The Perfect Husband (20 page)

He smiled at her calmly and nodded. “You hit it. All on your own, you hit it.”

And then he did something she never would have imagined him doing. He reached over and shook her hand.

She couldn't say a word. She felt his firm, reassuring grip. She returned it with one of her own. Bad ass to bad ass. She'd done it.

Then she grinned at him and whooped. “I killed the hay bale! I killed the hay bale!”

She unceremoniously handed him the gun and raced to the long-suffering straw to inspect her work.

J.T. WATCHED HER go. She hunkered down beside the bale of straw and promptly stuck her finger in a blackened hole like a little kid. Her hair burned like copper wire beneath the sun. It matched her smile, bright, brilliant, and intense enough to make a man look twice.

She found another hole and poked her finger in that one too. God, the grin on her face!

When had she become so beautiful? She looked over at him and smiled again. Then she rested her head against her big-game trophy and he had to blink his eyes against the tightness in his chest.

In this moment she looked perfect, the way she should have looked from the beginning. She was vital and radiant, earthy and innocent.

It was the kind of moment a man should record on film and carry with him in his pocket to remember on other, darker occasions.

His mind, relentless and ruthless as always, filled in the other snapshots to come. Tess sprawled facedown on a carpet, face bruised and pulpy from a baseball bat. Body outlined in white chalk. Clothes torn and ripped.

He looked away. He focused on the dirt.

No, he thought. It won't come to that. She was tougher than that. The police were smarter than that. Hell, maybe Jim Beckett was already out of the country, sipping planter's punch in the Bahamas.

But he didn't believe any of it.

Goddamn, he wanted a drink.

He thought sobriety was supposed to be good, making a man clear-headed, sharp, focused. For him it was the opposite. He couldn't sleep at night. He was constantly edgy, and his mind was drowning beneath the weight of images he could no longer control.

Maybe a guy like him was meant to be drunk. Maybe a guy like him could only really function with the edge worn off.

He noticed things like Marion's cutting comments. He remembered things like the dreams he'd had when he'd returned to the States five years ago, and the fresh hope he'd found as a newly married man.

He remembered the first time he'd seen Rachel, holding a squalling baby and haltingly telling him she had no money anymore. The colonel had thrown her out, her savings were gone, and men didn't pay much for an exhausted mother. She'd come to him because she didn't know who else to go to. And then the first tear had trickled down her cheek, large and silent, as she'd looked away, clearly ashamed. He'd watched her try to calm her screaming baby and simultaneously wipe the moisture from her face. When he still hadn't given her a reply, she'd walked away, her thin shoulders held with more dignity than he could imagine. He'd known then that he would help her. Whatever the colonel had done to her, she was worth more. She was a better person than he'd made her.

He noticed things like when he lay down at night, the ceiling fan never stopped moving. It hummed and hummed and hummed, and stirred the air against his skin so delicately, it was maddening.

Just that morning he'd fallen asleep enraged by the air and woken up to see Rachel standing by his bed. He would have sworn it was her, and not the early Rachel but the woman who'd become his wife. So beautiful, so lovely. She had smiled at him, soft and serene. His heart had broken in his chest all over again.

Hey, babe, Teddy and I are just going to run to the grocery store. We'll be back in an hour. What would you like for dinner?

And last night he'd had more dreams. This time he was running after the Camaro. He could see it so clearly. The kid, the stupid kid was driving in the middle of the road, swerving from side to side. Up ahead he could see the approaching headlights of Rachel's car. And he was screaming and he was running, but the damn Camaro was going too fast, he couldn't catch it.

At the last minute the kid turned his head, but he wasn't the kid anymore. He was a bald, hairless man with cold blue eyes. Jim Beckett. Beckett was grinning and then J.T. looked through the windshield of the approaching car and saw Tess's screaming face.

“Let's celebrate,” Tess said, trotting back over from the bale of straw. “What do you do to celebrate?”

He jerked himself back to the present. “To celebrate a successful kill?”

“Yes. A successful kill. What do you do?”

“Straight shots of Cuervo Gold followed by mad, passionate sex. I'm game if you are.”

She blushed, her breathing accelerated. “I know,” she said brightly, no longer looking at him, “let's buy strawberries. Can we get strawberries out here?”

“Sure.” His gaze remained on her face. Her lips had parted. Now her tongue darted out to moisten them. She had very pink lips, like rose petals.

“And fresh whipped cream,” she murmured. “And shortcake. That's it. I'll make strawberry shortcake with dinner.”

“Tess,” J.T. said hoarsely, “stop toying with me.”

He grabbed her hand, swung her against his chest, and devoured her mouth. He discovered those pink lips and he thrust his tongue between them, hearing her gasp, then hearing her sigh.

He kissed her deeply, like a drowning man trying to find shore. Her fingers dug into his arms and her grip was strong and urgent, just as it should be. He ate her lips, tasted her, and consumed her. And she opened her mouth for him greedily and drew him in even deeper.

Good Lord, he was drowning and he wanted to drown.

As if from a distance, he heard her moan. His hands found her ass and rotated her hips against his hardening length. Her fingernails welted his skin.

She was hungry. Her leg was already rubbing his thigh. Her fingertips danced up his arms, then his collarbone, and tangled in his hair. She pulled on his head.

“Jesus,” he muttered thickly. “You take it wild.”

“Okay,” she said, and ground her teeth against him. She split his lip, then jerked back in shock. He touched the cut with a finger and pulled it back wet with blood.

“Didn't realize you were into that kind of stuff, Tess.” He put the finger in his mouth and licked it clean.

“I don't know what I'm doing!” Abruptly she buried her forehead against his chest and her shoulders started shaking. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

She caught him off guard with her sobs. He stood stiffly, stunned, then some old instinct flared gamely to life.

Slowly he curled one arm around her shoulders. She felt tiny against him. Carefully his other hand palmed her head. His thumb stroked her cheek once, twice.

“It will be all right,” he found himself whispering. “It'll be okay.”

He brushed the tears from her cheek; he stroked her neck. She felt so unbelievably fragile. Images swamped him: A baseball bat arching up. A man arching the bat over her curled, defenseless body. A two-hundred-pound pumped-up giant about to annihilate his hundred-pound wife.

The rage was instantaneous. He blanked it from his mind and held her closer.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked at last.

“I'm so humiliated,” she moaned.

“Why?” He shifted her more comfortably against his chest but kept his grip. He suspected the first time he let go, she would bolt.

“Because I'm a twenty-four-year-old mother and I don't know how to kiss. And I don't know what to do and I don't know what to want. Oh, God, it's all so messed up and crazy.” Her shoulders started heaving again.

“Your husband was your first?”

“The only one.”

“And lousy?”

“Yes.” Her arms slid around his waist and she clung to him. He hadn't had anyone hold him like that for a very long time. He'd forgotten about these things. The sweetness of a woman's touch. How much comfort she could give a man. How much she could make him feel whole.

And he felt something inside him rip a little.

He didn't want that. Oh, he didn't want that.

He took her hands in his and as fast and painlessly as possible disengaged her from his body. “You got time now,” he said stiffly. His gazed bounced all around, landing on everything but her. “Jim Beckett was a bastard and you left him. Now you got your whole life to figure out the rest. You're starting out fresh and twenty-four's not that old.”

“Was I that horrible?”

God, she was killing him. “No. No, Tess, you weren't. You just… it's like your shooting. You were trying too hard and bringing too many things into it with you.”

“Oh.” Her lips twisted. “So there's a zone for kissing too? I should've figured that.”

“Yeah. You know those zones.”

“I bet you have them all down.”

“Not all of them. But shooting, swimming… fucking. Yeah, I guess I have my strengths.”

She fell silent. He used the opportunity to clear his throat. It felt too dry. He suffered another pang of longing for a beer. Any beer. Dirt-cheap beer, he didn't care.

“We should get back to the house.”

“What are we going to learn this afternoon?”

“Hand-to-hand combat.”

“Not hand to baseball bat?”

He winced. “We'll cover that too.”

More silence. Then she pulled away. “All right.”

He heard her footsteps as she moved over to the gun case. Heard the sharp
clack
as she popped it open, then the tinkle of shells being poured into their container.

He tried to pull himself together.

He kept seeing that damn Camaro. And his father walking down the hall.

He shook his head.
Push it away, J.T., just push it away
.

It didn't work. He needed a beer.

“I KNOW WHERE Jim Beckett is.”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“I've seen him in my dreams. He's with a blond woman and there is the sound of dripping water. Slow dripping-water. Drip… Drip… Drip…”

“Ma'am?”

“I smell fresh snow and pine trees. Yes, he has gone to the mountains. The beautiful, beautiful mountains. There, he will be reborn.”

“Uh… yes, ma'am. Which mountains?”

“How should I know that, silly girl? You are with the police. I have given you direction, now you must follow!”

The phone clicked. The operator sighed. “Yes, ma'am,” she whispered. She hit the reset button on her keyboard and her terminal immediately lit up with a fresh call.

“I've found Jim Beckett!”

“Where, sir?”

“He's living across the street from me. I spotted him last night, through the window. I broke my leg, see, but that doesn't mean I'm helpless. Sitting at my window, I see all sorts of things. And last night I saw him, standing in the window, arguing with a woman. I think he may have killed her.”

“May I have your name, sir.”

“Jimmy Stewart. That's J-i—”

“Jimmy Stewart? As in Jimmy Stewart?”

“That's right.”

“Do you watch a lot of Hitchcock films, sir?”

“Why, yes, yes, I do.”

“Thank you, sir.” She disconnected that call on her own. Her terminal immediately lit up again. Five thousand calls a day and still going strong.

“Jim Beckett is my next-door neighbor!”

“Of course, sir.”

“He just moved in last week. I was suspicious right away. The man's bald, you know. What kind of self-respecting man goes around looking like a bowling ball? He's Irish, isn't he? You can't trust the Irish.”

“May I have your name and address, sir?”

“My name? Why do you need my name?”

“We just need a contact, sir. A police officer will follow up with you and take an official statement.”

“I don't want a cop coming to my home.”

“We can do it by phone, but we need your name.”

“Hell, I don't want a cop coming here. Everyone will think I'm a snitch. I'm not a snitch!”

“Of course, sir, but—”

The caller slammed the phone and the operator winced a little, but there was no time for contemplation. Her terminal lit up again, and with a tired sigh she hit the enter key and started over.

Across the room Special Agent Quincy ran down the log sheets, seeing if anything leapt out at him. He'd been in Santa Cruz working on a series of grave robberies and mutilations. Since many disorganized serial killers started with corpses before graduating to living victims, the local law enforcement had gotten the FBI involved early. The hope was they could catch the guy before young women suffered the same fate as the dead. Unfortunately they weren't having much success. At eleven P.M. Quincy had caught the red eye to Boston. He was exhausted, rumpled, and unshowered. He was used to it by then.

He moved on to the tenth page of the log sheet, but still nothing leapt out at him. Operators took each call, logging the caller, their address, return phone number, and tip. The police officers on duty then sorted through the log sheets, scratching off about eighty percent as worthless, eighteen percent as worth calling back, and two percent as worth checking out in person. From “Jim Beckett is really Elvis” to reports of grand theft auto, the officers got it all.

Quincy abandoned the log sheet and poured himself a second cup of coffee. Instant. He hated that crap. There would be justice in the world the day police officers had cappuccino machines.

Lieutenant Houlihan spotted him from across the room and approached.

“You look like hell,” the lieutenant stated.

“Thanks. It's part of the new Bureau regulation. All agents must look overworked or they're being paid too much. So how's it going here?”

“The bad news is we still have no sign of Jim Beckett. The good news is we may have found Jimmy Hoffa. Oh, and we've averted two attacks of aliens looking to overrun the U.S. government.”

“Not bad.”

“How's the coffee?”

“Pretty damn awful.”

“Thank you, we take a great deal of pride in that. Notice the economy-size jug of Tums sitting next to it.”

Quincy nodded and finished off the cup. He couldn't help wincing at the end, but at least it was caffeine. He set down the cup, rolled his neck, shook out his arms, and worked on feeling human. He nodded toward the gold medal Houlihan wore around his neck. He didn't remember having seen it before.