Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

“Lovely. I’m assured you didn’t have a before-dinner cock -tail.”

Her mouth gaped open. “That is just plain nasty!” Her voice, no longer even, sounded distinctly screechy, even to her. “Maybe you ought to hightail it over to the hotel. I’ll meet you there later when you’ve had a chance to rinse your mouth out.”

“There’s another thing. We’ve been dating for over a year now, and every time I visit you I have to make shift in a damn bed-and-breakfast.”

“I’ve told you I can’t have a man staying in the rectory with me. For God’s sake, Hugh, my church is right next door.”

“That doesn’t explain why you won’t stay with me in my apartment when you come to the city.”

She looked down. “Is your friend Jackie complaining?” Clare had been the guest of a divorced coworker of Hugh’s during the three times she had visited New York.

“Of course she’s not. But even if you’re paranoid enough to think it might get back to your congregation if you shack up in my apartment, there’s no way you can tell me anyone would know if we spent a discreet afternoon or evening together.”

“I’d know.” She pushed the sleeves of her robe up. “I’m not just playing goody-goody because I’m afraid I’ll get caught. I believe that sex should be reserved for a committed, monogamous relationship.”

“Then how do you explain Chief Vincent Van Gogh in your living room?”

She stepped toward him. “I swear, in Jesus’ holy name, that I have never, ever had sex with Russ Van Alstyne.”

“Ah, but Vicar.” Hugh looked at her ruefully. “Can you swear you don’t want to?”

Her silence condemned her. She knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to play Peter and deny her feelings three times. Finally she managed, “What I want or don’t want isn’t important. It’s what I do.”

“He’s married, isn’t he?” Hugh’s voice was gentle.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose his wife is a real piece of work.”

Clare looked at the kitchen wall. “His wife is a beautiful, dynamic woman who loves him very much. A sentiment that he returns.”

“Ah.” He stared at the bottle of wine he’d been holding since he walked in. “What say we crack this open and have a couple of glasses while we talk?”

Randy Schoof was being very cautious. Thinking before acting. Lisa would be pleased. He had debated hiding his truck as best he could by the old mill but had decided parking it in plain sight in the employee lot was better. There was always a collection of vehicles there, and no one in a hurry to clock in or rushing to get home would be curious about one more. He had carried everything-his backpack, his sleeping bag, the groceries-in one big load rather than hiking back and forth from the mill to the parking lot. He stuck to the shadows next to the rotting clapboard as he worked his way through the skeletons of waist-high weeds. And he was quiet, as quiet as could be, despite the roar of water over the dam washing out the sound of his footsteps. At the small side door, sheltered by an enclosed overhang, he fished out his ATM card. The door was locked, but Mike, who had snuck into the building every once in a while for a joint before he was laid off, had told him the secret: The lock was crap. You could pop it with a card and reset it from inside.

A jiggle, a lift, and Mike was proved right. He pocketed the card, slipped inside, and shut the door behind him. He took a few steps and was reaching into his backpack for his small emergency-use flashlight when he tripped over something square and painfully solid.

“Shit!” he cried, smashing into the floor, the flashlight and the bags flying, jars and boxes thudding and clunking, his sleeping bag bouncing off into the darkness. “Shit! Shit!”

“Who’s there?”

He froze.

“Who’s there?”

It was a woman. Faint and seemingly far away, but a woman. How in the hell had a woman gotten in here?

“Look, whoever you are!”

Christ, they didn’t have some sort of security guard now, did they?

“I don’t care what you’re doing here! I’m trapped, and I need help!”

He climbed to his feet. Now what was he supposed to do? Silently he bent over, feeling for his backpack. He brushed it with the back of his hand and grabbed it. The zippers jingled, a faint noise he heard as a clash of cymbals.

“I know you’re here. I heard you fall over something.”

Maybe he could just stand still. Stay quiet over here by the door. Maybe he could open and close the door, pretending to leave.

“Help me! Please, please, help me! Please!”

Oh, God. He was never going to be able to ignore that. “Hang on,” he yelled. “I’m looking for my flashlight.” He knelt carefully and began patting down the floor, feeling for the narrow cylinder.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

He got a fat bottle and a loaf of bread and something smooth and cool that he managed to identify as a knife before he sliced his palm open. He jammed everything into his backpack. Everything except his flashlight, which was nowhere within reach. “Crap,” he said.

“What is it?” the woman called.

“I can’t find my flashlight.” He had one in the glove compartment of his truck, but he didn’t want to appear out in the open again so soon. Maybe later.

“Talk to me,” he said loudly. “I’ll find you by sound.”

“I’m over here,” she said. “Near the far wall, the one closest to the river. Over here. Watch out for the stacks of pallets and the-”

“Oof!” There was a clang as he ran straight into something large and immovable.

“-the big machinery parts.”

He groaned. “What are you doing here? What do you mean, you’re trapped?” He could imagine maybe one of these machines dislodging and pinning someone. But in that case, he’d expect her to sound like she was in pain.

There was a pause. A long pause. Finally she said, “It’s embarrassing.”

Embarrassing? Like what? The only thing that embarrassed Lisa was stuff like other people knowing she had her period, or that time he told a couple friends about her getting the hair on her upper lip zapped. “Keep talking,” he said. He meant so he could find her, but she took it as an order.

“I met up with someone here. We were going to… do a bondage thing. But instead, he tied me up and left me here.”

Randy felt a flash of heat in his belly. Christ almighty. Maybe she was wearing some weird leather getup. Or nothing at all. Not that he’d do anything. He loved his wife. But Christ, what a story to tell the guys. Then he remembered that he wasn’t going to be telling this story to anyone. Because he wasn’t here.

His eyes had adjusted, and he could make out shapes in the darkness. Still, he almost stumbled across her. She was on the floor, leaning against another stack of pallets. The rectangular windows a story above them shed enough moonlight across the blackness that he could make out her legs, stretched out and covered in something pale. He dropped to his knees.

She was rolled loosely into a blanket, so he couldn’t see what she had on. He couldn’t make out the details of her face, but he figured that was just as well, since that meant she couldn’t see him too well, either.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” She sounded like a runner after a race, breathing hard but trying to bring herself under control. “I’m… my hands and ankles are bound.”

He reached for the blanket covering her, not touching it. “You mind if I…?”

“Please.”

He could tell by the way she talked that she wasn’t from here. “What’s your name?” he said, still not touching the blanket.

“M-Mel. Melanie.” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure.