Scarlet Nights

by Jude Deveraux

  He turned on the water, his arm about her, as they waited for it to warm up. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the blood I shed in here took care of that.” When she looked at him in question, he pointed to a scar on his shoulder. “I got shot on this case.”

  Sara kissed the place. “You poor baby. I’m so sorry.”

  He moved them under the warm water. “Actually, it was this wound.” He touched a place lower on his side, and Sara bent to kiss that.

  He said, “I think—”

  “Let me guess. You were wounded even lower,” Sara said as she went to her knees.

  “Any injuries here?” she asked.

  But Mike didn’t say anything.

  It was nearly an hour before they got out of the house, and Mike drove them directly to a Best Buy.

  “I thought you wanted essentials.”

  “Music is necessary to life,” he said so seriously that Sara laughed.

  They bought what Mike said were the most important things a house needed. She stood back as he chose the components of a stereo, but together they picked out a flat-screen TV that was much too big.

  As Mike paid for it all, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she was going to be watching and listening with him, but she didn’t.

  In the CD department they separated. She liked what she considered to be “modern” music but what Mike called “soulless rubbish.” He went to Andrea Bocelli. To Sara’s amazement, he was an opera buff. But when their hands met as they reached for an Eric Clapton CD, they laughed together.

  “Classic,” he said, and she agreed.

  To reach the next store, Mike whipped across a couple of expressways, got off what he called “the turnpike,” and they ended up in a divine shopping center with a huge Barnes & Noble. Like a piece of iron drawn by a magnet, Sara started for it, but Mike caught her arm. Instead, he pulled her into a Sur la Table.

  Sara’d seen the catalogs but never one of their stores. For a moment she just stared at the shelves full of beautiful cookware. Mike lifted her hands, put a basket in them, and said, “Think pie making.” When she came out of her trance, he directed her toward the back, where she filled her basket three times. An obliging saleswoman took everything to the counter.

  They packed the trunk of Mike’s car, then went to a restaurant called Brio for dinner.

  “You still owe me a home-cooked meal,” Sara said, “because I made it into the shower first.”

  “For a shower like that, I owe you a thousand meals. Here, taste this.” He held out a forkful of sea bass marinated in lime juice.

  After dinner they went to a Bed Bath & Beyond.

  “No flowers and no pink,” Mike decreed as soon as they walked through the door.

  “And no brown plaid. Or racing cars or men kicking each other.”

  “Agreed,” he said, and they set off.

  They settled on off-white sheets and had fun putting their heads on the pillows and trying them out. But when they started kissing, they almost fell to the floor. If it hadn’t been for a curious little boy rounding the corner, they might not have stopped.

  Laughing, they took their two big carts to the checkout. They had to stuff the backseat with the linens, as the trunk was full.

  “No room for groceries,” Sara said. “And there’s nothing for breakfast.”

  “That’s all right. I never eat before I work out.”

  “If you tell me where to go, I’ll get groceries while you’re at the gym, and we’ll have breakfast when you return.”

  Mike gave her a look that she couldn’t read and said they’d go to the store together.

  Turning away, Sara hid her smile. It seemed that he liked shopping with her.

  When they got back to the apartment, they hauled in all their purchases. Mike put the stereo together—the TV was being delivered—and Sara put the linens through the washer. They both opened the cookware bags and stored things away to the music of Eric Clapton. As they danced around each other, Sara was pleased to see what a good dancer he was.

  “Learn undercover?” she asked.

  He pulled her into a classic waltz pose and began leading her around the room in graceful moves. “Drug lord’s wife. Lessons.” As he held her in a dip, he said, “I helped her practice.”

  He pulled Sara up and went into a tango to the sounds of “Cocaine.” “I persuaded her to testify against her husband.”

  “All because you helped her dance?”

  Mike turned them toward the other end of the room. “And because I accidently let her find her husband in bed with their kids’ two nannies.”

  Sara laughed as he lifted her arm and spun her around.

  When the song was over, he turned off the stereo. “I have to get up early. What do you say we go to bed?” The look he gave her made her knees weak.

  “Uh, sheets,” she managed to say. “Dryer.”

  If there were an Olympic event for speed of dressing a bed, they would have won. Mattress pad went on, then bottom sheet. Mike didn’t like the way Sara tucked in the corner of the top sheet, so he quickly redid it.

  “Something else you learned undercover?” she asked.

  “No. Hot little nurse.”

  She threw a pillow at him. He dodged it, grabbed it midair, then tackled Sara on the bed.

  When he started kissing her neck, she said, “It seems a shame to make a wet spot on our new linens.”

  Mike picked her up and put her on the floor on the blue and gold rug. “I happen to know,” he said in his deep voice, “that this rug cost eighty thousand dollars.”

  “Really?”

  “The rug importer wanted a favor.” Mike kept kissing. “And this was his gift to the launderer.”

  “Twenty to life?” Sara put her head back, so he could get to all of her neck.

  “No, just life.”

  She pulled back to look at him and at Mike’s shrug she knew the man was dead. She wasn’t about to ask who killed him for fear Mike would say he had. “It’s a very nice rug.”

  “Yes, quite pleasant,” he said as he moved on top of her. “And oh, so very useful.”

  Afterward, as they lay together, Mike started laughing.

  “What’s that about?” she asked as she slipped her nightgown on.

  “I was just remembering that I told the captain I didn’t know how to please a ‘good girl.’ I had no idea that all of you want the same thing.”

  “And I told my mother you were gay.”

  Smiling, they fell asleep, entangled in each other’s arms.

  In the morning, Sara was sound asleep when Mike threw back the cover. She didn’t stir.

  “You have to get up,” he said.

  Vaguely, she heard him, but she didn’t move.

  “Sara, my dear, you’re going to the gym with me.”

  She buried her head under the four pillows they’d bought.

  “Up!”

  She didn’t budge.

  Mike put his hands on her waist and pulled her out of bed. When Sara made no effort to wake up, he hung her over his arm like a wet towel and carried her to the bathroom where he set her on the side of the tub.

  He held up a plastic shopping bag. “These are for you. Put them on. You have ten minutes.”

  “I don’t want—”

  Mike left the bathroom.

  “I hate exercise,” she muttered as she picked up the bag. It was full of workout clothes, including sneakers, all in her size.

  Sara grimaced. It seemed that yesterday while she’d been happily enjoying their time together, Mike had been deviously, underhandedly, and sneakily planning to make her go to the gym with him.

  When she left the bathroom, her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing dreadful black leggings and a blue tank top with a ghastly sports bra under it.

  When Mike blinked a couple of times in appreciation of the shape of her, she was sure she had him. “Are you telling me that I have to go to a gym because you don’t like the way I look?”
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  “You look great today, but four years from now you’ll hit thirty, and things will start falling. Think of it as prevention.” He handed her a bottle filled with water and put his arm around her shoulders. “Look, if you hate it, tomorrow you can stay home and turn into mush. But today we’re going to the gym. And who knows? Maybe you’ll like it.”

  Sara started to reply but then he opened the front door and she saw that it was still dark outside. She turned back toward the bedroom but he caught her. Chuckling, he got her to the car.

  Sara was not laughing. “So when did you connive to buy all this?”

  “Yesterday while you were lusting over those expensive cake pans, I called a friend of mine. She got everything and left it outside the front door. She’s going to meet us at the gym.”

  “She? You’re introducing your wife to one of your former lovers?”

  “You can try to start all the fights you want but you’re still going to the gym. She’s a yoga instructor.”

  “Yoga? Why would you think I’d want to do that?”

  “I happen to know that you can put your knees in your ears and your ankles in my ears at the same time—and that’s when we’re standing up. I don’t know why, but I thought yoga and you seemed to be a perfect match.”

  Sara had to look out the window to hide her smile.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Her name’s Megan, and for the record, I’ve never been to bed with her.”

  “I’d rather go to bed with her than exercise with her,” Sara mumbled unhappily.

  “Yeah?” Mike asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  He laughed, and minutes later they pulled into a big parking lot full of cars.

  “Who in the world goes to the gym this early in the morning?”

  “Us,” Mike said, and Sara groaned.

  Once they were inside, she followed Mike and saw that he knew nearly everyone. Men—with arms the size of truck tires—shook his hand and leaned toward him in what she assumed was a masculine greeting in South Florida. Women—who had behinds hard enough to repel buckshot—kissed his cheeks and stood much, much too close to him.

  Mike introduced her as his wife to all the men, but in Sara’s opinion he reacted too slowly with the women, so she introduced herself.

  When a pretty, young woman, Megan, came in, Sara was reluctant to leave him alone. But Mike sent Sara off with the yoga instructor and they went into the big wooden-floored court.

  “So let’s see what you can do,” Megan said.

  An hour later, Sara was released, and Mike, showered and freshly dressed, met her by the door.

  “Well?” he said to Megan.

  “Exactly as you said.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Mike said and kissed Megan’s cheek. He opened the door for Sara, and they went outside where it was just barely daylight.

  “What was that all about?” Sara asked when they got in the car.

  “It was Megan’s report and she agreed with my assessment of you. You have no muscles to speak of, but you’re flexible as all hell. She thinks that if you work really hard, in a year or two you could be good enough to become a real student of yoga. From Megan that’s high praise.”

  “Yeah?” she asked, pleased. Not that she wanted to do that, but it was nice to hear.

  “But you need some muscle. I’ll take care of that.”

  “Does that mean I’m to get on top more often? Good for the ol’ legs.”

  “Don’t start tempting me. I have to go to work.”

  “And what am I supposed to do all day?”

  “You can—” He broke off because his cell phone rang. He checked the ID before answering. “I’ll be there—Oh. All right. I have no idea.” He looked at Sara. “Can you type?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike listened at the phone, then turned back to Sara. “Can you take dictation?”

  “Luke dictated his first book to me.”

  Mike looked impressed. “She writes Luke Adams’s books for him,” he said into the phone.

  “I do no such—” Sara began before she realized he was teasing.

  Mike said a few more words then hung up. “That was the captain. He said I needed to write down everything I’d done and learned in Edilean, and since I’m the world’s worst typist, he suggested I dictate it all to you. And what’s the mystery about the tarot cards?”

  Sara wanted to jump up and down in happiness that she and Mike would get to spend the day together. If her body hadn’t just been twisted into several unnatural positions, she might have done so.

  They’d reached the house, and Sara waited until they got out before answering. “Shamus made portraits of the people of Edilean.”

  “He did what?”

  “He painted everyone on the cards.”

  “I guess ‘everyone’ means the people from the founding families, not the newcomers like me.”

  “Don’t get snobby on me. Your picture and Tess’s are on there, and Shamus included a lot of clients from the dress shop.”

  Mike’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that Mitzi Vandlo’s picture could be on those cards?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but possibly. I have another set in my suitcase. You can go through them while I take a shower—unless you’d like to join me, that is.” She fluttered her lashes at him.

  “I want to see the cards now. You should have told me what was on them last night.”

  Sara gave a melodramatic sigh. “And ruin my twelve-hour honeymoon? How could I have been so selfish?”

  Mike didn’t smile but his dimple showed. “Take your shower then we’ll go get bagels.”

  “With or without flaxseeds?”

  “Go!” he ordered.

  Sara was in the shower when Mike came in with the cards.

  “You’re going to have to tell me who most of these people are.” He held up a card, but she couldn’t see it through the foggy glass. He stepped closer to the shower and she moved nearer the glass.

  “That’s Mr. Frazier, Shamus’s father. Mrs. Frazier,” she said to the next one.

  “And I know these three oxen are Shamus and Ariel’s brothers.”

  “Your beloved Ariel. Think she’ll like this apartment?” Sara had her eyes closed as she washed her hair. When she turned around, he was naked and in the shower with her.

  “Need some help?” he asked as he put his hands in her soapy hair and massaged her scalp.

  “Always,” she replied.

  22

  WHILE THEY WERE having bagels and orange juice Mike began to have second thoughts about letting Sara hear all that he’d found out in Edilean. For one thing, all the DNA samples they’d taken had come back negative, so they were no closer to identifying Mitzi than they had been. He was concerned that telling Sara this might frighten her.

  “What’s made you so quiet?” she asked.

  “I’m a very quiet person.”

  “Unless you’re making me do something I don’t want to do, then you have a lot to say.”

  “You liked the gym and you were good at yoga,” he said.

  “I most certainly did not! All those girls were drooling over you. What fun was that?”

  “I saw you in there with Megan, and I could tell that you enjoyed it, and you got into every position perfectly.”

  Sara looked at him over her juice. “You didn’t answer my question about what’s bothering you. I’m beginning to learn that when you don’t want to answer something, you digress.”

  “Digress, do I? Maybe you could explain the meaning of that word to me. I didn’t have the advantage of a college education, as you and Tess did, so forgive me if I have trouble keeping up with you two.”

  “College doesn’t change a person’s intelligence.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re thinking about something really hard and I want to know what it is.”

  “No more digressions?” he said, showing that he very well knew the word.

  “None!”<
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  He put down his bagel. “I found out some things while I was in Edilean that I don’t think you should know.”

  “Why shouldn’t I know? Because the knowledge will put me in danger or my feelings will be hurt?”

  “Feelings,” he said.

  “I can take it.”

  “Sure?”

  “Haven’t you learned yet that I’m very strong?”

  Mike put his hand on his lower back. “This morning in the shower I thought you were going to break me.”

  Sara didn’t smile. “I want you to pretend I’m some woman who works in your office and tell me what you’ve found out. I’ll type it and I promise not to have palpitations.”

  “Not even for kisses on the back of the neck?”

  “That is altogether different. Can you treat me as though I’m just a regular person?”

  “No,” he answered quickly.

  “Good!” Sara said just as fast.

  When they stopped at an office supply store to buy a printer, Mike asked why she wasn’t still typing Luke’s books.

  “My mother. I was only fifteen when he wrote his first novel, and I spent an entire summer with a computer on my lap. When he finished it, Luke had half a dozen ideas for more books. I was going to help him, but my mother gave him a copy of Mavis Beacon—the typing software—and told him to let her daughter have a life.”

  “Think you’ll someday be just like your mother?”

  “I pray nightly not to be.”

  Once they were back at the apartment, Sara turned on Mike’s laptop. After he told her to quit trying to access his personal files, he began to dictate.

  He told of making contact with the “victim” and taking up residence with her. Mike glanced at Sara to see how she was taking this admission, but her face was stoic. She was concentrating on recording what he said.

  It wasn’t until he got to the part about Merlin’s Farm that she interrupted. “I think you should mention your grandmother’s attachment to the farm.”

  “That has nothing to do with this case. Now, as I was saying—”

  “I think there is a connection. Your grandmother wanted the place and so does Greg … Stefan.”

  “My grandmother left Edilean in 1941. What’s going on now has nothing to do with then.”