Carolina Moon

  Back into self.

  "When he was finished with her, he strangled her with his hands. She couldn't fight anymore. She cried, or he did. I can't tell. But he cut the rope from around her wrists. He took it with him. He didn't want to leave any of himself behind, but he did. Like an ice rime on glass. I can't stay here. Please get me out of here. Please get me away from here."

  "It's all right." Cade bent down to gather her into his arms. Her skin was cold, slicked with sweat. "It's all right, baby."

  "I'm sick. I can't breathe in here." She lay her head on his shoulder and let herself drop away.

  He drove her home. She didn't speak, didn't move throughout the drive. She sat like a ghost, pale and silent, while the wind through the open windows of the truck blew over her face and hair.

  There was an anger in him that had lashed out at Carl D. when the chief said he would follow them back. But she'd said to let him come. That was the last thing she'd said. So his anger had no target or release and built steadily inside him. His silence was like a bruise, gathering dark and full of violence.

  He pulled up to the Marsh House, and she was out of the truck before he could come around to help her. "You don't have to talk to him." His voice was clipped, his eyes brutally cold.

  "Yes, I do. You can't see what I see, then not do whatever you can." She shifted her exhausted eyes toward the police cruiser. "He knew that, and used it. There's no need for you to stay."

  "Don't be stupid," he snapped, and turned to wait for Carl D. as she walked to the door.

  "You watch your step." Cade faced the chief the minute he was out of his cruiser. "You be very, very careful with her, or I'll use whatever comes to hand to make you pay for it."

  "I expect you're upset."

  "Upset?" Cade took a fistful of Carl D.'s shirt. He felt he could break the man in half. One quick snap. "You put her through that. And so did I," he said, dropping his hand in disgust. "And for what?"

  "I don't know, not yet. Fact is, I'm a bit shaken by this. But I gotta use whatever comes to hand, too. And right now, that's Tory. I'm feeling my way here, Cade."

  There was regret in his voice, in his eyes, a veneer over duty. "I don't want to hurt that girl. If it makes you feel any better, I'm going to be careful. As careful as I know how. And I'm going to remember, probably the rest of my life, the way she looked back there."

  "So will I," Cade said, and turned away.

  She was making tea, an herbal blend she hoped would soothe her stomach and stop her hands from trembling. She said nothing when the two men walked in, but got out a bottle of bourbon, set it on the counter, then sat.

  "I could use a shot of that. Ain't supposed to on duty, but we got extenuating circumstances."

  Cade got out two glasses, poured doubles.

  "He came in through the back," Tory began. "You know that. You'll already know a great deal that I can tell you."

  "I appreciate it." Carl D. scraped back a chair. "You just tell me, how it feels best to you, and take your time."

  "She was alone in the apartment. She had a couple of glasses of wine. She felt good, excited, hopeful. She had music playing. She was in the kitchen when he came in. Fixing a salad for dinner, getting ready to feed the dog. He took her from behind, used the knife she'd set aside when she pulled out the dog food."

  Tory's voice was flat, dull, her face expressionless. She lifted her tea, sipped, set it down. "She didn't see him. He kept behind her, kept the knife to her throat. He'd closed the blinds to the patio. I think he locked the door, but it doesn't matter. She didn't try to run, she was too afraid of the knife."

  Absently, she lifted her hand to her throat, skimmed her fingers along her windpipe as if nursing a sting. "I don't know what he said to her. Everything she felt was so much stronger than what he felt. He didn't particularly want her. What was left of him there was rage and confusion and a kind of horrible pride. She was a substitute, a handy outlet for a .. . a need he doesn't even understand. He took her into the bedroom, kept her facedown on the bed. He struck her several times, the back of the neck, the face. He tied her hands behind her back, good strong rope. He closed the curtains, so that they could be private, so that it would be dark. He didn't want her to see his face, but more, I think more, he didn't want to see hers. He sees another face when he rapes her. He uses the knife to cut off her clothes, he's very careful, but he still nicks her, on the back, and up by her shoulder."

  Carl D. nodded, took a long drink.

  "That's right. She had two shallow cuts, and there were ligature marks on her wrists, but we didn't find any rope."

  "He took it with him. He's never done this inside before. It's always been out-of-doors, and there's something exciting about doing these things to her in bed. When he hits her, it gives him pleasure. He likes to hurt women. But more than pleasure it provides him with a kind of relief for this pent-up hunger in him. This need to prove himself a man. He's a man when he makes a woman bend to his will. While he rapes her he's happier, someone stronger inside himself, than he is any other time. He celebrates his manhood this way, in a way he can't in any other."

  Trying to see him, to crawl inside him, hurt her head. She rubbed at her temple, pushed harder. "It is sexual for him, and he believes she was meant to be taken, to be dominated. He's convinced himself of that, and still he's careful. He uses a condom. How does he know who she's fucked? She's a whore, like all the others. A man has to look out for himself."

  "You said he didn't want to leave any of himself behind."

  "Yes, he won't leave his seed inside her. She doesn't deserve it. I—this isn't what I feel from him, I feel almost nothing from him." Her fingers drilled at her throbbing temple. "There are blanks and dead ends. Turns in him. I don't know how to tell you."

  "That's fine," Carl D. told her. "Go ahead."

  "This isn't an act of procreation, but of punishment for her, and ego for him. During the process, she ceases to exist for him. She's nothing, so it's easy to kill her. When it's over, he's proud, but he's angry, too. It's never exactly what he hoped it would be, it never completely purges him. Her fault, of course. The next time will be better. He cuts the rope, he turns off her music, and he leaves her in the dark."

  "Who is he?"

  "I don't see his face. I can see some of his thoughts, some of the more desperate of his emotions, but I don't see him."

  "He knew her."

  "He'd seen her, I think he's spoken to her. He knew enough to know about the dog." Tory closed her eyes a moment, tried to focus. "He drugged the dog. I think he drugged the dog. Burger laced with something. Risky. This was all very risky and that added to the excitement. Someone might have seen him. All the other times there was no one to see."

  "What other times?" "The first was Hope." Her voice broke. She lifted her tea again, calmed herself.

  "There were four others that I know of. I had a friend look into it. She found out there've been five over the last eighteen years. All of them killed in late August, all of them young blondes. Each one was the age Hope would have been if she'd lived. I think Sherry was younger, but she wasn't the one he wanted."

  "A serial killer? Over eighteen years."

  "You can verify it with the FBI." She looked at Cade then, for the first time since they'd sat down. "He's still killing Hope. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

  She rose, and her cup clattered in the saucer as she carried it to the counter. "I'm afraid it could be my father."

  "Why?" Cade kept his eyes on her face. "Why would you believe that?"

  "He has—when he hurt me, it aroused him." The shame of it sliced through her, shards of glass jagged and edged with bitter heat. "He never touched me sexually, but it aroused him to hurt me. I think, looking back, I can't be sure he didn't know of my plans to meet Hope that night. When he came in for supper he was in a good mood, a rare one. It was as if he was waiting for me to make a mistake, to open the door so that he could pounce. When I did, when I told my mother she could find the cann
ing wax up in the top of the cupboard—such a stupid mistake—he had me. He didn't always beat me that bad, but that night . . . When he was finished he could be sure I wasn't going anywhere."

  She came back to the table. "Sherry was in the store when he came in yesterday. He asked her about her dog, and she'd just filled out an application for a job. I had the paper on the counter. Her name, her address, her phone number. He would have been certain of me, certain I'd be too afraid to tell anyone I'd seen him. He wouldn't have expected me to go to the police. But he couldn't have been sure of her."

  "You believe Hannibal Bodeen killed Sherry Bellows because she'd seen him?"

  "It would have been his excuse, his justification for what he wanted to do. I only know he's capable of it. I can't tell you any more. I'm sorry. I'm not feeling well."

  She walked away from the table and closed herself in the bathroom.

  She couldn't fight off the sickness anymore and let it come. Let it empty her out. Afterward she lay on the floor, on the cool tiles, and waited for the weakness to abate. The quiet seemed to echo in her ears along with her own heartbeat.

  When she could she got to her feet, and turned the shower to blistering hot. She was chilled to the bone. It seemed nothing could warm her, but the water helped her imagine all the ugliness, the smear of it being washed off her skin if not out of her mind.

  Steadier, she wrapped herself in a towel, dosed herself with three aspirin, and stepped out, prepared to curl into bed and lose herself in sleep.

  Cade was standing by the window, looking out over the moon-washed dark. He'd left the lights off so that silvered glow silhouetted him there. She could hear the flutter of night beyond the screen, the wings and whines that were the music of the marsh.

  Her heart ached for everything she couldn't stop herself from loving. "I thought you'd gone." She walked to the closet for her robe. He didn't turn. "Are you feeling any better?"

  "Yes, I'm fine."

  "Hardly that. I just want to know if you're any better."

  "Yes." Decisively, she belted the robe. "I'm better. Thank you. You're under no obligation here, Cade. I know what to do for myself."

  "Good." He turned, but his face remained in shadows. She couldn't read it, refused to try to see anything else. "Tell me what to do for you."

  "Nothing. I'm grateful you went with me, and that you brought me home. It's more than you had to do, more than can be expected of anyone."

  "Now back off? Or is that just what you expect? For me to go, to leave you alone, to take myself off to a nice comfortable distance. Comfortable for whom? You or me?"

  "Both, I imagine."

  "You don't think any more of me than that? Any more of us?"

  "I'm awfully tired." Her voice wavered, shaming her. "I'm sure you are, too. It couldn't have been pleasant for you."

  He stepped toward her then and she saw what she'd known she would see. Anger, black waves of it. So she shut her eyes.

  "For God's sake, Tory." His hand brushed over her cheek, back into the wet tangle of her hair. "Has everyone always let you down?"

  She didn't speak, couldn't. A tear slid down her cheek and lay glistening on his thumb. She went, biddable as a child, as he led her to the bed, lifted her onto his lap.

  "Just rest," he murmured. "I'm not going anywhere."

  She pressed her face into his shoulder. Here was comfort, and strength, and above all the solidity no one had ever offered her. He asked no questions, so neither would she. Instead she curled into him, lifted her mouth to his.

  "Touch me. Please. I need to feel."

  Gently, so gently, he ran his hands over her. He could give her the comfort of his body, take his own in hers. Trembling she reached for him, her lips parting under his and going warm.

  Slowly, so slowly, he loosened the tie of the robe, slipped it from her. Laid his hand on her heart. It beat frantically, and her breathing still caught on sobs she fought back.

  "Think of me," he murmured, and lay her on the bed. "Look at me."

  He touched his lips to her throat, her shoulders, skimming his hands through her hair when she reached up to unbutton his shirt.

  "I need to feel," she repeated. "I need to feel you." She put her palms against his chest. "You're warm. You're real. Make me real, Cade."

  She sank into him when his mouth came back to hers, sank deep into the tenderness of it, the kindness that erased the horror she'd seen. The calm came first, the understanding that this brush and slide of flesh, this meeting of bodies, had nothing to do with pain or fear.

  His mouth on her breast, feeding, arousing, sped the beat of her blood. His hands, strong, patient, washed her mind clear of everything but the need to join.

  She sighed out his name as he danced over the first peak.

  She was fluid, and open, rising toward him, sliding against him. When she rolled, he found her mouth again, then let her set the pace. She rose over him, her hair like wet ropes gleaming over her shoulders. Her face was flushed with life, damp with tears.

  She took him into her, bowing back, her breath catching, releasing, her fingers locking with his as she began to move.

  There was nothing in his world now but her, the heat of her surrounding him, the steady rise and fall of her hips as she rode him. The dark smoke of her eyes stayed wide and fixed on his even as her breath began to tear.

  He saw her come, watched the force of it ripple through her.

  "God." She brought their joined hands to her breasts. "More. Again. Touch me, touch me, touch me."

  He took her breasts in his hands, reared up, and took them into his mouth so that she arched back. When she gripped his hair, he drove deeper. Filling her, taking her. Taking himself.

  They stayed wrapped around each other. Even when he shifted to lie with her, they remained tangled and close. She breathed him in.

  "You should sleep now," he murmured.

  "I'm afraid to sleep."

  "I'll be right here."

  "I thought you would go."

  "I know."

  "You were so angry. I thought ... " No, she needed another minute. Courage didn't come without effort. "Would you get me some water?"

  "All right." He shifted, and rising, pulled on his jeans before he went out into the kitchen.

  She heard him open a cupboard for a glass, close it again. And when he came back she was sitting on the side of the bed in her robe. "Thank you."

  "Tory, are you always sick afterward?"

  "No." Her hand tightened on the glass. "I've never done anything like .. . I can't talk about that yet. But I need to talk. I need to tell you about something else. About when I was in New York."

  "I know what happened. It wasn't your fault." "You only know parts and pieces. What you heard in the news. I need to explain."

  Because she'd tightened up again, he combed his fingers through her hair. "You wore your hair differently there. You'd lightened it, cut it shorter."

  She managed a laugh. "My attempt at a new me."

  "I like it better this way."

  "I changed a lot more than my hair when I went there. Escaped there. I was only eighteen. Terrified but exhilarated. They couldn't make me go back, and even if he came after me, he couldn't make me go back. I was free. I'd saved some money. I've always been good at saving money, and Gran gave me two thousand dollars. I suppose it saved my life. I was able to afford a little apartment. Well, a room. It was on the West Side, this cramped little space. I loved it. It was all mine."

  She could remember, could bring back inside her, the sheer joy of standing in that empty box of a room, of hugging herself as she stared out the window at the dour brick face of the next building. She could hear the riot of noise from the street below as New York shoved its way toward the business of the day.

  She could remember the absolute bliss of being free.

  "I got a job at a souvenir shop, sold a lot of Empire State Building paperweights and T-shirts. After a couple of months, I found a better job, at a cla
ssy gift shop. It was a longer commute, but the pay was a little better and it was so nice to be around all those lovely things. I was good at it."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "The first year, I was so happy. I was promoted to assistant manager, and I made some friends. Dated. It was so blessedly normal. I'd forget for long periods that I hadn't always lived there, then someone would comment on my accent and it would bring me back here. But that was all right. I'd gotten away. I was exactly where I wanted to be, who I wanted to be."

  She looked at him then. "I didn't think of Hope. I didn't let myself think of her."

  "You had a right to your own life, Tory."

  "That's what I told myself. God knows that's what I wanted more than anything else in the world. My own. I'd gone back to see my parents during that period, partly out of obligation. Partly, too,