“We’ll get there, Janelle,” she murmured. “You’re important. No one had the right to throw you away. I’ll bring you home.”
“Out.” Joe had caught up with her, and his hand was beneath her elbow. “Another minute, and you’ll be over there working.” He opened the front door. “You’ll probably do it anyway, but I’m going to make sure you’re okay first.”
“I’m okay. For heaven’s sake, it was only a nightmare. I’d probably be better off working and forgetting about it.” She took the glass of water he handed her and went out on the porch. The air was clear and cool, and the waning moon cast silver paths on the lake. She immediately felt the sense of serenity that she always did when she looked out at the familiar woods bordering the lake.
Run.
Through the woods.
The sound of the sea on the rocks.
No, that was the nightmare. Forget it. She was being foolish to let it bother her. She took a long drink of water. “You don’t have to stay out here with me. I’m okay now, Joe.”
“Liar.” His arms slid around her from behind and he pressed his cheek against her hair. “I can see the pulse pounding in your temple. You’re still jumpy. Just relax and stop trying to cheat me of being with you. Moments like this are good.”
Being with him was always good, she thought as she leaned back against him. She could feel the warmth of his lean, muscular body through his brown terry robe, and that warmth was flowing into her, bringing the contentment and love it always did. They had gone through tough times during the years they had been together. Joe was a brilliant detective with the Atlanta Police Department, and she had her own career as a forensic sculptor. Along with demanding careers, they were two people struggling against death and loss and trying to grow and make it through the storms to a brighter life together. But the love had always been there. Love and passion and humor, and all the things that made the battle and the life together worthwhile. “Okay, have it your own way.”
He chuckled. “And your way.”
She nodded. “My way.” She turned and went into his arms. She loved the feel of him. He was strong and warm and good. When they were like this, she felt as if he was flowing into her and filling every emptiness in her heart and soul. All was right with her world.
Alone.
Always alone.
So hard to hide when there’s no one to care if you live or die.
Why couldn’t she shake off the memory of that damn dream? she thought impatiently. That terrible loneliness had nothing to do with her or her life.
“You’re tensing again.” He pushed her back away from him, and his hands cupped her face. “I think it’s time you talked it out.” He was studying her expression. “Yes, definitely tense. This isn’t like you. You’re sure it wasn’t Bonnie?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Joe.”
“Or Jane? You’re not worried about Jane?”
She grimaced. “I’m always worried about Jane.” Jane MacGuire, an artist, was their adopted daughter and had been working in Scotland for months. It was sometimes difficult remembering that Jane was an adult and no longer the street kid they’d taken into their home all those years ago. “But that goes with the territory when you love someone. I know Jane can take care of herself.” She smiled. “Are you going to go down the list of family and friends? Stop analyzing, Joe. There wasn’t some mysterious trigger that caused that dream. It was just one of those nutty chase-and-pursuit nightmares.”
“Someone was chasing you?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “No.”
“Well, that’s clear.”
“I told you it was nutty. I’m not sure it was me that was running.” She shrugged. “But it must have been me because I was so afraid.”
“Why?”
“Joe, drop it.”
“No, I don’t like you to be afraid even of things that go bump in the night. It’s not like you. In fact, it’s damn weird. Talk it out. We’ll get rid of it.”
That was just like Joe, she thought. Face it, solve it, then send it on its way. It was how he’d become a great police detective: it was how he lived his life. Except he’d never sent her on her way, thank God. He’d kept her close to his heart, and she was grateful every day of her life that she spent with him.
“Okay, I’ll talk it out. But there’s nothing that really makes any sense. I was running through the woods, and I—”
He nodded at the trees along the lakeshore. “Those woods?”
She shook her head. “And no lake. There was an ocean…”
“What ocean?”
“I don’t know. Stop interrogating me. I was being chased, and I was trying to catch a bus. It was … bizarre.”
“What was bizarre?”
“Stuff I was thinking. Most of it didn’t make any sense. Except for the fear. I knew I had a reason to be afraid. That’s all I can remember. See, just a string of disconnected thoughts and emotions.” She gave him a quick, hard kiss. “There, I’ve talked it out, and I’m much better. Now let’s go to bed and see if you can go back to sleep.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not sleepy. Let’s sit over there and cuddle for a while.” He was leading her toward the porch swing. “Don’t worry, I’m through cross-examining you. I just thought it might help. We’ll talk about Bonnie and Jane and you and me.” He pulled her down beside him and drew her into the curve of his arm, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Or maybe not talk at all. We’ve both been pretty busy lately, and I’ve missed this.”
So had Eve. She could hear the beating of his heart, and it seemed to be beating within her, too. She always felt closer to Joe in special moments like this.
She had always been alone.
She was more alone now than ever.
That poignant thought from the nightmare again. It just proved how disjointed and foolish it had been. Eve had never been less alone in her life. She had Joe and family and friends she loved around her. Life was never perfect, but loneliness was no longer one of her problems. She pushed the memory away, firmly blocking it.
She cuddled closer to Joe, her gaze on the moonlight on the lake.
No panic. No danger. No wrenching loneliness.
Not here with Joe.
* * *
“I’VE LOST HER,” Drogan said, when Dr. Harry Pierce picked up the phone. “It’s your fault, Pierce. She wasn’t what I expected. I would have handled it entirely differently if I’d realized that she wasn’t what you told me.”
“Excuses, Drogan?” Pierce asked softly. “What a tough guy you are when you can’t even handle a woman who’s spent almost two decades in an institution. You were recommended very highly, but I suppose they were wrong.”
“I’ll handle her, but I’ll handle her my way. I shouldn’t have trusted a man who doesn’t have the guts to follow through on a job. You’ve probably been collecting from the Avery family for years, and you still have to come to me when they want to pull the plug on sweet Beth.”
“Why should I trust you? You failed me. I’d do better hiring someone else.”
“Go ahead. But I’ll still go after her and cut her throat. I’m not going to take you or anyone else telling me how that crazy drug addict got the best of me.” He paused. “And after that, I may go after you, Pierce. Did it occur to you that the Avery family might be tired of dealing with you? After the woman is dead, you’ll be useless to them. Yes, I think I may contact them and see if they need me to tie up a loose end.”
“Stay away from them,” Pierce said harshly. “None of this must touch them. Do you think they won’t take both of us down if they see a threat? Do you know the kind of power they have?” He drew a deep breath. “Maybe I was hasty. We can work together. I’ve already had that mess in her room cleared, and I’ve put out the word that she’s run away from the hospital. It shouldn’t take you long to find her. She won’t be able to think straight with all the drugs we pumped into her. You probably scared her, and she pan
icked. I don’t even know how she managed to get away from the hospital without someone’s seeing her.”
“Bullshit. She didn’t act scared.”
“As I said, panic. She’s like a child, and she’ll have no idea how to hide from you. But when you find her, no violence, no slitting her throat. It has to be a tragic accident brought on by her mental condition. One that could be expected from a woman who has delusions and could suffer disorientation when faced with having to cope with the outside world.”
“Tragic accidents can be violent … and painful. You’re a doctor. You can make it look like anything you want it to be.”
Pierce didn’t like the sound of that. He had heard some strange things about Drogan when he had hired him. “Look, I won’t tolerate any of that voodoo stuff I was told you like to pull on occasion. That’s not what I hired you to do. It has to look natural, dammit.”
“And it will if she doesn’t make me any angrier than I am right now. If she does, then I may have to introduce her to the Snake God. I’ll tell you when I get close to her.” He hung up.
Problems. I don’t need these problems, Pierce thought with irritation as he pressed the disconnect. He liked his comfortable life and the generous favors thrown his way by the Avery family. He couldn’t see why Nelda Avery had decided that Beth Avery had to die. He’d had Beth under control all these years, and she hadn’t bothered anyone. He had even tentatively suggested that they keep the present arrangement in place.
“Have you told the old bitch yet?” Stella Lenslow stood in the doorway. In her nurse’s uniform, she should have looked crisp and businesslike, but the white made her red hair blaze in contrast, and she exuded an overpowering sexuality. “No, I can see you haven’t. You still have your head on your shoulders.” She closed the door behind her. “I told you that you should do the job yourself.”
“Or give it to you.” His lips twisted. “I can’t see you taking a risk that could cause you to end up on death row. You have a very good sense of self-preservation. So don’t tell me what to do, Stella.”
“But you like me to tell you what to do.” She crossed the room and stood before his desk. “When it pleases you.”
And most of the time, everything she did pleased him. They had been together for six years, and he’d found her sexual appetite as voracious as her greed. She’d been his “patient” since her parents had brought her to him for private therapy after a run-in with the law for prostitution. She’d only been seventeen at the time and totally out of control as far as her parents were concerned. Upright, churchgoing people, they had been frightened and bewildered by their daughter, who had been a bad seed all her life. Even as a small child, she had been totally remorseless and without conscience, and, lately, she had begun to terrorize them. The Lenslowes didn’t know how to deal with someone who had no sense of right or wrong and could not be taught. They had come to the point that they had only wanted to get rid of her and salvage the remainder of their lives. They had eagerly accepted Pierce’s suggestions as to how to do it and were probably lucky they’d washed their hands of her. Pierce had diagnosed her as an incurable sociopath during the first month of therapy. But he had no problem with that when she provided him with such intense and extreme entertainment. “Well, you’re not pleasing me at the moment. I told you to give Beth enough pills to put her out. You didn’t do it.”
“I gave her plenty.” She dropped down onto the chair beside his desk. “Don’t blame me, Harry. Just tell me when you’re going to get her back. I don’t like the idea of her running around out there. It could cause trouble if anyone connects me with her. They’ll find out I’m not a real nurse. I’m still on probation, and they could send me to prison. I like it just fine here.”
Because he took such good care of her, he thought dryly. He bought her whatever she wanted. He’d even given her the perfect job for her temperament. She dealt out medicines and gave the shots. She liked the feeling of power over the patients.
She liked the feeling of power, period.
“I’ll get her back. But you’d better keep a low profile for a little while. I’m trying to keep the media from finding out that we’ve lost her, but I had to tell the staff when we were searching for her. Someone may talk.” He smiled. “And you never bothered to make any friends among the other employees. You’ll probably be a target.”
“Low profile?” She shook her head. “Not me. I won’t fade away for anyone. That’s for other people. That’s for that mousey, plain excuse for a woman who you’re trying to run to ground.” She wrinkled her nose. “I never did like her.”
“You never like anyone. You don’t know what it means.” He raised his brows. “But that usually means you did something that wasn’t quite ethical. What did you do, Stella?”
She shrugged. “I cut down her drugs a little.”
“In hopes that it would cause her to go into withdrawal and experience severe pain. You are a complete bitch, my darling.”
“She’s nothing. She was like a dummy. She annoyed me. I wanted to see her hurt.” She added quickly, “But she had a full dose last night, just as you told me.”
“That had better be true.”
“I got tired of everyone tiptoeing around and treating her like a princess. She was only a zombie.” She met his gaze. “You should know that’s all she was. You’re the one who made her like that.”
But she had never confronted him with that fact. She was proving unpredictable and therefore dangerous. He might have to do something about Stella. “Stay away from the media. Don’t answer any questions.” He reached for the phone. “And get out of here while I call Nelda Avery.”
“I want to stay.”
“I know. You’d enjoy seeing me uncomfortable. I won’t let you have that pleasure.” He stared her in the eye. “Go upstairs to my apartment and take off your clothes. Lie down naked on the bed and wait for me. After I get through talking to the Grand Dame, I’m going to need a release. I’m going to screw you until you won’t be able to crawl out of that bed. I’m going to make you scream, Stella.”
She moistened her lips. “Is that a threat? I can always go you one better. Why not do it on the desk while you’re talking to her? I could strip down now if you weren’t afraid someone would walk in on us.”
She would do it, and he was tempted. “Get out of here. Do what I told you.”
“Whatever.” She stood up and sauntered toward the door. “Good luck, Harry. Don’t be too long, or I might get bored and leave.”
That wasn’t going to happen. She understood the rules. Sex anytime, any way he wanted it. “You won’t leave.” He reached for his phone. “You like it here, remember?”
He watched the door close behind her before he began to dial the number. He was already feeling the tension that usually gripped him when he spoke to Nelda Avery. She always made him remember that she controlled almost every aspect of his life. Over the years, she had gradually become the puppetmaster who pulled the strings. He could visualize her sitting in her elegant house in Charleston, dressed in a designer business suit, her carefully coifed brown hair with only a few threads of gray. She was in her seventies but looked much younger, and her gray eyes were the coldest he had ever seen. She didn’t tolerate mistakes, and those eyes were going to be icy before he was done with her that day.
It was going to be a hellish call.
Keep the feeling of dominance and lust he felt toward Stella in the forefront of his mind. Think about what he was going to make her do. She was a woman like this ice queen to whom he was going to have to submit for the next few minutes. Substitution. Release. He would get through this.
Nelda Avery was on the line.
“Nelda, I’m afraid there’s been something of a glitch. Nothing irreparable, but it will be a little…”
CHAPTER
2
EVE’S PHONE WAS RINGING.
She ignored it. Not now, she thought impatiently. It couldn’t be Joe; she had spoken to him an hour ago,
and he had told her he was going to be in a meeting at the mayor’s office. Anyone else could wait. She had to get two more depth measurements on Janelle’s midtherum area. The reconstruction was going exceptionally well. The skull was not broken, and all the pieces were—
The ringing stopped, then immediately began again.
Okay, dammit, she had to answer it. You didn’t ignore anyone that urgent. She crossed the room to where her phone was lying on the coffee table by the couch and checked the ID.
Sandra Duncan.
Her mother, Sandra. Maybe it wasn’t all that urgent. Sandra believed everything she did or experienced was vitally important and urgent. Eve was tempted to wait and call her back. Their relationship hadn’t been warm in years, though Eve had made every attempt after Sandra’s latest divorce to bridge their differences. Sandra hadn’t phoned her for months and had been either cool or entirely ignored Eve’s monthly duty calls to check on her at her condo.
No, Eve would only feel guilty if she found out anything was really wrong. She picked up the call.
“Hello, Sandra. How may I help you?”
“It took you long enough to answer.” Sandra’s Southern drawl had a distinct edge. “You can’t help me. I want to talk to Joe.”
“Joe’s not here. Do you need something?” She and Joe had paid off the mortgage on Sandra’s condo years ago and saw that she had a generous allowance. But Sandra had never been good with money, and it wasn’t unusual for her to come to Joe and ask for an “advance.”