Chasing Venus (34 page)

Simpson turned the key
in the ignition.
 
May she prove as useful as Mr. Gupta
.

*

Snug under the
bedcovers, Reid felt Annie burrow deeper into his chest, and smiled.
 
His
outflung
right arm was wrapped around the satiny skin of her shoulders; his left hand
toyed with her fingers, splayed across his chest.
 
Sometimes, as his chest rose and fell,
her hair tickled his nose, but it didn’t much bother him.
 
Not nearly enough to consider
moving.
 
Through the window, he saw
the sky aglow with soft light.
 
Occasionally a bird chirped, or the leaves on the oak trees that rose
tall behind the cabin whispered as the breeze passed by.
 
Other than that, everything on the
hillside was quiet.

It was Sunday
morning.
 
Annie was in his
arms.
 
He was happy.

And beneath the
happiness, layered down deep, he was worried.

About what conclusion
Annie might draw from their lovemaking.
 
About who had killed all those authors, if it hadn’t been Frankie
Morsie
.
 
About
the net closing in on Annie, and on him, before they could figure that out.

He pushed all that
away.
 
All that was for later.
 
That wasn’t for now.
 
Now was for making love to this woman
again, the moment she woke up.

She shifted, raised her
head slightly.

His smile widened.
 
Playtime.

“Are you awake?”
 
She sounded half asleep herself.

“Can’t you tell?”

Her hand traveled south
from his chest.
 
He didn’t do a
thing to stop it.

Suddenly she bolted
upright.
 
“Did you hear that?”

“What?”
 
His brain wasn’t fully functioning.

“That.”

Then he heard what she
heard.
 
Car tires, on the gravel
outside the cabin.

“Damn.”
 
He scrambled out of bed and yanked his
jeans over his hips.
 
The car had
stopped moving.
 
He could hear the
rumble of its engine.
 
Behind him
Annie was out of bed, too, wrenching on her clothes, cursing softly.

Shirtless, he edged
close to the cabin’s front window and peered out.
 
He breathed a little easier when he saw
that the vehicle wasn’t a black and white.
 
Nor was it Sheila’s white Jetta, though that was both good and bad.
 
A part of him didn’t want her to witness
his and Annie’s obvious morning-after glow, yet Sheila should be the only
person who knew anybody was at the cabin.

Unless she’d told
someone.

His insides clenching
at that possibility, he forced himself to focus on the vehicle, which faced
away from the cabin so he couldn’t see the interior.
 
It was a gold SUV, high-end, with
California plates.
 
In other words,
an upper-middle-class family car.
 
Another idea occurred to him.
 
Could it be Sheila’s parents, who’d changed their minds and decided to
come up from the city for the day?
 
He had no idea what they drove.
 
It certainly wasn’t Rajiv, 26 and single, who always drove something
flash he’d resuscitated from the junk heap.

Annie sidled up behind
him.
 
“Who is it?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”

They stood side-by-side
eying the vehicle through the cabin’s front window.
 
Reid’s mind raced.
 
His truck was parked right there as
well.
 
He hadn’t bothered to hide it
since the cabin was removed from the main road and he hadn’t thought he’d be
staying overnight.
 
But now it was
obvious to all comers that somebody was at the Banerjee cabin.
 
What was he going to say if these people
turned out to be Sheila’s parents?
 
And if they were strangers, what then?
 
Neither he nor Annie should answer the
door in the latter case, he decided.
 
He was too easily recognizable, and at the moment, given all the
publicity generated by the manhunt for Annie, so was she.
 
They’d have to remain hidden, pretend
they weren’t there.

He stepped back from
the window, held a finger to his lips.
 
He was about to motion Annie back to the bedroom when again he heard the
crunch of tires on gravel.
 
The SUV
was moving.
 
He saw a small hand
emerge from one of the rear windows, and heard the sort of high-pitched squeal
only a young child can produce.
 
Then
the vehicle disappeared down the lane that led to the cabin.
 
Soon all that was left of it was a puff
of road dust and a set of tracks.

Annie let out a shaky
breath.
 
“Who do you think that
was?”

“I don’t know.
 
But there was a kid inside.
 
Maybe it was a family who got lost.
 
People looking for their rental cabin
who drove up our lane by mistake.
 
The addresses around here can be confusing.”

“It was a warning.
 
And a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“That last night is
over.
 
And real life has
resumed.”
 
She grimaced.
 
“And real life means that I’m wanted for
a series of murders I didn’t commit.”

Last night is over.
 
And
real life has resumed
.
 
Reid
watched Annie’s face, so quickly transformed from joy to fear, and felt a pang
of guilt that her words in one way relieved him.
 
They let him off the hook.
 
They let him believe that maybe she
wouldn’t misinterpret what had happened between them.
 
Maybe she would consider it nothing more
than a wonderful interlude and wouldn’t conclude that a love affair had begun.

He couldn’t do a love
affair, he told himself, though he knew that he was more in danger of one than
at any time in the last five years.
 
He couldn’t deny the pull he felt toward this woman.
 
Yet he also couldn’t deny that he had
unfinished business to attend to.
 
Business he’d been reminded of just hours before, when he’d told Annie
the story of how Donna had died.
 
And of how Bigelow had gotten away.

He couldn’t let himself
forget that that
scumbug
was still out there,
free.
 
That was the danger with
Annie, he realized: he forgot what he owed Donna when he was with her.
 
He actually forgot Donna.
 
But he couldn’t in good conscience let
himself do that until he’d done right by Donna in the only way still open to
him, by making her killer pay.
 
Otherwise he’d be betraying her twice.

He realized that Annie
was talking to him.
 
More to the
point, she was nuzzling him, burrowing into his chest again, this time from a
vertical position.
 
“I’m sorry to be
such a downer, reminding you of all this.
 
That car might have been nothing.
 
Just somebody making a wrong turn, like you said.”
 
She ran her fingers up his chest with a
tantalizing lightness that made his skin tingle, then raised her eyes.
 
They were emerald green and suddenly
heavy-lidded.
 
“Take me back to bed,
Reid.
 
Make me forget that damn SUV
drove up here.
 
I know I can’t
forget forever but I want to forget for at least a few hours more.”
 
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

He felt himself
respond.
 
But at that moment the
face of another woman rose in his mind, a woman lying in an alley, pale,
surprised, blood trickling from her mouth.
 
He stepped back, turned away.
 
“Not now, Annie.”

She gave a disbelieving
laugh.
 
“Don’t tell me I’ve already
lost my touch.”

Her voice was light, as
were the arms that began to reach around his neck.
 
But for the first time they felt like a
yoke.
 
He disentangled himself and
moved away.
 
“I’m sorry, Annie.
 
Not now.”

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”
 
She frowned.
 
“Are you feeling guilty for being with
me here, in Sheila’s cabin?”

Christ, he hadn’t even
remembered that reason to feel bad.
 
That hadn’t even made it into the top three.
 
But now it hit him like a blow, how
Sheila would feel if she knew what he had done here with Annie, in her family’s
house.
 
Intimate things he had never
done with her.
 
Either he’d been
better able then to hew to an ethical code or his lust hadn’t been as
overpowering.
 
Whatever the reason,
Sheila would hate him for it.

He was betraying women
left and right these days.
 
Annie,
too, if he was leading her on.
 
He’d
told her days ago that he wasn’t really available, but now he’d slept with
her.
 
She might well have different
expectations now, expectations he couldn’t fulfill.
 
He had to squash those.
 
Rule one of managing The Casual Relationship
was putting the hard truths front and center, difficult though that might be.

He cleared his
throat.
 
“I’m a little worried
you’re getting the wrong idea.”

Silence.

He was forced to go
on.
 
“I don’t want you thinking that
I’m available for a serious relationship.”

Still she said nothing,
just stared at him with those intense green eyes.

He went further
still.
 
“I’ve made it clear from the
start that I’m very attracted to you, Annie.
 
But I want you to understand, as I’ve
said before, that I’m not in a position to get serious.
 
Not with you, not with any woman.
 
If I were, believe me, you would be the
one.
 
But I’m not.”
 
He stopped.
 
To his own ears, he sounded appallingly
lame.
 
And she just stood there,
with a tightness on her face that he had caused.

Finally she spoke.
 
“So as far as you’re concerned, we’re
friends with benefits.
 
Is that what
you’re telling me?”

He hated that catch
phrase but it pretty much summed up the situation.
 
“I do value your friendship, Annie,” he
heard himself say.
 
Now he was
sounding like a pop psychologist.
 
“Very much.
 
And who knows,
maybe someday
things’ll
be different.”

She eyed him.
 
All of a sudden he felt countless pairs
of eyes on him, from the Hindu gods stationed all over the Banerjee cabin.
 
They peered at him from bronze
sculptures and fabric wall hangings, their expressions as dubious as
Annie’s.
 
“And what would have to
happen for things to be different?”

He was reluctant to
spell it out.
 
Finally, “I would
have to resolve certain things.”

“What things would
those be?”

He turned away.
 
“I’m not in the mood for an inquisition,
Annie.”

“And I’m not in the
mood to conduct one.
 
But I do want
some answers.
 
And I think I deserve
them after last night.”
 
She moved
closer, tugged on his arm so he was forced to face her.
 
“This has to do with Donna, doesn’t it?”

He shook his arm free
and pivoted away.
 
He felt his
patience, loosely tethered already, begin to slip.
 
“We’re not talking about Donna again.”

“We might as
well.”
 
Annie moved again, got in
his face again.
 
“She’s always with
us, every minute of every day.”

“No, she’s not.
 
She’s dead, remember?”

That shut Annie
up.
 
But not for long.
 
And when she spoke again her voice was
low.
 
Ominously low, like a storm
about to break.
 
“Was she in our bed
last night?
 
Was it her you were
really making love to, instead of me?”

This woman could push
his last button.
 
“Annie, I am
warning you.
 
Do not go there.
 
Do not—”
 
She started to speak.
 
He jerked closer to her and raised a
finger in her face.
 
“Do not go
there.
 
Whatever my flaws, and I
grant you I’ve got plenty, I am not delusional.
 
And I slept with you last night only
after one hell of an invitation, remember?
 
So don’t get all righteous on me.”
 

That seemed to leach
the air out of her.
 
She turned away
and collapsed onto an ottoman.
 
She
sat for a moment, rubbing her forehead.
 
Then, “You’re right.
 
And
while you may not believe this, Reid, I really am terribly sorry about
Donna.”
 
She raised her eyes to
his.
 
“The whole story is a
nightmare.
 
But the bottom line is,
it’s over.
 
She’s dead and there’s
nothing you can do to change that.”