Crimson Rain

by Meg O'Brien

  When the tub was nearly full, she turned on the jets and slipped into the warm, welcoming bubbles. Laying her head back on the rounded edge of the tub, Gina closed her eyes. She had just started to drift off when there was the soft sound of a click at the front door. Gina didn’t hear it, or the footsteps that moved softly over the plush, padded rug in the living room. When the bathroom door opened, that too was drowned out by the noise from the tub’s jets. It was only the motion of a shadow against her eyelids that warned her she wasn’t alone.

  Her eyes flew open and she jerked to a sitting position. “Who—!” But the word was barely out when hands from behind closed over her eyes. Gina screamed. The hands moved down to cover her mouth.

  “For God’s sake!” she heard. “You’ll rouse all the neighbors!”

  Twisting, she saw gray-blond hair, a navy blue T-shirt and jeans.

  “Julian!” she cried when the hands over her mouth lifted. Her heart was thumping like a jackhammer, and she could barely hear herself. “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

  “No, my love,” he said against her ear, his hands slipping down to her breasts. “I am trying to steal your heart.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to do it that way,” she said, laughing, though her voice was still shaky. “Anyway, you’ve already got my heart.”

  He came around and stripped off his clothes. “Christening the spa today, are we?” he said. One long, muscular leg came over the tub, and Gina shifted to make room so that he could sit beside her. His arm came around her shoulders and he pulled her to him.

  “Something like that,” she said against his lips. Pulling back, she added, “God, Julian, you nearly scared me to death. Look at me, I’m still shaking. What are you doing here?”

  “I was driving by and saw your car. I thought I’d just drop in and take a look at my sweet little things.” He kissed one nipple, then the other.

  “Stop,” she said, barely able to think straight. This wasn’t a safe place to be doing this. Better his house on the other side of the island, where they usually met.

  But his hand slipped down between her thighs, and all sense left her then.

  Twenty minutes later, they were still in the tub, with Julian’s back against one side and hers against his chest. Julian’s hands rested on her breasts, lightly caressing. This ability to linger was one of the things she liked most about him. It was so different from Paul, who, as his business grew, seemed to want to get sex over with as quickly as possible and get on with “more important” matters.

  “I have to let Paul know I won’t be home,” Gina said, feeling guilty at the mere thought of him.

  “Will he care?” Julian asked, rubbing his cheek against hers.

  “Probably not. I’m sure he’ll be working late. It’s just…oh, you know, one of those little courtesies we try to keep.”

  She had told Julian about the accident on Christmas Eve, but not that she, Paul and Rachel had made a pact since then to keep in closer touch, let each other know they were all right when they weren’t home. That was why it was odd when Rachel had asked her not to call Ellen’s. Odd enough that it kept nagging at Gina’s mind.

  “Sweetheart, for the hundredth time, why don’t you leave him?” Julian asked.

  “And for the hundredth time, because I don’t see any reason to. We have to be able to go on working together, after all. Besides, there’s Rachel.”

  And you and I are never going to marry, she thought but didn’t say aloud. It’s never going to be any more than it is right now. An interlude. A way to make it through the day, knowing I’m cared about and loved.

  A sin.

  “Rachel is a big girl,” he said, stroking her arm with his blunt nails, making her shiver. “I understand why you felt protective of her when we first met, but she was only seventeen then. Sweetheart, we waited till she went away to school. I think I proved I could be patient. But now…”

  “Rachel may be older now,” Gina pointed out mildly. “That doesn’t mean she’s ready for her parents and her home to break up.”

  “That’s not really it, though,” Julian said. “You’re afraid you’ll lose her, too, aren’t you? The way you lost her twin.”

  She didn’t like talking about that, and turned away. Julian hadn’t been in her life when it happened; he couldn’t possibly understand. It was for that precise reason that she had chosen to be with him. No shared memories, no reminders.

  That, and the fact that he made her feel wanted, right from the first.

  They had met when she worked on his apartment in Seattle. Julian was a lecturer in geology at U-Dub—the University of Washington—and traveled around the world giving talks at various colleges and businesses. When he came home, he wanted his “nest” to be peaceful, and to look as if it had been there forever. Since his “nest,” as he called it, was a modern high-in-the-sky apartment of glass and chrome overlooking the Sound, that wasn’t an easy job. He had bought it fifteen years before, he said, because of its unusually large size, the view, and the fact that the price was good.

  Gina had introduced him to Paul, who, together with her, had looked at the apartment. Then the two of them consulted with Julian, to learn more about what he wanted. After that, Paul had come up with the Mayan, Aztec and Chinese pieces Gina recommended, some of which he’d had to travel and search the world for.

  By the time Julian’s apartment was ready to be moved into, he and Gina were in love. They fought their feelings for a year, until Rachel went away to school. Then, with Paul gone so much, and Gina so lonely she couldn’t stand it, Gina had called Julian. They had met in a restaurant and talked. The talk ended when they became so aroused by the simple touching of hands, they had run out into the rain together, still clinging to each other, as if one or the other of them might disappear and ruin this miracle of their finding each other again.

  That night ended in a hotel, but ever since then they had been meeting at Julian’s house on the other side of Camano, whenever Gina came up to work here—as well as some days when she didn’t, but simply used the excuse of work to drive up here and be with him. It was Julian, in fact, who had introduced her to the Albrights—good friends of his—and recommended her for this job.

  It was also Julian that Rachel had seen the other day in the coffee shop. That was an accident, however. Julian had sworn he hadn’t known Gina would be there. She couldn’t hide her nervousness in Duarte’s office, however, when Rachel said that “the man” in the coffee shop had been looking more at her, Gina, than at her daughter.

  I’ll never feel entirely right about this, she thought. The betrayal of a marriage, no matter how empty it had become, could never be explained away or excused. She shivered and began to draw away from Julian.

  “Hand me the phone, will you?” she asked, turning off the tub’s jets.

  He reached past a fern on the corner of the wide ledge, his strong, tanned fingers closing over the cell phone. Gina couldn’t take her eyes off them, couldn’t stop herself from wanting them on her body, doing things to her that let her know she was alive.

  Doing her best to close out that thought, she took the phone. When Paul answered at his office, she sat upright in the tub. Julian’s hands slipped from her breasts, and she felt ice-cold, suddenly. In this position, she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t know what he was thinking.

  That she was being too much of a mother? A wife? She could seldom read Julian’s thoughts, the way she could Paul’s. She told herself that was just as well. It helped to make their relationship less complicated, more about the physical aspect than logic and reasoning.

  “Hi,” Paul said when his assistant put her through.

  “Hi.” Gina swallowed her compunction over the lie she was about to tell. “Rachel’s staying overnight at Ellen’s, and I’m still on Camano. I think I’ll stay up here tonight. I’m tired, and I’d only have to drive all the way back here in the morning to finish up.”

  “That makes sense,”
Paul said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?”

  “Yes. Will you call Rachel and let her know I won’t be home till tomorrow? Do you have Ellen’s number?”

  “I’m sure I do, somewhere.”

  She could hear him turning carefully the pages of the well-worn antique leather address book she had given him for their first anniversary, twenty-one years ago. Gina had saved enough from the design projects she had that year to give Paul something that would have real meaning for him. Though the provenance had never been positively established, the plain-paged book was purported to have been owned, but never used, by Thomas Jefferson, whose brilliance with architecture and invention Paul had always admired—if not some of the aspects of his personal life.

  “Here it is,” Paul said. “I’ll tell Rachel to call me on my cell phone if she needs anything, okay?”

  “That sounds good. Thanks. I’d call myself, but you know how spotty the cell service can be out here. I wasn’t sure I’d even get through to you.”

  “Sure, I understand.”

  Paul was so good about it when she had to “work late.” But the memory of that address book and the moment she had given it to her husband, his thrilled response and the lovemaking afterward, made her feel even more guilty about what she was doing here today.

  “Paul…”

  “Yes?”

  Julian began to massage her neck and shoulders with an oil Gina had bought for Amy Albright, and she could feel herself relaxing, becoming one with the light musky scent.

  “Is there something else?” Paul asked. “I’m late for an appointment with a client.”

  His hurried tone and obvious eagerness to get on with business wiped out any remaining traces of hesitation.

  “No, nothing,” she said just as briskly. “See you tomorrow night.”

  They hung up, and Gina turned to Julian, touching his lips gently with hers. His arms tightened around her, holding her so close there was nothing left between them, no air, no water, nothing but skin. She thought she had never felt this safe and this loved—at least, not for many, many years.

  Paul pressed the End button on his cell phone, then punched in Lacey’s number. When she answered, he said, “Would you like company tonight?”

  “Tonight? You betcha. But where’s the family?”

  “Rachel and Gina are busy. I’ll see you—” he looked at his watch “—in half an hour, okay?”

  “Even better, fifteen minutes,” Lacey said, chuckling. “We’ll try out that red teddy you gave me.”

  In his mind’s eye, Paul could see her in the sheer teddy—every inch of her, and all of it waiting there, just for him.

  “Make it five,” he said. “I’ll scare up a Bat-mobile.”

  Lacey laughed in that way he loved, the full, free laugh of a child who was ready for an adventure, any adventure. “Oh, Batman!” she said huskily. “I can’t wait!”

  Paul hung up, a smile on his face. Then he remembered that he had to call Rachel. Picking up the phone again, he called Ellen’s number.

  Gina was just stepping out of the tub when her cell phone rang a few minutes later.

  “Let it ring,” Julian said, putting down the sponge he’d been using to scrub her back and holding his hand out. “Come back in.” His tone was teasing but thick with desire. “We were just getting warmed up.”

  “Can’t. It might be important.”

  She wrapped herself in a towel and reached for the phone.

  “Thank God, I got through to you,” Paul said, his voice sounding strained. “I wasn’t sure, and I was about to call the island sheriff’s office and get them to go over to the house—”

  “Sheriff’s office?” Gina interrupted, her hand tightening on the cell phone. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I just called Ellen, and she hasn’t seen Rachel. She didn’t even know Rachel was supposed to be there today.”

  “What do you mean, she didn’t know? Rachel told me this morning that she was going over there and she’d be staying overnight.”

  “Well, for whatever reason, she failed to tell Ellen that. Gina, I called home, and she’s not there. She isn’t answering her cell phone, and Roberta hasn’t seen her, either.”

  “You called my mother? What did you tell her?”

  “Only that I was looking for Rachel, to see if she’d be home for dinner. I didn’t want to worry her. Gina, where in the name of God is she? I can’t help feeling…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, and a long pause filled the line. For several seconds, Gina thought the service had gone down.

  “Paul, are you there?” Her voice rose. “Paul?” Her voice and her hands were shaking.

  “Sorry. Yes, I’m still here. You know, I’m probably just overreacting. Maybe she was going over to Ellen’s but then changed her mind. She could be with some other friend, or shopping.”

  “Shopping? All day?” Gina said doubtfully. “And if she went to someone else’s house, after she told me she was going to Ellen’s, I think she’d call.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Paul admitted. “She’s always been good about letting us know where she is.”

  “Let’s not panic,” Gina said. “There has to be some reasonable explanation.”

  She stood for a moment and thought back. “Paul, she took her Mustang. Maybe it broke down. Maybe…” But she couldn’t go on. Her throat was tight with fear.

  “She would have called one of us if she’d had car trouble,” Paul said.

  “I know,” she whispered. The words on the note left in Rachel’s pocket blazed across her mind: Be careful your luck doesn’t run out.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Paul asked.

  “This morning. Ten or eleven, I think. I didn’t look at the clock.”

  “I should call Duarte,” Paul said. “We’ve already lost way too much time.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Call him now. I’ll get home as fast as I can.”

  Hanging up, she saw Julian’s distressed face. He had gotten out of the tub, dried and was pulling on his clothes. “Something’s happened to Rachel?” he asked. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Gina said, tears filling her eyes. He reached out to hold her, but she slipped away. “I have to go home.”

  Gina all but flew along I-5, not caring if she were stopped for speeding. If it came to that, she would explain and ask for an escort.

  Reaching Queen Anne Hill, she skirted the tree they had run into the other night, gripping the wheel firmly and nearly taking the last corner on two wheels. Ahead was her driveway, and her heart began to race. A silver Crown Vic was parked there, similar to hers. It was a model, she knew, that the police often used.

  Racing up the front steps she threw open the front door and called out, “Rachel? Rachel, are you home?”

  Paul came from the living room, his face pale and haggard. Her heart ached, seeing him like that.

  “She’s not here,” he said. “Detective Duarte’s in the living room.”

  Gina followed him in and saw the detective sitting in a chair by the fireplace, the same one Rachel always chose when they had tea in here, afternoons.

  Her legs went weak. “You haven’t heard anything at all?”

  Duarte shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked at Paul. “What about the hospitals?”

  “They don’t have anyone fitting her description,” he said.

  “But that can be good news,” Duarte pointed out.

  “Did you try her cell phone again?”

  “Several times. She’s not answering.”

  Terrible scenes flashed before her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she cried out, losing control. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the precinct, getting a search organized or something?”

  “You have to understand, Mrs. Bradley. A young woman that age, we don’t assume right off that she’s met with foul play. She had a car, she could have taken off—”

  “What
the hell are you talking about?” Gina cried. “You met her, you know she wouldn’t do that sort of thing. You know about the note she got. For God’s sake, why aren’t you doing something?”

  Paul put a hand on her shoulder.

  She shook him off. “No, don’t touch me! I want to know where my daughter is, and I want someone to act as if they care!”

  “Mrs. Bradley,” Duarte said patiently, “if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here. Please sit down.”

  Gina swallowed hard. It felt as if her throat had closed up, and she began to panic. Paul took her arm and led her to the sofa, where he sat beside her, rubbing her back.

  “I was about to say that in most cases,” Duarte went on, “we don’t figure on foul play right away. But in your daughter’s case, there was that note. We can’t just dismiss it. And to be honest, your daughter seems like a real sweet kid. I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to her.”

  “He’s been asking me about her friends,” Paul explained, “anyone at all who might know where she is. I’ve been making calls.” His voice shook. “No one’s seen her, Gina.”

  “Of course, she might have met someone new,” Duarte said. “Somebody you folks don’t know about yet. Has she mentioned anyone?”

  Gina shook her head. “Only Angela. Angela’s the only one I can think of who might…”

  Her voice failed, and she stiffened her spine, willing her lips to stop trembling. “Angela’s the only one who might have hurt her.”

  “If it was Angela she saw and who put that note in her pocket,” Paul said quickly, taking her hand. “We can’t know that for sure.”

  Gina let her hand rest in Paul’s, and for the first time in a long time she felt they were together in something.

  “I’ve been doing some poking around,” Duarte said. “I talked to the director at Saint Sympatica’s and got some information from her.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Paul said, looking at him quickly.