason or another was incapable of forming a stable and lasting partnership bond.
Doing a quick mental review of every halfway-serious romantic relationship she had ever had, Charlie saw that her analysis was right on the money: she set herself up for failure every time by choosing to fall for an unavailable male.
And here she was, doing it again in spades: on the one hand there was Tony, who seemed to be ideal boyfriend/lover/husband material; while on the other, there was Garland, who, for so many reasons she wasn’t even going to take the time to mentally list them, was anything but.
So which one was she desperately attracted to?
Garland, naturally.
Why? Because he was the ultimate unavailable male.
Diagnosis: You are one screwed-up chick.
Diagnosis of the diagnosis: Very professional.
Thoroughly out of patience with herself, Charlie got into bed, turned off the light, closed her eyes, lay there in the dark, and waited for exhaustion to kick in. She found herself listening for the TV. Opening her eyes in annoyance, she searched the shadows for the faintest shimmer that might indicate a ghostly presence. Shutting them again, she tossed, she turned, she cursed under her breath.
Then she got up.
Where is he?
She walked through the apartment, turning on lights as she went, and much as she hated herself for doing it, even tried very softly calling his name.
Nothing.
Remembering what he had said about being yanked back to her by the sound of running water, she tried calling his name while turning on the kitchen faucet.
Nothing.
Finally she tried calling not Garland, but Michael, while turning on the kitchen faucet.
Still nothing.
You are nuts.
She stomped back to bed. But even as she threw herself on the mattress and started to yank the covers over her head, a terrible thought had her sitting bolt upright again.
What if he’s here, but I can’t see him any longer?
Holly’s spirit had visited her, but she hadn’t been able to see it. She only had been able to see Holly in her dreams.
The spirits she saw were the recently violently departed.
Garland’s death wasn’t all that recent. He was getting close to the time when the Great Beyond tended to claim its own. He was getting close to the time when she probably wasn’t going to be able to see him anymore.
Her heart lurched. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Her palms went damp.
Charlie hated to even try to put a name to the emotion she was experiencing, but finally she did: panic.
Panic at the thought that, even if she had managed to bind him to the earth, even if he avoided being swept away into Spookville, soon she might never see Garland again.
She was shaken at how deep was her sense of loss.
How could I have let this happen? she asked herself, appalled.
Charlie got out of bed, roamed the apartment, ate some ice cream, watched some TV, and finally, when there was still no sign of him, got out her laptop and called up his file.
Need a reminder of why you shouldn’t be falling for this guy?
It was all there, exactly as she remembered: unmarried, no known children, next of kin Jasmine Lipsitz, no relationship specified; eight years as a marine, honorable discharge, military record otherwise inaccessible; in civilian life, work as a mechanic, owned his own garage at the time of his arrest; an adult criminal record that consisted of a public intoxication charge, an assault and battery that was the result of a bar brawl, and seven hideous murders of young women.
Their pictures were part of the file.
Charlie couldn’t do more than glance at them. The faces sickened her. They made her go cold all over, made her shiver. She had to turn off her laptop.
How can I feel anything except loathing for their murderer?
You really think I’d do something like that to a woman? Charlie could almost hear Garland saying it. She could picture the revulsion in his face as he had looked down at Bayley Evans’ mutilated body.
He was a charismatic psychopath whose charm was his stock in trade. He was convincing, compelling, and calculating. A stone-cold killer. A monster who lured women to their deaths with his good looks.
Or else he was not.
The evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. It was all there in his file, ranging from the circumstantial to that absolute clincher, DNA. She would have to be the biggest fool on the planet to disregard it all.
I’ve done a lot of bad things, Doc. But I didn’t do that.
What was he going to do, admit it? Charlie demanded of herself with asperity. Of course he would deny everything. That’s what psychopaths do.
The thing was, she just couldn’t picture him killing those women.
But the sad truth was, that was probably because she didn’t want to.
Because she liked him. No, get real: because she burned for him.
If she never saw him again, she would be sorry for the rest of her life.
Where is he?
There was no answer to that. There was no answer to anything where he was concerned.
Eventually, Charlie fell asleep on the couch.
She was dreaming that she was fleeing desperately through a terrifying purple fog, when she saw Holly in that awful pink prom dress running ahead of her.
“Holly!” Charlie screamed, trying to catch up, but Holly, after a quick glance over her shoulder, disappeared into the mist.
“Holly, wait!”
Charlie sprinted after her, but the purple mist started to rise and swirl, disorienting her, wrapping her in creeping tendrils of cold and damp.
Where am I?
“Holly!” she cried again, heart racing as she caught glimpses of things barely hidden. Something was chasing her, she could hear it behind her, hear its labored breathing and echoing footsteps. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw—Dear God, what was it? Something so horrible that she screamed. Then, still screaming, racing away as fast as she could, she ran headlong into something solid in the fog.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I’ve got you. Hold tight.” It was Garland, Charlie realized. She caught just a glimpse of his hard eyes and taut jaw as he grabbed her and pulled her against him. Her arms wrapped around his waist like she never meant to let go. Shuddering, she buried her face in his chest as whatever was chasing her let out a monstrous roar and Garland said urgently, “It’s your dream. Think of somewhere you want to be, quick.”
His strong arms held her close as the mist swirled and rose and parted, and then was gone. Almost afraid to look, Charlie lifted her head warily and registered a whole lot of dark.
“It’s all right. We’re out of there,” Garland said. Looking around again, Charlie saw to her surprise that they were in her house in Big Stone Gap—somewhere you want to be—and they were safe.
It was only then that she realized that her heart was pounding and her pulse was racing and she was breathing like she’d been running from a monster that had been chasing her through a fog. Why? Oh, because she had been.
That had been a dream, though, she was pretty sure. This wasn’t.
This time there was no mistake. The floorboards beneath her bare feet were smooth wood. The cool breath of the air-conditioning whispered over her skin. Outside it was raining hard. Storming. She could hear the drumming of the deluge hitting her metal roof, hear the rumble of thunder, smell the indefinable scent of the rain. Bright flashes of lightning streaking across the sky glowed through the windows, illuminating the entry hall to the point where Charlie could at least see where they were, which was right inside her front door.
Garland’s arms around her were muscular and hard. When she had rested her cheek against his chest, it had been warm and unyielding. Every inch of his big body felt as substantial against hers as any living, breathing human male’s. And she knew that was almost certainly because she’d gone running after Holly again, done the astral-projection thing again, and Garland had found her and now here they were.
This is real.
“You went chasing after your friend?” Garland’s hold on her wasn’t quite as tight now, but he wasn’t letting her go. Which was fine with her. She wasn’t letting him go, either. For the moment, all she wanted to do was lean against him and breathe.
I’m so glad to see you. Of course, she had absolutely no intention of ever saying that to him out loud.
Instead she said, “You didn’t see her?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She sagged a little with disappointment. “Holly. Her name is Holly. I was lost in a purple fog and I saw her.”
“That purple fog was Spookville, and it’s no place you want to be. Lucky I heard you screaming. How the hell did you manage to dream yourself in there?”
She’d been waiting for him. She’d fallen asleep. Charlie’s brows snapped together as she remembered. Her eyes jerked up to meet his.
“Probably because you’ve been filling my head with all kinds of horrible images of purple fog and scary monsters ever since you died,” she said tartly, and he smiled. Remembering the last time she had seen him—when she had been crying her eyes out over his grave—sent a rush of embarrassment shooting through her. Then she remembered more, remembered exactly why she had been thinking so hard about Spookville when sleep had finally claimed her, and that smile drove her around the bend. Flattening her hands against his chest, she pushed almost all the way out of his arms—she wasn’t about to pull completely free, just in case one or the other of them should go spinning off somewhere—then punched him not all that gently in the ribs. “Where have you been?”
“Ow.” He winced, grimacing. But the remnants of that infuriating smile remained as he looked down at her. “Been worried about me, Doc?”
She wasn’t about to answer that. Instead she glared at him. “Well?”
He shrugged. “I went up to the Ridge. Looked around. Nothing had changed. Ran across that piece of shit Nash—Johnson and one of the other guards were just getting him out of the hole. I was pissed off about being dead and … a lot of things … so I’m guessing I had a pretty good energy buzz going on. I didn’t realize anybody could see me until Nash screamed and Johnson whirled around and grabbed for his gun. Just about as soon as I figured out I was solid I got hit with what felt like an atomic blast that kicked me straight into Spookville. Only this time, I couldn’t find a way out. I thought maybe that was it. Then I heard you scream. I busted my ass to get to you before something else did. You stay out of Spookville, Doc. You don’t want to mess with what’s in there.”
“I didn’t go there on purpose, believe me,” Charlie said with feeling. “Anyway, I think it was just a nightmare. I don’t think anything could have actually hurt me.”
“Yeah, well, when I grabbed you, you felt real enough to me. As real as you feel right now. I don’t think you can count on being safe in there.”
“That place is horrible.” Charlie shuddered just thinking about the things she’d glimpsed in the fog. The most horrible was realizing that Spookville was where he inevitably was going to wind up, probably on his way to somewhere even worse. Remembering the epiphany she’d had about his imminent disappearance from her world, she no longer felt even remotely like punching him. Her hands clenched on his shirtfront as her heart swelled with sorrow. The muscles beneath the soft cotton felt taut and warm and real. He felt alive under her hands. But he wasn’t, and she was hideously, horribly afraid he couldn’t stay. Charlie suddenly had trouble catching her breath. “One of these days, you’re not going to be able to get out of there.”
“I know.” His eyes were dark and unreadable. But even through the shadows that lay all around, she could see the sudden grim set to his mouth. “Doc, look. When—if—that happens, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
Charlie felt a lump forming in her throat. They both knew it was probably when rather than if. Oh, God, until this afternoon I hadn’t cried in years and now I’m about to do it again. Then she swallowed hard. Get a grip. The last thing on earth she wanted was to let Garland know how confused her emotions were where he was concerned.
Like he doesn’t already have a pretty good idea. Well, she didn’t have to break down and spell it out for him.
She took a deep breath, and lifted her chin challengingly. “Why would I worry about you?”
That infuriating little smile was back. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe for the same reason you were crying your eyes out over my grave.”
Charlie stiffened. “If you’re implying that I …” She stumbled trying to find the appropriate term; they’d definitely gone way beyond like, “… care about you—”
“Care. Now, there’s a word, Doc,” he interjected softly. His eyes were intent on her face.
Charlie’s breathing sped up. They were heading into territory she had absolutely no wish to explore.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s more like I feel responsible for you.”
“Oh, yeah? So what you’re telling me is, you were crying like that over me because you’ve got the whole save-a-life-and-you’re-responsible-for-it-forever thing going on?”
Charlie narrowed her eyes at him, and chose the safe route. “I didn’t save your life.”
“No, you didn’t.” His voice turned husky. “What you did was, you saved my soul.”
Charlie’s heart lurched. The lump in her throat swelled, making it almost impossible for her to speak. She looked at him, at his chiseled, handsome features, afraid of what he might read in her eyes, praying that it was too dark for him to see.
A piece of her heart was in there somewhere.
“I hated seeing you cry,” he said.
“Garland.” Her voice sounded choked to her own ears. His fingers dug into her waist in response. His eyes glinted down at her, watchful as a bird of prey’s, and she knew what he wanted to hear instead. She took a deep breath. “Michael.”
“Charlie.” Her name was the merest whisper of sound, uttered as he pulled her tight against him and his head bent toward hers. But that whisper wrapped itself around something deep inside her, and she knew, as she went up on tiptoe and slid her arms around his neck, that after this, after him, her life would never be the same.
She also knew that there would be an “after him.” She was alive and he was not. It was only by the most random of chances that they had connected at all. But she knew ghosts. Ghosts were ephemeral. Ghosts didn’t stay.
She kissed him anyway. Kissed him like she would die if she didn’t, like every dream of a happily ever after she’d had was right there in his arms, like there was no yesterday and no tomorrow and no world beyond that moment and the two of them.
She kissed him like she was crazy in love with him.
Just for tonight …
Drawing back, taking a breath, she looked up at him, only to discover that he was looking at her, too. For a moment, as his warm breath feathered her lips, their eyes met and held. Charlie absorbed every detail of his to-die-for good looks, of the sculpted planes and angles of his face, of his height and the width of his shoulders and the sensuous line of his mouth. His pupils had dilated until his eyes looked almost black. A dark flush rode high on his cheekbones.
“Tonight’s all we’re ever going to have, isn’t it?” Until the words were out of her mouth, Charlie hadn’t realized she was going to say them aloud.
His eyes flickered. His lips tightened and his jaw went hard.
“I want you.” His voice was low and gravelly.
Charlie went all soft and shivery inside. All her common sense, all her instincts for self-preservation, vanished in that instant. “I want you, too.”
He smiled at her, a slow, sexy smile that thrilled her clear down to her toes. Then he bent his head, and Charlie quit thinking entirely as his lips found hers again. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and then she tightened her arms around his neck and put her tongue in his mouth and kissed him back like he was the embodiment of every erotic dream she’d ever had.
Oh, wait, he was.
His mouth was hard and hungry. Possessive. Demanding. His hands slid down her back, the size and warmth of them sensuous through the silkiness of her pajamas, tracing the arch of her body, molding her to him, making her tremble, making her cling. Heat radiated through his clothes. The urgency of his arousal was impossible to mistake. The sexual charge he gave off was as electric as the lightning that flashed through the night outside. It sizzled between them, igniting the air. Suddenly dizzy, Charlie pressed even closer and kissed him back just as fiercely as he was kissing her, abandoning herself to the moment, to the darkness, to the way he was making her feel. He kissed her breathless, kissed her stupid, kissed her until her heart pounded and her blood raced and her body melted.
“We’re in your house, right?” he asked in a husky murmur as his mouth left hers to press burning kisses across her cheek.
“Mmm.” So turned on she could hardly think, Charlie managed a nod.
“Ah.” It was a sound of satisfaction, uttered as he bent her over his arm and dragged his mouth down the sensitive side of her neck. His hand found her breast through the thin camisole, and her knees practically gave way right there. She made an involuntary sound of pleasure as her nipple puckered instantly and her breast surged against the hardness of his palm. His hand tightened, caressed, and then was gone, leaving fire in its wake.
Bereft at the sudden withdrawal, Charlie opened her eyes in protest as he scooped her up in his arms and started walking.
“What? Where …?” Her voice failed her. She was so bedazzled by lust, by the steam the two of them were generating, she couldn’t get the rest of the question out.
But he knew what she was asking. His eyes gleamed down at her, dark and hot. “Upstairs.”
Knowing what his answer meant, knowing where he was taking her, Charlie felt an explosion of desire so intense, so hot and clamorous, that it raced through her in undulating waves. Her heart pounded. Deep inside, her body pulsed with need.
He reached the bottom of the wide, old-fashioned staircase and started up.
“I can—” she began with determination, battling to keep from losing her head completely, meaning to protest that she could walk, because the idea of him carrying her up a steep flight of stairs with an eye to screwing her senseless at the top had way too many Neanderthal-esque connotations for her, but he stopped her voice with his mouth. The point that she had meant to make, that she was a grown woman, absolutely responsible for her own sexual pleasure, and certainly not the type who ever needed or wanted to be swept off her feet, was lost in the torrid eroticism of that kiss. It was drugging in its sensuality, in its promise of unspeakable pleasures to come, of dark, erotic vistas waiting to be explored.
Dry-mouthed, Charlie gave up on trying to take back her personal power and tightened her arms around his neck and kissed him back. He climbed the stairs with her easily, like she weighed nothing at all, kissing her all the while. As primitive of her as she knew it was, she reveled in his strength.
God, he excites me.
Clinging to his broad shoulders, made dizzy by the fierce possession of his mouth and the skyrocketing of her own desire, Charlie was startled enough by a clap of thunder to pull her mouth from his. Even as she registered what the sound had been, she realized that he had reached the landing at the top of the stairs. There she had one final moment of clarity.
This is a mistake.
She absolutely knew it. Knew some kind of cosmic line was being crossed, and there would be no going back from what she was about to do. The thing was, though, she decided as he walked into her bedroom with her in his arms, right at that moment she simply didn’t care.
She wanted him so badly, she would have walked over hot coals for this.
Lightning flashed, and by its brief burst of light she drank in the fierce masculine beauty of his face, the hot glitter in his eyes as they met hers, the passionate curve of his mouth.
“I’ve been having fantasies about this bed all day.” His voice was hoarse, almost unrecognizable. His lips slid down her neck and across her shoulder as he set her on her feet beside her bed. With its pure white coverings and the subtle gleam of the brass headboard, it was visible even in the darkness between lightning flashes.
Turning into his arms, she slipped her hands under his T-shirt, moving them up over the flexing muscles of his back, dislodging his shirt in the process. His skin was warm and smooth. She stroked it, loving the hard masculine contours. His reaction was instantaneous. His eyes flamed at her. He went tense, perfectly still, while heat radiated from him in waves. Then in a single fluid movement he pulled his T-shirt off over his head.
“You’ve really been having fantasies about my bed?” The question was meant to be coolly teasing, to keep him from realizing how very turned on she was. It was not. In the end, Charlie just tried not to sound as breathless as she felt. But now that he was stripped to the waist, there was nothing she could do. He was so sex-on-the-hoof gorgeous she could barely look away. Merely the sight of the powerful-looking expanse of his shoulders, his broad chest, the corded muscles in his arms, his sinewy abs above the low waistband of his jeans, made her heart pound. Her hands lay flat against the firm flesh right above his hip bones. She slid them sensuously upward to settle on his chest, loving the feel of the warm, smooth skin overlying sleek muscle, loving the fact that he was hers to do with as she would.
Just for tonight.
His jaw turned to granite as his hands came up to tilt her face to his, smooth her hair back from her cheeks. She met his eyes then, and shivered at the hot blaze of passion for her she saw in their depths. Electricity leaped between them, so raw and powerful that it put the lightning streaking the night sky outside to shame.
Her arms went around his neck as his mouth found hers again. The kiss was fierce and deep and dazzling, and when he broke it off Charlie was shaking.
“I’ve been thinking about you in your bed,” he clarified in a rough whisper as he pressed tiny, burning kisses along the base of her neck. “About everything I would do to you if I ever got you here.”
Charlie’s breathing went hopelessly erratic as his hands slid under the hem of her camisole. It was a loose, filmy garment of silk and lace, with spaghetti straps and tiny, useless silk-covered buttons marching down the front.
He pushed it upward, his hands stroking over her rib cage, over her back, after he bared her breasts. He lifted his head and looked down at her then, at the full round globes with their dark, eager tips, and his face tightened and his eyes burned. Her breasts swelled and lifted, yearning for his touch, but his hands didn’t go where she wanted them. Instead he pulled the camisole off over her head and let it drop to the floor. She was still sucking in air from that when he found the satiny drawstring that secured her pants at the waist, and with unerring accuracy tugged on the end that loosened its bow. As quick as that, her pants slithered down her body to the floor.
She was naked. And his eyes were touching her everywhere.
Charlie made a little sound deep in her throat. Her bones melted. Her knees went weak. She swayed against him, and was instantly dazzled by the feel of them skin to skin, by the softness of her breasts against the wall of his chest, by his warmth and solid strength. Moving against him voluptuously, she pressed her lips to the sturdy column of his neck, then opened them to taste him with her tongue. His skin was hot and tasted of salt.
“You’re beautiful.” Trailing fire in their wake, his hands slid down her back to cup her ass.
The feel of his big hands on her curves made her quake inside. She gave a slight shake of her head. “That would be you.”
She thought she saw the slightest of smiles touch his mouth. It vanished as she found his belt buckle. Unfastening it, she reached for the button on his jeans and undid that, too. Then she unzipped his pants. It was a small sound, but erotic enough to make her pulse pound and her fingers unsteady.
He had gone very still. Against her breasts, she felt his muscles turn to iron. The sudden diamond-hard glitter in his eyes was enough to curl her toes.
“You’re just what I always wanted, Doc.” His voice was thick and hot. He tilted her face up to his, pressed a quick hard kiss to her mouth. “I’m going to make you come for me all night long.”
Then he picked her up and laid her on her bed and came down on top of her.
