Target (26 page)

“Not for long, I bet.”

He smiled to himself and stroked her upper arm. “Find out anything interesting about Nick Board, anything at all? Something I might not know?”

“You looking for an exchange of information?” Joan asked.

“Just askin'a question,” he said. “It doesn't hurt to offer something when you want something.”

Joan said. “I found out Nick and Baily Morris had a thing. The family didn't like her.”

“Which means?” His skin felt damp. There wasn't a puff of breeze and the moss hung in gauzy, limp shrouds; black skeins over a paler sky.

“It doesn't mean anything,” Joan said. “I was thinking out loud.”

“Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you kill them,” Buck said.

“I didn't suggest it did.”

“Sure you did. Which one of them would you pick?”

Joan fidgeted. “Who would
them
be?”

“The Boards.”

“You think one of them killed Baily?” She scooted until she sat sideways in her chair with her knees pulled up. “You should have heard Rusty Barnes when I poked at the edges of that one.”

Buck tipped up his chin and stared at the sky. “He thought you were brilliant, is that what you mean?”

“You're a cagey one,” Joan said. “He said the Boards were some of the nicest people he's ever met and I'd better watch what I say.”

“Sounds like good advice.” He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off.

Joan said, “Mmm. Nice.”

Buck smiled. He figured he had Joan summed up about right. A woman with a healthy appetite. Not that he was interested.

Much.

“It's not fair,” she said. “A man gets hot and he takes his shirt off.”

“I don't think I have to answer that,” he said. “Big girls make their own rules.”

Unfortunately, she didn't strip off the tank top, but she did clasp her hands behind her head and he wished she had taken it off.

“If I don't get this story…if it's not good enough, I'm probably in trouble. I talked my way into the project but I don't fool myself I could do it again.”

“Your angle. Should be good.”

“Yes.” She stretched.

“You can't spend too much time here, can you?” Buck said. “You're goin' to need a lot more than one house to write about.”

“One at a time will do. I've already got several.”

Buck wasn't interested but it could pay off to be polite.

“Good luck with it.”

“I'm prepared to work as hard as it takes,” Joan said.

“Are you sure Matt hasn't said anything about the Board family's history?”

“Uh-uh.”

“I think there's a lot more there than they want anyone to know. I checked out what I could. There's no record of Delia having any children.”

Buck's interest sharpened. “That could be worth a little research.” But sure as hell not now. The need that made him restless had nothing to do with the information Joan wanted. He flicked his eyes toward her again. It could, though—if it came to that.

“I'm not wrong, am I, Buck? The Boards are hiding things.”

He shrugged. “Who knows. Might be worth lookin' into.” It was true enough that his life would be easier if this case moved along faster. He liked to clear an issue up and move on to the next.

“Why do you think someone would kill Baily Morris?”

He shook his head.

“What if it was an accident?”

Buck crossed his ankles in the opposite direction.

“Could have been,” Joan said. “Could have been that someone was asking her questions about the Boards and things went wrong.”

He squinted into the night. “That's a pretty big jump.”

“Probably. I'm a writer. I play a lot of what-ifs. It's a habit.”

Buck weighed the odds. Either she knew nothing and she really was desperate for any lead she could get on something as boring as a house, or Joan thought she had information on the early lives of Nick, Sarah and Aurelie, and she was looking for confirmation.

She got up and leaned against the railing, looking out among the black silhouettes. The bayou didn't make a lot of noise, just the occasional pop when something alive surfaced. Even the masses of the undergrowth life seemed subdued.

Joan took long swallows of beer until it was finished. She held the glass up like a telescope and looked toward the moon.

“You see the man?” he asked, dropping his feet to the floor of the gallery and pushing himself out of his chair.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “I see him now.”

“You're thinking we could help each other, aren't you?”

“We could if you wanted to.”

“It's sounding like a better idea all the time. But if I don't get, I don't give.”

Joan gripped the railing and braced her arms. “Sounds like a fair deal. I already gave you something.”

He smiled. “What was that?”

“You didn't know about Nick and Baily until I told you.”

He hadn't. And he didn't necessarily believe all things had to be equal. “I didn't. How did you?”

“I can't share that.”

“Maybe it's not true.”

She laughed. “Ask around.”

In other words, finding out would have been easy if he'd known to be interested.

Buck stood behind her, real close, touching her. He caught hold of the bottom of the tank and waited for a signal, yes or no. He didn't get either so he pulled it up and she raised her arms so he could take the top all the way off.

He dropped it on the nearest chair.

Bouncing his hips against her bottom, he took hold of her shoulders and leaned her against him, pulled her head back on his shoulder.

Her breasts didn't need moonlight. Joan's skin was white and there was a lot of it all the way to big nipples. He tucked his arms under hers and weighed her. She felt good, sexy enough to lock his knees. When he pulled on her nipples she rubbed her butt against his penis.

“What started this?” she asked and her voice had slid down from the little-girl pitch.

“You gave me something. It's my turn to give back.”

“Weren't we talking about information?” she asked.

“You were. And I'll make good on that when I get the right stuff. Are you complaining about tonight's payment?”

She slid his hands over her belly, pressed his fingers between her legs and rolled just a little. He returned to her breasts. There was more of Joan Reeves than his big hands could accommodate. “I like my sex interesting,” she said. “The necessary kind I can deal with myself.”

He just bet she could.

Taking off the skirt would be a waste of time. He dipped and used his knees to spread her legs, worked his pants down his thighs and shoved up and into her with enough enthusiasm to lift her feet from the ground.

“Holy…” She grabbed for him, grabbed for anything to hold on to. “You'll knock me over the goddamn railing. Oh.”

She'd said “interesting.” He fucked her fast, used the very good muscles in his thighs to set her into a canter on him. He bucked her, all but threw her, held his hands where he could feel her breasts bounce.

The first time she came, he grimaced into her hair. The second, he was with her and grunting in time.

He held her there, panting, his own breathing a race. They had heated more than the boiling night and their skin started to cool.

She moaned and tried to slide her feet to the ground. Buck made sure she stayed where she was.

The pressure mounted again. It had been too long for him.

He gave no warning when he swung her to face him, look a long, sucking bite on each nipple and pressed her backward this time.

She screamed.

“No one to hear you,” he said, pushing her some more until she couldn't reach the railing to hold on anymore.

Fear could make things tougher but the thrill was worth it. He used his mouth to loosen her up, gave her an example of a well-toned tongue in action. And when she threw her arms back and wrenched from side to side, he gave it all to her, sweated over her, watched his only piece of pale flesh play hide-and-seek with darkness.

Over.

Whimpering, she hung upside down. Her hard, sexy tush would bear railing marks for a while.

Buck pulled her up, layered her body against his and let her slip slowly down until her feet met the floor. Her big breasts, sliding on his chest, started something all over again, but not enough to tempt him to work for it.

“Do we still have a deal?” he asked.

She raised her face slowly. “A deal?”

“If we give, we get?”

“Anytime,” Joan said.

S
abine heard rain on the windows and closed her eyes, grateful for anything to break the hot, tense silence. The torrent eased the tension humidity caused and she didn't have to see to imagine how the sky was obscured.

The sky would be obscured if it were daylight rather than two in the morning.

“Thank goodness,” she said to Ed and went to a window to pull the drapes aside.

“Leave it,” he said so sharply she dropped the curtain at once. “I told you we don't want anyone to know we're here.”

He sat near her, in an armchair, and she could only vaguely see the shape of him. He'd kept the lights off since they got back from town hours ago. “What is it?” she asked. “I've been quiet and left you to your own thoughts, but you're frightenin' me.”

“No. Don't be frightened. You don't have to be.”

“Don't I? First you change your story about—”

“I didn't change my story. I remembered it straight, is all. Thank you for backing me up, sugar.”

She hugged herself in the gloom. “You've always been truthful with me,” she said. “Till now.” She wanted to cry.

“I'm truthful now,” he shouted. “Leave it alone.”

Sabine jumped. She started to rock. “Oh, my, oh, my, what happened? Ed. Tell me, hon. You don't have to hold things back with me.”

“Shit,” Ed said. “Let it go, will ya? Like I said, it was the heat. I must have had a turn and fallen. That's how I hit my head, then I came to and fell in the pool. Disoriented, that's the word. Disoriented, I was. Climbed up on that fountain and slipped.”

“Stop it!” She'd seen the way he looked when she found him. “You couldn't have done that yourself.”

“I climbed up, I tell ya. Then I slipped and caught my shirt. I'd been thinking about what happened to Aurelie, that was it. I couldn't get it out of my mind that some big schmuck pushed that little girl around the way he did and I got muddled. I thought it happened to me, too. It was the heat, I tell ya.”

Sabine felt her own flesh tremble beneath her fingers. “So why are we here in the dark? Why don't you want me to go near the windows?”

Light pulsed into the room, lightning streaking and penetrating the thin draperies. When thunder came it sounded a long way off.

“There's someone out there,” Ed said. “Whoever he is, he doesn't want us, but we can't risk getting in his way. And now I've got his attention by what I've said.” He breathed heavily. “I've got to prove I'm no threat. I don't know anything.”

“If you don't know anything, there's nothing to be afraid of. Why can't we just carry on the way we were before?”

“Just do as I tell you,” he snapped. He paused. “I'm sorry, baby. All this is getting to me.”

“Okay,” Sabine said. “Let's be calm. I need to think.”

“I'll do the thinkin'.”

He sounded like a stranger. It was because he was on unfamiliar ground and trying to seem in control.

“Why does Delia still want us here in the house?” Sabine said. “It's obvious whatever's going on is too big for you and me to be any help. We should go back to our own place.”

Ed worried her. She hadn't been attracted to him because she thought he was a tough guy. Sabine didn't like tough guys, but she knew a scared man and Ed was one of them. That, she didn't like, either. Especially when he wasn't opening up with her.

“It makes her feel safer to have us in the house,” Ed said. “And I'd rather have you here. Our place is too quiet.”

“She's just tryin' not to hurt our feelings,” Sabine said.

“You think too much. I'm tellin' you to stay in this house no matter what happens.”

“And you keep tellin' me not to worry? Make up your mind.” She made up her mind. “I'm callin' Matt. I don't care if I get him up, we need him.”

“Sit down, Sabine. The police can't help. They haven't helped with anything so far. Now listen to me. I've got to go out.”

“No!”

“Calm down,” Ed said, but his voice grated past his throat. “You've got to do what I tell you. For both of us, go along with me and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“What will I say if someone asks where you are before you get back?” Sabine asked.

“You don't tell 'em anything. Keep your mind and your attention on your business.”

“Ed,” she said, finding his hand and gripping it tight. “You don't sound like yourself.”

“I will. Sometimes you've got to follow your instincts. That's what I'm doing.” He got up and gave her a quick hug. “I'll take the truck. You drive it sometimes. If anyone sees me leave the estate, they could think it's you.”

“Ed! You think someone's after you.”

“I'm just bein' careful. Damn the rain. Listen to it.”

The sky was still open and a constant battering at the windows sounded like buckets of water thrown at the panes.

“Don't go,” she begged.

“I've got to. Hang in here, Sabine.”

“Where are you going?”

He found her purse and handed it to her. “I'd like to take whatever cash you've got.”

She gripped her stomach, so sick she had to sit down. “Take anything.” She gave the purse back to him. “I asked where you're going.”

He came to her and kissed her cheek. “I don't know yet.”

“But you'll let me know?”

Ed didn't answer.

She couldn't help crying. “When will you be back?”

He backed away, reached a door rarely used and turned the handle. “I don't know that, either. Be brave for me. And Sabine?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“There will be questions and it'll get worse. They won't believe you don't know where I've gone. But you'll manage because you won't know. You're going to thank me for that.”