by Curry, Edna
Soon kisses weren’t enough and both their hands were busy exploring each other and getting rid of the clothes that were in the way.
Piece after piece of clothing landed on the floor. Her hands slid over his bare chest and she enjoyed the wonderful feel of his muscles rippling under her fingers.
She groaned in pleasure as he dipped his head and his mouth closed over the tip of her breast and gently tugged. She could feel the tug in her womb. Was there a wire connecting the two, she wondered irrationally.
“You taste delicious,” he murmured. “Like flowers.”
“Must be my perfume,” she said against his mouth. He took advantage of its opening and slid his tongue inside. Heat simmered inside her, making her wish for more.
She couldn’t get enough of the sensations he was sending through her.
He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, setting her on her feet just long enough to pull back the bedspread. His hand slid between her thighs where she could already feel moisture pooling. He found and gently rubbed the sensitive nubbin there.
She gasped as heat soared through her. Her body ached with wanting him and she slid against him, enjoying the pleasure of naked skin against naked skin.
He removed the last bit of lace covering her and murmured, “You’re so beautiful, Jane.”
Suddenly shy, she turned off the light, then pulled him down onto her and teased and tasted him in return. He tasted like coffee and smelled faintly of aftershave.
He groaned and pulled away. She was disappointed until she realized he was only putting on protection. In a minute he turned back to her and covered her with kisses again. He seemed to find every sensitive spot on her body and made her squirm in pleasure.
She ran her fingers over his firm muscles, teasing the nubbins on his chest. He rolled her over and kissed his way down her body, teasing and tasting until she thought she’d burst with wanting him.
When he finally entered her, she sighed in satisfaction, as though she’d come home. Making love with him just felt so right. She raised her hips in welcome and matched his rhythmic movements.
Sensations bounced through her as though on electric charges, sending her on an ever rising spiral of heat as he moved within her. Then a rainbow of stars seemed to burst behind her closed eyelids and she felt Mel stiffen and surge inside her as well.
Was lovemaking always this wonderful? She had no idea. But she certainly hoped so. She’d never be able to get enough of it.
Afterward, she snuggled in his arms and pulled up the covers. He’d already fallen asleep and she felt unreasonably pleased that he hadn’t immediately gotten up to go back to his cabin. She closed her eyes and soon slept.
~ * ~
“Help! Help me!”
Her screams bounced Mel awake. For a moment he wasn’t sure where he was. Then he realized he was with Jane in his apartment over his shop. Jane lay beside him, screaming.
He sat up and turned on his bedside lamp. Her eyes were closed and her face contorted with fear as she thrashed about beside him, the sheet and blanket twisting around her. She fought the covers as though her life depended on it.
He reached over and gently shook her. “Jane? Wake up, Jane.”
She stilled. Her eyes popped open and she stared at him blankly. “Mel?”
“You’re okay, Jane. It’s only a dream. You’re okay.”
“Oh.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking around the room as though making sure where she was.
“It was only a dream.” She shuddered, grabbed the covers close and wrapped her arms around herself as though she was cold.
Mel eyed her. “Want to tell me about it?”
“It—it’s only a rerun of being in the river,” she said. “There’s not much to tell. I’m in the dark, cold water, fighting the current, trying to get air, you know—almost drowning.”
“Have you had this dream before?”
She nodded. “Fairly often. I suppose I’m trying to work off the memory of that experience.” She lay back down and he pulled her close into his arms.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now.” He turned off the light and tucked the blanket around her, keeping his arm across her body, wanting to comfort her and wishing he could erase her painful memories.
In a few minutes she fell back to sleep. But it was quite a while before Mel could fall back to sleep. He kept thinking of her, here in this bed by herself, waking in the dark and fighting that awful dream alone. It was not a pleasant picture.
~ * ~
In Edina, Minnesota, Sharon Maddet drove to the veterinary clinic where Cara always boarded her calico cat when she was going to be gone for a few days. Sharon knew the cat would be lonely without a familiar face and voice.
She stepped inside the plush waiting room and smiled at a boy who was holding his puppy in his arms. He lifted worried eyes to her and then shyly returned her smile, evidently deciding she was okay.
Sharon stepped up to the desk and smiled again at the receptionist. “Hi, Lisa. Can I see Cara’s cat for a few minutes? I’m sure Her Majesty must be getting lonely by now.”
“Hi, Sharon.” Lisa’s answering smile turned to a puzzled frown. “But I’m confused. Cara didn’t leave her cat here.”
“She didn’t? But…but she must have. She’s been gone for a couple of weeks. Will you check with the vet, please?”
“Sharon, I fed all the boarded pets this morning. Her Majesty is not here. I would have noticed. I love that cat. She’s so fluffy and friendly.”
“But, if she’s not here, where could she be?”
Lisa shrugged. “Maybe Sharon took her with her? She does, sometimes, you know.”
Sharon shook her head. “Cara went to Europe this time. She wouldn’t have taken her cat. She knows she’d be quarantined, and she’d never leave Her Majesty in a strange place.”
Lisa shrugged. “Then maybe a friend is taking care of her. Or maybe she took her to another boarding place this time.”
“Maybe,” Sharon said doubtfully. But she didn’t believe it for a minute. Something was wrong here. “Well, thanks, anyway. Sorry to have bothered you, Lisa.”
“No problem.”
Sharon walked back to her car and got in. Acid churned in her stomach. Something was very wrong, she knew it. She drove back to Cara’s apartment and looked carefully for a note, in case Cara had left her one and she’d missed it on her earlier visit.
She found nothing.
Looking further, she found some other strange things. Cara’s new luggage was still in her closet. Cara had bought it months ago. Sharon began opening the dresser drawers, noting they were all full of clothes.
Of course, Cara could have bought new clothes, and she could have packed them in an older suitcase or two. Her old suitcases were missing. Maybe she didn’t want to take her new luggage for some reason or other. That was possible.
Then Sharon remembered Cara had given her old luggage to her mother’s last charity bazaar. So what luggage had she taken on this trip to Europe?
Sharon opened the jewelry box she’d given Cara for Christmas a couple of years ago. She caught her breath as she opened one little drawer after another. It still held all her jewelry. What was going on here? Cara always put all her good jewelry in her safety deposit box at the bank when she traveled.
Everyone in their family did that, ever since Mama and Dad were burglarized while they’d gone on a trip years ago, after a gossip columnist mentioned their trip in her column in the local paper.
Sharon pressed the release for the secret compartment in the jewelry box, where she knew Cara kept her passwords and extra credit cards. They trusted each other and had given that info to each other for emergencies. This was certainly an emergency, in her mind at least.
The credit cards and passwords were there as well. If Cara were really traveling, they should have been in her safety deposit box at the bank as well. Sharon’s stomach was knotting up with tension now. Nothing was as she knew Cara usually
did it. Why would she have done everything differently this time? And without telling anyone? It made no sense at all.
On impulse, Sharon sat at Cara’s desk and booted up her computer. She accessed Cara’s credit card accounts using the sites Cara had bookmarked and the passwords she’d found.
Cara had half a dozen credit cards, but not one of them had been used since the day she’d sent the email saying she was leaving, even the ones she normally carried in her purse.
With sickening dread, Sharon accessed Cara’s bank accounts, again using the bookmarked sites and Cara’s passwords. Same thing. A few checks had come in, but when she clicked on their images, she saw they had been written before that date. No activity since the day of the e-mail her mother had gotten. Worse, there was no large withdrawal right before that day.
Where was the withdrawal for travelers’ checks or money to take with her if she wasn’t using her credit cards? And when had she bought the plane tickets? They weren’t listed on any of the credit cards online.
She went to Cara’s files and found the past couple of months’ bank and credit card statements, in case Cara had bought her plane tickets out ahead. No payments to a travel agency or airline. Nor were any of the miniature copies of her checks payable to them, either.
Sharon found Cara’s address book and phoned Lois, whose name she recognized as one of Cara’s close friends and a fellow teacher.
Lois hadn’t heard from Cara either, and didn’t know anything about a trip to Europe.
“It’s odd that she didn’t mention it,” Lois said. “She usually tells me about stuff like that.”
“She usually tells me about such things, too, but she didn’t this time. In fact, she usually plans things in detail and always tells us before she travels.”
“I know.” Lois’ voice sounded worried, too.
“Was she dating anyone?” Sharon asked. She felt like she was snooping into her sister’s private life, but this was an emergency, wasn’t it? Cara would understand.
“Well, yes, I think she was dating someone,” Lois said. “But she was really secretive about him. She’d throw out little hints that she was in love, and how wonderful it was, but when I’d ask who it was, she’d clam up.”
“Was she dating one of the teachers at your school, maybe?”
“No, I’m quite sure that wasn’t it.” Lois hesitated, and then said, “I’m afraid I suspect that he was married.”
“Married! Why do you think that?”
“Well, usually that’s the case when a man wants to keep a relationship secret, isn’t it?”
Sharon’s heart plummeted. “Did Cara say he wanted to keep it a secret?”
“Yes, she did, more or less. She’d say she’d love to tell me, but she had to wait until he gave the okay.”
“Did she ever mention his name?”
“I think it was Barry or maybe Harry. At least, she called someone that when I walked into her classroom one day and she was talking on the phone. I think she was talking to him then because as soon as she saw me, she looked embarrassed, said goodbye and hung up.”
“This doesn’t sound like Cara at all. She’s never been secretive before.”
“I know,” Lois said with a sigh. “But you know what they say, ‘Love is blind.’”
“I suppose. Call me if you think of anything else, will you?”
“Of course I will.”
“Thanks, Lois.” Sharon hung up.
Then she called her mother to see whether she had heard from Cara. When she got the negative answer she was afraid of, she told her mother about what she’d found at Cara’s apartment and what Lois had said.
“I think we need to contact the police and report her missing,” Sharon said.
“Definitely not,” Lydia retorted. “You know the gossips would have a field day. Besides, if she is just having a good time traveling, Cara will not appreciate having us try to track her down for no good reason.”
“But why would she travel without money or credit cards? Why didn’t she put away her jewelry for safekeeping like she usually does?”
“Maybe the fellow is paying the bills and talked her into going on the spur of the moment. Maybe they’re staying longer than they planned.”
“Well…maybe. But then, why wouldn’t she call us? What if something is wrong and we didn’t try to help, Mama?”
“Cara is a grown woman. We’re not talking about your brother, here, you know.”
Sharon gasped. Her mother almost never mentioned Wilbur these days. He’d finished college by the skin of his teeth and then almost immediately taken off to ‘find himself.’ Their grandmother had left all three of them a considerable inheritance, so Wilbur apparently hadn’t considered it necessary to find a job. Lydia was deeply ashamed of his free-spending ways and carefree lifestyle. She rarely mentioned his name nowadays. Sharon didn’t even know where he was at the moment.
Lydia continued, “Cara is very responsible and can take care of herself. Besides, if she’d had an accident or something, someone would have found her and called us, wouldn’t they?”
“I suppose. But what if she’s with this guy she was so secretive about?”
Lydia laughed. “Then we’ll hear all about it when she gets back, if she decides to tell us.”
“And if she doesn’t? What if he’s not someone nice?”
“Darling, that’s hardly likely. Cara wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone like that. It’s really none of our business if she wants to go off and enjoy an affair, is it?”
Sharon flushed at the implication she was being a nosy busybody, as her mother usually called it. She wasn’t, was she? “I still don’t like this, Mama. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“Nonsense. Give your sister some credit for good judgment. I’m sure we’ll get a phone call from her soon, telling us how much she’s enjoying the trip.”
“I hope you’re right, Mama.” Sharon hung up with a helpless feeling of dread. Her mother might not be worried, but she was. Her sixth sense of something being amiss was seldom off target.
She fixed some coffee and drank a cup, still feeling frustrated.
Then she remembered Kenny Barnes, the police detective she’d dated a while back. There had been nothing serious between them and they were still on good terms, though she rarely saw him.
She’d talk to him. Maybe he’d do something off the record. Her mother wouldn’t have to know about it.
Chapter 10
Sharon got her address book from her purse and tried Kenny’s home number first. Luckily, he was there. She chatted a minute, then said, “Can I see you for a few minutes? I need a favor.”
Immediately, his voice grew wary. “What kind of favor?”
She sighed. She supposed he was always getting asked for favors, so she couldn’t blame him for being wary. “I can’t explain over the phone. Can you meet me for coffee at the Perkins near your house?”
“All right,” he said cautiously. “When?”
“Say in fifteen minutes?”
He laughed. “You are in a hurry, aren’t you? I’ll be there.”
“I’ll wait for you at the entrance area.”
She hung up, grabbed her purse, locked up Cara’s apartment and drove to the restaurant. She parked and hurried inside.
The restaurant wasn’t crowded, probably because it was between mealtimes. A hostess appeared, ready to seat her.
“I’m waiting for someone,” she told the hostess, and sat on the padded bench just inside the door to wait for Kenny.
She didn’t have long to wait. She was surprised to see him in his uniform.
“I was just getting ready. I’m on duty in an hour,” he explained after the hostess had seated them.
Over coffee and rolls, Sharon explained her uneasiness over Cara’s absence. She told him all the suspicious things she’d found and the things she’d not found that she should have found, like the credit card charges and her cat at the vet’s. “I just feel something
is wrong,” she finished with a sigh.
Kenny nodded. “If your instincts are saying something is wrong, you’re probably right. I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I’ve found that feeling usually comes from something your mind is picking up on that you can’t consciously identify. That doesn’t make it any less real or important.”
“Then you’ll help me find out if she’s really traveling in Europe?”
“Well, I can’t do much officially, if, as you say, your mother won’t agree to file a missing person’s report.”
“But you can do some checking unofficially, can’t you?”
Kenny eyed Sharon. She was a lovely girl and he wished they’d hit it off better. She was a little too uptight for his taste, but then, most women from rich families were. But now he had a nasty feeling in his gut that this situation went a lot deeper than Sharon knew.
The school staff of her sister’s school was already part of one of his department’s secret undercover drug investigations. That one of those staff members was now missing was very interesting. But he couldn’t tell her that.
Could the Maddet family be involved in the drugs? Obviously not Sharon, because she’d asked for his help. But he knew many rich people did get hooked into the cocaine scene, thinking it was an ‘in thing to do.’ He’d met Sharon’s mother, and she didn’t seem the type at all. Still…whatever he could find out might help.
Cautiously, Kenny tried again. “I can do some investigating on my own, yes. But I could do a lot more if you’ll fill out a report.”
Sharon shuddered. “I can’t, Kenny. There’ll be hell to pay if the papers get wind of this. I don’t want to defy my mother’s wish for privacy unless I have to.”
He raised an eyebrow. “She’s not worried?”
Sharon shook her head. “She’s convinced Cara is just off enjoying some vacation days. When I mentioned this man Lois said she was so secretive about, Mama said Cara would be furious if the papers reported her missing and she was just off enjoying an affair with this guy. She thinks he’s probably paying all the bills and that’s why Cara didn’t need any money, so I didn’t find any charges or cash withdrawals.”
