7 Die For Me

by Karen Rose

  He still stood, fists back on his hips. He was still angry, but now his anger no longer seemed directed at her. Big fucking deal. Hers was still directed at him.

  “No,” he murmured. “I’m not surprised.”

  “But no customer has ever been dissatisfied with the sex. Until you.”

  He winced at that. “I’m sorry. I wanted you and it had been a long time and . . . Sophie, what we just did was incredible. But it was . . . just sex.”

  She drew a deliberate breath. “And you expected what? Moonlight? Music? To hold me afterward and murmur promises you don’t intend to keep? No, thank you.”

  His eyes flashed. “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

  “How gallant of you.” Then she dropped her head against the sofa, suddenly so weary. “You said you wanted it fast, so I did it fast. I’m sorry if you were disappointed.”

  He sat beside her and she flinched when his thumb caressed her cheek. “I said I couldn’t go slow.” He slid his fingers through the hair at her nape and tugged her to face him. The smooth timbre of his voice had her heart pounding again, but she refused to open her eyes. “That’s different from racing to the end because that’s all there is.” He kissed her eyelids, then both corners of her mouth. “There were so many things I wanted to do with you. For you.” His mouth covered hers, sweet. Patient. “To you.” She shuddered and felt him smile against her lips. “Don’t you want to know what all those things are?” he teased and every nerve ending buzzed.

  “Maybe,” she whispered and he chuckled, rich and deep.

  “Sophie, any two people can just have sex. I like you. A lot. I wanted more.”

  She swallowed hard. “Maybe I can’t give you any more.”

  “I think you can,” he whispered. “Sophie, look at me.” She forced herself to look up, dreading what she’d see. Sarcasm and scorn she could take. This she knew. Pity would be harder to swallow. But her breath caught in her throat because what she saw in his eyes was desire, tempered with tenderness and even a little self-deprecating humor. “Let me teach you the difference between fucking like minks and making love.”

  Deep down she’d known there had to be something more, that she’d never really shared what people in real relationships had. Deep down she’d always known she’d only . . . she winced. Fucked like a mink. Somehow it had always been simpler to keep it to that. But deep down, she’d always wanted to know the difference.

  He nibbled at her lower lip. “Come on, Sophie, you’ll like it better.”

  Sophie eyed the stairs. “Better than that?”

  He smiled, sensing victory. “I guarantee it.” He stood and held out his hand.

  She eyed his hand. “What if I’m not completely satisfied?”

  “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.” He pulled her to her feet. “If you’re not satisfied, then I guess I’ll have to keep working until you are.” He cupped her jaw, his lips grazing hers. “Come to bed with me, Sophie. I have places to take you.”

  The breath she drew was unsteady. “Okay.”

  Wednesday, January 17, 5:00 A.M.

  Vito crept from Sophie’s bed, where she slept curled up like a kitten. A very beautiful, teachable kitten. He moved his shoulders. With claws. Which she’d dug into his back that last time, when he’d taken her so high . . . The memory made him shudder. He’d like nothing better than to feel those sharp claws once more. But he had to get home and change and get on with his day.

  Another day of identifying bodies. Of notifying grieving families. Of trying to stop a killer, before there were any more bodies or grieving families. Vito pulled on his clothes, then pressed a kiss against Sophie’s temple. At least he’d satisfied one customer.

  He looked around for something to write on. He didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye. He got the impression she’d gotten enough of that over the years, from men who’d taken what they’d wanted and gone on, leaving her to believe that’s all there was.

  She had no paper on her nightstand, unless he counted the candy wrappers, which he did not. But a framed picture caught his eye. He carried it to the window and held it to the light from the streetlamps. It was a young woman with long dark hair and big eyes, taken sometime in the fifties. She sat sideways, looking over the back of a chair, in front of what looked like a dressing room mirror. Vito thought about Sophie’s father, a French film star with whom she hadn’t spent much time until the end of his life. He wondered if this was her mother, but doubted she’d keep her picture next to her bed.

  “My gran.” He looked over to see her sitting up in bed, knees pulled to her chest.

  “She was an actress, too?”

  “Of a fashion.” She lifted a brow. “Double bonus prize if you know who she is.”

  “I liked the bonus prize from before. Are you going to give me a hint?”

  “Nope. But I will make you breakfast.” She grinned. “I figure it’s the least I can do.”

  He grinned back, then picked up another photo, turning on a lamp. It was the same woman, with a man he did recognize. “Your grandmother knew Luis Albarossa?”

  Sophie poked her head out of a sweatshirt, her face stunned. “What is it with you? You know French actors and Italian tenors, too?”

  “My grandfather was an opera fan.” He hesitated. “So am I.”

  She’d bent at the waist to pull on a pair of sweats and paused, her hair a curtain over her face. She parted it with one hand and glared out. “What’s wrong with opera?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that some people don’t think it’s very . . .”

  “Manly? That’s just macho bullshit inherent in a patriarchal society.” She yanked at the sweats and pushed her hair from her face. “Opera or Guns-N-Roses, neither makes you less of a man. Besides, I’m the last person you need to prove your manhood to.”

  “Tell that to my brothers and my dad.”

  She looked amused. “What, that you give great sex?”

  Startled, he laughed. “No, that opera is manly.”

  “Ohhh. It’s always good to be clear. So gramps was an opera aficionado?”

  “Every time it came to town he’d get tickets, but nobody would go to the concerts except me. We heard Albarossa do Don Giovanni when I was ten. Unforgettable.” He narrowed his eyes. “Give me a hint. What was your grandmother’s last name?”

  “Johannsen,” she said with a smirk. “Lotte, Birgit! Time to go out.” The dogs scrambled from one of the bedrooms, yapping. She headed down the stairs and he followed.

  “Just a hint, Sophie.”

  She just smirked again and went out the back door with the two ridiculously colored dogs. “You know too much already. You should have to work for a double bonus.”

  Chuckling, Vito wandered into the living room and investigated there. A double bonus prize was nothing to sneeze at. Plus, he admitted to himself, he was nosy. Sophie Johannsen was a damn interesting woman on her own, but it appeared her family tree had some unique knots and forks.

  He found what he was looking for and carried it to the kitchen. She was back from outside and pulling pots and pans from the cupboard.

  “You cook?” he said, surprised again.

  “Of course. Woman cannot live by beef jerky and Ho Hos alone. I’m a good cook.” She looked at the framed program he held and sighed dramatically. “So who is she?”

  Vito leaned against the refrigerator, both smug in the knowledge that the double bonus was now his and awed. “Your grandmother is Anna Shubert. My God, Sophie, my grandfather and I heard her sing Orfeo at the Academy downtown. Her Che faro . . .” He sobered, remembering the tears on his grandfather’s face. In his own eyes. “After her aria there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. She was remarkable.”

  Sophie’s lips curved sadly. “Yeah, she was. Orfeo here in Philly was her last performance. I’ll tell her you knew who she was. It’ll make her day.” She nudged him out of the way, taking eggs and a carton of cream from the fridge and setting them
on the counter. Then her shoulders sagged. “It’s so hard to watch her die, Vito.”

  “I’m sorry. My dad’s got heart disease. We’re grateful for every day he’s with us.”

  “Then you understand.” She blew a sigh up her forehead. “If you want, there are a few photo albums in the living room. If you like opera, it’ll be a treat.”

  Eagerly he brought them to the table. “These albums have to be worth a mint.”

  “To Gran, yeah. And to me.” She set a cup of coffee next to his elbow. “That’s the Paris Opera House. The man standing next to Gran is Maurice. He’s the one who gave me the information about the dead collector,” she added before going back to the stove.

  Vito frowned. “I thought you said Maurice was your father’s friend.”

  She winced. “He was Alex’s friend, too. It’s kind of complicated. Sordid, really.”

  She called her father by his first name. Interesting. “Sophie, stop teasing me.”

  She chuckled. “Maurice and Alex went to university together. Both were wealthy playboys. Anna was in her forties and at the peak of her career, touring Europe. She’d been a widow a long time by then. I guess she was lonely. Alex had had a few small movie roles. Maurice worked for the opera house in Paris which is where he met Anna. The opera threw a party and Maurice invited my father, introduced them, and”—she lifted a shoulder—“I’m told the infatuation was instantaneous.”

  Vito grimaced. “Your grandmother and your father? That’s . . . ew.”

  She whipped the eggs with a wire whisk. “Technically she wasn’t my grandmother and he wasn’t my father. Not yet anyway. I wasn’t in the picture yet.”

  “Still . . .”

  “I told you it was sordid. Well, they had a grand affair.” She frowned into the pan as she poured the eggs in. “Then she found out he was married. She tossed him aside.”

  Vito was beginning to see a pattern here. “I see.”

  She shot him a wry look. “Alex didn’t. Anna was born in Hamburg, but she was raised in Pittsburgh. I’m told he was quite devastated when Anna left.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “Maurice. He’s quite the gossip. That’s why I knew he’d be able to get all the good stuff on Alberto Berretti.”

  “So how did you . . . come into the picture?”

  “Ah. It gets even more sordid. Anna has two daughters. Freya the Good and Lena.”

  “The Bad?”

  Sophie just shrugged. “Suffice it to say Lena and Anna didn’t get along. Freya was older and already married to my uncle Harry. Lena was seventeen, headstrong and rebellious. She wanted a singing career of her own. She got mad when Anna wouldn’t give her entrée. They had quite a falling-out. Then Anna broke up with my father.”

  She dished eggs onto two plates and put them on the table. “Like I said, Alex was devastated and he spent a lot of time drunk. Not an excuse, but . . . One night he got approached in a bar by a young woman who seduced him. Lena.”

  “Lena seduced him just to get back at her mother? She really was Lena the Bad.”

  “It gets worse. Lena and Anna had it out. Lena ran away, and Anna came home to Pittsburgh to lick her wounds. I think Anna really loved Alex and expected to marry him.” She toyed with the food on her plate. “Nine months later, Lena came home with a bundle of joy.” She twirled her fork. “Voilà. And that’s how I came into the picture.”

  “A child of an illicit affair conducted because of another illicit affair,” Vito said quietly. “Then you met Brewster and unwittingly did what your mother and Anna had done.”

  “I’m not that hard to figure out. But I am a good cook. Your food’s getting cold.”

  She’d closed the door on her life again, but each time it stayed open a little longer. He still didn’t know what happened to her mother or how Katherine Bauer had come to be the ‘mother she’d never known’ or the significance of the body bag, but Vito could be patient. He pushed his clean plate aside. “What will you do about your bike?”

  “I’ll get it towed. Can you give me the name of your mechanic?”

  “Sure, but you should report it to the police, along with the dead mouse. Brewster’s wife can’t just get away with terrorizing you like that.”

  She made a scoffing noise. “You can bet your double bonus I’ll report it. That woman bullied me once, but I’m done with her.”

  “Good girl. How will you get to work this morning?”

  “I can use Gran’s car until my bike is fixed.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s an okay car, it just smells like Lotte and Birgit.”

  At their names, the dogs came running, wagging their rainbow butts as they begged for handouts. Vito laughed softly. “Lotte Lehman and Birgit Nilsson. Opera legends.”

  “Gran’s idols. Naming these girls after them was the biggest honor she could think of. These dogs are like Gran’s children. She spoils them rotten.”

  “Did she color them?”

  Sophie put their plates in the sink. “No, that was my mistake. I brought Gran home from rehab after her stroke—before she got pneumonia and had to go to the nursing home. She’d sit at the window and watch the dogs play outside, but her eyes were bad. Then it snowed and they were white and she couldn’t see them at all.” She trailed off. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was just food coloring. It’s actually faded a lot.”

  Vito laughed. “Sophie, you’re incredible.” He walked to the sink, pushed her hair aside and ran his lips down the back of her neck. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She shivered. “I’m going to sit with Gran tonight. It’s Freya’s bingo night.”

  “Then I’ll go with you. How often can I meet a legend?”

  Wednesday, January 17, 6:00 A.M.

  Something was different. Wrong. He drove the highway to his field, Gregory Sanders’s body in a plastic bag under the tarp in the bed of his truck. Normally he never passed another car on this road. But he’d passed two cars already. Sheer instinct had him driving past the access road without slowing down, and what he saw as he passed stopped his heart. There should have been untouched snow where the access road met the highway, but instead he saw the crisscross of tire ruts, indicating repeated access by multiple vehicles.

  Bile rose in his throat, choking him. They’d found his graveyard.

  Somehow, someone had found his graveyard. But how? And who? The police?

  He made himself breathe. Most certainly the police.

  They’ll find me. They’ll catch me. He made himself breathe again. Relax. How can they catch you? There’s no way they can identify any of those bodies.

  And even if they did, there was no way to link any of the bodies to him. His heart was pounding hard and he wiped a shaky hand across his mouth. He needed to get out of here. He had Gregory Sanders’s body in a plastic bag in his truck. If for any reason he was stopped . . . Even he couldn’t explain a dead body away.

  So breathe. Just breathe. Think. You have to be smart about this.

  He’d been so very careful. He’d worn gloves, ensured none of his own body came in contact with the victims. Not even a hair. So even if they identified every damn one of the victims, they couldn’t link them to him. He was safe.

  So he breathed. And thought. His first step was to get rid of Gregory. Next, he had to find out what the cops knew and how they’d found out. If they were close, he’d bolt.

  He knew how to disappear. He’d done it before.

  He drove for five miles. No one followed him. He pulled off the road, behind some trees. And waited, holding his breath. No police cars drove by. No cars of any kind.

  He got out of the truck, for the first time grateful for the chill of a Philadephia morning on his heated skin. The land beyond the edge of the road sloped sharply down into a gulley. This was as good a place as any to dump Sanders.

  Quickly he lowered the tailgate, pulled away the tarp and grabbed the plastic bag in his gloved hands. He heaved the bag into the snow, shoving with his foo
t until it started to slide. The bag hit a tree, then rolled the rest of the way down. There was a visible path in the snow marking its descent, but if he was lucky it would snow again tonight and the cops wouldn’t find Gregory Sanders before the spring thaw.

  He’d be long gone by then. He got back behind the wheel and turned in the direction he’d come, wondering if he’d done the right thing.

  Then he knew that he had. Two police cruisers sat at the entrance to his access road where none had been before, one pointed in, one out. Shift change, he thought. He’d slipped through their shift change by the skin of his teeth. An officer got out of one of the cruisers as he approached.

  His first inclination was to hit the accelerator and take the cop out, but that would be foolish. Satisfying, but ultimately foolish. He slowed to a stop. Made himself frown in polite puzzlement as he rolled his window down.

  “Where are you headed, sir?” the officer asked with no smile.

  “To work. I live down this road.” He squinted, pretending to try to see past the cruiser. “What’s going on over there? I seen cars comin’ and goin’.”

  “This is a restricted area, sir. If you can take another route, then do.”

  “Ain’t no other route,” he said. “But I reckon I can keep my eyes to myself.”

  The officer took his notepad from his pocket. “Can I get your name, sir?”

  This was where long-term planning paid off, and he settled into his seat, confident now. “Jason Kinney.” It would be the name registered to his license plate, because he’d filed the change in title with the DMV himself a year ago. Jason Kinney was just one of the driver’s licenses he had in his wallet. It always paid to be thorough.

  The officer made a big show of walking to the rear of the truck and writing down the license plate. He checked under the tarp before coming back and touching the tip of his hat. “Now that we know you’re a resident of the area, we won’t need to stop you again.”

  He nodded. Like he’d ever come this way again. Not. “I appreciate it, Officer. Have a nice day.”

  Wednesday, January 17, 8:05 A.M.