Chapter 18
B eth woke up. Noticing light beneath the bedroom door, she got out of bed and pulled on Aunt Gert’s robe. After securing it with the tie belt, she tentatively opened the door. The only light on in the main room was the wall sconce with the Mardi Gras beads.
John’s back was to her. He sat at the dining table, fully clothed, elbows on the table, head in his hands.
Detective Morris’s explanation hadn’t been what he’d wanted or expected to hear, but he’d politely thanked her for the clarification and apologized for imposing on her. Then he’d ended the call and, with exaggerated control, as though his phone were made of hand-blown glass, he set it on the table.
Beth had extended her hand toward him, but he jerked his arm out of her reach. “John, it’s in my notes.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“It’s—”
“Not now.”
Jaw rigid, eyes implacable, he’d gone over to the door, yanked his rain jacket off the coat tree, and walked out without another word. Mutt had trotted after him, his tail almost getting caught in the door as it had swung shut.
Now Mutt was curled up on his blanket. As she emerged from the bedroom, he opened his eyes and looked at her but didn’t stir as she walked barefoot across the room to the dining table. “John?”
He lowered his hands from his head and sat up straighter, rolling his head around his shoulders. “Hey. What are you doing awake?”
“Why are you up? Have you slept at all?” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “How long did you stay outside?”
“Until your light went out and I thought you’d be asleep.”
On the table were a bowl of melted ice cream and a bottle of bourbon. The drinking glass beside it was empty. “Which came first? The ice cream or the whiskey?”
“I made a float.”
She pulled out the chair adjacent to his and sat down. “You told Mitch you were abstaining.”
“From beer. I didn’t say anything about bourbon.” He dug his fingers into his eye sockets. “I only had a splash.”
She thought it might have been more than a splash, but he looked beleaguered not drunk. “The times of those 2018 eclipses were in my notes.”
“I heard how both of them that year were particularly significant. The super blue… and so on. I missed the tidbit about their timing locally. And hearing it hit me at a bad time, just as I was trying to piece together something that sort of made sense.
“Of course I know an eclipse of any kind doesn’t look the same all over the world. But the picture I’d seen of a blood moon on TV the other night, the vibrant one that the weatherman was going on about, is the image I’ve held on to.
“It hadn’t occurred to me that not all would be that clear and total. It should have, but it didn’t. No wonder the detectives in Jackson and Shreveport were lukewarm on me. I was making a big deal out of nothing.”
“It’s not ‘nothing.’ Just because the moon isn’t visible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Those were still blood moons.”
He looked at her fully for the first time and gave her his wry, humorless grin. “Brilliant me. I deduced that on my own while I was outside. I looked up at the sky to curse the moon, but, even though it’s almost full, I could only detect it by a slightly lighter patch of clouds. I still cursed it. And it felt good ,” he added with emphasis.
“That’s when it hit me. Those four young women might not have known there was a spectacular moon, but he did. Even if he couldn’t see it, the blood moon was feeding his twisted compulsion.”
“That’s right.”
“I sent Roberts and Cougar emails to that effect. Maybe it’ll shake something loose for them.” He reached for the bottle of bourbon, but only to recap it. “The good news is that I wrapped my mind around all that. The bad news is that it doesn’t do us any good. It doesn’t clue us to who or where he is, waiting for Thursday to roll around.”
Beth would have been devastated, but not surprised, if he’d called the whole thing off then and there. But when she hesitantly asked what was on their agenda for tomorrow, he said, “Carla Mellin, if I hear back from the officer trying to track her down.”
“Do you think she’ll see us?”
“If we ask first, no.”
“We just show up?”
“It’s not courteous, but we don’t have time to dick around. Better not to give her a choice.”
“We can’t force her to talk to us.”
“I’m a cop.”
“Not since this morning.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”
She smiled and looked at the kitchen clock. “It’s a few hours before dawn. You should use them to sleep.” She stood up. “What time should I be ready?”
He pushed his chair back, grabbed the tie belt of the robe, and reeled her in between his spread knees. She was taken off guard but didn’t stop him when he pulled the knot at her waist free, bent his head and worked it inside the robe until it rested against her midriff. “I’m ready now.”
“John…”
“Do you have any idea what hell it’s been to keep my hands off you?” He slipped them inside the robe and settled them on her hips.
“If memory serves, this morning, after kissing me quite thoroughly, it was you who couldn’t leave fast enough.”
“For your own good, Beth.”
“It didn’t feel like that.”
“Believe me, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.” He nuzzled the side of her breast. “God knows I wanted to stay and kiss you again, and not stop there.” Filtered through her tissue-thin tank top, his breath was humid and hot.
She placed her hands on his head, lightly. But then his mouth was opening and closing over her nipple, and his hair became enmeshed in her fingers as she clutched at it.
He raised his head and looked up at her. The light from the sconce shone directly into his eyes, making them look mercurial and fervid. His scruff was rough against her forearms, exposed now that the wide sleeves of the robe had fallen back.
He turned his head and touched his tongue to the pulse point on the inside of her wrist, then murmured against it, “We’re going to sleep together.”
His fingers began flexing and contracting against her hips, drawing her closer. “It’s only a matter of time. It’s been only a matter of time since I asked you if that seat was taken. You knew it. I knew it.”
He lowered his head again and pressed kisses into her middle, working his way down even as he tilted her hips upward and closer, until he reached the strip of exposed skin between the bottom of her top and the elastic waistband of her sleep shorts. He lightly nipped her with his teeth, then swept his tongue across the love bites.
A yearning sigh ghosted through her lips.
“Like that?”
“Um-huh.”
She felt his smile against her skin as he slipped his finger into the waistband and gave it a downward tug.
Then his cell phone rang. They froze. He swore as he removed his hand. The elastic snapped into place against her belly. She stumbled backward, tripping over the tie belt that dangled from its loops.
“I’ve got to get it,” he said hoarsely. “It’s probably my guy with info on Carla.”
“Of course.” She fumbled her attempts to retie the robe’s belt.
He picked up the phone and, without taking his eyes off the wet spot his mouth had left on her tank top over the tip of her breast, clicked on his phone. “Bowie.”
It wasn’t his guy. It wasn’t any guy.
A young and tremulous female voice said, “Dad?”