by Desiree Holt
Again, again, and again, until that first spasm clenched him, and then he let go, pulsing into the condom as they climaxed together.
At last, he collapsed forward, catching himself on his elbows while his heartbeat and hers settled down and they could both draw an easy breath again. When he looked at her, he saw a mixture of satisfaction and wonder in her eyes.
He smiled. “Good?”
He sure as hell hoped so, because for him it was spectacular. As much sex as he’d had in his life, he’d never known it could be this good. Probably because he wasn’t doing it with the right person.
“Good?” Her laugh was giddy. “Talk about an understatement. I thought people were lying when they said it was so incredible. God, Alex. Thank you so much.”
“No, thank you. I haven’t enjoyed sex this much in, well, a long time. I’m happy I could in some measure wipe away that nightmare.”
“Nightmare?” She pretended surprise. “What nightmare?”
Alex kissed her, a deeply passionate kiss that mingled the taste of her still on his tongue with the sweet flavor of her mouth. Then he eased himself from her body, pinching the edge of the condom to prevent any accidents. After disposing of it, he came back and crawled up on the bed. Pulling her up with him and cradling her in his arms.
“I think I like it when you’re in charge.”
“We’re not done, are we?” She looked over at him.
He burst out laughing. “Have I a created a monster?”
“Maybe,” she teased. Then her face settled into a serious expression. “Much as I’d like to, however this just spurs me on even more to see if I can help you resolve this whole thing. It’s like a blanket of evil covering the entire area.”
He sighed. “You’re right.” But god he didn’t want to move. He wanted to hold this woman close to him and never let her go. Ever. And what a shock that was to him.
She nodded decisively. “Then I say we get up, raid your fridge for something to eat and sit down at the table. I’ll dig around in what passes for my mind and see if we can come up with any nugget at all to start us in the right direction.”
“You’d do that?”
“Hell, yes. Anything to have this over once and for all.”
Which he wanted as much as she did. Then maybe they could explore this unexpected turn of events between them, and he could figure out now to coax her back to Montana. And him.
“Alrighty, then. Let’s get to it.”
Chapter 7
Instead of getting completely dressed again, Micki pulled on her panties and one of Alex’s long-sleeved shirts. She rolled up the sleeves while Alex pulled on sweat pants and a T-shirt.
“Did you have lunch?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t have any appetite.”
“Me, either. Come on. I’m sure I have stuff to scrounge in the fridge.”
But it was obvious they’d need something stronger than scrounge to feed themselves from his meager supply of food. He did, however, have an extra-large pizza in the freezer. He pulled it out and popped it in the oven. He also had beer in the fridge, and he opened two bottles, handing one to Micki.
“To us.” He touched his bottle to hers.
She studied him, her heart galloping. “Is there an us, Alex?”
“I damn sure hope so.” He cupped her chin in the palm of his hand. “I know this was unexpected and happened way too fast, especially considering your…situation, but—”
“But sometimes fast is good,” she finished for him. “Sometimes, if you spend too much time thinking, the opportunity gets away from you.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry for anything that happened between us. I damn sure am not.” He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She tilted her head and studied him. “You know that after a couple of hours?”
“I knew it after five minutes, despite the situation. I know we have a long way to go, and I’ll do my best not to rush you. But, Micki, be warned. I’m going to do my damnedest to seduce you to move back here. This may be fast, but I’m not getting any younger. I don’t want to waste a minute.”
“But we just—I mean, we—I—”
“I know. But I’ve learned how short life can be. When something good comes your way, not to let go.” He grinned. “Come on. The pizza is ready. Let’s feed our stomach’s and exercise our brains.”
She stared at him, mouth open, wondering if she had ended up in a fantasy land and when she was going to wake up. But Alex brushed a kiss on her mouth and nudged her toward the table. Okay, so maybe she didn’t want to wake up. This was better than reality.
At the table they each helped themselves to a slice of hot pizza, and Alex grabbed his tablet that had all his notes on it. He’d gotten into the habit of doing everything electronically and sending the day’s work to Dropbox every day. That way, he could always access it, and nothing got lost. He also went to his den safe and brought back the folder containing all the rape reports that Jeff Bartell had squirreled away. He shared those with Micki while they ate.
At last, she sat back in her chair, forehead creased in concentration.
“It’s interesting that every report includes one specific thing,” she told him. “It must have occurred to you, too, because you circled it in red.”
He looked over at her. “The voice.”
She nodded. “Every one of these girls reported their attacker had a gravelly sounding voice.”
“They must all have practiced disguising their voices. Weird.”
Micki shook her head. “No. I mean, yes, but no. That’s not it. Adam Hoffman’s voice sounds like that all the time. My mother happened to remark one time he had a problem that resulted in surgery on his throat when he was in his twenties. He’s spoken like that for as long as I’ve known him.”
Alex stared at her. “So, what, his fellow rapists when they planned this decided to all mimic his voice?”
“Yes. Doesn’t it make sense? A good way to disguise your voice. And if anyone later on, even months or years later, somehow realized Adam spoke that way, and accused him, you can bet he had an alibi.”
“But one of them didn’t, if you’re right,” Alex pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter. They’d figure out a way to always alibi each other.” She shook her head. “I’ve been hearing that gravelly voice in my head for sixteen years and never connected the dots.”
“And why would you? The man who attacked you could have been anyone at the party. You wouldn’t necessarily expect it to be a friend of your father’s.”
“That’s right. There were a lot of men at that party, many of whom I never saw before and haven’t seen since then. I would never expect it to be someone that close to us. Oh god.” A sudden chill raced over her, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “The thought it was someone I might know extremely well makes me physically ill.”
Alex covered her hand with one of his, his skin warm and comforting, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“We’re going to find him,” he promised her. “Him and whoever else is involved in what I suspect is a real ugly game. You can bet on that.”
And then something popped into her brain. “Damn. I don’t know why I didn’t say something about this before.”
“About what?”
“Alex, my father has never been a demonstrative person, not with my mother, with me, with my brother. Ever. He was in the barn when I arrived and shocked me by walking straight out to me, giving me a big hug. He made a point of telling me how glad he was I’d come home for the party.” She rubbed her forehead. “Almost as if he was expecting something to happen.”
“Micki, I hate to say this, but if your father has been involved in this all these years, maybe Holly Martino’s death jolted him in some way. I mean, this has been going on for most of two decades, according to the dates on the reports Bartell hid.”
“I never liked t
hat man.” She stared into her now empty coffee cup. “I always thought there was something…creepy about him, and it seems I was right.”
Alex leaned back in his chair. “Imagine all the careful planning that had to go into what they did. They had to decide before a party which of them would get to play his dirty game that night. And remember. They couldn’t do it at every party, or people would get suspicious enough to ask for a full-out investigation.”
“I’m stunned they didn’t anyway.”
“Best I can figure from talking to Jenna, the people who know about it were sure it was some out-of-town guest.” Micki rubbed her forehead. “After all, no one from here would do such a thing. Right?”
Alex nodded. “People have a natural tendency to ignore anything that disturbs the surface of their lives. Okay. You think Adam Hoffman’s voice is easy to imitate? Or did they all just decide to make their voices as low and hoarse as possible to prevent identification?”
“Anything is possible, and I mean that.” She picked up her mug. “I think I could use another cup of coffee. How about you?”
“I’ll get it.” He started to rise.
“Let me do it.” When she reached for his mug, her bracelet clanked against it, and he lifted her hand to look at it. “Did you lose a charm from here, Micki? There’s a. big space between two of the trinkets, like something’s missing.”
And it all came back to her again, the scene in her nightmares.
“It came off my bracelet when he was grabbing my arms, I think. I never could find it afterward. For all I know, he saw it and kept it as a trophy.”
“Jesus.” Alex whistled. “If only I could get a search warrant for their homes, their offices. Even to see if he carries it with hm.” He shook his head. “Somehow, I have to find probable cause.”
“You know they’ll never let that happen.” She stared at the mugs while she filled one and then the other with the dark brew. “What if I file a report. Is it too late after all these years?
Alex came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “The only way I’d ever let you do that is as a last resort.”
“But aren’t we there now?” she asked.
“Not yet. I—”
He was interrupted by the sound of a cell phone ringing. They had both brought theirs into the kitchen with them and laid them on the table next to each other. Micki recognized her ringtone at once, a favorite Kelly Clarkson tune. The name on the screen said “Mom.” Hoping this wasn’t some kind of crisis, she picked up the phone and answered it.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“Oh, Micki.” Her mother’s voice was distorted by sobs. “Oh my god, Micki.”
“Mom, take a breath. Mom,” she repeated, louder.
“Micki, I don’t know where you are, but please come home right now.” Micki could hardly make out the words.
“Mom, is Jason there? Put him on the phone.”
“He’s not here. Come home now.”
The call disconnected. Micki stared at the phone for a moment, heart galloping. What the hell was wrong? Her mother might be a touch on the nervous side but she never, ever broke down like this.
“I have to go,” she told Alex. “Right now.” She dumped her coffee in the sink and started toward the stairs.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.” He stepped in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s my mother. She’s hysterical for some reason, and she never falls apart like that.”
“Micki, your father was just murdered. Maybe she’s having a delayed reaction.”
“Whatever it is, I have to go.”
“Then we’ll go together.” He took her hand. “Come on.”
“But—”
“I’m not letting you face whatever it is alone. I’ll drive. We’ll collect your car later.”
She saw that it was senseless to argue, so she dressed in a hurry and followed him out of the house.
Alex drove like a bat out of hell”. “I’m the sheriff,” he said, trying to joke. “No one will stop me for speeding.”
Still, she sat as rigid as a piece of steel until they reached the ranch and pulled up to the house. The vehicle had barely stopped before she was out and running up to the front door. Her mother must have been watching for her because the door was yanked open and the woman flung herself at Micki, clutching some kind of papers in her hand.
“It’s awful,” she kept repeating. “It’s so awful.”
“What is, Mom?” Micki was doing her best to calm the woman down. “Let’s go inside.”
“Yes, yes. Inside. I have to show you.”
“Alex—Sheriff Rossi— is with me. Whatever’s wrong we’ll fix it.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head. “You can’t fix this. No one can.”
A car door slammed.
“What the hell is going on here?
Micki turned slightly to see Jason reaching them in four long strides.
She looked at him in helpless ignorance. “I don’t have any idea. Mom called me, hysterical. She was like this when we got here.”
“We?” He looked at Alex. “Sheriff, what the fuck is this?”
“Why don’t we go inside and find out. It’s obvious something has upset your mother a great deal.”
Somehow, they managed to get everyone inside and into the living room.
“Get Mom a glass of wine,” Micki told her brother. “She’s falling apart.”
“Better make it something stronger,” Alex interjected. “She’s shaking like a leaf.”
“Good idea.”
Micki had her mother settled on the couch and was sitting beside her when Jason returned with a rocks glass containing two ice cubes and a shot of liquor.
“Let me hold those papers,” she told her mother. “You’re shaking so badly, you’ll need both hands to hold the glass.”
For a moment, she thought her mother wasn’t going to give them up. Then, reluctantly she released her hold on them, handing them to Micki. Jason sat on the floor in front of his mother, bracketing her hands with his, just in case. Micki set the envelope and sheets of paper down next to her, waiting until her mother had calmed down a little to read them.
“Take another sip,” Jason urged, nudging the bottom of the glass. When Dana had swallowed again, he lifted the glass from her hand and set it on the floor next to him. “Okay, what’s this all about.”
Dana inhaled a deep breath, let it out, did it again.
“I was in the den this morning,” she began. “I know you both think your father was a cold, self-centered individual, but that’s how he’s had to be to get where he was.”
Micki exchanged glances first with Jason then with Alex. They all knew many people had accomplished what Bill Schroeder had without doing that.
“Go on,” she urged.
“But whatever you might think,” Dana said, “he never stopped loving me. Sometimes he’d be out of here so early I wasn’t even out of bed yet. And maybe he wouldn’t get home until so late I was already asleep. Jason, could I have another sip from that glass?”
He placed it in her hands, but kept his bracketed around hers while she lifted it and took a swallow.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes.” But her face was so ravaged, her eyes held such a look of shock, Micki wondered what was so bad that nothing was helping.
“Go on,” she urged. “I can’t imagine the fact that Dad wasn’t home a lot caused this kind of hysterical reaction.”
“I’m getting to it.” She clenched her hands into fists.
“Take your time.” Alex’s deep voice was low and soothing. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Sheriff, I—”
“Alex, please. I am here only as a friend.”
“I hope you feel that way when you hear the whole thing.” She let out another slow breath. “Okay. I’m going to do my best to hold it together for the rest of this, but…”
&n
bsp; “Mom.” Micki covered her mother’s hands with her own. “I can’t imagine what is so bad that—”
Dana held up a shaking hand and cut her off. “Please, let me try to get it all out.”
“Okay. Whatever you need to do.”
“Anyway, early in our marriage, we used to leave notes for each other. Well, he’d leave one for me, and I would read it and put a little something at the bottom. That way we were connected, no matter what hours he kept.” She twisted her fingers together. “Jeremy Ackroyd, our attorney, called today and wanted to come out here tomorrow and go over the estate papers with all of us. I said I’d call him back when you got home. Then I decided to check and see if Bill had left me anything in his desk drawer. That had become our new little post office. And he had, he—”
She broke off, shaking again, tears streaming down her face.
“Take your time,” Jason repeated again.
“There was a letter. It—” She stopped and shook her head. “Jason, you’d better read it.”
“I’ll do it, Mom.” Micki picked up the envelope and sheets of paper.
“No!” Her mother almost shouted the word. “I don’t want you to.” She tightened her fingers around the papers and thrust them at Jason. “You do it. Please.”
“Okay, okay. But please. Calm down.” He smoothed out the pages and began to read aloud. “My darling, Dana. What you are about to read will shock you, but I fear my days are numbered, and you should hear this from me, terrible as it is. I have disgraced our name through my own selfish desires, and—”
He stopped, his face whiter than his shirt.
“Micki, I don’t know if you even want to hear this.” He looked as if he might throw up any minute.
