LOVING HER SOUL MATE (42 page)

“And his lawyer never thought to
check Mississippi?” Paige asked.

“Never
crossed his mind.
 
But why would it?
 
They’d already
proven that Glazer had his dates off by at least a few years.
 
They figured there was nothing more to check
out.”

“Glazer is a mess of a human
being,” Paige said.
 
“He spent years
drunk or high or both almost every single day.
 
He once said he couldn’t remember being sober for ten minutes in the
last ten years.
 
But he still deserves
justice.”

Shay nodded.
 
“Right.”

Paige smiled.
 
“Do you realize what this means if that
police chief is telling the truth, Shay?
 
The prosecution says that every one of those thirteen crimes were
identical.
 
Identical was the word they
used in their press conference.
 
Which means---
”

“If Glazer was locked up in a
Mississippi jail at the same time that three of those murders had been
committed,” Shay interjected, “then how could he have committed those three
particular murders?”

“Right.”

“And,” Shay went on, “it will call
into question whether or not he committed any of those murders.”

Paige nodded.
 
“But wait a minute.
 
What if Pamela Ansley and her prosecution
team claim copycat?”

“They can’t,” Shay quickly pointed
out.
 
“I read all of those old news
reports.
 
At that same press conference
Pamela Ansley said that the copycat theory was out of the question because the
killer used certain methods that she and the police never made public.”

Paige leaned back.
 
Satisfied.
 
“Go see this police chief tomorrow,” she
ordered.
 
“In fact, I’ll go with you.”

Shay smiled.
 
She knew she was on to something now.

“And Shay,” Paige said when Shay
was about to leave, “I know you and Malone are close, but you cannot, under any
circumstances, give him a heads up on this story.
 
If you do, and his cops get to that police
chief, his evidence might suddenly disappear.
 
You heard what the man said?
 
He
was calling you because he knew you were searching for the truth.
 
He’s a cop himself.
 
If he believes his evidence is safer in your
hands, you had better believe him.
 
He
knows you want the truth.
 
He also knows
what Malone and those cops of his want.”

“And what’s that?” Shay asked.

“They want a way to disprove the
truth,” Paige replied.

And although Shay loved John, she
also knew he was one of those cops who believed what he believed and would
stick to his belief even, perhaps, in the face of new information.
 
Eventually he would see the light.
 
But he was a cop through and through.
 
It would take an awful lot to get him to that
light.
 

She therefore agreed with Paige,
to a point.
 
She would keep it under
wraps for now.
 
At least until she had a
chance to eyeball and photocopy the evidence for herself.
 
Then, she decided, she would have to tell
John something.
 
At
least before he reads it in the paper for himself.

 
John arrived at Shay’s house driving his Porsche and wearing his seldom worn
pinstripe suit.
 
He parked behind Shay’s
completely repaired VW Beetle and just sat there, behind the steering
wheel.
 
He dreaded going to some dinner
party tonight, especially when they were still working out the logistics for
the upcoming Glazer trial and he didn’t have this kind of time.
 
But the mayor was his boss, and he had made
it an order.
 
He had no choice.

He got out of his car and lumbered
toward the front porch.
 
The usual
crowd of young people were
next door, playing their loud
music and drinking their bottles of beer.
 
One of them, shirtless and skinny, yelled, “Yo, Chief!” and John glanced
his way.

“Don’t hit that thang too hard
now!” the young man said to laughter from his friends.

“Why don’t I toss you in a cell so
they can hit yours,” John yelled back, and the young man’s buddies fell out
laughing again.

John walked up the steps, across
the porch, and rang Shay’s bell.
 
When
she opened the door, in her sleek white cocktail dress with red heels and
earrings, her hair to one side in a sweep down the front of her dress, her big
eyes like a glow of light, John lost it.
 

“Ah, geez,” he said as he made his
way into the house, slammed the front door, and grabbed Shay by the hand.

“John, what are you doing?” Shay
asked smilingly as he all but dragged her down the hall and into her
bedroom.
 
By now she knew what he was
doing as he laid her on her back with her legs over the side of the bed.

“Oh, baby,” he said as he slung
off her panties, opened her legs as wide as they could go, dropped to his knees
and began tasting her.
 

Shay began to move around on the
bed as he tasted her.
 
It no longer
mattered that she’d just put on that dress.
 
It no longer mattered that she’d spent hours in front of the mirror
beautifying her hair.
 
She preferred
John.
 
She preferred his mouth devouring
her pussy as if it was water on a deserted island.
 
And he had to have it.
 
He licked and kissed and sucked so long that
her pink pussy turned red.

And then he stood up, unbuckled
and unzipped his tailored pants, dropped them to his ankles, and got on top of
her.

“I need it bad, babe,” he said as
he slid his rod into her.
 
“I need you!”

Shay pushed her body against his
as she felt his entrance.
 
She needed
him, too.
 
She wrapped her arms around
him as he pumped on her in hard thrusts up her vagina.
 
He was grunting as he thrust into her, and
she was sighing as the feeling became a kind of lingering tingle.
 
And her pussy started throbbing.

John didn’t know what had come
over him when he saw Shay at that front door.
 
He didn’t know if it was the fact that she looked so damn attractive in
that white dress.
 
Or
the fact that her hair was pushed so adorably to one side.
 
Or the fact that her eyes
seemed to just glow.
 
Or even the
fact that that kid next door had jokingly told him not to hit it too hard when
all he could think about was hitting it as hard as he could sling it.
 

Or, as he was beginning to believe
as he fucked her long and harder than that kid next door could have ever
imagined, he loved her.
 
And he had to
show his love.

He laid his body down on top of
her gorgeous body and pumped on her in a way that made him feel
lightheaded.
 
He loved this woman.
 
He loved every inch of this woman. This was
the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life
with,
there was no doubt in his mind about that.
 

“Oh, Shay,” he said as he rubbed
the side of his face against the side of her soft, sweet, velvety brown
face.
 
“I love you,” he said, unable to
shield himself any longer.
 
“I love you
so much!”

Tears were in his eyes as he said
those words and Shay closed her eyes.
 
They’d been through so much together.
 
Could they make it?
 
Could they
actually make it this time?

“I love you too, John Malone,” she
said as his dick lashed deeper into her pussy as if her words alone spurred it
on.
 
And he held her tighter.
 
And she held him tighter.
 
And nothing as minor as their clothes, her
hair, the fact that they were already running late, was even on their radar
screen.
 

They fucked long and hard.
 
He thrashed into her over and over and over
again.
 
He couldn’t stop pounding
her.
 
She couldn’t stop lifting her body
higher to facilitate his pounding.
 
They
wanted to demonstrate their love.
 
They
wanted to shout it out.
 
They were in
love.
 
They were secure in each other’s
arms.
 
They were now in this
together.
 

And nothing, not even the rain,
wind, or any other storm that decided to break, was ever going to matter to
them more than they mattered to each other.

The dinner party was held at the
mayor’s lakefront estate and John and Shay were among the last arriving
guests.
 
They had showered together after
their long, sweaty romp on the bed, and had made their way to the mayor’s
estate as quickly as John’s Porsche, breaking all kinds of speeding records,
could get them there.
 

And when they stepped out of that
Porsche and the valet gladly took the keys, and John looked over at Shay, he
felt like a man who’d won the grand prize.
 
He knew he was looking at her through rose-colored glasses now that he
was finally acknowledging his love for her, but he couldn’t help it.
 
She was hot.
 
And it wasn’t any physical heat he was talking about.
 
His love for Shay went far deeper than the
physical.
 
His love for her was transcendental.
 
It was on a level that made him feel as if
he’d finally found his soul mate.
 
It
made him feel as if he’d finally found that one woman who made him want to be a
better man.

Although it was already common
knowledge among the town’s elite that their police chief had hooked up again
with that Shay Turner, they had rarely seen the two of them in public
together.
 
This would be their
opportunity to do a little gawking, both John and Shay knew it was so, and they
also knew this joint appearance would only stoke the flames of that night two
years ago.

But they didn’t care.
 
The people of this town could believe what
they wanted to believe, but they refused to care.
 
And sure enough, Shay wasn’t in the mayor’s
home two minutes before she would past by a group of ladies and hear the little
rumblings.
 

“Oh, is
she
the one?” one lady called herself whispering as Shay walked by.

“He left Blair for
that
?” was another common refrain.

But Shay wasn’t trying to let
those old biddies ruin her night.
 
She had
John in her heart.
 
All they had was
gossip.
 

John, too, wasn’t thinking about
the talk.
 
He spent most of the evening
laughing and talking and admiring how freely Shay laughed and talked.
 
It was as if she was in her element now.
 
Yes, they were gossiping about them.
 
Yes, he wouldn’t trust any of them as far as
he could throw them.
 
But that didn’t
stop Shay from enjoying herself.
 
And that
made him proud of his woman.
 
Her spirit,
her smile, her vivaciousness outshined every female in the room.
 
Especially the gossipers.
 
Especially those who thought it not robbery
to rob Shay’s good name.

But then the mayor made his
appearance and walked down his winding staircase to applause from his
guests.
 
At first he did his usual meet
and
greet
and was thrilled with the way his dinner
party was turning out.
 
Until he saw Shay.
 
Until he saw John with Shay.
 
He immediately whispered in his aide’s ear and made his way to the
library.
 
Shay saw him leave, but never
dreamed it had anything to do with her.

It had everything to do with her.

The aide told John that the mayor
requested his presence, along with Miss Turner’s, in the family library.
 
John’s jaw clenched, because he knew it was
going to be some bullshit, but he took Shay’s hand and made his way into the library.

“What is it, now?” she asked John
as they walked.

“The mayor wants to see us.”