“Ms. Denton was out of town on a business trip this weekend,” the detective began in the telling monotone of someone who preferred getting answers rather than being asked questions.
With a harsh laugh, Zachary Denton replied, “Business trip! Shame on you, Jude. Tell them it was your yearly vampire convention. Thanks to Anne Rice, you and your kind are all the fashion again.”
Detective Pruitt cleared his throat and gestured to Judith that he would handle the situation. “This is a matter of great levity, Mr. Denton. Someone attacked the woman staying at Mrs. Denton’s residence. Do you know Nancy Porter?”
“Unfortunately, although I try not to admit it in polite company. What do you mean, ‘attacked’?” Zachary Denton’s implacable expression grew wary. Watchful.
The detective shifted and Willa received a brief glance. He’s uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want to have to say this in front of me. That could mean only one thing—it was bad. She wanted no part of it. “I should leave,” she offered, taking a small step toward the door.
“Stay!”
Both Zachary and Judith spoke in unison. The venomous looks that followed made Willa want to borrow from Solomon and quip, “Sorry, guys, I’m fresh out of swords.” She did, however, stay put.
“We’re in the early stages of our investigation,” Pruitt began again. “Unfortunately, Ms. Porter is unable to assist us.”
“Are you saying she’s dead?” Zachary Denton asked, visibly tense.
Her hands clenched and shaking before her, Judith ground out, “Stop pretending you don’t know!”
In better moments, Willa thought, the woman would be considered attractive, definitely stylish. Her age was somewhere around forty Willa guessed, and when her nerves weren’t shot, when her makeup wasn’t smudged, and her eyes weren’t bloodshot and tear-swollen, there would be a cool, intelligent sensuality that would turn many a head. But at the moment, she was all pain and venom.
“Mrs.—Ms. Denton,” Detective Pruitt injected more firmly this time, “please let me handle this.” A stolid man with the likable, but humorous face of a bullfrog, he eyed everyone from beneath heavy lids, finally redirecting his attention on Zachary Denton. “She’s not dead. Ms. Porter has been taken to Vilary Pines Hospital. However, it’s too early for a prognosis. There’s evidence to suggest she’d been sexually assaulted and then strangled. Unfortunately, she’s unconscious, and unable to tell us what she knows.”
Zachary Denton shifted to grip the arms of his chair, but it was his only physical reaction. “That’s…terrible news, and I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m afraid I don’t know how this is supposed to have anything to do with me.”
“Ms. Denton seems to believe—” Detective Pruitt’s lips only thickened as he pressed them together. “Please excuse me if this question seems accusatory, sir, but can you prove your whereabouts over the last twenty-four hours?”
Zachary’s bold features took on a devilish slant as he lifted an eyebrow. “Look at me, Detective. Where do you think I was? The local bowling alley?”
“It won’t work, Zach,” Judith said, her smile glacial. “I told him about the van in your garage that’s adapted to get you anywhere you want to go.”
Zach watched the shock in Willa’s lovely eyes, watched it grow into unease and renewed doubt. It annoyed him as much as Judith’s accusations did.
What had she expected? Did she think those ramps out there were for him to practice wheelies during recess? So he had a van. Big deal. For the most part the thing stayed in the garage out back because he preferred to forego the pleasure of being stared at like some sideshow freak, and have everything he needed delivered.
But sometimes when the writing wouldn’t come and the house was suffocating him, late, late at night when virtually everyone else was asleep and the streets were his, he took the van out for a spin down the back roads. Alone, except for the other nocturnal creatures, he challenged fate to stop him, to put an end to the rage and the fever of revenge that was all that kept him alive.
It never did, of course.
If he’d known it would only take that bit of knowledge, the admission of the van, to make Willa really fear him, he would have mentioned it sooner. But at least something had finally gotten through to her. At least he knew he would never have to deal with the temptation of her again.
Crossing his arms once more, he refocused on Judith and matched her smile for smile. “Yes, I own a van. But no doubt you’ve tried to convince them that I rolled myself into my secret death chariot, and drove to your house hoping to find you there so I could finally be rid of your carnivorous presence in my life. How’d I do it, Jude? Did I wheel to the bottom of your steps and drag myself up your stairs? How did I ring the doorbell? Or did I just pound until someone answered? Your neighbors must have had quite a show. But, then, they’re probably well bored by the diversity of what crawls up your driveway, and never bothered to look.”
Although livid, Judith spun to Detective Pruitt. “Ask him how he knows there are steps to my front door. Ask him!”
Zach let his smile widen. “I have no problem telling you, Detective. I had photographs taken of her…cottage. Call me eccentric, but if I work like a dog, I’d like to at least have a clue as to where my money’s gone.” He turned back to his ex-wife, enjoying that she was beginning to resemble a swaying cobra. “But back to your story—what happened then, Jude? I supposedly attacked someone I thought was you?” He shook his head. “And you call me over the edge.”
“You know damned well, you hired someone to do your dirty work, but they blew it!” she snapped back at him.
“Jude—”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Jude, the day I come after you, believe me, the last face you see will be mine.”
Pruitt exchanged glances with the uniformed officer. “Mr. Denton, that will be enough.”
Zach couldn’t agree more. “Exactly why are you here, Detective? Am I being added to your list of potential suspects? If so, I believe I’d prefer to telephone my attorney first.”
“I don’t believe that will be necessary, but I’d feel more confident in saying that if you weren’t so…”
“Verbal in my dislike for my ex-wife?” Zach beamed. “Sorry, Detective. She just brings out that side of me.”
Pruitt cleared his throat and nodded to Judith. “I felt it was in the best interest of everyone that we follow Ms. Denton out here, and make sure that this already unfortunate situation doesn’t expand to where there’re more casualties. Having said that, and understanding perfectly that you owe me no explanation whatsoever, would you mind telling me your whereabouts over the last twenty-four hours?”
“Not at all. I was here.”
“Can you prove it?”
Zach glanced at Willa, not surprised when she lowered sweeping lashes over her gem-bright eyes. “If I must. But I don’t plan to until—”
“What’s that?”
Judith had lost interest in him, but only because of Willa—or more accurately at what she was clutching in her hand and discreetly trying to tuck into the back pocket of her jeans. His ex-wife grabbed her wrist and tried to take it from her, clawing at it, at Willa, and making whimpering, almost animallike noises.
Both policemen rushed forward to stop her.
“Those are Nancy’s!” Judith cried. “I mean they’re mine, but Nancy was—Oh, don’t you see? It matches the camisole she was wearing. It’s a set. Ask her. I bought it at her store! Where did you find these?”
Judith finally gained possession. That’s when Zach saw they were red ladies’ briefs.
Horrified, but quickly snatching them back, Willa gasped, “Stop it! Mrs. Denton you’ve made a terrible mistake. These are mine. I own a set of practically everything I sell at my shop.”
Zach studied the heightened color in Willa’s cheeks, and the way she avoided Judith’s gaze. But most of all he enjoyed that at least for the moment Judith had lost credibility with the two cops. “Nice
try, Judas, Jr.,” he drawled. “But no silver this time.”
As expected, the second and ultimately insulting nickname he’d christened her with at the end of their marriage sent her ballistic. She charged at him like a madwoman.
“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
He managed to swing his chair sideways and keep her from landing on top of him, but there was no fighting velocity. When she shoved, the chair went flying and so did he, crashing to the hardwood floor with a loud crack, and a blinding pain shooting through him.
“Mrs. Denton! Harper, get her out of here before we have two patients for Emergency!” Pruitt snapped before crossing to offer his aid to Zach. “You okay? Here, give me your hand.”
Instead, Zach shut his eyes, knowing he had to wait for the dizziness, agony and rage to ease before he tried moving again. “Get out.”
“Let me get you up first.”
“Out!”
For several seconds, the only sound was Officer Harper leading out a violently protesting Judith. Then came Pruitt’s indecipherable mutter and a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry about this.”
“Ask me if I care.” Zach was preoccupied with wondering why he hadn’t heard Willa leave, too.
“You do understand that I may have to come back?”
“Well, if you do, make sure you bring the appropriate paperwork, and leave her at home.”
The older man didn’t reply. A moment later Zach could hear him shuffle away. Pause. Then, “Can I see you to your house, Ms. Whitney?”
“In my case it’s Mrs., Detective Pruitt. And, um, I think I’ll…”
Zach hadn’t been able to resist peeking, but as soon as he saw her gesturing toward him, he closed his eyes again. He didn’t want to see what she was doing. If she chose to stay, then it was on her head.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Waiting for the answer, he didn’t know what he felt more, the blood pounding at his temples, or the egg hatching from the back of his head.
“Yes. I’ll be fine, thank you.”
When the door slammed shut behind the cop, and his footsteps were no longer distiniguishable on the porch, Zach exhaled a long-pent-up breath. Opening his eyes, he looked directly at Willa, who hadn’t budged an inch.
“Why did you lie?” he demanded.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Willa listened to the cars leaving. One made as much noise as when it arrived; the other almost sounded weary as it drove off.
“Are you saying Judith was right?” she countered to Zachary Denton. She was growing increasingly repulsed by the soft silk that felt like a brand against her skin. Wishing she’d never heard that, she began shoving the briefs into her pocket. “Are these hers? I mean, could her friend have been…”
“Wearing them?” With a vicious shove, he pushed the heavy chair off his thigh. “If you believe I know the answer to that, it makes you quite the fool for staying behind, doesn’t it?”
She knew that. The truth was already as obvious as the humid air seeping through the screen door, and it added to the tension pulsating between them. But she still had to have her ultimate question answered.
As if reading her mind, Zachary Denton swore and eased himself up on one elbow. “All right…let’s put it this way. No doubt red would be a striking on you, but if I were doing the choosing, I’d go with black, myself.”
“I prefer white,” she murmured, almost weak with relief.
His gaze swept downward, and he was all insolence. She knew he was recalling her outfit the first time she came here, but also letting her know the comment meant nothing. Nevertheless, Willa meant to hold fast to the small ground he’d yielded.
“Where did you find that?”
This question came reluctantly, too. She finished tucking the briefs into her back pocket. “On my front door.”
“Why didn’t you tell Pruitt?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You don’t lie well.”
His subtle mockery, along with his penetrating gaze had her mouth feeling incredibly dry. She had to lick her lips to manage a reply. “Maybe I thought that somehow I was being used as a pawn, and resented it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The queen,” he murmured, as though realizing something for the first time. “It would have to be the white queen.”
Now he’d really lost her. “Excuse me?”
“Just theorizing.”
Maybe so, but the barely leashed violence she saw in his dark eyes made Willa feel less than confident again. Hoping to reach the side of the man she’d glimpsed once, and all-too-briefly, she cautiously lifted the wheelchair upright. “You’re not easy to read, Zachary Denton, let alone like. Maybe some of that’s understandable considering what you’ve been through. Personally, though, I’m not sure I think it’s an acceptable excuse for being an ass. But the bottom line is…as much as I’ve tried, as spooky as you can get, I don’t think that what’s going on around Vilary is your doing.”
Even sprawled on the floor, he managed to convey a threat. “No? You can’t picture me on my way home from attacking one of my ex’s houseguests, and stopping at your place to present you with a souvenir of my adventure?”
“It sounds even more ludicrous when you suggest it. You may be capable of a great many things, Zachary, but I don’t think rape is one of them.”
It wasn’t the strongest protest she’d ever made; nevertheless, it won her an annoyed snort, and the growl, “Set the damned brake, Florence Nightingale, unless you want to see me flopping around this floor like a beached whale again.”
Wondering if his rudeness had anything to do with self-consciousness, she secured the lever he’d indicated. Then he surprised her by extending his hand.
“Would you mind?” he growled, when she hesitated.
It was like having a grizzly bear asking you for a hand into a picnic basket. Willa’s first impulse was to doubt his motive, but she quickly reminded herself that she would be defaulting on the very message she’d been trying to give him. Bracing herself, she gave him her hand.
In the next bewildering moment, she found herself down on the floor with him. She’d landed hard across his chest, but except for a deep grunt, he seemed barely affected by the impact, while she was left gasping and once again wincing in pain from his merciless grip on her upper arms.
“Now tell me what you find ridiculous,” he whispered, his gray eyes steely.
Aware of what was coming, she gasped, “Zach—don’t! Not this—”
She wanted to rear back, but as if he’d anticipated it, he shifted one hand to wind it around her long ponytail, trapping her against him. Then he crushed his mouth to hers, forcing open her lips and driving his tongue deep into her mouth. Her hands were useless, crushed between their bodies, imprisoned there by the viselike arm he secured around her back.
Panic peaked and surged like a dreaded tidal wave, and she wondered if it was possible to suffocate on a scream. This was nothing like before. No one had ever exposed her to such violence. He might think he was no longer the man he once was, but he still had the ability to make a woman feel insignificant and vulnerable.
On the edge of terror, she reached deep, wrapped herself in the memory of those few seconds from Friday when she’d seen his concern for her, felt his torment and loneliness…and his desire. Only then could she let herself, force herself at first, to stop fighting him. To relax.
He was slow to realize the surrender. When he did, he, too, went still; then slowly he lowered his head to the floor and stared up at her.
“Fight me,” he demanded gruffly.
His invincible hold made it impossible for her to shake her head without hurting herself. She tried anyway.
“Damn you!” he whispered.
For a moment she had the strongest feeling he would shift his hold and wrap his hands around her throat, he looked that provoked. Maddened. But to her amazement, instead he eased his grip on her hair…the band around her b
ack. Ever so slowly, he slid his hands to frame her face, caressing as he coaxed her head down until her lips were a breath away from his.
Their gazes locked in some silent duel of wills, he rocked his head to brush his lips against hers once…twice. Then he drew her lower lip between his teeth and teased it with the tip of his tongue. He might as well have triggered a switch. Her entire body became sensitized. She had no more control over the soft entreaty that rose up her throat, than she could keep her eyelids from drifting closed, or her lips from parting.
He sucked in a deep breath swelling his chest and lifting her. The movement, teased her breasts, and tightened the coil pulsating in her womb like a living needful thing. His tongue became another instrument of sensual torture, venturing, exploring, and this kiss was no assault by any stretch of the imagination, but a claiming nonetheless.
Now she understood a real reason to fight him, but as he explored and stroked, she could only yield and follow, coax him to do more. It had been too long since she’d felt this alive. So long. When he coursed a trail of kisses across her cheek and down her throat, she arched to give him easier access.
“Oh…”
His groaned whisper heated flesh already hot and straining, and this time when he sought her mouth, there was only craving, a hunger she’d never had to deal with before. Her own. How odd that instead of having to deal with his anger her punishment came in waiting for more of him.
He stroked the silkiness of her hair…tested the sleek, smooth line of her back…the narrowness of her waist…the curve of her bottom, around and up to the aching swell of her breasts. All the while he studied her, as if her emotional reactions were as important to him as the tangible physical ones.
The kiss that followed made her head swim and all but drew the air from her lungs. Slow, thorough, insatiable, it went on and on, an endless draining, until he tore his mouth from hers and abruptly rolled her onto her back.
He glared down at her. “No more.”
His protest was more plea than demand, but either way she had no intention of arguing with him. It was crazy enough to have felt such intensity and recklessness. She shouldn’t even be here; she was supposed to be on her way to her apartment to meet the movers for heaven’s sake!
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