by Rebecca York
He put her food tray on the floor and shoved it toward her, and she shoved the old one back.
Then he just stood with his hands on his hips, watching her as she ate the barbecued pork and coleslaw he’d brought. She recognized it from the Three Little Pigs fast-food place downtown.
She was hungry, but she tried not to eat quickly. He’d criticized her for that. He’d criticized her for not keeping her hair clean, which was pretty hard to do when she had to wash it in a bucket. He’d criticized her for not making the bed.
“Haven’t I told you to eat neatly?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I thought I was.”
“I’m running out of patience with you.”
She felt her lower lip quiver. What should she say? That she was sorry? Sometimes it seemed that he liked to hear her say it, and other times it seemed like it only made him angry.
“This is so good,” she said.
“You like it?”
“Yes. Barbeque is one of my favorites.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I didn’t think of it,” she answered, hoping she wasn’t going to set him off.
He continued to stare at her, and she heard him make a noise. It sounded like he was crying. He stood there for a few moments, his shoulders shaking. Then he turned and left the room.
His crying frightened her. He’d never done anything like that before. She’d never thought of him as stable, but now it looked like he was coming apart. And she couldn’t believe that was good for her.
Chapter Eleven
There was no way to mark time in the jail. Finally, in the relentless sameness of the environment, one of the patrolmen came in. His name tag said he was Carpenter.
“Your lawyer’s here.”
Which meant it must be morning.
Feeling stiff and rumpled, Ben heaved himself off the bunk. He stroked his hand along his jaw, rubbing the beard stubble. What a way to greet his lawyer.
“Come on,” he said to Sage.
“Just you,” Carpenter interjected.
“Why?”
“He’s your lawyer, not hers.”
Sage’s face had taken on a look of panic. Ben wanted to wring the cop’s neck, except that he knew the guy was just following orders. Another small torture from Chief Judd.
“It will be okay,” he said to Sage. How many times had he said that since they’d ended up in police custody?
Walking stiffly, he exited the cell and followed Carpenter to an interrogation room. Mark Linton, who worked on retainer for Decorah Security, was sitting at the table. He was in his late thirties, with dark hair and dark eyes. This morning he was dressed in a lightweight sport coat, dark slacks and a crisp white shirt, making Ben feel even more grungy after his night in a cell. An open briefcase sat on the table in front of him.
Linton waited until the door had closed and Ben had taken a seat before speaking. “So you got yourself into some trouble last night.”
“Not last night. Yesterday late afternoon. The chief delayed our processing until he thought I wouldn’t be able to contact you.”
“Nice of him.”
Ben looked toward the door. “It’s not just me who’s been here all night. Sage Arnold was arrested with me. The cops wouldn’t let her come in here with us. Can I assume that this is a confidential conversation and that you’ll also represent her?”
“The conversation better be confidential. And I’ll certainly represent her.”
Ben let out a long breath. “Thanks.”
“I reviewed the file on the case you’re investigating. Ms. Arnold’s sister went missing, and you’re down here with her trying to find the woman.”
“Yes. And Police Chief Judd doesn’t want her disappearance investigated as a missing-person case.”
“Because?”
Ben hesitated. “Sage told me that tourism is the town’s lifeblood, and the men who run the place don’t want any suspicion that coming here is dangerous. But I think there might be more to it.”
“Like what?”
“Something else is going on that we don’t know about. But right now, our focus is the string of women who disappeared over a five-year period.”
Mark whistled through his teeth.
“I think we found one of them. Magdalina Sawicki. Or we found skeletonized remains in the abandoned warehouse where we were trespassing, and we believe it’s her.”
“Why?”
“She was wearing clothing similar to what was in Magdalina’s effects.”
“I think I can work with that.” Linton stood up, crossed the room and opened the door. “I’d like to continue this conversation with the chief,” he called out.
Moments later, Judd came swaggering into the room.
“I would like my clients released immediately.”
“Clients?”
“I am also representing Ms. Arnold.”
“They were trespassing on private property.”
“At 717 South Town Road?”
“Correct.”
“I checked the ownership of the property. It’s scheduled for sale due to failure to pay property taxes. I believe the owners were negotiating with a developer interested in putting up luxury homes, but the deal fell through when the economy turned sour.”
The chief’s face reddened. Apparently he hadn’t expected the lawyer to check the property records.
“I spoke to the owners, and they don’t want to press charges under the circumstances.”
“What did you do, bribe them?”
“No. And if you want to pursue the matter, I will arrange interviews with the local media where my clients will discuss having found the skeletal remains of a woman in an abandoned warehouse.”
Judd’s voice lowered as he leaned toward Linton. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m telling you the consequences, if you don’t release my clients immediately.”
Judd looked as though he had chewed on ground glass.
“Have you sent a sample of DNA to the state lab?” Linton asked.
“Not yet.”
“I suggest you do it.”
“And now you’re telling me how to run my department?”
“No. But I think it’s to your advantage to determine the identity of the remains.”
Judd turned to Ben. “Get out of here.”
“With Ms. Arnold,” Ben answered.
oOo
Once she was alone, Sage took the opportunity to use the toilet again and wash her face. There was no mirror in the cell, but she suspected she must look like she’d spent the night camping. She wanted clean underwear and a toothbrush. But she knew she wasn’t getting either one of them until the lawyer sprung them. If he could spring them.
She didn’t know what was happening out there, and her heart pounded as she ran various scenarios through her mind.
What if the lawyer could only free Ben?
Even if that were true, he wouldn’t abandon her. Last night they’d talked for hours. She knew more about him than she had before. But not just his background. She knew the kind of man he was, and she liked him. The trouble was, he didn’t like himself.
One topic he’d avoided had been the time he’d spent on that pleasure ship—the Windward. She knew he felt tremendous guilt for what had happened there. And she’d wanted to help him see that he’d been in an impossible situation, but she’d known that bringing it up in the jail cell would have been a big mistake.
When the door to the cellblock opened, her head jerked up. She’d hoped to see Ben. Instead it was one of the young patrol officers, looking angry.
She didn’t ask him what was wrong. She only waited while he unlocked her cell.
“Come on.”
She followed him to the front of the building. When she saw Ben and another man standing in the lobby, relief flooded through her. Judging by his clothes, the stranger must be the lawyer.
“We can go,” Ben said.
She c
ouldn’t stop herself from sighing. “Thank God.” She wanted to rush into Ben’s arms, but she stayed where she was and kept her arms at her sides.
“Sage, this is Mark Linton, our lawyer,” Ben said. “Mark, this is Sage Arnold.”
They shook hands.
“Is Mr. Walker’s car still on South Town Road?” Linton asked Chief Judd as he stepped into the lobby.
“Yes,” the Chief bit out. He looked like a man who’d just retrieved an important part of his anatomy from a wringer washer.
The lawyer nodded and waited while Sage and Ben collected their belongings.
“Check your money,” Linton said.
Chief Judd scowled but didn’t comment.
Sage didn’t really know how much cash had been in her wallet, except for Laurel’s seventy-five dollars, but she dutifully counted the bills.
Then they all exited the building.
“I’ll give you a lift. My car’s over there.” Linton gestured toward a silver Mercedes parked across from the building.
Sage got in the backseat, while Ben sat in front with Linton.
“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Ben said when they’d closed the car doors.
“Part of the job.” As Linton pulled away, he gave Sage a summary of what had transpired in the meeting with Ben and then with the chief.
He finished with a warning. “If the cops come at you with that level of hostility for trespassing, you might reconsider staying in the area.”
“My sister’s missing. I’m not going to leave until I find her—or find out what happened to her,” Sage answered.
“Then watch your back.” He glanced at Ben before returning his gaze to the road. “Did you find anything that made it worth spending the night in Judd’s jailhouse?”
Ben cleared his throat. “You know about my special talent.”
“Getting memories from the dead.”
“Yeah. I can’t prove it’s Magdalina Sawicki. But I think it is. She was kidnapped and held by a man who kept his head hooded.”
“Nice,” Linton muttered.
“Of course I couldn’t tell Judd any of that. I told him he should do a DNA analysis to find out who the woman was. He obviously didn’t like your repeating the suggestion.”
“Do you think he will?”
“It depends on how much he’s under the thumb of the men who run the town.”
“Let’s hope he’s got a shred of conscience,” Linton muttered.
oOo
Everett Judd sat in his office, mulling over the way the smart lawyer had turned the tables. He’d demolished the case against Walker and Arnold in a few swift strokes. And Everett hadn’t been all that upset about it, even though he hadn’t let on to Walker or Linton.
The lawyer had given him an excuse he’d been looking for. He could tell the big cheeses that he’d sent in the DNA sample because Doncaster didn’t want to be accused of a cover-up.
He was thinking that he’d made some progress when the phone rang.
“We should meet for lunch,” the man on the other end of the line said. It was George Myers. The lord and master of Pine Fairways and a lot of other things, at least in his own mind.
Everett bit back a curse, thinking he was going to have to give a full report of everything that had happened since he’d cornered Walker and Arnold in that warehouse, and he’d better get straight what he was going to say.
“The usual place?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Which meant the private room in the Surf and Turf House.
“We have some things to discuss.”
“Like what?”
“Like a meeting of the town business community.”
“You mean about that girl?”
“What else?”
There was plenty else, but he knew that prodding Myers wouldn’t do him any good. Nor would voicing any objections to the meeting.
Still, his mind was churning. If he could figure out some way to screw this guy without screwing himself, he’d take it.
“See you at one.”
“Looking forward to it,” he lied.
oOo
Sage breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Ben’s car sitting where they had left it.
“Thanks again,” Ben said to Linton.
“Let me give you my direct line, just in case,” the lawyer said as he handed over his card, which Ben stuffed into his pocket.
Linton waited while they got into the car and Ben started the engine. When they were on the road again, he followed them to their motel, then waved as he drove away.
“After a night in jail, I expect you want to take a shower,” Ben said as he put the safety chain on the door.
“Yes, but you go first,” she answered.
“You’re sure?”
“Go on.”
He grabbed some clean clothes and stepped into the bathroom. She listened to him moving around, then heard the sound of water running.
Last night when she’d reached for him, he’d eased her away. Today, she wasn’t going to let him make the rules. Before she could change her mind, she took off her clothes, and kicked them into the corner before opening the door and stepping into the bathroom.
The room was full of steam, but she could see Ben’s silhouette through the shower curtain. He was washing his hair. She let him rinse it before pulling aside the curtain and stepping into the tub.
Hot water hit her, instantly turning her skin slick and sensitive.
And her whole body tightened as she took in the sight of his hard-muscled body and his formidable male equipment.
She watched him staring at her and knew he couldn’t stop himself from reacting.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“This.” She reached out and pulled him close, absorbing the feel of his wet body plastered to hers.
“Don’t.”
“You’re not going to push me away this time.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“You’re wrong.”
She slicked her hands up and down his back, settling at his butt, pulling him more tightly against herself, gratified to feel his erection rising between them.
For several seconds he simply held her under the pounding water, his cheek pressed to hers.
“I’m so sorry I got you into trouble with the cops.”
“You didn’t get me into anything. I wanted to go into that warehouse just as much as you did. I insisted on going in with you.”
She turned her head, stopping the conversation by bringing his mouth to hers. She had gone long beyond questioning herself. She knew only that she needed to be with this man, desperately needed him to finish what they’d started when she’d found him standing at the window with a gun in his hand.
She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to shut out the images from their night in jail. Even as she kissed him, the sob she had managed to hold back until now welled up and spilled out. Just one small sob for the way Judd and his patrol officers had treated her.
“Oh, Sage.”
Ben’s hand stroked down the length of her bare back, sending heat shooting through her. Her lips met his, entranced by the contact. Her tongue played with the seam of his lips, and he opened for her, giving her as much access as she wanted.
At the same time, she pressed her naked body against his so there wasn’t a sliver of space between them.
When he sighed and wrapped his arms around her, she knew that he had given in to the moment.
Victory.
His hands moved to her bottom, and she realized he must have reached behind her and lathered his palms with soap because they had turned slick, running over her wet skin with a total absence of resistance that was like a lightning strike igniting a forest fire.
As his hands slid over her, wet heat pooled between her legs. He eased away from her so that he could lift and fondle her breasts, gliding over her nipples, wringing a sob of need from her.
Th
e need built, pulsing through her in time to the wild beating of her heart.
He continued to play with her taut nipples, using a circular motion to skim their edges, alternating that with flicks of his thumbnails across the very tips, driving her wild. And then he washed and rinsed her hair, making that as sensual as anything else he’d done.
She had never thought of herself as a bold lover. But she wanted to be bold with this man. Her trembling hand found the soap dish so that she could soap her own palms, then captured his jutting cock, starting with a teasing stroke that drew a strangled breath from him. When she closed her fingers tightly around him, the breath turned into a moan. Gratified, she slid her clasped hand up and down his length with the same maddeningly slick touch that he had used to drive her beyond insanity.
Looking down, she smiled at the effect she had created. He’d been fully aroused when she’d started. Now his penis was red and stiff, radiating life and heat.
“Jesus!” he gasped. Then he continued in a strangled voice, “Don’t. I want to come inside you.”
She pulled her hand away because she wanted that, too. Wanted it with a desperation that bordered on madness. And his saying it made something inside her soar.
He stepped out of her reach, and she protested at the loss of contact. But he was only washing the soap off his hands and the front of his body.
She did the same, watching his hot gaze follow the water cascading downward toward her sex.
He glanced around the small tub and shower enclosure.
“I don’t think either one of us is up for acrobatics.”
She laughed. “Not with our sleepless night.”
After turning off the water, he pulled the shower curtain aside and stepped out, bringing her with him
She kept her gaze on his face as he dried her off. Reaching for a towel, she did the same for him. He carried her to the bedroom, and they fell onto the nearest bed together. She was ready for him, so ready. She cried out as he filled her, then gazed into his eyes as he went very still above her.
