Price of Angels (Dartmoor Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  “You won’t go back,” he said. “Hol, I promise you, sweetheart, that you won’t go back.”

  He said, “Trust me. Lead him away.”

  She studied him a long moment, drawing as much strength and grace from his burning eyes as she could, and then she got to her feet, sliding from the booth in a deliberate way, bending over to retrieve her empty tray. If Dewey didn’t glance at the way her white silk shorts rode up as she leaned forward, then there was nothing masculine inside him. And if he didn’t recognize her face when she straightened…

  There, his gaze, fixed to her, his mouth slightly open, his small chest heaving as he drew in a deep breath. He’d seen her.

  Holly made eye contact for one terrible moment, one in which she tumbled unwillingly into the past, remembering all those times he’d told her how special she was, as the ropes bit into her and he heaved his skinny body against hers while her father watched.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw her tray at him like an Olympic discus and sever his head with it.

  Instead she whirled, and ducked between the two registers beside the fountain drink station, and headed down the dark, narrow back hall toward the restrooms.

  She heard her shallow, frantic breathing echoing against the close walls, her sneakers scuffing at the boards.

  Somewhere private, Michael had said. The restrooms wouldn’t do. Anyone could walk in on them. She thought about the alley, and then she thought about Carly and dismissed it. She didn’t want to leave the building. She wanted Michael to be able to find her.

  She was rounding the corner at the back of the hall, turning away from the exterior exit, headed for the locker room when she heard Dewey’s voice behind her.

  “Holly! Holly, wait!”

  She broke into a jog.

  Not the locker room – it was empty now, but who knew if it would stay that way. The girls were always going back to reapply lipstick.

  The hall took another sharp right-hand turn and she reached the staircase that led up to the closed second story. Like so many of the downtown businesses, Bell Bar had residential and office space up above, but it hadn’t been used for years, and had been deemed unsafe by the city. The owner, Jeff went up sometimes, using the extra square footage for storage. But now there was a plastic chain stretched across the bottom of the stairwell, a Keep Out sign fixed at its center.

  Holly clambered over the chain and started up the dark, dark passage, footsteps too loud on the old wooden stairs.

  “Holly!” Dewey called again. He was catching up.

  There was a hall at the top of the stairs, one she could only detect by feel, hands skimming along the dusty plaster on either side of her as she stumbled forward through the dark. There was a light ahead of her, something dim and yellowish, and she moved toward it.

  “Holly! Don’t run from me!”

  The hall emptied into a gallery at the front of the building, one enclosed by a long row of tall windows that perched above the Bell Bar sign on the outer wall below. The light, she knew now, was coming in from the street, the glow of streetlamps and headlights and neon signage in the windows, and the silvery dim glow of the moon, lost amid the smeared yellows and golds of human light.

  Holly pressed her hands to the thick glass and tried to catch her breath, watching the traffic pass below her. This was as close to private at they were going to get. No one could see them from the street. Nothing but moldering junk and old ghosts present to witness what happened up here.

  Footsteps behind her.

  She turned, the window at her back, cold against her shoulder blades, and the ambient light struck off the oversized, childlike angles of Dewey’s face.

  His eyes were huge and wet, glimmering with tears. He approached her slowly, now that she was penned in, one hand hovering in the air like he wanted to reach for her, but wasn’t sure if he should.

  “Holly,” he whispered. “Holly, we looked all over for you. We were so afraid something bad had happened to you.”

  There’d been a time, before, when she’d felt some small shred of sympathy for this man-child, because he’d never been the one to strike her, or take the belt to her. The practitioner of tiny kindnesses in a world of cruelty, his lack of punishment a reward in and of itself.

  But she hated him now, as badly as she hated the other two.

  “What,” she said through her teeth, “bad could possibly happen to me out here? Away from you?”

  Confusion creased his forehead. He took another step closer, and then another. “Holly, why’d you run away? Why would you do that? You know I love you.”

  “Did you kill Carly?” she asked, seething, shaking as he crept even closer. “Was that you or Abraham?”

  “Holly–”

  “You thought it was me, didn’t you? And when you realized it wasn’t, it was too late, and she’d seen your face, and you killed her, so no one would know what you’d done.”

  The tears slipped free and began pouring down his cheeks, shining like glass. He snuffled, his face contorting with emotion. “No, no, I didn’t do that–”

  “You liar! Why are you here?” she demanded. “Can’t you find some other girl? Can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Holly, we love you,” he sobbed. “And we forgive you, for what you did. We–”

  His eyes widened, bugging out of his head. He gasped.

  Then Holly saw the hand at the side of his neck, the bright glint of the knife blade that pressed across his throat.

  “Not a sound.” Michael’s voice came like a low, canine growl from the shadows behind Dewey. His other hand, spectral as it emerged from the darkness, latched onto Dewey’s hair, fingers curling tight, pulling at the scalp.

  Steered between the cruel grip on his hair and the sharp blade at his Adam’s apple, Dewey shuffled to the side, Michael a shadowy wraith materializing behind him, spinning him, pressing him back against the wall.

  The knife shifted and flared as Dewey swallowed. He breathed in shallow huffs, the sweat gleaming on his face.

  Michael seemed inhuman, the way he was so still and coiled, patient in his furious intent. Again, Holly thought of him as canine, like the running silhouette of a dog on the back of his leather cut. All his weight bore down on the hilt of the knife, all of his strength holding back the blade, keeping it from biting into the flesh.

  “You want to say anything to him?” he asked her, and she saw the fast glint of his eyes, as he glanced over at her.

  Holly shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

  Dewey gasped, but Michael moved too fast for there to be a scream. There was no begging or pleading. Dewey’s gasp turned into a low, deep, outward press of breath, like the sound of air leaving an untied balloon.

  With a fluid, sure motion, Michael whipped the knife back and drove it between Dewey’s ribs, leaning into the hilt with hands, arms, shoulders, letting his body force the blade through the skin and tissue, into the heart.

  When he stepped back, Dewey’s lifeless legs crumpled, and he sank down against the wall. The knife was still in him. There was no blood. His head lolled to the side at an impossible slackness, his eyes open and fixed, his mouth agape.

  Dead.

  He was dead.

  No more Holly, Holly, Holly! No more clammy hands. No more cousin for a husband. No more crying at the side of the bed while Abraham took the belt to her.

  Dewey was dead.

  For years, three men had made her life the worst of waking nightmares, and now one of them was dead, in the span of a breath.

  A wild, giddy laughter built in her throat, and she closed her lips against it. She felt lightheaded. She felt sick. She felt –

  Michael turned to face her, his nose a sharp shadow in the filtering light, his eyes like warm glass discs.

  She felt the irrepressible urge to throw her arms around him. She wanted to bury her face in his hot throat, wanted to feel his heart beating against her chest, wanted to feel his hips lifting against her hands, the way
they had last night, when she’d found the evidence of his wanting.

  The way he stared at her now, the hands that had killed her husband held down at his sides, told her that he wanted the same things.

  He took a sharp breath. “Congratulations. You just got a divorce.”

  Holly wanted to take his husband-killing hands into hers and pull him to her, have him press her up against the wall, and bend to take her mouth with his own.

  But she had to be practical. She had to wait, even though an awful, unknown throbbing had started inside her.

  She was breathing hard, her voice a sigh of sound. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “Gimme your car keys, and I’ll take care of it.” He stepped in close to her, until she was enveloped in his shadow. She saw the faint gleam of skin, as he held his hand out to her, palm-up for the keys.

  “I’ll just stay here, then,” she said, her mouth dry, her pulse skipping like moth’s wings in her ears.

  “Finish your shift.” His voice had gone low and rough and completely unregulated. “I’ll come back and take you home.”

  “You will?” She was staring at his hand, the calluses and lines as she pressed her keys into his palm.

  His fingers closed around hers a moment, squeezing. She felt the rapid beat of blood beneath his skin. The same as her own.

  “Michael,” she whispered. She didn’t understand any of this; wasn’t even sure what it was that she wanted so badly.

  “Go downstairs, and wait, honey. Just wait.”

  Stretched thin with nerves, barely managing to smile and speak and get her orders right, it seemed Michael was gone hours longer than the two that he was missing. Then, coming out of the kitchen, she saw him, like he’d sprouted by magic from his favorite booth. He was leaned back against the padded leather, arms folded loosely across his chest, calm and patient as always.

  But when she doubled back, got a Jack from Matt and went to set it on the table, she saw the wicked glimmer in his eyes, the retained intensity of upstairs. Her pulse accelerated, as her hand lingered on the glass and his reached up to press against the back of her wrist, a light stroking that went almost to her elbow and then back, trailing off her fingers onto the warm whiskey tumbler, finally.

  He stared at her face, saying nothing, absorbed by the way she took one small breath after another, her heart electrified by his simple touch.

  “Where is he?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I have a friend who has hogs,” he said, voice even, almost pleasant.

  Holly shuddered. “You want something to eat?”

  “No. I’ll just wait for you.”

  Again, she was struck by the overwhelming urge to fold herself into his lap. She wanted him to comfort her, and kiss her, and do something about the relentless heat beneath her skin.

  As if he sensed that, he said, with an expression she found sweet for some reason, “You want to see my place? It’s not much, but the sheets are clean.”

  “Yes. Yes, please.”

  He nodded, and picked up his drink. “It won’t be long.”

  And it wouldn’t. She went back to work, her body pulsing and glowing and trembling inside the too-tight seams of her clothes, suddenly.

  He didn’t want to leave his bike behind at the bar, so when her shift ended, he walked her to the Chevelle – his hand lingering on the door before he closed it, his breath pluming in the cold air, his eyes still on fire, the desire in him something she could feel against her skin – and then she followed his slender, menacing figure as he led the way on his Harley. A knight errant all in black, threatening and sinister with the leather, and the growl of the engine, and the way he carried himself like he owned all these dark streets around them. He did, didn’t he? The Lean Dogs owned this city.

  He didn’t live far from the heart of town, in an older neighborhood full of tall, crowded trees, the streetlamps dim and flickering, the homes low-slung, well-built, most of the lights out at this ungodly hour. He turned into the driveway of a brick Craftsman home with a wide, concrete porch held up by thick brick columns, the drive sloping down to a parking pad shaded by pines, some errant shine of the moon catching the windows of the closed doors that marked the drive-under garage.

  The dark frightened her, the absolute blackness of it, the way it seemed liquid and alive. The house was a dim shape above, same as the neighboring one, but the yards, the trees, the fences: all of it up to the imagination, and in her mind, crawling with threat.

  The concrete was carpeted with fallen pine needles, and they crunched beneath her shoes as she climbed out. She shuddered hard against the cold, as it wrapped around her bare legs and cut through her thin leather jacket.

  When she shut the door and turned, there was Michael, and his presence made the dark bearable, the cold less penetrating. Wordlessly, he slipped an arm around her waist, urging her against his side as they started up toward the house. Whether he meant it as support or affection, she didn’t care. He was warm, and solid, and strong, and she put her arm around him, too, inside his open jacket, where she could feel the heat of his skin against her hand, through his shirt.

  “This is a big house,” she said, fighting the chattering of her teeth as they reached the top of the drive and she got her first good look at the dark lines of roof and porch. “I love this porch,” she said, as they stepped into its shade, and there was the sound of keys rattling as Michael fished them from his pocket.

  He snorted. “You don’t have to compliment the house.”

  “But I like it,” she protested. “It’s not what I expected.”

  He made an inquiring sound, unlocking the deadbolt with one hand while he held onto her with the other.

  “I thought you might have a cave up in the mountains somewhere,” she said, biting on a laugh.

  “Sounds about right,” he said, pushing the door inward, pulling her in alongside him.

  The warmth struck her first. It was cozily warm in here, the air dry and soothing, like he’d left the heat running while he was gone, the floor humming faintly underfoot to prove the point.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she murmured, as they finally broke apart and Michael turned to relock the door.

  “I hate winter,” he muttered, as way of explanation, and Holly smiled. So he wasn’t all frigid and cold. She’d been learning that, but the blast of heat proved it further.

  There was a small clicking sound and then buttery light filled the space around them, the house rushing to take shape.

  They stood in a tiled foyer, the light coming from a pendant chandelier overhead. Two brick columns set off the entryway from the living room beyond, and the furnishings surprised her.

  Here in the foyer, a slender table held a ceramic urn with a spray of silk pussy willow fanning against the cream wall. Opposite was a mirror, a coat rack, a brass umbrella stand in the shape of an opening tulip, tiny brass rabbits etched at its base.

  The living room was painted a rich gold, the couch a comfy-looking sectional in a dark brown plaid, the carpet tall cream shag, the recliner a leather La-Z-Boy. There was a stone fireplace, its hearth heaped with logs, flanked on both sides by built-in bookcases. That was where the TV was, the only thing modern and shiny about the room – the big flat screen fitted into the proper alcove, bordered top and bottom by shelves stacked with DVD cases.

  “I bought the place furnished,” Michael explained without her having to ask. “I didn’t see much sense in changing anything.”

  “I understand,” she said, glancing toward him. “That’s how I feel about my loft. Why bother, you know?”

  He wouldn’t look at her, took off his jacket and hung it up, reached for hers as she followed suit.

  “Well,” she said, “at least it’s warm, and it’s cozy.”

  “I’m having another drink,” he said, leaving her to follow as he set off through the living room.

  He was nervous now, Holly guessed. Or reconsidering. Something. At least she knew she hadn’t ima
gined the burn in him before. Otherwise, she might have felt discouraged, might have felt her own heat dimming some.

  The kitchen was spotless, but dated: glass-faced white cabinets, green soapstone counters, tiny octagonal floor tiles and white squares for the backsplash. There was a bay window, with a table in it, and beyond, Holly could just make out the shadows of trees. She wondered what the view was like during the day.

  Michael reached into an upper cabinet, pulled down two squat blue glasses from what looked like a set of dozens, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. He poured more than either of them needed in each cup.

  “Were the dishes part of the furnishings?” Holly asked, smiling.

  “Yep.” He turned, and pressed one of the glasses into her hands.

  She knew, the second her fingers touched his, but was confirmed when she glanced up and met his gaze: he was throbbing too. He was full of that same pulsing energy, just like her. It shone wildly in his eyes, caught in the sharp corners of his mouth, vibrated through his skin where their hands still touched.

  Holly took a deep, shaky breath. “What is this?”

  Holding eye contact, he threw down his whiskey in one swallow, his voice just a little hoarse afterward. “It’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”

  Her chest squeezed. She was too afraid to hope he was right, but she wanted him to be. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He plucked the glass from her hand – she didn’t want it anyway. Then he caught her by the face, his palms gentle against her cheeks, but his grip firm, and drew her into him, angling her chin so when he bowed his head, his mouth could slant sideways over hers.

  She moaned against his lips at the first touch. She wanted to anchor herself, have some point to hold onto, and she clutched at his shirt, greedy handfuls of the soft cotton.

  Michael pulled her even closer, until she was resting against the length of his body, one hand moving to cup the back of her head, the other finding her waist, holding her to him. There was fear, that instant flash of it that came with being touched by large, male hands. But his tongue was hot as it passed between her lips, and full of the sharp taste of whiskey.