“Is that right? Well, anytime you want to go off looking for action, feel free,” Larry muttered. Jack gave him a good-natured punch on the arm. “C’mon, Big Brother, you know you don’t mean it!”
Larry’s answer was lost as he turned to offer drinks to another group of guests, and Jack smiled down at Sue-Ellen, who beamed back. “He’s just miffed because me and Sue-Ellen have been out and about, looking at the sights, and he’s been stuck in here working,” Jack told the others. “Like I said to him, why not close the place and come on a few jaunts with us? But no, Larry was always a bit of a stick in the mud.”
“Too true,” Sue-Ellen sighed. Catching Ellie’s sharp look, she added, “Ah, I don’t mean it like that. I know one of us has got to be here - Lord knows, the business is really starting to take off with the tourist season. But everyone needs a little fun, sometimes, don’t you agree?” she asked, looking Reilly in the eyes with unconscious suggestiveness. “Don’t you miss the action in Chicago, Superintendent?”
“Well, Sue-Ellen, I was working as a police officer, so I guess the kind of action I saw wasn’t always the greatest fun,” he drawled back at her, and Ellie wondered if he caught the wary look that flashed into Jack’s eyes. Probably not, she thought peevishly, he’s too busy charming Sue-Ellen.
Brad took her arm then, and they moved on to say hello to other acquaintances. During the evening she caught occasional glimpses of Reilly chatting, deceptively relaxed and casual, usually with a woman looking up at him in adoration. Par for the course, Ellie thought to herself. Every place we went, he always seemed to have a female audience, listening with rapt attention. And when, exactly, did you stop listening to him? A nagging voice piped up in her mind, and she paused in shock to consider the thought. A sliver of memory, Reilly raising his voice in one of their rare actual shouting matches. You don’t have a clue what’s going on in my life - there’s no talking to you!
Had she indeed stopped listening to Reilly? Had she become so involved in her work and her own ambitions that she’d shut him out? She remembered the last time they’d met, when they’d agreed to go their separate ways. Ellie was on a fast-track for promotion, the only female officer to be employed on the Special Crimes Task Force, and Reilly had been offered a coveted secondment to a police authority in Chicago in an inter-force exchange. It had all been so civilized she had wanted to scream but instead she had agreed with Liam that things weren’t working between them and they both needed time to concentrate on their careers.
As if there could be no room in their lives for work and each other! It seemed like madness now, although it had seemed so rational and civilized at the time…
Brad got into a discussion on long-distance driving with a couple of the truck drivers who’d dropped by for the party and Ellie, bored, wandered off to the ladies’ room. She patted cold water onto her face, feeling suddenly tired and worn, ready to make her excuses and leave. She was just repairing her make-up when Sue-Ellen came in.
“There you are, honey! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You made quite an impression on Jack,” she declared, examining her own flawless make-up in the mirror. Beside her, Ellie felt too tall, too heavy, and badly turned out. She sighed. “Did I?”
“You most certainly did. You know, he’s got quite a thing about blondes - he’s always looking at them. But he seems to kind of clam up when he’s introduced. Maybe it’s because he was engaged once, and he’s never quite gotten over it. But tonight, with you, he was positively beaming.”
“What happened to the engagement?” The question was a bit personal but she thought Sue-Ellen wouldn’t mind.
“Oh, she died, suddenly. They don’t talk about it in Larry’s family. It must have been before Larry and I met. In fact, I guess I was still living at home in Texas, so I wouldn’t have heard anything about it. According to Larry, Jack got real surly back then, and I guess everyone was glad when he took off to the States. Seemed to feel responsible for Susie’s death—Susie was his fiancée’s name. He was so mean to Larry, too. Mind you, Larry would never talk about why. He’s such a loyal sweetie, my husband. But it must have been awful for them, a young woman like that dying.”
The two women shared a shudder of horror as their eyes met in the large silvered mirror. “Anyway, Jack’s sure taken a shine to you - you’re collecting men like flypaper, Ellie. First you have the delectable Brad, then that rather gorgeous Superintendent Reilly - now Jack. What’s your secret?” Sue-Ellen joked.
“I’m a natural blonde,” Ellie said lightly, smiling back at the other woman’s reflection in the mirror. “We have more fun!” They both laughed.
She returned to the café, where the party was winding down. Slipping her hand through Brad’s arm, she told him, “Let’s leave, Brad. I’m tired.”
“Sure, the party’s getting stale anyway.” Brad caught Reilly’s eye and indicated they were leaving.
“I don’t know why you did that,” Ellie complained as he detached himself from the group he’d been chatting with and came toward them.
“Just being polite—we did come in with him,” Brad said, seemingly gratified by her reluctance to have anything more than necessary to do with the other man.
“You’re right, it is time to leave,” Reilly said, smiling and waving in the general direction of Sue-Ellen, Larry and Jack. “I’ve an early meeting in the morning, but I’m sure we’ll all meet again. How about I walk Ellie home, Brad? My car’s still parked down the lane near her cottage, so it’s not out of my way.” The two men stood glaring at each other, squaring off like moose in rutting season. Then Brad gave in gracefully.
“I suppose that would be all right,” he said, pulling Ellie into his arms proprietarily.
“Don’t I get to say anything?” she muttered mutinously against his ear, and felt his pleased smile as his lips descended on hers for a protracted goodnight kiss. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine in Superintendent Reilly’s tender care,” he whispered. “See you tomorrow?”
Ellie nodded, then slipped on her jacket as they went out into the night. She enjoyed a perverse pang of satisfaction as she caught Reilly’s sour expression during her embrace with Brad.
Resort to Murder
CHAPTER FOUR
Intuition immediately warned her that something was wrong. After the tension of the walk home in Reilly’s brooding company, all Ellie wanted to do was to dash into her home and slam the door shut tightly against him. But her training had taught her not to ignore her instincts.
Pausing, she examined her surroundings and saw the white slash of scratches gouged into the dark paint around her front door lock. They gleamed in the moonlight like open wounds.
Reilly was still and silent at her side, accurately picking up her response as effortlessly as he had when they had worked crime cases together. Ellie knew he’d also spotted the gleam of a light that wavered somewhere inside the house. For several long moments they stood like children playing “statues,” silently waiting, listening.
Then Reilly brushed past her, silent as a stalking cat, and she followed his lead as they positioned themselves on each side of the door. She counted—one, two, three - raising a finger in the air for each numeral. On three, Reilly stepped forward and quietly entered through the jimmied door. Ellie slipped wraithlike inside after him.
Whoever was in the cottage must have heard the muffled sounds of their entry. They heard the screech as the patio door was roughly slid back. Reilly cursed and sprinted through the cottage onto the terrace, following the sound of running footsteps on the patio stones. He returned a minute later, shaking his head in answer to her questioning look. “Whoever that was got clean away. It’s far too dark to see, and the sea muffles sound on the cliff,” he said shortly.
Ellie slammed the damaged door closed, hitting it with the flat of her hand in frustration as tension twanged through her body. The door sprang open again slightly, and she stretched up to slide the heavy bolt at the top into place. Then she leaned wearily against it, hugg
ing her arms tightly across her breast.
“It’s starting again.” The words were barely a whisper, but he heard. Reilly crossed the room to her and put his arms gently around her. She laid her head on his shoulder, relaxing into the familiar feel of his body against hers. The remembered scent of him soothed her. Did Reilly notice how easily their bodies meshed? She shook her head, forbidding her heart to open to those feelings.
Reilly closed his eyes against the emotions that assaulted him as he held Ellie close again. He wanted to do what he should have done back then—not calmly agreeing to end their affair, but dragging her into his arms, kissing her senseless and making love to her so passionately that she would never be able to doubt his love. Instead he set her away with a groan. It was torture to hold her while his heart and body remembered the past that lay between them.
There was so much pain in the sound he made that Ellie looked up at him, startled. “Reilly? Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing I won’t get over,” he replied shortly.
The barrier that had momentarily lifted as she had clung to him slammed back into place. With a sigh, Ellie suggested they search the cottage, room by room, checking to see if anything was missing.
They soon covered the small space. Drawers hung open, cushions littered the floor, blankets, sheets and towels had been pulled from cupboards. The floors were awash in papers and old family photographs that had been tossed aside, and the area rug in the sitting room lay in a forlorn heap.
“Testing for loose floorboards,” Reilly grunted, and Ellie nodded. Her home had been searched by a professional. Someone who didn’t care that she knew he’d been there, someone intent only on doing a thorough job and finding what he was looking for. But what was he—or she—searching for? She didn’t have a clue, and said as much to Reilly when he questioned her. All she could find missing were a few home recorded VCR tapes.
Reilly finished looking over the cottage, his expression sharpening as his glance took in the narrow, monastic bed with its simple yellow counterpane. She could read his expression. Not a room where much loving went on. Ignoring the questions in his eyes, Ellie turned and led the way back into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and set out tea things, automatically performing the simple ritual at a time of crisis.
“Do you have any idea who would do this?” His voice was loud in her quiet nighttime kitchen, and the space shrank with his presence.
“Not a clue. Probably some itinerant petty thief taking a chance on finding something worth stealing.” She clung to her answer, wanting it to be true.
But Reilly wouldn’t let her get away with the comforting fiction. “So why didn’t he take something?”
Ellie gave a harsh little laugh, sweeping her hands over her violated home. “Not really much to take, is there? Maybe we disturbed him before he was finished.”
Reilly’s eyes swept the room. “Well, there’s the coffee maker, the CD player, the computer, your video camera still on a shelf in the closet - yet this small-time operator leaves these things behind and takes a few outdated home video tapes?” The words dropped into the void between them, and took a long time to hit bottom.
Reilly watched as Ellie distracted herself by pouring boiling water over the teabags. “What is it, Ellie? Why are you so frightened?” His voice, little more than a whisper, caressed the back of her neck and raised warm tremors on sensitive skin. Ellie struggled to fight back the tears elicited by his gentleness. She longed to turn to him and howl with the pain that surfaced like a shiny knife blade in her consciousness.
“Just after we came in, you said something like ‘It’s starting again.’” Reilly’s voice cut into her thoughts remorselessly, fighting her silence. “What did you mean, Ellie? What’s starting again?”
But she simply stood, her head bowed, eyes closed to shut out the reflection of herself and Reilly in the dark mirror of the patio doors. As the quiet stretched he repeated his question, but the words were like pebbles falling on an icy lake surface. They didn’t make even a ripple on her silence.
Finally she spoke. “Go home, Reilly.” She heard his sharp intake of breath, imagined his anger at being so summarily dismissed, but she was too weary to care. She didn’t need his presence here, in this ravaged house, rubbing against her emotions like emery paper.
“I know about your concern that the Slasher was stalking you.” His words startled her. She glanced at him and then quickly looked away. She couldn’t do this, not now. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I’ll help you tidy up a little, then - no point in leaving all this...”
“No! Just go, Reilly—go!”
“Ellie!”
“Get out of my house!”
With a last frowning look, he yanked back the bolt and left, slamming the door shut behind him. She ran to the door and pushed home the top and bottom bolts, then moved quickly around the house checking window and door locks, closing curtains to block out the night. In a frenzy, she flew about the cottage, picking up papers and personal items and stuffing them haphazardly into drawers and cupboards.
Finally, exhausted, she dragged blankets and a pillow to the lumpy brown velour couch and settled herself down to wait out the night. She poured tea and cradled the warm cup in icy hands, going over the events of the past twenty-four hours in her mind and fighting sleep each time it tried to claim her.
****
Outside, Reilly took a deep breath of night air filled with the salty smell of the sea, and gradually the anger drained away from him. What game was Ellie playing now? What kind of trouble had she got herself into - and what, or who, was she afraid of? The questions tumbled around in his tired brain, but he waited until he heard the bolts driven into place on the ruined front door. Then he quietly slipped around the house, following her progress as she went through, checking the windows and closing the curtains. When the light in the living room remained on, he guessed she was sitting up for the rest of the night, and he didn’t blame her. He ached to be there with her, to hold her close and keep her safe, to comfort her. Desire came awake in response to sensual images of making love with Ellie long ago, the thoughts as fresh as if he’d just left her bed. He swallowed, willing the pictures from his mind and instead fanned the anger that still burned in him, and held tightly to that.
There was nothing between Ellie and himself now but some bad history. She was a witness in a murder case to which he was assigned. And he would accord her that, and only that, degree of attention. Nevertheless, he knew he’d be spending the night in his car, keeping watch for intruders just as she kept watch inside the house.
****
Brad made his way home alone, his mood as black as the night. Everything had been going well until that idiot of a police officer had shown up. He just knew it was only a matter of time before Ellie realized how lucky she was to have a chance to be his wife. Now, with Reilly back in the picture, his plans were in danger of being thrown into chaos.
As for Ellie—well, she hadn’t even invited him back for a nightcap. She’d gone off with Reilly as trustingly as if the man hadn’t broken her heart once already. What was it about women? Didn’t this woman know what she did to him? Or didn’t she care? Brad was increasingly afraid that maybe the latter was the case, and he kicked angrily at the stumpy bushes alongside the path as he strode along.
Anyway, he didn’t dare stay with her tonight, even if she had wanted him to, not with the Sunshine Slasher as a potential subject for small talk. Brad had secrets, and he cursed himself for not having found a way to share them with her. He hoped it wasn’t too late.
****
Larry Darnley had secrets, too, secrets he couldn’t share with his wife. He loved Sue-Ellen with an all-consuming passion, trusted her completely—and was desperately afraid for her. He knew his stepbrother, knew his reputation as a womanizer, and knew the destructive streak that ran bone deep in the younger man. And he wasn’t blind. He saw the way Jack flirted with Sue-Ellen, saw the little mom
ents when their hands touched over simple gestures like passing the salt, heard Sue-Ellen’s laughter as Jack bent his head toward her to whisper an amusing comment. He also caught the sly glances that Jack cast in his direction at these moments, and he knew his stepbrother was trying to wind him up by lavishing attention on Sue-Ellen.
Larry wasn’t sure when he first realized that Jack hated him. Something to do with his father marrying Jack’s widowed mother, he supposed. But he had accepted it, absorbed it into himself like a hidden scar. They had rubbed along over the years, in a kind of comradely disdain, hostilities breaking out openly only when one of them crossed the carefully drawn battle lines.
Then the horror had happened. Larry shivered miserably at the memory, a tweak of conscience asking him if, had he acted differently, he could have prevented it. But it was too late for that now. There were no blood ties between them, after all, and Larry had been guiltily relieved when Jack had announced his intention to go to work in the States. That had been the end of a terrible time, and he’d thought they’d probably never see each other again, other than occasional phone calls and Christmas cards.
Except his heart had known, some day, it would all come around again. In some convoluted way, Jack blamed him for what had happened. No, that wasn’t entirely true, Larry thought, his body tensing as Sue-Ellen slipped naked into the bed beside him, Jack blames himself for what happened. He blames me for not stopping it. But why had Jack come home again?
Larry knew it was more than co-incidence that his stepbrother arrived back in England at the same time there were calls for the re-opening of the Sunshine Slasher case, and chilly prickles of fear ran down his spine.
So he lay in bed that night, feigning sleep, while his wife lay beside him, cold and unhappy.
****
As Reilly settled down in his car the night was at its blackest, a thick blanket of sea fog hiding the moon and stars. The darkness provided perfect cover for the figure who slipped down the lane toward Ellie’s house, only to stop in his tracks as he saw movement within the parked car. Cursing softly, he knew he would have to wait to get her alone. But the need was a burning ache within him, and he savagely struck out at a small tree branch as he passed by. A splatter of dewdrops showered his face from the newly green leaves, as if the branches were weeping.
Resort to Murder Page 5
