Guilty as Sin (50 page)

"What word would you use?"

Unsettling. It came to her instantly, but she kept it to herself. She knew instinctively it would please him. He enjoyed knocking her off balance, used it to his own advantage—like now.

"It's time we had a talk," he said. "I figured it was best held in a place you can't have me thrown out of or walk away from."

They turned off Old Cedar Road and drove into the development area around Ryan's Bay. The moon was waxing toward fullness, its light casting the bay in otherworldly shades of silver and white. Ellen had biked the trails out here many times in warm weather, had always felt a certain parklike comfort about the area. Now every time she went by that spot on the trail, she would think about Josh's little ski jacket planted among the reeds, a note tucked into one pocket.

" 'My specter around me night and day like a wild beast guards my way. My emanation far within weeps incessantly for my sin.' " She murmured the lines from William Blake's poem, her gaze on the frozen reeds that thrust up from the drifts of snow. "That was the note left in Josh's coat pocket."

"I know," Jay said softly.

"How? We didn't release that one to the press."

"I'm not the press."

He turned the Jimmy in at a driveway and hit the remote switch to raise one door on a three-car garage. The house was enormous by Deer Lake standards. And outrageously priced by Deer Lake standards—Ellen had seen the ads in the newspaper. She imagined he was paying a hefty price to rent it, but the money probably meant nothing to him. He had made a sizable fortune turning crime into entertainment. He would do so again with this case, and she would be part of the story.

He had the kind of money it would take to hire Tony Costello, the kind of money it had taken to bail Garrett Wright out of jail.

And she had wanted to trust him.

Without a word to Brooks, she left him in the gourmet kitchen and walked through the living room to the wall of glass that looked out on the frozen countryside. She could hear him pouring drinks, then, nearer, starting a fire in the stone fireplace. When he came to stand beside her, he had shed his parka.

"Whiskey and soda," he said, handing her a paper cup.

He set his on the ledge and leaned his shoulder against the window frame. He had turned no lights on in the room, letting the fire and moonlight provide all they needed. Darkness seemed to bring out the moods in him. The Cheshire-cat grin and lazy, good ol' boy manner came off like a mask.

"I have a son," he said without preamble.

He didn't look at Ellen to catch her reaction, concentrating his effort on controlling his own. He took a swallow of his whiskey and dug a cigarette out of his shirt pocket as the liquor slid like molten gold into his belly.

"The punch line is that I didn't know it, and he doesn't know it." He lit the cigarette, took a deep pull on it, and blew the smoke up at the moon. "He's eight. Just like Josh. His mother—my ex-wife—took him away from me before I even knew he existed. It's a hell of a strange thing, finding out after the fact that a part of you has been missing for the better part of a decade."

"I take it she was pregnant when she left you," Ellen said quietly.

"I figured that much out during the divorce war, but I never dreamed it was mine." He gave a bitter half laugh. "I was chasing ambulances back then, working like a dog, miserable as hell. Christine and I ... well, it was pretty much over but the shouting. She found herself a lawyer higher up on the food chain, a drone, the kind of guy who only wants a partnership and a new BMW every year. ... I just assumed the baby was his. I didn't think she could have hated me so much. I was wrong."

It surprised him, how close to the surface the sadness was. Must have been the whiskey—historically, it brought out the latent despondency in Brooks men. Uncle Hooter came to mind, sitting on the veranda on a warm summer night, sobbing at the memory of a dog he had lost as a boy.

As he let the silence drag on, Ellen watched his face, naked in the moonlight, battered and beard-shadowed, tight with a kind of pain that had nothing to do with his physical wounds.

"How did you find out?"

The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he inhaled. An odd dot of color among the shades of gray. "Her grandfather lived in Eudora. She never came to visit, but they came back when he died. The funeral was ten days ago. I suppose she didn't think I'd be decent enough to pay my respects, but there I was, and there she was with her balding senior-partner husband . . . and my son." He smiled in a way that made her heart ache. "Damned if he isn't the spittin'image . . ."

"Did you ask her?"

"She said to me, 'Carter Talcott is the only father he's ever known. He's a happy little boy. We have a nice life. Don't ruin that for him, Jay.' " His chin quivered a little. He shook his head. "Christ, what did she think I would do? Tell an eight-year-old boy right there the man he's called Daddy his whole life isn't? That I was such a bastard his mama saw fit to keep him a secret from me all these years? God."

He took a last drag on his cigarette and carefully crushed the butt out against the cold windowpane.

"What did you do?"

"I came here," he said simply. "I'd been watching the case on the news, in the papers and all. I flew to Minneapolis that very night. Ran away. Came to see what real suffering was all about. Try to make some kind of sense of it, get some perspective.

"You know, my son is alive and—and he lives with people who love him. And I didn't even know I was missing him, so—" His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he broke off and swallowed. "It's not like the Kirkwoods or the Hollomans, not like having him stolen by some maniac and taken to God-knows-what fate. It's not like Mitch Holt, who had his boy gunned down by some junkie. I don't have any call to complain just because I won't be the one taking my son to Little League."

But he did, Ellen thought. He had every reason to hurt. That his tragedy wasn't on the same scale as the Kirkwoods' didn't make it any less a tragedy. And yet she could see him trying to grasp that line of reasoning, trying to minimize the pain. She caught a glimpse of vulnerability she would never have suspected lay beneath the layers of charm and cynicism. And she had a feeling it came as much of a surprise to him. Out of the blue. Blindsiding him. Sending him scrambling for familiar ground.

"You won't try to work something out?" she asked. "Some kind of joint custody? Recognition as the boy's biological father, at the very least?"

He shook his head. "He's happy. He's got a nice, normal life. What kind of son of a bitch would I be to come barging in and turn that all upside down?"

"But if you're his father—"

"Carter Talcott is his father. Me, I just provided the raw materials."

He tossed back the last of his drink, crushed the cup in his hand, and turned to face her, his expression colder, tougher as he wrestled to regain control. "I'm not looking for advice or sympathy," he said tersely. "You wanted to know why I came here, why I picked this story. There it is. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with Anthony Costello. I couldn't give a shit about the money I'll make. I came here to lose myself in someone else's misery.

"If you want to think I'm a bastard, go right ahead, because I surely am. Any number of people will gladly tell you so. I just want you to hate me for the right reasons, that's all. If I'm going to stand accused of something, I'd rather it be a sin I've actually committed."

He walked away from her, across the room, tossed the empty cup into the fireplace and watched the flames swallow it up.

"Finish your drink," he growled without looking up. "I'll take you home."

Ellen left the cup on the window ledge beside his crushed-out cigarette and moved slowly toward him. The house was cold, despite the fire, a kind of cold she associated with emptiness, with loneliness. Leaning back against the stone beside the fireplace, she took in the furnishings of his "home," office machines and lawn chairs, an army cot and a thick down sleeping bag. A transient's home.

"I don't hate you," she whispered. "I hate this case. What it's doing to this town. What it's doing to me. It's reminded me of things I'd rather not believe about human nature—my own included."

"You? But you're the heroine of the story."

"No. I'm just doing my job, a job I walked away from two years ago because I couldn't stand what it was turning me into. Being a cynic wears you down, burns you out. I didn't want to stop caring about the people who needed justice. I thought if I came here, it wouldn't take so much out of me, that there'd be something left over for me. And now . . ."

"And now you have Garrett Wright and Tony Costello and a dead lawyer and a missing boy . . . and me."

From some reserve she didn't know she had, she found a smile to match his. "And you. Well, maybe you're not all bad. You're a diversion, at least," she teased. "Although I can ill afford to be diverted."

"A diversion?" He tried the word on his tongue like a piece of strange fruit. The old devilish sparkle rekindled in his eyes. "Mercy, Ms. North, you make me feel like a gigolo."

"You've been called worse things."

"By you, no doubt."

"No doubt."

She hadn't realized he was so close, close enough to raise his hand and touch her cheek. Close enough to draw her to him with just a look, with just the longing in his pale eyes. He leaned down and kissed her, his lips warm and tasting of whiskey.

"My God, I want you, Ellen," he whispered.

"I can't. The case—"

"This has nothing to do with the case." Sliding a hand into her hair, he undid the clip that held it back. It fell free around her shoulders.

"This is just us," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. "It's just ... I need ... to touch you. Let me touch you, Ellen."

His vulnerability touched her. The yearning in his smoky voice touched her. The attraction that had sparked inside her from the first flared up as hot and bright as the flames of the fire. He was nothing she had been looking for. She wasn't a woman given to fits of passion. She didn't lower her guard. But even as his lips brushed her cheek, she could feel logic slipping away.

She made one last, halfhearted reach for it, drawing a breath for the voice of reason. Jay seemed to sense the words before she could form them. He touched a forefinger to her lips.

"Don't think," he whispered. "Not tonight. Please." Please. They could have this night, cross this line. There would be no going back. There would likely be regrets, but those were in the gray mists of the future, and they didn't outweigh the need to connect, to touch, to shut out the rest of the world for a few hours.

Ellen closed her eyes as he framed her face in his hands and kissed her again, deeper, slower. She let her mouth open beneath the pressure of his, allowed him access, shivered as he took it. He drew her away from the all. Her coat fell to the floor. She slid her hands up the front of his shirt and brought them back down, parting the buttons from their moorings.

Impatient for the feel of her hands on his skin, he slipped the shirt off and tossed it aside, pulled his dark T-shirt off over his head and flung it away. The firelight played over the ridges and planes of muscle in his chest. His shoulders were broad, in the way of a man who did physical work.

Ellen touched her fingertips to his belly, felt the muscles quiver beneath the tight bandage that bound his ribs.

"Will this be all right?" she asked. "You won't hurt—?"

"That's not where I hurt," he whispered. Curling his fingers around her wrist, he raised her hand and pressed it over his heart.

The honesty of the gesture surprised her. She spread her fingers and felt his heartbeat. He was just a man and he hurt and he wanted this time with her to escape that pain. She hurt in her own way, for her own reasons. She wanted the same escape. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Leaning into him, she pressed a kiss where her hand had rested. Then Jay's mouth was on hers again, hotter, hungrier.

They sank to their knees together. His fingers stumbled down the line of buttons on her blouse. He pushed the blouse and her cardigan off her loulders without completing the task, the need to see her, to taste her, too urgent.

She hadn't bothered with a bra. Her breasts were there for the taking, the color of cream, the texture of silk, a size that filled his palms perfectly. He cupped them together, rubbing his thumbs across the rosy buds at their center, the need snapping inside him like a whip as they hardened beneath his touch. Bending her back over his arm, he lowered his head to take one tightened peak between his lips.