First You Run (16 page)

Do you want my soul? Why are you here, protecting me? Torturing me?

He unbuttoned his shirt, shaking off the sleeves to reveal the full width of his shoulders, the carved planes of his chest, the dip and cut of his abdomen.

She forgot speaking and just
looked
.

He unbuckled his belt, unsnapped his pants, and, in one easy move, kicked off his shoes and removed his trousers and boxers. His body was a masterpiece, his manhood fully erect and swollen, the jagged antlers of a shadow black-stag climbing up his lower abdomen, his legs solid and strong and dusted with golden-brown hair.

He closed the space between them, lowering himself to the bed and guiding her body up to the middle as he did.

And still, he hadn’t said a word.

Was this a fantasy or a man who wanted her soul?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the first, indescribable moment that his naked body covered hers. He inhaled deeply, and she did, too, to share the scent of them together, of heat and sweat and skin. He lowered his head, opened his mouth, and kissed her so gently a sob caught in her throat.

Every touch was
tender
. His hands, his lips, even the slow dance of his hips over hers. All tender.

He didn’t attack with his tongue or grind his arousal into hers. He didn’t plaster his hand on her breast and knead it while he licked the other. He didn’t do any of the things that she’d imagined.

Instead, his kiss was somewhere between adoration and amazement, so whisper-soft that at times she wasn’t sure their lips were touching. He held his whole body in check, suspended close enough to warm her but not crushing her with impatient desperation.

Was this how someone stole your soul? With infinite tenderness?

“Miranda.” His sexy accent drew the syllables out, making the sound a sigh, a song of her name. “Miranda.”

She wrapped a leg around his and opened her mouth for more of him, and he obliged, deepening the kiss and entering her mouth with a slow tickle of his tongue. His fingertips grazed her nipple, and then he cupped her, lowering his head to feather kisses and blow soft, sweet, warm breaths on her breast.

A helpless whimper shook her chest as fever rolled up her spine and back down into her womb. Unable to stop, she arched up, her hips jutting into his, her stomach taking the full pressure of his erection.

He stroked her skin, down her ribs, around her hips. He flattened his hand on her backside, rubbing her flesh, heating her with his palm. She rocked again, in a primal, uncontrollable need to move against him. She pushed his hair off his face and kissed him, her eyes open, their gazes locked.

If he wanted her soul, at that very instant he had it. He had her. She spread her legs, slid herself up and down his shaft, splayed her hands over the steel of his muscles, still kissing, still gazing.

Electricity zinged through her, between them, around them, snapping at her flesh, firing her from her eyes to her toes. She lifted her hips again and captured the tip of his penis with her thighs. His mouth opened, his breath caught, his eyes sparked like golden flints.

She took him into her with one continuous move, filling herself with heat and fire and Adrien. He finally closed his eyes, letting out the defeated, relieved groan of a man who had lost a very tough battle.

That instant, everything changed.

He rose above her, tenderness transformed into raw sexual fire, his hands at either side of her head for balance. The softness in his eyes disappeared, replaced by an animal gleam. His jaw set, his hair falling into his face, he started to pump.

She raised her hips, meeting his thrusts as he rammed himself against her pelvis.

A wail of victory caught in her throat, along with a gasp at the power he’d just unleashed. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him, burying his face in her neck and hair, as lost as she was.

Feverish, frantic, he pounded his flesh against hers. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, then her teeth, tasting salt and sucking in the scent of sex, licking the tattoo that painted his muscle. Pleasure swirled through her, pulling her tighter, throbbing, squeezing, driving against him. Her moans became helpless cries for release.

Her climax started as deep inside her as he was, burning and burning as she rolled against him and wallowed in it. She couldn’t bear it but couldn’t stop. She parted her lips, moaned his name, and finally let go for the long, sweet, agonizing fall over the cliff.

“Miranda,” he murmured, kissing her throat, her chest, sucking her skin, all the while plunging deep, pulling out, plunging deeper. “Miranda, luv, please don’t hate me.”

Blood thundered in her head as she came.

“I don’t hate you,” she gasped, riding the last of the wave. “I don’t. You…I…” Her voice cracked, and tears rolled down her face. “Come inside me. Please. I
need
you to.”

She forced him deeper and he threw his head back, growled, and exploded violently.

Wasted, he fell onto her with a long groan, the sound of resignation, of surrender and…despair.

As she tightened her arms around him, Taliña’s words floated in her head.
He’s not with you by chance or accident
.

R
EBECCA
A
UBRY’S BRICK
ranch sat just off a busy highway in West Ashley—probably once a very desirable suburb of Charleston but now solid working-class and not even a blip on the radar screens of the city’s up-and-comers.

Jack liked it. Lots of trees, unassuming side streets lined with small houses that had the kind of screen doors he remembered slamming as a kid. This was a neighborhood without any of the pretentiousness of other parts of Charleston, none of the old money, none of the new. Not much money at all, to be honest. Just dinged-up cars in driveways and lawns that showed care but no fuss.

He also liked sitting in the unmarked car, drinking heavily sugared coffee, sunglasses on, window down, a target’s house in his field of vision. He felt like a cop again—even though he was only staking out an old lady who’d once worked as a nurse in a farmhouse near Holly Hill. He’d decided to wait when no one had answered his knock, since he doubted a seventy-year-old woman would be gone that long.

It hadn’t been hard to discover where Rebecca lived. Sweet, young Toni Hastings had pulled up the info in minutes, and over fried clams and beer in a noisy waterfront restaurant, she’d agreed to let him borrow the picture of Rebecca holding the baby.

Jack’s coffee was cold by the time a late-model Buick pulled into the driveway. The petite frosted blonde who loped around the back of the car after climbing out of the driver’s seat was clearly not Rebecca Aubry. Then she opened the passenger door and offered a hand to an older woman, who had to be the one he wanted.

Rebecca looked weary and bowed. Birthing babies, falsifying documents, lying to unwed mothers, and then ratting on the woman who’d employed her for a decade mustn’t have been easy. Long before Eileen Stafford’s trial, Rebecca had built herself quite a little police file, although she was in the files as Becky Santoulian. That’s why Jack hadn’t put two and two together when Eileen mentioned Rebecca.

Now it was time to take Rebecca on a trip down memory lane.

Sliding the
Post and Courier
photo into his jacket pocket, he climbed out of his car. As soon as he slammed his door, the younger woman whipped around, straightened her shoulders, and stared at him. Rebecca didn’t appear to have heard him.

“Ms. Aubry?” he called.

The young woman pushed a pair of sunglasses up to hold back some of her hair, a protective arm tightening around her charge.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’d like to speak with Rebecca.” Always better to let the gatekeeper think you’re on a first-name basis.

But this gatekeeper just shook her head. “I’m so very sorry, sir,” she said, her thick Carolina accent accompanying that tight, fake smile that usually preceded something like “Bless your heart, dear.” “Miz Aubry won’t be able to entertain your sales pitch today. Perhaps another time.”

He continued toward them. “I’m not selling anything, ma’am, but I have a few questions for Ms. Aubry. It’s very important—and personal.”

As he got closer, he saw that she wasn’t quite as pretty as her lithe silhouette and blond hair promised; her skin was rough, and her mud-colored eyes were small and unadorned by makeup.

“My name’s Jack Culver,” he said. “I’m a private investi—”

“Miz Aubry doesn’t speak with investigators.” There was no trace of the fake smile now, and she was using some force to keep Rebecca facing the other direction. “If you’re seeking information about an adoption, y’all need to go to other channels. She turned over everything she knew to the police many years ago, and she’s not able to help with specific cases.”

In the middle of the recited speech, the older woman turned, and Jack noticed she wore a pair of dark plastic sunglasses from an optometrist’s office. “Who is it, Betsy?”

“Just a salesman, Miz Rebecca.” She shot him a warning look. “Not now,” she whispered harshly. “She’s just been to the doctor.”

“Who are you?” Rebecca asked, with the loud bellow of the deaf. “You’re handsome. Isn’t he handsome, Betsy?”

Betsy looked pained.

“My name is Jack Culver, Ms. Aubry. I’m investigating an adoption.”

Her slight shoulders sank even more, and she reached up with a shaky hand to pull down the plastic sunglasses, but her caretaker jumped in before she answered.

“You need to rest, Miz Rebecca.” She looked at Jack and spoke softly. “Her memory is gone. She’s deaf, old, and, today, partially blind. You won’t get any answers you can rely on from her. I don’t know why you people insist on bothering her. I told the same thing to a man who was here just yesterday. She doesn’t remember that far back.”

Rebecca took a step forward but stumbled, and Jack swooped forward to catch her other elbow and prevent a fall.

The sudden move knocked the plastic shades off, making Rebecca blink, blinded, startled, and scared.

“Ms. Aubry,” Jack said loudly as he picked up the fallen glasses. “Can I schedule a time to talk to you about a Sapphire Trail baby?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, dear. Betsy’s right. I don’t rightly recall that much anymore.”

“Please,” the younger woman said, peering over the stooped shoulders between them. “Have some pity for an old, sick woman.”

“I do,” he told her. “In fact, I’m here on behalf of Eileen Stafford.” He said the name loudly and directed it to Rebecca, whose chocolate-brown eyes widened instantly.

“Did you find one of them?” she asked.

“Did I find a Sapphire Trail baby?”

“Miz Rebecca, please don’t do this to yourself,” Betsy said insistently as she tried to urge the woman forward. “You can’t help every one of these people who come knocking at the door or lurking in the driveway waiting to attack you for information.”

But Rebecca blinked at Jack, fighting for clear vision. “Eileen Stafford is still in jail, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Do you remember her, Ma’am? Do you remember the baby? The parents who adopted her?” Would she admit she was at the trial? Would she reveal the name of the baby she held?

She shook her head. “Poor girl never got a break in life.”

“No, never did,” Jack agreed. “Eileen Stafford is dying of leukemia, and her daughter might be the only person who can save her life.”

“Her daughter? Is that what you said?” Rebecca asked, lifting a hand to indicate her bad ear. “Daughter?”

“Yes,” he practically shouted. “The records are sketchy, but I have names of girl babies who were sold during the month when Eileen’s daughter was born. I’m trying to locate her.”

“Most of the records were destroyed.”

“I have a picture,” Jack said, pulling it from his pocket. “Perhaps this photo from the trial will jog your memory.”

She froze and looked at his hand as if he’d drawn a weapon. “A picture? Of…”

“Of you.” He showed it to her.

She blinked, wiped her eyes, then shook her head. “I can’t see.”

“This isn’t just another case of a separated parent and child,” he said. “Lives are at stake. Not just Eileen’s. Her daughter could be in danger, as well.”

She reached for the picture but pulled her quivering hand away before she touched it.

“I don’t believe she’s guilty, Ms. Aubry.”

A hesitant smiled pulled at the woman’s mouth. “I believe she is a woman who would do anything for her…child.”

“Would she take responsibility for a crime she didn’t commit?”

Rebecca suddenly looked very old and very tired. She held her hand up to Betsy as if to ward off an argument. “Let him come in for five minutes.”

“Miz Rebecca, you’re tired. You’re sick.”

Her face contorted with self-disgust. “Yes, I am, child. I’m sick and tired of
lying
. Come.” She beckoned Jack with one hand. “I need to show you something.”

The house was dimly lit and smelled of lavender and cat. The cause of the latter was a sneaky tabby that mewed at its owner, then curled up on a blue sofa in the living room to watch Jack.

The two women disappeared into a back part of the house. After a few minutes, Betsy came back in, her expression grim.

“I don’t know why she wants to do this,” she said, “but she does. The minute she gets even slightly agitated, you have to leave. Is that clear?”

He nodded as Rebecca came shuffling back into the room, a brown envelope in her hand. His heart kicked up a notch, and he imagined an answer it held.

“I’d like to make you a deal, Mr…. what was your name again, sir?”

“Culver. Jack Culver.”

With a disgusted sigh, Betsy left the room.

“What kind of deal, ma’am?”

She held out the envelope. “That picture for this paper.”

“What is that paper?”

She opened the envelope very slowly, with a palsied shake, then slid out a single piece of paper. “This is the petition to adopt, signed by a Charleston County notary on August 21, 1977, granting final adoption of Baby Stafford.”

Jack took it, scanning the Courier font made by a manual typewriter, the parchment feeling very much like an original, the seal of the State of South Carolina embossed and still a little shiny, even after thirty years. “Whitaker,” he said, focusing on the last name of the adopting parents as he read. “From Virginia.”

“You’ll know her when you find her,” Rebecca said, “because she has a tattoo.”

Now his heart did kick up. He’d
found
her. Finally. Whitaker of Virginia. That wasn’t even one of the names on the list he’d given Fletch. “Yes. Eileen told me about the tattoo. Do you know where it is?”

“Hello, Butterscotch.” Rebecca sat on the sofa and tunneled her fingers into the cat’s fur. “Of course I do. I put it there.”

He drew back, surprised. “You did?”

“Some of the mothers want to, so that they might be able to identify their children years later. Some put their initials, some put their names.”

Jack frowned at her. “So these kids…they have names and letters on their bodies?”

“Usually in a place where they can’t see it.” She touched her nape. “Right here, under the hair.”

“If I find her, will she have a tattoo there?”

Rebecca nodded.

“Do you remember what it was?”

“Not precisely.” She closed her eyes. “That girl, that Eileen, she wanted numbers. Now, that was unusual. Most wanted a picture of something, a cross or a heart Maybe initials. I never did numbers before or since.”

“Numbers? Do you—”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember.”

“Ms. Aubry.” Jack took to one knee in front of the woman and held out the picture from the newspaper library. No one would miss it. “I will make that trade.”

Rebecca snapped up the picture and held it to her breast, closing her eyes. “I’m tired,” she said suddenly. “I want you to leave.”

As if on cue, Betsy entered the room.

Jack stood, folding the adoption paper in half, and slid it back in the envelope. “On behalf of Eileen Stafford, thank you.”

She nodded, still clutching the picture. “Thank you, Mr. Culver,” she said with a dreamy smile.

The minute he walked out the door, Jack checked his watch. It was barely seven a.m. in California. Was that too early to call Fletch and tell him he didn’t have to go to Oregon? Would he go to Virginia and find the Whitakers?

Maybe Fletch could tap into Lucy’s database for information. Then he’d make a trip to Camp Camille to see Eileen with the good news. It would—

Across the street, a young man waited next to his car. The cop in Jack went on high alert.

Male. Caucasian. Black hair, military cut. Mid-twenties, five-eleven, dark hooded sweatshirt, jeans, boots, sunglasses.

And, Christ, armed—the pistol was pointed directly at him.

He considered reaching for his own weapon but figured he’d be shot before he drew.

Son of a bitch. Nothing said this was the kind of neighborhood where you’d get rolled at ten in the morning.

“Can I help you?” Jack said calmly as he approached the car, holding his hands far enough from his sides to show he wasn’t going to shoot.

“Give it to me.”

Jack had worked the streets for too many years to be upset by a hold-up. He carried very little cash and no ID of consequence in his wallet; anything he really needed was stashed in his car.

“All right. I’m going to get my money now.” A sudden move could cost him his life. He reached for his money clip and pulled it out. As he handed it over, the kid grabbed the envelope in his left hand.

“I’ll take that, too.”

“Hey!” Fury shot through him. “There’s nothing in there you want. It’s paper.”

The kid lifted the gun to Jack’s face and stepped away from the car. “Shut the fuck up, and get in the car.”

Jack opened the car and slid behind the driver’s seat, his eyes on that envelope. He knew the name of the family and the state. Did he need more than that? The papers would make it easier, but it wasn’t worth getting shot over.

“Now close the door and drive away,” the kid instructed. “This gun will be aimed at you until you’re gone.”

Jack turned the key in the ignition, drove down the street, and turned the corner. When he circled back around, the guy was gone. And so was the car in the driveway.

There was no answer at the door when he knocked again.

He pulled his phone out to call Fletch and tell him he had the wrong girl. None of the names on the list matched Whitaker of Virginia. Unless Rebecca Aubry was lying, that’s who adopted Eileen Stafford’s baby.

But his instinct, that motherless bastard, said she was telling the truth.