“I was going to warn you about mixing a good red and mouthwash, but figured you’d have tried it anyway.”
He was right, she would have. Stubbornly, she took another sip. This time, the taste was more tolerable. She looked at him. “Who are they? The young men my mother… initiated?”
“Does it matter?”
“To me, yes.” When he didn’t respond, she pursed her lips in thought. “Family friends, you said. As young as fifteen. Let me guess. Your brother Joe. Clark Sommer. The rest shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.” She narrowed her eyes. “The guy who was murdered. What was his name?”
“Tom Schwann.”
“Right. Him.” She thought of what Rachel had said, that Reed had more of a reason to take her ring than just Max’s suicide.
“He had the tattoo that matched my mom’s ring. Of course. That’s what got you asking questions.”
She nodded to herself, confirming her own thoughts. “Your questions either jostled someone’s memory or upset an applecart or two and… voilà, Patsy Sommer, defiler of young men, is exposed.”
“Alex-”
“Who’d you hear it from?” She tapped the stem of her wineglass, considering the options. “Your dad, I’ll bet. Am I right?”
She saw from his expression that she was and went on. “Too bad you were only ten. You missed out on all the fun.”
“Stop it, Alex.”
“But that’s not quite true. You had a piece of the whore’s daughter, so in a way-”
“Stop it,” he said again. He crossed to her, took the wineglass from her hand, then caught her by the shoulders. “Don’t do this.”
“Is it in the genes, then? Is that why I-” Sudden tears flooded her eyes. Dammit, she didn’t want to cry! She preferred anger or even bitterness.
But the tears spilled over anyway. And he caught them with his fingertips, then lips. Kissing her, he dragged her to his chest and into his arms.
He carried her to the bedroom and there, in a frenzy that obliterated grief and transformed anger to passion, they made love.
Afterward, he didn’t release her, instead held her tightly in his arms. She pressed her face to his damp chest. His heart thundered beneath her cheek and she pressed closer.
She thought of all the men she had been with, the therapy sessions she’d had, trying to figure out why. The answers had varied: she’d been looking for love, for Daddy, to rewrite history, as a way to complete or validate herself.
Did it all come down to genetics? Was she just like her mother?
Fear licked at her and she shuddered. Did the same future await her?
Reed stirred; he cocked his head to see her face. “Don’t like what you’re thinking,” he murmured.
“So, now you’re both cop and mind reader?”
She said it lightly, but he didn’t bite. Instead, he drew her up so they were nose-to-nose. “You’re not like your mother.”
She frowned. “I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
“I’m not young or uninitiated. And you didn’t seduce me.”
It hurt to look at him; she shifted her gaze and stared blankly at the wall. “It hurts,” she said finally, softly.
“I know.” He kissed her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She turned to meet his eyes. “Don’t say that anymore, okay? I’m tired of people telling me that. I’ve heard it so many times. Not just since Mom’s death, but all my life.”
“What would you rather hear?”
She searched his gaze. “No clue. I just know pity’s not cutting it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Friday, March 12
7:04 A.M.
Sunlight spilled across the bed. Alex opened her eyes. It all came crashing back. Reed. The night before. The things he had said about her mother. The way they had hurt. Their desperate lovemaking.
She moaned.
“Morning, sleepyhead.”
Alex shifted her gaze. Reed stood at the door to the bathroom. He wore his jeans and a towel looped around his neck. His hair was wet. “I took a shower, I hope you don’t mind?”
She told him she didn’t, watching as he toweled his hair, then disappeared into the bathroom, emerging a moment later without the towel.
She sat up, pulling the blanket to her chin. “What time is it?”
“Just after seven. I’ve got to hit the road.”
“I’ll make coffee.” She moved to climb out of bed.
“Stay put. I’ll grab a cup on my way.” He crossed to the bed, retrieving his shirt from the floor on the way. He pulled it over his head, then grinned down at her. “The drive’ll be a lot more pleasant imagining you here and naked.”
“It’d be a lot more pleasant here, if you’d call in sick and climb back in bed.”
“Wish I could.”
“Prove it.”
“Is that a challenge?”
She let the blanket slip away, revealing her naked torso. “You tell me.”
He bent and kissed her, softly at first, then deeply. Alex arched up to meet him, rubbing, hungry. Desperate.
She didn’t want to be alone.
He caught her hand and brought it to him. “See?” he murmured against her mouth. “I really do wish I could stay.”
“So, stay.”
He groaned and set her away from him. “Can’t. Sorry.”
“No problem. Your loss.” She tossed aside the covers and climbed naked out of bed. She stretched, then slipped by him on her way to the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at him. The view was having an obvious effect on him. “Be careful out there, Detective”-she lowered her eyes-“you’ve got a loaded weapon.”
He grinned. “I know what you’re doing, Alex.”
“Really? And what’s that?”
“Putting off the inevitable.”
“The inevitable?”
“Dealing with what I told you last night. About your mother.”
He was right, dammit. Not that she was about to let him know that. “First off, take a little more credit. A girl doesn’t need an excuse to want to have sex with you. Secondly, there’s nothing to deal with.” She tipped up her chin. “Because it’s not true.”
He studied her a long moment. To his credit, she didn’t read pity in his expression. “It all makes sense now, Alex. Her guilt. Her self-hatred. The way she hid the past from you.”
It did make sense. She hated that it did. “You don’t get it. She was my mother. Not perfect. Not even close. But she was mine, the only one I’m ever going to have.”
“Yeah, I get that, Alex. And I’m sorry. But all that doesn’t change what’s true.”
A knot of tears settled in her throat. “Not buying it.”
But she was. She knew it-and so did he, she could tell by his expression.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
He nodded, started toward the bedroom door, then stopped. “Can I call you later?”
“If you want to.”
He didn’t respond and a moment later she heard the front door snap shut.
Alex used the bathroom, then crawled back into bed. She propped the pillows up behind her, leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. A long, thin crack ran from the room’s far right corner to the center light fixture.
She gazed at the imperfection. How had he known? How had he seen so easily through her? She had wanted him to stay so she wouldn’t be alone with her thoughts. To put off the inevitable, just the way he had said.
No putting it off now, she thought. No distractions. Just her, the things Reed had said about her mother, and the way those things made her feel.
Alex plucked at the blanket. Her mother had seduced her friends’ sons. Seduced? That was too nice a word for what Reed had described. Too soft.
Her mother had fucked them. She had fucked them individually and in a group. She had stolen their innocence. Initiated them into sex in a way that was perverse. Twisted and sick.
And she had lied to everyone: her husband, friends, her own daughter. Alex curved her arms around her middle. She’d been an adulteress. A user and a liar. Morally corrupt.