A Case of You

by Pamela Burford

  Instead he said, “I know she was scared, Kit.” Too vividly he recalled the way Jo had pretended to laugh off the ransacking of her room, with the bravado she’d spent her short lifetime honing on the rough streets of Chicago. “Jo knew someone was trying to stop her from publishing that book.”

  She shifted in his embrace, fitting herself more closely against him, and said, “I wish I knew what she’d dug up—what she came to believe about Anita’s murder.” He rested his chin on her hair and stroked her back. “The thing is,” she added, “destroying her work would only slow her down, at best. She’d just start over and redo it all.”

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. They both knew that the only way to stop Jo’s book was to stop Jo. As obsessive as she’d been about the project, nothing but death would keep her from completing it.

  Kit slid her hands over his chest and clung to him. It was the gesture of a lover seeking support. But her next words belied the tender gesture. “You were the one she was afraid of, Noah. She was seeing some guy, she said. Someone ‘unsuitable.’ Someone who found out about her book. Who knew her schedule and when she’d be out of the house.”

  Noah knew that in Kit’s eyes he fit the description all too well.

  She clung tighter to him. “‘We’ll pick up a bottle of Glenfiddich after,’ she said. She called you ‘hon.’ That was you she was talking to, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “You didn’t want to share the booze with her. I played the damn tape so many times, I know it by heart. ‘Be that way,’ she said. Remember? ‘I’ll just sneak some of yours.’”

  Noah let out his breath in a long sigh. He looked to the west, where a thin ribbon of violet still glowed over the hills. “It was her ulcer. Scotch doesn’t mix with an ulcer. And she called everyone ‘hon.’ You must know that.” He looked down and tipped her face up again, studying her expression in the semidark. “Would I have been worried about her ulcer if I’d been planning to kill her?” he asked.

  She was silent for too long. “Did you kill her, Noah?”

  He couldn’t tell her he didn’t know. He couldn’t tell her Ray Whittaker might have killed her, using Noah as a weapon. He looked at Ray’s granite headstone a few feet away. Everyone thought the bastard was history, that he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.

  When he didn’t answer, she said, her voice shaky, “She was afraid of you, but you finessed her somehow. Sometime before she made that last call to my machine. You sweet-talked her, got her to believe she had nothing to fear from you. Convinced her to go to Grace’s garden party with you.”

  “You got it wrong, Kit. She was afraid, but not of me. Never of me.” But she should have been. “It was someone else, I don’t know who.” He looked toward the monument Malcolm had pointed out. “Maybe Henry. He knew about the book, too, assuming Bettina told him.”

  He looked back down at Kit. “I had no intention of going to that damn party myself. I’d been at the hospital nearly two days straight, and I was wiped out. I tried to talk Jo out of going. I knew she might be in danger there, in a crowd like that. But she was insistent. She wouldn’t hide from the bastard, whoever he was.”

  “That sounds like Jo.”

  “So I went with her. As her protector. I promised...” It till hurt more than he could bear. But he forced himself to say, “I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

  He felt Kit pull in a long breath and let it slowly out. She still clung to him like a lover.

  He added, “They tell me I was hanging out alone in the solarium, but I don’t recall that. I don’t recall much of anything about the party until they brought me to her.”

  He wondered what she thought his motive was for murdering Jo. Insane jealousy over her involvement with Henry? He decided against asking her. If Ray had indeed used Noah to destroy Jo, he wasn’t sure anything so mundane as a motive would have entered into it.

  After what seemed an eternity, Kit said, “Jo told me something else, you know. While you were out of the room getting her sunglasses.” She met his eyes, studying him intently. “You think the book is gone, that it no longer exists.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Jo told me she saved the book on a disk.” Before he could ask, she added, “She hid it somewhere, and I can’t find it.”

  He watched the breeze ruffle her hair over her bare shoulders, and held her closer. “You wouldn’t tell me that if you thought I was the one who broke into her room.”

  She relaxed against him and slid her arms around his waist. He felt her warm breath through his T-shirt. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I just wanted you to know that. About the book.” Again he felt her heartbeat next to his, drumming too hard, and knew there was more.

  “My room was searched,” she said.

  “My God,” Noah whispered, instinctively tightening his hold on her.

  “And my car,” she added.

  “When?”

  “My room last week. The day I went to the library.”

  He remembered. The day she talked with Bryan while he took apart Noah’s dead birch tree.

  “And my car just last night. In the middle of the night, apparently. The trunk was forced open and one of the windows was broken.”

  “Someone’s looking for the disk,” he said.

  “It would seem so.”

  “Kit, why didn’t you tell me sooner? About your room?”

  “I didn’t trust you,” she said bluntly.

  “And you still don’t, so why tell me now?”

  She shivered, and he heard her answer as clearly as if she’d spoken. Because I’m alone, and I’m scared. He wanted to swear a promise to her. I’ll keep you safe, Kit. I won’t let you down. But he knew it was a lie, and the words died in his throat. He’d failed before. He could promise her nothing but pain.

  Instead he said, “You shouldn’t stay here, Kit. In Pratte. You could be in danger.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “You think I’m going to run away from this with my tail between my legs?”

  A humorless laugh escaped him and he shook his head. “God save me from feisty Chicago street brats.”

  Noah knew he wasn’t the one who’d torn apart Jo’s room and searched through Kit’s things. If these acts were connected to Jo’s murder, then that pointed to Noah’s innocence. Someone else might have killed her. The spark of hope that thought gave him was swiftly doused by fear for Kit’s safety. He had to convince her to go back to Chicago. He wasn’t lying when he told her she was in danger. If not from Jo’s killer, then certainly from the evil thing inside him. The thing only she could cause him to lose control of.

  He ran his hand over the chilled skin of her forearm. It was almost fully dark now, a moonless night, and the temperature had dropped.

  “We should get back,” she whispered. He followed her gaze toward the churchyard. He could just make out the glimmer of lights through the trees and the muted sounds of partying.

  She was frightened of him, he knew. And with good reason, though if she ever guessed the full extent of the danger he posed, she’d run screaming from him. While Ray Whittaker’s mortal remains lay moldering beneath the grass they sat upon, the corrupt energy that was the essence of the man himself lived on, reborn in Noah Stewart.

  Do you believe in reincarnation? she’d asked him. She’d called it wishful thinking. He wouldn’t wish this brand of hell on anyone.

  He brushed her hair back from her ear and lowered his mouth to whisper, “Be afraid of me, Kit. Don’t let me close.” But even as he said it, he drew his hand slowly up her side, over the soft fabric of her loose peasant blouse. His thumb sought the underswell of her breast. There was no bra, nothing between his hand and her warmth but a thin layer of cotton.

  Her breath caught and her hands slid to his shoulders, shooting a dart of longing low in his body. His long fingers followed his thumb, lifting her soft flesh, stroking her.

  Her voice wavered, an
d he knew she was engaged in an internal battle. As was he. “Noah—”

  He silenced her protest, if that’s what it was, with his own lips. With all his strength he fought the part of him that wasn’t really a part of him, but of another man. A conscienceless man who’d coerced and used women. A man who’d killed. Noah had never permitted Ray to influence his lovemaking, and he’d be damned if he’d let him have Kit.

  She didn’t push him away, but she didn’t cling to him, either. He knew he had to break it off soon. He could fight Ray only so far when he was with this woman. She was like a drug that went to the heart of his resolve, undermining his hard-won control. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, tempting himself—tempting him. But God help him, he’d never felt anything like this. The rightness of it. Of Kit in his arms... in his heart. He’d be selfish for a few more moments, then he’d stop.

  He brushed his mouth across hers, urging her to open to him. When she didn’t, he nibbled her lower lip, gently at first, then not so gently. She gasped and he took advantage, touching the tip of her tongue with his. She shuddered and went perfectly still for an instant, her eyes wide open, as if she stood poised on the brink of an abyss. In one motion he rose to his knees and grasped her bottom, fitting her against his hips and his throbbing need... pushing her over the edge.

  Her arms wound around his neck and she arched into him. He kissed her with a mindless intensity that only made his raw need flare hotter. At last be tore his mouth from hers, panting. Her white blouse glowed like a beacon in the dark, rising and falling with her agitated breathing. He bent her back over his arm and lowered his mouth, unerringly latching on to the hardened tip of her breast through the supple cloth.

  Her sharp cry pierced the night and she clung to him, digging her nails into his forearms. Her cries turned soft, rhythmic, as he suckled her with mounting urgency, his answering groan of hunger closer to a growl. He captured the tight bud between his teeth and kneaded it with his tongue, coaxing a strangled whimper from her.

  At last he lowered her to the cool, prickly grass. In the dark he could just make out her expression, softly yielding. She reached for him. It was too much to fight. With impatient, trembling fingers he yanked open the drawstring at her neckline and pulled the fabric down below her breasts. The meager light turned her body into an enticing landscape of luminous swells delineated by deep shadow.

  With reverence his fingertips grazed the warm satin of her breast. He heard the breath hiss through her teeth, saw her eyes close and her bead tip back. Her short skirt had ridden up, high on her thighs. Helpless to stop himself, Noah slid his other hand up her inner thigh and watched it disappear under her skirt. He brushed the backs of his knuckles over the soft feminine mound shielded only by her thin panties.

  A moan caught in her throat and she shivered, clutching handfuls of grass. Her hips rose and her legs gently parted.

  And Ray slammed into his consciousness with a force he’d never felt before. Noah jerked back. Shuddering violently, he fought to drag the thing back inside of him, deep inside, where it could do no harm. But he’d let down his guard, and the thing had gained strength. It was laughing at him.

  Noah knew what Ray would do to her. Use her. Hurt her. Maybe worse.

  I won’t let you have her, you son of a bitch.

  His heart hammering painfully under his ribs, he tried to back off from Kit, but Ray held him fast. The thing reached under her skirt and closed its hand over her, groping roughly.

  Kit gasped and her eyes flew open. They widened in alarm when she saw his face, and she started to scoot backward, out of his reach. But Ray was faster. He pounced, digging his fingers into her thigh and her shoulder, forcing her back down.

  He took in his surroundings with a quick glance, and chuckled. His eyes lingered on the nearby headstone. It was too dark to read, but he knew where he was. Ray grinned down into Kit’s terrified face.

  “Home, sweet home.”

  Chapter Eight

  “NOAH... KIT TRIED to raise her voice above a tremulous whisper. “You’re hurting me.”

  He loomed over her, his fingers biting into her leg and shoulder. He had that look on his face she remembered from that time in his attic when he’d first kissed her. When he’d said, I’d never let him hurt you, Kit.

  This isn’t Noah, her mind whispered, though the absurd thought brought little comfort.

  Automatically she tried to push him off her, but it was a fruitless exercise, his sinewy arms as immovable as steel posts.

  He looked her over, slowly, his eyes lingering on her bare breasts. “Nice.” His leering assessment made her feel dirty, where moments before she’d felt only fierce desire, and the sweet anticipation of becoming one with this enigmatic man. Her need for him had overwhelmed her fear and confusion.

  But now the fear was back, amplified a thousandfold.

  Still gripping her shoulder, he laid his other hand between her breasts. Her heart fluttered against his warm palm like a wounded bird. This tangible evidence of her terror seemed to amuse him and be grinned, his teeth gleaming in the dark like a feral animal’s. He spoke with exaggerated patience, as if to a naughty child. “You should’ve listened to him, Kit. He told you to be afraid.”

  The southern drawl was gone, his intonation as Vermont as they come. She swallowed hard, staring at the planes and shadows of Noah’s face in the starlight.

  She’d read about multiple personality disorder, seen those movies about people with split personalities. It was the only explanation she could think of. Her throat felt dry as dust. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  His eyes narrowed. He brought his face close to hers, scrutinizing her with chilling detachment, their breath mingling. He wrapped his long fingers around her jaw and tipped her face this way and that, the better to study her eyes.

  “No... you don’t get it. Not really,” he said at last.

  She willed the quaver from her voice. “I want to get up now. The ground is cold.” She groped for the drawstrings of her blouse.

  With lightning speed he captured her arms and pinned them above her head with one hand. He shoved the other hand under her skirt and started yanking at her panties. She tried to scream, but couldn’t force a sound past a throat constricted with terror.

  Her rational mind kicked in long enough to register the fact that he had no weapon except his body... and she had no one to rely on but herself. Letting reflex take over, she tucked her leg and shot her foot into his chest with every bit of strength she possessed. Her heel connected like a baseball bat, complete with a satisfying crack. He released her with a grunt and fell back, astonishment plain on his face—a face that, in that instant, looked a little more like the Noah she knew.

  But by the time she’d rolled to her feet and backed away a few yards, the stranger had returned, his expression a mixture of fury and admiration as he slowly stood, a hand to his chest. Kit contemplated fleeing, but knew she didn’t have a prayer of outrunning him. Already she felt as if she’d sprinted around Lake Michigan.

  His low chuckle seemed to echo off the shadowed monuments surrounding them. Never taking his eyes off her, he slipped a hand under his T-shirt and palpated his injury. “I’ll be damned. Not one but two cracked ribs,” he said, wincing. “What a nice surprise for Noah.” His New England accent made her flesh crawl, so incongruous was it with the Noah she knew.

  He eyed her warily, as if trying to decide how much pain and suffering she was worth. Finally, with a hint of resignation, he said, “You’re going to give Noah a message for me, Kit. He’s a stubborn, strong-willed bastard. I try to show him, but he won’t let me.”

  He closed his eyes briefly and pressed on his ribs, every breath clearly painful. “I can’t talk to him. You can. Tell him—” His head shot around as a shrill noise pierced the night. With a thunderous boom, a shower of fireworks burst in the sky, followed by a gleeful roar from the crowd gathered in the churchyard. As if he’d been kicked again, he suddenly doubled over, n
early losing his balance as the air whooshed from his lungs.

  In the next instant his head snapped up, his gaze piercing her. The stranger was gone. It was Noah staring at her in the flickering light of the fireworks blossoming overhead amid a barrage of whistles and explosions. He frowned and glanced down at his chest, then gingerly felt his ribs.

  He looked up at her, clearly disoriented. “Did you do this?” A Georgia drawl.

  Kit could only nod.

  After a moment he nodded, too, as if bestowing approval on her desperate act of self-defense. She saw his face tighten with more than pain as his anguished gaze raked her from head to foot. He started toward her. “Kit, did he hurt—”

  “Don’t!” She took a step back, only then recalling her state of undress. Quickly she pulled her drawstrings closed and tied them with hands that trembled uncontrollably. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

  Noah stopped. Briefly he closed his eyes, his chest heaving with emotion. He shook his head, his hair glinting silver in the erratic light of the fireworks. “I don’t remember what happened,” he said. “I never do. Whenever he’s... loose.”

  I don’t recall much of anything about the party until they brought me to her. She had the sudden vivid image of Noah jabbing a curare-filled hypodermic into her best friend. Whether he was indeed the victim of multiple personality disorder or just your garden-variety psychopath, Kit had to face the fact that Noah Stewart, MD, was a very dangerous man.

  As she watched him struggle with his pain and emotional torment, she squelched the ridiculous urge to comfort him. She concentrated instead on the soreness in her thigh, her shoulder, her wrists. She’d have bruises everywhere that animal had touched her. This animal, she reminded herself. Noah.

  “Stay away from me,” she said tightly. “Just stay the hell away from me from now on. You got that?”

  “Kit.” His eyes beseeched her. “Let me explain it to—”

  “No! I’m not interested in your explanations.” Save them for the police, she wanted to say. At least now she knew where to direct her investigative energy. Starting tomorrow, she’d find out who Noah Stewart really was. “You go first,” she said, nodding toward the churchyard. She wasn’t about to turn her back on him if she could help it.