Baddest Bad Boys (11 page)

“Hi, is this Robin?” Julia asked, when a woman responded.

“No, this is Esther. I’m her roommate. Can I take a message?”

“I’m throwing a birthday party for my son, and the clown canceled on me. I’m scrambling for a replacement.” Julia feigned the harried tone of a busy mom. “Do you know if she’d be available tonight at six?”

“I’m sorry, but I really doubt it,” Esther said regretfully. “She’s not even in town. She went up to the mountains for a few days.”

The mountains? A shuddering thrill went up Julia’s spine.

Of course, Robin might not have gone to the same place…but if she had? Oh, wow. It would be so incredibly perfect.

“Very well,” she said. “Thanks for your help.”

Lake. Cabin. Mountains. Everything pointed to it—the clipping, Molly, Esther, her prickling skin. Amendola and Robin were up there, having a secret rendezvous. A scumbag like Amendola was more than capable of betraying his friend by defiling his innocent little sister. The man’s disregard for anything but his own pleasure sickened her.

But where? She pulled the photographs out of her purse. She had no way to be sure this was the same place, but Molly had implied he went there often. And MacNamara was in that photo, too. If he owned his own cabin on a lake in the mountains, why go fishing elsewhere?

There were a thousand reasons why a rich CFO might go fishing elsewhere, but Julia dismissed them all like stinging insects. She had to trust her instincts. The picture was of MacNamara’s lake. The lake was the place. There was a symmetry to it. Cosmic perfection. She felt it.

She stared at the photo, studying the mottled face of Mt. Rainier.

She typed “Mt. Rainier climbing routes” into the engine, and hit on a website filled with up-to-the-minute climbing conditions on every approach to the mountain’s summit, each of which had its own photo gallery. Photos of every angle. Detailed topographical maps. Perfect.

She studied each approach, compared them to the lake photograph, and found an almost perfect match in the South Tahoma Glacier pictures. It was off by a few degrees, but she would compensate for that. The geological configurations were identical. Southwest, then.

She spread out her Washington map, and puzzled out the distances. She estimated no less than twenty-five miles, no more than thirty-five. She found the correct angle, calculated a fan of territory. Allowing margin on all sides, she came up with a list of eleven towns.

Well and good. And now? She was exhausted, from lack of food and sleep. Her head pounded. But with every hammer blow of her heart, she saw William’s blood-smeared hand, pressed to the glass. Those cruel letters, carved into his flesh.

Think, Julia. Think.

She stared at the two men in the boat. Amendola holding up the fish, like a little boy with a toy. Fishing. One needed a license to fish.

A fishing license. Sporting goods stores. Oh, yes. Of course.

She let out a happy sigh, dialed room service, and ordered a turkey on dry whole wheat toast, a fruit cup and black coffee, as a reward to herself. Then she dove right back into the digital soup of state telephone databases to make a list of sporting goods stores in the area.

Hours later found her exhausted and irritated, her euphoria gone. Twenty-seven sporting goods stores, and she had called all but two of them. Perhaps she’d missed one. Miscalculated the angles, the distances. Was this stupid, wasted effort?

William was looking impatient and stern. It made her anxious.

She took a grim swallow of cold, bitter coffee and continued down the list. Kerrigan Creek was next. Chad’s Sporting Goods. She dialed.

“Hi, this is Chad’s,” said a bubbly young female voice.

Julia made her voice young and chirpy. “Hi. My name’s Kelly, and I’m calling on behalf of my boss, Daniel MacNamara. He just had a change of address, and he wanted to make sure the info on his fishing license was up to date. Could you check the address for me?”

The girl hesitated. “Uh, I don’t think it makes any difference—”

“Could you just check for me?” Julia wheedled, woman-to-woman. “He had problems in the past, and he’s a perfectionist. It has to be just so, you know? He’s like that. Just check it? As a favor to me?”

“Hold on a sec.” The phone clunked and rattled. Julia waited for several minutes. “Hi, you still there, Kelly?” the girl asked.

“Sure am,” Julia replied brightly.

“The address listed on this license is on Mercer, in Seattle,” the girl said. “Is that his current address?”

Excitement bubbled through Julia’s body like fuel. Better than food. “It sure is. You don’t have to change a thing. Thanks so much!”

She hung up, hugging herself in delight, and then accessed the phone directory for Kerrigan Creek, and found a number for the tax assessor. The snippy receptionist informed her that the assessor’s name was Stan Borg, and put Julia through to him with bad grace.

“Hello?” Borg’s voice was that of an older man.

Julia made her voice deep, sugary, mature. “Hello, Mr. Borg. My name’s Cassie Kelly, from the Department of Tax and Finance. I was hoping you might check a name for me, for property ownership?”

The old fellow cleared his throat. “Ah, why, yes, I suppose I could. Let me have that name, and a call back number for you, Ms. Kelly.”

“Thanks so much,” she cooed. “The name is Daniel MacNamara.” She gave him a carefully chosen number, the area code and exchange of which were identical to a number of several official Washington State offices, but the final four digits were 9970, which would always ring busy. It was time to get going and drive on up to Kerrigan Creek. By the time she got there, the pleasant, helpful Mr. Borg would be ripe for a call back, and ready to tell her anything she needed to know.

 

The woods dazed her. Luminous spring flowers, stark white skeletons of long dead trees sticking through the tender pine and spruce that surrounded the lake. Ferns burgeoned, and the perfume of omnipresent water tickled her nose. She’d always loved hiking, but today every nook was a treasure, every clump of flowers a discovery. She’d floated up the slopes, inches off the ground.

They’d skipped rocks along the torrent that fed the lake. Stopped to feast on sandwiches and fruit on a slab of rock in the middle of the stream, to bake in the sun, kiss, fool around. Either he started it, or she did, but someone got the ball rolling, and once it started—wow.

This place was particularly seductive. They were twined together on a warm rock under the sky, with white water foaming and gurgling through tumbled rocks on every side. She was currently on his lap, kissing him madly. Her jeans were unbuttoned, his hand moving inside her panties with a skill that stole her breath. It was a wonder she got enough oxygen to function, he stole so damn much breath. He teased her up to the brink of a climax, and dug a condom out of his pocket. “Last one.”

“Oh, God.” She giggled, thighs quivering with anticipation. “You are a sex freak. I’ve created a monster.”

“What I want to know is how you got it into your head to seduce me with only four condoms. What the hell were you thinking?”

She twitched the foil packet out of his hands. “I was thinking four was pretty damn ambitious. I brought four in case I got super lucky.”

“Lucky. Hah. Four. A drop in the fucking bucket. Literally.”

She scrambled out of his lap. “Stop complaining. The savage beast is getting a whole lot of quality time.”

He laughed, but the laughter faded into a glittering-eyed mask as she rose, pried off her shoes. Pulled off the sweatshirt. Shucked jeans, panties. She held her arms up, and spun, slowly displaying herself.

“I’ve never been naked outdoors before,” she said. “Feels good.”

He stared at her body. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Sure does.”

She knelt, wrenched his jeans open with a boldness she couldn’t have imagined a day ago. She was so comfortable with him, as if they’d been lovers forever. Two souls split in two, longing for completion.

She pushed that thought away as she shoved his jeans down and seized the thick, hot stalk of his penis in her hands.

He made as if to put the condom on, but she batted his hand away and bent down to have at him with her eager mouth. He’d made her come more times than she could count. Fair was fair. Besides, she seemed to be developing some skill at this. And a definite taste for it.

At least, a taste for Jon. The flavor of him, the pressure of the taut, engorged flesh against her mouth, her tongue, made her shiver and squirm with excitement. As if her mouth was a sexual organ, receiving pleasure, not just giving it. As if he were everywhere, moving inside her, touching her, caressing. Loving her.

Don’t. Don’t think that way, ditz-brain. Keep it light. Light as air.

He put his hand on her head, stroking her hair. “Wait,” he begged. “I don’t want to come yet. I wanted to be inside you.”

She pulled herself onto her knees obligingly enough as he arranged himself crosslegged on the rocks, and held out his arms.

She straddled him and lowered herself, crouching until he’d prodded himself into position. Then she sank down slowly, her body clasping him. It ached, they were definitely overdoing it, but what the hell. She had the rest of her life to recover. And remember.

This time wasn’t like the other times. He barely moved inside her, just the slightest rocking pulse. He let her do it all. Squeezing him. Clasped in his arms, legs hugging his waist. Wound into a loose, undulating knot of everchanging emotion. Lazy and infinite. Timeless.

She couldn’t have said how long they made love. Shadows shifted and moved, the sun changed position in the sky. It could have been hours, or centuries of enchanted time, like the tales of people who fell asleep in fairy rings. Or visited the hall of the Mountain King and found that hundreds of years had passed. Sweet, intoxicating magic.

The perfection found its inevitable peak, lifted them high, and laid them down again, as gently as a kiss, but he couldn’t seem to loosen his tight, trembling embrace. He couldn’t stop kissing her. Like he could never get enough. Like he was storing it up for a drought to come.

Finally, he murmured something about dealing with the condom.

He lifted her off, and she sagged back, boneless. Jon lowered her onto her back, against the warm granite slab. Her legs splayed to either side of him. Her arms flung wide, in an ecstasy of trust to the open sky.

As she opened her eyes, a shadow swooped low. The wingspan of some big raptor, an eagle or hawk. She couldn’t tell with the sun in her eyes. It let out a shrill cry. A shudder went through her. She thought of rabbits, mice, voles. Vulnerable things for whom the sky was an enemy.

“Don’t.” Jon scooped her up, crushing her against his naked chest. She felt his heart thudding.

“Don’t what?” she asked, against the skin of his neck.

His arms tightened. “That position you were in,” he muttered. “That X-man pose. It reminded me of…it has bad associations.”

“It’s OK,” she said, kissing his neck. “Egg Man stuff?”

His body tensed. “I don’t want any of that sick filth to touch you.”

She nuzzled his jaw. “If it touches you, it touches me.”

“Like hell. Leave it.” He averted his face. “Get yourself dressed.”

She pulled her clothes back on, bewildered. His mellow, blissed-out energy was gone. And just when she’d gotten all strung out on it.

He punched into his cell phone while she struggled with her shoes. He found no signal, and his explosion of profanity jolted her.

He stared up at the cut made by the torrent of water. “We’ve got to get out of this gully to get reception. Get your shoes on. Fast.”

She did as he commanded and trailed after him in forlorn silence. The spell was broken. The walls were up. He was armor plated again.

Party’s over. Everybody out of the pool.

It was extremely silly, but she had to struggle not to cry.

 

“Mr. Borg? It’s Cassie Kelly, from Tax and Finance? I’ve been waiting for your call.” Julia shaded her voice with gentle reproof.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Kelly, but I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon!” the man blustered. “That number you gave me was busy every time!”

Julia softened her voice. “Well, we’ve been busy. The phones were really hopping today. Anyway, I have you now. Did you find anything?”

“Yes, indeedy. Daniel MacNamara is on file for a hundred and sixty acre plot that fronts on Kerrigan Lake, with a small hunting cabin. The property is currently valued at a hundred and forty thousand.”

“Ah. One moment while I jot that down…and this is the Yardley Creek Road property, right?” she murmured distractedly.

“No, ma’am, it’s on the Horsetail Bluff Mountain Road. Thirteen point six miles from the junction at Route 4.”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” Julia said, contrite. “Silly me, I was looking at the wrong piece of paper! Thank you so much for your help, Mr. Borg. You’ve been just a treasure.”