James Moore - Blood Red

He swallowed and felt his skin flush. “I said, what are you doing?” His voice was a little stronger when he spoke again, but not nearly as confident as he wanted it to be.

She moved forward, and much as he wanted to flinch away from her, Mike simply stared. His throat was dry and his pulse was thudding along merrily at his temples.

Margaret Preston leaned in closer, and he was shocked to recognize the girl he’d seen in church every Sunday for the last fifteen years.

“Maggie? What are you doing here?” His voice shook and part of the tremble was caused by fear, but there was definitely a healthy dose of lust in there as well.

Maggie lifted one delicate hand and placed a finger against her lips. “Shhhh. I think I made that obvious, Father Harris.” The voice of the young woman in front of him didn’t jibe with the voice he knew from years of Sunday School and the confessional. It wasn’t a child’s tones that she spoke with, though he had always thought of her as a child.

“Maggie, please, just get your clothes on and go home. If you’d like, we can discuss this in the morning.”

She climbed up onto the bed, her face once again lost in the shadows of the room, her body highlighted by the moonlight that painted her in shades of blue and silver.

“No, Father Harris, we won’t talk about this in the morning. We won’t talk about it ever. It’s our little secret.” Her left leg lifted and moved over his body, settling on the other side of his hips. A woman less than half his age was kneeling over him in the bed he had never shared with another soul, and he was both terrified and elated by the idea.

Her weight settled over his body, hardly a burden at all as she leaned in closer to his face, her dark eyes staring into his own.

“Maggie, please…” Was he begging? Oh, yes he was. He was definitely begging, because as much as he wanted to cast her away from the bed and scold her for her foolish notions, his body was reacting to her presence and his willpower seemed to have fled into the shadows.

Her hands lifted up to her shoulders, getting lost in her thick dark hair for a moment before they slowly ran down her torso, hiding and then revealing different parts of her perfection before she reached out and touched him. The contact was electrifying and paralyzing.

He wanted her to go away, wanted desperately for her to leave him alone again in the darkness of his one private place in the entire world.

He wanted her to stay, to fulfill the promises he saw in her smile, and the silken touch of her fingers, and the warm kiss she placed on his neck as she leaned over him.

In the end, only one of his wishes was fulfilled. But she was truthful, at least. It was their secret. No one ever had to know.

Ben didn’t go to sleep at all that night. He had other things he wanted to do. No, other things he needed to do.

He sat in front of his window and read the words on his laptop’s monitor, studying details that he shouldn’t have had access to, and making notes in a spiral-bound notebook.

From time to time he yawned, stretched, and took a break to get another cup of coffee, but after each of his short breaks he went back to his computer and searched for more information on his target.

Brian Freemont had three bank accounts, two mortgages, a car that he could barely afford, and a wife, Angela, who was pregnant. Amazing the things you could learn about someone if you knew how to crack a few security codes.

He jotted down the account numbers as he learned them, and made sure to note which bank each of them belonged to. He did the same with all of the credit card numbers, and the mortgages, and he made sure to get the Social Security number for his new obsession. There were phone numbers to consider, both the home phone and the cell. He made a point of copying down all of the numbers that had been called and that had called the Freemont residence.

Every time he started getting tired, he thought of Danni Hopkins crying into his shirt and woke right back up. It was easy to do. Danni was a good person, even if she liked to party a little, and he hated the idea that Brian Freemont might change the rules and decide that Danni needed to pay a second time for his silence. Or a third, or a fourth.

Maybe it was the coffee, but the notion of Brian Freemont walking around with anything that could be used to coerce Danni a second time made his jaws clench together.

By three in the morning, he was ready to begin. Ben took one of the seven pay-as-you-go cell phones that he had purchased earlier in the day and activated as he ate dinner, and he plugged his modem into the jack provided. He worked with the speed and precision of a surgeon and began cutting away pieces of Brian Freemont’s life.

He was done less than an hour later. He carefully wiped down the cell phone and wrapped it in a paper bag before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Then he stepped out of the apartment, looking for a random trashcan and a decent meal.

The good news for him was that there were several diners open, even in the darkest part of the night. He found one without too much difficulty and sat down in one of the booths that were supposed to be reserved for two or more people.

The waitress, Sally, didn’t seem to care that he was breaking the rules, and neither did he. She promised him that the sausage and mushroom omelet was a work of art and he trusted her.

He hadn’t even finished a third of the very early breakfast when Margaret Preston came into the place.

Sally looked at the girl and smiled. “Hey, hon, how’re you tonight?”

“Hi, Sally.” Margaret’s smile was a thing of beauty, and Ben forgot all about the food in his mouth as she walked toward the booth across from his.

“You want your usual?” The woman didn’t wait for an answer, but instead moved to grab a cup of coffee and brought it over to her. “I was just telling Ben over here that the mushroom and sausage was the best omelet in the house.”

He managed to swallow the lump in his mouth as Margaret looked in his direction. Amazing, he couldn’t breathe, but he still got the food down without dying on the spot.

“So how is it?” Margaret Preston was speaking to him. He had absolutely no idea how to respond without sounding like a complete idiot.

Words! Come on, words! You can speak, I know you can! “Umm… I think Sally’s right, actually.”

Margaret nodded and gratefully took the cup of coffee Sally offered her. “She normally is.” Margaret looked away and he felt his ability to think come back as her eyes left his. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Sally chuckled. “So, the usual then.” The waitress walked toward the counter that separated them from the kitchen and called out for an encore of the last order. Someone behind the wall made a comment that had her laughing as she moved to another table that she had claimed as her own.

Ben looked back in Margaret’s direction and saw that she was looking at him again. He wanted to crawl under the table and hide, but felt that might be socially awkward.

“You’re in my Lit class, aren’t you?”

She was talking to him again. It was really not a comfortable thing for him to deal with. Like as not, she’d expect him to answer.

“Um. Yes. Same class.” Nope, not his best witty response.

“Did you get the notes from last Friday? I can’t remember what we were supposed to read.”

Shit. Now she was asking questions that required thought processes that were functioning. “Lord Byron. There’re four examples of his work in there. We’re supposed to take notes on the symbolism.”

“I love his stuff. God, the man knew how to write.” Her voice was wistful and her eyes had a faraway look that seemed one part wishful thinking and one part exhaustion.