A room on the eighth floor was available. For men like him, perhaps a room on the eighth floor was always available. He registered under the name Hunter Steele and presented an American Express card.
When they stepped off the elevator, he swung her into his arms and left a bruising kiss on her mouth. Voices approach from the far end of the corridor. They separated and strolled past an older couple who eyed them with curiosity. At room 815, he unlocked the door and allowed her to cross the threshold ahead of him.
The carpet was olive-green. The walls were orange and tan. The drapes were dusky gold. The bed was made up with mints placed upon the pillows and a DO NOT DISTURB sign slapped on the bedspread. Guilt confronted Kendra, not because she had checked into a hotel room with a hustler, but because she intended to vacate the premises in an hour or less.
When Hunter slid the door chain into its slot, she started. He allowed the stillness to return before striding forward and helping her off with her coat. From beneath sun-bleached eyelashes, his clear irises looked down at her with admiration. “I like the hat,” he said. “Too bad you can’t wear it when we’re making love.”
“I don’t see why not.”
He chuckled. Angling his head, he eyed the ruby earrings dangling from her earlobes. Fascinated, he reached forward and jiggled one of them. Then he lifted her hand and kissed the palm, skimming his lips from ringed finger to ringed finger. He stopped when he reached the nakedness of her primary ring finger. “You’re not married? I thought ...”
“They felling down the sink.”
“Freudian slip?”
She chuckled the way he did, with a jaunty flip of her head.
He slipped off her suit jacket and let it fall to the floor. He urged the diaphanous blouse over her shoulders, baring her bra and soul with equal ease. When he finished pushing the skirt down over her hips, he wrapped her in his arms.
He asked, “What perfume are you wearing?”
“A favorite of my husband’s. Do you like it?”
“Not particularly.”
She wanted to laugh. Instead, she tugged him against her and drank in the outdoorsy smell of him. “Is that your real name? Hunter?”
With pointed concentration, he used his thumbs to outline the shape of her breasts, finishing the heart-shaped pattern at her bellybutton. “There’s a middle name. Delano. After my father.”
She unbuckled his belt with steady fingers. The boldness of her actions winded him. “Are you sick, Hunter?”
“Sick at heart. I’m infatuated with you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“I do.” With the skip of a heartbeat, Kendra realized she was as dissolute as Hunter Steele. Did it happen on this day and at this moment? Or had she always been wanton but deftly hid the truth behind pretense and respectability, even from herself?
They climbed onto the bed from opposite sides and balanced on their haunches. He stroked her arms with the lightest of touches. Eyes pierced eyes as their breaths harmonized.
“That day when I first saw you,” he said, reaching in for a kiss, “you were with him.”
“With Joel?” His statement confused her. “Were you in the restaurant? I don’t remember ...”
“He was outside, checking his cell phone for messages.” He edged the side of his finger along the profile of her face as if sketching it indelibly into his memory. “You called out his name, came running up the street, and jumped into his arms. He twirled you round and round, the way they do in the movies. I wanted to be him, holding you in my arms just like that.”
The way he touched her made her breathless. He was teasing her with the drip of his fingertips and tantalizing her with the promise of more to come. “Wasn’t me. Another woman. One of his clients. Juliana Santana.”
“The mobster’s wife?”
“She looks like me.”
Having no doubts of what he saw, he shook his head. “It was you, all right. I wanted you right then. Didn’t give a damn what I had to do to make you mine.”
“You remind me of my husband.”
“Do I?” he said. And then, “His hair is darker. His face, narrower. His personality, plastic. He’s an imitation of what a man ought to be. Nothing is really there.”
“You don’t like him.”
“He has you, doesn’t he?” Using the tip of his finger like a brush, he drew a new face from the old one, emphasizing the perfection of her cheekbones, the broadness of her brow, the refinement of her nose, the shapeliness of her lips, and the roundness of her chin. In a moment of revelation, she understood something profound: she had sold herself like a painting at auction, where the bidding started at zero and ended at the same amount. She was as cheap as they came.
“An hour and a half later, you left, but without him. You were in a hurry.”
“From the restaurant or the office building? In October or today?”
“Both times.”
He was right. There were differences between him and Joel. His lips were fuller. His cheekbones flatter. His brow narrower. His nose longer. His chin weaker. But they were the same, too. Like bookends facing in opposite directions. Both intense. Both sexual. Both needy. And both possessive.
“Ten, fifteen minutes later, you came back to the restaurant, but from the opposite direction, as if you’d walked around the block to think things over. You were breathless and in a hurry, fighting the rain and the wind with your red umbrella. You looked like a different woman. Same hair and eyes, but different. You saw me that time, not like before, and were shocked for some reason.”
“I saw you jacking off.”
“You’re mixing me up with someone else.”
They switched positions. He was on his back and she was on top, her arms braced on either side of his pale body. He turned his head aside, lost in ecstasy. His eyes were crying, but his face was stoic. “I’m an admirer of beauty, it’s true,” he said. “I saw your anguish. So remote. So vulnerable. Maybe ... okay ... I was aroused. But it was an expression of love, not an act of depravity.”
“I must affect men like that. Make them want something they can never have.”
“Never?”
“I can’t give. Only take. Just like Joel. Would you know the other woman if you saw her again?”
“She looked like you. She was you. What’s your name?”
“Kendra. Kendra Swain.”
“And your husband is Joel Swain. I have it now.”
“You’ve been following me ever since that night, haven’t you?”
“But then you knew that. And encouraged me.”
“Did I? I didn’t mean to.” She was questioning herself as much as him. “After being with you like this, how can I trust myself ever again?”
“Why shouldn’t you? You’re the same woman you were when the sun came up this morning.”
“Am I?” She thought about it. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ll never be the same woman again.” His body odor was familiar. The way he moved his limbs, contracted his muscles, and responded to her caresses were predictable. “It’s as if I’ve known you for a lifetime. You’re like an old shirt left in the bottom of a drawer.”
They stayed in the hotel room much longer than an hour. As darkness fell on the city, they dined by candlelight, clinking celebratory champagne glasses and feasting on Chateaubriand and lobster bisque.
Chapter 14
WHEN KENDRA LET herself into the bungalow by the front door, a single lamp switched on. With only his averted profile visible, Joel sat in the wing chair. His hands rested on the arms of the chair and one leg was crossed over a knee. The free foot beat out a jittery rhythm, belying the outward stillness of his posture. He shifted on an angle and looked at her askance. A lick of hair fell over his brow and partially obscured the beadiness of his eyes. He cocked his head curiously, as if seeing her anew. The foot stilled. He spoke. “Where have you been?”
Startled by the mellow tone of his voice, she said, “What time is it?”
“Late.” Though his eyes moved rapidly, he continued to hold himself in. One sign of weakness, one tiny break in his composure, would unleash hell. He was trying to figure out where she had been and what she had been up to, and was coming to several suppositions. All of them true.
She girded herself with a breath. Before she could utter a single syllable, someone else spoke. “Mrs. Swain?” Kendra swung around and beheld Ethan Wakeman. He climbed the front steps but stopped short of the stoop and peered through the open doorway.
In an instant, Joel was up and out of the wing chair. He sidled beside Kendra and placed a protective arm around her waist.
Though Wakeman’s mouth swept into a friendly grin, his eyes remained lifeless. “I saw the light. But if this is an inconvenient time ...” Snow flurries coated his hair, turning the intense black into salt and pepper.
Kendra broke the tension. “It’s terribly inconvenient. But come in. Can I get you some coffee?”
She tossed the picture hat aside and shed her coat. Disarray was revealed beneath. Unlike this morning, when her appearance had been airbrushed to perfection, her hair was tousled and her mourning clothes, crumpled. Her face—scrubbed of emotion as it had been earlier—had also been scrubbed of powder, mascara, and lipstick by the mouth and hands of a newly met lover in a cold hotel room. Walking beside her, Joel noticed every sign of infidelity. She sensed his silent accusations and inwardly reveled.
Moments later, the detective was hunkered over the kitchen table, melting snow slicking down his curly hair. Joel fit himself inside the doorway, one arm braced high on the doorjamb. Kendra busied herself with preparing coffee. “I expect you came to warn me off the Cutlers,” she said to the detective.
Ethan Wakeman was an observant man. He took in everything. The copper-bottomed pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks. The stack of mail on the countertop. Yesterday’s dishes piled high in the sink. Decorative magnets affixed to the refrigerator. Planters occupying on the windowsill. Porcelain frogs lined up on the table in descending height. And the chilliness between husband and wife.
She slapped down the measuring cup. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Turns out, I’m fresh out.”
“Of coffee?”
“Explanations.”
“You don’t deny it then?” the detective asked.
“That I’m fresh out of coffee?”
“That you’ve been harassing the Cutlers.”
“Who are the Cutlers?”
“Stay out of it, Joel. This is between Ethan and me. You don’t mind me calling you Ethan?”
“You can’t go around town accusing people of murder.”
“I didn’t accuse them of a blessed thing. And anyway ... just two people.”
“After harassing others. How many is it now?”
“I didn’t harass them. And I lost count.” She jammed herself against the counter and braced her hands on either side. “Hell, Detective, I’ve been doing you a big favor.”
“You’re a one-woman police force, Mrs. Swain.” His nose must have been broken more than once, either on football fields or in back alleys. He wore the disfigurement as a badge of honor. “Have you thought about joining the department? We can always use the talents of a top-notch investigator.”
“You don’t have to flatter me before telling me to go to hell.”
He fit his spine into the birdcage back of the kitchen chair. She was making him uncomfortable, no easy feat given the situation.
“I misread you, Detective. Here I thought you were going to read the riot act. But no. You want to find out what I found out.” She tilted her head, waiting for his response. “Isn’t that so?”
Wakeman didn’t answer. Instead, he gazed at his broad hands, both resting on the tabletop with fingers spread out. He was waiting for her to go on. The chair creaked with his impatience.
“Where are my manners? Of course I have coffee.” Busying herself once more with cups and spoons, she said, “I kept copious notes. If you like, I can email them to you. I’m not the first to hear voices in this house.” She sent Joel a scathing look. “As for Cutler, he’s hiding something.”
“Fair enough,” Wakeman said. “Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity, you can drop it.”
“That’s not how it goes. You’re supposed to say, We’re going to run a full investigation, Mrs. Swain. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. We’re going to bring the murderer to justice.”
“We are running a full investigation, Mrs. Swain.”
“And I’m not bullshitting you,” she suggested
“And I’m not bullshitting you.”
“You make an excellent marionette, Detective. You have the nose for it. It’s long. And growing longer.”
“I’m really not bullshitting you, Mrs. Swain.”
“Can we get past this ‘Mrs. Swain’ thing? I think we’ve gone beyond the formalities.”
He nodded once, his eyes black but the hint of smile underlying the serious expression.
The coffee’s pungent odor nauseated her. “Joel, join the party. The repartee is stimulating, don’t you agree? Especially for a woman on the verge of ... well ....” She shrugged and said, “... a mental breakdown.” She fixed her eyes on him.
Joel didn’t budge. He didn’t blink, either. Instead he opened and closed the free hand at his side. He disliked Wakeman, and it showed in every facet of his taut face. The air reeked of jealousy.
Kendra tore her eyes away from Joel and fastened them on Wakeman. “You heard my father died.”
“My condolences.”
“How do you suppose a healthy man exhibiting no prior signs of heart disease could die so suddenly?”
“The cause of death was pretty much conclusive.”
“Pretty much?” Kendra heard the implication in Wakeman’s statement. Joel heard it, too. He lowered his arm and inched closer.
The detective stretched his posture taller, cleared his throat, and covered for the misstep. “From natural causes.”
“Isn’t Evanston out of your jurisdiction?”
“I read the papers.”
“You have a particular interest in obituaries? Or in me?”
He didn’t like being grilled. His broad shoulders rolled into his jacket. It was a tight fit. “Your father is a prominent man.”
“Any theories? About how he could’ve died unexpectedly.”
“I’m not a physician.”
“Excluding natural causes.”
His brow creased. “You think foul play was involved?”
“Hypothetically.”
Their eyes met. Curiosity replaced his prior awkwardness. He tilted his head, thinking over possibilities. His eyes shifted ever so slightly in Joel’s direction. Except for the drip of the coffee pot, the kitchen stilled. Finally, he said, “Prescription overdose?”
“He took thyroid medication, but that was it.” She suggested, “Illegal narcotics?”
“If they were injected, the attending physician would have noticed needle marks.”
“He didn’t. I asked.”
Joel stepped closer. “Why didn’t you tell me you were suspicious about Mac’s death?”
She deliberately chose not to look at Joel when she asked the detective, “Poison?”
“Toxicology would have picked it up.”
“Except an autopsy wasn’t ordered.” She made a stab at another theory. “Perhaps a prescription taken out under someone else’s name?”
Wakeman said, “Someone close to your father?”
“My mother’s companion, for instance.”
“Birdie?” Joel said. “You suspect Birdie?”
“Correction,” Kendra said. “Not my mother’s companion. My father’s.”
Wakeman absorbed the information with a surprised look. “She stood to gain? From the estate? Or insurance?”
“Guess again. My father left everything to Emily. To my mother.”
The coffee was ready. The interrogation paused while she prepared three
cups and set them on the table.
“What were we talking about? I lost track. Oh yes.” She sat in the chair opposite the detective and stirred her coffee but didn’t drink. “Come, Joel, you’re being inhospitable. Detective Wakeman might get suspicious.”
She offered cream and sugar, but the detective passed. Joel remained standing.
Kendra said, “The Cutlers’ daughter ... her name is Bonnie, by the way ... went missing on a Sunday night. Supposedly kidnapped by a person or persons unknown, so the story goes. Except, as we all know, she never left the house. She’d be thirty-eight had she lived. But why am I telling you? You’re the detective.”
Wakeman hid behind a placid expression that gave nothing away.
Kendra went on. “The way I look it, we have two choices. Either the husband did it and stuffed her in the chimney. Or the wife killed her, and the husband covered it up. I don’t care which. Except Mr. and Mrs. Cutler might want to give their daughter a decent burial.”
“You left out the third choice,” Wakeman said. “The truth.”
“Only the Cutlers know for certain, but since they won’t talk ...” She glanced up at Joel. His anger had dissipated. So had the jealousy. Only confusion remained. And curiosity to see where Kendra’s logic was leading. “Will you run a DNA analysis? To confirm the child is theirs?”
Wakeman was slow to answer. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Cutlers refused.”
“Did they? Can they?”
“Without a court order, yes.”
“Is there going to be one?”
“It’s in the works.”
“Why not cooperate? Wouldn’t they want to know?”
“They hired an attorney.”
“Oh my, that does sound ominous. My father was cremated, by the way. I take it that running a toxicology report on ashes is fruitless.”
Wakeman lifted the cup to his lips, hesitated, and looked at her from over the rim. “Why didn’t you speak up sooner?”
Trick of the Mind Page 11
