Unforgettable (23 page)

He held her
close.

“
Thank you, Jack, I’ll make
note of that. ‘Monday. Get a harder heart.’”

“
You’re angry with
me.”

“
Very.”

“
Why?”

“
Because you’ve made me hurt
David and I adore David.”

He dragged me onto his lap.

“
First of all, I
haven’t
made
you
do anything. And second, David’s been dealing with women for a long
time. He’ll be okay. Now, tell me about this power I have over
you.”

His shirt was open and I couldn’t
resist playing with his chest.

“
Tell me,” he kissed my
hair, “tell me what this power is.”

“
You made me love
you.”

“
No, you made
me
love you. I just
wanted a nice romp when I first met you. And then…you did something
to me.” He smiled.

I kissed him.

“
I love you,
Jack.”

“
I love you, babe. More
than…I thought was heavenly possible. What happened with
David?”

“
We did it. I finally told
him to stop when I needed him to. Thank you, for giving me space. I
know it wasn’t easy. But now…”

“
Now?”

I looked into his deep, black eyes and
he began to smile.

“
I want to make love, Jack.
Now, tonight. I want you.”

He kissed me hard, his arms suddenly
tight, demanding.

“
Upstairs,” he
whispered.

We walked, slowly, painfully, up the
long staircase. My heart was beating so fast I felt
faint.

He undressed me and then in an instant
he was on top of me, inside me, moving fast and hard.

The panic drowned me.

“
No, Jack, no!” I was almost
screaming.

“
Sam, what, I’m
sorry.”

“
Slow. Scared. So
scared.”

He slowed way down and kissed my face.
I calmed down.

“
Tell me what you want,” he
whispered. “We can stop…just tell me. I never want to scare you. I
love you so much.”

I held his face in my hands.

“
You won’t hurt
me?”

“
Never.”

“
You love me?” I rose to him
in extreme pleasure.

“
Always.”

We made love for hours until we were
both exhausted.

He slept. I wept for David. And I wept
for Fritz. I had made my choice. How could such happiness exist in
the midst of such sorrow?

Sunday

The press were swarming all
over Biggs. Then the Governor strolled in, his charismatic smile
took charge. Biggs forced his face to freeze, as Anne, the
prosecuting attorney, glided gracefully into the room. She was a
high energy woman, something he was learning to appreciate a great
deal. She did not look at him but gave him a tiny wave behind her
back. The Governor caught it and smiled.

DEA began.

"Good news, ladies and
gentlemen, we have finally infiltrated and disbanded the one
hundred and twenty two members of the drug
syndicate...."

It was a good day. A very
good day.

I woke with Gloria charging
in.

“
Wake up.”

“
What? What’s going on? Did
Jack get hurt? Where’s Jack?”

“
Get dressed. The police are
in the front living room. I’ll bring you guys some coffee. Come on,
move.”

“
Let me guess, you were in
the military, right?”

“
Right.”

I ran to the bathroom then pulled my
pants and shirt on.

“
What’s going on? What time
is it?”

“
Eleven
fourteen.”

“
Eleven? I never sleep until
eleven.”

Sitting on the white couches of the
living room was a woman with long black hair in a black pant suit.
Along with Silverman. My knees were quivering. These people weren’t
out for Sunday brunch. Something bad was happening.

The man in the middle stood
up.

“
Miss Rose, I’m Detective
Wilcox, this is Special Agent Dennington,”

Jack walked in, Fritz
followed.

“
Dennington!” Fritz
smiled.

“
Nice to see you again,” she
said.

Silverman introduced
everyone.

Detective Wilcox walked over to me,
showing me part of a picture, a picture of a dead woman. “Miss Rose
do you know this woman?”

I saw it but didn’t see it. It couldn’t
be real. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“
Yes. That’s Natasha. She’s
a psychic. She’s dead? Oh, God, no. Not because of me?”

“
It is not because of you.
But we think we know who killed her. Because of how she was
killed.”

The quiver in my knees spread up to my
back, my stomach, my teeth.

Gloria came in with coffee. Roger
followed. They both stayed in the room.

“
Cut?” I
whispered.

He nodded.

“
Pentagram?”

“
Yes,” he said.

I stumbled to the front door and
started to walk down the driveway.

“
No, no, no, no!”

Silverman strolled behind
me.

I didn’t want to go back in that room,
I didn’t want to talk to anyone or know any other horrible things
ever again.

“
We really need your help.”
He said it as if he was asking for my grandmother’s secret to
growing horseradish.

“
No, no more. I can’t do
this. I’m going away. I’m leaving. You’ll have to get someone
else…”

He stared at me.

I walked back and sat at the
piano.

“
The reason we’re here is
that we would like to take pictures of your scars,” Dennington
said. “If we can show that the patterns, the strike marks, are
identical to yours, we have a very strong case against
him.”

I glanced at Jack and Gloria. No one
could do this but me.

“
Of course, of
course.”

Dennington pulled out a camera. I
raised my shirt and she snapped a few pictures.

Wilcox kept talking. “Her kids called
the police because they couldn’t reach her. Welsh was kind enough
to stash her in the freezer for us.”

“
You see,” Wilcox walked
over to me and pulled on some of the scars. “Sam, an attack like
this is kind of like a work of art or a signature. Each one is
unique. You see he’s drawing it wrong to be Satanist, which is what
he told you he was, I believe.”

“
That’s right. He said
things I thought were in Latin and then he said something about
giving this gift to Satan.”

“
He’s not a Satanist,”
Dennington concluded. “A psychopath, yes. The pentagram of Satanism
is upside down, with two points on top. His is right side up, one
point on top. And the pentagram means five lines. In religious
ceremonies the symbol is drawn with only five lines. In yours and
the victims he has drawn triangles together to make the pentagram.
And, when he stabbed, you and the victim, he twisted the knife to
the left. And the twists are identical.”

Tears came to my eyes and I felt
incredibly sick.

“
I remember the
twists.”

“
I’m sorry to put you
through this, Sam,” Wilcox said.

I nodded.

“
Just get the
bastard.”

He left. I walked out of the room and
went to the den, curling up on the bed. All of the darkness of hell
was swallowing me up. Now I had actually caused the death of such a
wonderful woman.

I heard Jack’s crutches clumping into
the room.

He sat on the bed beside me and rubbed
my back.

“
She knew all about me. All
about Welsh and you. She just had this aura that was so loving, and
wise. And he did it to her. I can’t go on, Jack. How can I go on?
Life is dark and evil and hopeless.”

“
It feels that way now. I
know, I know. But, they’ll catch him. And it’ll get
better.”

Finally I stopped crying and drifted
off to sleep.

At one fifteen I awoke to Sarah handing
me the phone.

“…
it’s Detective Wilcox. I
just wanted to let you know that the victim did not die from the
assault.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I thought perhaps she’d had
a heart attack because there wasn’t the amount of blood at the site
that would be expected. But, it wasn’t a heart attack. She was
drugged. I suspect she took the pills herself. We found them in the
kitchen with a glass of water.

“
I’m fairly certain she was
alive when the assailant came in but by the time he began cutting
her, her heart had stopped. I was wondering if you might know
anything about this? It’s somewhat of a puzzle.”

“
She was Zuria, the psychic.
When she met with me she knew all about my case, including what
Welsh looked like. She saw it. I suppose on that evening…she saw
her death coming and made a choice how it would be.”

He was silent.

“
Thank you. I appreciate
your help.”

I smiled. At least Natasha had died in
some amount of peace.

Robert sat by the small
creek and looked at his knife.

“
Still smells like the old
lady,” he told Eddie.” But the bitch wouldn’t tell me where Sam was
and then she passed out.”

Oscar kicked him playfully
from behind knocking him into the water. Oscar and Eddie laughed
hysterically.

Robert jumped up, grabbed
Oscar and held the knife to his throat.

“
Stop it you assholes,”
Eddie threw rocks at them. “I’m hungry. How much money you got from
the psychic?”He threw Oscar into the water.

“
Just two hundred,” Oscar
said.

“
Got some stuff to hock but
it’s too hot right now. We’re going to have to go into the city
again. There were some kids I wanted to go see.”

“
Robert, no kids. I swear
I’m going to slash you myself if you go after kids,” Oscar tried to
be taller and bigger.

“
We could just snatch ‘em.
All kinds of things I could ask for. Money. A nice boat. And
money.”

“
You’re obsessed with her.
Stupid. It’s going to be the death of us if you keep it
up,”

Monday

We were on the road at six to the
ranch. I sat in the back with Fritz.

“
Where were you last
night?”I asked.

“
Meeting up with an old
friend.”

“
That FBI agent. You knew
her, didn’t you?”

“
We were in a military
training together. Years ago.”

“
You like her, don’t
you?”

“
Yes.”

There was a prickly silence. I felt
odd. I had just lost Fritz. And castles and nurseries. And kisses
that made me melt.

“
I’m glad.” I was
lying.

There was no joking, no flirting. Just
extreme, painful quiet. Finally Roger turned the news on. They
reported Natasha’s death and I cried in silence, staring out the
window. Fritz scooted over and put his arm around me.

“
I’m so sorry,” he said. He
kissed the top of my head.

“
You love Miss FBI, don’t
you?” I finally asked.

“
We were lovers years ago.
I…I don’t know about now.”

I nodded and watched the sun come
up.

When we got to the ranch I checked
Jack’s toes.

“
They’re actually looking
very good. But you’re putting your whole foot down.”

“
And how do you know
that?”

“
The cast is dirty on the
entire bottom of your foot! Just your toe from now on. You’ll get
your boot soon. Give it time to heal.”

He looked at me.

“
You’ve been
crying.”

“
Some.”

“
Do you want Roger to take
you back?”

“
No. Unless John throws me
off the set.”

“
Not likely.”

He hobbled to costume.

“
I’ll bring you some
breakfast and coffee,” I said and went to the food tent.

The costume tent was utter chaos. I
found Jack and gave him his food then had to leave to get out of
the way.

Fritz was gone so I found an old stump
to sit on and drink my coffee.

It was sprinkling and the crew started
donning parkas. I was getting wet and cold. I looked up and David
was standing next to me.

“
Hi.”

“
Hello. You look cold. Take
my coat.”

He draped it around me, then pulled me
to him.