Love Scars - 4: Exposed (6 page)

It looked nice. Grandma had sold the lease to pay for all the funerals. It looked like the new owners had made improvements. There was a new roof. Our tree house was gone from the oak tree with a bigger, nicer one in its place. I parked and got out of the car. I didn’t see any other cars. It seemed no one was there.

I got as far as the tree house when a dog started barking. A black and white border collie came bounding around from behind the cabin and raced past me into the woods.

“Trillian, stop!” Stacey called out. “Aunt Nora, Trillian ran away!”

“That’s okay, Stacey,” I said. “We’ll get her.”

We went after the dog. Within a few minutes we caught up to her peeing next to a bush. I grabbed her leash while she was still squatting.

“Good girl, Trill.” Stacey patted her on the head and we started back.

As we reached the tree house, a loud popping sound came from the campfire. “What was that?” I said. “Your dad knows we can’t have fireworks up here.”

Danny yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” My mom screamed, but they were no words I could understand.

The popping went on, and I knew. It was a gun. I pushed Stacey down toward the tree. Her mom screamed, and the gun fired again. The scream stopped.

I had to keep Stacey safe. I pushed her up the doggy steps to the tree house Danny had put in then scooped up Trillian in my arms and followed. The screaming went on. My mom was hurt bad. Where was my dad?

“Close your eyes and cover your ears,” I whispered to Stacey. The shots stopped. I could hear whimpering. I peeked through an opening, and when I looked down the bile rose in my stomach.

They were all dead or dying. A guy with long filthy hair and black tattoos on his face was reloading a rifle on the other side of the fire. Stacey’s mom was lying next to Danny on the ground, neither of them moving. Mom moaned.

I spotted Nick hiding behind a bush. He wasn’t hurt, and the gunman didn’t seem to know he was there. Then I saw my dad, struggling to his feet. He lunged for the guy but it was too late. The gun was loaded.

The guy shot Dad in the face and then shot Mom in the head.

Trillian started barking and jerked loose. I felt the burn of her leash as it ripped out of my hands. She raced down the doggy steps and charged after the guy, and he riddled her with a spray of bullets.

“No!” Nick raced out of his hiding place toward the guy. Fourteen-year-old Nick, defending his dead dog. The guy killed him with one shot to the forehead.

They were all dead. They were all dead!

I passed through Foresthill and still no word from Brad. According to the GPS I’d be at the dig within twenty minutes. He must still be down in the tunnels without signal. I had to hope that Nora was with him.

Those readings were better than we’d hoped. We had to keep the data out of MolyMo’s hands until we could make our move with the legislature on mineral rights. I hate politics.

Finally. Brad answered my call. “Hey, dude, it’s all good. I got the readings. And let me tell you, Jane Marks was about to bust my—”

“Brad, stop talking,” I said. “Is Nora with you?”

“Ah, no. She had a bout of claustrophobia. Can’t handle the tunnel. Heron’s going to have to find someone else for his nefarious plot.”

“Dammit. She may have already done Heron’s work for him. She has Proto 1. You have to get it from her before she turns it over.”

“She’s gone, dude. Left half an hour ago. Did I hear you right? She has Proto 1?”

“Nicole gave it to Heron instead of you.”

A white Jetta passed me going toward Foresthill Road. “Hey, Brad. I should have passed Nora’s car coming out.”

“Where are you?”

“Sugar Pine Road.”

“You’re on a cell?”

“I’m practical, not paranoid,” I said. “I use cell phones when necessary.”

“Right. Well, Nora’s gone. She said she had something to do. Face an old dragon.”

“Crap, she’s going to her old cabin,” I said. Why would she do that on her own? “Where her family was murdered.”

“That’s a big dragon.”

“Can you get hold of Lisa and find out where it is?”

“I can tell you where it is,” Brad said. “At the end of Sugar Pine Road. You’re on your way.”

“I don’t know how you do that,” I said.

“It’s called talking to people.”

“Right. I’ll talk to you later.” I jammed on the accelerator.

After ten minutes the two paved lanes ended and became a gravel road too narrow for more than one vehicle. The bends were so close together, it was slow going. I will never understand the allure of a cabin in the woods.

I pulled up behind an empty red Altima parked fifty feet away from a brown two-story cabin built at the end of the road. As soon as I opened my door, I heard the screams. In front of the cabin, a man raised a shotgun and fired nearly straight up in the air.

“What the hell are you doing?” I said. “Put that thing down.”

“They’re all dead!” Nora’s voice came from a tree near the guy with the gun. There were steps built around the trunk leading up to a good-sized tree house.

“There’s a crazy woman up there,” the guy said. “I’m just trying to scare her off.”

“Scare her to death, you idiot.” It occurred to me he was the one with the gun. Calling him an idiot was probably not a good idea. “Look, I know her. I’ll bring her down.”

“And who the hell are you?” He lowered the rifle. He’d made his point. He kept an eye on me as I went up the tree house steps, but he didn’t say anything more.

Nora was on the floor crying, her whole body shaking, and her fists in tight balls. I picked her up and pulled her onto my lap and rocked her there on the floor. “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “Everything is going to be all right.”

I kissed her forehead and brushed her hair out of her eyes and rocked until the shaking stopped and she was able to get down to the ground. I put her in the Range Rover buckled her in. She stared straight ahead. I had no idea if she knew I was there.

I got her purse out of her car and gave it to her. Nothing else looked worth keeping.

“I’ll have someone come for the car,” I told the guy, though I wasn’t confident it would still be there.
 

I turned off the music in the Range Rover. Noise was last thing she’d want now.

-
oOo
-

I know J.D. would have listened, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I was grateful he didn’t push me. When we got home, the house was empty. “Stacey and Lisa are at work,” I said.

He came inside with me and looked in the refrigerator for something to drink. “Beer?” he said. “Or there’s a bottle of pinot grigio.”

“The pinot.” I sat at a counter stool while he opened the wine. After half a glass, the words started. “Something happened,” I said. “Back then. Something I never told anyone, not even the therapist. I guess I thought if I didn’t say it, it wouldn’t be true.”

I drank some more, and he filled my glass again. Hell, I might drink a whole bottle myself.

“I was a coward, J.D. I didn’t try to save them. I hid, and I watched them die. And then I…I couldn’t hold onto the leash. I didn’t hold tight enough. Trill ran at the gunman, and he shot her. Nick came out of hiding to save his dog, and he was killed for it.”

A tear slid down my cheek.

“It was my fault. If I’d only held on, held on tighter….”

Wracking sobs shook my body. J.D. came to me and held me close to his chest.

“I could have saved him. I can still feel the leash burning in my hands. If only I’d held tighter, I could have saved Nick. If I’d only…if only…”

“You have nothing to blame yourself for.”

He kissed my forehead and pressed me closer to his chest. At the sound of his heartbeat, my tension eased. I hung on to the rhythmic cadence. So sure. So steady.

“You saved Stacey,” he said. “You saved yourself. That was brave and good.”

“It wasn’t brave or good,” I said. “It was chance. We should have been there with the others.”

“Maybe it was was a miracle,” J.D. said. “Maybe you have a guardian angel. Maybe there’s a god after all and he saved you that night. All I know is I’m glad you’re here, Nora Deven, and I wish you’d stop feeling guilty for being alive in the world.”

I believed him. God in heaven, I believed him.

Tears streamed down my face, but I felt better than I had in years. Better than I ever had in my life. He kissed me ever so gently, but I didn’t want gentle. I needed more.

I set the glass aside. “I don’t want more wine. I want you.”

Before I finished the sentence, he swept me into his arms and was carrying me down the hall. I threw my arms around his neck.
 

I needed him. Not to obliterate my pain or render my senses inoperable. I needed to make love to him. To feel alive in my body while I made his body come alive.

He put me down on the bed and tore his shirt off over his head, exposing his lean muscular torso and arms. I ripped my clothes off. I didn’t want a lingering undressing scene. I needed to feel his bare skin on mine.

His chest was hairless and his skin smooth and tanned. He slipped his jeans down over his hips. His cock was a monster, as beautiful as I remembered. We grabbed each other and clung together, my breasts pressing against his chest, his hands on my back, our mouths locked together, tongues seeking, driving. I was hot and swollen and crazy with need. There would be time, time, and more time for leisurely enjoyment. Right now I needed something else.

I pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips. I found his cock with my hand and guided him inside me.
Ah! So good.

He groaned with pleasure as I came down on him, working him deeper, deeper inside me. I arched my back and rode him, my hands on his chest. I teased his nipples with my fingers and felt him grow even larger inside me until my walls clenched and spasmed. His fingers found my clit and rubbed as I rode. I cried out and let the waves of orgasm consume me as he sat up and rolled me over, never leaving my body. He drove into me relentlessly until I didn't exist anymore and he didn’t exist anymore. We were one mind, one heart, one soul. And I truly knew what it meant to be purged.

I was a new person, one who loved and was loved, and in the arms of my beloved I fell into blissful sleep.

-
oOo
-

I woke up in heaven, a/k/a Nora Deven’s bed. The birds were singing, and sunlight filtered in through the window. Nora was snuggled against my chest, and her hair was spread over my arm. She was still sleeping. Her breath hit my chest in soft in little puffs. My arm was in agony under her weight, but I was in heaven.

She stirred, and I moved out from underneath her. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll bring us some coffee.

I found my boxers and went out to the kitchen. A new Nespresso machine was set up on the counter near the sink. Frank had been as good as his word. While I looked for the pods, I spotted Nora’s purse on the counter against the wall.

The Proto 1
. I’d forgotten. I guess that proved it. I was in love. Nora Deven’s welfare had obliterated BlueMagick from my consciousness.

But BlueMagick still existed. I opened the bag and looked inside. Gah, is there any greater mystery than a woman’s purse? I reached in and felt around. “Yes!” My hand touched the small bioplastic device, and I pulled it out.

“J.D., what are you doing?” Nora stood not three feet away from me.

“Nora.”

“I come out to keep you company and find you rifling through my purse?”

“I can explain.” Did that sentence just come out of my mouth?

“Can you?” said a male voice. Frank came into the kitchen behind Nora. “Can you explain what the hell you’re doing here in the first place,
J.D. Reider
?”

He said my name dramatically. Meaningfully. With a sinking feeling, I realized Frank knew who I was.

“Frank, what are you talking about?” Nora said. “Of course this is J.D. Reider.” She looked at me. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Nora.”

“J.D. Reider,” Frank said. “Wonder boy CEO of BlueMagick. Multimillionaire at eighteen. Multibillionaire…when exactly?”

“Is this true?” Nora said. All the good and the wonder of last night fell from her face. Disappeared. Evaporated into the air. As if our lovemaking was as much a lie as all the lies I’d already told her.

“It is true.”

“Then why do you need to steal from my bag?”

“This device belongs to BlueMagick. Steve Heron stole it from us so he could get you to take those readings at the Barton dig.”

“And you got close to me so you could steal it back.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “I’ll pay you whatever MolyMo was going to pay.”

Mistake. She looked like I’d slapped her across the face. “But that’s not the point is it? You lied to me. Used me…when I thought you cared about me.”