Skin Heat

by Ava Gray

  “You are insanely strong,” she said, wide-eyed.

  It was a mistake. His face closed, as if she’d accused him of spying on teenage girls. He muttered a response and headed for the barn. The taut line of his shoulders warned her not to follow.

  Shit. She had the feeling she owed him an apology, but didn’t men always like hearing two things? You’re so strong and wow, you’re so big. Her experience said this was true.

  She sighed. “Apparently not.”

  Neva went back inside. Even if he didn’t feel the cold, she did. The kittens were crying, so she collected the three of them and snuggled them into her shirt. Then she dug a book out of her backpack and read until they needed their next feeding. Since he’d done it all night by himself, she didn’t expect him to come back to the house to help—and he didn’t. It wasn’t the lack of aid that bothered her, just the feeling she’d stepped wrong and didn’t know how.

  Later, banging on the roof told her he was replacing the worn shingles. He seemed dead serious about making this place nice again. Neva looked around the kitchen, mentally imagining it with a fresh coat of paint and some new curtains. She liked the retro table; it would be fun to get some antique canisters to go with it. But this wasn’t her home.

  It was almost dark by the time he came back inside and she’d tended the kittens again. This time, she’d kept them in her lap, on top of the heating pad, while she stroked their tiny bodies with her fingertips. In a few days, their eyes would start to open. Right now they were so tiny and helpless; all they could do was eat, squirm, poop, and sleep.

  His shadow fell across the doorway to the parlor. In the kitchen, she’d left the radio on, trying to dispel some of the silence. Neva didn’t look at him because she didn’t know what to say. Her hair fell into her face and she didn’t brush it away. It offered camouflage from his intent regard.

  “Sorry,” he said roughly.

  “About what?” Petty, but she’d make him talk by feigning ignorance.

  “How I bailed on you before. Wasn’t right.”

  “It’s okay.” And it was. She could breathe a little easier, just because he’d come in with an apology. Neva didn’t like how much emotional weight he’d acquired, but there was no changing the truth.

  “Meatloaf sandwiches okay for dinner?”

  “Sure. I think there are still some beans, too.”

  How domestic they sounded, as if they were lovers tentatively making up after an unexpected quarrel. The fact that he lived in a proper home added to the illusion, and God, it was dangerous. She couldn’t allow herself to get comfortable here.

  Tomorrow, they both had another day off, and she didn’t know how they’d spend the time. An odd, unacceptable flutter started in her stomach.

  An idea struck her. It was a way to distract herself from this unwanted attraction, and to repay him for his kindness, and she would not take no for an answer. “I’m going to the hardware store after dinner.”

  “If you need something, might have it here.”

  Oh, how she wished he hadn’t put it quite like that. Despite her good intentions, her gaze roved his chest and shoulders. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice. He had no awareness of her as a woman, as far as she could tell. Which was good. It would be disastrous if he found her as attractive as she did him.

  He used a pan to heat the green beans while she sliced up the meatloaf cold. He put extra ketchup on his sandwich and she enjoyed watching him. He had a small scar on his chin, and the scruff on his cheeks was almost golden, lighter than his hair. Neva tried not to study his mouth—the lower lip was a longer and fuller than the top one, which had a tender little divot—but when he licked them, a shiver went through her. She’d never wanted to kiss anyone quite so much.

  No, she scolded herself. You can’t. No matter how sweet he is. No matter how strong or how much you wonder what it would take to bring a smile to those eyes.

  After dinner, they tidied up together, and it was so normal, so companionable, that it left her aching. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she missed having another person around. But her nights were silent unless she spent them with Julie and Travis—and she didn’t want to cramp his style all the time.

  He laid down the cloth he’d used to wipe the table. “Want me to ride along?”

  “Please,” she said.

  “Kittens?”

  His concern made her feel like the chocolate and marshmallow center of a hot s’more. “Don’t worry about them. They’re warm and full and they’ve been held plenty already today. We’ll be back before they need us again.”

  He nodded and followed her out to the car. She didn’t explain until they reached the hardware store. Mandy Wilson, the cashier, noted their arrival, and within ten minutes, she’d be telling everyone she knew that she’d seen Neva and Zeke together again, this time on a Saturday night. She found she didn’t care. Let them talk.

  She chose three different cards from a wall display. “Which do you like?”

  His look said he didn’t understand why she wanted his opinion on home décor. “I’m going to help you paint,” she explained. “You said the farm needs sprucing up. Since I’m imposing on you, I need to pay for my room and board.”

  She knew very well he wouldn’t accept rent, though he could use the money. But maybe this, he would allow. Neva held her breath, belatedly worried he might take it the wrong way. She was braced to explain herself, why she’d thought it was a good idea, something she could offer.

  “This,” he said, pointing to a lemon yellow.

  Her breath went out in a relieved sigh. “For which room?”

  “Kitchen.”

  “That’ll be pretty with the cupboards.”

  They obviously needed plain white for trim and to redo the cabinets. Now that she had his approval, she was already planning to redo the whole downstairs. A soft cream would suit the parlor; it wasn’t a big room, so it needed the pale walls to open it up. She’d never been in the downstairs bedroom.

  “Just the kitchen and front room,” Zeke said. “Not the bedroom.”

  He didn’t want to change it? Odd. But she didn’t press. It was his house.

  “Do you have any ideas for the bathroom?”

  It was too small for a three-bedroom home and it seemed to be the only one. But from what she remembered, the tiles were sound, and he’d obviously given them a good scrubbing because the grout was clean.

  He shrugged. “What goes with green and white?”

  She hesitated a little. Should she really be redecorating his house for him? It seemed presumptuous. And yet if he minded, surely he’d say something?

  “I’d paint the room white and then put up an ivy border to bring it together.”

  He also needed a new shower curtain and some new bath accessories, but she wouldn’t find them here. Plus, she suspected she shouldn’t buy such things. Paint was one thing, less personal somehow.

  His eyes gave away his uncertainty. “Let’s do it.”

  Moving on, Neva showed him some options and he liked Bavarian cream for the parlor. They went with a low-maintenance, low-odor paint that promised to resist stains and clean up easily. She guessed at how much paint would be needed for each room, but based on a quick conversation with the salesman about the dimensions, which Zeke confirmed, they worked it out.

  The total came to several hundred dollars, once they added plastic and rollers to the cost of the paint, but it was going to be so worth it. She gave the clerk her credit card without so much as a flinch. She couldn’t get enough of shows like Trading Spaces, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and While You Were Out. Living first at Harper Court, then in dorms, and now in an apartment she didn’t own, she’d never been given a chance to do anything like this. God, she wanted to please him. She didn’t know why it mattered so much—only that it did.

  Once they’d finished, they headed out to the car. She started it, fairly bubbling with anticipation. “This is going to be so much fun.”
/>   “It is?” He sounded dubious.

  “Absolutely. You’ve given us a great start with all the cleaning you did. The walls are ready. Since they’re all white”—which was a kind word for the dingy hue—“we should have no problems getting the color to cover in one coat.”

  “Seems like you know a lot about this.”

  Heat rose in her cheeks as she drove toward the farm. “Mostly from TV. But I promise I know what I’m doing. I helped Julie and Travis paint their place.”

  He seemed to register her dismay. “Not worried about that. Was just wondering why you wanna do this on your day off. It’s work.”

  “I like work. It keeps me from thinking.”

  “Ah,” he said, and she had the unmistakable impression he understood.

  CHAPTER 8

  Worthless. His father’s voice rang in his head.

  He could almost feel the dark closing in on him. A tremor rocked him as if he’d been struck. He listened to the old man’s tirade patiently and then he went to get the plastic. But first, he stripped her naked. Not for lascivious reasons, but in case trace evidence lingered on her clothing.

  The slashes he’d made sent a shock down his spine. They weren’t clean and pretty; he could see where his hand shook and they marred her pale skin in crooked gashes. Finished at last, he wrapped the woman’s body so she wouldn’t leave any signs in his vehicle, and then wrapped her in another layer of plastic to be safe. The woods would provide a safe dumping ground. Out here, he had no neighbors to see what he was doing.

  He swung the body into his arms and carried her outside. This time, she did go in the trunk, but he wouldn’t be driving on traveled roads. Instead he went along the dirt track until it just . . . ended. From there, he took her on foot. No need for a grave. He had been studying the art of death for years, and it seemed to him that the Green River Killer had been very good at disposing of bodies without being caught. That had always surprised him, given that Ridgway had an IQ of eighty-two. How then was he able to elude capture for twenty years? He’d learned a great deal from the man; sometimes raw animal cunning beat pure intellect.

  Fortunately he had his share of both.

  Next time, he would try something different. To be worthy, to put his father to rest and get his voice out of his head forever, her death had to be perfect. And it would be. There was no shortage of brunette, brown-eyed women in the world.

  He’d get it right next time.

  And then Daddy would say, at last, Good work, Son. I’m so proud. You finally made them pay for what they done. Then he could move on. The old man would be exorcised, and he could finally live his life on his own terms.

  He found the place beneath a stately pine. Elm and hickory didn’t offer the same carpet, which made him feel he was laying her to rest in a worthy place. With great care, he unrolled her from the plastic and used a gloved hand to brush her hair from her face. It still wasn’t right, somehow, and then he remembered the red satin ribbons. Dreamily, he twined them about her arms, lacing them like a dancer’s shoes. She would be elegant eternally, hiding the ugly wounds he had inflicted.

  Inexplicably a fragment of a poem he’d read in school came to him.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

  Perfectly pure and good . . .

  He wished he could remember the rest or at least the author’s name so he could look it up. But clearly it was true. In this moment she belonged to him, and she was innocent in death. So he scooped up two handfuls of dry leaves and covered her genitals.

  There. That was better.

  As he went back toward the car, he realized he wasn’t afraid anymore. Instead a sense of peace and completion suffused him. His father’s voice was, mercifully, silent. He had the sense the old man approved. Perhaps this hadn’t been the right way for Geneva Harper to die, but it was a step in the right direction. The old man approved of persistence and commitment to quality.

  For his next girl, he had something special in mind.

  It did not take long for him to get back to the house. He gathered the girl’s effects, including her purse and her clothing, and dumped them into a rusty barrel. Next went the plastic. He doused it all in lighter fluid and set it alight. Nobody would think twice about somebody burning trash out here. People did it all the time.

  For long moments, he stood and watched the acrid smoke curl skyward. Then he pulled the car keys out of his pocket. He needed to check on his mother.

  “How long do you think she’s been out here?” the deputy asked Hebert.

  He shrugged. “Too many factors to say for sure.”

  Animals had been at her; part of her face had been eaten away by insects and she bore bite marks on her extremities. It was made more grotesque because of the rest-in-peace arrangement of her limbs, offered in vivid contrast to the slashes. He was looking at those, too. They wouldn’t have bled enough to kill her. At this point, it was impossible to say what had.

  “Somebody has a lot of rage toward women,” the deputy said.

  “Like that couldn’t be said of most men who kill women. He’s probably also between twenty-five and forty-five, Caucasian, and hates his mother.”

  The deputy laughed. “You should be a profiler.”

  Funny. Except it left them with too many suspects and too much territory to cover.

  Hunters had stumbled across the girl, chasing a deer. They’d stopped and called it in, thanks to cell phones, and now here he was, dealing with it on his first day off the desk. The locals didn’t have the resources to deal with a naked unknown murder victim, so they’d called the ABI. It was his job to figure it out.

  The tech crew had just arrived. His stomach hurt, but it was hard to know if it was residual damage, phantom pain, or nerves. Without Rina at his back, he’d lost some confidence in himself. Or maybe the stabbing had done that. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t the man—or the agent—he had been, but maybe he’d get back there. In time.

  He focused on the scene. She was obviously posed, arms crossed on her chest. Then there were the red ribbons, twined around her arms and legs. They’d suffered some from exposure to the elements, but the inclusion tugged at him. What did it mean? There was always a reason for whatever weird fucking thing these people did, and if he could work it out, it would tell him something about the killer.

  Hebert studied a little longer. Maybe a dancer had gone missing. That seemed like a too obvious solution, but he couldn’t afford to overlook any angles. So why here? What was special about this spot? It had an access road nearby. He’d already walked it; there would be no traffic here. Nobody to see what someone carried in his arms. So privacy, for sure. Had the killer known who owned the land and wanted to make trouble for him?

  He went over to the hunters, who were all middle-aged and clad in flannel. Two wore glowing orange vests. One of them, Gerald Franklin, owned the land. Hebert needed to talk to him in particular.

  “Emil Hebert.” He offered a hand to be polite, and they shook all around. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to know more than they’d told the county boys. None of his questions revealed additional information, but their stories had enough variance that he didn’t suspect them of covering something up. One guy remembered seeing a rabbit just before they found the girl, and another argued it had been a squirrel. He suppressed the urge to tell them it mattered fuck-all if they’d seen the ghost of Bambi’s mother out there. Only the dead girl signified anything. Since they didn’t know who she was, he cut them loose, except for Franklin.

  “Do you live on this property?” he asked.

  “Nah. I’m from Birmingham. There’s a cabin out here, but I don’t stay in it often. Mostly when I’ve pissed off the wife.”

  “But you make regular hunting trips.”

  Franklin nodded. “But only in season. We have all the licenses.”

  “You didn’t recognize the victim?”

  “Not at all. Poor girl.” His f
ace was pale, and his hands still weren’t steady.

  Hebert understood. Even if you hunted, it wasn’t the same dealing with a human body. “Do you rent your property to other hunters?”

  “No, it’s just for my friends and me.”

  So limited traffic and an absentee landowner. He wondered if the killer had known that. If he did, it suggested someone local with knowledge of the area. “Do you have any enemies, anyone who would want to make trouble for you?”

  “Like this?” Franklin asked, wide-eyed. “Hell no. Look, I sell used cars. I’ve pissed a few people off in my day, and I don’t give refunds, but I can’t imagine . . . no. No way.”

  The guy seemed sincere, but one never knew just how far some people would go to get even. Normal ones didn’t kill women just because they’d bought a lemon. The more direct route would be beating the shit out of Franklin.

  “Do you have any game cameras out here?”

  “Actually, I do. Want me to show you?”

  “Please.”

  As it turned out, he had three of them. They checked the first two and found nothing but animals, but the third was more or less in the path between the access road and the tree where she’d been found. Hebert checked this one, while Franklin stood by. A shiver went through him. The killer had brushed right past it. Unfortunately, it hadn’t caught his face. But it gave him some idea of the man’s build. He was tall and lanky; he’d carried the woman, wrapped in plastic, like a bride. The plastic hadn’t been found with her, which meant he’d taken it with him.

  “Damn,” Franklin said, peering over his shoulder. “I guess you need the chip, right? Do you have to take the whole camera as evidence?”

  “No, the chip’s fine. Thank you for your time, Mr. Franklin.”

  “I can go then?” The man looked eager to get out of these woods. Daylight was fading, and he couldn’t have any fond memories of today’s business.

  “Of course.” Hebert strode back to the scene, where the tech crew was finishing up. “Did they turn up anything?”