Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  He waited. Watched.

  The girl shot out of the water in an explosion of droplets, shimmering like precious metal, in the afternoon sun. He heard the sharp intake of her breath. He felt her energy.

  Like a water nymph she stood waist-deep in the shallows, her skin golden in the sunlight. Her breasts were at last beginning to swell with weight and size.

  He felt the silence of the forest, the denseness of the air, the cool shadows. The presence of the girl in the warm light made his pulse quicken. So alone, so vulnerable.

  Forbidden.

  He wanted her. A primal hunger stirred within him. His need was like an electrical charge passing through his body. The others paled in comparison to this perfect creature of the woods.

  The others…

  Oblivious to the sweat that flowed from his pores, he touched his trembling fingers to the coarse mat of his beard.

  Ripples died away in the pond as the girl stood quietly, wringing water from her long blond hair. Pure. Innocent. Maddening. He thought his heart would burst.

  Celia—no, not Celia, he told himself sharply. Celia was from long ago, from another lifetime almost. Celia was dead.

  The girl in the pond was Tobie. Lovely woman-child of this quiet place, this remote, secluded temple. Forbidden. But this, too, could change.

  She dove under the water with a graceful arching of her body, legs straight, toes pointed. She surfaced and, surrounded by light, totally uninhibited in her naked state, she made her way lithely to shore.

  His legs trembled as he watched. His breathing became hoarse, ragged in his own ears.

  She stopped abruptly, staring directly at him. He was deep enough into the shadows of the forest to be invisible to her, yet, like a wary buck, he froze. Could she feel him watching her?

  When a slow smile appeared on her radiant face, he thought his heart would seize. Was the smile for him? Had she known all along he was there?

  She crouched, picked up something from the ground and tossed it several feet. A tree squirrel scampered forward, snatched the bit of food, then stood on its hind legs, eating the morsel. When it finished, it chattered as if talking to the girl.

  The sound of her soft laughter carried to the watcher in the woods. With a swing of her arm she sprayed the ground with trail mix from a plastic bag, peppering squirrels and chipmunks that had appeared out of nowhere to feed.

  Secure in her belief that she was alone and unobserved, the girl lay down on the flat, sun-warmed rock. After fanning her wet hair out, she stretched her arms above her head and closed her eyes.

  Holding his breath, the big man crept forward.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Roberta Paxton smiled into the camera, her nervousness gradually dissipating. She glanced into the monitor and saw herself; an attractive woman with light chestnut hair, more red than brown under the bright studio lights, looking confident and self-assured. Don’t get too confident, Robbi, he’s poised and ready to pounce.

  The host of Public Events, Bradley Stevens, was on a roll. A notorious flirt on and off the camera, Brad had a special knack for lacing every conversation with sexual innuendos and double entendres. As a frequent guest on his show, Roberta could now hold her own. He no longer had her stammering and blushing like a giddy ingénue, though it didn’t stop him from trying.

  “Let’s see… here’s an event I personally look forward to every August,” Brad said. “The tenth annual Discover Dinner Dance sponsored by the Silver State Women’s Center. Now, there’s a dance anyone can attend, socially incompetent or not. Right, Roberta?”

  “You’re always welcome. Brad.”

  He mouthed the word “ouch”.

  “I’ve been talking with Roberta Paxton, assistant director of the SSWC, a local organization to aid abused women.” Brad casually laid a hand on her knee. She shifted smoothly out of his reach. “Thanks, Roberta, for coming today. It’s always a pleasure to have you”—he paused a beat, then—“on my show.”

  They broke for a commercial.

  Roberta breathed a sigh of relief as she worked to remove the microphone clipped to the lapel of her blouse.

  “Here, allow me.” Brad leaned over, took hold of the clip. His cool fingers fumbled intimately against her skin.

  “I can do it.”

  “Just about got it.” His tone was serious, but she caught a mischievous glint in his eye before he lowered his head again. “Your boyfriend still in New York?”

  “Umm.” Robbi saw a bald spot at the top of his head, the flesh stained a dark brown to match his hair. Shoe polish? She quickly looked away before the urge to laugh got the best of her.

  Under his breath he said, “Stick around, we’ll go to lunch afterward.”

  “Can’t.”

  “A drink?”

  “Can’t.”

  He gazed into her eyes. “A little clinching in the elevator, then?”

  “Your wife should hear you,” she admonished him lightly.

  “Phyllis and I are separated.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Roberta brushed his hands away and unclipped the microphone herself.

  “Really. Would I shit you?”

  “In a minute.” She stood. “Gotta go. Thanks again for the airtime.”

  “Thank me over a drink. Red.”

  She laughed, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  He grinned. “We’re on?”

  “No.”

  He looked dejected. “Ah, so cruel. But then, gorgeous redheaded women with sexy green eyes are notoriously cruel.”

  And cute balding men with Shinola-brown scalps are notorious flirts. This time thinking about the shoe polish made her chuckle aloud.

  She bit down on her lip and hurried off.

  Outside, on a late June afternoon, it was no cooler than under the burning lights of the studio. The shelter, a two-story brick house on a quiet treelined street, stood in the heart of Reno in a neighborhood very similar to Roberta’s own in Sparks. She parked, made her way down the long driveway to the side entrance then knocked. The upper half of a woman’s face appeared at the windowpane. Bolts clicked and clanked. Sophie Bennett, executive director of the center, opened the door.

  “My, my, my, but our star PR lady certainly looked stunning on the tube today,” Sophie said. “I thought that old lecher was gonna gobble you up—live and in color, and it being an afternoon show and all. But then, that’s why we give you all the glamorous jobs while the rest of us get scut work.”

  “If you think it’s so easy, next time you go on.”

  “I’d have littl’ Brad crying ‘uncle’ in no time.”

  Roberta scrutinized her friend. Late fifties, steel-gray hair cut short like a man’s. Nearly six feet tall, a hundred and ninety pounds, Sophie could be commanding and authoritative. She wore skirts, bright makeup, and lots of chunky jewelry. More than once, she admitted, she’d been accused of being a queen in drag.

  “How’s everything here?”

  “All’s quiet. The kids especially.”

  “That’s not good,” Roberta whispered, following Sophie down the basement steps. “Whenever the kids are quiet, I get nervous.”

  “Bite your tongue. Negative thoughts not allowed.”

  Footsteps thundered overhead. Several children yelled, arguing over something. Angry cries shattered the quiet.

  “Ah, there, that’s better,” Roberta said, moving into her office. “Now I can relax and get to work.”

  “What kind of day do you have tomorrow?” Sophie asked, standing in the doorway.

  Roberta tossed her purse in a drawer. She began peeping under folders and pamphlets on the cluttered desktop, looking for her calendar. “There’s the presentation in the morning at the library”—she found the calendar—“let’s see, then that appointment with the Delta guy about donating round-trip tickets to Hawaii for the drawing. The usual. Why, what’s up?”

  “It’s time to do some hard-pedaling on funding for the new facility. Bring your legs, little one. Yo
u can be very persuasive.”

  “My legs or me?”

  “Do we care?”

  “I want to be admired for my mind.”

  “And I want to be admired for my body.” Sophie struck a model’s pose, her large belly stretching the knit of her skirt. “Funny how these things work out.”

  Robbi smiled.

  “Tomorrow.” Sophie started down the hall, stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot. Donald called.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said he’d try again later in the week, unless you wanted to call him. But don’t try after five, his time—or was it our time?—his time, that’s right. He has a dinner meeting. So I guess it’s too late now, it’s already after six in New York.”

  “Did he say why he called?”

  Sophie shook her head. She came into the office, sat on the edge of the desk. “He sounded good. Confident. Tried to sell me some zero coupon bonds, whatever the hell that is. So how’s he doing? What’s the name of that brokerage firm he went to work for?”

  “Stradford and Powers Securities. He’s doing great. It’s been only six months and he’s knocking ‘em dead.” Roberta leaned back in her chair. “Six months…” she said absently. Had it been that long already? She felt a strange tugging deep inside. Donald Bauer, her steady guy, unofficial fiancé, lover—or whatever the hell they called them these days—had been offered a job he couldn’t refuse. She had been the one to insist he go, and within a week Donald had packed up and flown east, leaving a big hole in Roberta’s life.

  “Still planning on joining him?’ Sophie asked. “You haven’t said much about it lately.”

  “We agreed on a year. If he didn’t like it, he’d be back. Otherwise I move to the Big Apple.”

  “Long-distance relationships are a bitch.” Sophie squeezed Robbi’s arm affectionately, then crossed the room to the door.

  “We’ve both been so busy. And the time zones, y’know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Her friend smiled empathically, then disappeared down the hall.

  Roberta sat at her desk, opened her file drawer, and pulled out several fat folders. To the comforting sounds of laughter and children’s footsteps thumping overhead, she started on her paperwork.

  Several pages into the file, Roberta heard children crying. Fearful cries. She looked upward to the main floor. Something told her the cries were not coming from anywhere in the shelter. They were coming from inside her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears. The sounds swelled. An image flashed across her mind’s eye. Two children huddled together, crying.

  “Go away,” she whispered.

  ________

  The remainder of the afternoon flew by. At five p.m., Robbi called home to tell Angela she was on her way. As she drove home she thought of her house guests.

  Two days before, Angela had fled her husband to seek shelter at Roberta’s. Offering her own home was not normally an option, but Angela and her first husband, Lee, had been friends of Roberta’s since high school. Roberta was godmother to their two children, Mikey and Carey.

  Three years after Lee died in a skiing accident, Angela had married Sam Braga, a railroad engineer with a short fuse. The beatings began on a regular basis shortly after the honeymoon. No less than five times over the years, Angela had been treated at the emergency room with injuries ranging from contusions to broken bones. The last time she’d come away with a dislocated shoulder and several loose teeth. Unlike most batterers, Sam wasn’t into booze or drugs; rarely touched so much as a glass of beer. His high was rage, and he was fast becoming addicted to it.

  Roberta turned onto her street. Half a block down she pulled into the driveway of her house. Her street. Her house. Pride filled her at the sight of it. Last year, just before Donald left, she had taken her savings and bought the small two-bedroom house on Euclid. Tagged a “dollhouse” and “fixer-upper” by the realtor, it fit her income. But the neighborhood was good. The best part of having her own home was in fixing it up the way she wanted it. She spent her evenings renovating the interior. The weekends found her bargain-hunting for furniture and household accessories. With Donald gone, the nights and weekends seemed to stretch endlessly.

  After parking in the garage at the back of the lot, she walked down the driveway to the side entrance. The sun shone in her face. She kept her gaze down. Suddenly a strange sensation crawled over her, the sensation of being watched. Something flickered behind her eyes; a nebulous image of children huddled together, crying.

  At the back door Roberta glanced through the window into the kitchen. Mickey and Carey sat at the table, coloring. Such good kids, she thought. Quiet, polite, almost too good. Kids afraid to be kids. Again she had a gut feeling of being watched.

  Instead of going in, Robbi continued down the driveway to the front. She stopped at the sidewalk. As far as she could tell, there was no one inside any of the cars parked along the street.

  She shaded her eyes with her hand and took one last look. Nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. No more odd feelings. No images. With a sigh she picked up the newspaper, plucked a dandelion out by the roots, then headed back to the house.

  The rich smell of cake baking, a smell not customary to her house in the heat of summer, surrounded Roberta the moment she opened the door. She inhaled deeply,

  “What’s that godawful smell?” she asked.

  Carey ran to her, threw her arms around her legs. “Aunt Robbi, we’re making brownies.”

  Robbi bent, peered through the window in the oven. It was cool and empty.

  “Not there,” Mickey said, pointing with a black crayon at the microwave oven. “We’re nuking them.”

  “A celebrity in our midst.” Angela walked into the kitchen, her arm in a sling. “Saw you this afternoon. We taped it. You were great. He rattled you just a tad this time.”

  “If he can’t rattle me a tad, he won’t invite me back.”

  “What a sleaze.”

  The timer on the microwave buzzed. Carey ran to take the brownies out.

  “We walked to the store,” Angela said. “Cabin fever drove us out. I bought some groceries. Whenever you’re hungry, I’ll start dinner.”

  “Let’s go out,” Robbi said. “It’s too hot to cook.”

  The kids jumped up, excited.

  “Pizza, burgers, tacos, liver pate, snails. What sounds good?”

  “Pizza!”

  “Shall we try that place in the square with the video games?” Roberta said. “I have this roll of quarters that’s burning a hole in my pocket.”

  The kids cheered.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cindy Brewer, a resident at the shelter, was going back to her husband, Neil, and Roberta knew it.

  That morning Cindy had asked Roberta to drive her to the fast-food restaurant, “just to talk to him for a sec,” Cindy said. “No way am I going with him. No way.”

  In the stuffy, airless interior of her eight-year-old Jeep Cherokee, Roberta tried not to stare at the couple who were embracing intimately by her right front fender. The young bride was quickly relenting.

  Robbi sighed and looked away, feeling a sense of futility. Ten minutes earlier she had pulled into the parking lot of the Jack-in-the-Box with a frightened battered wife; she would drive out alone. It was as simple as that.

  Reaching for the window knob, she hesitated. If she rolled it down, they might think she wanted to eavesdrop. She cursed softly under her breath, pressed the back of her hand to the moisture gathering on her upper lip and forehead, then glanced at her watch. She wished she had one of Sophie’s crossword puzzles to help pass the time.

  Neil handed Cindy a bouquet of pink roses wrapped in green florist tissue. She smiled, and the smile would have been radiant if not for her swollen, purplish eye and the fat lip with its row of ragged black stitches underneath. He grinned, squeezed her shoulder, seemingly oblivious to her injuries. Then he mumbled something and glanced at Roberta.

  Robbie watched Cindy approach. She lowered the wind
ow.

  Cindy leaned down and gave her a lopsided grin. The delicate flowers and her vivid, battered face seemed at odds with each other.

  “He wants another chance,” Cindy said passively. “He promised to stop drinking. I think he’s really sorry this time.”

  Robbi looked at the husband. Neil Brewer was a high-level executive, a handsome, charming fellow. A man with expensive toys, such as the late-model Corvette he’d driven up in.

  Their gaze met for a brief second before Neil turned away.

  Cindy cleared her throat. “Thanks for bringing me over, Roberta.”

  Robbi nodded solemnly. “If you need…” But she was speaking to the hot, dry air, for the young woman was already walking toward her husband.

  Good luck, Cindy.

  Robbi turned the key in the ignition, grinding the starter. Before pulling out onto McCarran Boulevard, a dreadful sense of foreboding enveloped her. She gripped the wheel, rolled to a stop and, with her knees shaking, tried to take stock of the situation. The sound of children sobbing rang in her ears. A vision of Mikey and Carey huddled together, their faces distorted from crying, flashed across Roberta’s windshield. She realized it was the same vision she’d had the night before in her driveway. Angela and the kids are in trouble.

  She spotted a pay telephone at the corner, left the car, and hurried to it. As she fed in coins and dialed, the sky went dark. A bank of thunderclouds had moved rapidly across the sun; the wind chilled her bare arms. She shivered, hearing a low roll of thunder far away. On the second ring the phone was answered. Robbi heard children crying in the background.

  “Angela, it’s me. Are you okay?”

  “Roberta, Sam’s out front,” Angela’s voice, charged with tension, blurted out. “He’s trying to get in!”

  How the hell had Sam found them so quickly? “Hang up and call the police—dial 911. I’m on my way. Don’t let him in. No matter what, don’t let him in!” She slammed the receiver in the hook and ran to her car.

  As she sped down McCarran Boulevard, another vision flashed behind her eyes. Blood. Bright, crimson. Her own blood. She jerked the steering wheel and the car swerved. A horn blasted to her left.