by Mia Marlowe
What would it be like to feel the ocean surging beneath her while Ryan surged above? She’d never considered herself an especially erotic person, but now variations of their lovemaking danced in her head with shocking wildness.
Taking this man to her bed revealed a side of herself she’d never dreamed existed. With a smugly wicked grin, she decided sex and the single deaf girl did go together, after all. And it would be no sit-com. She didn’t have to be able to hear to bring a man to his knees.
Or to let him bring her to hers.
She and Ryan communicated just fine without need of words. If anything, she was more attuned to him, more aware of each catch in his breathing, of his muscles shivering beneath his smooth skin, more sure of what he needed her to do than if he’d been telling her.
And he was just as focused on giving pleasure to her. He knew instinctively when to advance and when to retreat, finger-spelling messages of love over her charged skin. Ryan stretched her taut as a drawn bow and then released her into the night.
Life was definitely taking a turn for the better.
At the foot of the bed, Lulu lifted her head. Then she sprang to her feet and did her alert dance.
They hadn’t set an alarm. Sara reached for her cell phone on the bedside table. No incoming texts. She slipped on her hearing aids and eased out of bed without disturbing Ryan, reveling in the smooth cotton sheets sliding against her bare skin.
Sara shrugged on her robe and followed Lulu to the living room, hoping it wasn’t Matthew at her door. That would be awkward since she still fancied she smelled Ryan’s fresh male scent on her. She was relieved when Lulu led her to the TTY. A message was spitting from the machine onto the ticker-tape style paper.
GOOD MORNING, MS. KELLEY. MIDDLESEX FORD HAS COMPLETED REPAIRS ON YOUR VEHICLE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY. A DRIVER FROM BAYSTATE LIMO IS WAITING NOW TO BRING YOU TO THE DEALERSHIP TO PICK UP YOUR CAR. HAVE A NICE DAY!
“Yeah, a nice ‘now-I-have-to-pay-my-$500-deductible’ day,” she murmured. Still, it was good of the dealership to recognize how their slowness had inconvenienced her and make up for it with a limo ride. It would be lovely to have the old Taurus back, along with the sense of freedom her own car gave her. Who cared about the start-and-stop traffic?
Besides, if she never rode the T again, it would be no bad thing.
She peeked out the window and saw the shiny black limo with its uniformed driver waiting in the visitor’s parking space below. It had the boxy, heavy look of a 1980’s vintage Mercedes. The mass of chrome gleamed in the morning sun. A fine classic car.
Sara tiptoed back to the bedroom. Ryan was still sleeping deeply. The rapid eye movements beneath his closed lids told her he was dreaming.
Hope it’s of me, she thought as she picked out a pair of jeans and a sleeveless tank top. This time, she donned a silky pair of bikini panties and her sexiest bra beneath the ordinary casual clothes. She smiled to herself in the bathroom mirror as she dragged a brush through her hair. She felt like a present worth unwrapping.
Ryan was still enjoying the sleep of the just when she dashed a quick note to him, telling him where she was off to and asking him to take Lulu for a walk. She’d pick up some muffins and coffee on the way home.
Feeling comfortably domestic, she taped the note to the bathroom mirror and slipped out of her apartment with care, making sure the latch clicked softly so as not to disturb him. Maybe she’d make it back before he even knew she was gone. The bakery she intended to stop at sold small tubes of cinnamon bun icing. She might surprise him with an inventive use for the sweet stuff.
Shaking her head at the totally naughty direction of her thoughts, she took the stairs with a loose-limbed stride. That settled it. No more looking at porn. She was entirely too suggestible. The junk on Anthony Valenti’s laptop had been a revelation, most of it objectionable, but some of it intriguing.
Still, she’d rather that she and Ryan make those kinds of discoveries on their own. As he’d said before, there wasn’t room in a bed for more than the two of them. And the circle of two they formed was quite enough, thank you.
But she still might pick up a tube of icing, just in case.
The limo driver was standing with his back to the door when she popped out into the sunshine. He turned at the sound of her approach. Dark glasses, brim of his hat pulled forward, a gray mustache covering his upper lip and a scraggly goatee sprouting on his chin, he held up a sign that said SARA KELLEY in big block letters.
“I’m Sara Kelley,” she said.
“Solomon Veach.” He smiled and murmured something else she didn’t catch as he opened the back door for her. She settled into the gray leather and was surprised when he bent forward and snapped her seat belt for her.
“I can do that,” she said.
“Why should you have to?” he asked. “Besides, it’s my job to see you safely where you’re going. No, ma’am, we don’t want anything happening to you along the way.”
Now that he was leaning close to her, she noticed an odd smell about him, a disturbing oily stink, like a mix of turpentine and paint and sharp musky scent.
“We aim to please.” The driver pressed his palm against her bare upper arm and gave it a squeeze.
“Ow!” A sharp stick, like a bee sting, sent mild discomfort pinging along her nerves. “What did you just do?”
She rubbed her arm, but could see no mark.
He yanked her purse from her shoulder and threw it to the ground.
“Hey, wait a min—”
He slammed the door without an answer. While he strode around to the driver’s side and climbed into the car, Sara tried to unfasten her seat belt but couldn’t get the catch to release. He slid quickly into the driver’s seat. She watched in disbelief as he removed the concealed ampoule that was attached to a ring and flattened against the palm of his right hand.
She tried to open the door, but the child-proof lock stymied her. The windows would not scroll down.
“Let me out of here,” she demanded.
“In good time,” he said, positioning his face so she could see him in the rear view mirror while he cranked the motor to rumbling life. “I’m afraid I lied to you just now. And art is always about truth, so I’d like to have everything open and above board between us.”
Panic gnawed her belly. He was talking like a madman.
“I’m not Solomon Veach. Not yet, anyway,” he confided. “I suppose I do owe you the courtesy of my real name. Neville Rede, at your service.”
Then he reached up and pulled off the mustache and goatee. He smiled at her.
It was him.
Valenti’s killer.
Terror burst out of her like bats streaming from a cave. She screamed. She pounded on the window as the limo pulled out of her parking lot.
“It won’t do any good,” Neville said calmly. “The windows are darkened to insure your privacy. No one can see you back there and this fine vehicle is totally sound proof. However, I’m enjoying your screams very much, so please continue.”
She forced herself to swallow the scream clawing at her throat.
He frowned at her in the mirror.
Her vision wavered uncertainly.
“What did you do to me?” she asked as part of his face began to dissolve.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just a little prick of something the authorities like to call a date-rape drug. You had a very small dose. I wouldn’t want you to miss anything. It should wear off before the real fun starts.”
She had no wish to know what he might consider fun, real or otherwise.
“It may make you woozy but you’ll still be able to walk and follow my directions,” he assured her. “You’ll be biddable as a lamb.”
“Don’t count on it,” she said between clenched teeth.
“You should be starting to feel the effects. Relax and enjoy it. I’m told it removes all inhibitions and will make you highly receptive to suggestion.” He laughed unpleasantly. “The d
rug takes about fifteen minutes to reach full potency. But by then, we’ll have reached the starting point for our adventure together and by then I promise you, you won’t even remember this conversation.”
She tried to speak, but her tongue filled her whole mouth.
“But I’ll remember our time together, Sara,” he promised. “I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life. Your life, unfortunately, won’t be long enough to be of any consequence.”
The world melted around her like a sidewalk chalk drawing on a rainy day.
~
Ryan woke to Lulu’s insistent yips. The little dog had gripped the sheet with her teeth and was tugging it from the foot of the bed.
“Ok, ok,” he said groggily. “I’m up.”
He still hadn’t caught up from the nearly sleepless night he’d spent trying to decipher Valenti’s laptop. Making love with Sara again had been such a shattering release. It was enough to send his body into an almost coma-like nirvana. Now, the bare thought of her stiffened his already growing morning erection.
The apartment was eerily quiet. He got up and tugged on his jeans, resisting the urge to call out to her. She probably wouldn’t hear him and he didn’t want to distress her with a reminder of her impairment. His early training of how to deal with his grandmother would stand him in good stead now.
Not that Sara was remotely grandmotherly.
He conjured a mental image of her, riding him astride his hips, head flung back as she drew him into herself so completely he was utterly lost.
And never wished to be found.
“Down boy,” he murmured to his aching groin and went in search of her.
He found the note on the bathroom mirror and swore softly.
Why hadn’t she wakened him?
Well, if it was a driver sent from the car dealership it was probably all right. And Sara had been champing at the bit to get her car back, so he should be happy for her. He noticed the message on the scrolling TTY paper. Everything looked legit.
She’d be ok in her own car and the bakery was a public place. He’d watched her building all afternoon and half the night without any sign of a suspicious character.
He was being paranoid.
Lulu was doing doughnuts by the door. He brushed away the gnat of worry and leashed the little dog for her walk. He carried her down the three flights to save time.
Ryan propped the door open so he could re-enter the building. Either Sara would need to give him a set of keys or he’d need to coax her back to his place. It didn’t matter to him where they lived so long as they were together.
He hoped she’d agree to marry him. After her failed first marriage, he might have a time convincing her. But he’d take Sara however he could get her and he prided himself on persistence.
“After all,” he said to Lulu who gave him a quick lick before he put her down, “what girl can resist her dog’s daddy?”
He swiped the dog slobber from his cheek and let Lulu take the lead. However badly she might have to go, she wouldn’t relieve her bladder till she located the right spot. But she didn’t sniff the foliage along the walkway. Instead she made a bee-line for the visitor’s parking lot and began to nose something on the pavement near the curb.
He recognized Sara’s purse.
Ryan snatched it up and rifled through it. Check book. Wallet. Tube of lipstick. A receipt from the nearby drycleaners. Cell phone.
Nothing was missing.
She wasn’t robbed. Could she have dropped it by accident getting into the limo?
He half-dragged Lulu back to the apartment building door and scooped her up before vaulting up the steps two at a time. He checked the TTY message from the dealership and was surprised that their phone number was not imprinted on the page. Instead, in very fine print, it read ‘return number unpublished.’
He banged through her drawers looking for a phone directory, then finally remembered that she probably would have stored the dealership’s number on her cell phone. He punched the number with growing anxiety.
“Hello,” he said to the receptionist at Middlesex Ford. “Is Sara Kelley there?”
The woman asked him to wait while she checked. He forced himself to breath normally.
“There’s no one by that name in our waiting room.”
“She might not be in the waiting room,” he said, fighting the urge to raise his voice. “Your driver picked her up because her car is ready.”
“One moment please.” The woman sounded genuinely puzzled. “I’m sorry, sir. We’re still waiting on a part for Ms. Kelley’s vehicle. On older models these things take time. It won’t be ready for another week or so.”
“But you sent—” he stopped himself. It was pointless. Middlesex Ford didn’t send a limo.
He knew with sickening assurance what had happened. The animal who tried to kill Sara in Maine and again in the subway had sent the TTY message and posed as a limo driver. And she’d gone with him trustingly.
While Ryan was sleeping.
“I should have slept on the damn couch.” Without the numbing afterglow of lovemaking, he’d have been alert. Watchful.
Rage boiled in him, but Ryan forced himself to try to think rationally. This guy was clever and determined and willing to take risks. Like a terrorist, he was so far outside the norm of human behavior, he was impossible to guard against with one hundred percent certainty. An opponent who’s willing to do anything couldn’t be stopped by normal means.
Time for extraordinary means. Ryan flipped Sara’s phone open and dialed the number marked Matthew.
He hated to collaborate with her bastard ex-husband, but this guy had already tried to kill Sara twice.
Ryan didn’t want the third time to be the charm.
Chapter 32
“Come on,” Neville urged, half-supporting, half-dragging Sara down the cement steps to the State Street T station.
“My legs are like spaghetti,” she slurred and followed her observation with a high-pitched giggle. “I’ve got pasta legs.”
Neville inserted the Charlie card and maneuvered Sara through the turnstile. She found it uproariously funny.
“Round and round and round,” she said loudly, twirling her finger in the air. “Wish I could spit you out and throw you down.”
Several people tossed nervous glances toward her and then looked away. Neville had often noticed how odd behavior made humans edge away from the sufferer, as if they might contract her disease. If Sara had been a chicken and the commuters gathered on the platform her flock, they’d have pecked her to death. Neville thought chickens had the right idea, but now he was grateful people were so willing to look away.
“Help me, help me,” she singsonged. “He’s going to kill me.”
A tall, well-built black man narrowed his eyes at Neville.
“My kid sister,” Neville said. “She’s so strung-out. I’m taking her home.”
“Better take her to rehab, man.”
“We tried but she keeps running away,” Neville said as he steered her toward the steps leading down to a lower level.
The man grunted and turned to face the tracks.
Neville pressed his lips to Sara’s ear. “Shut up! Do you hear me? Shut up!”
Her hearing aid reverberated.
“Ow!” She put a hand to her ear, then blinked at him. “Shut up, shut up,” she mimicked as he muscled her down the steps. “Deaf girl shutting up.”
Her legs went rubbery and Neville was forced to bear her weight, tottering on the last few steps and almost tumbling down them.
This was not going as planned. In his mind, he’d imagined her in a zombie-like state, moving mechanically but efficiently under his direction. Maybe she’d be horny and try to grope him, the punk who’d sold him the stuff said.
Only in his wildest wet dreams.
Sara Kelley was too wasted to grope anyone. Neville hadn’t counted on her being so difficult to manage. She dragged her feet and let her head droop, leaving him to hitch an
arm around her waist and practically carry her along the dim, little-used tunnel toward the black door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.”
He propped her against the wall while he fished the skeleton key from his pocket. Neville glanced up and down the tunnel to make sure no one was headed their way. Sara Kelley slid down the dingy white tiles, her limbs collapsing under her, and landed on her bottom with a plop.
She looked up at him from under her disheveled hair and narrowed her green eyes at him. A sound somewhere between a snarl and a hiss escaped her lips. She spat like a cornered cat. Then she loosed a giddy laugh.
The snarl and hiss struck him as vaguely erotic, but the laugh unnerved him.
Neville hated to be laughed at.
“Just you wait,” he promised her as the locked door gave way. “Very soon, you’ll find there’s nothing funny at all.”
He shoved a hand down the back of her tank top and grabbed her bra strap. He used it as a handle to yank her to her feet and propel her through the opening. Before he closed the door behind them, the shaft of light showed Sara Kelley sprawled face down on the dank floor. Her pale arms were stark white against the dark cement and the light cast a ghostly pall over her form. He took a mental picture of the image.
“Wonderful composition,” he murmured. “I shall have to paint it later. Probably be better as a nude.”
He trained his little penlight on her and imagined her naked as she struggled to a crawling position. If she were nude, a bit of copper curls would peep between her splayed legs. Her buttocks were round and firm as melons. She tried to rise, but her elbows gave way and her cheek splatted against the floor.
“That had to hurt. Don’t get up,” he said. “I’ll be just a moment.”
Neville stepped behind an antiquated boiler and retrieved the duffle he’d stashed there last night. He unzipped the bag and checked to make sure his tools were all still present. Then he drew out an industrial strength lantern and switched it on. There was probably still electricity in this abandoned tunnel, but on the off chance that kilowatt usage was monitored somewhere, it seemed prudent to bring his own illumination.
