It wasn’t long before he heard her steady breathing.
He should go home, he would go home, but he couldn’t make himself leave. He opened the drawer under the phone, expecting to see the usual Gideon Bible. A brown pill bottle rolled to the front. He picked it up and read the label. Cleo Tyler. Take one four times daily for anxiety.
The address was Seattle. He didn’t know she’d lived in Seattle. But then, he didn’t really know anything about Cleo Tyler except that she hated him. And had every right to.
Chapter Sixteen
Cleo came awake in stages, awareness gradually filtering in. The room was dark, but she sensed it was morning, possibly late morning. The air conditioner clanked away, blowing musty breath around the room. She remembered Daniel had been there before she’d fallen asleep, but he must have left sometime later.
She checked the bedside clock. 9:30 a.m. She let her head drop back on the pillow. Had Daniel said something about Jo wanting her to come in for another reading? She couldn’t go through that again. And she didn’t want to see Daniel. Ever.
She got up and showered, trying to keep her bare feet away from the shower drain. There was no telling what lurked there. Afterward, dressed in jeans and a black top, she didn’t feel a whole lot cleaner, the odor of the motel room having seeped into her pores. It was hard to say how long it would take to get the stink out of her system once she left, which would be soon.
Someone knocked. Through a crack in the louvered windows, she peered out. Daniel stood in front of her door, a cardboard carryout tray in his hands. Behind him, the sky was dark and threatening.
She pressed her back to the wall.
He knocked again. “Open up, Cleo.”
Why hadn’t she set the alarm so she could have gotten out of town before anyone was up? But she’d been so tired. She was so tired.
She heard the sound of a key slipping into the lock.
He had a key to her room! The bastard had a key to her room!
She was poised to dive under the bed when she remembered the orange bedspread. All she could do was stand there, back to the wall as the door swung open, sending a rectangle of gray light onto the smashed shag carpet.
He kicked the door shut behind him and put the tray down on the foot of the bed before he spotted Cleo standing in the corner.
“I thought you might want something to eat before we go to the police station.” He settled himself on the bed, gently so as not to tip anything over. “I was going to get orange juice, but then I thought-” His words broke off. His gaze dropped to the floor where a corner of the orange bedspread stuck out from under the gray mattress. “I got coffee,” he went on. “Muffins. Didn’t have much to choose from at the Quick Stop.”
“Milk?” she asked, moving out of the darkness, taking a couple of hesitant steps toward the bed. “Did you get any milk?” Something white would be nice. Something white and pure and clean.
“As a matter of fact, I did.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a small carton of milk.
He’d brought her milk.
He held out the carton, his arm stretched as far as it could stretch. Without moving any closer, she reached, and with trembling fingers took the milk from him, the cruelty of the previous night almost obliterated by his gift.
She struggled with the carton. It didn’t open smoothly, and now the place where she would have to put her mouth was a jagged, rough tear. She knew how it would feel against her bottom lip. Like stringy, soggy, saturated paper.
“Here.”
From somewhere, maybe the sack, he produced a fresh paper cup. He took the milk, poured, added a straw, and handed it back.
She put the straw in her mouth and began to drink. She felt the liquid run down her throat to settle, cold and comforting, in her stomach. “I love milk,” she told him.
“No kidding.”
She tipped the cup and sucked hard on the straw, getting every last drop.
“Want a muffin?’ he asked.
She looked up to see him holding a muffin, the top a smooth golden brown.
“What kind?” she asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know. It was the only one left.” He peeled the paper from one side and broke it open. Plain. Plain and white.
Before he could come up with a diagnosis, she grabbed it, broke off a piece, and popped it in her mouth. It melted on her tongue. “I love plain things.”
“Coffee?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You drink it.” The cup was white, which was good, but it was made of Styrofoam, which was bad. Small pieces of Styrofoam could break off and float on the oily surface of the coffee.
He removed the lid and lifted the Styrofoam cup to his mouth. She couldn’t watch. She turned on the pretense of looking out the window, but nothing could be seen through the nearly opaque glass louvers. She finished the last bite of muffin, stuffed the wrapper in the paper cup, and dropped it in the trashcan beside the open condom packet.
She stood staring down at the packet, wishing she hadn’t seen it, wishing the past night had never happened. And she’d been doing a pretty good job pretending it hadn’t happened until that moment.
“We’ve got to get going,” Daniel said from behind her. She heard the bed shift and knew he’d gotten to his feet. “I told Jo I’d have you at the police station by ten.”
Cleo’s heart began to beat faster. She couldn’t put herself through that again. “I have to brush my teeth.”
She pushed past Daniel to shut herself in the pitch-black of the bathroom. She groped for the chain, found it, and pulled, the fluorescent light flickering, then finally stabilizing. Her eyes were huge, with blue shadows under them. Purple lips. Wild hair.
This time there would be no trance, she told herself. She would fake it. Nobody would ever know. She would pretend. And this time she would describe in more detail everything she’d seen before.
She’d forgotten to comb her hair, and it had begun to dry the way it had fallen after she’d removed the towel from her head. She pulled it back and held it in place with a large clip. After that, she brushed her teeth, turned off the light, and stepped out to join Daniel, who was waiting, one shoulder against the door.
Daniel waited while she slipped her feet into her sandals, waited while she gathered her bag.
When he’d unlocked the door and stepped into the stuffy room, she’d taken his breath away. She’d emerged from the darkness with her shiny, freshly scrubbed face devoid of makeup, her hair wet and coiling on each side of her face, and for a moment he’d forgotten how to breathe.
He wished he’d kissed her last night. Kissed her deep and hard, the way he had that first time. Last night, he’d wanted her to see what it felt like to be treated with such insignificance, but Christ, he’d gone too far.
On the way to the police station, he attempted to apologize. “Look,” he began. “About last night-”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry. That’s all.”
She didn’t answer. And why should she? Why should she waste her breath on me?
Daniel parked next to Burt the Flirt’s sport utility vehicle. Campbell was a good outlet for the frustration and anger Daniel felt toward himself. Didn’t the guy ever work? Didn’t he have teeth to drill?
It looked as if it was going to be pretty much a repeat of the last performance, with the same cast members. The shades were drawn, the candle lit. They made a circle, everyone sitting in the same order except for Daniel and Dr. Campbell. Daniel traded places with the dentist so he could sit directly across from Cleo.
Just as she had the day before, she spoke in a low, husky voice, a voice that was soothing and melodic, a voice that could almost put a guy in a trance.