IN THE DARK, page 32
I look pretty good, she thought. Pretty good? Better than ever. Thanks to all that exercise and some sunlight—and several days with almost no appetite at all thanks to Mog and Brace.
She supposed she had been thinner, years ago, but she had never been in such good shape.
Now, if Mog’ll just quit cutting on me…
She set the bar of soap in the small tray by the side of the tub, then took a step, bent down, and reached for her plastic bottle of shampoo. As she wrapped her fingers around the slippery sides of the bottle, the door behind her skidded open.
She gasped. Letting go of the shampoo, she straightened up fast and turned around.
Brace stepped halfway into the tub. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Just say the word, and I’ll leave.”
Jane didn’t say the word.
He brought his other leg into the tub and slid the glass door shut. His body blocked the spray.
Jane went to him.
She halted when her belly met his erection.
His hands cupped her shoulders, and a smile fluttered at the corners of his mouth. “I decided it wouldn’t be wise to let you out of my sight. No telling where the enemy might be lurking.”
“Did you hear what I told you?” she asked.
“You killed someone,” Brace said.
“Aren’t you going to turn me in for it?”
“Not a chance.” He put his hands on her breasts.
She took a quick, shuddery breath.
“I know you,” he said. “If you did it, it was the only thing to do.”
“Oh, God.” She moved in, feeling him prod her and slide upward. She winced as one of her cuts was rubbed—part of the E, she guessed—but she didn’t back away. She pressed herself more tightly against Brace. In spite of the slight pain from the pressure against her slit skin, she liked how she could feel the whole length of him straight up against her belly and know that he was this hard and this thick because of her.
Then she had the hot spray in her face and Brace was crouched, hands everywhere on her buttocks and the backs of her legs while he kissed and licked and sucked her breasts.
She pushed her fingers through his hair. She squirmed.
At the end, he had her back pinned to the slick tile wall and only the tips of her toes were touching the bottom of the tub. He was all up inside her. His thrusting jolted her, lifted her off her toes. The tiles slid up and down against her back and rump.
When they climbed out of the tub, Brace spread a towel over the bathmat and helped her to lie down on it.
OBEY was bleeding.
Parts of it had been bleeding for quite a while. A few times, Brace had gasped, “We’d better stop,” and, “We’d better take care of that.”
But she’d told him, “It’s all right.” She hadn’t wanted anything to be stopped, or even interrupted.
She supposed she must’ve said, “It’s all right,” about one thing or another ten or twelve times while they’d been in the tub.
Now, he said, “Is it okay to use the washcloth?”
And she said, “It’s all right.”
Up on her elbows, she watched Brace spread a white washcloth across OBEY. He was squatting by her side, naked and dripping. On the cloth, specks of blood began to appear.
Brace shook his head. “The washcloth’ll probably be ruined.” Water falling off his chin tapped Jane near the hip.
“It’s all right,” she said. She smiled.
Brace met her eyes and smiled. “Is that all you know how to say?”
She nodded.
“We should’ve stopped. It’s my fault you’re bleeding again.”
“It’s all right.”
He returned his gaze to the washcloth. “I don’t know what got into me,” he said.
“I know what got into me.”
“Funny.”
“That’s me.”
“Not to mention I didn’t… use anything.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“That’s what you kept telling me.”
“It’s still true.”
“You don’t believe in… practicing safe sex?”
“I haven’t been practicing any sex.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
“So,” she said, “the worst that can happen is we get a baby.”
“A baby?”
“You know. One of those little people.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not terribly likely, though. I think we’re safe… for now.”
She looked down at the washcloth. The specks had grown into bright red dots, but the dots formed only small bits of lines and curves.
“Doesn’t look like you’re in any danger of bleeding to death,” Brace said. He peeled off the washcloth and studied the wounds. “We ought to put some disinfectant on here. And bandage you.”
“In the medicine cabinet,” she told him.
The hydrogen peroxide felt chilly when he poured it on her middle. It gave her goosebumps. It went white and fizzy wherever it touched her cuts.
She sent Brace into her bedroom for the bandage. He came back with a big red bandanna from her dresser drawer. Folded lengthwise into thirds, it formed a pad that completely covered OBEY. Brace fixed it in place with long strips of adhesive tape.
By the time they left the bathroom, the sun was up. Jane gave her robe to Brace. It fit him fine. She wore a big, loose T-shirt. They made coffee, and took their mugs into the living room. They sat on the sofa, close enough together so that their sides touched.
“I guess I’d better tell you about last night,” she said.
“If you want to.”
“You want to know about it, don’t you?”
“I want to know everything about you.”
“My favorite color?”
“Everything.”
“Right now, I’d better stick with the stuff about last night.”
She began to tell him about it. When she came to the part about the women, he went pale and stopped drinking his coffee and kept turning his head to look at her. Finally, she told about sneaking into the Show Room and shooting the three men.
Brace gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. He kept his hand there, caressing her. “I don’t know how you could do something like that.”
“It was easy.”
“Jane, the jury.”
“Yeah. Me and Mike Hammer. But I had to do it. I had to make sure they wouldn’t come after us. That was part of it. And it was partly to protect the two we had to leave behind. Once the guys knew there’d been an escape, no telling what they might’ve done to Linda and Marjorie. Anyway, they didn’t deserve to live. Not after what they’d done.”
“I don’t know,” Brace said. “I’m just awfully sorry you had to do it.”
“You and me both. But if I’d just left… everything would’ve been my fault from then on. You know? They would’ve gotten away, I’m sure of it. And it would’ve all been on me, everybody they hurt or killed from then on.”
“I hope you really believe that,” Brace said.
“I do.”
“Because it’s a big thing, killing someone. Maybe it’s the biggest thing there is. To carry with you.”
“Have you done it?”
“No. I’m not sure if I could.”
“You could.”
“Probably.”
“I bet you would’ve killed Mog if you’d caught him carving on me last night.”
“I bet I sure would’ve tried.” His hand tightened on her thigh. “We’ve got to figure out how to protect you tonight.”
“Yeah. I know. Are you hungry?”
“Are you kidding?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Together in the kitchen, they made themselves breakfast. While bacon sizzled in the skillet, they leaned against counters across from each other and sipped coffee. Sunlight coming in through the window above the sink cast a glare on the linoleum floor and lit Brace to the knees. Where the sunlight touched him, it made his hair glint golden. Most of his left leg showed because of how the robe hung away from it. But only the bottom part was sunlit.
Jane stared at his legs as she drank coffee and told about how Linda had attacked her on the way out of the house last night.
“My God, you saved her and she did that!”
“I think she’s warped in the head. Who wouldn’t be, you know?”
“What do you think she did after you left?” Brace asked, and sipped his coffee. The kitchen smelled wonderful because of the bacon.
“I don’t know. I suppose the police have her, now. She’s probably been hospitalized, don’t you suppose? She and Marjorie?”
“If she didn’t… do something to Marjorie.”
“I know.”
“You thought about that?”
“It’s crossed my mind. I didn’t want to kill her, though. If she went back upstairs for Marjorie… I hope she didn’t, but… I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She turned away and checked the bacon. It looked ready, so she lifted the skillet off the stove and carried it over to the counter by Brace and forked out each strip of bacon onto a paper towel.
Waiting for the bacon grease to cool down, she helped Brace get started with the toast. Then she put him in charge of it. She took four eggs out or the refrigerator and cracked them on the edge of the skillet. None of the yolks broke. The clear jell surrounding the yolks grew white and solid quickly from the bottom upward without a crisp brown rim forming around the edges, so she knew the grease was right. She stood over the eggs, using her spatula to flip grease over their tops until the yolks turned creamy yellow and nothing on the whites looked like phlegm anymore.
By the time the eggs were done, Brace had finished with the toast. Two buttered slices on each plate.
Jane slipped an egg on top of each slab of toast. Brace added the bacon strips.
They carried their plates to a small round table at the end of the kitchen. Then they scurried about, gathering utensils and napkins, salt and pepper. With fresh mugs of coffee, they sat at the table.
They ate for a while without talking.
When half his breakfast was gone, Brace said, “This is great.”
“Yeah,” Jane said.
“It doesn’t get any better than this.”
“Are you talking about the bacon and eggs?”
“Yeah. And the toast and coffee. And how you look. And what we did in the shower. And just being here with you like this on a Sunday morning. I wish it could be like this every morning.”
“We’d get a terrible cholesterol problem.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
She smiled. “We could do it once a week, though.”
“A Sunday morning ritual.”
“Let’s just leave out the blood sacrifice.”
“Good idea,” Brace said.
“Do you think it’ll leave scars?”
“No. I doubt it.”
“It isn’t very deep,” Jane said.
“It won’t leave much. Probably nothing.”
“It’ll be a long time before it goes away, though.”
“I’ll be able to read you like a book—Madame Librarian.”
“Shut up and eat.”
Brace laughed.
They stared at each other as they ate the rest of their breakfast. Afterwards, they cleaned off the table.
“I’ll wash and you dry,” Brace said.
“I can take care of the dishes, if you want to go in the living room and relax.”
“I’d rather stay right here.” He filled the sink with sudsy hot water and began to scrub a plate with a sponge.
“I’ll find a towel,” Jane said. She walked away from him. By the breakfast table, she took off her T-shirt. She draped it over the back of a chair, and crept toward Brace. When she stepped on the sunny place, the floor was hot on the bottoms of her feet.
She eased herself lightly against Brace’s back. He must’ve expected her, because he didn’t seem startled. He wiggled, the robe sliding cool against Jane. She could feel the heat of his back and rump through the thin fabric.
Reaching around him, she spread the robe apart. She roamed his bare skin with her hands.
“You’re destroying my focus,” he said.
“How much focus does it take to wash a few dishes?”
“Plenty. Maybe I should take a break.”
“No, no, you’re doing fine. Let’s see you do them all. Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes. It’ll be a test of your willpower.”
Though squirming and moaning, Brace worked his way through the plates and coffee mugs and silverware and spatula. But as he lowered the skillet into the sink, Jane squatted and reached under the back of the robe. She came up with one hand between his legs. As she grasped him from below with that hand, her other took him from the front, lightly encircling him and sliding downward.
“No fair!” he cried out.
Then he was on his back on the kitchen floor, Jane straddling him in the warm brightness of the sunlight that came through the window.
After that, they got dressed. Together, they removed the sheets from Jane’s bed. She put the bloody bottom-sheet into a tub in the utility room to soak. Then they made the bed with fresh sheets.
When the bed was done, Brace sat on it. He looked up at Jane.
She stepped between his knees and caressed the sides of his face. “Shall we give it a try?”
“What?”
“The bed, the bed.”
“Nope,” Brace told her.
“What do you mean, nope?”
“It’s time for you to pack.”
“Pack?”
“A suitcase. Then we’ll stop by my place and I’ll grab a few things. Then we’ll take off.”
“Where to?”
“The walls have ears.”
“Ah.”
“We’ll decide along the way. The thing is, we’ll pull a little disappearing act. See how good Mog is at cutting orders on you when he can’t find you.”
“I hope he can’t.”
“We’ll find out.”
“How long will we be gone? I have to be at work on Tuesday. You’ve got classes to teach tomorrow.”
“I’ll get someone to take them for me. Just bring enough for a couple of nights. We should know very fast whether or not it works.”
“By tomorrow morning,” Jane said.
“Probably.”
“It’s worth a try.”
Brace sat on the bed and watched Jane while she hurried about her room, gathering clothes for the trip. He stayed with her when she went into the bathroom to stock her toilet kit. Smiling over her shoulder, she said, “What if I need to use the john?”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Hey!”
With a quiet laugh, he stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut. “Yell if you need me,” he said.
When Jane came out of the bathroom, she had to search for Brace. She found him on the living room sofa, the Donnerville Morning Times in his hands. A coldness spread through her stomach. “Terrific,” she said. “The paper came.”
“Better take a look,” Brace said.
She sat down beside him. He passed the newspaper to her. The headline stunned her:
INFERNO CONSUMES HOUSE OF HORRORS
“Oh, my God,” she muttered. She read the first few lines of the story. “It burnt!”
“You didn’t know?”
“Somebody must’ve started it after I left. Linda, maybe. Or the big guy.”
“Big guy?”
Jane took a deep breath. She was trembling. “Gail said there was a big guy,” she explained. “Six-four. He was the one who wired her to the wall. But nobody I shot was that size. I never saw him. He might’ve been Mog, I don’t know. But if somebody started a fire on purpose…” Shaking her head, she began to read the story.
Fire units, last night, arrived to find the Mayr Heights home of Steve Savile engulfed in flames, even as bookstore clerk Gail Maxwell, missing since Monday night, phoned the police emergency operator with a tale of escape from the Savile house, where she and several other women had allegedly been kept as prisoners.
Ms. Maxwell’s ordeal, the details of which have not yet been fully disclosed, came to an end last night when she and a second female captive, Sandra Briggs of Reno, were rescued by an unnamed young man. The rescuer is believed to be an intruder who entered the house to commit burglary, but happened by chance upon the prisoners and chose to set them free.
“Nice touch,” Jane said. “A burglar.”
“They took you for a guy. Were they blinded by their ordeal?”
“That was my idea. They really came through for me.”
Jane returned to the news story.
According to police sources, two other women, as yet to be identified, were also being held against their will at the time of the rescue. Subjected to severe abuse by their captors, however, they’d been rendered incapable of escape. It is now feared that they may have perished in the blaze.
“Are you okay?” Brace asked.
Jane grimaced. “Just… My God.” She pictured Marjorie writhing and screaming in her harness as fire climbed her bed. “Can you imagine being a multiple amputee in a burning house? God. It sounds like the punchline for a really sick joke.”
Brace nodded. “What’s worse than sliding down a banister that turns into a razor blade?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Maybe they got out.”
“Maybe Linda. Not Marjorie, though. I should’ve taken her out when I had the chance. It’s just… I thought she’d be okay. I mean, I’d killed the guys. And I didn’t know about number four. So I thought she’d be okay. Unless Linda did something, but…”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Brace said. “You did what you thought was right. You saved two of them. If you’d tried to take out Marjorie, there’s no telling what might’ve happened. Maybe none of you would’ve made it. You just never know.”
“It’s so awful,” Jane said. “She was just supposed to be left there for a while, you know? Till the cops could show up and take care of things. I thought she’d be all right.”
