Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 43

What came from the tiny speaker ran through Kate like a spike. A woman'sscreams, thick with desperation, interspersed with breathless, brokenpleas for mercy that would never be delivered. The cries of someoneenduring torture and begging for death.

Not proof there was a G.o.d, Kate thought. Proof there wasn't.

CHAPTER 21.

ELATION. ECSTASY. AROUSAL. These are the things he feels in his triumph,stirred into the darker emotions of anger and hatred and frustrationthat burn constantly inside him.

Manipulation. Domination. Control. His power extends beyond his victims,he reminds himself. He exercises the same forces over the police andover Quinn.

Elation. Ecstasy. Arousal.

Never mind the rest. Focus on the win.

The intensity is overwhelming. He is shaking, sweating, flushed withexcitement as he drives toward the house. He can smell himself. The odor is peculiar to this kind of excitement-strong, musky, almost s.e.xual. Hewants to wipe his armpits with his hands and rub the sweat and the scentall over his face, into his nostrils, lick it from his fingers.

He wants to strip and have the woman in his fantasies lick it all fromhis body. From his chest and his belly and his back. In his fantasy sheends up on her knees before him, licking his b.a.l.l.s. His erection Is hugeand straining and he shoves it into her mouth and f.u.c.ks her mouth,slapping her every time she gags on him. He comes in her face, thenforces her down on her hands and knees and penetrates her a.n.a.lly. Hishands around her throat, he rapes her viciously, choking her between screams.

The images excite him, arouse him. His p.e.n.i.s is stiff and throbbing.

He needs release. He needs to hear the sounds that are as sharp andbeautiful as finely honed blades. He needs to hear the screams, thatraw, pure quality of sound that is terror, and to pretend the screamscome from the woman in his mind. He needs to hear the building crescendoas a life reaches its limit. The fading energy absorbed greedily bydeath.

He digs a hand into his coat pocket for the tape and finds nothing.

A wave of panic sweeps over him. He pulls to the curb and searches allpockets, checks the seat beside him, checks the floor, checks theca.s.sette player. The tape is gone.

Anger burns through him. Huge and violent. A wall of rage. Cursing, heslams the car into gear and pulls back onto the street.

He's made a mistake. Unacceptable. He knows it won't be fatal. Even ifthe police find the tape, even if they are able to lift a fingerprintfrom it, they won't find him. His prints are in no criminal database. Hehasn't been arrested since his juvenile days. But the very idea of amistake infuriates him because he knows it will give the task force andJohn Quinn encouragement, when he wants only to crush them.

His triumph is now diminished. His celebration ruined. His erection hasgone soft, his c.o.c.k shriveling to a pathetic nub. In the back of hismind he can hear the sneering voice, the disdain as the fantasy womangets up and walks away from him, bored and disinterested.

He pulls into the driveway, hitting the remote control for the garagedoor. The anger is a snake writhing inside him, oozing poison.

The sound of toy-dog barking follows him into the garage. That G.o.dd.a.m.nmutt from next door. His night ruined, now this.

He gets out of the car and goes to the trash bin. The garage door isdescending. The b.i.+.c.hon makes eye contact with him, yapping incessantly,bouncing backward toward the lowering door. He pulls a dropcloth out ofthe garbage and turns toward the dog, already imagining scooping the dogup, then swinging the makes.h.i.+ft bag hard against the concrete wall againand again and again.

"Come on, Bitsy, you rotten little s.h.i.+t," he murmurs in a sweet tone.

"Why don't you like me? What have I ever done to you?"

The dog growls, a sound as ferocious as an electric pencil sharpener,and holds her ground, glancing back toward the door now less than a footfrom sealing her fate.

"Do you know I've killed little rat dogs like you before?" he asks,smiling, stepping closer, bending down. "Do you think I smell likeevil?"

He reaches a hand toward the dog. "That's because I am," he murmurs asthe dog lunges toward him, teeth bared.

The grinding of the garage door mechanism stops.

The dropcloth falls, m.u.f.fling the yip of surprise.

CHAPTER 22.

KATE WAS STILL SHAKING when they reached her house.

Quinn had insisted on seeing her home for the second time that night,and she hadn't argued. The memory of the screams echoed in her head. Sheheard them, faint but constant, as she slipped wordlessly from the truckand left the garage, as she fumbled with the keys for the back door, a.s.she pa.s.sed through the kitchen to the hall and turned the thermostat up.

Quinn was behind her like a shadow the whole time. She expected him tosay something about the burnt-out light in the garage, but if he did,she didn't hear him. She could hear only the whoosh of her pulse in herears, the magnified rattle of keys, Thor meowing, the refrigeratorhumming .. .

and beneath all that, the screams.

"I'm so cold," she said, going into the study, where the desk lamp stillburned and a chenille throw lay in a heap on the old sofa. She glancedat the answering machine-no blinking light-and thought of the hang-upcalls that had come to her cell phone at 10:05, 10:08, 10:10.

A half-empty gla.s.s of Sapphire and tonic sat on the blotter, the icelong melted. Kate picked it up with a shaking hand and took a swallow.The tonic had gone flat, but she didn't notice, didn't taste anything atall.

Quinn took the gla.s.s from her hand and set it aside, then turned hergently by the shoulders to face him.

"Aren't you cold?" she prattled on. "It takes forever for the furnace toheat this place. I should probably have it replaced-it's old asMoses-but I never think of it until the weather turns.

"Maybe I should start a fire," she suggested, and immediately felt theblood drain from her face. "Oh, G.o.d, I can't believe I said that.

All I can smell is smoke and that horrible- Jesus, what an awful-" Sheswallowed hard and looked at the gla.s.s that was now out of easy reach.

Quinn laid a hand against her cheek and turned her face toward him.

"Hush," he said softly.

"But-"

"Hush.

As carefully as if she were made of spun gla.s.s, he folded his armsaround her and drew her close against him. Another invitation to lean onhim, to let go. She knew she shouldn't. If she let go for even a secondnow, she would be lost. She needed to keep moving, keep talking, dosomething. If she let go, if she went still, if she didn't occupyherself with some mindless, meaningless task, the tide of despair wouldsweep over her, and then where would she be?

Without defense in the arms of a man she still loved but couldn't have.

The full import of that answer was heavy enough to strain what littlestrength she had left, ironically tempting her further to take thesupport Quinn offered for now.

She had never stopped loving him. She had just put it away in a lockboxin her secret heart, never to be taken out again. Maybe hoping it wouldwither and die, but it had only gone dormant.

Another chill washed over her, and she let her head find the hollow ofhis shoulder. With her ear pressed against his chest, she could hear hisheart beat, and she remembered all the other times, long ago, when hehad held her and comforted her, and she had pretended what they had in astolen moment might last forever.

G.o.d, she wanted to pretend that now. She wanted to pretend they hadn'tjust come from a crime scene, and her witness wasn't missing, and thatQuinn had come here for her instead of the job he had always put first.

How unfair that she felt so safe with him, that contentment seemed soclose, that looking at her life from the vantage point of his arms, shecould suddenly see all the holes, the missing pieces, the faded colors,the dulled senses. How unfair to realize all that, when she had decidedit was better not to need anyone, and certainly best not to need him.

She felt his lips brush her temple, her cheek.

Against the weaker part of her will, she turned her face up and let hislips find hers. Warm, firm, a perfect match, a perfect fit. The feelingthat flooded her was equal parts pain and pleasure, bitter and sweet.

The kiss was tender, careful, gentle-asking, not taking. And when Quinnraised his head an inch, the question and the caution were in his eyes,as if her every want and misgiving had pa.s.sed to him through the kiss.

"I need to sit down," Kate murmured, stepping back. His arms fell awayfrom her and the chill swept back around her like an invisible stole.She grabbed the gla.s.s off the desk as she went to the couch and wedgedherself into a corner, pulling the chenille throw into her lap.

"I can't do this," she said softly, more to herself than to him. "It'stoo hard. It's too cruel. I don't want that kind of mess to clean upwhen you go back to Quantico." She sipped at the gin and shook her head."I wish you hadn't come, John."

Quinn sat down beside her, forearms on his thighs. "Is that what youreally wish, Kate?"

Tears clung to her lashes. "No. But what does it matter now? What I wishhas never had any bearing on reality."

She finished the drink, set the gla.s.s aside, and rubbed her hands overher face.

"I wished Emily would live, and she didn't. I wished Steven wouldn'tblame me, but he did. I wished-" She held short on that. What was shesupposed to say? That she'd wished Quinn had loved her more? That theyhad married and had children and lived in Montana, raising horses andmaking love every night? Fantasies that should have belonged to someonemore naive.

Christ, she felt like a fool for even having such thoughts and stowingthem away in a dusty corner of her mind. She sure as h.e.l.l wasn't goingto share them and risk looking more pathetic.

"I've wished a lot of things. And wis.h.i.+ng never made them so," she said.

"And now I'll wish to close my eyes and not see blood, to close my earsand not hear screams, to close out this nightmare and go to sleep. And Imight as well wish for the moon."

Quinn laid a hand on her shoulder, his thumb finding the knot of tensionin the muscle and rubbing at it. "I'd give you the moon, Kate," he said.

An old, familiar line they had pa.s.sed back and forth between them like asecret keepsake. "And unhook the stars and take themem down, and givethem to you for a necklace."

Emotions stung her eyes, burning away the last of her resolve to holdstrong. She was too tired and it hurt too much-all of it: the case, thememories, the dreams that had died. She buried her face in her hands.

Quinn put his arms around her, guided her head to his shoulder once more.

:,It's all right," he whispered.

"No, it isn't."

"Let me hold you, Kate."

She couldn't bring herself to say no. She couldn't bear the idea ofpulling away, of being alone. She'd been alone too long. She wanted hiscomfort. She wanted his strength, the warmth of his body. Being in hisarms, she felt a sense of being where she belonged for the first time ina long time.

"I never stopped loving you," he whispered.

Kate tightened her arms around him, but didn't trust herself to look athim.

"Then why did you let me go?" she asked, the pain just beneath thesurface of her voice. "And why did you stay away?"

"I thought it was what you wanted, what you needed. I thought it wasbest for you. You didn't exactly beg for my attention at the end."

"You were tied up with the OPR because of me-"

"Because of Steven, not because of you."

"Semantics. Steven wanted to punish you because of me, because of us."

"And you wanted to hide because of us."

She didn't try to deny it. What they'd had in their secret love had beenso special: the kind of magic most people wished for and never found,the kind of magic neither of them had ever known before. But when thesecrecy had finally been broken, no one had seen that magic.

Under the harsh light of public scrutiny, their love had become anaffair, something tawdry and cheap. No one had understood; no one hadtried; no one had wanted to. No one had seen her pain, her need.

She wasn't a woman drowning in grief, shut out by a husband who hadturned distant and bitter. She was a s.l.u.t who had cheated on her grieving husband while their daughter was barely cold in the ground.

She couldn't say her own sense of guilt hadn't reflected back some ofthose same feelings, even though she knew better. It had never been inher to lie, to cheat. She'd been raised on a combination of Catholicguilt and Swedish self-reproof. And the wave of self-condemnation fromEmily's death and her own sense of breached morality had come up overher head, and she hadn't been able to surface especially not when theone person she would have reached to for help had backed away, wrestlingwith anger and pain of his own.

The memory of that turmoil pushed her now to her feet again, restless,not liking the emotions that came with the memories.

"You might have come after me," she said. "But between the OPR and thejob, suddenly you were never there.

"I thought you loved the job more than me," she admitted in a whisper,then offered Quirm a twisted half-smile. "I thought maybe you finallyfigured out I was more trouble than I was worth."

"Oh, Kate .. ." He stepped close, tipped her head back, and looked inher eyes. His were as dark as the night, s.h.i.+ning and intense.

Hers brimmed with the uncertainty that had always touched him mostdeeply-the uncertainty that lay buried beneath layers of polish andstubborn strength. An uncertainty he recognized perhaps as being akin tohis own, the thing he hid and feared in himself.

"I let you go because I thought that was what you wanted. And I buriedmyself in work because it was the only thing that dulled the hurt.

"I've given everything I ever was to this job," he said. "I don't knowif there's anything left of me worth having. But I know I've never lovedit-or anything, or anyone-the way I loved you, Kate." Kate said nothing.Quinn was aware of time slipping by, of a tear sliding down her cheek.He thought of how they'd come apart, and all the time they'd lost, andknew it was more complicated than a simple lack of communication. Thefeelings, the fears, the pride, and the pain that had wedged betweenthem had all been genuine. So sharp and true that neither of them hadever found the nerve to face them down.

It had been easier to just let go-and that had been the hardest thinghe'd ever done in his life.

"We're a pair," he whispered, echoing what she'd said in Kovac's car.

"What did you feel, Kate? Did you stop needing me? Did you stop lovingme? Did you-" She pressed trembling fingers to his lips, shaking herhead.

"Never," she said, so softly the word was little more than a thought.

"Never."

She had hated him. She had resented him. She had blamed him and tried to forget him. But she had never stopped loving him. And what a terrifyingtruth that was-that in five years the need had never died, that she'dnever felt anything close to it. Now it rose within her like anawakening flame burning through the exhaustion and the fear andeverything else.

She leaned up to meet his lips with hers. She tasted his mouth and thesalt of her own tears. His arms went around her and crushed her to him,bending her backward, fitting her body against his.