Skin Heat (15 page)

At length Zeke gave up on trying to use his mind to puzzle out where he was. Trees. Dead leaves and branches. His brain was all but worthless anyway, so he closed his eyes and focused on home. Like a horse galloping for the stable, he knew the way, but only if he didn’t think about it. When he was sure he could run without losing himself to the wildness in his blood, he did, long strides that carried him through the darkness.

He had no sense of time. Once, he stopped at a tiny trickle of a stream to wash his face and hands. On the off chance Neva might be up with the kittens, he didn’t want to scare her more than necessary. God, if she saw him like this, there was no question that she’d go. Maybe he should let her. He shouldn’t get involved with her and yet he couldn’t stop himself. Need for her sawed at his belly like a rusty blade.

When he reached the farm, he came up on it from behind, rounding the barn to find he’d left the back door open.
Shit.
This couldn’t go on.
What if someone came in? What if someone hurt her?
A growl began in his throat. If they did, he’d hunt them by scent and tear them apart with his bare hands. But that wouldn’t bring her back or heal her hurts.
Oh, God, I can’t do this to her.
He closed the door behind him softly. The kittens mewed as he came from the kitchen into the parlor and headed for the stairs.

Zeke showered quickly, washing away all traces of blood. He scrubbed at his skin until it felt raw, and then once wrapped in a towel, he brushed his teeth four times, like that would change anything. With an angry hand, he swiped the steam from the mirror. The same face stared back at him, eyes a little tired, jaw rough with stubble.
Funny.
He didn’t look like a monster.

After dressing in sweats and a T-shirt, he went to care for the kittens. This, at least, he could do without causing harm. He seldom slept eight hours straight anymore anyway. He’d found he napped more like an animal, a few hours here or there, but always lightly, and with a wary sense that roused him the instant anything shifted in his territory.

So when Neva’s phone rang upstairs, she didn’t hear it, but Zeke did. He sat on the sofa, listening to it chime, and then he pushed to his feet with a growl. It had to be important. Why else would anyone call at this hour? But if it was Reed, he’d feed the guy his fist. Maybe a beating would get him to answer whether he was the crazy fucker stalking her wherever she went.

By the time he got to her bedroom, the call had quieted. He stood for a moment, watching her sleep. The moonlight kissed her skin, so she almost seemed to glow. Deep down he still couldn’t believe she was here. More than anything he wanted the right to curl up behind her and set his head on her shoulder. That was the last thing he should ever do; he needed to drive her away before she got hurt. Or before she broke his heart. Of the two choices, one would be inevitable.

“Neva,” he said, sinking down on the edge of the bed. She half stirred, rolled over, and put her hand on his thigh. He felt the touch keenly through the soft cotton. Maybe he should’ve put on jeans before coming to wake her. The pleasure made him rigid, so for a long moment he couldn’t think.

Her eyes opened, but by her dreamy smile, she wasn’t fully awake. Her hand went farther up his leg and she mumbled, “It’s about time you got here.”

Did she even know who he was? For a moment, he considered letting her do it. But if she roused fully, she’d be shocked and embarrassed by it—and she’d wonder why he didn’t stop her. It just about killed him to lift her hand before she got where she was going. He’d save the feeling for a private moment; that was how it had to be, and pretty much all he could have of her.

“Phone was ringing.”

Finally, she pushed herself upright. “What?”

He handed her the cell. “Here. Check your messages?”

“I—Okay.”

Being an animal doctor, she was probably used to calls in the middle of the night. She dialed into her voice mail and listened, a frown forming. Neva closed her phone and rolled off the bed, scrambling for her clothes. He discovered she slept in a tank top and she favored high-cut briefs; they revealed enough of her to make his mouth go dry. But she wasn’t thinking of that as she bent over, rummaging in her bag.

“That was the alarm company. There’s been a break-in. The police are probably there by now.”

Zeke pushed off the bed. “Getting dressed.”

She paused in the midst of hopping into her jeans. “You don’t have to come with me. I’ll be fine.”

“I know. Still going.”

Relief surged through him when she didn’t argue. It didn’t take long for him to throw on some real clothes and bundle up the kittens. This would take a while, certainly longer than a quick trip to the hardware store. Though he’d been awake when her phone rang, chances were, it would’ve woken him anyway. Sometimes birds in distant trees kept him up if he didn’t block them, and he couldn’t control that as well as he wanted. But her voice always gave him peace.

Zeke met her at the car, box in his arms. She drove fast, obviously worried about the clinic, and he didn’t have the words to make it better. Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot, where a deputy was already waiting for them. Neva got out and hurried toward the squad car. He could hear them, even with the radio on, even with the windows closed, and debated if he should join her. Though he hadn’t wanted her driving alone at night, maybe she’d find it hard to explain his presence and might prefer him to stay low.

“How bad is it?”

“The inside’s pretty tore up.” Zeke recognized the other man’s voice—he’d gone to school with Bobby Pickett. “You’ll have to take a walk-through and tell me what’s missing.”

The guy had been a year ahead of him and pretty popular from what he remembered. Bobby had done some kind of sport and went around with Janette Hanes, one of the cheer-leaders. Funny he could recall that, but not the color of his mother’s eyes, or if he had liked chocolate ice cream before his incarceration.

“How did they get in?” she asked, walking with Bobby toward the front doors.

She didn’t look back at the car or give Zeke any sign of what she wanted, but he made sure the kittens were wrapped up and then climbed out of the car. Maybe she’d need him to help clean. That was his job.

“Jimmied the back door. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Zeke swept the lot with a glance, seeing a car that shouldn’t be there. All the businesses were closed. Strange. Instead of trailing Neva and Bobby around back, he went toward the far end of the parking lot. It wasn’t the car her ex had been driving. This was an older one, even junkier than Neva’s. It had splotches of paint and primer along the sides, poorly covering the rust.

But worse than the way it looked? The smell. Halfway, he stopped, overcome by the stink the wind carried to him. Something dead.

Clutching the box to his chest, he sprinted back the way he’d come and rounded the building. It was black as sin back here; someone had smashed the lights above the door, which stood open at a drunken angle. Glass crunched under his feet as he stepped into the clinic. The emergency lights were on, giving the place a queer orange glow.

“Power not working?” He spoke into the dark.

Neva answered, “Seems like they cut it, trying to get the alarm off.”

“That’d be my guess,” the deputy agreed, taking his cue from her. “But who’s that?”

Easily he found the other man in the half light. He didn’t give Neva a chance to explain him away. Though he knew it was too soon for him to be anything else to her, he didn’t want to hear himself described as help. “Zeke Noble.”

They shook, and then continued the walk-through, Pickett shining his light around. “Can you tell what’s missing?”

“I’ll have to take inventory, but it looks like they went for the painkillers.”

“Junkies,” Pickett said in disgust. “They’ll shoot up with anything.”

Neva’s voice rang heavy with fear. “Deputy, this stuff is strong enough to kill somebody. They stole what I use on farm animals.”

Pickett grumbled a word and then apologized for saying it in front of Neva. “I need to fill out the report, but if you’d rather, we can do it in the morning.”

Obviously he didn’t know her very well. Zeke wasn’t surprised when she answered, “No, let’s get this over with.”

He stashed the kittens in a safe corner and left them talking. It seemed unlikely junkies would know how to cut the power in any permanent way, so he went to check it out. Five minutes later, after tinkering with the fuse box, he had the lights back on.

The place looked worse that way. Everything that could be broken had been, not just the medicine cabinet. Someone had taken the computer from her office desk and thrown it on the floor. The rampage puzzled him. To him, it looked like the people who’d done this hated Neva, and wanted to hurt her. By her crushed expression, they’d sure succeeded. It tore his heart.

Pickett was asking her a series of questions. Zeke wanted to get the broom and start cleaning, but he knew better. The sheriff’s office might not have much in the way of resources, but they’d get someone out here to print the place at least, so he made sure not to touch anything else. He kicked a spot on the floor free from glass and sat down to wait.

The kittens mewed, not from hunger, but because they sensed something bad in the air, maybe the same thing Zeke had smelled outside. He slipped a hand inside the blanket and his spirit settled a little when all three of them wriggled over to his hand and lay down on his fingers like live little mittens. He sat quietly until a break came in the questions.

“Check that car in the parking lot,” he suggested softly.

Pickett glanced his way with an arch of a brow. “What car?”

“Nothing’s open. Why’s it still here?”

“I didn’t even notice it,” Neva said. “I wonder whose it is.”

The deputy got to his feet. “Maybe somebody had car trouble, or went home with a coworker.” But even as he offered the possibilities, he was heading out to have a look.

That raised his stock in Zeke’s eyes; he felt less like growling at Pickett, as he had ever since Neva sat down with him.
Damn. Really gotta get a handle on this.

He lifted his eyes from the kittens to find her watching him. “You know something.”

His heart sank. Surely she didn’t think he had anything to do with this break-in. It’d kill him to walk away from this job—and her—under a cloud of suspicion. He could only ask, “What?” in a voice he hoped didn’t give away his fear.

“There’s a reason you sent the deputy to look at the car.” She sounded sure, dark eyes steady on his and demanding the truth.

Zeke nodded, without meaning to, because it invited other questions.

“Why?”

Neva held her
breath, wondering if he’d answer. Wondering if he’d be truthful with her. She’d put so much trust in him, relatively quickly, and what did she know about him, after all? Lillian would be appalled.

His answer surprised the shit out of her. “Smelled bad.”

“The car?”

Zeke wasn’t looking at her anymore; his next nod came slower as he stroked the kittens. She could see his fingertips moving slowly, delicately beneath the blanket. Getting answers out of him was like pulling teeth.

“Bad how?”

“Like there’s something dead in it.”

His words hit like a ball-peen hammer in her chest. For a minute she couldn’t even breathe. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. The worst crime anybody had committed here in years involved Sam Pitney shooting his wife’s lover in the ass—and Ollie Wendell didn’t even die. Zeke had to be crazy. Had to be.

But he knew other stuff, didn’t he?
At times, he almost seemed to know things he shouldn’t. Or couldn’t. There was a terrible weight and wisdom in his eyes, as if those came as partners to the sorrow. Zeke slipped out then, probably to escape more of her questions, though he said he wanted to check the damage.

When Bobby came back in, he looked sick. “I called the sheriff.”

“What did you find?” Neva asked through numb lips.

The deputy sat down, looking sad and shaken. “A dead girl in the trunk. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.” She knew she shouldn’t ask—so she didn’t—but Bobby seemed to have forgotten their existence, murmuring, “Poor gal didn’t have a stitch on, except those red ribbons.”

For Neva, that conjured an awful, vivid image of pale skin and satin that gleamed like blood. She wanted to cling to her disbelief: things like that didn’t happen in Harper Creek. But the deputy’s shaken face said otherwise.

“Do you think this has anything to do with the break-in here?”

Bobby shrugged. “It’s not for me to say. I’ll need you to stick around. There may be questions.”

Sheriff Raleigh arrived quickly. In his early fifties, the sheriff was still fit, but showing his age in the speed of his movements and the silver in his hair; his face was all craggy lines in the half morning light. He greeted her first, which she thought was a waste of time, but he’d never forget who her father was. Once he’d done that, he went to look in the trunk. Neva slipped outside to watch the action; Zeke stood off to the side, doing the same.