Deadly Desires

by Ann Christopher

  “What was that, Maxie?” she panted.

  Max cocked his head. If he had any answers, he chose not to share them, the little bastard.

  Was that a person she’d seen? Had she seen anything at all? If there was something, why hadn’t Max barked? Should she call the police? What would she say if she did? Hello, nine-one-one emergency? Yes, hello. I thought I just saw a shadow in the shadowy trees. Can you send a SWAT team right away?

  No, she thought, massaging her chest to get her heart to settle back down. She couldn’t do that.

  Maybe, much as she hated to admit it, this was the perfect time to use one of those deep-breathing exercises the shrink had taught her. Before she went into full cardiac arrest. Straightening, she put a hand to her belly and tried to remember the procedure because, yeah, she was so wired over the something she thought she’d seen that she couldn’t get her freaking lungs to work.

  In, Kira. Now slowly out. Again, deeper. Breeeathe.

  Again. And again.

  See? This wasn’t so—

  From the depths of her pocket, her phone vibrated, and the unexpected movement sent jolts of hysteria spiraling in every direction.

  Kira went off like a rocket, screaming before she could stop herself.

  By the second ring, Kira had peeled herself off the ceiling, and by the third she’d almost settled back into her skin. There was nothing she could do about the jittery adrenaline surge that made her hands fumble as she liberated the phone from the depths of her pocket, though, and she seemed unlikely ever to relax or sleep again.

  “Hello?”

  There was a long, irritating pause, and then a slurred voice, heavy with both alcohol and amusement, came on the line. “Someone’s having a rough night.”

  Kerry. Perfect. Just the thing she needed to kill the last of the rosy glow remaining from her date with Dexter. Had she really had such a lovely evening tonight? Her hours with him now felt like they belonged on the other side of an ice age.

  “Hi,” she said, trying to inject enough enthusiasm into her voice to stop her from sounding like she’d just had her dinner interrupted by a telemarketer. “Are you okay?”

  “’Course I’m okay. I’m great. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you sound like you’ve been drinking.” Sliding the filmy curtains aside, she peered through the window over the sink, trying to detect movement out in the yard. Seeing none, she checked the door again. Still locked. “And you know you shouldn’t dial while drunk. You’ll probably say something we’ll both regret later.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” he assured her.

  “Kerry, please.” Looping back around to the front door for a final check, she found it locked to her satisfaction and headed upstairs, Max trotting along at her heels. “It’s been a long day for both of us. Can’t we talk in the morning instead?”

  “Don’t you want to hear from me, baby?” he wondered, and she had to choke back the don’t call me “baby” that wanted to shoot out of her mouth. “You told me to stay in touch, didn’t you? Well, now I’m in touch.”

  He’d been a little too much in touch, if you asked her, and she regretted not checking the phone’s display before answering his call. This was the sixth or seventh time he’d reached out since Kareem’s death, and she was starting to be sorry Alexander Graham Bell had ever invented the telephone. He called her landline; he called her cell; he called at three A.M. or whenever the urge hit him; he texted. Each time he sounded a little bit worse, a little bit more unraveled. If he kept up at this rate, she wasn’t sure what would be left of him by the end of the summer.

  “You promised you wouldn’t drink so much. How’s, ah, how’s the job search coming? Any luck?”

  Another harsh sound, this one more of a snort than a laugh. Same bitterness. “Finding a job is kind of tricky, precious, when you’ve got a sketchy résumé and you’re still under threat of indictment.”

  Yeah. She’d figured, but hope sprang eternal, didn’t it? Upstairs now, she did a quick check of her closet and under her bed—no boogeymen—and then repeated it in the second and third bedrooms (the office and home gym, respectively). No ghosts, demons, or poltergeists, thank God, not even an aggressive dust bunny skittering across the polished hardwood floors. The house thus secured, she went back to her bedroom to get ready for bed.

  “How are you spending your days?”

  “Thinking of you,” he said softly.

  That’s what she got for asking. No good deed went unpunished, did it?

  “Kerry,” she began helplessly, the husky yearning in his voice doing a number on her, the way it always did. “Please don’t—”

  “Don’t you ever think about me?” When her answer took too long in coming—because, hey, what could she say? I never think about you romantically, but I sure hope you have a nice life and never hit and kill someone while drinking and driving—he heaved the kind of sigh that sounded like the last breath he’d ever take. “Don’t you ever remember, Kira? Because the memories are eating me alive.”

  “I remember,” she said reluctantly, because she did, even if she didn’t care to trot the memories out and admire them like a collection of old photos.

  Oh, she remembered.

  She remembered the abject bewilderment quickly followed by bottomless despair upon discovering the man she’d married, the one she’d loved and thought of as her knight in polished armor, was not a businessman—or not just a businessman, she should say—but a suspected drug kingpin who sold drugs to children and ruined lives like a ground zero of contamination with a fifty-mile radius. She remembered Kareem’s first trial and subsequent conviction on money-laundering charges, and the nights she’d spent missing him from their home and her bed while simultaneously hating herself for that unforgivable weakness.

  There’d been the uncertainty, because what could she do then, a college student who’d earned half her degree? Where could she go? Home to the parents who’d warned her not to marry Kareem in the first place and would be only too happy to sing the we-told-you-so chorus to her for the rest of her life? To the father who’d—

  No. There were some things she wouldn’t remember. Period.

  During this period, one of the worst in her life, Kerry had been there. He’d checked in on Kira. Asked about her life. Reached out to her. Helped her with her trickier classes, including anatomy and physiology. Comforted her when she’d been ripe for the comfort.

  She remembered that first touch of his that crossed a line, that skimming stroke of her cheeks while he stared at her in a way no employee should ever look at the boss’s wife, with heat and raw longing. The reverence with which he’d said her name. The glide of his lips against hers and the taste of him in her mouth.

  She remembered.

  Since neither of them fancied the repercussions if Kareem found out—and even from federal prison, there wasn’t much that Kareem didn’t find out—they resisted the lure of each other. For a while. And then, on the night of her twenty-first birthday, when she should have been celebrating with friends her own age and was instead rattling around alone in a mansion, widowed by her husband’s prison sentence—not that she wanted that husband back anyway—Kerry showed up, and they didn’t bother resisting.

  During two stolen hours while Wanda was out playing bridge with her foursome, Kira and Kerry made love, hot and hard against the wall in the kitchen and then, later, slow and sweet in Kira’s bedroom. When he left that night, there was a new hardness in her heart to go along with her sated body—a take that, Kareem, you bastard, that did her a world of good, but she already knew she’d made a terrible mistake, and not because Kareem would kill them both if he ever found out. It was because she could see, even then, the helpless, hopeless love shining in Kerry’s eyes, and she’d seen it there ever since.

  That hadn’t stopped her from letting the affair continue for another month, mind you, but the guilt for what she was doing to Kerry had ridden her pretty hard.

  “I remember,” she tol
d him. “But I’ve moved past it. You should, too.”

  “Don’t you think I would if I knew how?”

  There was no answer for that, no comfort she could give him.

  “Kira,” he said, and she didn’t know if it was his voice breaking up, or the connection.

  “We both have a new start, Kerry,” she interjected before he could finish his thought and tear another little piece off her heart. “It’s a miracle that he never found out. It’s a miracle that he died and set us free. We can’t waste this chance—”

  “Why?” Kira jumped at this outburst, almost as though the sudden unraveling snap of his emotions and temper had reached through the phone to lash her across the face. “Why can’t you love me, Kira? Why don’t you say it?”

  “I don’t want to go there, Kerry. Why do you keep pushing me—”

  “Do you think you’re doing me any favors?” he cried. “Why don’t you be a woman and tell me what I need to hear?”

  That was it, then, she thought, swiping away a stray tear. She was all out of excuses and diversions. Nothing to do now but be honest.

  “Because,” she told him gently, “I could never love a man who chose to be a criminal. And if I could have, it would have been Kareem, not you.”

  There it was: the truth, as raw as she could make it.

  Several seconds of excruciating silence followed, and then he sighed, harsh and resigned and almost ... relieved?

  “Thank you for telling me,” he said.

  “Kerry—” she began, as though there was any possible way to mitigate the damage she’d just done.

  “I’m hoping that one day, before I die,” he said, his words tired and slurred, every one a monumental effort for him to say and a bigger effort for her to hear, “I can do something honorable. Maybe then you’ll have a higher opinion of me.”

  “Kerry.”

  He’d already hung up.

  Chapter 19

  Kira, awash with guilt, as though she’d swan-dived into a deep and shimmering pool of This Is Your Fault, tossed the silent phone onto the bed. The despair she’d heard in Kerry’s voice was her fault, and her fault went back a good long way. She never should have turned to him for comfort, never should have slept with him, never should have let the affair continue. The biggest never? She never should have told him the truth just now, even though he was begging for it.

  Drained, she collapsed onto her big queen-sized sleigh bed, propping herself up against the pillows, her butt connecting with dog tail in the process. Max, who’d been sprawled in an unauthorized spot, his belly exposed and paws in the air, yelped and gave her that reproachful watch what you’re doing! look.

  She was so not moved. “Get off the bed.”

  Max flipped over, whining his tale of woe. It was his ongoing lament about how comfortable he’d been, how there was room enough for both of them on the bed, and how she was an unmitigated tyrant to exile him to the floor.

  Having heard the whole routine before, many times, she didn’t dignify it now with a comment. Instead, she snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor, and he went. Grudgingly and with many muttered hard feelings, but he went.

  Flopping back to a spread-eagle position, she stared up at the ceiling fan’s slow revolutions and thought about Kerry. Maybe telling him the truth hadn’t been such a bad thing after all; maybe she’d set him free, although that seemed like an awfully soap-opera-ish way to put it. Maybe she’d told him what he needed to hear to get over her. And he needed to get over her as much as he needed to stop drinking.

  Would he, though? There’d been an awful hopelessness in him tonight, so strong she could almost feel the lead weight of it through the phone. She wanted to reach out to him, help somehow, but that was a major mixed signal incompatible with helping him get over her, wasn’t it? Besides—what did she think she could do? Force some hospital to hire him?

  What was her responsibility here? What could she reasonably do?

  Give him several days to digest their conversation, that’s what.

  Then she’d call him next week, maybe encourage him to move out West somewhere and start a practice in a small town that needed a doctor. She couldn’t make him do anything, of course, but at least she’d sleep better at night, knowing she’d tried.

  Great. She had a plan. Time for bed.

  She reluctantly got up off the downy comfort of her duvet and pillows and headed to her reading chair in the corner for her jammies, a cute little pink shorts set from Target—

  Uh-oh.

  Her jammies, which she’d left neatly folded on the chair’s ivory cushion this morning, were now on the floor in a heap. She stared down at them, that unwelcome prickle of nerves crawling up the back of her neck and into her scalp for about the millionth time since she got home.

  She had folded her jammies and left them on the chair, hadn’t she? Then how—?

  In answer, Max trotted over, snuffled at the jammies with his impressive black nose, and then sprawled across them and closed his eyes, as though she’d laid them on the floor for his special sleeping pleasure.

  Huh.

  Max had done this, then. Of course he had. Sometimes he got into clothes and other things he shouldn’t, and he’d probably made this little nest for himself while she was out. See? Mystery solved.

  Except that she couldn’t shake that feeling of simmering dread, which was silly—she knew it was silly. But Kareem had always had a fascination with her nightclothes. He’d bought her these ridiculously expensive silk nightgowns, and she’d worn them because they were beautiful and decadent. She wouldn’t lie. And her clothes in a heap on the floor reminded her that Kareem used to pick up her nightgowns. Smell them. Rub his face against them.

  Right this second, she could conjure up the image of him by the old chair, his hands full of silk, his eyes full of heat, and the image, like all images of Kareem, was clear as day.

  But Kareem was dead, and no part of him, not even his memory, was allowed in her new bedroom.

  Right. Shower, Kira—

  The phone vibrated on the bed. She didn’t jump, shriek, or even wince, and she considered this normal reaction to a ringing phone a personal triumph worthy of a merit badge or some such honor. A quick glance at the display showed that it was someone whose voice she’d actually be glad to hear:

  Dexter.

  “Hi.” Shower forgotten, she dropped onto the edge of the bed.

  He skipped the official greeting. “So you are not, in fact, lying dead in a ditch by the side of the road. Good to know. Have a great night.”

  “The text!” She slapped a hand to her oh-so-forgetful forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ah,” he said, and she could hear the dry amusement in his voice, “how worried should I be that you’ve forgotten me already? Mildly, moderately, or greatly?”

  “I haven’t forgotten you. Max got out of the fence somehow—”

  “Somehow?” His law enforcement instincts, apparently, made him suspicious. “Did he dig a hole or did someone let him out?”

  “I wish I knew,” she admitted. “He didn’t go far, though. He was just at the tree line, so he’s back.”

  “You have a woods?”

  Boy, did she. A remnant of the fear she’d felt earlier when she saw ... whatever it was that she saw moving among the trees crawled over her flesh with prickly legs. “Yeah.”

  She’d meant to keep her yeah a little more upbeat than that, but it was too late now because he’d already heard the strain in her voice.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I thought I saw—” it seemed so ridiculous to say it aloud in the soothing comfort of her well-lit bedroom—“something move.”

  “What, a person?”

  “I didn’t get a good look.”

  “I’m on my way.” She heard the jingle of keys and pictured him snatching them off the counter on his way to the truck. “Make sure the doors are locked and I’ll be there in a—”

  That was crazy. Not th
at it didn’t do her heart a world of good to know he was there and available if she needed him, but, really, there was no way she’d drag the poor man out of his house at this hour for what was surely a wild goose chase.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “The alarm is on, the doors are locked, and the windows are closed. I’ve already checked. And it was probably my imagination anyway. So you stay where you are.”

  “I can be there in five minutes. I’ll just do a walkaround and check—”

  “You will not. I’m fine. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to rescue me. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last six months?”

  “How about we both take care of you together?”

  Her pulse gave one of those delightful little surges. Wow. Could she be any crazier about this man? “How about you go to sleep and have a good night?”

  He grumbled something just intelligible enough for her to know it wasn’t G rated, which made her laugh. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he told her. “Not now.”

  Warm and wriggly delight filled her up, making her grin so wide she was grateful he wasn’t there to see, and then came the confession she’d never have the courage to make with him standing in the same room.

  “You have a real way of making me melt into a puddle of chocolate, you know that, Dexter?”

  “You have a real way of driving me out of my mind.”

  “In a good way, or a bad way?”

  “In every way,” he told her.

  She sighed, drowsy now, and, better than that, happy. The last several months alone had led her to contentment and peace, which were wonderful. This, with him, whatever it was, was more. Better. Amazing.

  “So I’m going to see you tomorrow, right?” she reminded him. “What’re we doing?”

  “It’s a surprise. Wear your workout clothes—something skimpy if you have it—”