If Wishes Were Horses (20 page)

“Are you sure, Chief? Maybe one of us…if he's dangerous…”

“Trust me, Dexter. Compared to me at this  moment, Justin Herne is as dangerous as  the Easter bunny.”

* * * * *

She was enraged. She was shocked. She was hurt so deeply she couldn't face  it. It felt as bad  as her husband’s betrayal, but  that didn’t make sense. There was no way  Herne could have gotten to her heart quick enough to  hurt her like  that, so she had to conclude that the previous hurt had simply amplified this  one beyond realistic proportions.

Still, this betrayal had  a unique, searing quality all its own. She turned away from the pain, focused on the rage, but then realized she couldn't lead with her emotions. She forced it away from her mind as  she pulled into  the driveway at his house, willed herheart and mind to become a single, automated unit, incapable of operating on any

frequency but pure, hard objectivity.

But it was not objectivity that made her  try the door and enter without knocking  when she found it open. The BMW was out  front and he had told her  the  shop was closed on Mondays, so she knew he was there. The irony  of it was not lost on her,  considering their first meeting. The entranceway had an ornate hallway tree that was  probably two hundred years old, and the cherry wood gleamed with care and attention,  like all the things he possessed. She hung her  coat on it, left her shoulder holster on.

She didn't call his name. She  wanted to find him wherever  he was. She went up the

hall, past pictures of a laughing  little girl  and his aunt,  other family members she did

not know.

As she stepped into the sitting room, she didn’t allow herself to feel, just studied her surroundings in the light of  day for the first time, painfully aware that thought might apply to their whole relationship.

The couch, sitting chair and recliner   clustered comfortably around theentertainment center. A pair of male shoes had been kicked off under the coffee table, and there was an afghan thrown over the arm of the sitting chair. Today’s newspaper rested on the side table next to the recliner.  All the little details of his day-to-day life she

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had wanted to learn about him, in the same  way they  had shared the sundae. Savoring

each bite.

A roll top desk, chair and side  table formed  an office nook, and the surfaces of the furniture were stacked  with books and papers, an ongoing project. She moved to it, and when she reached out to draw one of the  open books to her, she brushed the mouse.  The screensaver dissolved, revealing the picture on the screen, and it jerked herattention away from the content of the open book.

The wraith-like creature depicted had fangs and very erect genitalia. Its appearance disturbed her, for though its attributes warred visibly between human and not-human, its humanity was undeniably enticing, seductive. Its red eyes burned into her. Sarah stepped around the desk to read the text of  the article in which the creature’s picture was embedded.

Incubi are the male counterpart of the succubi.  A class of demon, they disguise themselves as human women or succubi, copulate with unsuspecting men, and then take the procured seed anduse it when they seduce women. An incubus is sterile, incapable of producing an ejaculation of its own seed. While overpoweringly  seductive,  it  is  said that the incubus can choose to make sexual penetration a very painful experience, emitting liquid  ice into  the body of the woman—

Sarah shifted her attention to the open books and a quick skim of text and picturesrevealed the subject  matter was all the same. Justin’s bold hand had underscored testimony from a seventeenth century witchcraft trial in red ink. Sarah leaned over it, her brow knitting.

He came and lay with me, and though he had the countenance of my husband, I knew it wasnot him. However, I could not resist him, so tempting was he  to my weak woman's nature… As he…pierced me, his body and face changed, and became most hideous. I screamed and  struggled,and I angered it. I became filled with such coldness, a coldness  like the deepest winter, and knew I should die there, frozen  to death, lest I figure out some way to fight  and get away. My neighbor came, and the creature vanished, but not in time to  save three of my fingers and all of the toes of my right foot, which succumbed to frostbite.

Sarah heard Justin's footsteps padding  down  the stairs and she turned.

He had just gotten out of the shower. Drops of water had collected at the tips  of his hair and  beaded onto  his broad,  pale shoulders. He held a towel loosely around hiswaist, slung low on his hips, the bare gesture of modesty for a man who thought he wasalone in his home, and so had  no reason to hide the brand  on his lower abdomen, justabove the line of his  pubic area. The raised, damaged skin formed the same mark  Lorraine Messenger had deliberately tattooed in the same place on  her body.

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“I know about the connection between you and Lorraine,” Sarah said, lifting her  eyes from that mark to his startled face. “So I know you're a lying bastard. What I want  to know is if you're a murdering bastard as well.”

The flash of surprise vanished into an unreadable expression that sent a searing  coldness through her, comparable to what had  been described in the text behind her.  “Trust me, Herne,” she snarled,  “now is not the time to  play  dark and mysterious with  me. You're about two seconds from being charged  with murder. As it is, I'm here to take  you to Wassler for formal questioning.”

“I didn't lie to you, Sarah,” he said, his voice harsh. “I told you there were things I  couldn't tell you, because you wouldn't believe  me, and other things I wouldn't tell you, because they had nothing  to do with the murder.”

“And I told
 
you
, cops have a funny way of preferring to decide for themselves what  relates to a murder.” She swept a book up off the desk and flung it at his feet. It landed with the cover spread out like wings over the crushed pages. “Is this the truth I won’t  believe, Herne? Some delusion from the seventeenth century to cover your ass? No more bullshit. You took a piece of the victim's  hair. You told me it was while I was with  you. But how do I know that wasn't a lie, that you took it off her after you killed her? You hid what she was to you. Why would you hide this stuff from me? I'm good  enough to fuck but not good enough to tell the truth to?”

“Is that what this is about?
 
Now
 
you want to act like we’re  in a real relationship  where I owe you honesty, instead of continuing your childish pretense that we’re just  acting on our lust?”

She acted before she thought. She slapped him. She could have punched him, because she packed a good left, but she  chose the ultimate blow of disdain and disappointment for a woman.

He stood still, they both did, for several  silent moments that ached with things farmore potent than had been said.

“You really think,” he said at last, between  clenched teeth, “that I would come to the police chief's home after I murdered this  woman, to give you any potential clues,like dirt on my feet,  or unusual scratches  on my skin? A police chief who saw me engaged in a similar ritual?”

“I don't know, Justin. Murderers aren't predictable. Maybe you thought by seducing me the same night, I'd be too  embarrassed or distracted to implicate you.”

“You must think I have the confidence of  a god to have gone to your home with a  diabolical plan to seduce a woman I'd never even met.”

He did. That was the problem.

He saw it in her face and stepped forward, took her shoulders in hard hands  before  she could throw him  off. “I know  you don't believe for one second that  I did  this,  but by  thinking I did, you can build a wall against me  and punish yourself for letting yourself  be who you are. Why are you so damned scared of me, Sarah?”

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“Because you want the control,” she lashed  out. “Because I can't keep my head on  straight around you!”

“Sarah, you keep your head on straight during your job. You don't need to do it  with me, here in this room. Ever. That's the point of a  relationship. You both give up your control, you learn to trust someone else with your heart.”

“We barely even know each other.”

He caught her chin in  his hand  so she had  to  look  up  at  him,  meet  his  steady, intense gaze. “Yes, we do, Sarah. That's what frightens you. You were with a man for  ten years and during that whole  time you didn’t feel an inkling of the intimacy with  him  that  you  feel  just  standing  in  my  shop  and exchanging a glance with me across  twenty feet. That was his loss, and I won't mourn it, because I want you. I want to find out if our fate is forever, or just a short  time of paradise, but you won’t deny there’s more here than sex, because I won't allow you to lie to me.”

“But you lied to me. You said what you  knew was not relevant,” she said bitterly,  wresting away. “You being the father of Lorraine Messenger's child, you taking that  child away from the mother, that  seems awfully damned relevant.”

He turned away, and that gauntness to his face became a haggard weariness. “She  was not her mother,” he said. “She bore her,  but she never wanted her. Even when she came here three months ago, it was for me, not for our daughter. She was attracted to power, which she perceived that I had. I chose to deepen my practice in the Wiccan  path when I lost my Lori. It had the answers my heart needed to heal, and I found it  called to a place deep within me. When someone discovers the right spiritual path for  themselves, they feel as if they have found a home for their soul. I found mine there.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “If you'll let me get over to the computer, I'll show you more. I don't suppose you'd allow me to put on some clothes?”

“Talk first, get decent later. Trust me, your manly body isn't going to  overwhelm  me.”

He gave her an arch look and stalked past  her. She tensed as he slid against herbody in the small space. Despite her words,  the closeness of the area made her stomachmuscles tighten and tremble with emotions.  He stopped there before her, and she madeherself look up into his face, close enough for a kiss. The heat of his body, that almost supernatural warmth that both attracted  and enveloped her, did both now, and made the pain almost unbearable.

“Stop whatever the hell it is you're doing  to me,” she snapped, “and show me the goddamned information.”

“I'm not trying to do anything, Sarah,” he  said, and his dark eyes  showed a pain she wanted to ignore. “The truth is  the truth,  whether it’s the truth about Lorraine and me, or the truth about you and me.”

He turned before she could shoot her denial at him, and sat in the chair in front of the computer. The towel parted, showing an expanse of thigh up almost to his hip. Thesight of that  part of his flesh disturbed her  even more than his bare chest and back, still

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damp from his shower. It was somehow more intimate,  that length of leg so close to his  cock. Knowing that body had been hers to enjoy, had pleasured her. Knowing she  wanted it still, and the  man within it.

Step back, Sarah.
 
Not physically. There was no room for that behind the desk. Her  admonishment was for her jumbled emotions. She  had to take a deep breath and  establish some space in her  overwrought mind to listen to  him objectively. She could not leap to  assumptions about his guilt simply because she was so afraid he was. No  more than she could assume he was innocent because she desperately wanted him to  be.

She very deliberately slid a hip onto the desk, crossed her arms. Herne nodded, as if he had been waiting for this physical cue that he had her attention.

“An incubus is a demon,” he said, gesturing to the image on the computer  screen.  “Prior to Christianity's influence, a demon was simply a term for an otherworldly being. It  could  have  been  good  or  evil,  a  guide,  teacher,  or  even  an  angel,  as  easily  as  it  couldhave been a manifestation of darkness. It might even be good-bad neutral. An incubus's specialty is seducing women and impregnating them  with the semen of human males, whether for good or bad purposes, it's hard to say. They obtain the semen by shifting…”

“I read that part.”

“Eight years ago, I had the  most vivid sexual experience of my life.” A bitter smile touched his lips. “Until recently, I didn't think it could be matched. I dreamed of a

woman,  and  in  that  dream,  I  made  love  to  her.  I  expected  to  wake  up  a  mess,  like  a teenager having a wet dream. It was obvious I had had an orgasm, but there was no  semen, no fluids upon me except what I would expect if  I had ejaculated into a woman's body.” His tone became flat. “On my stomach was this brand. It hurt like hell. I could  still smell the burning flesh. I saw a doctor about it, but he was helpless to explain the  phenomenon.”

The light from the desk lamp etched out his struggle to speak of the demons of his  past. In this case, Sarah realized the description was literal, at least in Herne’s mind. The jury was still out for her, but her hair was  standing on  her arms in an uncomfortable

way.

“Nine months later, I got a call from a  hospital in North Carolina. They  had a  pregnant woman there, a drug addict. In the  pain of her labor and the delirium of her  withdrawal, she screamed out my name as the father of the child, as well as the town in  which I lived. The hospital found me.