Chapter 25
Y ou’re a butthole. A horse’s ass.”
Mutt went on sniffing around the base of a tree, unmindful of John’s litany of self-incrimination.
After cleaning the kitchen, he’d decided to take Mutt out for the last time of the night, and also to take a look around. In light of today’s events, he was even surer that he would have a bull’s-eye on his back if Barker and the ogre ever located him.
He made a circuit, checked the garage and the boat’s hiding place. “The ogre would sink my boat, but they could have other people searching the swamp. Think anyone could find us?” The dog looked up at him, then sat down to scratch his ear with his back paw. “Right. Why worry?”
While listing all the people whose safety he was worried about, he hadn’t had time to tell Beth that she topped that list. Stupidly, he’d babbled about all the ways his life had become more complicated since she’d entered it. He hadn’t meant it that way but had realized too late how it would sound to her. He knew he’d hurt her.
“Let’s go back, see what she’s doing.”
Mutt stopped scratching, and they headed back toward the cabin. When they got there, her bedroom door was still closed.
Every man since Adam knew that was never a good sign.
John bolted the door and replaced the shotgun in the rack. In the kitchen, he filled Mutt’s water bowl and considered taking a good belt of bourbon. He even took the bottle from the cabinet before rejecting the idea and replacing it. He washed his hands. After drying them, he hung up the towel with excessive care. He acknowledged that all these activities were cowardly postponements of the inevitable.
He went to the bedroom door and tapped it lightly with his knuckle. “Beth?”
No response. He tried again with another tap and a repetition of her name. Still nothing. A spike of fear shot up from his belly and into his chest. “Are you all right?”
She pulled the door open. Instantly obvious was that she had been crying for some time. “No, I’m not all right. Max died.”
She turned her back on him and walked over to the bed where she lay down in the fetal position and pulled the quilt up to her waist. She folded one arm beneath her head and stared blankly at nothing.
For a moment, he was at a loss for words, but then asked, “Why didn’t you come tell me?”
“There was no reason to.”
That stab hurt. But he couldn’t just turn around and leave her like this. He went in, but stopped midway between the door and the bed. “I know how much he meant to you. I’m very sorry.”
She moved her head in a small nod.
“What happened?”
“I called. Richard answered. I asked what he was doing with Max’s phone. He told me.” Before she got through that last sentence, she choked up.
“Did his heart fail? Was he in the hospital?”
She exhaled a soft laugh. “No, he was at his desk. He’d come in this morning at his usual time. He complained to Richard that he couldn’t make coffee worth a crap. He admonished him to learn how to brew it correctly by watching how I made it. That was, if I ever came back from Louisiana.” As she said that, her eyes made brief contact with his.
“Sometime later, Richard found him slumped over his desk, where he would have wanted to be when he drew his last breath. He told me he’d rather be dead than attend the retirement party being planned for him.” She smiled wanly. “He got his wish.”
Mutt wandered in and bumped past John’s legs as he walked over to the bed. John called him back.
“No, it’s okay.” Mutt rested his chin on the side of the bed. With her free hand, Beth stroked his head. “Richard tried to notify me, of course, but as you know, I’m not using my own phone. He didn’t recognize the number of the burner, figured my calls were spam, and didn’t even listen to the voice mails I’d left. He hasn’t had a spare moment since…”
She stopped to swallow and blot fresh tears using the corner of the pillowcase. “He told me it was like a tsunami had come through the network building. When I called that last time, he answered out of irritation, not knowing it was me. He said his day had been manic, his nerves were frayed.”
John didn’t give a shit about Richard’s manic day or his nerves. Dozens of questions were flitting through his mind. Would he be driving her to the airport in the morning? Or would she want to go tonight? When would she come back? Would she come back? Where did this leave everything? Where did this leave them ?
He knew these were selfish concerns, but also justified. The floor had dropped out from beneath him, too.
“Do you know the funeral arrangements yet?”
“There won’t be a funeral. Max had mandated that. He told me once that he didn’t want a media circus, where nearly everyone in attendance would be celebrating not mourning. Even his son. Max wasn’t religious. He had stipulated to his lawyer to have him cremated and be done with it. No farewells, sad or otherwise.” She began to cry in earnest.
“Beth.” John started toward the bed, but she held out her hand.
“Please, just…” She motioned toward the door.
“Can I bring you something?”
“No thank you. Close the door on your way out.”
“I can’t leave you like this.”
“I’m telling you to.”
“Come on. Let me—”
“No. I want to be alone. Please go.” She turned onto her other side, away from even the sight of him.
He stayed where he was for a full minute. She didn’t move.
He had to say Mutt’s name twice before he dejectedly obeyed and followed him from the bedroom.
Being shunned by Beth left him more dejected than he’d already been, but he forced himself to resume going through Crissy Mellin’s case file. He’d practically memorized everything in it and soon realized that he wasn’t concentrating. His mind kept derailing.
In frustration, he closed out that file and pulled up the photographs of the four women. Even though he’d stared at the compilation for hours, he now tried to see it with new eyes and from a different perspective.
After about half an hour, he felt a familiar tickling sensation in his gut. He trusted it, because historically it had heralded the spark of a new idea. He thought it through once, then a second time, then reached for his phone and called Mitch, who answered, saying, “You still alive?”
“For the time being. I wanted to catch you up.”
“Talk fast. Any minute I’m expecting a call to action.”
John began with Carla Mellin’s revelation. “Billy Oliver was dyslexic. Those bastards wrote the confession and planted it on him.” He went on to summarize what Isabel Sanchez had related. “Ogre’s veiled threats included her kids.”
“That fucker needs to die.”
“I second the motion.”
“How’s Beth holding up through all this?”
“Well, then there’s that.” He told him about Max Longren. “He was her mentor. A father figure, I think, although she hasn’t put it like that.”
“Is she going back to New York?”
“She’s not talking. We’ve got a lot to sort through on this blood moon stuff, but she’s torn up. I just don’t know.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Maybe. What do you know about the dark web?”
“I know it can be scary as shit for a variety of reasons.”
“Do you know any feds who specialize in surveilling it?”
“A handful.” He chuckled. “They’re scary as shit, too. Why are you asking?”
He told him about Victor Wallace. “He told us there were clubs, websites, chat rooms frequented by people who are into paranormal stuff like that. All things mystical.”
“That covers a lot of different factions beyond moon gazing.”
“I know, but we got more info on that today.” He told him about Larissa Whitmore’s tattoo. “This goddess’s name is Luna. She’s symbolized by a crescent moon.”
“That’s one hell of a coincidence,” Mitch said.
“Too much of one. I think Patrick Dobbs is paying the penalty for some other man’s crime.”
“I’d lay money on it.”
“Okay, so where I’m going with all this… I got to thinking that if there are chat rooms on the internet, there must be equivalents on the dark web. The thing is, we saw no evidence that Crissy had anything like that on her computer, did we?”
“No.”
“I’ve got the detectives in the other cities checking to see if their women did, but if so, I think they would’ve remembered it as soon as I told them about the blood moon.” He stopped there, hesitant to divulge what was, at this stage, only a nebulous idea.
Mitch said, “Bro, I can hear you thinking loud and clear. Lay it on me, because at any second I’ll have to run.”
“You may laugh.”
“May, but may not.”
John shared his new insight. Mitch didn’t laugh. In fact, when John finished, Mitch said, “I like it. I like it a lot, John. Keep—Ah, shit. Gettin’ the call. Gotta run. I’ll have some of the dark web moles look into it. Be safe.”
And like that, Mitch was gone, but John was glad he’d had time to run this new brainstorm past him. He valued Mitch’s opinion and was gratified that he hadn’t laughed outright or tried to rationalize the idea to death.
He wanted to run it past Beth. He looked behind him toward the bedroom, from which he hadn’t heard a sound since she’d ordered him out. If she was crying, she was doing so silently, which was worse than if she’d been wailing. He hoped she’d been able to fall asleep.
In any case, he wasn’t going to be talking to her tonight. Which was just as well, because his brain felt like he had climbed Everest twice in one day without supplemental oxygen.
He began closing his files and was about to leave their computer table when Beth’s laptop chirped, signaling a new email. He didn’t intend to snoop but saw that it was from Victor Wallace.
The message read: I’ve discovered something that might be helpful to you. I’ll wait up for ten minutes. If you don’t call, then possibly tomorrow. He’d included his phone number.
John was bone tired. He closed his eyes and tried to talk himself out of it. But he called. When the professor answered, he said, “It’s John Bowie. Ms. Collins is unavailable.”
“I realize it’s late. This can wait until tomorrow.”
“No, now that I’ve got you, what have you got for me? Us,” he said, casting another look over his shoulder toward the bedroom.
“I’ve noticed something that had escaped me while we were checking the missing women’s names against my mailing list.”
If there was a voilà! in that statement, John was too tired for it to register. “Okay.”
“It’s regarding their names themselves.”
“What about them?”
“They all have double letters in them. Anna, Allison, Larissa, and Crissy. Crissy’s last name Mellin also has double letters. Had you never noticed?”
No, he hadn’t. Anna was the missing girl in Jackson, Allison in Shreveport. He’d never even heard of them until two days ago. Was that the common trait he’d been hoping to discover?
He asked, “Why would the double letters be meaningful?”
“They may not be at all except to a numerologist. They would certainly arouse his interest.”
“A numerologist?”
“How much do you know about numerology?”
“Zero.”
“Ha! Good one,” he said, and gave a short laugh. “Although zero rarely factors in. Only the numerals one through nine.”
John ground his palm against his forehead and wished he’d rethought making this call this late at night when he was already close to brain-dead. “Give me a numerology breakdown for dummies.”
“I’m no expert, either, but basically, it’s a method of divination based on an alphanumeric system. The most widely used numerical chart is the Pythagorean.”
John was already lost. “What’s the chart for?”
“The chart pairs each letter of the alphabet with a number between one and nine. Each number represents certain character traits. By using the letters and their corresponding numerals in your name and/or birthday, you calculate your five core numbers. Each of your core numbers applies to a vital aspect of life. Profession, relationships, and so on. Therefore, those who put stock in the system use their core numbers as road maps for their life path, guidelines to influence decisions, major or minor.”
“Like a zodiac sign.”
“Um, similar, yes. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“So why would double letters in a person’s name be arousing?”
“Just as you’d suppose. The letter’s numerical correspondent, and the trait it signifies, is twice as strong in that individual’s makeup.” He paused, then said, “Of course, many people think it’s mumbo-jumbo. But your perpetrator might not. I thought I should at least bring it to your attention.”
“Thank you. I’ll get Beth’s read on it in the morning. If questions arise, can we call you?”
“Feel free to. Good night, Mr. Bowie.”
“Thanks again.”
John turned out lights as he made his way into his bedroom. He took a quick shower and got into bed. It felt good to be lying down, but his brain was slow to unwind. He must have fallen asleep eventually, because he awoke to a soft, cool hand pressing his shoulder. “John?” He turned from his side onto his back. Beth was standing at the bedside. He levered himself up on his elbows.
She removed her hand from his shoulder and stood looking down at him with uncertainty. “I was rude to you earlier. You were trying to be helpful, but I was just so upset that I…” She pulled her lower lip through her teeth.
“You told me your parents worry about you. You worry over Molly. No one ever worried about me. Even though I was their firstborn, to my parents I was an afterthought, if they thought of me at all. The wrong daughter died. I’m not telling you this so you’ll pity me, but so you’ll understand what Max meant to me.
“He wasn’t a father by any stretch. Not even to his own flesh-and-blood son. But he cared about me enough to correct me, chide me, commend me. He wanted to see me do well. He was my… my Yoda. My lodestar.
“I’ll survive his death. But I’ll mourn it.” She wiped her eyes with her fists. “I’m sorry I woke you. I just wanted to apologize for turning you away.” She gestured behind her toward the door. “Thank you for listening. I’ll just—”
“Hush.” He reached out and captured her hand.
He threw off the covers and pulled her down beside him, gathering her close. If she realized he was naked, she didn’t comment or resist. Rather, she snuggled against him. He tucked her head beneath his chin and stroked her back. Her breath stuttered against his chest. She made small, choppy sounds as she brought her emotions under control.
“Shh, shh.” He rubbed his chin back and forth against the crown of her head, then kissed it and kept his lips there against her hair. She quieted, and, for a time, all they did was lie together, breathing in unison, their hearts beating against each other’s, while his hand continued to move up and down her back consolingly.
Then she tilted her head back against his biceps and looked at him. She reached up and lightly brushed her fingers across his lips.
He exhaled through his mouth and against her fingertips, and looked at her with what he hoped didn’t look like pleading, although it was. “Beth?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Thank Christ.
He rolled her onto her back, pushed his knee between hers, used his hips to secure hers to the bed, and slid his fingers up through her hair to hold her head in place while he kissed her.
He was sick to death of talking and thinking and talking some more. He allowed his mind to go blank and let carnal appetite take over. God, he’d been hungry for her, and now couldn’t get enough.
Her mouth was sweet and hot and delicious and giving, but greedy in its own right. Her dainty tongue flirted with his, and he permitted the play. For a time. Then he claimed her mouth again in a purely male manner, and that elicited a needy sound from her.
He let up a little to kiss the corner of her lips, dabbing that alluring spot with the tip of his tongue. He kissed her brow, her cheek, which was damp from tears. He kissed along her jawline to the soft skin beneath her ear. He kissed her neck and the triangular hollow at the base of her throat, where he paused to catch his breath.
Then he did a one-handed pushup and with his other pulled her tank top over her head. To help get it off, she raised her arms. When she lowered them, one languidly came to rest on his shoulder. The other she laid across her forehead and closed her eyes, making of her body an offering, and he seized on it.
He caressed her breasts. Their smooth slopes, the plumper undersides, their beguiling crests. He lowered his mouth to one. Against his tongue, the texture was velvety, but its firm assertion told him that Beth wanted this, wanted him. So he worried it with his tongue, tugged it into his mouth, fanned it with his breath, then did the same with the other.
This was the fulfillment of a fantasy. He indulged, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up and discover that he was dreaming. But if he was, it was a graphic dream. Beth’s breathing was now being interrupted by her soft gasps. The hand she’d propped on her forehead flexed and contracted into a fist. She grew restless, her hips now trying to move beneath the pressure of his, to create friction between his erection and her cleft.
He raised his head from her breasts. Beth opened her eyes, lowered her arm from her forehead and used it to encircle his neck. She pulled him to her and lifted her head just high enough for their lips to meet. As they kissed, he slid his hand down into the waistband of her sleep shorts. He petted her, stroked, sought, found her wet. He gathered moisture, then drew his finger up and across the spot that caused a reaction like an electric shock through her whole body.
Her sleep shorts went the way of her tank top.
Their legs slid against each other as they readjusted, hers separating, his opening them wider. Then, with intent, he pushed into her. When he was fully buried, he lowered his head and kissed her, open-mouthed but with tenderness.
As he began to move inside her, passion intensified. The kiss didn’t end; it escalated into an exchange of thrashing breaths. John never wanted it to end. At the same time, his thrusts grew more urgent in a rush toward the finish.
Beth was already there. Her fingers dug into his butt cheeks, her back bowed, she cried out.
He plunged in deep, she clenched around him, and he came. And came. And came.
When completely spent, he settled on her, enfolding her beneath him. He pressed his face into her neck and breathed in the fragrance that was uniquely hers. Tension drained from her slowly. Her legs relaxed but continued hugging his thighs, only less tightly than moments before. Her fingertips trailed along his back and lower, past his waist. Far past his waist. Her leisurely exploration delayed him going soft inside her.
They stayed like that for a long time.
When he finally separated them, he drew her close and pulled the covers up over them. She nuzzled his chest, breathed his name, and fell instantly, peacefully, to sleep.