less than what we’d like, but, trust me, we had no trouble identifying this as murder.” His laugh was rough-edged. He stepped close to her, but he didn’t let his wide shoulders block her view of Camina.
He was standing knee-to-knee with her, his palms flat and hot at her waist. Such heat in his broad hands. Rain glittered in his hair, spotted his black jacket, the gleam of his black shirt. She could smell the heat of him rising to her in the rain, clean, fresh. This close to him, she realized for the first time that he wasn’t as tall as she’d thought. He’d seemed enormous, terrifying, as he’d stood on her front porch. In fact, he was under six feet.
Only a man.
Then Molly looked into his face and realized that John Harlan was every bit as terrifying as she’d believed.
Nothing merciful in his golden brown eyes, no amusement in the mouth curling in a smile, nothing but steel in the grip of his hands. Implacable.
And he was hunting her.
Acknowledging the understanding between them, he tipped his head. “There’s something else I want you to take a look at.” Marching her in front of him like a captive, he kept his hands tight around her waist. The toe of his shoe bumped the bag. He nodded to one of the technicians, who unzipped the plastic farther down.
“I can’t. I can’t.” Sobs bent Molly in two. She saw the dark, rain-wet blood on Camina’s blouse. That was enough. Covering her mouth, she pleaded, “No more, please. I want to go home.”
“In a minute.” Harlan was impatient as he stepped around Camina, leading Molly to the dock. “She was found there.” He indicated the body on the ground and then pointed to a trail of blood leading from it to the pier. “But she was killed here. On the dock. Why was your maid—your friend, I think you said—waiting on your boat dock last night, Ms. Harris? Who was she waiting for?”
There were muddy footprints at the edge of the dock. A smudged pattern danced from one end of the dock to the other, the outline of Camina’s footprints washing away with the drizzle.
And then, of course, the blood. Couldn’t forget that. There was always the blood.
“Why was your maid on this dock last night, Ms. Harris?” Harlan’s voice was relentless. “Tell me. I know you’re hiding something, Ms. Harris. I just haven’t figured out what. But I will, you know. Sooner or later, I’ll find out. I always do.” Like water plinking into a sink, driving a person crazy, his words fell around her. “You know you want to get out from under the burden of what you’re keeping to yourself, whatever you’re hiding behind that cool little mask.” He touched her face. “Think what a relief it will be to tell me everything, Ms. Harris, to get rid of all those secrets you’re guarding so earnestly.” He paused and lifted her hand, traced the wound.
“I don’t have anything to say. I’m not hiding anything.” Molly looked him straight in the face.
“No secrets? Ah.” He paused. “Well, we all have them, you know. Believe me—” he curled her fingers over the gash in her palm “—there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before, Ms. Harris. There’s nothing you can’t say to me.”
His voice caressed her, seducing her with its false gentleness, until Molly wanted to tell him everything. But she couldn’t. She anchored herself with that knowledge even as his words continued to curl around her.
“Tell me, Ms. Harris. It won’t be hard. And you’ll be glad when you don’t have to hide anymore. You won’t have to lie. Won’t have to worry about what you’ve said or not said. Everything finally out in the open. Secrets will destroy you, you know. Why don’t you tell me? Everything. And then you can sleep.” And, though he wasn’t touching her, his hand seemed to brush over her cold face, warming it. “You haven’t been sleeping, have you? And you’re tired.”
Even though she’d insisted that she’d slept all through the night, he’d known somehow she hadn’t.
Tender, filled with understanding, the flow of his voice surrounded her. “I know you’re hiding something, Ms. Harris. And I want to help you.” He brushed her hair away from her face. The wet ends clung to her cheek, and he lifted them free. “Let me help you. You need to tell me. And you will—like I said, sooner or later. So why not now?”
Weaving a seductive pattern around her, into her weary, frightened mind, John Harlan’s hypnotic voice went on and on, and she fought it, fought with every ounce of energy left in her.
But oh, yes, she wanted to tell him. She was so tired of being alone. And she wanted to sleep with no shadows hovering at the edge of her mind. To sleep…
The thought stirred in her sludge-thick mind and wouldn’t go away.
His was the voice of her demon lover, cajoling her, and she wanted to surrender to the velvety ease he promised. She could sleep if she were in jail, if she were safe behind metal bars hard as the steel she sensed in John Harlan. To yield to sleep, to let his cape wrap around her and to forget, if only for one night…. To sleep.
“I…” She shook her head. Raindrops scattered onto him from her swinging hair.
“Yes?” he encouraged. “Go ahead.” He led her closer to the disappearing trail of Camina’s footprints. “What happened, Ms. Harris? Did she come here last night to ask for her job back? Is that how it started?” He waited, his warmth in front of her, the rain cold on her back. “Did she come to tell you that you shouldn’t have fired her? Did you argue? And strike out? Not meaning to, I know,” he said reassuringly, betrayal lurking in the darkness of his voice.
For a long time Molly stood, head down, watching the bloodstains grow dimmer in the increasing rain while John Harlan’s voice drummed against her.
“What happened?” Endless patience now in the way he never moved, endless understanding in his low voice.
And none of it real.
“Did you come out here, Ms. Harris? Did you see Camina Milar standing here in the rain last night?” He pointed to the dock. “You could have seen her from upstairs in your house. From your living room. From any room with a view of the bayou.” He shrugged. “She was outside here…for a long time.” He pointed to a pile of lipstick-marked cigarette butts. “Think about her, all alone out here in the rain, waiting, hour after hour. What happened, Ms. Harris?”
She would tell him everything. She opened her mouth.
Something flickered in the grass at the edge of her vision, a motion of the tall grass as though a creature stole through it. Distracted, Molly was released from the spell of Harlan’s voice, and she lifted her head and looked at him.
“Nothing!” Moving very carefully—she had no wish to stir the power hiding inside him—she pulled his hands away from her waist and turned toward her house. Over her shoulder she threw back at him, “Aren’t you supposed to Mirandize me or something if I’m a suspect? Read me my rights?”
She was freezing—shock setting in. Too much had happened. She had to go inside. She would be safe there. Later, she would think about the vision he’d created of Camina standing outside, cupping her hands around her lit cigarette and smoking steadily while the rain fell around her in the dark.
And then she had died.
Stabbed.
That
