Covet - A Novel of Fallen Angel Part 20

Marie-Terese stopped, tugged him to a halt, and sank down on her haunches. Putting her hands on both his arms, she gave him a little shake. aThereas nothing wrong with being late. People are late all the time. We do our best to be on time for everything and thatas all we can do, okay? Okay? Robbie?a The cathedralas bells went silent. And a moment later a car eased by them. Then off in the distance a dog barked.

This had nothing to do with being late, she realized.

aTalk to me,a she whispered, putting her face in the line of his vision, even though she practically had to lie down to do it. aPlease, Robbie.a His words exploded out of his mouth: aI liked my own name better. And I donat want to move again. I like my babysitters and my room. I like the Y. I likeahere and now.a Marie-Terese sat back on her heelsaand wanted to kill her ex-husband. aIam really sorry. I know this has been so hard on you.a aWeare leaving, arenat we. You came home early last night and I heard you talking to Quinesha. You told her you might have to make other arrangements.a The word arrangements came out mermangements. aI like Quinesha. I donat want other arrangements.a Again with the mermangements.

Looking at her son, she wondered just exactly how she could tell him that they had to move because she had the unshakable conviction that athe bad times,a as head called them, were definitely back.

The car that had pa.s.sed them before came around again, having evidently failed to find a place to park.

aI quit my job last night,a she said, getting as close to the truth as she could. aI stopped waitressing where I had been because I wasnat happy there. So Iam going to need to get another job somewhere.a Robbieas eyes lifted to hers and he measured her face. aThere are a lot of restaurants in Caldwell.a aTrue, but they might not need help right now and I have to make us money to live off of.a aOh.a He seemed to be thinking the whole thing over. aOkay. Thatas different.a Abruptly, he relaxed, as if what had been bothering him were a helium balloon that head just released into the wind.

aI love you,a she said, hating that precisely what head been worried about was in fact happening. They were leaving for reasons other than her ajob.a But she didnat want him having to carry that burden.

aMe, too, Mom.a He gave her a quick hug, his little arms not reaching even halfway around her. Still, she felt the embrace through her whole body.

aYou ready?a she said roughly.

aYup.a They fell back into hustle mode, jangling their way over to the cathedral and up its broad stone steps; then sneaking in through its ma.s.sive door. Inside the vestibule, they removed their coats and she took a program from the greeter who was positioned in the narthex. At the manas urging, she and Robbie headed for one of the side doors and ghosted down to a pew that was fairly empty.

Just as they sat, the call for children to come forward for Sunday school went out. Robbie stayed right with her, though. He never went off with the other kidsa"had never asked to and shead certainly never suggested it.

As the priests and the choir got the service rolling, she took a deep breath and let the balmy warmth of the church seep into her. And for a split second, she imagined what it would be like to have Vin sitting with her and Robbie, maybe on the far side of her son. It would be nice to look over Robbieas head and see a man she loved. Maybe they would share a secret smile as couples did from time to time. Maybe Vin would have been the one to help with Robbieas tie.

Maybe there would be a daughter between the bookends.

With a frown, Marie-Terese realized that for the first time in nearly forever, she was daydreaming. Actually fantasizing about a pleasant, happy future. G.o.dahow long it had been?

In the beginning with Markathat was how long.

Shead met him at the Mandalay Bay casino. She and her girlfriends, whoad all turned twenty-one the same year, had flown to Las Vegas for their first girlsa weekend out of town, and she could remember how ready theyad all been for their taste of truly grown-up freedom.

As she and her friends had futzed around with one-dollar bets on the cheap side of the velvet rope, Mark had been at a high rollersa table in the VIP section. After head caught sight of her, head sent a waitress to invite them into the deluxe sectiona"where the drinks were free and the lowest you could wager was twenty dollars.

At first, shead a.s.sumed it was all about Sarah. Sarah had been, and no doubt still was, a six-foot-tall blonde who somehow came across as naked even while fully clothed. That girl had been a man magnet, and given how many candidates she had to choose from, shead had very high standards. And what do you know, someone who could afford high stakes was definitely up her alley.

But no, Mark had had eyes only for Marie-Terese. And head made that clear when she had been seated at his elbow and Sarah had been left to fend for herself.

Mark and his two a.s.sociates, as he had referred to the pair of suits who were with him, had been nothing but gentlemen that night, buying drinks, talking, being attentive. There had been a lot of kissing dice and shiny chatter, the kind of thing that made you, when you were young enough to believe in glamour, feel like a celebrity.

It had been the perfect start to the weekend: To be twenty-one and in the exclusive part of the casino, surrounded by men in expensive suits, was everything that she and her friends had hoped for, and after three or four hours, theyad gone up to the suite Mark owned. Not the brightest move, maybe, but there had been four girls and three men, and after theyad all spent time together on a collective winning streak, the illusion of friendship and trust had been created.

But nothing bad had happened. Just more drinks and chatter and flirtation. And Sarah ending up in a bedroom alone with the taller of the two aa.s.sociates.a At the end of the night, Marie-Terese had gone out onto the balcony with Mark.

She could still remember the feel of the dry, hot air blowing over the sparkling view of the Las Vegas strip.

It had been ten years ago, but that night was still as clear to her as the moment it had become memory: the two of them out on that terrace, high above the man-made city, standing side by side. She had been looking at the view. He had been staring at her.

Mark had swept her hair aside and kissed her on the nape of her neckaand in that soft contact given her the best s.e.xual experience of her life.

That was as far as it went.

The next evening had been much of the same, except Mark had taken them all to see a Celine Dion concert and then they had gone back to the tables. Glittering. Fancy. Exciting. Marie-Terese had soared on the heated gusts of promise and romance and fairy tale, and at the end of the second night, she had gone back to that suite and kissed Mark on that terrace again.

And that was it.

Shead been disappointed he hadnat wanted more, although she wouldnat have been able to sleep with him. She wasnat hard-wired like Sarah, capable of meeting a man and going to bed with him hours later.

How ironic shead ended up where she had.

The next morning, theyad had to leave and Mark had had his limo take them all to the airport. Shead been crushed, a.s.suming that was the end of it: a fun forty-eight hoursa"just what the travel agent had promised and exactly what they had paid for.

As she and her friends had been driven away from the hotel, shead hoped Mark would come running out and wave them to a stop, but he didnat, and shead guessed that the last shead ever see of him was him kissing her hand at the hotel room she and her friends had all stayed in together.

The crushing weight of back-to-normal had brought tears to her eyes. Compared to Las Vegas, her life at home, with her job as a secretary and her night school for college, had seemed like a kind of death.

When the limo had pulled up to the terminal, the driver had gotten out and opened the car door as a redcap had come along and started unloading their nothing-special luggage. Marie-Terese had stepped out onto the curb and turned her face away from the others because she didnat want to be razzed about being sad.

The chauffeur had stopped her. aMr. Capricio asked me to give this to you.a The box had been about the size of a coffee mug and done up in red tissue with a white bowa"and shead opened the thing right then and there, litter-bugging the wrapping paper and the length of satin. Inside had been a delicate gold chain with a gold pendant in the shape of an M. There had also been a slip of paper, the kind youad find in a fortune cookie. The message had read: Please call me as soon as you get home safe.

The number had been instantly memorized and shead beamed all the way back to home.

Such a perfect start. There had been no signs in the beginning of the way things would goa"although looking back on it, she saw that the M pendant had been a mark of ownership, a kind of human dog tag.

G.o.d, shead worn that necklace with such pridea"because shead wanted to be claimed back then. As a woman who had grown up with a harried mother and a father who wasnat around, the idea that a man had wanted her had been magical. And Mark hadnat been some middle-of-the-road, middle-cla.s.s typea"which would have been a step up for her anyway. No, he was the VIP section, whereas she was more like the janitoras closet.

And over the next couple of months, head played her perfectly, seducing her carefully and with calculation. Head even told her he didnat want to have s.e.x before they were marrieda"so he could introduce her to his Catholic grandmother and mother with a clean conscience.

They were married five months later, and things had turned on a dime after the ceremony. As soon as shead moved into that hotel suite with him, Mark had controlled her as tightly as a fist. h.e.l.l, when her mother had died, head insisted his chauffeur accompany her back to California and be at her side from the second she stepped off the plane to the moment she put her foot back in the suite.

And the s.e.x-before-marriage thing? Turned out that hadnat been a big sacrifice for him because head been sleeping with his various mistressesa"and shead learned this when one had turned up with a belly the size of a basketball about a month after the ink was dry on the marriage license.

Coming back to the present, she got to her feet with the rest of the congregation and sang words from the hymnal that Robbie held in his hands.

Considering what the past had taught her, she worried about the fairy tale shead spun in her head about Vin.

Optimism wasnat for the faint of heart. And daydreams could get you in troubnle.

He sat behind her and she never knew it. Which was the beauty of disguises.

Today he was wearing his churchgoer one, which meant blue contact lenses and wire-framed gla.s.ses.

Head waited in the back of the church for her to come in with the son, and when the two didnat show up, head figured they were missing the service for once and still back home. Head left and gone to his car, but as head been driving away, head seen the two of them on the sidewalk, talking intently. Circling the block, head watched them talk together until they had run into the cathedral and disappeared through the big doors.

By the time head reparked his car, head missed half the service, but head managed to sit right behind her and the son, slipping from the shadows and lowering himself into the pew.

She spent most of the service staring up at the frescoes that were being cleaned, her head tilted to the side so that the angle of her cheek was especially lovely. As usual, she was dressed in a long skirt and a sweatera"today they were a deep maroona"and she had a pair of pearl earrings on. Her dark hair was coiled up in a loose bun and she was wearing light perfumeaor maybe it was just that laundry detergent or those dryer sheets she used?

Head have to go to the supermarket and sniff the Tides and Cheerses and Gains and Bounces, to see which one it was.

Sitting in the pew, she looked like such the Good Mother, helping her son find the right pages in the hymnal, bending down from time to time when he had a question to ask her. No one would even have used the word s.l.u.t within hearing distance of heramuch less apply it to her: She seemed to be one of those women who had immaculately conceived her child.

It made him think about the guy head beaten with the tire iron. Not the part about killing him, although evidently that hadnat gone as planned, as the fool was just in a comaa"another reason disguises were so very necessary. No, he thought about the expression on the manas unbusted face as head come out of that dirty, filthy bathroom at that dirty, filthy club.

What a lie her illusion was.

Rage boiled in him, but it was so not the right time for that, and to distract himself, he stared at the delicate muscles that ran up the nape of her neck. Soft curls formed around the gentle curve, and more than once he found himself leaning forward as if he would touch thema Or maybe wrap his hands around her throat.

And squeeze until she was his and his alone.

He could just imagine what it would be like to subdue her struggles and claim her as hisacould picture the rapture in her eyes as she died.

As he got wrapped up in the future, he nearly acted on his impulse, but fortunately, the singing parts of the service helped to break his furious concentration and occupy his hands. He also looked over at the son from time to time to keep his obsession from locking on her in a place that, if things got away from him, head lose everything.

The son was so well behaved. So grown-up. A little man of the house, no doubt.

She never released him to go with the other children to Sunday school, keeping him instead right by her. Which was a little frustrating, although she was wise not to let him out of her sight. Very wise.

But she shouldnat worry. The little boy was going to be with his Father very soonaand she was going to be with her forever husband.

The perfect future was mapped out for them all.

CHAPTER 27.

Vin walked through the door to the duplex, closed himself in, and felt like someone had kneed him in the gut. From the hall, he stared at the ruined living room, and could not believe what he was looking at.

As he walked into the s.p.a.ce, all he could do was shake his head. The couches were overturned and the silk pillows were trampled and a number of statues had been knocked off their stands. The rug was ruined over by the bar, stained by liquor that had bled from broken bottles, and the walls were going to have to be repainted and repapered because it looked as if a couple of Bordeaux wines had been thrown at them.

Taking off his coat and tossing it on a ransacked sofa, he wandered around the once perfect s.p.a.ce. It was amazing how all those priceless things had been turned into trash so quickly. s.h.i.t, add a layer of grime and some food garbage and you had a Dumpster.

Bending down, he picked up some shards that had broken loose from a Venetian mirror. The thing had been struck with something that vaguely resembled a human back, the center of the piece smashed in a long, torso-like column.

The fine spray of white powder all over it seemed to suggest that the police had gotten busy dusting for fingerprints.

Man, someone sure as h.e.l.l had been thrown around the room.

Vin went over to the bar and put the jagged pieces of mirror next to some of the busted bottles. Then he resumed the search for exactly what the cops had no doubt been after.

No blood that he could see. But maybe they had already removed the things that had been marked by it.

Besides, bruises bled under the skin, so it wasnat as if a lack of the stuff here was necessarily going to help him.

While the CPD had been in the building, undoubtedly theyad questioned the lobby guarda"except it wasnat like the guy could testify to Vinas not being in the apartment. After all, residents could take the elevators up from the parkingagarage.

Vin went over to the phone and called down to the front desk. When a male voice answered, he didnat f.u.c.k around. aGary, itas Vina"did you give the police access to the security tapes of the elevators and the stairwells in the building?a There was absolutely no pause whatsoever. aJesus, Mr. diPietro, whyad you do ita"a aI didnat. I swear. Did the CPD get those tapes?a aYeah, they got everything.a Vin exhaled in relief. There was no way he could have gotten to the duplex without showing up in one of those recordings. In fact, what they were going to prove was that head left the building that morning and not returned until after midnight.

aAnd you were on camera,a the guard said.

Vin blinked. aWhat?a aYou came up in the garage elevator at ten oaclock. Itas on the tape.a aWhat?a That would have been impossiblea"at the time head been in the car, driving to the Woods with Marie-Terese. aWait, you saw my face. You actually saw my face.a aYeah, clear as day. She came through the front doors and went up to the duplex, and then twenty minutes later you came in through the garage. You had on your black trench coat and you left like a half hour later, with your Boston Sox cap pulled low.a aIt wasnat me. Ita"a aIt was.a aButaI didnat park my BMW in my spota"it was gone, and my other car was there. I didnat use my pa.s.s card to get through the gate. Explaina"a aYou got a ride, then, and came in through the pedestrian door. I donat know. Look, I got to go. Weare running a test of the fire alarm.a The line went dead.

Vin hung up the receiver and stared at the phone, feeling like the whole f.u.c.king world had lost its d.a.m.n mind. Then after a moment, he went over to the couch, arranged the cushions into some semblance of order, and all but fell on his a.s.s.

As the alarm system in the building started to go off and strobe lights flashed from the fixtures out in the front hall, he felt like he was in the dream head had, the one where Devina fell upon him like something out of Night of the Living Dead.

Chess pieces were being arranged around him, blocking his moves, boxing him in.

Youare mine, Vin. And I always take what is mine.

As he heard those words in his head again, the sound of the alarm was the perfect accompaniment to the panic burning through his veins. s.h.i.t. What the h.e.l.l did he do now?

From out of nowhere, Jim Heronas voice cut through Devinaas: Iam here to save your soul.

Ignoring that summarily unhelpful cue, Vin got up and went to his study in search of something far more likely to chill him out. Over at the intact liquor bottles, he poured himself a bourbon, drank it, and then refilled the squat gla.s.s. The television had been left on, but was muted, and as he parked it behind his desk, his eyes latched onto the local news.

When a photograph appeared next to the anchoras blond head shortly thereafter, he could not say he was surprised. With the way things were going, it would take a dirty bomb set off in downtown Caldwell to get a rise out of him.

He reached for the remote.

aaRobert Belthower, thirty-six, was found early this evening in an alley not far from where Friday nightas two victims were shot. He is now at St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. No suspects have been identified yet in the crimea.a It was the guy from the Iron Mask. The one who had come out of the bathroom with Marie-Terese.

Vin picked up the phone and dialed.

The call wasnat accepted until the fourth ring, and Jimas voice was tight, like he didnat want to answer: aHey, my man.a Still feel like saving my soul now? Vin wanted to taunt. aHave you seen the news?a Long hesitation. aYou mean about Devina?a aYeah. I didnat do that, though, I sweara"last I saw her was when I broke up with her that afternoon and let her walk out of my place with the ring I bought hera"youare welcome. But Iam more calling about the guy they found beaten in an alley downtown. He was with Marie-Terese last night. I saw him with her. Which would make it three men in twenty-four hours whoaveah.e.l.lo? Jim?a When there was an uh-huh, it was clear what the problem was. aLook, I didnat do that s.h.i.t to Devina, although I know you wonat believe me.a Another long silence. ah.e.l.lo? Oh, for f.u.c.kas sake, do you honestly think I could hurt a woman?a aI thought you were calling because of me.a Now it was his turn to pause. aWhy?a Another long silence. aShe said she told you. About us.a aUs? What ausa?a aShe said that was why you lost it and hit her.a Vin tightened his hand on his gla.s.s. aExactly what is there to tell about the two of you.a The soft curse coming across the line was in the universal language for s.e.x-that-shouldnat-have-happened.

Vinas muscles around his shoulders and down into his arms went rigid. aAre you kidding me. Are you f.u.c.king kidding me.a aIam sorrya"a The gla.s.s shattered in Vinas palm, bourbon going everywhere, soaking his sleeve and cuff, splashing on the front of his shirt and his pants.

He ended the call by hurling the cell phone across the room.

While Jim hit the end key, he was willing to bet that wasnat the way Vin had terminated the call.

No, he had a feeling that whatever phone had been up at Vinas ear was now fodder for a dustpan.

Great. Just f.u.c.king wonderful.

After he rubbed his eyes, he refocused on the entrance of the inpatient building and let the first part of the conversation register: another beaten guy tied to Marie-Terese. And when Vin called, that had been the number one thing on his mind, even above the fact that, oh, yeah, he was up on felony a.s.sault for buzz-sawing his girlfriend with his knuckles.

That s.h.i.t with Marie-Terese was as strong as ever for him. Which somehow didnat feel like such a great thing.

Man, this particular mission was going to h.e.l.l faster than a free fall.

Jim glanced down at his watch and then resumed staring at each person who went in and out of the doors. It was close to one, so Devinaas people would supposedly be coming any second, and then she would be leaving with them.