by Brenda Novak
He ran his hand lovingly under Jill’s chin. She didn’t resist, and he could tell she’d fallen under the spell of the morphine he had given her. He felt himself stir, but it wouldn’t be right. He couldn’t take the chance that he would harm the child.
She was so lovely, her mouth slightly open as she slipped into sleep. Oh, just a moment or two of that softness couldn’t hurt. He’d be so gentle and sweet.
He loosened his pants and pulled down the blanket. Jill was naked in the bed, and he stretched out beside her. As he entered her unconscious body, he whispered the rest of the story in her ear.
“And the man returned to the cave, but humanity was stupid and didn’t believe him. They finally got fed up with his lies and killed him. But no, my darling, that won’t be the fate of our son. He will be strong, strong enough to lead them all out of the cave, into the light, and let the lives of all those worthy begin again.”
Fifty-Eight
After an hour of arguing, Taylor relented and agreed to head home for the night. The whole crew had ganged up on her, insisting that she was too sick to go through another all-nighter. They’d all had rest, and she hadn’t. Marcus and Fitz had taken it upon themselves to secure a warrant for the records of all the professors from the Classics and Theology departments at Vanderbilt, and were on their way with a court order to drag Vanderbilt’s Dean out of bed to gain access to the names of their possible suspects. Lincoln was setting up to run the names they retrieved through his databases and look for past indiscretions that would help solidify their case. Price had practically forced her out the door, handing her jacket and purse to her and walking her to the stairs that led to the parking lot.
Baldwin drove her into the night, stopping briefly at the Walgreens drive-through to pick up a prescription for antibiotics Taylor’s doctor had called in for her. He followed her directions and got her home.
Taylor lived in a remote, rambling log house with lots of windows, perched on several acres of land. She loved watching the animals, kept the bird feeders full all year and salt licks out for the deer. The inside of the house was as comfortable as the outside, with a soft leather sofa, throw rugs, and a big fireplace with logs stacked perfectly on the brick hearth. A second-story loft overlooked the open living/dining room, and Taylor made her bedroom up there, along with her precious pool table. She was as dependent on the table as she would have been a drug to help her relax in the middle of her sleepless nights. It was a great pastime for an insomniac. She had an office set up in the bedroom downstairs, with inset bookcases filled with everything from the hardbound classics to paperback mysteries. It was lived in, comfortable, away from the world she had to deal with day in and day out. It was a little lonely at times, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a casual and comfortable lifestyle for her.
Seeing Baldwin in her space confused her. He fit so well. Like he’d been a part of her world from the beginning.
Baldwin got Taylor laid out on her couch, a mug of steaming green tea sitting on the coffee table next to her. Taylor was impressed by his domesticity and bedside manner. He had been clucking over her like a mother hen since they got to her place and was currently in her kitchen, using her pots and pans to make her an omelet. Normally, she would have been uncomfortable having him wait on her hand and foot, but she felt so lousy, she didn’t have the strength to argue. She relaxed a little, letting herself enjoy his ministrations. She heard him humming to himself as he put together her food, then laughing and scolding the cat for trying to get into the eggs.
As he came back into the living room carrying their dinner, he couldn’t help but notice that despite being sick, run down, and sleepless for two nights, Taylor looked beautiful. She fit so well into her home. She’d changed clothes when they’d gotten there, and was casually dressed in cut-off jeans and a long-sleeved University of Tennessee T-shirt; her feet bare revealed toenails polished hooker red, which surprised him a bit. She didn’t seem the type. He was surprised to find himself wondering how he could fit into the sanctuary Taylor had created for herself.
He shook his head, laughing quietly. Man, he was getting the cart before the horse. But he recognized he was finally coming back to life, and he liked how he felt when he was with her. As strange as it was, he sensed that it was right.
They ate together in silence, both anticipating their next moves. Baldwin finished his eggs, pushed the plate away and gave Taylor a smile.
“You want me to make a fire?”
“Aren’t you just the little domestic?” she teased. “Yes, that would be nice. Thanks.” She settled in deeper, grabbed her cup of tea and watched him. She was drawn to him in a way she couldn’t understand. It was more than lust: though he was a very handsome man, he was still much too thin and had dark circles under his eyes. But she could sense the change in his energy. The sense of purpose he carried with him was palpable.
He got the fire lit and returned to the chair facing the sofa. “Can I get you anything else? More tea? More food? Soup? You have some nasty canned stuff in the pantry. I could heat it up for you?”
“Nasty canned stuff? Thanks for the commentary on my taste. No, I’m fine. I just want to sit here and relax. It seems like days since I even sat down.”
“It has been a crazy couple of days.”
“Do you think Fitz and Marcus have found anything yet?”
“Taylor, they told you they’d call the minute they had anything worthwhile. There has to be thirty or so professors for them to look at, and the school is still closed after the storm. It’s going to take them some time. They’re good cops. They won’t miss anything.”
“I know, I just feel so stupid lying here doing nothing.” She coughed.
“Like you sneezing all over the faculty at Vandy is going to help things? C’mon, Taylor, give yourself a break. Let’s give them a little bit of time, and we’ll call and check on their progress later. Why don’t we just talk about something other than the case for a little bit?”
Taylor gave him a sidelong glance. “Like what?”
“How about these panic attacks you’re having? You want to tell me about that?”
“Not particularly. Want to tell me how things are going with you?” she challenged.
Baldwin looked off into space and gave a big sigh. “Okay, if I talk then you have to. Fair enough?”
“No, but I’ll think about it.”
“Great, thanks. So what do you want to know?”
She looked him frankly in the eyes. “I want to know why you were busy playing with your life when I met you.”
He snorted. “You are direct, aren’t you?”
“C’mon, Baldwin. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He sat back in the chair. “If I tell you this, you may feel you need to get involved, and I don’t want that.”
“I’m already involved, Baldwin,” she said softly.
He met her gaze with a long look. “That’s not exactly what I meant, but it’s good to know. I’m feeling involved myself. Very involved.” He smiled at her, then his lips curved down in a frown. “You know the whole story about the shooting up in Virginia, right? How I got three good men killed for no reason?”
“I’ve heard some. You went in to a suspect’s home, he came back unexpectedly, drew down on you, and you shot him. But he got off shots and hit the three you were with. It shook you up and you left for a while. That’s what I know.”
“That’s the official story, but it was a little more complicated than that.” He got up and went to the fire, throwing on another log and using the poker to mess with the hot coals.
“Tell me, Baldwin. Is that not the whole story?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “No. It’s not the whole story. Harold Arlen was a bad man, Taylor. Evil. We just didn’t have the evidence to sink his ship. He was raping and killing little girls, and we couldn’t get him for the murders. There was no evidence at his house except tons of child porn, which wasn’t enough. We couldn
’t find any other properties he may have used to rape and kill them. Nothing. But I knew it was him. Knew it in my heart. I knew if we let it go, he’d just kill again. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“What did you do, Baldwin?”
He turned to her. “No one knows this, Taylor. At least not officially. Have you ever done something you know in your heart is wrong, but it’s the only way you can see to resolve a situation?”
Taylor was getting an idea of what he was talking about. “You planted evidence,” she said flatly.
He hung his head, turning back to the fire. “Yeah, I did. I know it was wrong, but I had to get this guy. There was blood evidence in the case; enough from one of the girls that could be slipped out and used. I took a handkerchief and put some of the blood on it, broke into his house, put it in one of his dresser drawers. When we went in with the warrant, one of the guys found the handkerchief. We had him, and he was going away for a long time.”
“God, Baldwin. How could you do that?” Taylor knew she sounded judgmental, and tried to change her tone. “You just weren’t thinking, right?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I was in a pressure cooker situation, with other…” He stopped abruptly, like he’d change his mind about telling her something. “It seemed like the only course of action I had left. And it got three guys killed. I got three guys killed. Arlen got off the shots before I could react. I hit him and he went down, but I was too late.” His eyes were welling up; he shook his head sharply to stop them from spilling over. “But that’s not the worst of it. Arlen was dead and the case was solved, right? A few weeks later another little girl turned up. She’d been dead for at least a couple of weeks and was majorly decomposed. But there was no way to know for sure if it was another one of his victims that we had missed or a copycat killer. The scene was in close proximity to where we found the other girls. The body was placed in the same position as the others. There was no discernible DNA. It looked just like one of his. But there were a couple of unfamiliar hairs found on the girl. They ran them for DNA, but it wasn’t a match to Arlen.
“I could tell by the way everyone looked at me that they knew what I had done. They knew it was my fault. I just couldn’t handle it. So I ran, and when I couldn’t live with myself anymore, I decided that not living was a much better choice than living in the hell on earth I had created. I just didn’t have the guts to flat-out do it.”
To admit what he’d done aloud was too much for him, and he felt the despair creeping back. He went to the window, stared out into the black forest. He was shocked when he felt Taylor’s arms around him, holding him from behind.
“Baldwin, what you did? There’s no excuse. You knew in your heart it was Arlen, that he was doing the killing. You stopped a horrible person from committed even more crimes. You have to find a way to forgive yourself. You made a terrible mistake, Baldwin, but you made it for the right reasons. That’s good enough for me.”
The relief washed over him, a waterfall of cascading emotions. He turned in her arms, and before he could stop to think, kissed her deeply. She kissed him back.
He didn’t know how long it had been when they finally came up for air. Taylor was smiling but turned away, suddenly shy. Though ever fiber of his being cried out to hold her again, to feel her soft lips on his forever, he knew he couldn’t push. Taylor sat back down on the couch, but when he moved toward the chair she patted the seat next to her. He joined her with a sigh. Taylor caught the sound and put her hand on his arm.
“I know you’ve been through a lot, but it’s over now. And you’re here. With me. Do you think you can make a go at this? Living your life, I mean.”
Baldwin leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly. “I think I may have enough reason, now.”
“Good. ‘Cause I’d kinda like you to stick around for a while.” She smiled. “Even though I probably just gave you my cold.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, memorizing the feel of her beneath his hands, then folded her into his arms. “I don’t care if I get pneumonia. I’ll be here for as long as you want.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Taylor suddenly felt too exhausted to keep her eyes open. The emotion of the case, Baldwin’s confession, her feeling like crap, was all catching up with her. She felt safe in his arms, and drifted off to sleep.
Fifty-Nine
Bullets were flying in the darkened sky. She heard them whizzing by her head, felt the heat as they ripped through her hair. She saw him go down. She was screaming, clawing at him, trying to get away from the hand that reached up and grabbed her by the throat. She fell beside him. He was dead. She could see the entrance wound, glistening silver in the moonlight. Her hands were slick with blood: it covered all of her, drowning her in its viscous blanket, dragging her down into the weeds as they curled and spread over her body. There was no hope. There was no pain. She gave up her struggle and lay serenely next to the empty soul beside her, waiting for the strangled vines to drag her into the earth to decompose along with him. She raised her hand, only mildly revolted as she watched the flesh fall off the bone. She turned to the skeleton beside her and saw the mandible smile, heard his disembodied voice. And then she was back on solid ground, walking away from David’s body, and she could see Baldwin in the distance, his hand held out, beckoning to her…
“Taylor! Taylor, wake up!” Baldwin was shaking her. She fought her way out of the dream to find him standing over her, eyes wild, hair disheveled. She looked at him vacantly, still caught up in the remnants of the dream.
“I was dreaming,” she murmured.
“No, you were having a nightmare. You were yelling to someone named David, telling him to get down. Are you okay? Who is David?”
Taylor stood up, spilling the afghan and the cat onto the floor.
“What time is it?”
Baldwin looked at his watch. “Almost five in the morning. Taylor, what was the dream about?”
A few hours of sleep had made her feel better. She ignored Baldwin for the moment and wandered into the kitchen. She pulled a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, gulped it down and grabbed another. Setting it on the counter, she opened the antibiotics and popped three in her mouth.
“Taylor, you’re not going to get better any faster OD’ing on Keflex.”
“I feel better already. How long was I out?” She made her way back into the living room and collapsed on the couch. Jade jumped into her lap and made a nest, purring heavily. Taylor ran her hand absently along her silky back.
“About five hours. You zonked out so hard, I just let you sleep.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a sad smile. “You know the best thing about not sleeping for the past couple of days? I didn’t have any dreams.”
“What’s up with the dreams? Is David the detective you shot?”
She nodded slowly. “David Martin. Dirty as they come. And I came this close to getting indicted for his murder. Murder, Baldwin. He breaks into my house, attacks me, and I’m the one that nearly takes the fall. I don’t know how he could do that to me. How he could put me in the position he put me in. Trying to bribe me to let him go on his happy little way.” She snorted in disgust, shaking her head.
“There’s more, isn’t there, Taylor?” Baldwin reached over and took her hand. She wanted to pull away, but resisted the urge. It was time to get it off her chest.
“Yeah, well, we were lovers, briefly. No one but Sam knows, though I think Fitz suspects.”
Baldwin felt a pang of jealousy and shoved it aside. The man was dead, for God’s sake. He had no business being jealous of a ghost. But this was a ghost who was haunting his woman’s dreams.
He understood, though. Ghosts visited him as well. Every night since the shooting, the three men who had been shot came and sat on the foot of his bed, watching him. He shook off the memory. “So you dream about him?”
“I dream about his death. Same dream every night since I shot him. He gets shot, goes down, and I go down
with him. He’s decomposing, and I am too. His skull turns to say something to me, and then I wake up. It’s expanded recently. All the victims I haven’t saved show up, too. This massive field of graves, and they’re all talking to me.”
“What do they say?”
“‘Help me. It’s your fault.’ I thought I heard something different this time. He said, ‘Go on.’ I don’t really know what that means.”
Baldwin sat next to her and took her other hand. “I think it means he’s telling you he doesn’t blame you for shooting him. Were you in love with him?”
Taylor shook her head. “That’s what’s so awful. I wasn’t. I was lonely, and he was there. It didn’t even last very long. It was a casual thing for me, but, yes, he loved me and wanted more. I broke it off, then he approached me to keep my mouth shut about his little venture, and I just snapped. I felt like he’d betrayed more than just my body, you know? He put my whole career on the line. If I turned him in to Internal Affairs, I might have taken the brunt of it. He could have said that I was in on it from the beginning, make it a “he said, she said.” IA doesn’t like to see their cops embroiled in illegal doings, you know? Especially the female cops.
“But the worst of it was the satisfaction I felt when I saw him lying dead on the floor. I felt like he deserved it. And that’s just so wrong.”
“That’s a lot of guilt to be carrying around, Taylor. It wasn’t your fault you had to shoot him. He did attack you. These things happen.”
“These things happen,” she echoed. “That’s what I just don’t get. I don’t know why these things ‘just happen.’ Why do they just happen?”
“If I could tell you that Taylor, I would be God. And I’m not.”
