Kay David: Obsession

He waited a minute for her reaction, then continued, almost carelessly, “If you don’t believe me, I can give you another demonstration. We’ll use Mr. Santos and see what happens.”

“Leave him out of this,” she said quickly. “He doesn’t have anything to do with-”

“He doesn’t?” Nodding thoughtfully, Kelman paused for a second. “Oh, right. Well, how about this, instead?”

He straightened one leg and reached into his back pocket. Emma wasn’t sure what he was reaching for; she waited, her lungs still, her pulse roaring. When he brought his hand around, he held a square of paper.

“How about this?” he said, holding it out to her.

“Will this change your mind?”

She didn’t want to get any closer to him, yet her feet moved forward, bringing her toward the couch where he sat. With trembling fingers, she reached out and took the paper from his hand. It was a photograph.

Of Sarah and Jake.

The buzz in her ears stopped instantly; it had to, because her heart quit beating, the blood in her veins freezing into lines of solid horror. She stared at their innocent faces, then glanced at the date in the corner. It’d been taken two days before.

She raised her terrified eyes. “Where did you get this?” she asked hoarsely.

“It’s a good picture, isn’t it?” He nodded.

“He’s clever with a camera, but he’s a very talented fellow. He can shoot with a lot of different things.”

Emma sat down, her legs giving out entirely. It was only luck that there was a chair behind her. It rocked slightly as it took her weight, then settled back into the carpet. But her world continued to move. An emotional earthquake, she thought stupidly. Half the landscape was gone, and the rest would fall in the aftershocks to come.

“I can call my man and tell him to shoot some more if you need the time.”

His choice of words was no mistake. All the panic, all the fear, all the disbelief she’d experienced in the past few hours crystallized instantly. Into something much different. She waited a beat, then raised her eyes to his. “You go near these kids and I’ll kill you. That’s a promise.”

He smiled. “Does this mean we have a deal?”

WHEN THE DOOR closed behind Kelman, Emma went woodenly into the living room. She straightened the cushions on the couch and picked up the crystal shards, restoring some kind of order to the room but not to her brain. Then she went upstairs. Scrubbing her skin until it burned, she showered and shampooed her hair, dressing, when she was finished, in a terry-cloth warm-up. It was well over ninety degrees outside, but she couldn’t stop shivering. With her hair wet and hanging down her back, she went downstairs.

Once in the kitchen, though, she stared blankly at the mess the men had left, her mind as void of thought as it’d ever been. She had no idea what to do next, where to even begin, but the first thing that came into her mind was Raul.

Then she remembered Kelman’s threat. If she turned to Raul, Kelman would kill him. Recalling Raul’s warning about the kind of man Kelman was, something told her Kelman didn’t need the excuse her betrayal would give him.

He wanted Raul dead.

Raul had told her as much in Samaipata. She’d been too wrapped up in what had happened between them to think clearly, though. She’d been a fool not to see it before. Now she understood. She could never go to Raul.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, he’d begun to mean more to her than he should. She couldn’t say she loved him; she wouldn’t allow herself that luxury, but he’d slipped into her life and turned it upside down. The dark eyes, the slow hands, the mouth that fit her own so well…She’d recognized a kindred spirit in him the minute their eyes had met. He’d suffered, just as she had, and she couldn’t be the one to bring him even more pain. Not when he’d given her such pleasure. And if he did find out, something told her he’d go about righting the wrong, and Kelman would win. He would kill Raul for sure, and she’d have his death on her hands-and in her heart-forever.

She shuffled to the breakfast table and sat down heavily, a stream of other possibilities fighting their way into her consciousness.

She could go to the police. But that would be a mistake. As she’d told Raul only a few days before, there was so much corruption in Bolivia that most foreign companies couldn’t even operate in the country. Executives were routinely warned by their companies about the problem. She’d get no help from the Bolivian police. Kelman was no fool, and she was sure he’d already paid them to ignore her if she called.

Chris? She immediately shook her head. No. Her boss would take one look at the briefcases in that vault, then start to scream. And he’d have every right. She should have told him the minute Kelman had approached her, but she’d been too concerned that he would believe she couldn’t do her job.

Reina’s face shot into Emma’s brain. Was there anything she could do? Emma turned the idea over, helplessly realizing her friend had no idea of the extent of Kelman’s manipulations. She’d be devastated with guilt, for she was the one who’d brought him to Emma. If Reina knew the kind of hell he’d visited on her, she was so impulsive she was just as likely to do something dangerous as she was to help.

So who was left?

After a moment, Emma answered herself, her words ringing emptily in the silence. “No one,” she said. “No one can help me.”

The monkey next door called out, and Emma raised her gaze, blurry and unfocused, to the mess in front of her. Details finally began to register. Her Earl Grey tea bags, emptied from their box. The silverware she’d bought at the local department store scattered across the floor. The cabinet doors of the pantry, gaping open.

Her attention was caught by something inside the small cabinet. She found herself staring at it, then, rising slowly, she made her way closer.

It was a bottle of vodka.

Reaching out, she closed her fingers around the bottle’s neck, bringing it out into the light. She had no idea how the liquor had gotten into her pantry, but as she studied its clarity in the sunshine, she ventured a guess. Kelman. He’d probably brought it in, along with the drugs.

Go ahead, a small voice inside her said. You deserve it. It’ll help.

She slowly twisted off the top and brought the bottle to her nose. There was no odor, but closing her eyes, she took a deep whiff, anyway, and something did reach her nose.

It was the smell of temptation.

A montage of faces and feelings rushed over her. Raul and their lovemaking, his words tender and sweet, his eyes black and hot. Her children and their innocence. Todd. And finally…Kelman. The faces shimmered and merged together beneath her eyelids. She wanted to forget them all. It was too painful, the choices too hard. The liquor could take off the edge and blur the agony. She opened her eyes.

Emma stared at the vodka, then jerked the bottle to her mouth and let her tongue flick over the edge. The sharp, familiar bite registered with a jolt, a reaction that went way past the simple taste. She closed down her brain and tilted the bottle higher.

Then the doorbell rang.

RAUL PRESSED THE BELL again. He could hear it echoing inside the house, and he shook his head. He had no idea what he was doing there; he’d gone home, cleaned up, then gotten in the truck and driven back to Emma’s side of town. During the entire trip over, he’d told himself he was being ridiculous, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind. If he’d been someone else, he might have thought she was calling to him, using some kind of ESP. He didn’t believe in that kind of nonsense, though.

He started to ring the bell again, then stopped when he heard the sound of a door closing inside the house. She was obviously at home. Why didn’t she come to the front? He waited another few seconds, a concern he couldn’t ignore growing inside him. Something was wrong.