Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff

by Cassidy, Carla

  “Sounds like a great plan to me,” she agreed.

  They were quiet on the way to the pizza parlor. When they got there, they ordered the pizza to go and sodas to drink while they waited.

  “Just so you know, I’m probably going to pick off most of the pepperoni and eat it,” she said, finally breaking the long silence.

  “Just so you know, I’m probably going to pick off all the black olives and eat them,” he replied.

  “That makes us good pizza buddies.”

  He smiled at her, knowing she was eager to hear what he’d learned during the day but also aware of the fact that she was giving him time to unwind.

  She would make a perfect life partner. She seemed to know instinctively what he needed before he’d identified the need. She understood what he did for a living and that it was a large part of who he was as a man.

  He took a sip of his drink and stared around the restaurant, willing away these kinds of strange thoughts. For years he’d told himself he was satisfied being alone, cooking for one and having his space to himself.

  But Tamara made him think of dinners for two, of conversation to fill the long hours of an empty evening. She made him think of making love to her before closing his eyes to sleep, awakening in the morning to share coffee across a kitchen table.

  He was grateful when the kid behind the counter announced their pizza was ready for pickup. He grabbed the box and together he and Tamara headed back to his truck.

  “We’ll eat first, and then we’ll talk about our days,” he said as they pulled away from the restaurant.

  “Does that mean you want me to keep my mouth shut unless it’s open stringing mozzarella cheese?” she asked, her voice filled with the lightness of a tease.

  He flashed her a fast grin. “No, it just means we only talk about pleasant things while we enjoy eating.”

  “Deal,” she agreed easily.

  Fifteen minutes later they were seated at Linda’s table, the pie box open before them and each with a bottle of beer. “Nothing better than hot pizza and cold beer,” she said as she reached for a slice.

  “You’ve got that right.” He smiled in amusement as she carefully picked off each piece of pepperoni and popped them into her mouth.

  He grabbed his own slice and as they ate they talked about Linda and Samantha and about Kansas City and how much he loved it there.

  “The best part is from the downtown area within a fifteen-minute drive you can be standing in the middle of a pasture. It’s a great combination of big city and small town all rolled into one,” he said.

  “Sounds nice.”

  He nodded. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Is Amarillo your hometown?”

  “Born and raised there,” she answered automatically and then her startled gaze met his. “Ah, that was sneaky, you tricked me into having more memories.”

  “I didn’t mean to be sneaky,” he protested. “I just asked a question.”

  He watched her as she chewed a bite of the pizza, her brow wrinkled with deep thought. “I remember Amarillo,” she finally said. “And I remember my apartment. What I don’t understand is why thinking about it makes my heart fill with a terrible grief? Why when I think about it, I don’t want to go back there.”

  “But you know you’ll have to sooner or later,” Seth reminded her. “This time now, here in Amber Lake, is just a single moment in a million moments that make up your real life.”

  “But this moment feels so real,” she replied softly.

  “Eventually it will just feel like a dream.” The conversation continued back to safe subjects as they finished up their meal. They cleaned up the kitchen and then moved into the living room where they shared the activities of their day while seated at opposite ends of the sofa.

  “I leaned about the value of vitamin B on The Doctors and watched a couple of old reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond,” she said. “That was the high point of my day.”

  “Are you prepared to do it all over again tomorrow?” he asked.

  “More interviews?”

  He nodded and then told her what he’d learned from the interviews he’d conducted that day.

  “So Henry Todd can be tied to both dead women,” she mused as she kicked off her sandals and pulled her bare feet up beneath her on the sofa. “I told you I had a bad feeling about him.”

  “But is your bad feeling about him because you encountered him as a killer or because you think he’s just an average slimeball?”

  She leaned her back against the sofa cushion and released a sigh. “I don’t know. The night that I apparently ‘disappeared’ I ate at the café. I can’t imagine that I would have run into Henry anywhere else.”

  “Still, we don’t know where you went after you left the café,” he reminded her. “And we aren’t sure Todd spends every minute of every night locked away in his restaurant.”

  She worried a hand through her hair, the silky lengths causing Seth’s fingers to itch with the need to touch it. “It’s strange that this here and now feels so much more real than the memories of my former life. I have a serial killer apparently hell-bent on burying me in a sand dune and I know probably the best thing I could do is leave town, but I’m not ready to go back to my half-remembered life yet.”

  “And I’m not ready to let you go yet,” Seth said, then hurriedly added, “at least not until you have all your memories back and know exactly where you fit.”

  There she was again, messing with his mind, looking so soft and welcoming, forcing his thoughts to go places they had no business going.

  “What if I never remember that night?” she said, bringing him back to the crime.

  “With or without your memories, we’re going to find this guy. Eventually he’s going to make a mistake or we’re going to find a clue. I’m not leaving Amber Lake until this killer is caught or killed.” A swell of tension filled his chest as he thought of the man he sought.

  He was obviously a planner...organized and bright. How many women would die before he made a mistake? How many bodies would be uncovered in the dunes before they finally got a break?

  Just that quickly he was exhausted. The thought of the murders weighed heavy in his soul, as heavy as the thought of letting Tamara go.

  Maybe it was best if Tamara headed back to Amarillo. She was right. If last night was any indication, she had a serial killer actively seeking to finish what he had begun with her. Surely she’d be safe in Amarillo even without all of her memories.

  He gazed at her for a long moment, drinking in the sight of her lovely features, the long length of her shiny hair, and realized he was more than a little bit in love with her.

  “Maybe it really is time for you to go home...back to Amarillo,” he finally suggested tentatively, although they were the last words he wanted to speak.

  Her eyes opened wide. “But I’m not ready,” she replied, an edge of panic making her voice a bit higher than usual. “I don’t remember enough. Besides, we know the killer wants me, otherwise he would have just taken another woman rather than trying to break into the window of the bedroom where I was sleeping.”

  Her lower lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with the sheen of tears. “You’ve all said he’s smart and if he has any information at all then he already knows where I live in Amarillo. What’s to keep him from following me there? Who says he has to adhere to his pattern of burying women in the Deadman’s Dunes? What if he just kills me and buries me someplace outside Amarillo?” The tears spilled down her cheeks. “Please don’t send me home, Seth.” Her crying began in earnest, the sobs of a woman still terrified, still unprepared to face an uncertain future in a place she barely remembered.

  He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand her tears. Without thinking he reached out to her and she fell into his embrace. As she wept into the front of his shirt, he could feel her heartbeat banging against his own.

  “Please, Seth. Please don’t send me away yet.” The words came from her as hiccupping sobs
.

  He stroked her hair and held her tight, unable to imagine what fears might reside inside her head, what anxiety must burn in her soul. This place and he was all she really knew. Was it any wonder that the idea of being sent away would upset her?

  She did have a point about the killer. If he had any inside information at all, if he’d heard any idle gossip around town, then he knew she lived in Amarillo. The last thing he wanted to do was send her away from here and into the arms of a killer. If he were perfectly honest with himself he’d admit that the last thing he wanted to do was send her away from him.

  “I won’t make you go anywhere you aren’t ready to go,” he murmured into her sweet-smelling hair. He held her for several long minutes, until her tears had halted and the only thing he was conscious of was the soft warmth of her in his arms.

  He released her, needing to separate, needing to draw enough distance from her to inhale a full breath. “You know that sooner or later you’ll have to go home.”

  “I know.” She leaned back against the opposite side of the sofa and wrapped her arms around herself, as if shielding herself from something. “But every time I think about going back there I’m overwhelmed with grief and anxiety and I can’t imagine why.”

  “Whatever it is, you’ll have to face it sooner or later. That is your life, Tamara, and I’m sure there are plenty of good things and good people waiting for you there.” At least that’s what he wanted for her, that’s what he hoped.

  “Then where are all these good people? Why hasn’t anyone been looking for me? You all can’t even find anyone who knows much of anything about me.”

  It was true. Tom and his men had tried to find people who knew Tamara, but her life had obviously been one of isolation. Other than neighbors who professed to know her only superficially and people she’d worked with on webpages who had only known her professionally, nobody had come forward anxiously seeking her. No frantic boyfriend relieved she had been found. Seth didn’t even want to examine why he was perversely pleased by this.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, his heart breaking more than a little for her. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “We should probably call it a night. Tomorrow is going to be an early, long day.”

  She nodded and stood, but as she looked down the long hallway toward the guest room he felt the tension that filled her heart.

  “There’s nothing for you to be afraid of,” he said softly. “I boarded up that window this morning. Nobody is coming through it without a chain saw.”

  “Then I’ll just say good night,” she said.

  She turned and he watched her walking slowly down the hallway. She broke his heart and revved his adrenaline.

  She paused at the door of the bedroom and turned back to look at him. “Seth, if this is just a single moment of time in a lifetime of moments, I want to spend it with you. I want making love with you to be one of the memories I take away from this experience. I don’t want being buried in the sand to be the most intense memory I have of my time in Amber Lake.”

  He stared at her and felt her longing wafting down the hallway with sweet seduction. His brain worked to process all the reasons why they shouldn’t spend the night together, why if they did it would be an enormous mistake.

  But his brain was trapped in a vision of her naked in the bed, in the sensation of her soft skin against his, in the fire of her lips kissing him.

  He should be strong, but even as he thought it, he stood. He should be the one capable of denying temptation, but still his feet moved forward down the hallway toward where she stood.

  His brain was in utter denial up until the time he stood face-to-face with her, up until the moment she took his hand in hers and only then did he completely surrender to his own desire, to his own need.

  Chapter Nine

  The instant Seth’s hand slipped into hers, Tamara knew the rightness of this moment in time with this man. She pulled him into the bedroom and instantly their mouths found each other in a kiss that screamed of the hot desire that had raged between them for the past couple of days.

  She didn’t question her want for him. She merely accepted that he was something she needed, something that she couldn’t live without...like food or air.

  His mouth plied hers with a heat that filled her body and soul. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her tight against him and she could tell he was aroused. This fact alone only made her more certain that this was right and good.

  She knew it wasn’t forever. She was fully aware of the fact that tomorrow they might catch a killer, tomorrow she might be on her way back to her half-remembered life in Amarillo. But she needed tonight in his arms, a memory that would burn itself into her brain so vividly she’d never, ever forget it.

  As their lips remained locked, he moved her toward the left side of the bed, where without breaking the kiss he took off his holster and gun and placed them on the top of the nightstand.

  His lips left hers only to blaze a trail of fire down the length of her neck as his hand tangled in her hair and he pressed closer against her.

  His scent, a half-wild fragrance of cologne and male infused her, and she knew that particular scent would always bring with it both a sense of excitement and utter security and safety.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured against her ear.

  She dropped her head back, allowing his mouth access to the hollow of her throat. If she had been able to remember anything from her past, Seth’s touch, his mouth would have chased it all away.

  She didn’t want to have a sudden explosion of memories, she just wanted to dwell in this moment of magic with the hot, handsome man who had saved her life. She wanted just this night with the man who stirred her not only on a physical level, but also on an emotional level, as well.

  As he slid his warm hands up beneath her T-shirt to caress across her naked back, she knew she’d never, ever get enough of him.

  It was possible this might be her only night with him, but she knew in her heart that she would want more even when morning dawned.

  Impatiently he grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and as he tugged it upward she raised her hands above her head to aid him, grateful that the bra she’d bought at the discount store was a sexy lace.

  Once her shirt was gone he pulled his own over his head, exposing his sculpted, muscled chest as he tossed his shirt to the floor behind him.

  They stood mere inches apart and simply stared at each other. Tamara’s heart fluttered rapidly, making her half-breathless. He breathed through his mouth, as if he, too, was finding it difficult to draw in enough air.

  “You look amazing.” His voice was deep, husky, as his gaze swept her from head to toe.

  She laid a hand on his chest. “So do you.”

  She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly they were both on the bed, limbs tangled as his mouth once again sought hers. His tongue dipped inside, swirling with hers as their desire reached new levels.

  She loved the feel of his sturdy long legs entwined with hers, his solid, muscled chest against her breasts. She couldn’t get enough of the taste of him, the feel of him.

  There was no thought of killers or repressed memories, there was nothing but Seth and the hungry desire that claimed her.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted you,” he breathed against her neck, causing shivers of delight to dance up her spine.

  Had she ever felt this way with another man? She had no memories to pull from, but she didn’t believe anyone had ever made her feel the way she did now in Seth’s arms, with his lips tracing lazy circles against her neck, sliding down to mouth the tip of her breast above her bra.

  Her breath caught at the erotic tug of sensation that rippled through her as her nipple rose in response. Not enough. So not enough, she thought as she half pushed him off her, reached behind and released the clasp on her bra.

  When his mouth returned to her bare breast she raked her fingers through his hair, wondering how she’d ever l
ived without his touch.

  The rest of their clothes disappeared, his shoes and socks gone, jeans quickly shucked and both his boxers and her panties thrown to the side of the bed as they moved in a frenzy.

  He was hard against her and she curled her fingers around his hardness, marveling at the velvet skin over taut muscle. She had only stroked him a couple of times when he hissed, “Stop...too soon.” He smoothed a strand of her hair from her cheek. His eyes burned mercury-silver and wild. “I want to take my time with you. I want to hear you screaming my name with pleasure.”

  A new shiver whipped through her at the promise of the sexual delight in his words. As his hands began to explore the length of her body, stroking...teasing...coming closer and closer to the very center of her, she arched and moved in an attempt to capture his intimate touch.

  He laughed, a low, sexy growl, as she moaned in obvious frustration. “Patience is a virtue,” he said.

  “Torture is a federal offense,” she replied.

  He laughed again and then his laughter died as his fingers found her moistness and moved with butterfly gentleness against her. She arched once again with a swift intake of breath as she felt an orgasm begin where he touched her and spread shuddering sensations outward to the tips of her fingers and toes.

  She gasped his name as she rode the wave, and before she could catch her breath he moved between her thighs and eased into her.

  He froze, his facial features set in stone as he gazed down at her. His struggle for control was evident in the taut chords of his neck and the glaze of his eyes.

  Finally he moved, thrusting forward and she closed her eyes as he filled her up, moving against her in the ancient rhythm of lovemaking.

  Tamara was lost to the feel of him, to the rising sensations that built inside her as they rocked together. In and out he stroked, first slow and then with a faster pace that had her panting and on the edge of yet another cliff.

  Tears filled her eyes as he moaned her name and then she fell over the cliff, shattering apart as a second, more intense climax struck her. At the same time she was vaguely aware of him tensing against her and then gasping with his own release.