Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

The boy simply sat there, giving his monosyllabic nonanswers. His father hadn’t called. Tess had seen the fury in the mother’s eyes, but only blank acceptance in the son’s. Joey continued to insist, in his low-key, unshakable way, that he was spending a weekend- Thanksgiving weekend-with his father.

He was going to be let down. Tess pressed her fingers against her eyes until the burning subsided to a dull ache. And when he was let down this time, it could be one time too many.

Joey Higgins was a prime candidate for drink, drugs, or destruction. The Monroes would only see so much, only allow her to go so far. At the mention of hospital care, Tess had been cut off. Joey just needed time, he just needed family structure, he just needed… Help, Tess thought. Desperately. She was no longer convinced that a weekly session with her was going to lead to any kind of a breakthrough.

The stepfather, she thought-she might make him see. She might be able to make him understand the necessity of protecting Joey against himself. The next step, she decided, was to get Monroe into her office privately.

Nothing more could be done tonight. She leaned forward to close the file, glancing out the window as she did. On the empty streets a single figure caught her eye. This part of Georgetown, with its tidy edgings of flowers along the sidewalks in front of aging brownstones, didn’t lend itself to street people or vagrants. But the man looked as though he had stood there a long time. In the cold, alone. Looking up… Looking up at her window, Tess realized, and drew back automatically.

Silly, she told herself, but reached over to switch off her desk lamp. No one would have a reason to stand on a street corner and stare at her window. Still, with the lights off she got up and went to the edge of the window, drawing the curtain slightly.

He was there, just there. Not moving, but looking. She shuddered with the foolish idea that he was looking right at her, though she was three stories up in a dark room.

One of her patients? she wondered. But she was always so careful to keep her home address private. A reporter. Some of the fear eased with the thought. It was probably a reporter hoping for a new angle on the story. At two A.M.? she asked herself, and let the curtain drop.

It was nothing, she assured herself. She’d imagined he was looking at her window. It was dark, and she was tired. It was just someone waiting for a ride or-

Not in this neighborhood. She started to reach for the curtain again, but couldn’t quite bring herself to draw it aside.

He was going to strike again soon. Hadn’t that been the thought haunting her? Frightening her? He had pain, pressure, and a mission. Blondes, in their late twenties, small to medium build.

She put a hand to her own throat.

Stop it . Dropping it again, she touched the hem of the curtain. A bit of paranoia was easy to deal with. No one was after her except a sex-crazed psychoanalyst and a few hungry reporters. She wasn’t out on the street, but locked in her own home. She was tired, overworked, and imagining things. It was time to call it a night, time to pour a glass of cool white wine, turn on the stereo, and sink into a hot tub filled with bubbles.

But her hand shook a little as she drew the curtain aside.

The street was empty.

As Tess let the curtain fall, she wondered why that didn’t ease her mind.

She’d looked out at him. He’d known, somehow; he’d known the moment her eyes had focused on him as he stood on the street below. What had she seen? Her salvation?

Almost sobbing against the headache, he let himself into his apartment. The corridor was dark. No one ever watched him come or go. Neither was he worried that she’d seen his face. It had been too dark and too distant for that. But had she seen the pain?

Why had he gone there? He stripped off his coat and let it lie in a heap. The next day he would hang it neatly and tidy the rest of the apartment, as was his habit, but tonight he could hardly think over the pain.

God always tested the righteous.

He found a bottle of Excedrin and chewed two pills, welcoming the dry, bitter taste. His stomach was rolling with a nausea that came every night now and lingered through the mornings. He was dousing himself with over-the-counter drugs just to keep functioning.

Why had he gone there?

Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps it was all madness. He held out his hand and watched the tremor. If he didn’t control himself, they would all know. In the aluminum range hood that he kept clean of grease and grime, as he’d been taught, he saw his distorted reflection. The priest’s collar was white beneath his haggard face. If they saw him now, they would all know. Perhaps that would be best. Then he could rest, rest and forget.

Pain sliced through the base of his skull.

No, he couldn’t rest, he couldn’t forget. Laura needed him to complete his mission so that she could finally find the light. Hadn’t she asked, begged for him to ask God for forgiveness?

Judgment had been quick and harsh for Laura. He’d cursed God, lost his faith, but he’d never forgotten. Now, all these years later, the Voice had come, showing him the way to her salvation. Perhaps she had to die again and again through another lost one, but it was quick, and each time there was absolution. Soon it would be over, for all of them.

Going into the bedroom, he lit the candles. The light flickered on the framed picture of the woman he’d lost, and the women he’d killed. Clipped neatly and lying beneath a black rosary was the newspaper picture of Dr. Teresa Court.

He prayed in Latin, as he’d been taught.

Ben bought her an all-day sucker, swirled with red and yellow. Tess accepted it at the door, gave it a thorough study, then shook her head.

“You know how to keep a woman off balance, Detective. Most men go for chocolate.”

“Too ordinary. Besides, I figured you’d probably be used to the

Swiss kind, and I-“ He broke off, aware that he was going to start rambling if she kept smiling at him over the round hunk of candy. ”You look different.“

“I do? How?”

“Your hairs down.” He wanted to touch it but knew he wasn’t ready. “And you’re not wearing a suit.”

Tess looked down at her wool slacks and oversized sweater. “I don’t usually wear suits to a horror-movie double feature.”

“You don’t look like a psychiatrist anymore.”

“Yes, I do. I just don’t look like your conception of one.” Now he did touch her hair, just a little. She liked the way he did it, in a gesture that was both friendly and cautious.

“You’ve never looked like my conception of one.”

Wanting a moment to align her own thoughts, she set the sucker down on the table beside a Dresden platter, then went to the closet for a jacket. “And what is your conception?”

“Someone pale, thin, and bald.” Hmmm.

The jacket was suede, and soft as butter. He held it for her as she slipped her arms in. “You don’t smell like a psychiatrist either.”

She smiled over her shoulder. “What does a psychiatrist smell like? Or do I want to know?”

“Like peppermint, and English Leather aftershave.”

She turned to face him. “That’s very specific.”

“Yeah. Your hair’s caught.”

He dipped his hand under the collar of her jacket and freed it. He took a step forward, almost without thinking, and had her against the closet door. Her face tilted up, and there was a wariness in her eyes he’d noticed before. She wore little makeup, the sleek, polished look that was so much a part of her image replaced by a warm accessibility a smart man would recognize as dangerous. He knew what he wanted, and was comfortable with the swift rush of desire. The degree of it was another matter. When you wanted too much, too quickly, he thought, it was best to take things slow.