Seabrook was double-checking his messsage, wanting to make a connection even if she had returned to Middleton. But Callie still couldn’t afford for him to interfere. Not yet.
“That was fine, Sophie. There’s no need for him to come here and make a scene. I’m with Mason. What about that can’t Mike understand?”
“Oh, honey, I get it. Wish I had your problem, though.” She rolled her eyes, then cupped Callie’s chin. “I knew your life would turn around. I’m so happy for you.”
Goddammit, get this woman out of here!
Mason returned, a slight hesitation in his step when he saw the two women engrossed in chat. “Now, Sophie, are you in the proper shape to drive home?”
“Oh, Mason. I nursed one drink all night. My body is my temple, as I tell my yoga students. Your party was divine, by the way.”
His charm shined from behind his flawless smile. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ll see to Callie’s return, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all.” She fumbled through her clutch and retrieved keys. “Oh, I snitched a few of the canapés.” She held up a napkin-wrapped snack. “Well, you kids have fun. Call me tomorrow, Callie.” Then she twittered in song the whole way out.
The door shut as if sealing a tomb.
Mason strolled past her to the vast sweep of windows facing the water.
Callie followed, holding her posture strong, her voice steady, while her heartbeat fought to tear out of her chest at what had to be a pivotal moment. “I’ve performed at your party and become the latest rumor.”
“Well played, too,” he said, staring out to sea.
“Where’s Jeb?”
“In due time,” he said, his back to her. “The party isn’t quite over.”
“Of course it’s not,” she said, shoulders slumped.
He turned and approached her, at the same time waving for her to meet him halfway, still able to show warmth in his eyes. Any normal woman would melt under that gaze. His long tanned body, alluring with those runner’s thighs, flat abs, and dark hair to get lost in. Add the money, and what woman wouldn’t see packaged perfection.
But perfection never proved perfect.
“I need proof of life,” she said. “If he’s dead, then I might as well be, too.”
He brushed her cheek, letting his touch fall along her neck, his thumb moving her scarf to caress her collarbone. “Callie, such drama.”
She stepped back against the wall. A row of light switches dug into her back, and a few toggled up under her painful reaction to push off them. A set of sconces came on to her left. The porch lit up.
Mason smiled as if empathetic. Then he reached around her and shut off the porch lights. “Can’t have the police knocking on my door telling me to keep it dark for those damn turtles, now, can we?” He dimmed the living room lights to a dramatic low, the cloudless night making it seem darker still.
Oh, damn.
His hand stayed behind her, his thumb rubbing up and down her waist.
Would it matter if she let him have her? If it saved Jeb . . . even if Jeb was dead already and she was left alone, it was just a physical act. The man could not possess her mind. In the grand scheme of life, what damn difference did it make?
Unless he was perverted, kinky, sick. Still, for Jeb . . .
His hand regained its position on her collarbone and rubbed. A finger crawled under her necklaces. Like a snake, the scarf seemed to glide from around her on its own, and soon his other hand rested on the opposite side of her neck, operating in tandem.
In a swoop, he shoved the thin straps of her dress bodice off her shoulders. Her arms crossed to cover her bared breasts, her fingers searching for edges of the material to help her recover as icy fear conflicted with her bravado.
Mason let her replace the straps.
This was a game. To her it could be leverage. Assuming she could keep the dreaded sense of foreboding from overwhelming her focus.
“Proof of life, Mason,” she reminded him. Even in the immense living room with its floor to ceiling glass and echo, claustrophobia smothered her as he leered only two feet away.
He hissed in a tone he’d never used with her before. “If he’s alive, then show me you wish him to remain so.”
Her ear picked up on the wording. She didn’t discern why, but like a current coming into the line, she felt something familiar spark. “This is a vendetta, not sex. What do you think I did? What did I do?”
“Soon enough. Over our post-coital cigarette, hmm?” His gaze trailed over her, lingering on places. “I could forcefully take you.”
“You’d come away scarred.”
He brushed her arm. “Like you?”
“Worse.”
Mason scoffed. His patience intact.
“I must see my son. He’s everything to me,” she said. “Maybe you don’t fully comprehend the meaning of family.”
Darkness flew across his face, wild, a stark contrast to the man’s normal demeanor.
Shit, what had she said?
He looked away, then snapped back to stare at her, as if correcting himself. She could see him wrestling with what to say next. Heaven help her, she needed to know what button she’d pushed, because therein lay his weakness . . . and her strength.
Chapter 33
MASON PAUSED off-balance in the wake of her remark. He hesitated, clenching his jaw, then released it as if catching himself.
Fueled by this challenge of discovery, where each word and glance could drop a hint, Callie sought to maintain the conversation and bait him. At least until she could put the pieces together.
“So, you do know something about family,” she said. “Does that upset you for some reason?”
This ladies’ man was a cliché she’d identified the moment she’d met him. His manners enticed people, but he ran shallow quickly. She didn’t want to think about how many women had fallen for his suave comportment in hopes of enjoying that red master suite in reward. The lush gold carpet. The opulent red bed. The ornate mixture of colors in the folk art tapestry: the black horses with yellow saddles and red reins. Not standard rental decor. Those were his things he’d added to reinforce his macho, virile environment.
Oh my gosh.
She pushed down a reaction. She expected the danger of rape or the chance of murder, but suddenly she almost audibly heard a clue fall into place.
A sneer lifted the ends of his lips, as if energized by her change, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Oh, Callie, nothing upsets me. You’re all I need right now.” He shifted and squeezed her tighter, as if making a point. “I assure you I’m quite good. New experiences for you, maybe. Some rather unique, but exhilarating. I promise.” He reached down and stroked her damaged forearm. “No scars at all.”
A lightning jolt of terror shot from head to toe. In Boston she’d seen the results of fetishes and the stomach-churning methods of sadomasochism. Strangulation taken too far by one particular member of the Russian family.
“Afterwards, I may let you walk away. Maybe even with your son,” he said, seating her on the sofa.
Liar. “Mason, please. I . . . I need water.” She croaked the words, as if parched and afraid, kneading the cushion to stay focused.
He released her and stepped to the kitchen from the huge living area, continually cutting his eyes at her. No words, just watching. He returned and set a napkin and a drink on the coffee table. “Alcohol makes the experience sweeter.”
As he sat to join her, she replied, “Spasibo” in Russian.
“Pozhalujsta,” he said. “You’re welcome.” His pause melted into a grin. “Very good, Callie.”
Her paranoia about Russian mobsters had not been paranoia. The long-time stalker she’d imagined, no, sensed in spite of naysayers had just wooed her ins
tead of shooting her in the back of the head.
He wasn’t simply someone’s hit man.
As her heart pummeled her ribs, she feared he’d notice the heavy beats with her half-exposed chest. Her head sent klaxon messages to run, but instead, she sipped the drink, both feet square on the floor. “So, which bastard relation to Leo Zubov are you?”
“Georgy,” he said, allowing a slice of his accent to show. “Nephew.”
“I see.” She nodded calmly, while her insides whirled in an uproar. “The family must put a lot of trust in you.” Glancing around the living room, she looked toward the kitchen, across remnants of the evening’s gala scattered across counters and tables. “Especially to invest so much money into you, this house, the parties, the Jag . . . this vendetta.”
She rested her gaze on him and held it. Waiting.
With enough police work over time, cops amass experience. They talk to people, and if they luck out and land a great field training officer, they learn to read nuances. If she focused on Jeb, Mason would win. She had to keep the focus on her, to buy time. If she kept him mentally distracted, she might tap his impatience, and hopefully he’d make a mistake.
A small window, but therein lay her edge.
“The family,” he said and spat.
“They never sanctioned you, did they?” she said. “Do they even know you’re here?”
Mason snatched her wrist, sending her glass flying. “I do what I want.”
Damn! He was a lone wolf.
There weren’t any henchmen. No accomplices. No contract on her. Shit! Jeb was probably somewhere in the fucking house. She fought the urge to jump up and run room to room.
He was Russian and hated her. But without the family behind him, what drove him this friggin’ hard?
“But you rented this house months ago,” she said, channeling control with every shred of effort she could muster. Her eyes couldn’t help but dart around the place. Jeb might be within earshot. She yearned to scream his name.
While Mason held her wrist, his other hand ran up and down her arm, rougher this time, in and out from under her bodice, sending shivers. He grinned seeing the goose bumps. “When you moved to Middleton, I came south. I followed you once to your beloved Papa Beach’s house. I liked Edisto with its beaches. A working vacation. And it was close enough to you.” His strokes turned into a clench on her other wrist, and he shook her once. “You thrilled me moving here. And the fun began! Like an omen.”
She winced at his tight hold. “I threw you by planning to install motion sensors, didn’t I?”
“Yes. No more picking your new locks, though I welcomed the challenge each time. Would have been a shame breaking out a window. The cheap locks that agent put on the Beechum house were worthless, with Pauley too stupid to change them. But no matter,” he said, his accent slipping between words. “I tired of the game. I’ve been picking locks since I was ten.”
Her fingers grew numb. “Papa Beach was not a game.”
He clenched stronger.
“You killed my uncle. Yes, I killed your Papa Beach.” He glared. “It hurts deep inside when people whom you care about are taken away. You needed to feel the same pain.”
“You took the coins to feign a burglary.”
“And your stupid Peters found them in the trash where I threw them.” Mason sneered. “He played his own game after that. I just took advantage.”
She fisted and tried to pull free. He held firm. “You overpowered Steve Maxwell to stack charges against Peters,” she said, “so he’d get charged with Papa’s death.”
“Stupid handyman should have stuck to building mailboxes.”
Yes. He should have. “You bastard. You ran my father into a tree!”
“The goal was both your parents, but alas.” He released her and widened his hands. “He gave me such an opportunity on that road. All those trees.”
“Why now? Why not in Boston, or even Middleton? Why wait two years?”
He smiled. “I wanted you to feel like your world had returned to normal. So I could ruin it once again.”
She’d been wise all along to watch over her shoulder for Russians. Her police skills hadn’t left her. “You won. Congratulations. Now drive away, Mason. You’ve made your point. Take your Jag and disappear. There’s no evidence against you.” She’d go to jail for Pauley’s murder sooner than lose Jeb. “It’s my word against yours, and nobody—”
He shot to his feet and yanked her up against his chest. “You fail to truly see the man who stands before you.”
His creepy stare sent a chill writhing up her spine, but she had to continue this demented game. “So tell me about him, Georgy.”
“I’d rather show you.” A wry smile crept across his face, but he gave her the barest brush of a kiss. “Tomorrow I’ll brag to my family that not only did I kill your husband, but I fucked his wife, the woman responsible for the death of Leo Zubov.”
Ringing filled Callie’s ears, intensifying. A shadow blocked all light as her husband’s assassin slammed his mouth on hers and grew hard against her belly.
Emotion exploded in her head with memories of the second story collapsing, sparks and flames shooting into a night sky. Shrapnel ripping her arm. Jeb screaming.
Mason pushed her off balance and fell harshly atop her onto the sofa. As he weighed her down he raised her skirt, groping her outer thigh enough to bruise. His fingers crawled to her inner thigh, squeezing.
John. In how many ways have I let us down?
Mason repeatedly grabbed at her flesh under her dress, mashing, kneading.
She reached, prying, searching to snare a digit to disable his hold. Unable to grasp one, she shoved at him. His weight only pressed heavier, whooshing air out of her lungs. With a spasmodic jerk, her eyes flew open as he harshly fondled her pubic area. But she couldn’t roll out from under him. One arm lay wedged under her, and he pinned the other back. She mashed her eyes shut again when Mason bit her neck.
Jeb healed after the fire because of you. He’s a grown man because of you. Don’t give up your life when he needs you most.
Mason’s crushing vise on her breasts snatched her back to attention. She couldn’t fight against his strength, so she said the first thing that came into her head. “You’re a sick, twisted, pathetic misfit that your family cast aside.”
The ardor faded, his stare a cross between hurt and disdain. “I don’t need family sanction,” he fired back. “I’m showing them how to get their damn balls back.”
He rearranged his clothes and went to the bar. Callie lay breathless, grateful to inhale deeply.
He lifted a bottle of Scotch. The bottle neck clanked on a glass as he poured. “Damn soft traditionalists. I showed them in Boston, and I will show them here. Then minds will be changed.” He swung his arm. “An entire family disposed of, except for the old woman.” He took a drink. “And I might just conclude with her, in her husband’s bed. She’s doable.”
Callie’s head spun at the image of her mother’s rape. She pushed upright against the arm of the sofa. The cavalry wasn’t coming, and her comments would drive the evening. Or so she hoped. She had to hope. “You’ve proved your point, Mason. It’s about respect.”
“Don’t insult me, Callie. I’m no fool, and we’ve got all night to play.” He downed the Scotch. “Bad for business, they said.” The glass landed heavy on the bar. “Bullshit. It sends a message to kill a cop—to kill his family. It delivers a warning!”
His eyes weren’t glazed, but they showed the drink. He ambled back toward her, empowered.
As she leaned back, he dropped to the sofa and chucked her under the chin with a knuckle. “Taking your husband, burning your house, all of it sent you packing, Callista Jean Morgan.” His countenance darkened. “But the family didn’t agree. They will approve this
time, though. With your family gone, I can step into a respectable role with mine.”
She desperately glanced at the windows, praying for an observer, a beachcomber. But the view lent itself strictly seaward. “Let me see my son, Mason. I’ll do what you want, just let me see Jeb.” Callie undid her belt, slipping it through her hand as it snaked to the floor in an enticing promise. “Then do what you will.”
Frustrated, he pulled her to her feet. Taking her by the wrist, they walked down the hall to the locked bedroom door between the hall bath and his master suite. Breath held, she restrained herself from plowing past Mason to open the door herself.
Jeb lay on the bed, eyes closed.
“Jeb.” Callie rushed to his side. It took everything within her to freeze long enough to watch his chest for movement. Thank heaven, he’s breathing. She opened his eyelids, felt his forehead. Drugged. She felt his body, doing a cursory check for injury.
“So you’ve seen him.” Mason grabbed her away and tugged her back through the doorway.
As they returned down the hall, she fought to peer over her shoulder to catch another glimpse of her beautiful child, but they rounded the corner.
Back in the living room, Mason steered her toward the sofa, shoulders back, stiff with determination. Seeing Jeb alive had energized her, rejuvenating purpose in her. The manicure scissors now palmed from her belt, her thumb rubbed against the metal. She inhaled, primed.
He turned to face her, impatience in his jerk of her arm. But with a thrust and upward swing, she aimed for Mason’s jugular. The scissors ripped skin long and deep before sinking off the mark into his jaw, instead jarring to a stop against bone.
Mason staggered back. The embedded tiny weapon reflected light off its grips.
His fingers stiffened at the touch of the steel in his face. Then he yanked the scissors free and tossed them across the room. “You bitch!” Blood drooled down his neck, wicking into his clothes.
Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) Page 35
