In the Midnight Hour (7 page)

The bathroom was empty. That meant…

Her gaze pushed into the darkened bedroom and she damned herself for her silly candlelight plan. She should have left every light blazing.

She stood and, with trembling fingers, reached for a fluffy white towel. Wrapping the cotton tight around her, she tucked it securely under one arm and stepped out of the tub. Picking up a candle and a nearby can of hairspray—her Mace was in her purse on the kitchen counter—she tiptoed out into the bedroom.

The few feet to the light switch were the longest of Ronnie’s life. She fully expected to be conked on the head, stabbed, shot—a dozen scenarios raced through her head, none of them pretty, since they all ended with her lying naked and dead on the floor.

As frightened as she was, she couldn’t help but think about how mortified her mother would be that her baby girl had been found not only dead but
naked
, viewed in all her womanly glory by every officer who happened on the scene. Then there were the paramedics and, of course, Mr. Sams, her nosiest neighbor and the super, who would open up her door the moment the stench alerted him that something wasn’t right.

It was bad enough to be dead, but naked, too? With her too large breasts, overly rounded hips, not-so-flat tummy? She tugged the towel more securely around her. No way were they ripping this towel from her hands. She would go to her grave clutching white cotton.

She took a deep, calming breath and forced her feet the last few inches to the light switch. She reached out, and a seventy-five-watt bulb blazed overhead, chasing away the shadows and leaving no part of the efficiency hidden.

Her gaze streaked through the room, pausing at the space between the refrigerator and stove, just large enough for a medium-sized man. Nothing. Her attention shot to the door, still double-bolted from the inside. Then to the French doors. Both locked, the glass intact. The apartment was completely empty.

Hopefully.

Her gaze fingered on the bed. With its massive frame, it was large enough to conceal a pretty big intruder. But surely she would have seen someone crawl beneath it? Heard the slide of clothing against the hardwood floor? Felt the strange awareness that she wasn’t alone?

She glanced down at the goose bumps chasing up and down her arms. Scared as she was, she wasn’t taking any chances—she had to check everywhere.

Quietly, she retrieved a knife from the utensil drawer. With the knife in one hand and the hairspray still clutched in the other—she could always do his hair after she filleted him—she approached the bed.

A long, tense moment later, Ronnie sat on the edge of the mattress and gave a shaky, relieved smile. Her imagination. She hadn’t actually felt anyone tug at the soap; she’d tossed it. She’d been so relaxed, maybe halfway asleep, and something, maybe the chug of the refrigerator or the air conditioner cycling on, had jarred her. She’d jumped and the soap had taken a hike toward the mirror.

That had to be it, because her apartment was completely empty. Unless she had a ghost living with her…

She laughed. A ghost who hated soap. It made perfect sense, except for the all-important fact that Ronnie didn’t believe in ghosts, or, bogeymen, or things that went bump in the night. She’d never been afraid of the dark. Never spotted a UFO or any little green men, although she did enjoy watching The
X-Files
every now and then.

Spiders did give her the chills, though, and snakes made her queasy, but otherwise she considered herself a pretty brave soul. A Well-adjusted person. Normal. Sane.

Drunk
, she thought as her gaze snagged on the bottle of champagne still sitting by the tub. That was it. She was sloshed and she’d imagined the strange pull on the bar of soap.

From one drink?

Well, she’d never been much of a drinker. A few sips of forbidden beer at one of Jenny’s slumber parties. Three or four of her aunt Mabel’s rum balls at the annual church bazaar.

Drunk? More like tipsy.

Maybe.

Probably.

Satisfied that she’d found the real reason for the flying soap, she summoned her courage and headed back to the bathroom. Water gurgled down the drain as the tub emptied and Ronnie extinguished the candles. Discarding the towel, she pulled on a pair of panties and a nightgown, flicked off the lights, and slid between the sheets.

She closed her eyes, mentally goading herself to relax, but her heart still pumped furiously from her temporary scare. Even fifteen minutes later, she was still too worked up to fall asleep. She gave up the effort and flicked on the television. Two newscasts and a full hour of a psychic hotline infomercial later, she finally relaxed enough to doze off.

So much for wild and wicked dreams, she thought as she drifted into a peaceful slumber filled with visions of her aunt Mabel scarfing down rum balls. Might as well make the best of it, she figured, sidling up to her aunt and helping herself to one of the confections.

As she chewed, savoring the flavor and salving her ego with the fact that food, especially dessert, was the equivalent of sex for many women, she could have sworn she heard a deep, male chuckle and the all-too-familiar hypnotic voice murmer, “
Sleep well
, Rouquin.”

Why the heck did he have to keep saying that?

“But I want Cocoa Pebbles,” Randy, the more vocal of her neighbor Suzanne’s twins, declared the next morning. “They’re my favorite.”

“Last week Fruity Pebbles were your favorite,” Ronnie told him. “That’s why Aunt Ronnie rushed out and bought you some. See?” She smiled and held up the box.

Randy threw his spoon into the untouched bowl of cereal. Milk and cereal splattered and he sulked.

“Now, now, Randy. That’s not nice. Be a good boy and eat your cereal.”

“I want Cocoa Pebbles.”

“Me, too,” declared Brandy. Following her brother’s lead, she slammed her spoon into her bowl of cereal. Milk flew, cereal went
splat
, and Ronnie reached for the Tylenol.

“But last week—” Ronnie started, only to snap her mouth shut when the kids pounded their chubby fists on her kitchen table and screamed for Cocoa Pebbles.

She spent the next hour trying to convince them the chocolate milk she poured over the Fruity Pebbles technically made them Cocoa Pebbles.

Sort of.

“I hope they weren’t any trouble,” Suzanne said when she arrived a few hours later to find Ronnie clearing dishes and wiping up puddles of milk. Randy and Brandy stood in front of the television waving their hands in the air in a perfect imitation of the huge purple dinosaur on the screen, an activity that had only recently consumed them.

“Come on, angels,” Suzanne said. “Give Ronnie a kiss and let’s go.”

The angels, complete with sticky hands and a few cereal crispies in their hair, rushed at Ronnie. Four chubby arms wrapped around her neck and, despite the hectic morning, Ronnie smiled.

And then she frowned.

She was doing this for the money, she told herself for the umpteenth time as she pocketed the five bucks Suzanne handed her. Forget hugs and adoring smiles. She was interested in cold, hard
dinero
.

Yeah, right
. A
whole five bucks. You’re really raking it in
.

Bite the bullet, old girl, and admit the truth
.

Okay, five bucks wasn’t much, but it was all Suzanne—a single mother with two growing kids—could afford. And though Ronnie’s father might call Suzanne a poor example of motherhood and a ripple in the earthquake currently cracking the foundation of the traditional American family, Ronnie couldn’t help but feel for the woman. Root for her. Suzanne loved her kids, and that’s what made a good parent.

She closed the door and turned back to the chaos that had once been her apartment. While she might root for her neighbor, she couldn’t help but be extremely grateful that the twins were Suzanne’s little bundles of joy and not her own. There was definitely something to be said for birth control.

Not that Ronnie didn’t like kids. She loved them, but she wanted a career first. Then later, much later, she vowed as she crawled under the table and scooped up handfuls of soggy cereal, once her career was established, she could focus on finding a husband. One better than good, old-fashioned, take-care-of-the-little-woman Raymond she’d nearly married eight years ago. A guy who did his share of the cooking and cleaning and child-rearing, and who wouldn’t feel threatened by her job. Nontraditional all the way.

Hey, lady, you want fries with that load of bull?

How was she ever going to attract Mr. Terrific if she couldn’t even get a guy to smile at her? While she might not want to snag a man now, she needed to at least know how.

Hence the value of her dreams.

Experience was the best teacher, and Ronnie intended to gain a little experience.

A half hour later, she trekked across campus to the library and spent much of the next eight hours in the P section shelving leftovers from a freshman English assignment on Edgar Allen Poe, and planning her strategy.

She’d been nervous last night, scared after the soap incident, and so her dream man had stayed away. Maybe in order to duplicate the dream, she needed to duplicate the circumstances leading up to the dream.

Her plan decided, she stopped on the way home from the library, picked up a double pepperoni with extra cheese, a six-pack of diet soda, and a pint of Decadent Fudge Dream for good measure.

Instead of inspiring dreams, however, her feast resulted in an endless night of tossing and turning, heartburn, and a major caffeine headache.

“What’s wrong with you?” Danny asked her bright and early Monday morning as they headed for campus. She’d already snapped at him for knocking too loud and cried when She’d dropped her key at a nearby intersection. “I know it’s Monday and you’re tired after working the entire weekend, but today… you’re cranky. High-strung. Hey, this isn’t one of those female things, is it?”

She glared at him.

“Then what’s bothering you? Tell Uncle Danny.”

She shrugged. “That thing with Guidry.” Liar. But how could she blurt out, even to her best friend, that her dream man had stood her up not once, but three times now.

“Don’t worry about Guidry. He blows a lot of smoke, but he’s harmless.” Danny leveled a stare at her when they reached the crosswalk. “You’re a terrible liar. There’s something else bothering you besides an uptight professor.”

“Stress.” She sighed. “Just a lot of stress.”

“You thrive on stress. You live for it. The more pressure, the harder you work.”

“This is a different kind of stress.”

“Different?” He looked puzzled for about an eighth of a second. Then a grin spread from ear to ear. “
That
kind of stress. Well, it’s no wonder. Three years is a long time. That is what you said, right? Three years since you … well, you know.”

“Three years since my last date, and it wasn’t really a date. Just a study session. We collaborated on a paper.”

“So how long has it been since … you know?” She didn’t answer and he elbowed her. “Come on.”

“Twenty-six years,” she finally blurted after a lengthy silence.

“But you’re twenty-six …” His words died away and his eyes widened. “You mean you’ve never—”

“Don’t say it.” She held up a hand. “It’s bad enough, but if you say it my love life is bound to go from bad to worse.”

“How much worse could it get?”

“Look who’s talking, Mr. Wanda-doesn’t-know-I’m-alive Boudreaux.”

“At least I’m trying, and as pure as I may look, I’m not exactly a virgin.”

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“It means that I’ve done the nasty before.” He shrugged. “Once anyway.”

“The
nasty
?”

“You know—the wild thing, the booty bump, the body smack, the—”

“Now I understand why it was only once.”

“So I’m not the smoothest guy. I’m trying, which is more than I can say for you. Geez, I knew you didn’t play the field, but I never thought you were a—” At her pointed look, he clamped his mouth shut on the word. “I mean, you’re a great girl. Smart. And you’ve got—”

“Don’t say great personality. Please.”

“Well, you do.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a good personality.”

“That’s
great
personality, and there is if that personality isn’t stuffed into Cindy Crawford’s body.”

“Cindy Crawford can’t hold a candle to you. You’re about to graduate with a 4.0 GPA. You’ve got a great future in accounting, and you’re cute.”

“Cute, as in, if you lost about fifteen pounds you’d be pretty.”

“You’re not fat.”

“But I’m not skinny.”

He threw up his hands. “I give up. Look,” he said, turning to her. “There’s no reason you can’t meet a really great guy. You just have to get out and look.”

“For your information, I don’t want to meet a really great guy right now. I’d just like to know how, so that when I do decide it’s time, I’m armed and ready.”

“What’s wrong with meeting someone now?”