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  He’d considered stopping at those three, but then by sheer luck he’d crossed paths with yet another of his marked women, at that diner where the two men almost came to blows over a cigarette. He took that as a sign, as if God Himself was encouraging him to keep going. With a growing euphoria, he realized that he might very well be able to acquire all five of those still in the city. And when they were all neatly arranged in the basement, all looking up with tied hands, bare bodies, and terrified eyes, then the work they’d interrupted could finally be finished.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AT THREE-THIRTY that afternoon, Rachel sagged against the inside of her apartment door. Another day down. Open at seven, close at three. Pray that Denny’s wasn’t running a special. The life of an independent businesswoman was never dull.

  On the couch, her cat, Tainter, yawned and stretched until his claws skitched on the fabric. Then he trotted over and twined around her ankles. “Hey, you,” she murmured as she bent to pet him.

  She had four rooms above her diner, with hardwood floors, big windows, and a twelve-foot ceiling. Her furniture was thrift-shop eclectic, each piece having some innate quality that intrigued or amused her. Helena claimed her decor looked like somebody’s dorm room, but Rachel didn’t care. She had no one to impress but herself, and, from the look of her nonexistent social calendar, that wasn’t likely to change. Besides, why would she date? The lakes gave her everything she needed from a man, and no man could give her what the lakes did.

  Tainter returned to his spot on the couch. She kicked off her tennis shoes without untying them and pulled off her socks with her toes. She was greasy from work, and her lower back ached. She stripped off her tank top and bra and stepped out of her shorts. She started the water in the tub and, while it warmed up, went into the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. As she sipped her wine, she held the cold bottle first against her forehead, then her bare belly. It made goose bumps around the tattoo beneath her navel.

  She returned to the bathroom, lit three big aromatherapy candles, and sank into the bath. She worked her neck until it cracked softly. Then she put the wineglass on the floor and washed off the residue of sweat and cooking oil she always seemed to accumulate.

  When she was done, she stepped onto the battered rug and toweled off. Her reflection in the mirror was hazy from the steam, and she smiled wryly, recalling the way middle-aged movie stars used soft-focus filters to hide their wrinkles.

  Then she wiped the glass and saw herself clearly. Maybe too clearly. She had the sharp features of her father, with her mother’s soulful eyes and ridiculously full lips. Her neck was still smooth and unlined, and her breasts remained firm enough to pass the old high school “pencil test.” But there were crinkles, faint but discernible, at the corners of her eyes, and more and more her joints reminded her that she was no longer a lithe young girl.

  But she could still run six miles without feeling winded, and she recalled every song, in order, from the first seven Heart albums. And she could still draw the eye of handsome young men when she passed them on the street… .

  A rush of physical desire hit her, and her knees wobbled. The image of Marty Walker’s brother—his dark hair falling boyishly on his forehead, his muscular arms straining the material of his blue shirt, his apparently effortless moral strength when faced with Caleb’s assholeness, and, yes, dammit, the way his butt looked in his khakis—once again filled her senses and ignited her lust in a way she’d never experienced. She knew he was probably an overly macho bully, potentially as big an asshole as Caleb, but she also vividly imagined his weight atop her, her legs around his narrow waist, her hands clutching at his broad shoulders. She could almost hear herself moaning, Ethan… oh, Ethan… She grew wet and tingly at the thought.

  She leaned on the sink and splashed cold water on her face. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she told her reflection. “Get a goddamn grip.” Her neck and shoulders had flushed red, and her nipples stood out tight and hard. She took several deep breaths, then went to refill her wineglass. Before she opened the refrigerator, she scrawled words on a Post-it note and slapped it on the front of her cell phone. The warning to herself said, Don’t call anyone just because you’re horny.

  THE NUMBERS ON the laptop computer screen told Ethan what he wanted to know. Now he really was depressed, and not even The Lady of the Lakes could cheer him up; the blog hadn’t been updated since that morning. No juicy town gossip, no reports on local crime or university debauchery. No rants against the religious right or Republicans.

  He sat back in his chair and kicked off his shoes. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the blinds, casting bright auburn bars across his living-room walls. He opened a new browser window and checked his investments but found no joy there either; nothing in his portfolio had miraculously doubled or tripled in value. He was in a bind, all right, and would be until this condominium project was finished. And with Marty’s police pals swarming all over it, that might not happen this year at all.

  And then there was that damn woman at the diner. Rachel of Rachel’s.

  He shook his head and made a frustrated sound in his throat. If the events of any day could keep his mind off some girl, it should be this one. But no matter what, he kept flashing back to that moment where she stood in the window, hands on her hips, her face hazy and inscrutable. It was way too easy to imagine that same expression on her face in his bedroom, with her clothes crumpled at her feet.

  He paced to the patio doors and looked out at his backyard. A half acre of smooth lawn, with a dozen trees for shade, stretched to the privacy fence. The grass was slowly consuming the bare spot of earth beneath the basketball goal, as he’d been far too busy in the eight months he’d been back to shoot hoops with Marty and Chuck. If these delays kept up, though, he might actually have time to reclaim his high school jump shot.

  He dropped onto the couch, turned on the TV, and surfed the channels without really seeing them. Instead, he was still thinking about the way Rachel looked in her tight shorts, her eyes crinkled with annoyance and those delectable lips twisted in a scowl. And once again he adjusted an unwanted, and uncomfortably intense, erection.

  HER PHONE RANG just as Rachel attached the self-warning note to it, and she was so startled she dropped it. It hit the hardwood floor and skittered under the microwave stand. Annoyed, she dropped to her knees, retrieved it, snapped it open, and snarled, “Hello?”

  There was a long pause, and Rachel was afraid she’d missed the call, but finally a familiar voice said accusingly, “Do I need to block caller ID now so you won’t know it’s me?”

  “What? Oh. Hi, Becky. What’s up?”

  “Just calling to talk to my big sister, not get my head snapped off.”

  “Christ, Becky, I just dropped the phone, that’s all.” Rachel poured another glass of wine, then took an extra swig from the bottle.

  “Yeah. Well, okay, let’s get this over with. How are you?”

  “I’m tired, and my back hurts, and I’m not sure I can pay the electric bill for the diner this month. How are you?”

  “Don’t pretend you care.”

  “I do care, Rebecca. What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. Your life is so much more important than mine, after all. I’m only trying to stop animal cruelty at the university labs; your omelets and hamburgers are much more—”

  “Rebecca!” Rachel snapped, then took a deep breath. More calmly, she continued, “Becky, I’ll be glad to talk to you about anything you want, but we’ve been having this discussion for ten years. I just got out of the bath and I’m dripping all over the floor, so if you’re just calling to debate lifestyles—”

  “Terrell and I broke up,” her sister blurted.

  “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Rachel said sympathetically. She was used to sudden gear shifts when talking to her sister.

  “Yeah, well, I just wanted you to know.” Becky’s phone snapped off.

  Rachel looked down at her own phone, then across the ro
om at the picture of the two Matre girls on her coffee table. They were twelve and fourteen then, both with frizzy hair and enormous smiles. It was taken about a month before Rachel first drowned and was the last time they’d both been completely happy at the same time.

  She recalled Terrell, the latest boyfriend, no doubt chased away by Becky’s mercurial temperament. He was a teaching assistant at the college, neat and well behaved, and had no doubt fallen under the spell of Becky’s passionate beliefs. She certainly talked a good game, as her string of sensible, levelheaded boyfriends illustrated. But once they saw past the words to the chaos, they always ran. If they were smart. Terrell, evidently, was smart.

  Rachel went to the small window over the kitchen sink and looked out at Williams Street. The sun flickered through the trees shading the parking lot. Becky was on her way to a life of total bitterness as she moved from one lost cause to another, both political and romantic, and no one, especially Rachel, could steer her away. That certainty always made Rachel sad.

  Something drew her eye to a truck parked at the curb across the street. She could see only the bed and tailgate through the branches, but it sent a shiver up her spine nonetheless, and she reflexively covered herself and shrank from the window.

  When she looked again it was still there, exhaust coming from the tailpipe. It was a burgundy Ford, rusted around the wheel wells, but she could not see if anyone sat inside. Yet she felt that someone was there and that this person was somehow dangerous to her. Her first thought was Caleb, but he drove an ancient Toyota hatchback; at least, he used to. She was about to call the police (And report what? her common sense demanded. A mad parker on the loose?), but the truck abruptly drove away. She felt a rush of relief far out of proportion to what she’d seen.

  She scurried back to the bathroom, took her red terry-cloth robe from its hook, and cinched it around herself. There was only one thing to do now, one way to overcome this sudden panic and feel like she had some control of the world. She locked and bolted her front door, made sure all the blinds were drawn, then went to her bedroom closet for her laptop.

  THE PHONE RANG. Ethan snatched it from the coffee table and snapped it open. “Hello?”

  “So how much did Dad hit you up for this time?” Marty asked with no preliminaries.

  Ethan, in a T-shirt and boxers, shook his head to clear it before answering. His normal after-dinner beer had become an uncharacteristic five, and he always slurred his words when he drank. “Five thousand,” he said with perfect enunciation. “Same as last month.”

  “Damn, do you really have that kind of money to just give away?”

  “Hell, no. And I sure won’t if you guys don’t stop tying up my work site.”

  “It’s a crime scene, Ethan.”

  “Yeah. Maybe someday I’ll come tear down the police station so I can interfere with your job.”

  “Oh, that’s mature.”

  “I know you are, but what am I?”

  “I’m rubber, you’re glue.”

  Both men burst out laughing. When the moment passed, Marty said, “I also hear you were quite the manly-man this morning.”

  “Huh?”

  “At Rachel’s diner on Williams Street? You bravely stood up to some old guy with a cigarette.”

  “How the hell do you know about that?”

  “It’s all over Lady of the Lakes: Local builder shows ass.”

  He looked at his closed laptop and suddenly felt very sober. “Bullshit.”

  Marty laughed. “No, seriously, I talked to Rachel this afternoon.”

  Ethan felt the kind of relief that comes only when you’ve had more drinks than you’re used to. “Oh. Well, she’s not very grateful.”

  “No, she’s not very easily impressed. There’s a difference.”

  “I wasn’t trying to impress her, Marty. The guy was a jackass, and until somebody stood up to him, he was going to keep on being one.”

  “And that had to be you.”

  The amusement in Marty’s voice made Ethan genuinely angry. “Yes, it had to be me. If I have to hear one more self-pitying soldier whine about how the world should kiss his ass because he did a job he volunteered for and was fucking trained to do, I’ll—”

  “Whoa, calm down. I wasn’t questioning your patriotism, Mr. America. I just thought you’d use more charm on a girl as pretty as Rachel.”

  “She’s not a ‘girl,’” Ethan snapped, surprised at how defensive he sounded. “And what would you know about pretty girls, anyway?”

  “A man who drives a truck can still admire a beautiful car, can’t he?”

  Ethan barked out a laugh. “My God, that’s the best analogy you’ve got?”

  “I’m winging it. But she is a beautiful woman, Ethan. And she runs her own business, and she’s smart, and—”

  “Wait a minute. You were trying to fix me up with her, weren’t you?”

  “Me? Hell, no.”

  “Yes, you were. ‘Oh, you have to try the food, it’s not like it was when Trudy ran the place.’ I warned you about that after you set me up with that accountant. She had five ferrets, Marty. Five.”

  “I’m just leading you to the water, Ethan. You’ll have to decide if you want to drink.”

  “I’m not very thirsty these days. Julie did a good job of almost drowning me. I think it’ll hold me for a while.”

  “Uh-huh. What happened with Julie was as much your fault as hers, you know.”

  Ethan closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The air suddenly rang with the echoes of Julie’s final tirade. You can’t just keep everything inside, Ethan. It’s eating you alive! I don’t know what happened to you in Iraq, but you’re home now and you’ve got to deal with this. You won’t be yourself until you do, and you won’t be worth spit to the next woman idiotic enough to date you! “Okay, Marty, I’ve had enough to drink that I can tell you to fuck off with a clear conscience. So screw you.”

  “You wouldn’t like it, I’d just lie there.”

  Ethan laughed as he snapped his phone shut. Marty never cut him any slack or let him hide behind excuses. It was why they were true brothers, whatever their genetic differences.

  And now, thanks to his brother, Ethan’s slightly tipsy brain once again filled with images of Rachel Matre.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  POSTED BY The Lady to The Lady of the Lakes blog:

  Females of the isthmus, the cops won’t tell you this, because they probably haven’t noticed, but watch out for a dark-red Ford pickup that might be lingering just a little too long in your area. I’m not saying there’s any connection to the girls who have disappeared, but it’s the same part of town, and it’s creepy. So watch your asses, because I’m pretty sure he is.

  Until next time…

  In the work shed behind his house, the man thumb-tacked the image of a naked woman to the plywood wall. It was a large photo, in color, and the woman was arched and positioned to display herself to the most carnal advantage. Every potential flaw had been airbrushed away, except for the page folds creased across her breasts and thighs.

  The man stepped back to the opposite wall and picked up one of the short, heavy throwing knives he’d lined up on the worktable. He held it by the tip of the blade and flipped it so that the handle smacked his palm. Then he again grasped the tip and drew back his arm.

  The first knife struck the unnaturally clean-shaven spot between her legs. The next two impaled her breasts, and the fourth stuck into the carefully airbrushed bridge of her nose. “Take that, you bitch,” the angry man muttered as the fleeting satisfaction faded almost at once. “That’s what you all deserve.”

  He wrenched the knives free, tore down the centerfold, and replaced it with another one.

  RACHEL KICKED OFF the covers and sighed loudly. Tainter trilled in response and raised his head but did not move from his spot beside the bed. Shadows from the miniblinds drifted across the ceiling as a car passed on the street, trailing the bass thump that so many young men use
d to compensate for other inadequacies. She pressed her hands and heels into the mattress, stretching the muscles and tendons to dissipate some of the twitchy, persistent energy. She took several deep breaths and licked her lips, tasting salt from sweat that had nothing to do with the summer night. The clock beside her bed informed her, in huge red numbers, that it was 2:30 A.M.

  Not even her usual routine had diminished the effects of her overripe imagination. Hours later, she still suffocated in a swelter of physical desire. Her nipples were tight beneath her sleep shirt, and her panties damp. She sprawled with her legs thrown apart, her toes flexing in the dark. The ceiling fan hummed above her, stirring the air but doing nothing to cool her down. She could not remember a time when she’d been so infuriatingly, inexplicably horny.

  She stared at the turning blades and slid one hand inside her panties. Both fabric and flesh were moist. She could not get the image of Ethan Walker out of her mind, only now it wasn’t the way he’d looked back at the diner. In her imagination he lay atop her, his muscular body as naked and sweaty as her own. His weight pressed on her, and his erection filled her. She could feel him swell with nearness, hear the ragged catch in his quickening breath. She spread herself wide for him, ankles crossing at the small of his back, as his lips closed over hers and his tongue claimed her mouth. Yes… let it go, give it to me, yes…

  No! She sat up, wiped her hand on the sheet, and rolled onto her side, clutching her pillow. She thought of menus, limericks, grease traps, and cat food. Anything but Ethan Walker.