The images excite him, arouse him. His penis is stiff and throbbing. He needs release. He needs to hear the sounds that are as sharp and beautiful as finely honed blades. He needs to hear the screams, that raw, pure quality of sound that is terror, and to pretend the screams come from the woman in his mind. He needs to hear the building crescendo as a life reaches its limit. The fading energy absorbed greedily by death.
He digs a hand into his coat pocket for the tape and finds nothing.
A wave of panic sweeps over him. He pulls to the curb and searches all pockets, checks the seat beside him, checks the floor, checks the cassette player. The tape is gone.
Anger burns through him. Huge and violent. A wall of rage. Cursing, he slams the car into gear and pulls back onto the street. He's made a mistake. Unacceptable. He knows it won't be fatal. Even if the police find the tape, even if they are able to lift a fingerprint from it, they won't find him. His prints are in no criminal database. He hasn't been arrested since his juvenile days. But the very idea of a mistake infuriates him because he knows it will give the task force and John Quinn encouragement, when he wants only to crush them.
His triumph is now diminished. His celebration ruined. His erection has gone soft, his cock shriveling to a pathetic nub. In the back of his mind he can hear the sneering voice, the disdain as the fantasy woman gets up and walks away from him, bored and disinterested.
He pulls into the driveway, hitting the remote control for the garage door. The anger is a snake writhing inside him, oozing poison. The sound of toy-dog barking follows him into the garage. That goddamn mutt from next door. His night ruined, now this.
He gets out of the car and goes to the trash bin. The garage door is descending. The bichon makes eye contact with him, yapping incessantly, bouncing backward toward the lowering door. He pulls a dropcloth out of the garbage and turns toward the dog, already imagining scooping the dog up, then swinging the makeshift bag hard against the concrete wall again and again and again.
“Come on, Bitsy, you rotten little shit,” he murmurs in a sweet tone. “Why don't you like me? What have I ever done to you?”
The dog growls, a sound as ferocious as an electric pencil sharpener, and holds her ground, glancing back toward the door now less than a foot from sealing her fate.
“Do you know I've killed little rat dogs like you before?” he asks, smiling, stepping closer, bending down. “Do you think I smell like evil?”
He reaches a hand toward the dog. “That's because I am,” he murmurs as the dog lunges toward him, teeth bared.
The grinding of the garage door mechanism stops.
The dropcloth falls, muffling the yip of surprise.
24
CHAPTER
KATE WAS STILL shaking when they reached her house. Quinn had insisted on seeing her home for the second time that night, and she hadn't argued. The memory of the screams echoed in her head. She heard them, faint but constant, as she slipped wordlessly from the truck and left the garage, as she fumbled with the keys for the back door, as she passed through the kitchen to the hall and turned the thermostat up.
Quinn was behind her like a shadow the whole time. She expected him to say something about the burnt-out light in the garage, but if he did, she didn't hear him. She could hear only the whoosh of her pulse in her ears, the magnified rattle of keys, Thor meowing, the refrigerator humming . . . and beneath all that, the screams.
“I'm so cold,” she said, going into the study, where the desk lamp still burned and a chenille throw lay in a heap on the old sofa. She glanced at the answering machine—no blinking light—and thought of the hang-up calls that had come to her cell phone at 10:05, 10:08, 10:10.
A half-empty glass of Sapphire and tonic sat on the blotter, the ice long melted. Kate picked it up with a shaking hand and took a swallow. The tonic had gone flat, but she didn't notice, didn't taste anything at all. Quinn took the glass from her hand and set it aside, then turned her gently by the shoulders to face him.
“Aren't you cold?” she prattled on. “It takes forever for the furnace to heat this place. I should probably have it replaced—it's old as Moses—but I never think of it until the weather turns.
“Maybe I should start a fire,” she suggested, and immediately felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh, God, I can't believe I said that. All I can smell is smoke and that horrible—Jesus, what an awful—”
She swallowed hard and looked at the glass that was now out of easy reach.
Quinn laid a hand against her cheek and turned her face toward him. “Hush,” he said softly.
“But—”
“Hush.”
As carefully as if she were made of spun glass, he folded his arms around her and drew her close against him. Another invitation to lean on him, to let go. She knew she shouldn't. If she let go for even a second now, she would be lost. She needed to keep moving, keep talking, do something. If she let go, if she went still, if she didn't occupy herself with some mindless, meaningless task, the tide of despair would sweep over her, and then where would she be?
Without defense in the arms of a man she still loved but couldn't have.
The full import of that answer was heavy enough to strain what little strength she had left, ironically tempting her further to take the support Quinn offered for now.
She had never stopped loving him. She had just put it away in a lockbox in her secret heart, never to be taken out again. Maybe hoping it would wither and die, but it had only gone dormant.
Another chill washed over her, and she let her head find the hollow of his shoulder. With her ear pressed against his chest, she could hear his heart beat, and she remembered all the other times, long ago, when he had held her and comforted her, and she had pretended what they had in a stolen moment might last forever.
God, she wanted to pretend that now. She wanted to pretend they hadn't just come from a crime scene, and her witness wasn't missing, and that Quinn had come here for her instead of the job he had always put first.
How unfair that she felt so safe with him, that contentment seemed so close, that looking at her life from the vantage point of his arms, she could suddenly see all the holes, the missing pieces, the faded colors, the dulled senses. How unfair to realize all that, when she had decided it was better not to need anyone, and certainly best not to need him.
She felt his lips brush her temple, her cheek. Against the weaker part of her will, she turned her face up and let his lips find hers. Warm, firm, a perfect match, a perfect fit. The feeling that flooded her was equal parts pain and pleasure, bitter and sweet. The kiss was tender, careful, gentle—asking, not taking. And when Quinn raised his head an inch, the question and the caution were in his eyes, as if her every want and misgiving had passed to him through the kiss.
“I need to sit down,” Kate murmured, stepping back. His arms fell away from her and the chill swept back around her like an invisible stole. She grabbed the glass off the desk as she went to the couch and wedged herself into a corner, pulling the chenille throw into her lap.
“I can't do this,” she said softly, more to herself than to him. “It's too hard. It's too cruel. I don't want that kind of mess to clean up when you go back to Quantico.” She sipped at the gin and shook her head. “I wish you hadn't come, John.”
Quinn sat down beside her, forearms on his thighs. “Is that what you really wish, Kate?”