Like before, Val tried to think about the accountant or how to save Delilah without dying, and like before, she could think of nothing but Max. She breathed in his breath, tasted his tongue, smelled his sweat, felt his mass atop and inside her. When his thumb caressed her lips, she seized it with her mouth, clasping it with her teeth, running her tongue along the folds and grooves until he filled her completely. He moaned into her ear, and she couldn’t hold out any longer. Every muscle in her body tensed and her chest arched into his. She dug her fingers into his flesh as a wave of ecstasy rolled over her. A desperate cry escaped her chest to stay with him and not slip away—
A Frisbee flies overhead, caught by a teenage girl, who throws it back to her partner. I’m surrounded by families in a public park, the Seattle skyline glinting in a clear, azure sky. A warm breeze tickles my skin. The grass around me is so green I think someone’s littered the ground with emeralds. A little boy runs up to me with blond hair and gorgeous brown eyes with bursts of green at their centers.
“For you, Mommy,” he says, and hands me a dandelion.
I reach for him as he runs away from me to gather more flowers. I feel kisses on the back of my neck, hands resting on my shoulders.
“Let him go,” Max whispers into my ear. “He’ll be back.”
Blur.
A Frisbee flies overhead, caught by a teenage girl, who throws it back to her partner. I’m surrounded by families in a public park, the Seattle skyline glinting in a clear, azure sky. A warm breeze tickles my skin. The grass around me is so green I think someone’s littered the ground with emeralds. A little girl runs up to me with silky black hair and gray eyes.
“For you, Mommy,” she says, and hands me a buttercup.
I reach for her as she runs away from me to gather more flowers. I feel kisses on the back of my neck, hands resting on my shoulders.
“Let her go,” Max whispers into my ear. “She’ll be back.”
Blur.
Max grabs fistfuls of clothes from a dresser drawer and shoves them into a duffle bag.
“Fine, just run away,” I say, my voice shaking. I tremble with rage, and there are tears on my cheeks. I don’t know why. “Run away like you always do.”
“I can’t do this anymore.” His face is haggard and his eyes are red like he’s been crying, too, though his anger has overwhelmed his sadness. “We’re never going to find her. They will always be one step ahead, and I can’t…I can’t.” His voice chokes up. “I’m sure that, wherever she is, they’re treating her well.” He zips up his bag.
“You fucking coward. Get out and don’t come back!”
He brushes past me, wiping tears from his eyes.
“When I find her, I’ll tell her that Daddy gave up!”
Blur.
I run along a path through a tropical forest. Max runs in front of me, barefoot, wearing only board shorts. I’m barefoot, too, in a bikini. I hear a roar through the trees. We burst from the forest, into a clearing at the edge of a cliff. Water cascades down the side into a crystal blue pool fifty feet below us. My stomach lurches as I consider the drop.
“You can’t chicken out now,” he says, panting from our run. He takes my hand, and I see he wears a wedding ring; I have one, too. “Come on. On three: one, two, THREE!”
We sprint off the side of the cliff, screaming as we fall, hand-in-hand, until the cool water envelops us.
Val breathed in as she broke the surface of the pool. When she opened her eyes, she was back in the boathouse, Max staring down at her, his weight on top of her. He cupped her head in his hands.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his gorgeous eyes with their emerald centers searching hers—the eyes their child would one day have.
Val had assumed the child she’d seen in her vision at the Red Raven was the son she and Robby might have had someday if he’d lived, but it wasn’t—it was Max’s son. Or daughter—apparently fate hadn’t decided which one they would have yet. And they would fight—their daughter would go missing—but at some point they would marry.
They were meant to be together. She’d finally found the part of her she didn’t even know was missing. Elation burst through her, and she almost laughed with delight.
“I’m all right,” she said, beaming up at him.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Val pulled him down for a kiss. “Don’t stop.” She took him into her again, as deep as he could go, taking in his pain, his joy, everything he was, good and bad. “Don’t ever stop.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Stacey breathed hard from where she lay naked on her bed. She strained against the bindings around her wrists and ankles that fixed her to her bedposts, her legs spread wide.
“God, please don’t,” she begged.
Kat stood at the foot of the bed and sneered. “There’s no getting out of this, cunt.”
She flicked a light riding crop across Stacey’s breasts. Stacey cried out as the sting resonated through her chest. When the crop came down across Stacey’s thighs, she yelped.
“Hey, ow, that kind of hurts.”
“It’s supposed to hurt a little. The pain enhances the pleasure.”
“When does the pleasure part begin?”
Kat folded her arms. “You’re the one who said you wanted to know what the big deal was with rough sex. Should we stop now?”
“No. I’ll get back into character.” She’d hoped this little experiment would get her mind off the chaos Val had left behind in her freight-train approach to catching Robby’s killer. If she didn’t try harder, of course it wouldn’t work. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, channeling the method acting skills she’d learned from a free class a few years ago. Back in the zone, she opened her eyes. “Stop, no more. It hurts—hurts so good.”
The corners of Kat’s lips ticked up, and Stacey could tell she worked to stifle a laugh. She straddled Stacey’s waist, flipping her honey blond hair over her shoulder so it grazed the tops of her plump, exposed breasts. Through the opening at the bottom of Kat’s leather bustier, she rubbed her completely shaven groin against Stacey’s while Stacey lay trapped underneath. Kat’s cold blue eyes leveled Stacey with a look of pure desire so hard that Stacey thought she might come from her stare alone. The woman was an exquisite piece of ass so perfect Stacey could hardly believe she was real, and hers. Then again, Stacey always thought that when they were together.
Kat drizzled lavender oil onto Stacey’s skin and rubbed her torso down, kneading her breasts, digging thumbs into her nipples.
“Ah, that’s—that’s”—Stacey’s chest heaved against Kat’s hands—“that’s kind of painful.”
“Oh, we’re just getting started, bitch.”
“Do you have to be so mean about it?”
Kat’s grip loosened. She chuckled and poked Stacey in the shoulder. “Oh my God, you are such a baby. I think we can officially declare that rough sex isn’t your thing.”
“Well, at least now I can say I tried it next time my sister asks.” She yanked on the ropes around her wrists. “Untie me?”
Kat folded her arms across her fat breasts and tapped a finger against her lips. “Hmm…no.”
Kat’s hands shot down and she tickled Stacey’s sides. Laughter exploded from Stacey’s chest as she writhed underneath Kat’s legs. “Stop it! Bad kitty!” The neighbors were going to complain about the noise again.
She kissed Stacey’s collarbone, and her tickling fingers drifted down to her girlfriend’s thighs.
Stacey breathed, “You are so naughty—”
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture erupted from Kat’s cell phone on the nightstand. Kat glanced at it. “Shit, I have to take this.”
“What?” Stacey panted. “Jesus, Kat, let it go to voice mail!”
“I can’t. We’ve got a big client we’re supposed to be on standby for. If I don’t answer, I could lose my job.” Kat hopped off Stacey and snatched up her phone. “Sorry, baby.”
Stacey rolled her ey
es and sighed. “Can you at least untie me now?”
Kat loosened one of Stacey’s wrist straps, then disappeared into the living room.
Stacey swore as she freed herself from the bed, threw on a terrycloth robe, and stepped out onto the deck off her apartment’s bedroom for a smoke. The cold air helped clear her senses. She didn’t totally understand what Kat’s profession entailed—something about international trading—but the job required her to do their bidding at the drop of a hat. Kat had explained the situation to Stacey when they’d met three months ago, and Stacey had said that she understood and accepted it, but it was awkward times like these that made Stacey reconsider.
Of course, it wasn’t like Stacey was in any position to criticize Kat’s judgment. Stacey had admitted to Kat that she was in a relationship with Natasha when the two had first met at a coffee shop—now their special coffee shop—but she let Kat pursue her anyway. When their friendship inevitably turned romantic, Stacey beat around breaking up with Natasha for chicken-shit reasons Val would’ve rolled her eyes at. And when Stacey cheated on them both with Val, it was time to come clean. By that point, Natasha already had one foot out the door; Stacey just absolved her of any guilt.
But Kat stayed. Kat understood and forgave her. And thank God she had; otherwise, Stacey would be totally alone. She didn’t know what the hell she’d been thinking, sleeping with Val. Stacey knew she’d never be more than Val’s friend and business associate, but she’d seized the opportunity to relive old times anyway. It wouldn’t amount to anything, but at that moment it had felt so right. And then Val literally ran away, like she’d broken a dish in a china shop and didn’t want to pay for the damage. They’d both made a mistake. Fine. She could accept that.
What she couldn’t deal with was constantly bearing the brunt of Val’s bad decisions. In a few short weeks everything had changed—Robby and Dean were dead, Val was aiding and abetting a murderer, and the business was faltering. Almost all of the Valentine Investigations clients had jumped ship after the shit storm with Maxwell Carressa hit the fan.
Ah, Maxwell Carressa—that guy was right up Val’s alley. Stacey wasn’t too gay to recognize a man worth salivating over: rich, dangerous, unattached, ungodly handsome. Though if he barely scraped through Harvard Business School—as the Carressa exposés that played round the clock claimed—maybe he was none too bright. Val got wet for intelligent men, Stacey knew. Hell—that was wishful thinking. There was no way Val wasn’t tapping that ass by now, idiot or not.
Stacey pushed thoughts of Val’s love life away. She didn’t care. She did not care. This who-was-sleeping-with-whom bullshit was trivial compared to the whole situation with Robby’s murder, and now Dean. Poor Dean…
A shiver ran up Stacey’s spine. She heard Kat at the bedroom doorway.
“Main and Third, okay,” Kat said into her phone. “I’ll be there.” After a short pause, she laughed and said, “Twenty percent raise at least. See you then. Good luck.”
Stacey heard the phone drop back onto the nightstand. She took a drag from her cigarette. “Gonna keep your job?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Things are looking good.” Kat walked onto the deck despite wearing nothing but a cupless bustier. The woman had no shame. With a body like that, Stacey couldn’t blame her, though more complaints from the neighbors were sure to follow. She rested her head on Stacey’s shoulder. “All going according to plan so far.”
“Fantastic.”
Kat raised an eyebrow. “What’s got you so sour?”
“Other than my blue bean, you mean?” Stacey exhaled a long column of smoke. “Valentine Investigations is going under unless Val can somehow fix this giant mess she got herself into. I’ll have to go back to selling hemp bracelets at Pike’s Place Market.”
“I’ll buy one of your bracelets, baby.”
Stacey half smiled. “Gee, thanks. It’s not really that, though. I’m just having a hard time not thinking about Dean. I’d like to know what the fuck is going on—”
The trill of Stacey’s cell phone interrupted her.
Kat shrugged. “Guess it’s your turn.” She went back inside and lay on the bed, flicking the riding crop across her thigh. “Let me know when you’re ready for more punishment.”
Stacey checked her phone on the kitchen counter, dreading another long talk with a client to explain the “misunderstanding” with Val and the Carressa situation until the inevitable “I’ll take my business elsewhere” declaration. Her heart jumped when she saw the number for Val’s burner phone in the caller ID. Stacey hesitated, knowing Val was going to ask her for something, then answered.
“I suppose you’ve got a totally logical excuse for why you killed Dean today,” Stacey said.
“Is that what the news is saying?” Val asked. “We didn’t kill Dean. He killed himself.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I sent him to meet you.” Stacey tried to keep her voice low so her nosy neighbors wouldn’t get an earful. “I sent him to his death!”
“You didn’t, Stacey. Dean was in bad shape already when we met him. Before he died, he admitted that he knew Barrister killed Robby.”
Stacey let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh my God. Now they’re both dead. This is crazy, fucking crazy.”
“I know. I’m close to nailing Barrister, though. I’ve got Delilah on my side, but I need to meet her during the science outreach event at the Pacific Science Center tomorrow and help her escape. We had to ditch our car after everyone saw us at the cemetery. So…I need to ask you one last favor.”
“No shit.”
“I need to borrow your car.”
Stacey scoffed. “I’m not going to be an accessory to another person’s death.”
“Stacey, please. I just need to get to the Science Center. We’ll be recognized if we try to use public transportation, and neither of us knows anything about stealing cars. I’ll park your car far away, and that’s all we’ll do with it.”
“We, huh? You two some kind of crime fighting duo, now? Screwing for justice?”
Val sighed. “Stacey—”
“I don’t suppose you ran away from him afterward, too?”
A long silence followed.
“I’m sorry I left. I know it was wrong. I panicked that I’d screwed up so badly I’d lost you as my best friend. I only need to get to Delilah, and then I won’t ask anything else of you again.”
Stacey’s resolve weakened. Every friendship had their ups and downs, she figured. She and Val were having a serious down moment, but would she rather have Val as her friend than not?
Probably…yeah…yes, she would. They’d experienced too much together to throw in the towel now. Even after everything that’d happened, including Dean’s death—
Oh God, poor Dean.
“This whole thing has gotten way out of control,” Stacey said. “You need to deal with your own shit, Val. I can’t help you anymore. I’m done.” She hung up.
Stacey collapsed on her couch and pulled another cigarette from her pack with unsteady hands.
“That was Val, right?” Kat asked from the doorway. “I can tell because you look upset.”
“She said Dean killed himself. And she wants to borrow my car. I told her to go to hell.”
Kat sat down next to her. “That’s kind of harsh.”
“The bodies are piling up, Kat! I don’t want to get sucked any deeper into this craziness.”
“But I thought she was trying to avenge her murdered fiancé and stop Norman Barrister from taking over Seattle and being evil, or something along those lines.”
“That’s what she says.”
“You don’t trust her anymore?”
“She hooked up with a guy who killed his own father—”
“Allegedly.”
“She may not be thinking straight, is all I’m saying. I’d help her if I didn’t think she might get herself or someone else killed doing it. And since when did you become Val’s defense lawyer?”
Stacey laid her head on Kat’s lap. “What if they catch her with my car and charge me with accessory to whatever the hell she’s doing? I don’t think I’d do well in prison.”
Kat stroked Stacey’s hair. “You could borrow my car instead of using your own. My company leases the vehicles we use. If someone recognizes her in the car and runs the plates, they’ll probably assume she stole it. It would be hard for the police to connect the car from my company to me to you, I think.”
Stacey sighed. “I guess that could work. I just…I really think she’s making a mistake throwing her lot in with Maxwell Carressa. He seems all kinds of shady to me, a master manipulator.”
“Maybe. But no one can control who they love.” She leaned over and gave Stacey a tender kiss. “Oh, before I forget—have you ever been to a club called the Green Room?”
Stacey shook her head.
Kat smiled. “Then have I got a treat for you.”
Chapter Twenty-six
From where he sat cross-legged and naked on the bed, Max held a couple pages of stationery up to the dim lamplight. He chewed his thumb as his eyes raked over the numbers scrawled across the paper, searching for meaning. After the third vision he’d finally realized he needed to filter out the big numbers—pi, a Fibonacci series, the fractals that popped up again for the first time since Ethan—and focus on the numbers in between for useful information.
Vengeance Page 18
