The Word of a Child (33 page)

He groaned, shuddered and joined her. "Mariah," he
said against her neck. "Sweet Mariah."

Eventually he rolled off her, drawing her to his side. With
her head pillowed on his shoulder, hearing the powerful beat of his heart,
comforted by the steadiness of his breathing and the warmth of his body, she
wondered briefly whether he would stay or decide soon that he should leave. But
her eyelids were leaden, her relaxation so complete she couldn't have formed a
sentence if fire had leaped through the bedroom door. She slept.

When she awakened it was dark and she had a jolting moment
of disorientation because there was a heavy arm lying across her waist. Her
nose was burrowed against his side. A man…

Remembering, she smiled against his skin. So as not to wake
him, she carefully disentangled herself and slipped out of bed to go to the
bathroom. Every light in the apartment was blazing. She turned them all off,
pausing for barely a moment to look at the wasted food and dirty dishes spread
over the dining-room table. Then she turned out that light, too, and made her
way back to the bedroom.

Faint illumination from a street lamp outside fell through
the cracks in the blinds. It wasn't enough to keep her from stumbling over a
shoe and giving a muffled gasp on the way. Whether she'd woken him, or he had
already been awake, she didn't know, only that his hands reached for her when
she slipped into the bed. His mouth found hers as unerringly as if he could see
her clearly.

Her body responded without hesitation. There was something
deliciously intimate about making love in near-complete darkness, saying
nothing, touch taking the place of other senses. They didn't play so long this
time; instead, he entered her gently, and passion built in slow, pleasurable
stages.

The words,
I
love
you,
rose to her lips, but she bit
them back. Not love. A fling.

Wasn't it?

They climaxed together, Connor murmuring words that didn't
include
I
love you.
Irrationally, she wanted them.

The next time she awoke, morning-sunshine filtered through
the blinds. Connor still slept beside her, the covers down around his waist,
one forearm across his eyes as if he were resisting the intrusion of light.

She lay there looking her fill, savoring all the little
details she hadn't seen last night in the first urgency, or in the dark. Even
relaxed as he was, powerful muscles in his chest and arms and shoulders were
well defined. He had dark, ridiculously long lashes that any girl would envy.
His mouth was softer when he wasn't guarding his expression. Sexier, she
thought, tempted to touch it.

The pronounced auburn to the fine hairs curling on his chest
made her guess that, if he grew a beard, it would be a deep red. If he had
children, would one of them be a carrot head? She pictured a small defiant
Connor with freckles, clear gray eyes and flame-bright hair. Smiling, at last
she stole from bed and went to take a shower.

He joined her, with predictable, if wickedly erotic,
results. It was nearly eleven o'clock before they reached the kitchen to make
breakfast.

"Let's clean up first," Connor suggested. "I
can't leave you with this." He saw her glance at the clock and asked,
"When does Zofie get home?" She checked the schedule on the
refrigerator and relaxed. "Her game is at noon in Port Angeles, so there's
no way they'll be here until one-thirty or so, later if they stop for lunch
like they usually do."

The cleanup went fast. They sat at the breakfast bar
afterward and ate toasted raisin-cinnamon bagels, talking languidly about very
little. Around noon, Connor said reluctantly, "I should get going. I have
laundry to do, and the usual weekend chores."

"I should do the same," she admitted. "This
was a lovely weekend, Connor."

Eyes intent even if his mouth was smiling, he said, "It
was just the beginning."

She actually felt the sting of tears. "I hope so."

"Count on it." He tugged her against him for a
hard kiss. "Walk me out?"

"Of course." Mariah put on slippers and a sweater against
the chill and stepped over the Sunday paper on her doorstep to stroll out to
his car with him.

Connor pulled her into his arms again and growled,
"Damn it, I don't want to go," before he kissed her with regret and
sudden frustration and sensual promise. When she started to pull back at the
sound of a car turning in behind them, his arms briefly tightened before he let
her go.

"Mariah, I…" He looked past her, and his mouth
clamped shut.

On a rush of fear, she turned, just in time to see Zofie, in
her soccer clothes, tumble out of Simon's car and fling herself at her mother.

"I don't feel good, Mommy!" she wailed.

Simon, who had gotten out on the other side, stood frozen,
staring over the car roof at Connor. It was the longest time before his
anguished gaze swung to Mariah.

Whatever she had expected and feared, it was not this.
Please,
she
thought, unable to look away from his wounded eyes.
Please let him be angry. Let me see anything but this
terrible pain and bewilderment at my betrayal.

Connor looked at the man
whose
ex-wife he wanted and felt the greatest shame of his life.

He couldn't lie to himself. He was at least partially
responsible for the breakup of their marriage, and see what a prize he was
winning now for his role. What did that make him? he wondered in disgust.

What if he had been wrong about Simon? What if Simon Stavig
had never touched little Lily? Connor hadn't been able to prove a damn thing;
he hadn't been able to make an arrest. But Simon had been irrevocably damaged
by the mere allegation. He'd lost his wife, his hometown, his job. His child,
in a meaningful way.

What if I didn't try hard enough to find alternative
explanations for Lily's abuse, just because I didn't like Simon Stavig?
Connor asked himself, appalled.

Mariah turned her head and gazed blindly at him. "Just
go," she said.

"I can't leave you," he argued in a low voice.

"Go!" she repeated fiercely. "We'll be
fine."

Stavig still hadn't moved. He looked stunned and defeated.

Connor clenched his jaw and nodded. "I'll call," he
told Mariah.

She didn't acknowledge him, maybe didn't hear him.

"Let's get your stuff out of the car," she was
telling Zofie. "I'm so sorry you're sick. And you had to miss the game,
didn't you?"

Connor went only as far as the entrance to the parking lot,
where he pulled over. He watched the tableau in his driver's side mirror as
Mariah opened the car door and took out a small pink suitcase. She and Stavig
spoke briefly, tensely, and then he got in the car and backed out with
screeching tires. He didn't even see Connor as his car passed, bursting out of
the parking lot on two tires.

Connor watched until Mariah and Zofie went into the
apartment. Then, feeling sick, he started home.

His beeper vibrated before he got that far. He returned the
call irritably.

"I'm sorry to bother you on your day off, Detective
McLean," a young officer told him. "I'm told you are working on a
case involving a Tracy Mitchell."

"Yeah." The light turned green ahead of him. He didn't
notice until the car behind him honked. Accelerating, he said, "Yeah, I
am. What's up?"

"She apparently ran away yesterday. Her mother didn't
notice until today. She says she thought Tracy was at a friend's when she went
to work at four o'clock, and she didn't look in her daughter's bedroom when she
got home in the middle of the night." His carefully dispassionate tone
suggested what he thought of such carelessness. "This morning, the mother
thought Tracy was sleeping in. When she did finally discover her missing, she
called around to Tracy's friends before reporting her gone. Just an hour ago, a
state patrolman picked her up on Highway 101 near Silverdale."

Connor cut to the chase. "Where is Tracy now?"

"She's at a receiving home. Um—" papers shuffled
in the background "—the Farrells', 1936 Nisqually."

"Got it," Connor said. "Thank you."

This might be the break he'd been waiting for. He wished it
had come at any other time.

Rachel Farrell was a woman in her fifties who had been
running a receiving home for teenagers since her youngest had left for college
ten years ago. She was a gem, caring for troubled teens briefly until social
workers, family or the court decided where long term placement would be. Her
common sense, structure and comforting hugs had been just what a hell of a lot
of kids had needed.

"Tracy?" she said, when she answered the door.
"She's sobbing in her room. One minute she wants her mom. The next she
screams, 'Don't call her! Please don't call her!'" She shook her head. "I
don't know if she's ashamed or scared."

"Can I talk to her?"

"She knows you?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "She probably ran away
because she's tired of evading my questions."

He knocked hard on the door. "Tracy? It's Detective
McLean."

"Go away!" she yelled.

He winced. This wasn't his day.

"Tracy, we need to talk. We might as well start
now."

"I don't want to!" she wailed.

He paused, head bowed. How could he give her a lecture about
facing the unpalatable when he'd been doing his damnedest to avoid personal responsibility?
But he knew what had to be right for her—just as he knew what he had to do to
settle the demands of his own conscience.

"Tracy," he said quietly, "you need to help
us decide where you should go now. Will you do that? Or would you rather we decide
for you, without understanding who hurt you or why?"

The silence stretched so long he was about to give up for
now when he heard her say, in a small voice, "You can come in."

She was sitting up on one of two twin beds, a pillow
clutched to her middle. Her face was a mess, wet and puffy, and her hair was
wind-whipped and dirty. Nobody would have guessed her to be a pretty girl.

He nodded at the foot of the bed. "Can I sit
down?"

She pressed her lips together and nodded. He sat and then
waited.

She squeezed the pillow and said explosively, "I have
to go home!"

"Why?"

Tracy looked at him as if he were crazy. "Because
Mom'll be freaked. I can't just … just not go home!"

"But you ran away," he pointed out logically.

"But that doesn't mean…" She stopped, apparently
snared in her own confusion.

"It suggests something is wrong at home."

She stared defiantly at him from puffy eyes. "Maybe I
just, like, wanted an adventure."

He waited patiently.

Her chin trembled first, then her mouth. Fat tears rolled down
her cheeks. Suddenly she hunched and buried her face in the pillow. Her
shoulders shook.

"Ah, Tracy." Damn it, he shouldn't touch her, but
he couldn't sit here and watch her shatter. He moved over and tentatively
touched her shoulder.

She rolled toward him, burying her pillow and her head under
the circle of his arm. He sat, awkwardly patting her back, while she cried out
her sadness against his side.

Her grief sank into misery
, and
finally faded altogether into a kind of numbness. Still Tracy didn't move for
the longest time. She felt … safe, as if she were a baby, swaddled in a
blanket, conscious only of the heartbeat and warm encircling arm that were her
security.

Weirdly, when she finally sniffed, wiped her face on the
pillowcase and pushed herself upright, what she felt instead was old. Old and
tired.

He was waiting, his face kind. Tracy wished suddenly,
passionately, that he was her father.

"It was this guy my mother brought home." Somehow
it wasn't so hard to say after all. "Eddie. I don't know his last name.
She brought him home one night after work. They were both drunk. I think Mom,
like, passed out."