Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

  Their lips met tentatively, experimentally, as if this experience were new. Nothing to be rushed. Something to be savored. Breaths mingling. Mouths softly touching. The slightest increase of pressure. The angle shifting by small degrees. The anticipation warming and thickening. He slid his arms around her shoulders and drew her closer. The kiss deepened just a shade, and then another. The tip of his tongue skimmed the seam of her lips, asking for a little more, probed gently at the corner of her mouth, asking again. She opened her mouth and moaned softly as he took full possession.

  Megan caught hold of his hand as he raised it but didn't try to stop him as he filled his palm with the weight of her breast. His fingers kneaded her gently, her fingers closed over his, and he made a low sound of arousal in his throat as she increased the pressure. He found her nipple with his thumb and rubbed it slowly through the soft layers of her clothing. Then the buttons surrendered one by one.

  “God, you're pretty,” he whispered, exposing her, touching her reverently.

  Megan let herself drift on the sea of sensation . . . until she felt his hand on the button of her jeans. And again they went through the game of mock protest and persuasion.

  The button gave way. The zipper inched down. She raised her hips. He eased her jeans down, expecting to see a pair of lacy underpants to tease him. What he found was black silk that seemed to go on and on. Brows tugging together in confusion, he looked up at her.

  “Long underwear,” Megan whispered, embarrassed. “It's thirty below outside!”

  Mitch chuckled wickedly, peeling the black silk down. “Yeah, well, it's a hell of a lot warmer in here. Especially down here,” he said, sliding his fingers into the thatch of dark curls. “Especially in here,” he murmured, easing two fingers deep between her legs.

  “Oh—Mitch—” Megan reached for him, tried to pull him down to her.

  She wanted him close, wanted him losing his control, finding fulfillment at the same time, not watching her at her most vulnerable.

  “Trust me,” he whispered.

  Trust me. Trust wasn't something she offered easily. There were good reasons not to trust. Logical, practical reasons. But she didn't feel logical or practical. When he touched her, she felt like a woman, not a cop. It frightened her to let go of that identity, but there was Mitch, whispering, coaxing . . . Trust me . . . touching the heart of her need . . . stroking the most feminine part of her . . . caressing . . . loving . . . Trust me . . .

  Megan's eyes drifted shut. Her breath caught. She lay back as the last of her restraint slipped from her mental grasp. Overpowered by sensation and passion and need. Her hips moved in perfect rhythm with his hand. Her breath came in short, shallow puffs. The excitement swelled and burst inside her, hot, dizzying, intoxicating.

  “I love to watch your face when you come,” Mitch murmured. “You concentrate so hard.”

  Megan felt a blush spread across her cheeks and tried to deflect his attention from her embarrassment by rolling on top of him. “Your turn, Chief,” she said.

  The smile that teased her lips as she rose over him was sparkling with wicked mischief. Slowly she unbuttoned his denim shirt and bared his chest. Her small hands massaged the muscles, traced the ridges, brushed across the mat of dark hair. Mitch watched her intently, pleasure and tortured need twisting together inside him like vines. He sucked in a breath as she bent her head and took his nipple into her mouth. The feel of her lips, her tongue, her teeth, fueled the fire burning in his groin.

  “Megan—”

  She pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh . . . Let me do this for you, Mitch.”

  She trailed her kisses across his belly. Long, hot, open-mouthed kisses. Kisses that followed the descent of his jeans.

  “Megan—”

  “Shh . . . Trust me.”

  He groaned as she took him into the silky heat of her mouth. Thought and control burned away, leaving nothing but feeling so intense, he couldn't breathe. Feeling—the stroke of her tongue, the caress of her lips, the touch of her hand, the slight abrasion of her teeth. Feeling—a fire burning hotter and hotter, rushing toward explosion.

  He pulled her up into his arms and rolled her beneath him, driving into her, filling her in one powerful thrust. She was hot and tight around him, as wet as her mouth. Her thighs tightened against his sides. Her fingertips dug into the muscles of his back. He moved in and out of her faster, harder, reaching, straining. She gasped his name as her climax gripped her, gripped him, and he came in a hot rush.

  Feeling—trust, excitement, a bond that went beyond the physical. Feelings he hadn't known, hadn't allowed himself in two years of one-night stands.

  He didn't want to think or talk or ponder the implications. He wanted to pull the cotton throw down from the back of the couch and cover their cooling bodies, capture the heat in a cocoon and hold it around them. Preserve the moment and put off deciphering the meaning.

  Still, the doubts were there, as inescapable as ghosts. He shuffled through the excuses and the rationalizations like a deck of dog-eared playing cards. This was just sex. An affair and nothing more. He wasn't ready for more. She didn't want more. He liked his life the way it was—simple, ordered, controllable. He didn't want to commit himself to taking responsibility for another person.

  Not that Megan needed anyone to take responsibility for her. Not that she would allow it. Christ, she was the most independent woman he knew. On the outside . . . On the inside she was an abandoned little girl, a woman uncertain of her own appeal and wary of everyone.

  Tenderly, he brushed a hand over her hair, brushed a kiss against her forehead.

  Megan shifted sideways, wedging herself between Mitch and the back of the couch. She lay her hand on his chest, over his heart, wishing fleetingly she could have access to what was in his heart. A pointless wish—a fact that was only emphasized when he covered her hand with his and the gold of his wedding band caught the dying light of the fire.

  The hurt was sharp and surprising, and foolish. He wasn't ready to let go of his past. That wasn't any of her business. She hadn't asked him for a future. She wouldn't. She hadn't asked for this affair; it had just happened. He was attracted to her, not enchanted by her. She had never enchanted anyone that she knew of. So what. Big deal. She had better things to do with her time.

  “I should go,” she whispered. “It's late.”

  “Five more minutes,” he murmured, tightening his arm around her shoulders. “I just want to hold you. Five more minutes.”

  She should have said no. But then, she should have said no all along, she thought wearily.

  Five more minutes . . .

  DAY 8 3:00 A.M. -35° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -69°

  The phone on the end table rang, jolting Megan awake. Disoriented, her brain scrambled to sort the facts into place. Mitch. Mitch's house. Mitch's dog lying on his back on the living room rug, watching an infomercial for spray-on hair.

  Mitch sat up, groggy, running a hand over his face. The phone rang again and the answering machine kicked on and gave the usual song and dance. At the tone, instead of a voice came a long silence, then whispered words. “Blind and naked ignorance. Blind and naked ignorance. Blind—”

  Mitch grabbed the receiver. “Who the hell is this?”

  Silence. Then the line went dead.

  “Damn crank,” he muttered without conviction, turning back toward Megan.

  Her fingers fumbled at the task of buttoning her blouse. “Yeah, right. Just a crank.”

  “He didn't really say anything.”

  “And Olie Swain is in jail.”

  “Right.”

  So why were they both spooked? Mitch had a feeling in his gut that usually came from lingering nightmares. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Instinctive responses he tried to rationalize away.

  When the phone rang again, he jerked as if a hundred volts had gone through him. Megan grabbed his shoulder.

  “Let the machine get it.”

  “Yeah, I know.
”

  The voice that came over the line was breathless with panic, the words tripping over each other on the way out of the speaker's mouth. “Chief, it's Dennis Harding—Sergeant Harding. We need you down to the jail right away. Something's happened— Jesus, it's awful—”

  Mitch grabbed the receiver. “Harding, it's me. What's going on?”

  “It's—it's Olie Swain. Oh, my God. Oh, sweet Jesus. He's dead.”

  * * *

  JOURNAL ENTRY

  DAY 8

  Blind and naked ignorance

  Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed

  The police are fools. They stepped on a slug and called him a villain, and the desperate rushed blindly to embrace their ignorance. And the doctor is no god. Just another helpless woman. The illusion of power gone. We are the kings.

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  DAY 8

  3:17 A.M. -35° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -69°

  The corpse of Olie Swain, a.k.a. Leslie Sewek, lay crumpled on the floor near the back wall of the cell, an empty husk drained of life. Blood pooled on the gray linoleum, as thick and dark as oil. The stench of violent death was thick and cloying, a rancid perfume that invaded the nostrils and crawled down the throat. Blood and bowel content. The sharp scent of vomit from witnesses unaccustomed to horror.

  Only sheer stubbornness and an iron will kept the contents of Megan's stomach in place. The smell always got to her; the rest she had hardened herself to long ago. Mitch's face was unreadable, nearly expressionless. She imagined he had seen worse. He had been a detective in a town notorious for drug wars and violent street crime. He had seen his own wife and son lying dead. Nothing could be worse than that.

  “Hey! I want outta here!” Boog Newton called, his voice strained with a fear he was trying unsuccessfully to cover with bravado. “I don't have to stay next to no dead guy. That's cruel and unusual.”

  Mitch shot him a dangerous look. “Shut up.”

  Boog scuttled to the far side of his bunk and sat with one foot up on the thin mattress. One skinny arm hugged his knee as he rocked nervously. His other hand inched up the side of his face like a crab, making for his right nostril.

  Mitch gave Olie one last long look.

  Blind and naked ignorance . . . blind and naked ignorance . . . blind and naked ignorance . . . Blind . . . Blind . . . Blind . . .

  “What do we do?” Harding asked weakly. He remained outside the cell, hands gripping the bars, his face the color of old paste.

  “Call the coroner,” Mitch ordered, stepping out of the cell. “Get somebody up here with a camera. We process it like a crime scene.”

  “But, Chief, nobody could have—”

  “Just do it!” he bellowed.

  Harding bolted backward, tripping over his own feet, then turned and hustled out of the cell area. Mitch let himself into Boog Newton's cell. Newton's small eyes darted from Mitch to Megan to Olie to Mitch.

  “What happened, Boog?” Mitch's voice was silky and low as he moved toward the cot.

  “How should I know?” Boog blurted, jerking his finger out of his nose. “It was dark. I didn't see nothin'.”

  He arched a brow. “A man in the cell next to yours just killed himself and you don't know anything? You must be a sound sleeper.”

  Boog scratched nervously at a scab on his chin, his eyes on his blank television. His pallor was waxy, shiny with the kind of sweat that comes with nausea. “He maybe made some sounds,” he offered weakly. “I didn't know what he was doin'. Pervert child molester. I didn't wanna know what he was doin'. I thought he was gettin' off or somethin.'”

  “He was getting dead, Einstein!” Mitch exploded, suddenly looming over Newton like an avenging god or the devil himself. “Our only lead in this fucking case and now he's dead!”

  “Jesus, it's not my fault!” Boog whined, covering his head with his arms, cowering like a whipped dog.

  “No, nothing's ever anybody's fault,” Mitch sneered. “I am so fucking tired of that excuse!”

  The fury rolled through him like a storm, clouding his vision and his judgment. He made no attempt to stop it. He kicked the foot of Newton's cot hard, again and again, the clang and rattle of boot connecting with metal reverberating off the block walls. “Goddammit, goddammit, GODDAMMIT!!”

  “Mitch!” Megan snapped, rushing into the cell. He wheeled on her as she grabbed hold of his arm, his expression fierce, wild with rage. “Mitch, come on,” she said, her gaze steady on his. “Chill out. We've got work to do.”

  He could see Boog Newton tucked into a ball on his cot, frightened eyes peering at him over his bony knees. You lost it, Holt. You lost it.

  He'd lost it with good reason. His gaze tracked slowly away from Newton through the bars into the next cell, where Olie Swain lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Their only lead. Their only suspect. He might have led them to Josh, but Paige had blown the stakeout. He might have cut a deal and handed them Josh or cut a deal and handed them his accomplice, but now there would be no deals. Everything he knew was gone, like a slate wiped clean.

  Mitch told himself none of this would have happened in the old days, when his instincts were as sharp as razors. He had lost his edge. In the last two years he had purposely let the instincts rust. He had lulled himself into thinking he wouldn't need them here. A chief didn't need instincts; he needed diplomacy. Nothing ever happened in Deer Lake. Nothing at all . . .

  The harsh fluorescent light glared down on Olie Swain, on the birthmark dark against his ashen skin, on the empty socket that had held his glass eye. A fragment of the eye lay in the puddle of blood near his left hand—a sharp wedge of brown iris and black pupil staring up at the ceiling. He had smashed the porcelain ellipse and used one of the shards to dig open the veins in his wrists, draining his life's blood onto the floor of the Deer Lake city jail. On the wall above his corpse, smeared in red, were the words NOT ME.

  4:32 A.M. -32° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -64°

  The Park County coroner was a balding, pear-shaped man named Stuart Oglethorpe, director of the Olgethorpe Funeral Home. He was in his fifties and wore thick black horn-rimmed glasses and a sour frown that made Mitch suspect he could never get the smell of embalming fluid out of his nose. He examined Olie briefly, touching his body gingerly with gloved hands, grumbling about the empty eye socket and the bloody mess.

  It was common knowledge that the only reason Stuart Oglethorpe had run for the job of county coroner was so his funeral home could get first crack at the corpses. If the body was already in his embalming room, the grieving family was likely to leave it there and purchase a casket and order a memorial service. Stuart could then route the flower orders to his cousin Wilmer at the Blooming Bud greenhouse.

  No one was going to order flowers for Olie Swain. Unless some long-lost relative from Washington claimed him, he would be buried at the county's expense. No Cadillac casket, no frills, no memorial service. Stuart had been roused from his warm bed to go out into thirty-two-below-zero cold with no hope of big profit. Stuart was not a happy man.

  “Well, he killed himself. Any fool can plainly see that.”

  “Yeah, but we need your signature on the report, Stuart,” Mitch said. “And he'll have to be transported to Hennepin County for an autopsy ASAP.”

  “Autopsy! What the heck for?” Oglethorpe groused. Once the body hit the slab at Hennepin County Medical Center, he had no hope in hell of getting it back. Park County would give it to the cut-rate Qvaam brothers in Tatonka.

  “It's standard procedure when a prisoner takes his own life, Mr. Oglethorpe,” Megan explained. “It leaves no room for doubt or speculation as to the circumstances of the death.”

  Oglethorpe scowled at her. “Who's she?”

  “Agent O'Malley, BCA.”

  He snorted in response.

  “Charmed, I'm sure,” Megan muttered under her breath. She turned to the officers preparing to load Olie into a body bag and cart him away. “Watch the blood, guys. He was low man on
the totem pole in prison for five years; he's a definite AIDS risk.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Harding groaned. “And I didn't think this could get any worse.”

  She gave him a wry look. “Welcome to the club.”

  10:00 A.M. -27° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -55°

  The press room at the old fire hall had been jammed since nine forty-five.

  There was no question that missing children and child predators had become the hot topic. But Megan saw the intense coverage as a medium for creating an unwarranted panic that crimes of this nature were increasing at epidemic rates. According to statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the rate of stranger abductions of children remained remarkably constant from year to year—not a statistic to be regarded lightly, but not an epidemic. Many more children were killed with handguns every week.

  She watched the camera and sound people jockey for position as reporters did the same. The pecking order had changed dramatically with the local press pushed back by the Cities press, pushed back by the tabloid people, pushed back by the network people. Any space left over at the very back of the room was taken by people from the volunteer center. She caught a glimpse of the disgruntled Mrs. Favre from Paige Price's prime time special. Almost hidden behind her was Christopher Priest. Rob Phillips, head of the volunteer center, had been granted a ringside seat because of his wheelchair.

  At ten on the dot Mitch stepped behind the podium. He had showered and shaved and dressed in a dark brown suit, a conservative white shirt, and a tie without cartoon characters. What color the wind had whipped into his cheeks was leeched out by the blinding sun-guns.

  “At approximately three A.M. Leslie Olin Sewek, a.k.a. Olie Swain, was found in his cell at the city jail, dead due to self-inflicted injuries,” he announced without preamble.

  The shock wave that went through the crowd had all the power of a sonic boom. There were gasps and exclamations. Camera shutters clicked at a furious rate, motor drives whined. Then came the questions in a gust that rivaled the wind outside.