by Lori Wilde
“Scarlet,” I said, rubbing my palm along my feverish neck. “With black lace trim.”
He hissed in his breath as if he’d been scalded.
“Black garters and thigh-high stockings,” I embellished.
He growled.
“Crimson stiletto heels.”
“Stop!” he commanded in his cop voice.
My hand, which had somehow crept from my neck to my belly, froze in place.
Silence hung like a marble curtain.
Then, we both spoke at once, in a rush.
“I didn’t mean…”
“I’m sorry…”
Conahegg laughed. A rueful, rough noise that sent fresh shivers clamoring down my spine.
“Listen,” he said.
I pricked up my ears. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you called. There’s something I wanted to say to you.”
“Oh?” The word came out in a whispery Marilyn Monroe whoosh.
“I owe you an apology.”
“What for?”
“For my behavior just now and for the other day. At the gym.”
“What do you mean?”
“You greeted me cheerfully and I barely even acknowledged your presence.”
“You were busy. I shouldn’t have interrupted the weight training.”
“No,” he said. “That wasn’t it.”
“What was it?”
“You. Ally, you looked so damned hot in those skintight bicycle shorts and that skimpy little sport bra it was all I could do to keep from…”
“Yes?”
“Never mind.”
“No, go ahead.” I fanned myself with my naughty hand. It had been a very long time since a man I was interested in had talked to me in such a frankly sexual manner. The sensations jolting through me were at once both extremely arousing and quite terrifying. I could lose myself in a man like Conahegg. That idea frightened me. Suddenly, I realized why I’d always been attracted to passive, brooding artistic types. Those guys I could control. They were safe.
Conahegg was not.
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel something for you, because I do.”
“You do?” I parroted.
“Yes. But I’m not the kind of guy who beats around the bush. This is a bad time for me. Both professionally and personally. I know you like me, too, and I don’t want to lead you on. I really can’t get involved in anything serious. But if you’re not opposed to something casual…”
“Excuse me?” He was offering me a fling. A wild, hot affair. He didn’t want to meld with me mind, body and soul. He wanted a quick roll in the hay. I should have been relieved. Instead, I was incensed. “Who do you think you are, you arrogant—”
“That’s why you called, wasn’t it?” He sounded bewildered. “You were the one who mentioned crimson stilettos.”
Guilty as charged. And regretting it more with each passing second. What to do? Try to get the conversation back on a proper footing and tell him about Sissy? Or simply hang up and pretend the whole thing never happened.
“Your ego, Sheriff Conahegg, is bigger than the state of Texas.” I sniffed. “What on earth makes you think I’d have an affair with you?”
“Lust?” he said, his tone hopeful.
“Think again, smart guy.”
“Well, if you didn’t call to chat with me, what did you call for?”
“I need to tell you what Sissy’s been up to. I think Rocky’s got her involved in something shady.” I swallowed. What I had to say next was really tough for me. “I need your help.”
“You? You’re asking for help?”
“Don’t rub it in,” I snapped.
“Sorry. Please, go on. Tell me about your sister.”
If I hadn’t been so concerned for Sissy’s welfare, I might have told him to forget it. But I thought of the night she’d gotten beat up in the parking lot. I gulped down my pride and related to him everything Denny had told me.
“Would you like me to go talk to Hughes? See if I can shake him up? Tell him to stay away from Sissy?”
“That’d be great.”
“Consider it done. Oh, and, Ally.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I’m really sorry I’m not in a position to pursue a relationship with you.”
“I never said I wanted one.”
“I know. But another time, another place, I think maybe we could have had something great.”
SISSY DIDN’T COME HOME all weekend, nor Monday, either. Conahegg called me on Sunday afternoon to say Rocky hadn’t been home when he’d dropped by to see him. We didn’t talk about the other thing on both our minds and I hung up really quickly before he decided to bring it up.
Tuesday, I had to do a home health visit on Rocky and there was no way around it. I dreaded the showdown, but it was long overdue. Driving down the same road to Andover Bend that I’d traveled the previous week, I experienced a weird sense of déjà vu.
When I reached Rocky’s trailer, I parked on the bare dirt yard, took a deep breath and peered over at Tim’s place. The shoddy trailer looked sad and forlorn. I shook my head over Tim’s wasted life and girded my loins for the battle before me.
Rocky’s rickety steps creaked under my weight. The screen door hung half off its hinges. I pushed it aside and pounded on the aluminum front door. I prayed Sistine wasn’t in there with him, even though I desperately wanted to find her. As much as we fight, I love my sister. More than anything in the world I’d love to see her happy and settled. Although Sissy seemed to believe otherwise.
I waited.
And waited.
“Criminey, not again,” I muttered. “The louse is probably either stoned or drunk or both and passed out like a brick.” Resolutely, I turned the knob and the door opened.
“Rocky,” I shouted, unable to shake the feeling that I’d been through the scenario before. “It’s Ally. Is Sistine in there with you?” I certainly didn’t want to catch them doing the horizontal bop.
I stepped into the foyer. If you can call it that. It was a twelve-inch circle of parquet that blended into filthy brown carpeting.
Yuck. I saw what Denny meant by calling the place a roach motel. Actually, roach motel was a compliment.
The room was almost totally dark save for the light bleeding in from the opened door. Blankets had been draped over the windows in place of curtains. I had fleeting thoughts of vampires and shuddered.
A guitar lay in the middle of the floor, alongside a high-tech video camera on a tripod. I wondered where Rocky had gotten such expensive equipment and what he’d been doing with it.
Another shiver rippled down my spine as I considered a disgusting possibility. Had Sissy and Rocky been making their own dirty movies?
“Anybody home?” I was surprised to hear my voice quiver.
Nada.
In that instant Tim’s naked, hanging body flashed into my mind’s eye.
“Rocky!” I inched through the living room and pulled a blanket from one window to let in more light. Dust flew everywhere. I sneezed.
Still no response.
The urge to leave was strong. But I had to discover where my sister had gone. Maybe at least I could find a clue to Sissy’s whereabouts.
I took a deep breath and regretted it. The place smelled to high heaven of rotten garbage. An indolent blowfly buzzed around the ceiling.
Unwillingly, I moved deeper into the trailer house, skirting the maze of filth. A couch with the stuffing coming out of it, apparently doubled as a storage closet. There were stacks of clothes and girlie magazines and worn-out sneakers strewn over the cushion. Across from the couch rested a television set and beside it, a broken-down La-Z-Boy recliner as encumbered by debris as the couch.
Obviously, Rocky wasn’t lurking in the living room. Unless he was hiding under those dirty clothes. I could see the kitchen from where I stood and he wasn’t in there, either.
“Rockerfeller Hughes,” I raised my voice but I was beginning to suspect Rock
y wasn’t home even though his battered pickup truck, the bed littered with A&W root beer cans and whiskey bottles, was parked outside.
I kicked aside more aluminum cans and pizza boxes littering the floor. I wrinkled my nose against the stench. Cripes, why in the world had Sissy brought Denny here? What was she thinking? Did she ever stop to ask herself what she was doing in a place like this with a guy like Rocky?
Sissy was pretty and she could have any man she wanted—well, if she took out the nose ring and the tongue stud. How come she was always attracted to bad boys?
I peeked down the hallway.
Not another closed bedroom door.
“Rocky!” I fairly screamed, praying he’d come staggering out of that bedroom. Hair sticking straight up, scratching his crotch, peering at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes.
But he didn’t.
There wasn’t a sound. Not a peep. Not a whisper. Not even a belch.
“No,” I whimpered. “I’m not going to look inside that bedroom.” But even as I was denying my intentions, I was creeping for that door.
I kept thinking about those awful teenage slasher movies where the too-stupid-to-live heroine blithely goes into the spooky dark basement to look for her friends while the entire audience is screaming for her to get the hell out of the house.
But a curiosity I couldn’t deny compelled me. What lay beyond the door?
When I got closer, I saw the door stood slightly ajar.
“Rocky?” I whispered but I wasn’t expecting an answer.
I nudged the door with my foot. It swung silently open.
There was someone or something sitting on the floor beside the headboard.
Gulping, I flipped on the light.
It wasn’t as dramatic as finding Tim’s body. Honestly, at first I thought Rocky really was deep in a drunken stupor and had rolled off the bed. He had the sheet over his face and he was naked with one hand resting in his lap.
“Hey,” I said, my voice wobbling a little. “Wake up.”
He didn’t move.
“Rocky?”
The apprehension was back, along with a huge knot in my chest. I moved toward the bed and as I got a better look I realized his body was stiff.
Rigor mortis.
Oh, boy.
I leaned over and lifted the sheet from his face, felt the same shocky kick I’d felt when I’d discovered Tim’s body.
I let out a soft cry and backpedaled, running smack into the wall, my hand over my mouth.
Rockerfeller Hughes’s face was black. His tongue lolling obscenely. His eyes bulging.
Then I saw it. The belt. One end looped around the bed post.
The other end around his neck.
“Here we go again,” I whispered and sank to the floor.
“WE’VE GOT TO STOP meeting like this,” Conahegg said.
“Har, har. Ever thought about becoming a stand-up comedian?”
“You look pale.”
I didn’t want or need his concern. Especially when I could tell that he was restraining himself from reaching over and touching my cheek. I wasn’t getting involved with a commitment phobic man. Nub-uh, not me. “Stumbling across two bodies in less than a week can do that to a girl.”
“Do you always get testy when you’re upset?”
“Always,” I assured him.
“That’s nice to know. For future reference.”
I wanted to say “What future?” but I didn’t. The less said about our aborted phone sex on Saturday night the better.
We were sitting in his patrol car with the engine idling, while his deputies went through the house. He had the air conditioner going full blast, the vents turned on me.
“Do you want some water?” Conahegg asked. “I’ve got some on ice.”
I nodded. How had he known my throat felt like parchment paper? He was anticipating my needs much too well. I wished he’d stop being so solicitous, but I was too thirsty to stand on principles.
He got out and rummaged around in the trunk then brought an Igloo cooler, the kind they transport organs in, back inside with him.
Opening the box, he pulled a bottle of water from the ice, wiped the outside with a handkerchief, twisted off the top and passed it over to me.
“Thanks.” I took a long swallow, concentrated on drinking the icy water, purposely ignoring Conahegg’s gaze on my face.
“Ally, things don’t have to be awkward between us because of our phone conversation.”
Conahegg was one to take the bull by the horns, never mind that you might get gored.
“Let’s not go there.” I stared out the window at the dried yellow grass.
“All right.”
More silence. I polished off the water.
“Do you know where your sister is?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Haven’t seen her since she dropped Denny off after Tim’s funeral.” Since Saturday night. “Why?”
“Just curious,” he said, but I saw the muscle in his jaw jump. That twitch gave him away. He wasn’t being completely honest with me. What was he hiding?
“So,” I ventured, setting the empty water bottle between us. “What do you think is going on here? Isn’t autoerotic asphyxiation relatively rare? And we’ve got two guys who lived across the street from each other dead within a week. Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious to you?”
Conahegg shrugged, his face still unreadable. He might have been happy, despondent, joyous, lustful or mad. I couldn’t tell.
It bothered me how quickly he could shut himself down. A trick he learned in the Marines no doubt, and the skill obviously served him well in his job as sheriff. But I couldn’t help wondering how he managed to suppress his feelings like a highly trained actor switching roles.
Me, even when I tried to cut off my emotions, the best I could muster was to make my feelings small like the old-time television sets that faded to a white dot. A dot that lingered for hours on the screen after the power was off.
What happened to his emotions? Did they become such a muddy amalgamation in the back of his brain that he never authentically felt anything? I found the thought disconcerting.
“I figure Rocky heard about Tim’s erotic adventure and decided to experiment for himself. With the same disastrous results,” Conahegg said. “But it’s a supposition.”
“You’re a guy, tell me, how common is it to try and hang yourself while flogging the dolphin?”
A smile flitted briefly across his lips and I felt inordinately pleased I’d provoked the response in him.
“Flogging the dolphin? Colorful language.”
“Figure of speech.”
He studied me a moment. The smile gone. “Supposedly the orgasms you reach when your air supply is cut off are tremendous.”
“Really?”
His eyes met mine. I couldn’t believe I was discussing orgasms with him. “But I wouldn’t know firsthand.”
“No pun intended?” Suddenly the car was very hot despite the frosty air-conditioning shooting through the vents.
Damn that halfway smile of his. He used it like a razor-sharp knife to slice through my heart. But I didn’t trust the smile. Not for a minute. “Pun intended.”
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you go on home? You can drop by the office later and give me a full statement. I’ll be working late tonight, so whatever time is convenient for you.”
“Okay.” I nodded, thankful for the reprieve. Home sounded very welcoming.
“Can you drive yourself? I could have a deputy take you home.”
“I’m all right,” I said, but was I?
When I got to the house, however, I was surprised, but extremely relieved to see Sissy’s car in the driveway. Then my stomach lurched. Might as well get this over with.
I found her in the kitchen giving Aunt Tessa a perm.
“Hey,” I said, dropping my purse in a chair and trying to act nonchalant. I wanted to hug Sissy and shake her at the same time.
�
�Sissy came home.”Aunt Tessa grinned, stating the obvious. Sissy blatantly ignored me, still pissed off about what happened at Tim’s funeral I was guessing. I was tempted to lecture her for abandoning Denny for three days but I held my tongue. I didn’t want her to run off again.
“I’ve got more bad news,” I said.
“I knew it.” Aunt Tessa nodded. “I found a black widow spider in my shoe this morning. That’s always a bad omen.”
“Actually, it means we need to call the exterminator,” I said. “Don’t belittle her intuition,” Sissy snapped. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us.”
“I do not.”
“Hmmph.”
“Sissy, you better put that perm solution down and have a seat.”
For an instant real fear flashed in her eyes as if somehow she knew what I was going to tell her, then it was immediately replaced by her usual defiance. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I don’t want you to screw up Aunt Tessa’s hair. Sit down.”
“You think…” Sissy started.
But Aunt Tessa must have seen something in my face. She held up a hand. “Sit down and shut up, Sissy.”
Amazingly, my sister obeyed. “Okay. What’s the big news?”
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t believe I was having to tell her two of her boyfriends had died in one week. It certainly wasn’t any easier the second time around. I tried to take her hand in mine but she pulled back.
“Just tell me.”
“Rocky’s dead.”
Her face went totally blank then she said, “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
Her bottom lip began to quiver, then her whole body shook. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” She pushed me away. “You hated him.”
“I hated what he did to you, yes. But I never wanted to see him dead. In fact, I sort of felt sorry for him when you shot him in the toe.”
She laid her head on the table and sobbed.
I paced, not knowing what to say or how to soothe her. My heart ached for what she was going through. But Sissy never turned to me for comfort. Not since we were kids.
Aunt Tessa was sitting at the table, a plastic apron tied around her neck, her hair rolled in tight curls. “How did it happen?”
