by Lisa Gardner
Quincy’s palm was rough against her cheek. It tickled her and brought a flood of unexpected heat low in her stomach. She halted, a bit frightened. His lips whispered across her neck. She let her head fall back. She exposed her throat to him. His breath was warm and tantalizing across her collarbone.
He’d go lower, she thought. Must remember to moan. Yellow-flowered fields and smooth-flowing streams. She could feel his lips, firm and skillful. But she could also feel the dark places hovering just out of sight. Yellow-flowered fields and smooth-flowing streams. He would touch her breast. She would arch her back. Get it over with. Get it done.
She felt suddenly, unspeakably sad. She had started this, but it would not be what she needed in the end. And she’d been wrong to do this with Quincy. He wasn’t like the other men. With them it had been cheap and mindless. With this man, it would be blasphemy.
She lowered her head. Don’t let him see her eyes. Don’t let him see her stark and gray and thinking so hard about yellow-flowered fields and smooth-flowing streams and Danny O’Grady holding the shotgun that had blown off her mother’s head.
She ached. She suddenly ached so hard she didn’t know where the pain ended anymore and Rainie Conner began.
Quincy’s hands came up. He feathered back her hair with his fingers. He swept the long, fine strands from her face. And then he kissed the corner of her eye where the first of her tears had gathered.
Rainie scrambled off the bed. “For God’s sake, don’t be so damn nice.”
She came to a halt in front of the rickety table, holding the collar of her shirt shut with her hand and breathing much too hard.
On the bed, Quincy sat up slowly. His dark hair was mussed. She didn’t remember doing that. His cheeks were raspy with five o’clock shadow. She slapped a hand against her throat and belatedly felt the warm flush of whisker burn.
Shit. She was an idiot. She just was. And now she was going to cry, and that would be adding insult to injury. How could one person be so dumb? That was it. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door.
“Stop!”
Quincy snapped the word, shockingly loud in the silent room. Rainie froze.
“Please sit down,” he said more quietly.
“No.” She had her hand on the doorknob and she wasn’t letting go.
“Dammit, sit down!”
She sat in the hard wooden desk chair by the door.
“I’m sorry,” Quincy said shortly. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I didn’t mean to let things get this far. I didn’t mean a lot of things tonight.”
That made her feel better. Rainie pasted a smile on her face that could’ve shattered glass and said, “Ah, thanks, fed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”
“Shut up, Rainie. And give the attitude a rest.”
Quincy rose tiredly off the bed. For the first time Rainie noticed that his hands were trembling. The lines were more pronounced around his eyes. His mouth carried a fresh, grim set. The sight of him like that hurt her. She had done that to him, and she knew it was wrong of her.
She wished she was the type of person … She wished she could erase the grimness from his face.
Instead, she sat, like a bad pupil who’d been caught red-handed and now waited for the blow to fall.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said impatiently. “I’m not your mother, I’m not some abusive husband. Sometimes I feel like wringing your neck, but I’m not going to hit you.”
“Too well bred for that, Quincy? Don’t know how to get down and dirty?”
A muscle leapt in his jaw. She thought she might have pushed him over the edge and she actually felt triumphant. What the hell are you doing, Rainie? Why won’t you just shut up?
She couldn’t help herself. She rose out of her chair, driven by demons she was smart enough to explain but too worn down to control. She walked toward him slowly, watching his eyes narrow again, feeling powerful because of the way his gaze fell to her lips. She undid the button at the top of her breasts.
“No more foreplay,” she whispered. “Let’s just do it. How do well-bred Yankees fuck? Missionary? On top? On bottom? Doggy-style? Sixty-nine? Oh, what would your daddy say?”
She slid loose another button, revealing her worn white cotton bra. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore. She felt giddy. Not part of her body, but far, far away, where she could watch it all unfold as if they were merely characters in a play. How many times before? It didn’t matter. There was always the morning for repentance.
Quincy caught her hand in a tight grip. She smiled and pressed her body against his, wriggling her pelvis suggestively against his erection.
“Fuck me, Quincy,” she murmured in a voice she barely recognized. “Fuck me good.”
And he said harshly, “What was his name? How old were you? Did your mother know, or was she too drunk to care? Goddammit!” He broke off contact, shoving her away and striding across the room as if he could barely contain himself. One moment she was next to his hard form. The next he was gone. She had to put out her hands to steady herself.
“You’ve never told anyone, have you?” he demanded. “And now here I am, and I need to be impartial to help you and there’s not an impartial bone in my body. I want to hunt him down. Christ, I want to break every bone in his body. How many of these assholes can I put away, and it still isn’t enough!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you treat all your women this way? No wonder your life is all work and no play.”
“Rainie, what happened fourteen years ago?”
“Look at the time. Clock has struck midnight. Gotta run.”
“Fourteen years ago. So long, but not long enough, is it, Rainie?”
“Are you going to be around in the morning? We have a lot of work to do, but then you’re not really part of this case team, are you? One phone call and you’re out of here, and we both know it.”
“Rainie—”
“Let it go, dammit! Why the fuck can’t you let it go?”
“Because I’m me! Because I’m not stupid and, so help me God, I’m interested in you! And because some part of you is interested, too, or you wouldn’t keep coming back to my room night after night, looking for conversation. Now here we are. Let’s have the conversation, Rainie. You need to talk. I need to listen. Let’s go. Let’s get it done!”
“I don’t believe this crap.”
“And I don’t believe that you forgot the name of the man who supposedly killed your own mother.”
He delivered the words with brutal force. Rainie drew up short. For a moment she thought she’d heard him wrong. He couldn’t. Nobody—How did—
Her heart hammering so loud in her chest.
But he was Quincy, of course. That’s how he knew. Because he was Quincy, Quantico’s best of the best, and she kept coming to him night after night, feeding him bits and pieces.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said weakly.
Quincy just looked at her.
“I’m not going to simply stand here and take this,” she tried.
Quincy set his lips.
“This is bullshit! I’m going home.” She strode for the door.
He still didn’t say a word.
She got the door open. She threw her coat over her arm with more force than necessary. And she realized for the first time that she wasn’t looking out into the night. For all her bold words, her attention was focused behind her, in the room, on Quincy, who still stood quiet and motionless in the middle of the floor.
So help me God, I’m interested in you … and some part of you is interested, too.
Call me back, she thought suddenly, wildly. That’s what I needed to hear; I just didn’t know it at the time. So call me back. One more time. I can’t do it on my own. I’ve spent too long keeping everything under control. And I’m tired and there was this man on my back deck last night, in black, and you don’t know
what that did to me.
The yellow-flowered fields. The smooth-flowing streams.
She was crying. She felt the tears trickle down her cheeks, and it shamed her. She hated tears. Her mother had told her years ago there was no use in crying, and she’d been right. Tears didn’t change a thing. Oh God, they didn’t change a thing.
The yellow-flowered fields. The smooth-flowing streams.
Call me back.…
Quincy remained silent. And then she realized she wasn’t in the doorway anymore. She stood alone in the parking lot. Her coat was on and the hotel room door was shut. Once more her subconscious was working faster than she was.
The night was thick and cold around her. She looked up and counted the stars until the tears dried on her cheeks.
The vast night in the vast world. She was probably one of the only people on the planet who was comforted by feeling small.
Call me back.…
Rainie crawled into her patrol car. She realized there was crap all over her window. Someone had glued newspaper over the driver’s side and written: We’ll show you justis, bich!
Rainie got out of the car. She used her keys to tear the love letter from her windshield. Night still silent. No movement from Quincy’s room.
She drove home.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Saturday, May 19, 1:44 A.M.
The dirt driveway leading up to Rainie’s house twisted darkly through a river of night. She’d forgotten to turn on the outside lights again and with her glue-smeared windshield she couldn’t see a damn thing. Maybe she’d take a wrong turn and die in a fiery car crash twenty yards from her front door. Or hit a tree and wind up paralyzed. She could be the next Ironside.
Christ, she needed sleep.
Finally pulling up to her home, she retrieved a flashlight from the glove compartment and used it to trek around in the overgrown weeds until she found her hose. Her lawn needed to be mowed. The edges could use some quality time with a weed whacker. Her kitchen still didn’t contain any food. Someday soon she was going to have to return to the more mundane matters of life.
Now she stood outside at two in the morning and rinsed sticky glue and old newspaper from her patrol car, until it gleamed faintly beneath the scrutiny of her flashlight.
Once she was done, the weariness hit her hard. She returned the hose slowly. She let the loose coil fall against the earth. She dragged herself to her front steps.
In the last few days she’d let post-traumatic stress syndrome get the better of her. She’d realized this during the drive home. She’d gone too long with too many nightmares and not enough sleep. She’d stopped eating well and started turning toward Quincy as if he could magically make it all go away. Big mistake. But what was done was done.
Tonight she had bottomed out. Tomorrow she would get back on her feet. She’d been here before and she knew how these cycles worked.
She mounted the front steps and, after a bit of fumbling with her keys, got the door open. She was struck all at once by the cross breeze that hit her face. What the—
She snapped on the hall light, her hand reaching automatically for her sidearm as she searched for other signs of danger. Her gun hand came up empty. She’d locked the 9-millimeter and her backup piece, a .22, in the trunk of her patrol car. Nothing she could do about that now. She flipped the light back off and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Still no sounds out of place. Just the breeze upon her face. She finally pinpointed its source—her sliding glass door was wide open. She could peer straight through to her back deck.
Shep?
He’d turn on a light and sit in plain sight. He would know better than to risk getting himself shot as an intruder.
Dave Duncan.
Rainie slid along the wall until she came to the open space of her kitchen and adjoining family room. Two bedrooms and a bathroom to her left, one big space to her right. No sign of life.
And then her gaze fell on her sofa, and everything inside her plummeted.
It couldn’t be. Definitely not. And just after that conversation with Quincy …
Who would know how to reach inside her deepest, darkest nightmare and rip out her heart?
She scrambled for the light. Scraped the plaster wall with her fingernails and still couldn’t find the damn little switch. Light, light, she had to see. Had to know. It couldn’t be …
And then she had it. The single overhead light flooded the family room. Her old round kitchen table with the pedestal base. Her overstuffed chair. Her faded, comfy blue sofa. And the shotgun. Propped up against the back cushions of the sofa. Five long scratches still scarring the old wooden stock.
Time slipped backward. She couldn’t stop it. She ran into the kitchen, fumbling with knives, but in her mind she was seventeen and had just come home from school.
Stop it stop it stop it. Couldn’t be. The gun had gone to evidence storage in Portland. She knew. She’d looked into it. She’d consoled herself with the knowledge that she’d never have to see the damn thing again.
She grabbed the first knife she came to, a small paring knife, and yelled wildly, “Come out, come out, you bastard!”
But no one answered. Even the owls were silent, while her mother was a headless corpse in the family room and, oh God, what was that on the ceiling? Oh God, what is this, dripping down on me?
“Who are you? Who the fuck are you? Come out where I can see you!”
She tore down the hallway to the two bedrooms. No one. She ripped open the bathroom door. Empty. She raced onto her deck, trying hard not to notice the shotgun but of course staring at it, while time grabbed her by the throat and dragged her down viciously.
Her mother screaming, “You liked it, didn’t you? You no-good whore!”
Herself whimpering, “I just wanted him to stop.”
Shut up, shut up. She was not seventeen anymore. She was not helpless. She was a police officer. She was strong. She squared off against the towering pine trees, threw back her shoulders, and roared, “I know you’re out there. I know you’re watching, Mr. Dave Duncan or whatever the fuck your name is! You want me? Face me like a man, you miserable piece of shit!”
Her mother: “Liar. I should’ve known a daughter of mine wouldn’t turn out any better.”
“He raped me!”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you? Well, don’t look at me to help. I’m not paying for your mistakes.”
“I just want him to stop.…”
“Then rub his balls, honey. That always works for me.”
He had to be out there. She could feel him. The goddamn man from her deck, the big-mouthed stranger reviving old rumors in the bar. The stupid man in black who’d gone from manipulating mere schoolchildren to thinking he could mess with the likes of her.
Rainie ran inside. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with both hands, like it was a serpent ready to strike. But she was ready now. Prepared. Back outside. She hefted the gun overhead. She lofted it against the black velvet sky.
“Is this your idea of a joke? You think you can rattle me! Fuck you! I’m on to you, you son of a bitch. I’m on to you, so fuck you!”
She heaved the shotgun into the air. She watched it whip around and around. Heard it smack hard against a tree trunk. Her breathing was labored. She could hear faint ringing in her ears. Nothing good ever happened when she heard that ringing in her ears.
A moment passed. Then another moment. No sound in the trees, though she knew he had to be there. He’d driven a troubled little boy to murder, and now apparently he was looking for a new source of fun. What was it Quincy had said? The UNSUB would try to manipulate law enforcement for sport. He prided himself on clever acts.
Rainie would show him. Hell, she’d just thrown a shotgun at him and now stood with only her fists and her rage for protection. Oh, and a small paring knife.
She started to laugh. She didn’t know how it happened. She was standing with her legs apart and her hands balled into fists, ready for a fight, and then she
was laughing and thinking of what her mother had yelled at her fourteen years ago.
“Then rub his balls, honey. That always works for me.”
She got it. Fourteen years later, she finally understood her mother’s crude advice. And she had to slap her thighs and hold her middle as the laughter ripped out of her in savage gasps.
She was crying. Tears ran down her cheeks. Second time in one night. Jesus, it sucked to be her.
She was climbing off the deck. Knowing she shouldn’t do it. It was just what the bastard wanted. Having to do it anyway.
Burrowing under the boards into the crawl space, where the soil was rich and dark and she scratched at it with her bare hands. Deeper and deeper and deeper. Still here. Still horrible. All was safe. Still here.
Oh God, she’d had no idea laughing could hurt so much. Oh God, was that her face in the mirror, with the sunken cheeks and mud splatters in the shape of tears?
An hour later she had her 9-millimeter and her flashlight. She went into the woods. She started to hunt. She had no illusions about what she would do if she found the man, and that both terrified her and left her calm.
About two hundred feet from her house, she discovered the hollow. Behind some low shrubs for cover, leaves flattened down from long vigil. Ground was cold now, but she knew he’d been there. Watching. It seemed very clear to her. A man who enjoyed manipulating children to kill. A man who was obviously angry but didn’t have the gonads to do anything about it himself. Who would appeal to him more than a police officer rumored to have killed her own mother?
That was what tonight had been about. First setting the scene at the bar, then supplying the props in her living room. He was inviting her to the party.
“Come back one more time,” Rainie murmured. “Let me show you what I can do, you twisted son of a bitch. Let me show you everything.”
She collected the battered shotgun on her way back in.
Fifteen minutes later the trees rustled as a figure leapt down to the ground not far from where Rainie had been standing. The man touched the dirt that still held her footprints. Then he brought his fingertips to his mouth and licked them.
