The Face of Death

by Cody McFadyen

  “Turned out okay?”

  “It was bad, but the girl lived.”

  “Good.” A long pause. “I knew what you were doing today. Didn’t want to intrude, but wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Yes, I think, how are you doing?

  I sigh. “I’m doing crappy. Can you come over?”

  “On my way.”

  He hangs up.

  Action, not words, Tommy’s way.

  Tommy knocks on the door and I let him in. He takes a look at me and leads me over to the couch without saying a word. He sits us down and gathers me up in his arms, and I sigh and lean into him.

  There’s no hair stroking or words of comfort with Tommy. Instead, there’s strength and certainty, as if he’s saying, Whatever you need, even if it’s just this.

  I stay there, head against his chest, and wonder at the feel of him. It’s like lying against a rock encased in velvet. Tommy is somewhere in between rugged and pretty, a dark-haired Latin man with the lithe muscled body of a dancer and the rough hands of a killer. He’s the male version of Callie; women are drawn to him like lemmings to a cliff, yearning to jump off into those dark and guarded eyes. He’s no model—he has a large scar at his left temple, an imperfection that only adds to his appeal—but he is handsome to the bone.

  He pushes me away, gentle.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  I tell him. About the morning and afternoon and Sarah and the gutted bodies of Dean and Laurel Kingsley, the tub full of blood, the murders of Vargas and his as-yet-unknown companion.

  “Gross,” he offers.

  “Yeah. It got to me.”

  He nods toward the notepad pages on the coffee table. “That about the case?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Mind if I look?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He picks up and scans each page. Puts them all back down and shakes his head.

  “Sounds complicated,” he observes.

  “It always starts out that way.” I look at him, smile. “Thanks for coming over. I feel better. A little.”

  “No problem.” He looks around. “So…where’s Bonnie?”

  “She’s at Alan and Elaina’s for the night.”

  “Hmmm.”

  I look up at him, see a small smile playing on his lips. I grin and punch him in the chest. “Sheesh! All I said was I feel a little better, and you’re already imagining me with my clothes off!”

  Another small smile. “Actually, I’m always imagining you with your clothes off,” he says.

  Banter and playfulness, but I realize as I look at him that there’s more to it than what’s on the surface. Tommy likes to listen, and not just to what’s being said. He listens with his eyes and with his mind, and he’s been listening to me. He’s offering sex because he’s listened, and he knows I need contact, comfort, distraction.

  I angle my head up, he angles his down, and our lips meet. My desperation makes the contact electric, and need surges through me, emotional, mental, physical, impossible to separate. I grab the sides of his head and stick my tongue in his mouth. I taste Tommy, with a dash of beer.

  I move into him so that I’m straddling his lap. He moves a hand up under my shirt, under my bra, a single motion. The feel of his callused fingers on my nipple is exquisite. I moan, and feel him go hard against me.

  One of the reasons I’ve always been a fan of sex is that you can mix the primal with the tender, you can get just a little bit ugly, a little bit animal, and have it all turn out okay in the end. If you’re already feeling dirty and conflicted and a little bit savage, as I am right now, sex can keep pace, right beside you.

  I pull my face back from Tommy’s, still holding his head between my hands. His fingers continue to knead my nipple, his cock continues to throb, and his eyes are clouding up with lust.

  “Fuck me right here,” I say, my voice husky. “Tear off my clothes, bend me over the couch, and fuck me now.”

  He halts everything for a moment, the fingers going motionless, as his eyes search mine. He seems to find the permission-based-on-sanity that he needs.

  He picks me up and off him, sits me down, and grabs my shirt, lifting it in a rough motion, bringing my arms over my head. The shirt comes off, is tossed aside, and he doesn’t slow, reaching behind me, unsnapping my bra, yanking it from my shoulders.

  He pauses for a moment, looking down at my breasts, and he pushes me on my back, and his hands grab and squeeze, rough without being painful, perfect, making me arch my head back and gasp. He brings his mouth to each one, sucking and licking just long enough to make me want him bad before he backs away.

  Now he undoes the button of my jeans, pulls down the zipper, and yanks the jeans down my waist, down my legs, taking my panties with them. I end up with my legs spread, fully naked now, wet, feeling like Jezebel-squared.

  His mouth comes down between my legs, and I come immediately, crying out, explosions shivering across my belly, down my thighs. Time gets rubbery, and the world gets vague, and I’m rolling around in the sensation of it all, shameless, Eve with the apple, a cat in heat.

  His mouth leaves me, and he stands up, and I watch, dazed, as he undresses himself. When his cock springs free, I growl, and it’s Jezebel-cubed, I’m reaching out for him as he slides on a condom. He grips my wrists, pulls me toward him, and then he grabs me around the waist, lifts me in the air, carries me over to the arm of the couch, and places me there, belly on the couch arm, hands against the cushions, ass in the air.

  I feel him maneuvering behind me, and then he’s inside me, one hand on my flank, the other gripping my shoulder, thrusting, fulfilling my request.

  It’s animal, it’s primal. It’s what I need: an irresistible force, a tidal wave, something to sweep over me, to drown me, and to take the corpses out to sea with it when it recedes.

  I give myself over to it, and take what he’s offering—guiltless sublimation. I have more than one orgasm as he works toward his own, and when it arrives for him, his fingers dig into me, as his whole body tenses, not enough to bruise, just enough to hurt a little, a brief, sweet pain.

  Then it’s over and we come apart, collapsing onto the couch, curling into each other, spent, satisfied, a little bit shaky.

  Tommy looks over at me after a moment or two. “Wow,” he says.

  “Wow back.” I smile. I look into his eyes. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  “Anytime.” I see that smile tugging at his lips again. “And I do mean anytime.”

  I grin, kiss him on the cheek.

  The shakiness of earlier is gone. I can still hear the dead whispering, but I have some distance now.

  Tommy disentangles and heads into the kitchen. I admire his backside going and his front-side as he returns, a beer in hand for him, bottled water for me. He sits back down and we re-entangle.

  I take a drink of water. Sniff the air. “Smells like sex.”

  “What’s sex smell like?”

  “Like…” I tilt my head and smile, the words coming to me. “Like new sweat and a clean cock.”

  He takes a swig of his beer. “Racy and literate at the same time.” He kisses the back of my neck. “Sexy.”

  “Are you admitting that you love me for my mind?”

  “Nope. I love you for your behind. I like you for your mind.”

  “Ass.”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘behind.’ It makes you sound like a four-year-old. Say ‘ass.’”

  “Can’t.”

  I turn and look at him, arch an eyebrow. “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  I search his eyes, realize he’s really not kidding. I snuggle back into him. Giggle.

  “What a Boy Scout you are, Tommy. I had no idea.”

  “Eagle Scout, actually.”

  I can’t help it; I dissolve into laughter at this. The movement my laughter creates turns into something else, and Tommy shows me that he definitely got his sex merit badge if nothing else.

&n
bsp; An hour later. We’re each lying naked, backs on the carpet, feet propped up on the coffee table.

  “I think that’s it for me,” Tommy says. He sounds pleased about it.

  “A bad day has to be good for something.”

  “Speaking of that,” he says. “I had a thought. Or two.”

  I turn over onto my side so I can see him in profile.

  “What’s that?”

  “When you described the scene. Bodies bled out in the bathtub. You know they’d still have to be alive for that, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  No blood flow when you’re dead. The heart stops.

  “But he still had to restrain them somehow. You mentioned drugs as a possibility. I think you’re right. I’d bet he used some kind of a muscle relaxant. That way they’d know what was going on while it was happening. More thrill for him.” He shrugs. “Just a thought.”

  I run a finger through the curls of his chest hair. He’s not a bear; there’s just enough hair there to provide visual and tactile input when needed.

  Tommy’s right, I realize. I’d given him a bare sketch of the day, but from it, he’d extrapolated a sense of the doer, of the doer’s hungers, of the way the doer hungers. I’d thought of drugs, but muscle relaxant as a specificity…it was worth considering.

  When did you consider it, Tommy-mine? Before we had sex or after? During?

  I’m ready again, and I only wonder why for a moment. Most of the people I met today were dead. I’m not. Sex is a way to feel alive.

  I move my hand down farther and grab hold of something.

  “I’ll check that hunch out tomorrow,” I say. “Now I want you to dig deep, muster up that Secret Service training, and do your duty.”

  He tweaks one of my nipples, puts down his beer, and we spend another hour or so proving that we’re alive.

  Exhausted. Spent. Happy.

  “I had another thought,” Tommy says, breaking the comfortable silence.

  “You sure seem to do a lot of thinking while we’re having sex.”

  “I do all my best thinking when I’m naked.”

  “So?”

  “There’s a motivation that encompasses both pain and justice.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “The oldest one of all,” I say. “Revenge.”

  “Thought I might have the jump on you with that one.”

  I kiss his cheek. “Don’t feel bad. When exactly did you have time to think of that, anyway?”

  He grins at me. “Orgasms clear the brain.”

  “So what you are saying, basically, is that this came to you?”

  He rolls his eyes.

  It occurs to me that I feel better. A lot better. I’d felt bad, he’d called, he’d come. We’d had sex and talked about work and—

  I jolt inside as a whole new thought comes to me.

  Oh my God—are we a couple?

  It’s an idea as strange and alien as it is comforting and familiar. One of the things about being married for many years is the feeling of security that develops, the certainty of knowing that you always have someone in your corner. If everyone else fails you, or dies on you, or betrays you, you always have that other person. You are never really alone. To lose that is to lose a part of yourself. The empty space in the bed itches in the night like a phantom limb.

  Have we crossed that line? The one that says “casual” on one side and “couple” on the other?

  “What?” Tommy asks.

  “Just…” I shake my head. “Just thinking about us. Never mind.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t think something and say it’s nothing. You don’t have to tell me what it was, but don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

  I search his eyes. Find no anger there, only honesty, concern.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I was just wondering…” I swallow, once. Why is this so hard to get out? “Tommy, are we a couple?”

  He smiles at me. “Is that all? Of course we are.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, Smoky, I’m not saying it’s time for us to move in together, or to get married. But we’re together. That’s how I see it.”

  “Oh. Wow.”

  He shakes his head in amusement. “You were married for a long time. You’re used to ‘together’ meaning love and marriage. I don’t love you.”

  Something in my stomach tumbles and I feel sick. “You…you don’t?”

  He reaches out, strokes my cheek. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I mean is, I’ll never say it unless I mean it, and I’m not ready to say it yet. But I can see a point coming where I will. If we keep going the way we’re going, I’m going to wake up one day and love you. That’s the road we’re headed down. We’re together.”

  More butterflies now but not the nausea-inducing kind.

  “Really?”

  “Truth.” He squints at me. “How do you feel about that?”

  I snuggle into him. “I like it,” I say, realizing it’s true.

  I do like it. Better, it’s guiltless. I don’t feel any disapproval from Matt’s ghost.

  But what about Quantico? Gonna make him fall in love with you and leave him flat?

  It’s another factor to take into account, I reply to myself, stubborn. More choices. Choices are good.

  Except it’s not that simple and I know it. I could hurt Tommy with what I decide. The simplicity of a “new start” is an oversimplification of my life. I know that Alan and Callie and Elaina would back me to the hilt should I decide to take the position. Everyone would be sad, but the bonds there are too old and too strong. We wouldn’t lose each other.

  You can have a long-distance relationship with friends and family. Not with a guy who loves you.

  Don’t forget about your mute foster-daughter, your pill-popping friend, and 1 for U two 4 me! Don’t forget about a restless house you haven’t finished packing away and a friend who just beat cancer and the fact that Matt’s and Alexa’s gravestones are here, not in Virginia. Who’ll place the flowers?

  “Know what I want?” I whisper, willing my ghosts away, for now.

  He shakes his head.

  “I want you to take me upstairs and help me sleep.”

  He lifts me into his arms without a word and carries me up the stairs. We move past Alexa’s room, but I don’t think about that, and then we’re in my bed, and he’s got me, he’s there, and I’m able to start drifting away, while he keeps me safe, my guardian against the dead.

  14

  “I TALKED TO THE HOSPITAL THIS MORNING,” BARRY TELLS ME as we walk through the parking lot. “They said that the girl was treated for shock, and she had some bruising on her wrists and ankles, but that otherwise there’s nothing physically wrong with her.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

  I fill him in on my thoughts of last night, including my theory regarding vengeance as motive.

  “Interesting. What doesn’t add up, though, is Sarah. If we cut her and the Kingsleys out of the picture, it makes sense. Vargas is into kids, has been for a long time. Maybe he likes torture too, caning their feet. One of the kids grows up, comes and kills him. It even explains why he went easy on the girl. Closing the eyes. No disembowelment.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Sarah and the Kingsleys? I don’t see where that fits in.” He shrugs. “Still, I do like the revenge motive.”

  “Perhaps Sarah can shed some light on things.”

  “Hang on a sec,” Barry says as we get near the entrance, nervous. “I need a smoke before we go in.”

  I smile at him. “You don’t like hospitals either?”

  He shrugs as he lights his cigarette. “Last time I was in one, I was watching my dad die. What’s to like?”

  Barry looks bleary-eyed. I notice he’s wearing the same clothes he had on last night.

  “Did you ever go home?” I ask.


  He puffs a few times and shakes his head. “Nope. Simmons didn’t wrap up until almost seven A.M. I had to call in a couple of software experts too. They’re still there.”

  “Why?”

  “The boy, Michael? His computer has some kind of super-duper protection program installed on it. They gave me the technical rundown, but it’s over my head. Enter the wrong password and it wipes the hard drive clean. That part I understood.”

  Hey, try 1 for U two 4 me. You never know!

  I suppress an eye twitch. “Interesting.”

  “It gets better. They say it’s a custom job, very advanced, and—get this—they don’t think the boy put it on the computer.”

  “Why?”

  “Too advanced. Something about the level of encryption provided. We’re talking beyond military-grade.”

  “It could have been put there by the perp then.”

  “That’s my thought.”

  “It would make sense. He has something to say to us. That’s why the writing on the wall at both scenes, why he called me to tell me about Vargas. He’s telling us something, but he’s doing it at his own pace.”

  “I like it when they get all clever like that. It means they’re ripe for fucking up.”

  “Was anything else found?”

  “We have the footprints and the computer. No prints, no hairs, no fibers. The feet are good though. We catch him, we can definitely get a match. Like I said—fucking up. Bodies went to the medical examiner, we’ll see what happens there. Did you hear anything from Callie?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. I’ll call her when we’re done here.”

  “Maybe he was dumb there too.” He takes another deep drag on his cigarette. “About the girl. I don’t have much yet, but here goes: She’s been with the Kingsleys for a little over a year, real name is Sarah Langstrom.”

  Sarah Langstrom, I think, trying the name on for size.

  “I checked for a record,” Barry continues. “She was arrested for drug possession when she was fifteen—smoking a joint on a bus bench in broad daylight. Nothing else came up. I’ll get her file from Social Services tomorrow.”