her dead friend.
But she didn’t have to go out of her way to be so nasty. At
the club auction, Tracey had made a big deal out of the
fact that her important husband, Dr. Frederick Lowenstein,
had to leave the event to deliver a baby. The woman used
her husband’s position as a social lever, and she wielded
her power maliciously. Carlotta wondered if Tracey
overcompensated because deep down, she knew her
husband was a lecherous cad. Or maybe she was just in
complete denial.
Carlotta pursed her mouth. Not that she herself was such a
great judge of character—hadn’t Michael’s gruesome
betrayal taught her that? Jack had once told her that
everyone was capable of murder, given the right
circumstances. Which meant that anyone walking around
this mall, the people she came into casual contact with
every day, could be harboring horrible, secret
compulsions.
She slowed and hugged herself as people passed by her on
all sides. Irrational fear seized her. She glanced at their
faces, wondering which ones contemplated horrible acts
at this very moment, and which ones harbored dark
fantasies that might erupt as a result of some random
emotional trigger.
And conceding that, according to Jack, there was the
tiniest possibility that after years of working with the dead
and avoiding the living, Coop’s random emotional trigger
had somehow been tripped.
11
Wesley parked his bike next to Liz Fischer’s garage and
slowly walked toward her guest house, where they always
met to screw. His balls had their own memory because
they tingled with anticipation, but his stomach was tied in
knots.
Sure, having sex with Liz guaranteed fifteen minutes of
pure physical pleasure. But he kept thinking about Meg
and the way she’d fussed over the raggedy flowers he’d
bought her and the daisy she’d put in her hair, and it left
him feeling…torn. Like he shouldn’t sleep with Liz, that he
should—he grimaced—save himself or something.
Christ, he was turning into a wuss over a girl who probably
just felt sorry for him after he’d unloaded his whole sad
family saga on her.
It was stil early, around seven, but the low-hanging clouds
made it seem later. Shadows encroached as he walked up
to the French doors of the guest house and knocked.
When Liz didn’t answer, he peered through the door, but it
was dark inside. Then he noticed a note taped to the glass.
Come to the back door of the house.
He frowned, then peeled off the note and headed across
the manicured grass in the direction of the main house.
He’d never been inside Liz’s home, and he wondered why
tonight was any different.
Liz’s brown brick house was tucked into an older,
expensive community. The dwel ings weren’t huge, but
they were al well-appointed with guest houses and pools,
and situated for maximum privacy. Thick trees shielded
him—and Liz’s other lovers, he presumed—from prying
eyes. A curving concrete walk led up to the back door,
flanked by tiered planting beds and pots of geraniums. He
had trouble picturing Liz getting her hands dirty, but he
supposed the woman had a life outside of her job, and
gardening was tres chic these days.
He stopped at the back door and pressed a button that
sent a little buzzing sensation through his finger. The half
caplet of Oxy he’d just chewed made everything vivid and
experiential—the weight of humid night air on his neck,
the shriek of horny crickets in his ears, the sharp scent of
evergreen bushes in his nostrils.
The door swung open and Liz stood in the threshold
wearing chinos and an untucked button-up white blouse,
holding a drink. A pang of disappointment stabbed him
that she was dressed at all, but compared to what she
typically wore, her outfit was a little dowdy. Her blond
hair, commonly coiffed into a French twist, was loose
around her shoulders. Her face was free of makeup,
making her look softer…and a little old.
Suddenly he relaxed—it was a
Jayne Ann Krentz
Douglas Howell
Grace Callaway
James Rollins
J.L. Weil
Simon Kernick
Jo Beverley
Debra Clopton
Victoria Knight
A.M. Griffin