“I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, you know.”
“I know,” Farrentina said in that breathless voice.
Nikki felt sick.
The cabin was raised from the ground on blocks, and they had to walk up steps to reach the door. The inside was shabbier than the outside and smelled like mildew and dirty socks. A kitchen occupied one corner, about as big as the one in the trailer where Nikki grew up. A small table, two chairs and an old couch took up most of the rest of the space. A rack of fishing poles lined one wall, stuffed fish and shadow box displays of colorful lures covered the other three.
Farrentina studied the place, an unattractive frown on her face. “So what are we going to do?”
“Go fishing.”
“You’re kidding.”
Eddie plucked one of the fishing poles off the rack. “Hunting, fishing, it’s all the same, isn’t it? All a contest between man and beast.”
Nikki studied the floor. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t like it. Not the idea of sharing her husband with Farrentina. Not the tone of Eddie’s voice now.
He let the line swing free. A colorful lure weighted the end. Yellow and orange with three hooks protruding from the bottom. “So Farrentina, you think I should choose you.”
“No question,” Farrentina said.
“And Nikki?”
“You’re my husband. I love you.” Her voice came out too quiet, too thin, and she wished she could take it back and yell out her love for him. Why was he doing this? After all they had, why was he interested in Farrentina at all?
“Like fish fighting over a lure.” He swung the pole in front of them, the lure’s sharp hooks barely missing Nikki’s face.
“Eddie, I don’t like this.”
As soon as he turned his angry stare on her, Nikki knew she had made a mistake. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t want to play, Nikki?”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Maybe I should just choose Farrentina right now.”
“Please, Eddie. I’m sorry. I was just…”
He swung the fishing line close again, the lure hitting her arm. For a second, one of the barbs stuck in her skin, then he pulled back on the line, and it fell away.
“I’ll bite, Ed.” Farrentina caught the line. She snagged one of the hooks on her robe.
Eddie gave Nikki one more pointed look, then smiled at Farrentina and started reeling. As the line grew taught, Farrentina untied the robe’s belt and let Eddie pull it off her. She stood in front of him completely nude.
Nikki looked at the floor. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back. When she looked up, Farrentina was snuggling up to Eddie, and his hands were on her, and she was unzipping his fly.
Nikki’s husband.
Nikki’s.
“Wait,” Nikki said, surprising even herself.
Eddie smiled. “You want to get caught, Nikki?”
“Yes.”
To Nikki’s relief, Eddie pushed Farrentina away, his attention all on Nikki now. He swung the fishing pole toward her, the robe still on the hook.
Nikki caught the line, ripped the silk free, and let if fall to the floor. She could feel Eddie watching her, waiting for her to do something bigger, better than Farrentina. Something that proved how much she loved him, how much she wanted to win.
Nikki’s fingers trembled, fumbled, and the fish hook dropped to the linoleum.
Farrentina laughed. “Good job, dumb ass.”
Eddie said nothing.
He didn’t have to. Nikki could feel his disappointment. Tears broke free and trickled down her cheeks.
“So can we just leave her here, Ed? Why are we wasting any more of our time?”
“Is that what you want, Nikki? For me to leave you here?”
His voice was so quiet, so sad, that Nikki almost went to him. But holding him wouldn’t be enough. She knew that now. Saying the words wouldn’t make him believe. She had to prove herself.
Nikki bent down and picked up the lure. She brought the hook to her mouth. Then, taking a deep breath, she drove the sharp point through the inside of her lip until the barb pieced through and caught on the outside.
Blood flooded her mouth and dribbled down her chin. Her lip felt cold at first, then the sting came, the throbbing pain. But she hardly noticed any of it, not when she looked into Eddie’s eyes, and he smiled at her.
“We have a winner. And now I collect my prize.”
Trent
Trent hadn’t even realized he’d slipped into sleep when the bleat of the cell phone pierced the air like a rending scream. He lurched from the bed and groped the dark with splayed fingers until his hand closed over cold plastic.
In the middle of the big bed, Rees sat straight up, the whites of her eyes visible in the dark room.
Phone calls in the middle of the night were never good. And he had a horrible feeling this one would be worse than most. Taking a bracing breath, he flipped the phone open and lifted it to his ear. “Burnell.”
“Trent? Subera. We have a body. A woman. I need you to meet me at the scene.”
His gaze found Rees’s and latched on.
“Who?” he said into the phone.
“No ID on her yet. The body was just discovered. I got the call myself less than a minute ago.”
“Where is she?”
“That’s the interesting part. Here the local cops have been driving by every half hour all night, and he laid her out right there in plain sight. I don’t know how the hell he got in and out of there without being spotted.”
Alarm blared in Trent’s ears. “Where the hell is she?”
“On the front porch of Risa Madsen’s house.”
Risa
Night pressed in on the shadowed interior of Trent’s rental car like a suffocating pall. Risa gasped for breath. Her pulse throbbed in her ears.
Nikki.
Trent hadn’t wanted to bring her with him. It had just about killed him to allow her to climb into the passenger seat, she knew. But she had to go. She had to see for herself. She had to know. And in the end, Trent wasn’t willing to leave her alone. So here she was, speeding past the darkened windows of familiar houses on her way to a crime scene. A murder scene. Her own house.
Nikki.
Trent swung onto her street and slowed to a crawl. A haze of humidity hung in the air, pulsing with the red and blue light of a half-dozen police cars. A cruiser blocked off either end of the street. Trent brought the car to a halt and flashed his identification before the uniforms waved them through.
Yellow tape draped from pickets ringing the perimeter of Risa’s property. The house’s empty windows reflected the throbbing red and blue light, and bright spotlights illuminated the driveway, the sidewalk, the porch.
Nikki.
Risa couldn’t see the body from the interior of the car, but she knew it was there. Detectives and crime-scene technicians hovered around the front steps and small porch. A camera flash exploded as a police photographer snapped crime-scene photos.
Trent brought the car to a halt and reached for the door handle. “Stay in the car. I’ll be right back.”
She heard the tone of his voice, but his words seemed to bounce off her, an unintelligible jumble of sounds.
“Did you hear me, Rees? Stay here. I’ll come back and get you.”
She managed a nod.
He stared at her a long time, as if trying to look into her mind, to understand what she was thinking, feel what she was feeling. Finally he reached toward her and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek with tender fingertips. “Hang in there, Rees. It might not be her.”