Jill Sorenson - Dangerous to Touch

It was kind of like shaking hands with a clown and getting zapped by one of those gag buzzers. The anticipation of the shock left her on pins and needles.

Sidney tossed the card on the coffee table, rested her cheek on a throw pillow and wondered what to do with the rest of the afternoon. She kept the kennel closed on Sunday, and although she went in twice to feed and clean, it was her lightest day. Sometimes the free hours loomed rather than beckoned.

Marley jumped on her back and began a vigorous kneading, cheering her. At the same time, she became aware of a strange sound emanating from the kitchen.

“What’s that?” she asked, lifting her head.

Marley kept digging her soft paws into her back.

Sidney clambered off the couch, sending the cat sprawling. It was the answering machine. She pushed the blinking button with relish.

“Sid? Are you there? The kids are driving me crazy about going to the beach. Call my cell when you get this. Bye.”

Her sister hardly ever brought her daughters over to visit. It was one of the great sorrows of Sidney’s life. Picking up the phone, she dialed Samantha’s number from memory.

“Hello?” her sister answered in a low-pitched voice.

“It’s me.”

“Sidney?” The sultry tone disappeared. “Are you home?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God. We’re parking right now. The girls are wild today.”

Sidney couldn’t hear any background noise to corroborate that statement. Taylor and Dakota were the most sedate children imaginable.

With no further explanation, Samantha hung up.

Sidney raced upstairs to change, giddy at the prospect of spending time with her nieces, the last of her close relatives who didn’t cringe away from her touch. On impulse, she rummaged through her bedroom closet until she found the bikini her sister had given her as a birthday gift last summer.

Tearing off the tags, she shimmied into it, checking her reflection in the mirror to make sure the fabric covered all of the required parts. The bikini showed a lot more skin than the serviceable black Speedo she usually wore, in a way that was far more flattering.

It was a perfect fit, actually. Stylish and sexy, like the clothes Samantha favored. So why had Sidney never worn it before?

When the doorbell rang, she ran downstairs to greet the girls with open arms. They hugged her dutifully, with a lack of enthusiasm that was more a product of their raising than a reflection of their true feelings for her. She hoped.

“Hey, sis,” Samantha said, gracing her with an air kiss and a wooden smile.

Sidney tried to ignore the painful twist in the middle of her chest. Her sister’s rejections weren’t personal, but they hurt all the same.

The girls fawned over Marley for a few moments before returning to their mother. “Can we go to the beach now, Mommy?” Dakota asked, tugging on the edge of Samantha’s gauzy skirt. “Please?”

“You see how they are?” Samantha said, taking off her designer sunglasses. Beneath the lenses, her vivid blue eyes were bloodshot.

“Sometimes I can hardly catch my breath.”

At seven and eight, the girls required a lot of attention, no matter how quiet and well-behaved they were. Samantha relied heavily on the help of a live-in nanny, as her husband, Greg, was almost never home.

She was still recovering from the ordeal of having two babies in rapid succession.

Sidney winked at Taylor, who giggled. “Why don’t you girls grab a drink from the fridge before we go? I have lemonade.”

Dakota blinked up at Samantha. “Can we, Mommy?”

When she waved them away, they both squealed, more excited by the prospect of refined sugar than an outing with their Aunt Sidney.

“I’m off to the loo,” Samantha said, sashaying toward the bathroom, a sleek leather clutch clasped in her expertly manicured, expensively jeweled hand. Sidney didn’t need any special abilities to predict her sister was going in there to pop another pill.

On the beach, Sidney made sandcastles and frolicked in the waves with her nieces for an hour before joining her sister to sunbathe on the sand.

“You’re good with them,” Samantha said with a drowsy smile.

Sidney warmed at the unexpected praise. “They’re angels. You’re incredibly lucky.”

“Where did you get that suit?”

She glanced down at the blue and white bikini. Under the relentless sun, her tan lines were embarrassingly apparent. “You gave it to me.”

“I have excellent taste,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Sidney agreed. Samantha looked marvelous in a tiny black two-piece, her subtle, sculpted curves displayed to perfection.

“I forget you have a great body,” she said. “You’re always covered up.”

Sidney was surprised by her sister’s faintly envious tone. She often felt like a lurching shadow next to Samantha, who was petite and feminine. Fashionably thin, achingly beautiful and gorgeously blond, men stared at her sister wherever she went. And she stared right back.

“So what have you been up to?” Samantha asked, rolling over onto her flat stomach.

She hesitated. “I met someone today.”

Samantha looked over the rims of her sunglasses. “Oh really?”

Pushing aside her misgivings, Sidney told her sister about this morning’s strange events. True to character, Samantha was more interested in the man than the fact that her little sister’s life had been turned upside down. She’d always been boy-crazy.

“A cop, huh? Is he hot?”

“Yes,” Sidney admitted.

“Mmm. What does he look like?”

“Dark. Hard. Well-built.”

“Hard? How delicious.”

“Not like that,” she said, her cheeks heating. “Tough, kind of. You know.”

Samantha smiled wickedly. “Was he in uniform?”

“A suit.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“Probably.”

“And cuffs?”

“I didn’t frisk him, Sam.”

“Oh, well. Did he frisk you?”

“No,” she said, smiling back at her.

“Ah, but you wanted him to. Right?”

When she shrugged, Samantha ran with it. “I always wanted to do a cop,” she mused. “Something about being overpowered. Or maybe it’s just the handcuff thing.”

Sidney didn’t doubt that Lieutenant Cruz would be willing to oblige her sister on that front. Samantha’s bored, sophisticate attitude and golden girl good looks were probably right up his alley. She wasn’t a bimbo, but she played the part well. And she played men, her favorite game, like a pro.

“He considers me a suspect,” she reminded her sister, and herself.

Samantha was silent for a moment. “Greg and I are getting divorced.”

Sidney laid her head back on the towel, annoyed with Samantha for changing the subject and always putting her own problems first. She and Greg had been getting divorced for years. Sidney hoped they would stop torturing the kids and get on with it.

“It’s for real this time, Sid. I think he’s cheating again.”

Sidney shifted uncomfortably, wishing she could make herself scarce.

Samantha straightened. “You already knew? How could you? I haven’t even touched you today.” She looked down the beach, where her daughters were playing in the sand. “Son of a bitch,” she said between clenched teeth, her blue eyes hard as ice. “He brings that slut around my kids? What does he do, bribe them not to tell?”

“I don’t think they understand. So he doesn’t have to.”

“Son of a bitch,” she repeated. “If I wasn’t sleeping with his business partner, I’d take his ass to the cleaners.”

The next morning, it wasn’t the sound of a dog barking that rose with Sidney from the depths of her dream to the cold surface of reality. It was a woman’s scream.