Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  It was as though he was placing a tiny searing brand on her, and she felt her hips moving rhythmically toward him, his tongue sliding under the lace and out again as she moved. He was near enough to her that she could reach the waistband of his shorts and, hardly knowing what she was doing, she shoved impatiently at them, pushing them down to his hips. He didn't stop lapping at her, but with one hand finished the job she'd been unable to complete, drawing first one leanly muscled leg and then the other out of the shorts.

  She wanted to see him, Julia thought hazily. He'd looked his fill on her, and she wanted the same. She wanted to see him and touch him and drive him crazy the way he was doing to her. And she would, she promised herself. She would, as soon as she—

  "Oh, please…" The incoherent plea escaped from her lips in a sigh. His teeth, a gleam of white against his skin, had gently grasped the flimsy material of the baby dolls, and his eyes were a gleam of black as he slanted an upward glance at her face. He gave a little tug at the scrap of lace and cotton, and she felt it slip down over her hips.

  "Please stop?" he said huskily. "Or please go on? Down there it felt like please go on, baby."

  "Please—please go on."

  Her words were slurred. It was such an effort to make sense when all of her senses were so close to satiation, she thought. And then rational thought disappeared totally as Cord's hands slipped under her derriere, scooping her easily up from the bed. Her legs parted just wide enough for him to move in between them, her knees bent at his shoulders, and the fragile lacy panties moved down to her hips.

  He didn't bother to remove them. She could feel his thick, spiky lashes, like miniature paintbrushes, flick against the very top of her thigh, but that sensation was overwhelmed immediately as his tongue slowly massaged her through the thin cotton. He had to know what he was doing to her, Julia thought faintly. He had to know—and yet he still kept teasing her, kissing her, touching her. He was made of stone, or he'd learned some esoteric Zen-like control techniques out in California, or he—

  He nipped her thigh delicately, and a shudder ran through him. His arms were sheened with sweat, and the hair falling into his eyes looked damp. He raised his head, and the eyes that met hers were glazed and unfocused.

  "You taste so sweet, honey. But I've got to be in you now." His voice was a hoarse rasp, as if he was at the limit of his endurance. He settled her on the bed, but before he could bend over her she stopped him with a touch.

  "I want to feel you, Cord." Her fingers ran lightly up the length of him and then to the thatch of dark hair. She slipped her palm between his legs and saw the tremor that ran through him. His neck muscles were tight, his jaw clenched.

  "You're playing with fire," he said between his teeth. "I can only take so much, Julia."

  "So let's finish what we started, Cord," she said softly, her gaze fixed on his. "Let's take it as far as we can go … together."

  And this she had never been able to forget. That he was just barely holding himself back was evident in his tense posture, the muscles that stood out like ropes in his arms, but he was her Cord, and he had always remembered, no matter how erotic their love play became, that she'd belonged to his heart first, long before his body had come to know her. His hands framed her face—those hands that she'd seen handle a shovel, fire a gun and cradle a tiny, red-haired baby while she and his two best friends looked on—and he kissed her closed eyes, first one and then the other.

  "I love you, honey," he breathed. "Always did…"

  She opened her eyes and he was there, so close she could see that those black eyes were really a true dark brown, could see the tiny speck of green in his right iris, like the reflection of a perfect summer's day. She touched his face with the tips of her fingers.

  "Always will, Cord," she whispered.

  For a moment they looked at each other, as if the current that forever flowed between them was renewing and recharging so that if they somehow became separated for any length of time in the future they would have it to draw on, no matter how far apart they might be. Then a corner of his mouth lifted.

  "Okay—here's how the dream always ended. You say, 'Now, Cord.'"

  "Now, Cord," she breathed.

  "And I say, 'Yeah, now, honey,' and move in closer," he said faintly, lowering his torso, his weight supported by his elbows, one hand slipping around to the back of her head.

  "Then I say, 'Cord, you forgot to take my panties off,'" Julia purred, and saw him blink. Even at that moment she could discern the flash of humor behind that dark gaze, but he shook his head.

  "And you say, 'Cord, you can always get me another pair.' It's obvious you didn't memorize the script, honey."

  "Cord—" He reached down impatiently, and she heard the scrap of cotton and lace rip, felt him pulling that one last, totally inadequate barrier between them away. "You can get me another pair," she finished.

  "I knew you'd say that."

  He smiled, that slow smile that had never failed to make her heart turn over, and then she was opening herself to him and he was moving into her, gently and slowly, but despite his care her breath caught in her throat. He was filling her—he was more than filling her, she thought with a flash of panic—but no, he was inside her now and everything fit just right.

  "So tight, baby," he gasped. "Like—like a velvet glove." The brushfires that he had lit earlier were running together, meeting and fueling this ultimate conflagration that she could feel racing along her nerve endings. He was deep inside her and then he was withdrawing, and then he was inside her again, his movements as powerfully smooth as the rise and fall of waves upon a beach. She felt herself straining to meet him, to take him into herself, her nails digging into the hardness of his shoulders and her breath coming in short, harsh gasps from her swollen lips. She closed her eyes and saw sunlight, saw water, the brilliant blue of the sky over the lake, and then she opened them and saw his lashes fanning his cheekbones, his neck arched back as if he was looking for mercy and finding none.

  "Please, Cord," she gasped.

  "Now, Julia," he breathed.

  She felt as if she was falling through water, plunging straight down through liquid crystal, and she could almost see the myriad of piercingly exquisite explosions as her consciousness fragmented. They burst in her mind like fragile globes, like a swirl of underwater bubbles, and for a dreamy moment she realized she'd stopped breathing and she wondered hazily if she was drowning. No, she thought—no, it wasn't like drowning at all, because she could breathe, she'd only exchanged one element for another, more vivid one.

  The world no longer existed. It was as if the second hand of the universe had quivered and stopped. Crushed pearls, Julia thought as she felt Cord inside her. It's as if I'm being filled with crushed pearls.

  And then she felt herself rushing upward again, her consciousness returning in a shattered mosaic of green and gold, her eyes open and wet as she sped to the surface of the water and saw him there above her, his eyes still closed, one last convulsive shudder running through him.

  He drew in a ragged, shallow breath, but his eyes stayed closed, his lashes wet with the same sweat that slicked his chest and his braced arms. His lips were parted.

  Slowly—almost reluctantly—he opened his eyes and met her unfocused gaze. He sighed and closed them again, and then he lowered himself gently, their bodies still joined, his weight a solid warmth to one side of her.

  "Always did, Julia." His voice was hoarse. "Always will."

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  «^»

  "At least it's not a funeral. Two in three days would have been just too much, even if we didn't know the woman well."

  It was two days later. Cord swung the Bronco into a graveled parking lot and squinted dubiously at the white wooden building beside it. "It's obviously some kind of impromptu memorial service."

  "This place certainly doesn't look like any church I've ever seen." Glancing across the street at a boarded-up discount appliance out
let and an auto-glass repair business, Julia gave a slight frown. "The whole setup seems odd—especially with the daughter appearing out of the blue all of a sudden and arranging a memorial for a mother she couldn't even be bothered to contact for the last year or so."

  "Which is why we're here." He turned off the ignition and set the parking brake, his mouth grim. "I'd like to find out a little more about the mysterious Susan Redmond myself. I don't like loose ends."

  "Neither do I, and I could have sworn she was somehow being used to threaten her mother." Remembering the photos in the apartment where Jackie Redmond had lost her life so brutally, Julia felt a pang of compassion for the dead woman.

  They got out of the vehicle and headed across the gravel toward the dilapidated building. The sun was bright, but there was an unseasonably brisk breeze whipping up little eddies of dust along the adjoining sidewalk. A piece of newspaper scudded like tumbleweed across their path and then flattened against the cinder block foundation of the building.

  "Any new leads on Tascoe's whereabouts yet?" Her brows drew together as she recalled her encounter two nights ago with the ex-cop and the nightmarish ending to that evening at the apartment.

  "He's gone to ground somewhere." One arm around her shoulders, the other hand shoved deep in his pants pocket, Cord smiled humorlessly. "Hendrix and Dow are damned lucky they still have their pensions, so I doubt whether any of his other old buddies on the force will be sticking their necks out for him, but he's tough and smart. Lopez has her work cut out for her, searching for him."

  "But he'll be caught eventually. He's the prime suspect in three murders now, after all."

  She looked up at him, and despite the setting and the situation, felt a sliver of pure happiness pierce her heart. Yesterday, aside from a necessarily brief meeting with a harried Lopez, they'd managed to put the case out of their minds for a few hours and had gone out to visit Lizbet. Mary had told them she'd overheard her talking in her room to an adoring King the night before, and that she'd started joining in the twins' games—silently still, but with more enthusiasm than she'd shown previously. They'd taken the little girl for a walk down to the lake, and riding on Cord's shoulders, she'd stared with wide-eyed interest at the gaily colored sailboats on the water. Julia's heart had turned over, watching her, and a trace of the old terror had momentarily dimmed the perfection of the day.

  She'd fought it back. Lizbet was safe with the Whitefields, and there was a whole police force on the lookout for the man wanted for questioning in the deaths of her parents. The thought should have reassured her more than it did, except for one thing.

  "I still think they're looking for the wrong man, Cord." She glanced at him, a stubbornly unconvinced expression on her features. "Lopez is completely disregarding the way Paul was killed, and right from the start I haven't been able to shake the feeling that somehow that's the whole key to the killer's—"

  She stopped suddenly, her body rigid and her mind racing. Sheila shot, Paul pierced through the chest and two to go—

  "It's payback time," she whispered slowly. "That's what it is."

  He met her gaze with sharp intensity. "Payback for what?" he asked urgently. "And who's collecting it?"

  "I don't know enough about your old cases to tell you that, but Paul and Sheila's deaths have to be a reenactment of something," she said shakily, her words tumbling out in a rush. "Even Lopez thought the stabbing was symbolic, except she thought that DiMarco was paying Paul back for striking at the heart of his organization. But that's not it—"

  She passed an unsteady hand across her brow and then shook her head in frustration. "No. Just when I think I have it, it's gone. It reminds me of something—of a case you worked on in the past, I'm sure of it. But that's as far as I've gotten."

  Ahead of them a group of soberly dressed people approached the white building and went in. Cord kept his eyes on Julia.

  "A copycat killer, imitating past homicides that we worked on?" His face was grim. "God, I hope you're wrong. The killer could be just about any crackpot out there hoping to make a name for himself."

  "But the killer, whoever he is, has a reason for these murders. Or he thinks he does," Julia said slowly. "Remember the call-girl killings, Cord? Didn't the father of one of the women killed accuse you and Paul of not giving the case enough priority?"

  "Crystal Aiken's father. She was the second victim—garroted in a hotel room." He nodded, his mouth set in a tight line. "Sometimes I still find myself going over that case, wondering what we missed and why, after murdering four girls, the killer just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. But Aiken went to the media and said that we obviously didn't care about the deaths of a few hookers." He winced. "Unfortunately he'd heard Tascoe refer to the victims that way—he was working the case, too, and exhibiting his usual flair for diplomacy."

  "Crystal was garroted." Julia's eyes were dark with horror, but she went on. "I know one of the other women was shot, but how did the others die? Was one of them stabbed?"

  "Whoever the killer was, he never used the same method twice," Cord affirmed. "And Tanya Baker was killed with an ice pick, though not to the heart. But it's similar enough to be worth investigating Aiken's current whereabouts and state of mind."

  "And if he checks out clean, we're still left with yet another connection to Tascoe." She gnawed at her thumbnail worriedly until he took her hand firmly in his. She looked at him and gave a shamefaced little smile. "I know. But it bothers me, Cord. He obviously really cared for Jackie, and her death doesn't seem to fit the patter."

  "I don't buy Tascoe's guilt as completely as Lopez does, either, but if he's innocent, why did he run?" His strong fingers still wrapped around hers, he looked toward the building. "We'd better get in there. They'll be starting the service any minute."

  They'd reached the sidewalk, and she stared with frank skepticism at the run-down storefront. The huge window was whitewashed over, making it impossible to see inside, but it wasn't hard to guess that until recently its purpose had been more in line with the other dying or defunct businesses in the area.

  "It wouldn't surprise me if we've got the wrong place entirely and we walk in on a liquidation blowout sale instead of a memorial to Jackie Redmond," she muttered. Beside her, Cord grinned involuntarily, and then his smile faded.

  "Of course, if your theory's right, it isn't necessarily the call-girl murders that our killer is copycatting," he said, rubbing his jaw in frustration. "There were other unsolved murders—hell, there were plenty of solved cases that some nutcase might want to emulate. Probably the best way to narrow down the field of possibilities would be to run a computer check and start with those that involved both shooting and—"

  "Solved cases?" Julia stumbled on the first step to the entrance, and only his quick reaction kept her from falling. Her face was pale as she clutched his supporting arm, and when she spoke her voice was husky with urgency. "Cord—how did the Bradleys die in that farmhouse?"

  "It doesn't fit." His reply was curtly dismissive, but then he caught himself. "You don't need to know the details, Julia—God knows I wish I could erase them from my memory. But trust me, there's no connection between the way Paul and Sheila were murdered and what happened at—" He stopped, his gaze shadowed. "Besides, except for the core investigative team, no one else knew enough about those killings to reenact them. Even the media showed some reticence that time."

  "No one else—except for the killers themselves," Julia said softly. "What if there was a member of the Donner family who got away undiscovered?"

  "Donner himself is the only one of his merry little band still living, unless a fellow inmate's managed to get to him in the prison yard in the last couple of years," Cord said flatly. "Yeah, he knew just how the Bradleys and the other victims died—I was always convinced he'd planned the whole thing before he got caught and imprisoned for that department store bombing, though he swore up and down his 'family' hadn't been carrying out his instructions when they went on thei
r last spree without him."

  His shoulders shifted slightly under his suit jacket, as if his body was too tense even to manage a shrug. "But again, the deaths weren't similar at all. And even if they had been, Donner's locked up for life."

  Gary Donner and his followers were the one subject that he couldn't handle with even a pretence of composure, Julia thought as they mounted the last few steps. He'd always berated himself for not somehow being able to prevent those last deaths at the farmhouse, never thinking to give himself credit for discovering the Donner family's hideout as soon as he had. He and Paul had gone without sleep for weeks, obsessively following down every lead on the killers, no matter how elusive or faint, and they'd undoubtedly saved future victims from the Donner band.

  She shivered. Donner's followers' dedication to their evil mission had been so complete that they'd chosen death rather than surrendering to the authorities when they'd finally been found. Cord's reaction was understandable.

  "I recognize a few people from the department, but I'd never have pegged someone like him as one of Jackie's close acquaintances." Cord's voice by her ear was low, but his meaning was clear.

  The building had to have been a store at one time, Julia thought as they halted a few feet inside the entrance. It still was nothing more than a large open space, although right now there were a few dozen oddly assorted people standing around, many of them looking as confused as she felt. She followed Cord's glance and saw who he'd been talking about—a painfully thin young man, almost a boy, with a pair of crudely drawn tattoos on the backs of his hands and an old scar snaking up the side of his neck and disappearing into his close-cropped blond hair.

  "Maybe he's a friend of her daughter's," she said doubtfully. "He looks like a junkie—which could be a tip-off as to the kind of company Susan Redmond's been keeping since she left home."