Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

  Her breath left her in a slow hiss as he entered her. Her body tightened around him, on the brink of fulfillment. He lifted her again and slid her back down on him slowly, inch by inch.

  Anticipation wound like a spring inside her, tighter and tighter, pounding for release. She began to move on him at her own pace, hands gripping his big shoulders, her head flung back. Faster and faster, until she was breathless, until the heat condensed to a slick gloss of sweat on her skin, until the anticipation exploded into a firestorm of sensation.

  They held each other tight as they came back to earth, as their heartbeats slowed, as the real world took form around them. Mitch pulled the quilt up over them. The heat of passion had waned and the January night chilled them.

  Gannon jumped up on the bed and curled into his spot behind Megan's knees. As if Mitch didn't exist at all. Megan could hardly remember the last time she'd had a man in her bed. Her relationships could be counted on one hand. All of them dismal failures. The rule of her love life was a catch-22: She didn't date cops, but no one understood cops except other cops, therefore . . . And beneath that excuse lay deeper reasons, intrinsic fears, demons that had followed her like shadows all her life. The fear that no one would ever love her, that she was inherently unlovable, tainted by the stain of her mother's sins. Fears that had no logic. Fears that existed in the darkest corner of her heart like toadstools.

  Stupid to even think of them now. Mitch Holt didn't love her, he had needed her. They had needed each other to escape a lonely night, to escape a horrible case. It wasn't love. More like a favor between friends. Cast in that light, the beauty of their lovemaking faded, the comfort of lying there together lost its warmth.

  He's not even single, she thought, staring at the ring on his left hand. She had just broken all her own rules for a man who was married to his past. You sure know how to pick 'em, kiddo.

  Still, she couldn't find it in her to regret what they had just shared. Just as she couldn't stop herself from wanting something more. Just as she couldn't stop that need from scaring the hell out of her.

  Mitch felt her shiver against him and pulled the covers up higher around her shoulders. She felt good in his arms. She fit against his side like a puzzle piece. Comfortable. Comforting. The sex had been incredible. Just thinking about it made him want her all over again.

  He waited for the stab of guilt, that jagged dagger that had plunged into his heart after every sexual encounter he'd had since Allison's death. But it didn't come. He'd found an oasis for a little while, for a night. Dawn would arrive soon enough and they would be cops again, thrown back into the living nightmare of trying to find a kidnapper but with no real leads and no real suspects and no motive save a madman's. But until dawn, they had the night.

  He turned onto his side, bracing himself up on one arm so he could look down at Megan. She stared back at him, her expression slightly wary, slightly defiant.

  “If this is where you make the speech about what a big mistake we just made, you can save your breath,” she said.

  “Because you already know it was a mistake?” he asked carefully.

  Mistake was too small a word, too innocent. This was the kind of misstep that could end her career. Getting in too deep with Mitch Holt could leave her with nothing but a broken heart, and she'd had enough of those to last her.

  “Are you saying you regret making love with me?” he said.

  She stared up at him, at the lived-in, beat-up face and the eyes that looked as old as time. She thought of all the feelings he kept boxed inside—the rage, the pain, the self-doubt—that he allowed out only in small increments. She thought of his tenderness and his passion and the unabashed love he gave to his daughter. It would have been smart to say yes; the best defense was a good offense. She couldn't see a future for them. There was no point in prolonging the inevitable. She could end it now and come away with her pride battered but intact, but . . .

  “No,” she whispered. “I just don't think we should make a habit of it.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her robe. Mitch leaned across and caught hold of one sleeve before she could slip into it. She met his gaze over her shoulder, her expression wary.

  “Why not?” he challenged.

  “Because.”

  “That's not an answer for anyone over the age of seven.”

  “The answer was implied,” Megan said. “You shouldn't have to ask the question.”

  She tugged her sleeve free of his grasp and walked away, pulling the robe around her and tying the belt tight. She went to her dresser and fingered the few items she had unpacked and set on top of it. The small gray china cat statue that had been a graduation gift from Frances Clay, the church cleaning lady who had looked after her when she was small. The jewelry box she had bought in a secondhand shop with her own money on her twelfth birthday. For a time she had pretended that her mother had given it to her, when in fact no one had given her anything.

  “We're working together,” she said tightly. “We shouldn't be sleeping together.”

  She watched him in the mirror as he threw the covers back and climbed out of her bed. The automatic flush of desire frightened her. It frightened her that her body could so quickly become so attuned to his, that she could want him this badly, need him this much. Need. God, she couldn't let herself need him.

  Their gazes met in the mirror. His expression was hard, predatory.

  “This doesn't have anything to do with work,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his throat.

  Slowly he turned her around to face him and tugged her belt loose. She sucked in a shallow breath as he slid his hands inside the robe and opened it, exposing her to his gaze, his touch. He cupped her breasts gently, brushing his thumbs across her nipples, and her breath caught again. Satisfaction and arousal flared in his gaze. His fingers skimmed down her sides and his hands settled on her hips. He lowered his mouth toward hers. “And who said anything about sleeping?”

  * * *

  JOURNAL ENTRY

  DAY 4

  Take a perfect family. Tear it all apart. We hold the pieces. We hold the power. As simple as nothing. Like pulling the linchpin on this small, stupid place. Like ringing the bell for Pavlov's dogs.

  The police chase their tails. They search for evidence they won't find. They wait for signs from above. They bluster and threaten, but nothing will come of it. We watch and laugh. The volunteers pray and pin themselves with ribbons and pass out posters, thinking they can make a difference. Such fools. Only we can make a difference. We hold all the cards.

  The game is growing dull. Time to up the ante.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  DAY 4

  5:42 A.M. 12°

  Hannah sat on the window ledge, staring out at the trees as they transformed from shadows to vague shapes. The black of night was fading, shade by subtle shade. Another night gone. The start of another day without Josh. She couldn't imagine how she would live through it. She took no comfort in the knowledge that she would.

  The line from the notes whispered through the back of her mind. The words crept over her skin like bony fingers. ignorance is not innocence but SIN. i had a little sorrow, born of a little SIN. Cold fear twisted inside her and she trembled with the longing for someone to take it away.

  Paul lay sleeping, sprawled facedown in the center of the bed, his arms flung wide, claiming the entire mattress as his own. She wondered if he would go through his same routine when he woke to face the day. She wondered what had happened to the two of them. She closed her eyes and saw them each in separate rowboats on a sea that tossed them farther apart with each pulsing wave. In her mind's eye she reached out toward him mutely, but his back was to her and he didn't turn around.

  Loneliness tightened like a fist in her chest, crushing her lungs, crushing her heart.

  God, I'm not strong enough to get through this alone. . . .

  She pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back the cry of helple
ssness and need, and ached inside at the thought that she wouldn't even share this with her husband, with the father of her children.

  Things had been so different when Josh was a baby. Paul had been different. He had been proud of her. She had never doubted his love. He had looked at life's opportunities with enthusiasm, eager to give his family the things he had missed out on growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood, where paychecks had to be stretched. He had looked at Josh and seen the chance to be the supportive, loving father he'd never had. He had looked at his wife and seen an equal, a partner, someone he could love and respect.

  Now Hannah looked at him and saw a selfish, bitter man, jealous of her successes, resentful of his own anonymity. A man consumed by the need to acquire things and baffled that the things didn't give him the happiness he expected. She wondered what had become of the man she had married, wondered if he was as lost to her as Josh.

  Oh, God, I didn't mean to think that! I don't believe he's gone. I won't believe it.

  ignorance is not innocence but SIN. Loneliness, fear, guilt, hurtled through her. Panic closed her throat. She forced herself to her feet and paced the rectangle of pale light that fell from the window onto the carpet, forcing herself to think, to plan, forcing the wheels of her mind to turn. She was trembling like a drunk in the throes of DTs. It took every molecule of strength she had to keep from crumpling to the floor. Gritting her teeth, she fought against the need to double over. One foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other . . . Step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step, turn . . .

  She paced the floor in an oversize Vikings jersey and wool socks, her legs and forearms bare. The cold seemed to seep through skin and tissue into her bones. It seemed to spill in through the window like moonlight.

  So cold . . . Is Josh cold? Cold and alone. Ice cold. Stone cold . . .

  “What are you doing?”

  Hannah jerked around at the sound of Paul's voice. Her hands were like ice. She could see her palm prints on the window where her breath had steamed the glass around them.

  “I couldn't sleep.”

  Paul swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up with the comforter pulled across his lap. He looked thin and gray in the pale light of the room, older, harder, lines of anger and disappointment etched into his face beside his eyes and mouth. A sigh leaked out of his lungs as he flicked on the lamp and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand.

  “I have to do something today,” Hannah announced, surprising herself as much as him. The words echoed in her mind and hardened with resolve. She stood a little straighter. She wanted—needed—to get back something of herself. She was accustomed to taking action in the face of a crisis. Action at least provided the illusion of control. “I have to get out of this house. If I have to sit here another day, I'll go crazy.”

  “You can't leave,” Paul said. He tossed the covers back and rose, hitching up a baggy pair of striped pajama bottoms. He grabbed his black terry robe from the foot of the bed and thrust his arms into the sleeves. “You have to be here in case they call.”

  “You can answer a telephone as well as I can.”

  “But I have to go out with the search party—”

  “No, Paul, I'm going out.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “What do you think you're going to do? You think you're going to save the day? Dr. Garrison to the rescue. Her husband can't find their son, but she will?”

  “Oh, Jesus, Paul!” she snapped, flinging her arms down to her sides. “Why does everything have to be about you? I'm so sick of this jealous act of yours, I could scream. I'm sorry if you feel inadequate—”

  “I never said I felt inadequate,” he barked, his eyes glowing with temper. “I meant that you don't believe anyone can do anything as well as you.”

  “That's absurd.” She turned her back on him. She pulled clothes out of her dresser drawers and tossed them into a tangled pile on top of her jewelry box, heedless of the bottles of perfume she overturned in the process. “You've been out the last two days looking for Josh. Why can't you see that I need that chance, too? Why can't you—”

  The rest of the question died as a wave of emotion surged through her.

  “We used to share everything,” she whispered, her eyes on his reflection in the mirror. “We used to be partners. As horrible as this is, at least we would have shared the burden. God, Paul, what's happened to us?”

  She heard him sigh, but she didn't turn around and she didn't meet his gaze in the mirror, afraid that what she would see on his face would be impatience instead of regret.

  “I'm sorry,” he murmured, stepping up behind her. “I feel like I'm losing my mind. I feel helpless. You know what that does to me. I need to feel like I can make a difference.”

  “So do I!” She swung around to face him, her expression a plea for understanding. She looked into his eyes, trying to find the man she had married, the man she had loved. “I need that, too. Why can't you see that?”

  Or don't you care? The question hung between them, unspoken, as the moment stretched taut. A dozen scenarios flashed through Hannah's mind—the rift between them healing, the Paul she used to know returning, the nightmare ending abruptly with her waking suddenly, the light going cold in his eyes as he told her he didn't care, the crevasse between them ripping as wide as a canyon. . . .

  He looked away as Lily started to cry in her room down the hall. “Yeah . . . Go ahead,” he said softly. “I'll stay with Lily for a while.”

  “She'll ask where Josh is,” Hannah murmured. “It's been three days . . .”

  She dragged a hand back through her tangled hair as the fears surged up inside her again. “God, the things that go through my mind . . . Is he asking for us, is he cold, is he hurt?” The worst of the questions stuck like peanut butter to the roof of her mouth, gagging her, choking her. She was afraid to give them voice, and yet she needed to. “Paul, what if he's—”

  “Don't!” He pulled her roughly into his arms, his eyes still trained on the door, as if looking at her would turn the fears to reality. “I don't want to think about it,” he whispered.

  He was trembling. She pressed a hand over his heart and felt it race. ignorance is not innocence but SIN

  “Go take your shower,” he murmured. “I'll get Lily up.”

  11:20 A.M. 20°

  Buy a chance! Give a dollar! Help bring Josh home!” Al Jackson's voice boomed across the park from the Senior Hockey League booth. He had found a rhythm and stuck with it, repeating the chant with the regularity of a metronome. The call was too reminiscent of a carnival barker luring the naïve to a rigged shell game.

  Hannah's stomach churned. She looked out across the park, seeing a surreal version of the annual Snowdaze fair. Wooden booths draped in colorful festoons ringed and crisscrossed the park. Behind them, portable heaters rumbled, generating billowing clouds of steam in the cold air. Crowds had turned out in full winter regalia to play the games and watch the ice sculptors at work. But in addition to the usual causes—new band uniforms and computers for the public library and funds for the Legion Auxiliary summer beautification project—every game, every booth, was pledging money to the effort to find Josh.

  Noble gestures. Overwhelming generosity. A touching show of support and love. Hannah repeated these phrases over and over, and still she couldn't shake her gut-level reaction—that she had escaped one nightmare and run headlong into another. There was something too Kafkaesque about watching people slide one by one down the hill from the courthouse into a stand of giant bowling pins, knowing they had each given a dollar to help bring her son home. It made her feel sick to think this festival had been twisted into so many acts of desperation and that she was queen for the day, the center of attention, the star attraction.

  She had been led to the volunteer-center booth to be put on display like some freak. See the grieving mother hand out posters! Watch the guilty woman pin yellow ribbons on the faithful!

  She could feel the ga
zes of the reporters on her. The second they spotted her, questions spewed out of them in an endless stream—questions about her feelings, questions of guilt and suspicion, requests for exclusive interviews. She had finally given them a statement and made a plea for Josh's return, but they weren't satisfied. Like a pack of hungry dogs that had been thrown a few meat scraps, they lingered and watched her, hopeful of more. She couldn't move or speak or wipe her nose without feeling their camera lenses zoom in on her.

  The faces of some of the television people were familiar. She seldom had time to sit down and watch the news, but at six and ten it was always on in the background regardless of where she was. Minnesotans didn't miss their news; it was something of an inside joke among natives. Aside from the goings-on in the Cities, nothing much of consequence happened in the state as a rule, but everyone insisted on having the nonevents relayed to them at the end of the day.

  Hannah could put names to several of the Twin Cities' reporters. Several of the stations themselves had set up booths to help raise money for the cause. Down the row from the volunteer-center booth, the channel eleven weatherman was offering his face as a target for cream pies. The StarTribune had teamed up with the policemen's association to fingerprint and photograph children for a dollar donation per child—a safety precaution most parents in Deer Lake had never thought about.

  Noble gestures. Overwhelming generosity. A touching show of support and love.

  A macabre drama, and she was the focal point.

  It's your own fault, Hannah. You want to do something, to take charge like you always do.

  But she couldn't find the strength to present herself as a leader. She felt drained, wilted. Dizziness swam through her head and she closed her eyes and leaned against the counter.

  “Dr. Garrison, are you all right?”

  “I think she's going to faint!”

  “Should we call a doctor?”

  “She is a doctor!”

  “Well, she can't treat herself. She'd have a fool for a patient.”