“Beth,” he murmured against her mouth. “I know how fast this is, but I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
It was fast. So fast that she wouldn’t have believed him if she didn’t think she’d fallen in love with him, too.
When she said that, he smiled the sexiest smile she’d ever seen, then slowly smoothed his hand down her back, drawing every inch of her tightly to him.
She could feel how hard his arousal was, and it made her wet with wanting. Sliding her hand down his body, she wordlessly told him so.
He groaned against her throat, started to kiss her again, then stopped and said, “As much as I hate to even suggest moving, what are the odds a cat would land on us at a critical moment?”
That made her smile. And decide she liked a man who was wise to the ways of cats. “The risk is probably pretty high,” she told him.
Without another word, he rose and led her into the bedroom, firmly closing the door behind them, then leading her over to the bed.
“Now, where were we?” he said.
“Cole, if you’ve forgotten, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Well, don’t worry, I think it’s coming back to me.
Slowly, his eyes not leaving hers, he reached around her and unzipped her dress, sliding both it and her slip off her shoulders.
When they dropped to the floor, he gazed at her for another moment, then quickly stripped naked.
She watched him, her eyes devouring him and her body aching for him.
He was all lean muscles, from his neck to his shoulders and down his chest, his skin bathed golden in the sunshine pouring through the skylight.
She let her eyes drift lower, liking everything she saw. And wanting it.
His clothes on the floor, he stepped back to where she was standing beside the bed and kissed her again, so hungrily that all she could think about was having him inside her.
Not breaking their kiss, he removed her bra and slid her panties down over her hips. Then he lowered her to the bed, pushing, her panties the rest of the way off and covering her body with his.
She smoothed her hands down his back, pulling him closer, feeling his body heat mingling with hers, needing him to be part of her.
Greedily, he kissed her mouth, her throat, her breasts, until she could barely stand the exquisite torture any longer.
Finally, he slid his hand down between her legs, making her breath catch in her throat.
She was so warm and wet that when he entered her it was with one smooth thrust. She wrapped her legs tightly around him, and a moment later was moving with him, giving herself up to him, to the rhythm his body was setting and the smooth slide of his skin against hers.
With every thrust, she lost a little more of herself to his possession, until she felt that he was part of her and she was part of him.
Then heat began to drive away rational thought—heat from the sunshine, from Cole’s body, from the blood pulsing through her veins.
Her breath began coming in short little gasps, until she could scarcely breathe at all, and every nerve ending inside her body was crying out for more of him.
She didn’t want the feeling to. ever end. But if it didn’t, she’d die. She’d shatter from the inside out
Then Cole cried her name, thrusting even more deeply, and she did shatter, into a million tiny tremors that wouldn’t stop sending delicious shivers through her body.
Cole lay on top of her, breathing hard, his sweat mingling with hers, until he finally eased onto his side and cuddled her to him.
Every time another of the little shivers seized her, she could feel him smiling against her neck.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispered at last.
Curling around in his arms, she tangled a little of his chest hair with her finger. “I’m thinking that for a woman who hasn’t been very happy recently,” she murmured, “I’m certainly making up for lost time.”
Chapter Thirteen
The phrase “died and gone to heaven” had been drifting through Cole’s mind during dinner.
Actually, it had begun its drifting long before that—back when he’d been kissing Beth on the couch. And then, once they’d moved to the bed-room…
Yes, this was definitely a “died and gone to heaven” type of situation he’d fallen into. And on top of everything else, she was a good cook.
“That was great,” he told her, pouring the last of the burgundy.
“Better than sushi and escargots?”
“Marginally,” he said, trying not to smile. He couldn’t manage it, though. Every time he looked at her, he found himself smiling.
Of course, if he really didn’t want to, he simply had to remember that someone was trying to kill her.
“Want to move into the living room?” she suggested.
“Sure.” He picked up his wineglass and followed her to the couch.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” he said, sinking down beside her and draping his arm cozily over her shoulders.
“Me?”
“Well, yeah. Mostly about you. But a little bit about that missing journal of Larisa’s. Assuming she was still keeping one when she died, why wasn’t it in the blanket box?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dammit,” he muttered. “I wish we knew how to get hold of Abbot in Calgary. I’d like to ask him what conclusion they came to about it But if there was a current diary, and the killer didn’t take it, then Larisa must have had it hidden away—someplace other than in the blanket box, and well enough that the police couldn’t find it”
“Why would she have hidden it?”
“Who knows? But if she did, there’s a chance it’s still wherever she stashed it.”
“You mean still in the house? After all these years?”
“It must be, unless somebody found it and threw it out. And if it is there, I’d sure like to have a look at it.”
Beth’s pulse skipped a beat. “The mystery man? You think his name might be in it?”
“Well…there might be something. Some clue, although I doubt we’d get his name. I can’t imagine Larisa would have written about her affairs. She’d have known there was always a chance Mark would see those journals.”
“But even a clue…” Thinking that would be more than they had at the moment, Beth closed her eyes.
“What?” Cole said after a moment. “You think better with your eyes shut?”
“Not think, but remember,” she explained. “It’s a trick Mark taught me. When he was trying to help me remember, he was always telling me to close my eyes and let my memory paint a picture—so let me get back to it.”
“In other words, keep quiet”
She smiled without opening her eyes. “In other words, yes.”
Trying to force away all thoughts of the present, she created a mental picture of the living room in the house on Tranby Avenue.
The image formed clearly in her mind’s eye, but no memories came to her. Next, she pictured the dining room. Then the kitchen.
After that produced nothing, she went through the same process with the rooms on the second floor—with no more positive results than she’d had with the main floor. That left only the attic.
She didn’t want to imagine it. She’d seen it too many times in her nightmares to want to dredge up a picture of it. But, her heart beating faster, she forced herself to do exactly that—imagining it was the day of the murder, picturing herself heading up into the attic after Larisa.
They were going to play dress-up, so she happily followed her aunt up the steep stairs, barely noticing the way the dust began to tickle her nose as they reached the top.
“Now, let’s see,” Aunt Larisa said, stopping and looking around. “I think there’s some really good, stuff in this trunk. Just give me a minute to get it out.”
While Aunt Larisa opened the trunk, Beth started across to the window. If there were people in the street, when she looked down it was like she was a big giant and the
y were little—
“Oops!” she said, almost falling.
“What’s wrong?” Aunt Larisa asked.
“There’s a loose board. I tripped.”
She reached down to push it flat, but before she could touch it, Aunt Larisa said, “Oh, just wait a second, Beth. I’ll fix it.”
A moment later, Aunt Larisa was kneeling beside the board and pushing it into place.
“It needs new nails,” Beth said.
“Oh…well…” Aunt Larisa wiped her forehead with her hand, then gave Beth a funny-looking smile. “It’s never been sticking up like that before, so it’ll be okay.”
“But it might not be. I could ask Uncle Mark to nail it for you.”
“Aah…no. That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“He wouldn’t mind.”
Aunt Larisa reached for Beth’s hands. “I’m going to tell you a secret, all right?”
Beth grinned. She loved secrets.
“But you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not even your mom or dad. And not Uncle Mark.”
“Okay.”
“Well…I don’t want the board nailed, because I have to be able to move it up and down.”
“Why?”
Aunt Larisa didn’t answer for a minute, but finally said, “Now remember, this is a serious secret.”
“I’ll remember.”
“All right, then. You see, underneath the board is my secret hidey-hole.”
Beth exhaled slowly, her heart suddenly pounding. “I might know,” she whispered, opening her eyes. ‘‘Cole, I might know where the journal is.”
Quickly, she filled him in.
‘“Then the only question,” he said when she was done, “is how do we get into that attic?”
“Wait a minute,” she said slowly. “Couldn’t you get in trouble if you went looking for evidence after the police told you to butt out?”
“A journal wouldn’t technically be evidence. Le-gally, it would be considered hearsay. And if it con-tained any clues, I’d let the police know. But look, let’s not worry about the fine points right now. We might not even get into the house. And if we do, there might not be any journal.”
“But if there is?”
“Then I’ll figure out the best way to handle things.”
“And you’re sure there’d be no trouble.”
“None I couldn’t take care of. So don’t worry, okay?”
She eyed him for a moment, thinking of something he’d said the first day in his office—that he knew how far he could go without endangering his license. So, if he was saying he could take care of things, she’d just have to believe him.
“All right,” she said at last. “Why don’t we simply phone whoever owns the house now? And explain that we think there might be something in the attic, and…But I guess the explaining part could get tricky, couldn’t it”
Cole nodded. “They’d ask a lot of questions. Like what do we think’s up there and why do we want it? And what do you figure they’d do the minute they hung up the phone?”
“Aah, I see what you’re getting at. They’d search the attic.”
“Exactly. And if they found the journal and realized it was Larisa’s, they—”
“But how would they?”
“Because they’ve got to know about the murder. If they didn’t before they bought the house, some of the neighbors would have given them all the gory details after they moved in.
“And I assume that even if Larisa’s name isn’t on the journal, she dated her entries. So, if they realized this was a journal that was being kept in the months before the murder, they might decide to give it to the police rather than us. And we’ve got a whole lot more incentive to get to the bottom of things fast than the police do.”
An only-too-familiar feeling of unease began curling around in Beth’ s mind. Their “whole lot of incentive” was that if they didn’t identify the murderer fast enough,? he’d have another try at killing her.
“But just showing up at the door isn’t a good idea, either,” Cole was saying. “Not many people would let a couple of total strangers go poking around in their attic.”
“Not even when one of them’s a private investigator?”
He shook his head. “No, we need some sort of edge, something that’ll get us in without having to give up the element of surprise. But what?”
Beth tried to think. “How about Esther Voise?” she said at last“Would she help us?”
Cole grinned. “You know, I think she might. She struck me as a woman who’d love a little intrigue in her life.”
Five minutes later, Beth was anxiously watching him pace the room, the cordless in his hand.
“Well, thanks again, Miss Voise,” he said. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this.
“All set,” he said, clicking off. “We make her place our first stop, then she takes us across the street and introduces us to the current lady of the house—a Marilyn Williamson.”
“Esther figures she’ll be there?”
“Uh-huh. She’s some sort of freelancer who works at home.”
THE NEXT MORNING, as Esther Voise was ringing the bell of the Tranby Avenue house, Cole leaned closer to Beth and whispered, “You going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
She’d woken in the middle of the night with another of her attic nightmares. But at least, this time, Cole had been right there beside her to wrap his arms around her, hold her until her fear subsided, and then make love with her.
It had made all the difference in the world, and having him with her now was making her far less anxious than she’d otherwise be. Still, despite the warmth of the July morning, the prospect of going up into that attic was giving her goose bumps.
Esther was just reaching out to ring again when a middle-aged woman opened the door.
“Good morning,” Esther greeted her. “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your work, but I’ve brought over a couple of people who’d like to talk to you for a minute.”
“Oh?” The woman looked curiously at Beth and Cole.
“They’re private investigators—Cole Radford and Wendy Kinahan. This is Marilyn Williamson,” she added, glancing at Cole and Beth.
Beth forced a smile, feeling guilty about carrying on their Wendy Kinahan subterfuge when Esther was being so helpful. But if they’d come clean and admitted they’d initially lied to her, she might not be so helpful.
“They talked to me about a few things the other day,” Esther continued. “And now something’s come up about your house.”
“My house?”
“Yes, you see, they’re working for Dr. Niebuhr. The man who owned it way back. You know, the one who’s wife…”
Marilyn nodded. ‘‘Well…come in.”
“Thank you,” Cole said. “We’ll take as little time as possible, but we think there may be a diary of Mrs. Niebuhr’s in your attic. And if there is, we wondered…It would mean a lot to Dr. Niebuhr if he could have it”
Beth held her breath. The request sounded perfectly innocent to her. But did it to Marilyn William-son?
“I’ve never noticed a diary up there,” she said. “And the house had other owners after Dr. Nie-buhr—before my husband and me, I mean. If there ever was a diary, it’s probably long gone.”
“Not necessarily,” Cole said. “It was bidden away, but we know where. So if you could see your way clear to just let us have a quick look…”
When Marilyn didn’t reply immediately, Esther said, “Dr. Niebuhr’s a very nice man. And if it would mean a lot to him…”
Marilyn shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to let you look.”
Beth exhaled slowly, silently thanking Esther as the four of them started for the second floor.
With each stair they climbed, she could feel her anxiety level rising. When they got to the upstairs hallway, she reached for Cole’s hand, afraid that being in the hall would trigger an image of the murder.
But wit
h different wallpaper and carpeting, it no longer looked the way it had, and it wasn’t until Marilyn opened the door to the attic that Beth’s heart began to hammer.
The narrow stairway looked exactly the same, right down to the dust motes lazily floating in the hot air.
It smelted the same as well. Dry and stale, like the air in a cottage when it’s first opened after a long, unoccupied winter.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” she whispered to Cole.
“I can go up and look on my own,” he whispered back. “I know roughly where it is.”
As tempting as the offer was, she shook her head. Surely, in the long run, confronting her demons would be better than running away from them. “I’ll give it a try,” she murmured.
Her heart pounding harder still, she followed Marilyn up the steep stairs. Even with Cole’s hand resting reassuringly against the small of her back, she felt physically ill by the time they reached the attic.
Forcing herself to start walking forward, she kept her gaze on the floor until she spotted the board. Then she stood staring at it, unable to make herself bend down.
But, after a moment, Cole was kneeling beside her, saying, “This looks like what we were told about, right? Just let me work it out.”
He applied pressure to first one end of the board and then the other, gradually wiggling it up. When he finally pulled it free, Beth’s breath caught in her throat. There was a faded red notebook in the space.
He took it out and glanced through the first few pages, looking so unimpressed that her hopes sank. Maybe it wasn’t the missing journal at all. Maybe Larisa had hidden something else here.
But then he said, “I think this is what we’re looking for,” and her hopes began climbing toward the sky. If it was the mystery man who was trying to kill her, and the journal helped them learn who he was…
“This is going to make Dr. Niebuhr awfully happy,” Cole said. Then he glanced at Marilyn. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t just assume that you won’t mind us taking it for him.”
“Well…I guess…if it was his wife’s.”
Cole pushed himself up and crossed the attic to where Marilyn and Esther Voise were standing. “Here’s her name on the cover,” he said, showing it to them. “See. Larisa Stinson Niebuhr, Journal number fifty-two.”
The Missing Hour Page 16
