Dearly Beloved (35 page)

“There
was
someone,” she goes on thoughtfully, remembering, “about a year ago. A real S.O.B., it turned out, but he seemed totally normal—had a lot of money. I met him when I was working at the Four Seasons last spring to make extra cash to pay off my Visa bill . . .” She catches herself before she spills the rest of it—that the Visa account had been delinquent and a collection agency had come after her. No reason to tell him
that.

“And . . .” he prompts.

She shrugs. “He was in Boston on business for the month, staying at the hotel. We went out a few times. He wined and dined me. Then he turned into a creep.”

“What happened?”

She hesitates, not wanting to tell him that, either. How the guy had been pissed off because she wouldn’t sleep with him one night. She just wasn’t in the mood.

But things had gotten ugly. Who would have guessed that such a supposedly mild-mannered businessman would have a nasty temper? Well, with everything you heard about date-rape these days, maybe she should have been more careful.

But she had been truly shocked when he had turned into a ranting lunatic, ripping off her clothes and forcing her to have sex with him.

And not just the regular way.

No, he’d gotten out the handcuffs, the leather S&M gear, the vibrator—all the little toys she’d introduced him to, which he kept stashed in the drawer next to his bed in his hotel suite.

Suddenly, that awful night, the props that Laura had used as innocent, pleasure-enhancing gadgets were transformed into terrifying instruments of torture. She still remembers how helpless she had felt when he’d cuffed her to the bed and had his way with her body, poking and prodding her endlessly, laughing when she sobbed and begged him to stop.

If the guest in the next room hadn’t called the management to complain about the noise, who knew what would have happened?

“Laura . . .” Shawn asks, still waiting.

What would he say if he knew what she had done? Would he feel that she had gotten what she’d deserved?

Of course he’d think that. Laura thought it herself. How many times, since that dreadful night, had she chastised herself for being habitually promiscuous? She was lucky she hadn’t run into trouble before the Four Seasons guy and that she’d gotten away from him relatively unharmed.

The experience had made her vow never to sleep with a virtual stranger again, never to use toys or play kinky sex games again.

She’d kept that promise, too. Oh, she and Shawn
were
sleeping together and she still had a healthy appetite for lovemaking. But when she’d met him, she’d played hard to get for the first time in her life. She hadn’t slept with him until their fourth date. And he’d been pleasantly surprised he told her, to discover that she wasn’t a prude after all. She’d gotten a private kick out of
that
—imagine, someone thinking
she
might be a prude!

“What about this guy?” Shawn asks again.

Laura snaps out of her reverie. “Oh, right. Well, he was a major creep. But he definitely wasn’t the guy who sold me the ticket that day in the parking lot.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. And anyway, he comes from big bucks, like I said. His family’s pretty famous.”

“For what?”

She shrugs. “Just being rich, I guess. The other clerk at the hotel recognized his name right away the first time he checked in.”

“Really? What is it?”

Laura frowns, trying to remember.

Then she nods and says, “Oh, yeah, that’s right. It was Gilbrooke. Stephen Gilbrooke.”

J
ennie is still huddled on her bed in a fetal position when the noise of the storm ebbs momentarily and she hears footsteps approaching her door.

Her entire body grows tense as she listens and waits.

It has to be Jasper Hammel.

A short time ago, she had heard the front door slam, and then a car engine starting up.

By the time she had reached the window to see what was going on, the police car that had been parked out front was no longer there.

Either the cop had left . . .

Or Hammel had moved the car.

Jennie wanted desperately to believe the latter was just another example of her imagination carrying her away. But minutes after the car had vanished, she had heard the front door open and close again.

Which meant Hammel could have parked the car someplace nearby, but out of the way, and now he was back.

In the half hour or so that had passed since then, all had been still downstairs.

Not that Jennie could have heard much of anything, anyway. The storm had grown steadily more powerful, and now the wind was fairly screeching around the house and the wild sea was leaping at the rocky coast like a rabid dog straining on its leash.

Now she waits, wondering if she really did just hear footsteps or if it were—

No, there they are again.

Frightened Jennie turns to look expectantly at the door, as though any moment, Jasper Hammel is going to splinter it and burst into her room, a raving madman.

The thought should seem ludicrous, but it isn’t. Not entirely.

There’s a knock at the door, a brief, staccato rapping that causes Jennie to shrink back into the pillows in wide-eyed fear.

“Miss Towne?”

It’s Jasper Hammel, all right. But he sounds like his usual self—formal and pleasant.

Still, Jennie can’t seem to find her voice.

“Miss Towne?” he calls again with another knock. “Are you in there?”

“Yes,” she finally manages, realizing that he would have the key so there’s no point in trying to hide.

“Oh, good. There’s a call for you.”

For a moment, she’s too startled to reply.

“Do you want to take it?” Hammel asks through the door.

“I . . . I thought the phones were knocked out,” she says thinly.

“They were, but they’ve made repairs.”

She doesn’t say anything, wondering whether to believe him.

“In fact,” Hammel goes on, “when one of the island police officers stopped by awhile ago to see that we were all right, he promised me that the local phone company was working on the lines. And a short time later . . .
voilà!
The phone rang.”

She ponders that, still hugging her knees tightly to her chest. She didn’t hear the phone ringing. But then, the noise of the storm would probably have drowned it out anyway.

“Who is it?” she asks Hammel after another moment’s hesitation. “On the phone for me, I mean.”

“It’s your sister. She says it’s important or I wouldn’t have disturbed you.”

It’s Laura again.

Jennie debates only another split-second before getting off the bed and going over to the door.

“I’ll take it,” she says, opening it.

Too late, she realizes that she’s made a big mistake.

Jasper Hammel instantly reaches out, grabs her, and clamps a damp handkerchief that reeks of something acrid over her mouth and nose.

“Breathe deeply now, Laura,” he says in his proper, clipped way. “That’s the girl. You’re going to take a nice nap, and when you wake up—”

The rest of his words are lost on her as she collapses in his arms.

Chapter 15

T
he big black sedan skids on the icy gravel drive as Stephen pulls around to the back of the inn. He steers into the skid, regains control, and parks beside the gardening shed, thinking that if it keeps snowing like this, he won’t be able to get back out to the house. And what about leaving the island on the boat? It’s going to be terribly treacherous in this weather.

He sits with his hand poised on the door handle, wondering whether he should go back to the original plan and wait until tomorrow to deal with Laura Towne.

If he does, there’s a greater risk of being caught—especially if that cop he met earlier actually is suspicious.

But if he goes ahead and takes care of everything today and leaves by nightfall, what about the nor’easter? He’s an accomplished yachtsman, thanks to all those years at prep school; but skill, he knows, can become moot when Mother Nature is venting her fury.

No, he probably shouldn’t chance it. The thought of drowning in the Atlantic isn’t exactly a pleasant one. And besides, if the cop comes snooping around again, he can be easily taken care of . . . just like the red-haired kid.

Stephen makes up his mind to wait. He’ll stay here, in his attic room, for the night, he decides, and then he’ll be able to sneak down and sneak a peek at Laura once she’s safely asleep later.

Just the way he did with Sandy. And Liza.

It’s like a tantalizing little appetizer before the main course,
he thinks, his lips curving into a smile as he thinks of those stolen moments in the wee hours of the morning, when he’d fondled the unsuspecting women as they slept.

And Laura . . .

Well, when he had dated her last year, she had been a regular tigress. Stephen writhes slightly on the leather car seat just thinking about the things she had done to him in that suite at the Four Seasons.

He’s in for a real treat once again, he thinks, feeling slightly breathless.

In fact, too bad he can’t keep her around—let her come with him when he leaves the island.

But then he remembers how she had turned on him, just as the others had.

He thinks back to that night in the hotel suite, when she had tried to resist his advances. At first, he’d thought she secretly wanted him—that her cold fish routine was just an act, to tease him, get him all worked up. He’d gone along with it, forcing her—cuffing her to the bed, using those devices of hers, working himself into a frenzy.

Then she’d started crying and calling for help, and the hotel management had come knocking on the door, wanting to know if everything was all right. What a mess. He’d played the role of a sheepish guest, apologizing to the night manager if he and his “girlfriend” had gotten a little out of hand.

When he’d closed the door and gone back over to the bed, Laura had looked at him darkly through her mascara-smudged lilac-colored eyes and ordered him to unlock the handcuffs. “If you don’t,” she’d threatened, “I’ll scream so loudly that the management will be back here in two seconds flat.”

For a wild moment, he’d considered killing her right then and there, as he had Lorraine. But then he realized that there had already been a complaint, that the manager knew who he was, and that he would never get away with it.

So he’d let her go.

The next afternoon, he’d come back from his meeting to find her working at the desk, dressed in her deceptively prim, high-collared navy-plaid dress with her hair coiled at the back of her neck in a schoolmarm’s bun.

He’d gone over to her and whispered suggestively that if she came upstairs to his suite when her shift ended, he’d pretend to be a naughty schoolboy and let her spank him.

“You pig,” she’d said in a low voice that barely contained her palpable wrath. “If you don’t get out of here right this second and leave me alone, I’ll go to the police and tell them what you did to me last night.”

Shocked, he’d protested, “What did I do?”

“You raped me.”

“I did not! You wanted it. You loved it. You know you did.”

“You actually think I
wanted
to sleep with an ugly son of a bitch like you? What are you, nuts? I never wanted you, not from the start. The only way I could get off with you was to use those toys . . . and close my eyes and pretend you were someone else. Someone who looked
human
.”

Stung, Stephen had simply closed his mouth and walked away. By the next day, when he had decided he had to do to her what he had done to Lorraine, it was too late. The girl behind the desk told him that Laura had quit abruptly after her shift ended the day before. And no, she wasn’t at liberty to give out Laura’s home address or number.

At first, he had planned to track her down immediately and make her pay for what she had said.

Then he had thought again of Lorraine . . .

Of how incredibly satisfying it had been to see her vivid red blood spill over the white-silk wedding gown.

And he had thought of Liza Danning . . .

And Sandy Cavelli . . .

And how they, too, had hurt him.

That was when he came up with the plan.

It had taken awhile to put it into motion.

First, he’d had to arrange a leave of absence from his father’s company. He’d been running it—and better than meek Andrew ever had—ever since his father had gone off the deep end. When Stephen had made arrangements for a year off, he’d explained that he was simply burnt out from all the international travel the business required. No one questioned him—or suspected that he had no intention of ever coming back.

Then there had been the plastic surgery, which he’d always intended to do. He’d gone to Europe, where he had plenty of connections—and where privacy was ensured. And now, thanks to one of the world’s most prominent surgeons, he bore no resemblance to the “Elephant Guy” who had been taunted all through school, scorned even by his own parents.

Finally, of course, he’d had to buy the inn and get it ready. He’d chosen Tide Island because his mother had always complained about how remote and sparsely populated it was. She’d said repeatedly over the years that she didn’t know why Andrew insisted on keeping that Victorian albatross, which was so far off the beaten path that it made the rest of the island seem positively urban.

What better place, Stephen had decided, to carry out his plan?

And now, his long hours of meticulous preparation have paid off.

Sandy Cavelli is dead.

Liza Danning is dead.

Only Laura Towne remains.

The pain she caused him is the freshest. Torturing her will be sweeter, even, than it had been to torture Sandy and Liza.

He imagines Laura in the white wedding gown he’d bought for her.

It’s more daring than the others were. Sexier. It has a plunging neckline and skin-tight skirt. When he’d bought it, he’d pictured her in that daring lingerie she was always wearing.

Now, he frowns slightly, thinking of the plain white-cotton underwear he’d found in her suitcase yesterday. It isn’t at all like her to be so modest and . . . boring. Obviously her tastes have changed over the past year.