The Homecoming (37 page)

“Not yet.” If she touched him, really touched him,
there
, he’d be a goner.

Her body arched up as his mouth found her. She clutched at his shoulders, but before she could recover from that first, quick climax, he speared his tongue inside her, causing her to cry out in what sounded like astonished pleasure.

He caught her as she went limp, not allowing her to fall as she lost herself to the spiraling pleasure.

“Lord, you’re magnificent,” he murmured.

He grabbed the packet, tore it open, and hoped she wouldn’t notice that his hands actually shook as he rolled it over his erection. Then his mouth found hers again and drank deeply.

Trying to control the hunger that was tearing away at him, he lifted her up, joining their bodies, hot, slick flesh to hot, slick flesh.

She rocked, matching his frenzied rhythm, as the air clouded with steam and they took each other.

Only after her body went taut again, only after she’d convulsed around him did Sax allow himself to fall.

Sax was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching her dress.

Kara should have felt uncomfortable moving around the room naked, with his eyes watching her every move. But he’d already touched her everywhere. Tasted her everywhere. So, deciding it was a little late for modesty, she opted instead to savor the pleasure of back-to-back orgasms in the shower.

Then that third one once they’d made it to the bedroom.

“I told you to tell me if I was hurting you.”

Since her back was to him as she retrieved a pair of the white panties she swore she was going to replace with something colorful the first chance she got from her suitcase, Kara didn’t see the shadows darkening his eyes like an impending storm.

“You didn’t.”

“You’ve got new bruises.”

She followed his gaze to the marks on each hip. And amazingly, considering what they’d just shared, she felt a stirring of renewed desire.

“I didn’t notice,” she said mildly. “I suppose I was just too busy screaming my head off with multiple orgasms from your ravishment.” She glanced out the window at the whitecapped waves. “Good thing you live out here all alone. Or your neighbors would be calling Maude saying they were sure that Douchett boy was over here committing murder.”

“It’s not funny, dammit. I hurt you.”

“You made me feel fabulous. Fantastic. No, neither of those is enough of a superlative. Fantabulous.” She nodded. “That’s closer. But still doesn’t cover it.”

He smiled, as she’d meant him to. “Maybe we should fight more often.”

“Maybe we should just skip the fighting part.” Returning to the side of the bed, she bent down and gave him a long, deep kiss, wondering why it was that when his mouth was on hers, she couldn’t even feel her swollen lips. “And next time go directly to the makeup sex.”

That drew a laugh. “I always knew you were one smart female.”

“Strangely, since you so thoroughly ravished me,” she said after they’d dressed and gone downstairs to the kitchen, “ I’m feeling no pain. If we could only figure out how to bottle whatever magical sexual healing powers you possess, we could make a fortune.”

“If you’re truly not feeling any pain, it’s probably from leftover endorphins.”

“Spoilsport.” He’d brought home more soup from his trip into town, this time a delicious crab egg-drop soup from the Jade Garden. She pointed her spoon at him. “I’d rather believe in magic.” She took another sip. “So, what happened with Gerald?”

“Turned me down flat. And enjoyed every moment.”

“I’m so sorry.” She wondered what that would mean for Cole’s wedding. And since she couldn’t envision Sax going to work with his brother, if he wouldn’t be able to fix up Bon Temps, would he leave town?

“Doesn’t matter.” He placed a glass of his mother’s sweet tea on the table for her. “I found other financing.”

“In Shelter Bay?” There was, unfortunately, only one bank in town. And while she’d been impatient with how long Sax had seemed to be gone, he certainly hadn’t had time to go to Eugene or Portland. “Where?”

“Take the Cake.”

“Excuse me?” She stared up at him. “What did you do? Offer the baker gigolo services in place of paying interest?”

“No. But I’ll take it as a compliment that you think any woman would pay for me to, well, service her.”

“Believe me, Sax, if you decided to turn pro you could make a fortune right here in Shelter Bay. But how—”

“Cole told me the owner used to be an accountant. I thought maybe she might be looking for some freelance work.”

“I heard she’s so booked up, she’s looking for an assistant.”

“So she said. Good news for her. Not so good for me. Initially. But she did hook me up with a money guy she knew in Salem. Seems he’s a jazz buff who used to come over to the coast for blues nights at Bon Temps. Figured it was a good investment, so he’s in. In a lot better deal than I could’ve ever gotten from Gardner, even if he weren’t still pissed about my father benching him.”

“He always held grudges.”

Kara remembered a time when Susi Markham, whose Goth style disguised a straight- A average, turned Gerald down when he’d asked her to the junior class Valentine’s dance. Although it was never proven who’d written,
Want a BJ? Call Susi Markham
, with her phone number on every stall in every boys’ restroom in school, rumor had it that it had been Gerald’s way of getting revenge.

Susi had merely laughed it off, gone on to graduate in theater from the University of Portland, and, last Kara heard, was touring the country with the road company of
Wicked.

“Maybe the town will get lucky and one night the feds will descend on the bank and close it down. Meanwhile, he’s not worth thinking about.”

Kara could definitely agree with that.

As Sax put the dishes in the dishwasher, she began going through the cold-case files he’d brought with him. There were a handful of break-ins, two cases of arson—a restaurant and a lumber mill. Although the militant environmental group CHAOS had been the prime suspects, the district attorney, who’d been planning a run for governor, had refused to prosecute for fear of losing the cases, which would have lowered his conviction rate. From the scrawled notes, her father had been furious about what he’d viewed as a dereliction of duty.

There was a purse snatching, and—wow, call in the FBI—someone had walked away with a pair of silver salt-and-pepper shakers from the
Bay Princess
, a tourist dinner cruise ship that operated out of town during the summer months.

Nothing certainly that could have caused anyone to want to kill her father for.

“Find anything interesting?”

“Not unless you consider six incidences of someone stealing women’s underwear from the Suds City Laundromat back in 1994 a crime wave.”

She sighed and opened yet another folder. There was only a handful more to go.

“Sax?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember Celia Vernon?”

“Sure. She lived with her mother and stepfather out in that trailer park by the county line. We hooked up a few times the summer after our junior year.”

Celia, Kara remembered, had been one of the wilder girls in school. Tamping down the little green twinge of jealousy, and refusing to wonder whether or not Celia had ever been in the backseat of Sax’s Camaro, she continued reading all the notations written in the margin of the report.

“Do you recall what happened to her?”

“She was talking about taking off with some cowboy from Pendleton she met waiting tables down at The Cracked Crab. When she stood me up one night, then wasn’t around the next day, I figured she went through with the plan.”

“Apparently not.” She turned the file toward him. “Her mother reported her missing.”

“That’s not so surprising. Not that her mother reported her, but that she took off. She hated her stepfather. Said he was always coming on to her. And I remember her mother being not a great prize, either. Which was one of the reasons she was thinking of taking off.”

“It’s the timing that may prove problematic.”

“Why?”

“Because this missing-persons report was filed the summer between our junior and senior years. And, apparently, according to my dad’s notes, Celia never made it to Pendleton.”

Sax felt the hair rise on his neck. Never a good sign. “Did your dad have a suspect in mind?”

She skimmed over the report, turned the page. “No. But he didn’t believe she’d just decided to leave on her own, because she’d left too much personal stuff behind.”

“Maybe she wanted to start over.”

“Perhaps.” She read some more. “He was going to go interview her mother again.”

The woman had been a piece of work back then. Unless a miracle had taken place between that summer and now, which Sax strongly doubted, the old bag could’ve only gotten worse. “Did he? Talk with her?”

“It doesn’t say. But I’m going to check it out.” She took out her cell phone and called information, only to learn that there was no listing for an Eve Vernon—not in Shelter Bay, nor in any of the other nearby coastal towns.

“I guess that leaves going out to her last known address,” she mused.

“Not alone, you’re not.”

“I believe we’ve already discussed the fact that I’m not wild about your tendency to try to take over my life.”

“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to keep you alive.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, the Shelter Bay sheriff’s office has three deputies on the payroll.”

“Believe me, folks out there hate cops. No one’s going to be greeting you at the entrance with a wicker welcome-wagon basket, and you—and John, or that fresh-faced kid—”

“Kyle Murphy.”

“You and John or Murphy could end up getting blown away by some drug dealer who thinks you’ve shown up with a warrant to take him in. And speaking of getting shot, Celia told me her stepfather was doing a pretty brisk business selling guns out of the trailer.”

“You never turned him in?”

“I was seventeen. He was a drunk with a mean temper and an arsenal he wouldn’t have hesitated to use on anyone who got in his way. What do you think?”

“I think I’m glad you stayed out of it.”

“That was then. This is now. And it’d be better if I come with you, Kara. Especially since Celia’s mom had kinda taken a shine to me.” The woman Celia had claimed bought her drugs by hooking had also offered him a freebie, but Sax didn’t feel that was relevant to the subject.

“Name me a woman in this town who hasn’t. And let me point out yet again that you’re not a police officer.”

“Thank God. But I am a guy who cares about you. Who doesn’t want to see you hurt again, and damn well would never forgive himself if you put yourself in a situation that could end up with Trey being without either parent.”

“That’s a low blow.”

“If you knew anything about SEALs, you’d know that we’re more than willing to fight dirty. If necessary. Besides, I’ve got a vested interest in this case.”

“Because you knew Celia?”

“Yeah. But mostly because, if it turns out she never made it out of town, then I could end up a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’d never kill anyone.”

“Want to bet?” Remembering how he felt when he’d first seen her at the hospital yesterday, Sax wasn’t so sure about that.

“War’s an entirely different situation.” Misinterpreting his comment, she waved it away. “You’re incapable of cold-blooded murder. Especially not of some girl you were”—she paused, as if seeking an appropriate word—“close to.”

Actually, though he and Celia had screwed like bunnies that summer, he’d never been serious about her. Not just because she wasn’t the type of girl a guy got serious about. But also because she’d made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t her only summer fling.

“I wasn’t the only guy she was seeing that summer.”

“Oh?” She perked up at that. “Do you remember who else she was with?”

“I didn’t know. It could also have been more than one guy. Celia was generous with her favors.”

“Girls who push the limits that way end up dead a lot in the city,” Kara mused. “But it’d be more difficult to get away with murder in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. And everyone’s business.”

“How many times do serial killers turn out to be the town Cub Scout leader, or general good neighbor?” Sax pointed out.

She rubbed the vertical line between her brows. “Good point.” She skimmed a broken fingernail over the front of the manila folder. “And okay, if her mother’s still living there, you can come out there with me. But”—she held up a warning finger—“you can’t say a word. This is still my investigation.”

“I’ll promise to be on my best behavior.”

“Good. Though I have to admit that I’ve decided I like your bad behavior. A lot.”

“I try.”

“Though it does occur to me that you spent a very long time driving me crazy.” She got up from the table and skimmed her hand down his chest. “If we’re going to be partners, even unofficial ones, it only seems fair that I should get equal time.”

“You’re right.” He took her hand, led her back upstairs to the bedroom, then flopped down on the mattress, his arms stretched out in a position of surrender.

“Feel free to have your way with me, sugar. I’m all yours.”

It did not take a great deal of convincing on Sax’s part for Kara to agree to spend another night at the cliff house. Later that evening, after she’d called her mother to let her know, Faith showed up at the house, surprisingly with Kyle Murphy, who was driving Kara’s cruiser.

“I thought you’d want your own car to take to work tomorrow,” she explained. “So your deputy agreed to drive it out here; then I’m taking him back to the station.”