by Ana Barrons
“Did they agree to do that?”
“Yeah.” He stared at his phone, willing it to ring. “It’ll be pretty late by the time we get back, though. I still think it would be smarter to go tomorrow, but”—he held up his palm, anticipating her reaction—“we could still stay in a hotel in Virginia and go back in the morning when it’s light.”
“Together, presumably.” She didn’t look at him when she said that.
He started to come back with a rejoinder but decided it wasn’t worth it. It was probably unrealistic to think they could get beyond their past even in the best possible case.
He was going to have to get used to not being with her.
It might never feel okay, but too much water had passed under the bridge now to change that. He’d made his choice—to try to save his father—and however that worked out, getting her to understand it, accept it, forgive him and, ultimately, to trust him enough to love him… Maybe that was too much to ask anybody.
He checked his watch. “Our plane isn’t for almost three hours. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend that time here than at Logan. So unless you have some objection, I’d like to take a look through those boxes.”
“Be my guest.”
John lifted the top box from the corner and brought it into the sitting room. He threw a small log on the fire, more to bolster his spirits than to drive away the cold, and began sorting through odds and ends—hairbrushes, perfume bottles, match books, buttons—the minutia of daily life. When he was done he pulled out the other, heavier box, which was filled mostly with scrapbooks and framed photos, picked up each one and examined it.
At the very bottom of the box was a high school yearbook. Class of 1977. It had to be Sharon’s yearbook. He sat back and leafed through. The individual shots of the seniors were in the back, so he began to go through them. It was a thick book and there had to be at least five hundred seniors.
He flipped to the L section and felt a shock of recognition when Sharon Lavoie’s face appeared on the page. Was this what Hannah looked like in high school? He sensed she was staring at him, but he didn’t look up.
There were subtle differences between the women. Hannah’s eyebrows were more pronounced, her eyes a bit bigger. Sharon Duncan’s smile, that of an untroubled seventeen- or eighteen-year-old, was one he’d never seen on Hannah. Maybe someday he would see that kind of smile on her.
And maybe someday bears would stop shitting in the woods.
Under Sharon’s photo was the list of activities and honors. Field Hockey, 9, 10. Prom Chair, 12. Newspaper, 10, 11. Drama club, 9-12. And so on. When he first opened the book, John had noticed some of the club headings, so he flipped back now, curious to see more of the woman who looked so eerily like Hannah. The woman his father had fallen in love with—and loved still. How easy it was for John to understand that, now.
There were four pages of photos of the drama club. One was a group shot, and Sharon was in the second row, that beautiful smile on her face. The other photos were from plays the group had performed. Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie, and a couple with names he didn’t recognize. He spotted Sharon in a long dress, arms outstretched to a boy in ragged clothing and read the caption below.
A student-produced play written by Philip Krantz, it said. A unique take on Beauty and the Beast, with Sharon Lavoie as—
“Holy shit.”
Hannah appeared beside him. “What? What did you find?”
He pointed at the photo, unable to speak over the pounding of blood in his ears. Hannah leaned closer to examine the picture.
“Oh my God,” she whispered several seconds later. “That’s my mother, playing—” She brought her hand to her mouth.
“Belle,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
John flipped back to the group shot of the drama club. “All of the people in this group, and any number of people at her school, knew your mother played Belle in that play.”
Hannah was reeling from the discovery of the photo. John’s eyes had a new light to them, though, which she was heartened to see. He was the FBI agent, and if he believed they’d stumbled on to something then maybe they really had. “But that’s a whole lot of people to follow-up with.”
John had punched a series of numbers into his cell phone and was now holding it to his ear. “That’s the point. We can’t do it ourselves, but the FBI can. They’ve got databases that—”
“What?”
He held up a finger. “Ron, this is John Emerson. Look, I’ve got a lead on the Sharon Duncan murder case. I believe the same guy is currently stalking her daughter.” He paused and glanced at Hannah. “I think it’s time we met and talked. I’m not keeping my cell on, for reasons I think you already know, but if you’ll leave me a number I can reach you at, I’ll call you. I’m in Marblehead right now, as you may have guessed, but I’ll—we’ll be at my place tonight.” He gave his number, clicked the phone shut and stuck it in his breast pocket.
“Who was that?”
“Ronald Geer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before? You said you were going to call a friend.” As soon as the words left her lips, she realized how contentious she sounded, but damn it, her emotions were all over the place where John was concerned.
John raised his face to the ceiling and blew out a breath. “Please don’t start bitching at me again, Hannah, okay? I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you.”
At that moment, something inside her snapped. “Oh, so I’m the shrew now, is that it? Never mind that you’ve held something back from me every step of the way. If you’d just told me the truth right from the beginning—”
“You never would have let me in the door,” he shot back. “The only reason you agreed to help me was because my father knew about the stalker. If I’d told you up front I was Sam Daly’s son and wanted you to help me prove his innocence, you would have thrown me out on my ass and you know it.”
She swallowed. He was right about that. “You should have told me who you were before you made love to me.”
“By the time we made love, I cared too much to risk losing you.”
“Cared too much to lose my memories, you mean. Well, now you know my memories are worthless, so what’s to keep you around?”
His face was turning red. “You really want to know why I haven’t said the hell with you, take your sarcasm and stick it?”
“Yes!”
“Because I love you, goddamn it! I love you and I’m scared to death of losing you. Happy now?”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. All she could do was stare at the angry, hurting man who had just thrown the words she’d wanted to hear right in her face. He stood there running his hands through his hair, trying to regain his cool but having no luck. A couple of seconds later he murmured, “Fuck this,” under his breath, grabbed his jacket off the bed and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him. She sat down on the couch, bent forward with her hands tucked between her knees, incapable of thought. The rolling suitcases lay open on the bed. She should really go and collect their toiletries so they didn’t accidentally leave anything behind. But she didn’t move. She couldn’t. There was only one thing she could do at the moment.
She waited.
It was after ten by the time they were sitting in a cab on their way to John’s apartment. Neither of them had said much since he had stormed out of the room back in Marblehead. He came back as furious as he’d left, grabbed their bags, tossed them and the two boxes of Sharon Duncan’s things into the trunk of the rental car and started off for the airport. Hannah’s one attempt at conversation had been met with a curt reply that confirmed he was in a funk and was not receptive to anything she had to say. All he’d said as they stood in the cold waiting for a cab was “We’re going to my place, and you can give me shit about it if you want, but it won’t get you anywhere.”
Of course, that hadn’t sat well with her, so she’d given him a flip answer. “I suppose if I refuse you’ll shoo
t me.” To which he’d given her a look that could have shattered steel. She’d wisely shut up after that. Not because he frightened her, but because he was obviously struggling so hard with his feelings—particularly with a declaration of love he had to have been fighting for quite a while—and she didn’t want to risk an explosion right there in the taxi line.
His place turned out to be a furnished apartment with none of the amenities of a real home. The walls were cream colored and bare. A couch and boxy upholstered chairs with wooden arms and matching lamp tables made up the living room, which showed the only signs of life—two empty Corona bottles on the coffee table. As soon as they walked in the door, John went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, took a long sip and began a detailed search of the living room.
“Want something?” His tone said he was just being polite.
“A little wine would be nice.”
“I only have beer.”
“In that case I’ll have a beer.”
“Help yourself.”
She did. “When you said you only had beer, you weren’t exaggerating.” She opened a Corona while she scanned the shelves. “There’s nothing in here but beer, cold water, a pizza box and Chinese takeout containers. You don’t even have mustard. Or eggs.”
“Thank you, I didn’t need you to take inventory of my refrigerator.”
She sipped the ice-cold beer in the small kitchenette. “Good Lord, you’re prickly.”
John said nothing as he inspected the front door. He murmured something unintelligible, then flipped both locks. “You’re welcome to take the bedroom. I can bunk out here.” The pain in his voice was almost too much to take.
“Could we talk for a minute?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Do you want the bed or not?”
“Not.”
“Fine. Do you need a shower?”
“Depends on whether you need me to be clean.”
He finally looked at her. “What?”
She tried to smile but wasn’t sure she pulled it off. “When I slip into your bed later. If you’d rather have me clean then yeah, I’ll take a shower. If you don’t care…”
John closed his eyes. “Don’t yank me around, Hannah. If you want to sleep with me, just come into the bedroom now. But do me a favor and don’t come if you’re going to tell me there’s no way we can be together. After this, I mean.” He opened his eyes. “After all my lying. And hurting you.”
Her heart felt huge in her chest. She set her beer down on the counter and walked to him slowly. She stopped a couple of feet away from him and could see the fear in his eyes. “You didn’t want to tell me, did you?”
“No. I didn’t want to tell you almost as much as I didn’t want to love you. But I do, and there’s nothing I can do about that now.”
Warmth tingled through her body, and a slender shoot of hope rose through the raw wound in her chest. She stepped closer and laid her hand over his heart. The other she kept wrapped around her middle. “And that’s why you’ve been so angry all evening.”
“I’ve been angry since I was twelve years old,” he said, his voice rough. “About everything. But nothing has ever made me as angry as losing someone I love.”
She looked deep into his eyes. Whatever he had lied to her about before, he wasn’t lying about this. Somehow she knew that with certainty. Still…
“I don’t know where this leaves us,” she said, looking down. Trust was a fragile thing. It wouldn’t be fair to tell him she loved him, only to say later that she couldn’t be with him. When she looked up, his gaze gripped her soul.
“That’s up to you. All I know is I love you so much it takes my breath away.” He reached out and stroked her hair. “I think I could die of love for you.”
She tried to imagine walking away from him, but couldn’t. “Let’s take it a day at a time,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his cheek. “We’ll never know whether we can get past this if we don’t try.”
He pulled her into his arms. “What would you suggest as a first step?”
“How about a little honesty from me?”
He tipped her chin up, frowning. “Okay. About what?”
She had trouble holding his gaze. “That whole bondage thing, with my robe belt.”
He swallowed hard. “Just say it.”
“That was a first for me. And I never, uh, took Thornton in my m—”
He laid two fingers over her lips and shushed her. The frown was gone and his shoulders looked more relaxed. “I don’t need to hear more. You had a right to be angry. And to use me, if that’s what you were doing.”
She fingered his belt buckle, heart pounding in anticipation. “I wouldn’t mind using you again.”
He searched her face, no doubt making sure he understood, then unbuckled his belt and slid it off. He kissed her hard, probing with his tongue while he unfastened her bra, and then pulled her sweater and bra over her head. When she was standing before him naked from the waist up, he reached behind her and bound her wrists. Excitement skittered up her arms and rippled through her body. She was at his mercy, and she knew what he wanted—what they both wanted.
He nudged her ahead of him into the bedroom and flipped on a lamp, flooding the small room with a dull yellow glow. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was uninteresting, sparsely furnished and messy. But the bed was big, and when he shut the door behind them, she noticed the full-length mirror on the door facing the bed. She looked up at him, saw the heat in his eyes and felt her nipples tighten.
“Now what?” she whispered.
He guided her toward the bed, but stopped when her back hit the metal frame. When he bent to pick up a necktie off the floor, she saw that he’d positioned her so she was facing the mirror. He wrapped the tie around the leather belt binding her wrists and tied her to the bedframe. Then he knelt in front of her.
“Watch everything I do,” he said.
“I…I will.”
He started by kissing her belly, big hands covering her breasts, tugging at her nipples as she watched, her eyes half-closed, lips parted. She gasped when he took one hard nipple into his mouth and sucked like a starving man. One hand worked the fastening on her jeans and pulled them down over her ass while he continued to suckle and knead her breasts. He skimmed a thumb lightly through her sex and it came away wet.
“I’m going to lick your cream off your nipple,” he said, then proceeded to coat her nipple with her own juices and run his tongue slowly around it until he’d lapped up every last drop.
“Use your tongue there,” she whispered. She was trying to wiggle her jeans off her legs so she could spread them, but he insisted on tormenting her, rubbing the juice on her nipples and licking it off.
“Please,” she begged, tugging at her bonds, wishing she could take matters into her own hands but at the same time totally turned on by her immobility.
Finally, finally, he tugged her jeans down her legs, but only allowed her to pull one leg free. He tied the other one to the corner post with her pants. Then he pushed her free leg to the side, lifted her foot and wrapped his hand around her ankle to hold it in place on his shoulder. She was completely open to him.
“Now,” she groaned.
But John had other ideas. He nibbled on her thighs, avoiding the very spot where she wanted his mouth.
“Please.” Her pride was gone. Watching the whole scene in the mirror was monumentally erotic, and she was so ready to come.
Instead he turned her to the side and nipped at her ass. She could feel the sticky wetness on the inside of her thighs, see John’s fully dressed, powerfully built body ravishing her naked one. Slowly. Too slowly. He was killing her.
And then, when she couldn’t wait anymore and her voice was raspy from begging, he brought his impossibly hot, impossibly sensual mouth between her legs and began to feast. She watched him from above, his dark head moving between her thighs, watched him in the mirror, the muscles in his hand and lower arm bunching as he clutched
on to her ankle, holding her legs open wide so he could run his tongue over every part of her swollen lips, thrust it up inside of her until she screamed his name. And came, and came, and came.
Hannah woke with a start. Some sound had invaded her sleep, and she was suddenly wide awake. John’s arm was slung over her hip, his long body sprawled diagonally across the bed. He had dragged out their lovemaking while she was bound to the bed, driving her wild, keeping her on the knife’s edge until she’d pleaded herself hoarse, and then, after he released her, thrust his cock deep inside and fucked her hard and fast. Feverishly. At some point she’d slid into a deep, dark sleep.
John’s steady snoring told her he was still out like a light. She smiled in the dark.
Good sex will do that to you.
But she needed to pee, so she slid out from under his arm and made her way in the dark, down the short corridor to the bathroom. She managed to snag John’s slightly ripe long-sleeve tee shirt off the floor and pulled it down over her head. It hung to her thighs.
When she came out of the bathroom, she was more wide awake than she really wanted to be, but decided to make use of the time rather than go back and risk waking John. He was exhausted, and not just from the vigorous sex. She would likely hit the wall herself before too long, but now would be a good time to go through the boxes.
She turned on a table lamp in the living room and pulled out the yearbook. First she went to her mother’s portrait and then to the drama-club section.
Sharon Lavoie as Belle.
She felt a shiver down her spine. The thrill of learning that John loved her had given her a respite from the disturbing and increasingly complicated situation she found herself in. She was being stalked by a man who may have been her mother’s killer. The man convicted of killing her mother could go free after twenty-three years of imprisonment. John would most likely lose his job with the FBI. Thornton could go to prison.
As always, pain stabbed into her heart when she thought of Ty losing his father that way. In adolescents poor judgment was common and forgivable. But in an adult? In the father of a teenage boy with a history of drug use? No. She would never forgive Thornton for hiring a known drug dealer with daily access to Ty.
