Attempted Matrimony

by Joanna Wayne

  The contradiction hit her again, the massive chasm between what he appeared on the outside and the cravings that must fester inside him and corrode his soul to the point where he spent most of his spare time shut up in this room.

  She opened the last drawer. A blue plastic container stood in the right corner. And next to it were newspaper clippings about the murders committed by the serial killer. Malcomb had shown no interest at all in the murders when she’d mentioned them at breakfast the other morning, yet he’d been clipping and saving the write-ups.

  She studied each one, captivated by the pictures of the victims while they’d still been vibrant and alive. Then she returned the clippings to the drawer and took out the blue plastic container. The catch released easily, and the top swung back, revealing a stack of small black-and-white snapshots.

  The subjects were all young women, dark-haired, attractive, probably between the ages of twenty and thirty. All were in various stages of undress, most in provocative poses. New questions bombarded Nicole.

  Had Malcomb taken the photographs? If so, when? Before she met him? While they’d been courting and he’d been overwhelming her with attention, gifts and flowers? Or since they’d been married, on some of the many nights he claimed he was needed at the hospital? And who were the women?

  She buried her head in her hands, confused, hurt, feeling twisted inside and thoroughly disgusted with herself for becoming so intimately embroiled in such a demoralizing situation. She felt contaminated and defiled, as if she were somehow a party to all of this, or in some way responsible for Karen’s death.

  No wonder Malcomb used so much antiseptic spray, she decided, as she returned the pictures to the drawer. She’d never felt as dirty in her life as she did at this moment. Picking up the stack of photographs, she tapped the bottom edges against the desk, lining them up so that they fit back into the container.

  She put them away exactly as she’d found them and picked up the phone to call Dallas. He was the only one she could talk to about this—the only one she wanted to talk to. She’d dialed the prefix of his cellular number when she felt a cold draft sweep across the room. When she looked up, Malcomb was standing in the open door.

  It made her sick to look at him, left her feeling cold and violated, as empty as if someone had reached inside her and scooped out every ounce of anything decent and good that had ever existed between them.

  She returned the phone to its cradle and found her voice in the vacuum. “Welcome home, Malcomb.”

  “So you finally came to visit my little hobby area.”

  “I don’t remember being invited before. Nor did I know you’d changed the lock.”

  “I’m sure I told you that. The other one was rusted.”

  “No. I’m sure I would remember if you’d mentioned it.”

  “But you must have found the key I left hanging on the rack in the laundry room.”

  She didn’t contradict him. If there was a key on the rack, it was because he’d just put it there. He’d evidently seen the light on and knew she was in his hideaway.

  Malcomb shrugged out of his sport coat and tossed it over the back of a chair without bothering to fold it just right—the only visible sign that he was shaken by her visit to his private den of visual iniquity.

  “Bad timing for your first visit,” he said. “You must be shocked at my choice of wall hangings.”

  “Shocked…and sickened.”

  “I’m sure. I felt the same way when I first looked at them.”

  “They must have grown on you.”

  “Hardly. They’re for a paper Jim Castle is writing. He’s calling it ‘Sodom and Gomorrah Revisited in the Twenty-First Century.’”

  “An apt title.”

  “He’s warning of the dangers, by the way, not recommending it.” Malcomb smiled as if amused by his own wit.

  Nicole marveled that he could stand there like that, still playing his games. “Why do you have the pictures if Jim’s doing the research?”

  “Jim wants me to reduce the pictures and make transparencies for him. He’s delivering the paper next month in Chicago, at a conference on the dangers of deviant sexual behavior.”

  “So you just hung them up so you could enjoy them while you did your good deed for him.”

  “You know me better than that. But it’s a twelve-point paper. He wants my input on which picture to use with each point. Frankly, I don’t see that it makes an iota of difference. One is as disgusting as the next.” He crossed the room and stepped behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders and trailing his thumbs up and down her neck.

  She swallowed repeatedly, fighting the nausea that threatened to send her running to the bathroom again. She couldn’t bear his touch and didn’t want to hear any more of his self-righteous explanations. And if she asked, she was certain he’d have some cockamamie explanation for the snapshots, as well.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, standing and moving away from him.”

  “You’re still upset, aren’t you?” He walked over to the bulletin board and started removing the pictures. “Believe me, Nicole, I would never have left these up if I’d had any idea you were going to visit.”

  That was the first believable statement he’d made. “Don’t worry about the pictures, Malcomb. It’s your area. I’ll just stay away until the project is finished.”

  “Nonsense.” He stopped removing the pictures and turned to face her. “I want you to feel welcome anytime. Sharing every part of our lives is what makes our relationship so wonderful. Is there anything else in here that concerns you?”

  “No. I’d just stepped inside,” she lied. “The pictures were quite enough to get my attention.”

  He bent, picked up a slender blade of grass that must have come off of one of their shoes, and dropped it in the trash can. “I am a bit hungry,” he said. “I grabbed a sandwich in the hospital cafeteria for lunch, but that was hours ago. And I do believe I smelled your chicken-and-spaghetti casserole when I came though the kitchen.”

  He took her arm and led her out the door. It closed behind them with a thump of finality. Only there could be no finality, not until she knew the whole truth about Malcomb.

  Four women were dead. If her husband was responsible, she’d do anything in her power to make certain there was not another death. That meant she couldn’t simply run away as Dallas had suggested.

  Sleeping with the enemy could very well become her life.

  Or her death.

  MALCOMB TRIED TO HIDE his jubilance as he sipped his drink and waited for Nicole to put the finishing touches on dinner. This was the life he’d always dreamed of, a life a million miles away from the squalor he’d grown up in. A world away from the teenage boy who’d been dumped as if he were a bag of maggot-infested garbage.

  People looked up to him now. He was invited to all the big social events of the city. Dr. Malcomb Lancaster and his wife, the beautiful daughter of the late senator Gerald Dalton.

  For a second tonight, he’d thought he might have blown it, but the moment was short-lived. He was simply too smart to be entangled in the webs that ensnared weaker men. Men like Jim Castle, who had the same debauched appetites he did, but lacked the finesse and intelligence to manage them.

  He liked Jim. He just didn’t like him well enough to risk his own cover to protect Jim from his stupid mistakes. Actually, stupidity might be the biggest hindrance a man could face. Stupidity and guilt. Fortunately, Malcomb was cursed with neither.

  That’s why he had it all.

  DALLAS LEFT THE PRECINCT and walked to his car. It was nearly midnight. His body was dogged by fatigue, but his mind wouldn’t let go enough for him to even consider sleep. He’d been in his office since leaving Nicole. Had gone over and over every crime photo, every detail they’d collected at the scene, every word the profiler had said, every shred of evidence. The answer was there somewhere. He only had to find it.

  A car pulled up behind him, its headlights framing him before it st
opped at his side. Instinctively his hand went for his gun.

  “Don’t you ever sleep, partner?”

  “Don’t you know better than to practically run over a cop? What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were having dinner at your mom’s tonight and then cuddling a pillow and a blanket till dawn.”

  “I tried to sleep. Kept waking up. I called your apartment and you didn’t answer so I figured I’d find you here.”

  “Yeah. I keep thinking we’ve overlooked something, some clue, some scrap of evidence.”

  “Sooner or later, Fastidious Freddie will make his mistake. He’s climbing on loose rocks now and clinging to a frayed rope. One day he’ll slip, and we’ll have him.”

  “But how many women will die first?”

  “Wanna go grab a cup of coffee and talk about it?”

  “Nah. If I grab coffee, I’ll be up the rest of the night.”

  “Then how about a doughnut? I just stopped at Southern Maid for a half-dozen hot ones.”

  “You and your doughnuts.” Dallas opened the door and slid into the front seat. “Let’s take a drive.”

  “Not to the scene of the crime. It’s too dark and too long a ride. Besides, they have snakes, spiders and who knows what else crawling around in that muddy brush.”

  “Surely a tough detective like you isn’t afraid of a few creatures of the night?”

  “Not as long as they walk on two feet.”

  “I wasn’t actually thinking about the latest crime scene,” Dallas said, reaching to the back seat to grab a doughnut. “I was thinking about the Lancaster residence.”

  “It’s too late to go visiting.”

  “I know. I’d just like to check the place out, see if the lights are out or if the doctor is suffering from insomnia, too.”

  “You don’t have anything on him, Dallas, and the chief already warned you. Go after Lancaster or any of the local doctors and you better have flaming evidence to back you up. And that’s something more than that he’s married to a woman from your past. She is from your past, right? I mean, you’re not still hot for the doctor’s wife, are you?”

  Hotter than Hades, but Corky didn’t have to know everything. “Just doing my job, partner. Just doing my job.”

  The lights were out in the Lancaster home when they pulled up a few minutes later. All quiet on the home front, just as Dallas’s cell phone had been all night. He’d hoped Nicole would call. She hadn’t. And now she was in bed beside her husband.

  The man could just reach out and touch her, could pull her into his arms and hold her close. Smell the flowery scent of her hair, taste the sweetness of her mouth, caress her body the way Dallas had done once so long ago. Malcomb was her husband. It was his right.

  Dallas had no rights, except to protect her with his life. And to miss a hell of a lot of sleep on her account.

  NICOLE WAS STILL AWAKE long after Malcomb’s breathing had settled into the rhythmic pattern of sleep. He’d wanted to make love. She’d put him off with claims of a headache. The claim wasn’t entirely false. If she’d made love to him tonight, she would have become physically ill. As it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hurtling through time and space toward a bottomless black hole.

  If she could only call Dallas, tell him what she’d discovered, and ask him what that meant in terms of the profiler’s findings. But she didn’t dare make the call, not with Malcomb in the house. She’d wait till morning, until after he’d left for work.

  Strange that Dallas would be the one she ached to call when her world was falling apart. The first man she’d ever loved. The man who’d carried her to dizzying heights one dark, rainy night only to let her crash and burn when he’d taken permanent leave in the bright light of the new day.

  But no matter how she’d felt after the fact, there was no denying the feelings she’d experienced when they’d made love. It had been glorious, passionate, thrilling—wild and yet incredibly sweet. Too beautiful to ever forget. Too devastating to let sneak back into her dreams.

  But it was in her mind now, the memories strong, sending fingers of fire to her belly and heated trembles to the secret places Dallas had brought to life that night. Struggling for a steady breath, she slipped her legs from beneath the sheet and eased them to the floor. Tiptoeing so as not to wake Malcomb, she left the bedroom, careful not to stumble in the dark.

  The images were alive inside her as she crept down the hall, so vivid she could almost feel the rain soaking her clothes as they’d run up the back steps to the room over the garage. The room had been so different then. Warm. Youthful. Erotic the moment Dallas entered in his black leather jacket, his dark, rain-slicked hair falling into his eyes.

  Nicole dropped to the sofa in the family room and pulled the cashmere throw around her as she nestled against the oversize pillows. The fantasy had taken hold now, carried her back in time so completely she became one with the memories.

  Dallas pulled her close and she felt his warmth, like steam rising from the dripping fabric that separated them. And then his hands were tearing at her clothes, fumbling with the buttons of her blouse with one hand, reaching under her skirt and inside her panties with the other.

  “Tell me to stop, Nicole. Push me away.”

  But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. She’d wanted him from the second she’d first seen him. But never the way she’d wanted him that night.

  They tore off each other’s clothes, tossed them into a heap on the floor. He was all over her, touching her everywhere, kissing her as she’d never been kissed before. And then they were on the floor, rolling together, their arms and legs tangling as their bodies molded to each other.

  He was beautiful, lean and hard. She stroked the length of him, touching her mouth to his erection. He went crazy then, started shaking and calling her name over and over as if the sound of it on his tongue was part of the sex act.

  “I’m glad it’s you, Dallas,” she’d whispered. “I’m so very glad it’s you.”

  “Don’t even think of other guys. Not when I’m with you.”

  “There are no other guys. That’s what I mean. I’m glad the first time’s with you.”

  He’d pulled away then. She’d thought he didn’t want her because she was a virgin, and the pain of rejection had been excruciating. But then she’d looked into his eyes and saw the desire.

  “Is this really your first time?” he’d asked, holding her as if she might break.

  “Yes.”

  “And here I am, out of control and doing this all wrong.”

  “No. It’s all right. So very right. Please take me, Dallas.”

  “Oh, baby, baby, baby.”

  The words echoed in her mind. Baby. He’d called her that over and over as he’d fitted himself inside her and they’d rocked together, a thrusting ride to paradise. So perfect.

  Nicole snuggled beneath the throw now, her body hot and growing moist. They’d made love twice that night. The second time had been even more wonderful. That time she’d known what was coming, and the pinnacle had been even more climactic.

  One perfect night. So long ago. And then she’d been hit with a heartache she’d thought would never quit.

  Nicole rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes and caught the tears that had started to spill from them. She didn’t know why she was crying or why she’d let herself relive a past that could never be again.

  Maybe it was just her mind’s way of helping her body cope with the reality of the day. But dreams and fantasies couldn’t bring back the youthful miracle of first love, and couldn’t alter the possibility that she might be married to a psychopathic killer.

  And if Malcomb was the killer, she might be the only person who could stop him. At least she’d have to try.

  NICOLE JERKED AWAKE to the ringing of the phone. She was still on the couch, tangled in the throw, her legs cramped from the weird position she’d scrunched herself into.

  It stopped ringing before she could get to it. Apparently M
alcomb had wakened and grabbed the extension by the bed. He’d wonder where she was and why she’d left him, and she didn’t want him to get upset with her now. Better if he thought things were going well between them. Otherwise, he might raise his guard and make it more difficult for her to find out the hidden details of his life. Stretching, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She’d take it upstairs with her and he’d merely think she’d gotten thirsty.

  Malcomb was out of bed, pulling on a pair of gray trousers, when she reached the bedroom.

  “Was that the hospital?” she asked, setting the glass of water on the bedside table.

  “It was Sara Castle.”

  “Jim’s wife.”

  “Yes. Jim’s in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “Sara woke up to a loud thumping noise, and when she realized Jim wasn’t in the bed with her, she went looking for him. She found him slumped on the kitchen floor and called an ambulance.”

  “A heart attack?”

  “Apparently an overdose of his antianxiety meds. It’s hard to get the facts from Sara. She’s hysterical.”

  “I’m sure. Will he be all right?”

  “They haven’t told her anything yet. She wants me to come and see what I can find out.”

  “Poor Sara. Should I go with you?”

  “No. Not tonight. You need to get your sleep. I’ll call and let you know as soon as we find out something.”

  “I can’t imagine that Jim would try to kill himself intentionally. It must have been an accident.”

  “It’s probably that damn detective friend of yours. He questioned Jim about Karen’s death, and Jim’s been worried sick that they’re going to try and pin that murder on him.”

  “Why would they?”

  “Who knows why the Shreveport Police Department does anything? A bunch of incompetent morons.”

  “That’s not true.”

  He didn’t bother to respond, just continued calmly getting dressed. Nicole kept thinking about Jim. Poor guy. He was so quiet, the epitome of a stereotypical nerd. Dallas might well have propelled him into an anxiety attack.