Blood Red

Chapter 2

The morning newspaper focused mostly on the disappearance of two college kids. Somehow Matthew William Casey and Louis Harold Blake had managed to vanish without a trace, leaving their cars and everything they owned behind. Several people claimed that the two students were into drugs, and the reporters dug deeply enough to find out that both had been accused of rape by a fellow student before the charges were dropped the year before. Aside from that, little was known.

Maggie knew more. Or at least she thought she did. The pictures of the two of them on the front page of the paper woke her up as surely as a good cup of coffee would have, but without the fun of actually getting her morning caffeine jolt.

All she remembered about that night was running from the two of them and then watching them get devoured by the shadows. She still had to blame Lance Brewster for her faded memories of the near rape she’d survived. This was almost sad, because, really, he hadn’t been a bad client until that night. Now he was on her shit list, and so far his two phone calls had gone unanswered.

She set down the paper and walked over to her trusty Mr. Coffee. It had done exactly what she’d programmed it to do and brewed a nice pot of black ambrosia while she was showering. “My one true love,” she said to herself as she added two sugars and a dollop of heavy cream. She could do without a lot of things in her life, but coffee? She’d sooner have her teeth pulled without benefit of Novocain.

She dressed while she drank, pulling on her school clothes and making sure she looked right for the day ahead. Only two classes today, which was especially good because she had a client to satisfy.

Jason Soulis was paying her very good money, and for a change of pace Tom would have no part of what she earned. She didn’t think of it as stealing from him. He hadn’t worked as her agent in this case; he’d only hooked her up with the man who was acting as her agent.

She looked over the single sheet of paper that Soulis had given her the night before and shook her head, puzzled by his selection of men she was supposed to seduce. Most of them she had never met, but three names in particular stuck out. They were men she had seen regularly for several years, but never in a professional capacity.

She would be done with her classes by noon, and after that she could mark off at least one of the men on the list if she played her cards right.

After she was done dressing, and packing away her outfit for after school, she took the poem someone had sent her and taped it to the wall next to her mirror. She’d always loved that poem.

And then it was a quick breakfast and out the door, smiling to herself as she started the day. Maggie started her car and drove toward the campus, unaware of the crows that watched from the trees that lined her path to Winslow Harper University.

The early October air was refreshing. Kelli had a little time for herself and did what she almost always did when she could catch a few spare minutes. It was reading time, and today she was having fun with the latest Janet Evanovich novel. The woman could write circles around most of the writers she’d run across, and Stephanie Plum was her secret hero. She wanted to be just like Stephanie when she grew up. Well, except maybe for the whole bounty hunter thing. She didn’t think most escaped convicts would be terrified by her.

Her Mountain Dew called seductively and she answered, drinking down half the bottle before coming up for air. Across the street from her, the sprawling black mansion caught the light of the sun on its windows and shot blinding flashes at her face. Kelli used her book to deflect the beams, savoring the quiet.

Two minutes later the silence was shattered by the phone ringing.

“Damn it…” She carefully set the book down and walked back into the house, lamenting that she was too damned stupid to remember to grab the portable on her way outside.

“Hello?” She snapped the phone out of its cradle before the third ring had finished.

Bill Lister was on the other end. “Kelli? Hi.”

“Hi, Mr. Lister.” She tried to make her heart behave itself. Every time she heard his deep voice, her hormones went apeshit on her. She’d been working for the Listers since she was sixteen, and in the five years since she’d started in their employ, the man of the house had always been a perfect gentleman. Still, part of her kept dreaming that sometime soon he might decide to change his ways. Bad thoughts, but she never acted on the fantasy, so it couldn’t really be a sin, could it?

“Listen, Michelle and I are going to be going out tonight. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. We probably won’t be home until after midnight. I know it’s short notice, but is there any chance you can stay with Teddy tonight?” His words were rushed and apologetic. They always were, at least when he was asking for a favor.

Kelli was supposed to have her weeknights free, the better to handle her homework, but at least half of the time her employers found ways to keep themselves busy. The good news was that Teddy was normally pretty well behaved. The great news was that the Listers almost always gave her a nice tip for taking the extra time.

“Ummm… yeah, it’s all right.” She smiled at the wall, imagining what it would be like to go dancing with Bill Lister. A nice, slow dance; nothing too flashy, just a good excuse to be held in his arms.

“You’re a lifesaver, Kelli. Seriously. I forgot all about having a dinner date with one of Michelle’s clients, and there’s just no way we could cancel at this point.”

“Oh, you know I don’t mind. Teddy’s my little sweetie.”

“Well, thank you just the same. You’re the best, Kelli.”

She hung up after she heard the sound of the call disconnecting, her mind on everything she’d have to get done during the day, with an occasional excursion into taboo territory to imagine what it would be like to have Bill Lister as her lover.

Kelli saw motion across the street, over at the Miles house, just as she was settling back down on the porch. The house was hidden from most of the world, but not from where she was sitting. Albert Miles had packed a few bags and beaten a hasty retreat, which was also sort of depressing, because he was normally her number one distraction on long days. The old man played a killer game of chess.

Almost as if the new tenant had timed it, Kelli saw the front door of the house open and a man step out into the early morning sun, his hand blocking the glare from hitting his face.

The stranger had dark hair, pale skin, and a casual stride that still seemed to eat the distance between the front of his driveway and the front door. He didn’t walk in a straight line, but instead moved from tree to tree in the yard, as if he wanted to examine each of them closely. His hands touched each trunk, almost like he needed to feel the texture of the ancient oaks and rare specimens to make sure what he felt was solid and real. He walked like she thought a sleepwalker should.

He walked in shadows whenever possible.

Eventually, and really rather quickly, he made it to the front gate to pick up the newspaper. She almost moved her hand up to wave, then thought better of it.

He turned his head slightly and looked at her from across the street, his face impassive and attractive in a strange way. He was handsome, but alien, with features that were different from the ones she had been raised around.

He smiled. It was a close-mouthed twist of his lips, and his right eyebrow lifted slightly as if preparing to ask a question. The man gave a quick, casual wave of his hand and then, after he had reached for the newspaper at his feet, he bowed in an almost mockingly formal way before turning and heading back the way he had come, once again touching each tree and keeping to the early-morning shade whenever possible.

Kelli watched him go, attracted to the man for no reason she could easily place a finger on. He was handsome, yes, but not overwhelmingly so.

Still, for most of the day before it was time for her to go pick up Teddy from the Sacred Hearts private school, she kept thinking about his little smile and wishing she could remember the color of his eyes.

Avery Tripp leaned back in his chair, at ease with his place in the world. The school day was over halfway done and that was a good thing. He hated school work, but he loved the people around him. Avery tended, through no fault of his own, to like people. He also had a strong fondness for anything that could get him into trouble. That was what his mother said, anyway.

Mr. Stark, his Sociology teacher, would have agreed completely. William Stark didn’t seem to mind too much, however. He still gave Avery good marks for conduct, even after that embarrassing incident with the smoke bombs Avery had slipped under his car’s hood. Man, the smoke had been everywhere.

Just thinking about it made Avery smile.

Teddy Lister was sitting next to him, just as he did every day. He and Teddy were best buds, and Avery couldn’t imagine a cooler person in the whole world, except maybe for Teddy’s nanny. Kelli had won big bonus points in his eyes when she hadn’t narced them out about the magazine. That, and she was about the coolest grown-up he had ever met. And pretty. Very pretty. He’d have paid good money to see her in one of his father’s dirty magazines.

Avery frowned and shook his head. No. On second thought, he didn’t want to see her that way. She was too cool to be exposed and naked like that. Maybe in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue instead. He was only ten, but Avery could already appreciate the idea of letting his imagination paint in some of the finer details.

Teddy yawned next to him and shook his head in an effort to stay awake. Mr. Stark looked over in their direction, doubtless trying to see if Avery was up to no good. It was like a game between them: Avery would try to get away with something, anything, and Stark would try to catch him before he could do anything too drastic, like blow up the school.

Neither of them would have admitted it, but he bet Stark enjoyed the game just as much as he did. Good, clean fun; and it was free, too.

Teddy started to snore, very lightly, and Avery tapped him in the ribs with an elbow. Teddy’d been acting weird all day. He was pale and so tired he looked like he could just nod off. Of course he had just nodded off, thus, the snoring.

His best friend grunted and woke up, but he didn’t look at all happy about it, “Watch the elbow.”

“Then wake up, monkey.”

“I’m not a monkey.” What was the word Kelli was always using? Petulant. Teddy was being petulant.

“You’re being petulant. Wake up.”

“Did you boys need to share a few secrets with the rest of us?” Stark stood up from his desk and looked in their direction. He was in a good mood today, which was a blessing. Avery could tell he was in a good mood, because he was actually smiling as he asked the question. All around the room several of the girls were looking at the teacher with moo-cow eyes. All of the students had to wear their little uniforms, blazers and slacks for the boys, blazers and skirts for the girls, but Mr. Stark was the only teacher who was always dressed up for teaching; charcoal gray suit and a lighter gray shirt with a dark red tie. He sort of looked like he belonged in an ad from one of the GQ magazines his father set in front of his stack of Penthouses.

“No, sir.” Avery spoke and Teddy did, too. They weren’t stupid enough to ignore a question they knew good and well was directed at them.

“Good. Just making sure, because if you’re feeling the need to talk, we could always just finish this quiz tomorrow and let you come on up here and read your reports now, instead.” Stark was still smiling. That was a big, big plus.

“Well, I finished my test, sir.” Avery held up the page to make sure the man could see that he had, in fact, finished all of the questions. Next to him, Teddy started actually filling in answers, his hand moving with the desperate speed of someone who had just realized he’d forgotten there was a test to take.

Stark grinned. It was a wide, friendly smile that was obviously amused.

“Of course you did, Avery. Well, open your book and start reading at page 72. And read quietly this time.”

Avery nodded and followed orders. All around him, the other kids were still working on their papers: everyone except Jayce Thornton, who had also finished and was now making goo-goo eyes at the teacher. She was his only competition for the top of the class. She’d probably win, too, because she was smart enough not to do things like super-gluing the teacher’s desk drawers shut. That little escapade had actually managed to make Stark’s smile go away. He’d been sent to the offices on that day, and had spent two hours explaining the reasons for his actions to Sister Celeste. Two hours of his life with one of the scariest women God had ever put on the face of the earth had convinced Avery to behave himself. He’d vowed never to do anything that stupid again, and while he hadn’t managed to keep the vow, he had certainly meant to.

He shot one last look at Jayce, and saw her staring at Mr. Stark. He wanted to be Mr. Stark when he grew up, or at least to look good enough to make girls like Jayce think he was something special.

When Jayce’s head turned in his direction, he looked down hastily. Girls were his Kryptonite. He couldn’t talk to them. They made his face all hot and his tongue as confused as Teddy looked working on question number seven.

Avery lifted the edge of his test and let Teddy copy. His friend smiled gratefully and wrote down the answer.

Avery hoped his bud wasn’t coming down with something. He didn’t want to get sick and he didn’t want Teddy getting sick, either. Halloween was coming around soon enough and it wouldn’t be any fun hitting houses with toilet paper if they were too ill to enjoy themselves.

Avery thought of Mr. Stark’s house and wondered if he should set some eggs aside. How long did it take for an egg to get really, really stinky? He didn’t know, but he was willing to find out.

Danni Hopkins spent the entire class looking like her family had just been murdered. It seemed like everything had the girl on the edge of tears. Maggie didn’t know the girl all that well, but she hoped everything was all right. Danni seemed like a decent enough girl, even if she was a little too bubbly for Maggie’s tastes.

As soon as the class was dismissed, Danni Hopkins ran from the room, her face collapsing. Several of the girls in the room went after her, either to help or to see if there was going to be anything good to gossip about.

Maggie wasn’t among them. She had other things she needed to take care of. Ten minutes after Danni had a nervous breakdown she was on her way to the Sacred Hearts Cathedral, a small church with a grandiose name. She slipped her short skirt on over her jeans and then removed the latter with practiced ease.

She had no idea why Jason Soulis wanted her to do what he’d hired her for, but with what he was paying she’d already decided she could worry about her conscience later.

Know Thy Enemy. Someone had said that once, but she couldn’t remember who. Patrick Flannery was not her enemy, but he was her target for the afternoon. He would, she suspected, be the easiest of her prey to capture.

The notion brought a smile to her face. Stalking priests: her father would have an absolute coronary if he knew about this. Even more than he would if he knew what she did to pay her bills and keep herself at Winslow Harper.

The interior of the church was semi-dark and very solemn. As always, she was in awe of the place. Not just because it was the House of God, but because it was a beautiful structure. Everything about the building spoke of quiet dignity and strength, from the stone walls to the large carved Christ on the crucifix that adorned the wall above the pulpit. The stained-glass windows caught the sun as it shone down but muted the intensity of the light and painted it in primary colors as it fell to the marble floor.

Father Patrick Flannery was the only living soul in the church when she got there. She knew he would be. She’d been attending the church for most of her life and often stopped by after school.

He saw her and smiled, and aside from that, left her in peace. Maggie never came to the church to speak with anyone unless it was time for her confession. She had told the man many of her sins, but she had never once mentioned her line of work. She would wait on that particular confession until after she had graduated from the university. The reason was simple enough: she knew what she did was considered a sin, but as far as she was concerned it was a minor sin at worst. Mary Magdalene had been forgiven and she knew that she would be, too, when the time came. But it wasn’t time yet. Part of contrition might require that she stop, and she wasn’t ready for that, not yet. She had to follow through with her plans, and if that meant keeping a few secrets from her family and from the priests that she saw regularly, she could accept that.

Father Flannery was in his late thirties, if she had to hazard a guess. She could still remember when he first showed up at the church, back when she was a freshman at Sacred Hearts. He was stocky, but not fat, with hair that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be red, brown, or blond, and a wide, Irish face. He looked like he should have been playing college football back then and these days he looked like he should have been sitting in a pub, talking about the good old days when he played college football.

He was friendly, but slightly distant for the most part. He never let himself get too close to any of his parishioners, save in a professional capacity, and Maggie thought she knew why.

Father Flannery was a little afraid of losing his self-control. He was good about hiding it, good about not making his desires blatantly obvious, but she knew how he felt. She had known since the first time she’d seen his eyes on her legs and her breasts during Mass. She’d known in the way he avoided looking her in the eyes, and in the simple little gestures he made when he saw her. His hands fluttered like birds, and his jaw clenched and unclenched with astonishing regularity when he was around women he found attractive.

And she doubted that it was coincidence that he was almost always the priest who handled confessions for the children at Sacred Hearts. Oh, it might be that he was simply forced to deal with their confessions as the youngest priest at the church and the one who got stuck with the least likeable tasks, but she doubted it. Even if that were the case, he was certainly the most attentive.

He was not a pedophile. She had no doubt of that in her mind. He had probably never broken his vows, either, because he was still as nervous as a virgin whenever he was around a woman.

But he thought about it. He thought about it a lot.

Father Flannery made himself busy, dusting the pews and generally moving about as she lit a candle and then settled herself down for a quick prayer, asking the Lord for forgiveness. She had to do this. She needed the money.

If she wanted to be completely honest with herself, she was looking forward to the challenge.

Danni didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t dare. The bastard had taken all of the evidence from her purse and carefully slipped it into an evidence bag. Then he’d sealed the bag in front of her and meticulously written on the date.

“No one has to see this, ever, Danielle. We made a deal, and I intend to keep it. But you’d do well to keep your end of the bargain. Do we understand each other?” He’d tried to sound all calm and authoritative, but he’d failed. He’d been gloating.

He hadn’t exactly raped her. It had been consensual, mostly, but he’d been gloating, savoring her discomfort, and she knew in her heart that, for him, half the fun had been knowing she didn’t enjoy herself. It was a power trip, just like they always said rape was.

Either way it was a violation, and she hated him for it. She was just glad he’d used condoms, because the idea of any part of him near her or in her was enough to make her want to cry again. And just as soon as she thought it, the notion became reality and the damned tears started all over.

It was Ben that finally got her to talk.

Ben Kirby was a quiet, sweet, funny boy who always made her feel better when she was down. He wasn’t a lover and had never tried to even date her, but he was a friend when she needed one.

And God, she needed one so badly.

Ben always seemed to know when to come by, when to crack one of his stupid little jokes, or even when to just offer a shoulder to lean on. He’d found her out in the park behind the university, sitting on a bench, and doing her best not to fall apart again. Several birds were in the area, all of them whoring for pieces of bread. She didn’t have any, but Ben did. He sat down next to her on the bench and said nothing for at least five minutes. He just tore off little pieces of white bread and threw them to the gathering crowd of pigeons, seagulls, and crows. After a few minutes he started giving some of the birds nicknames, pointing them out to her as they pulled different stunts, making up gossip about the lives of the damned birds and making her laugh.

It was silly and it was futile, and she laughed just the same, enjoying every second of the show until he ran out of bread.

When the birds had finally taken a hint and gone off to seek new people with more treats, Ben looked her in the eyes and smiled sadly. He almost always smiled that way, like there was something missing from his life and he knew what it was but could do nothing at all about it.

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“I can’t, Ben.”

He nodded. “Okay. That’s cool.” He patted his shoulder and gave her a puppy-dog expression that was so over-the-top pathetic that she laughed again, and then settled her head on the offered shoulder.

They sat that way for almost half an hour, until she was sure his arm must have fallen asleep. “I won’t judge you, Danni. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed and nodded against his Winslow Harper University sweatshirt. “Yeah, I know. It’s just. I did something stupid.”

“Did you hurt anyone?” It was a simple enough question. She shook her head.

“Then it couldn’t have been too stupid.”

“Well, it was up there.”

“Look, just don’t… don’t be too hard on yourself. If it was something you did, don’t do it again, and if it was something someone else did to you, you can always call the cops.”

The last part was meant as a joke, of course. She knew that because he always said it when he was cheering her up. But she broke down right then and there, and the next thing she knew he was holding her against him, rocking her like a baby. She told him everything.

Ben sat silently and listened. He nodded from time to time, but otherwise, he said nothing at all until she had finished crying herself numb. She rested her head against his chest and he wiped at her tears, missing a few but getting most of the trails off her face.

Then he leaned down and kissed her temple with the same sort of affection her father had always shown her when she screwed up colossally.

“So, I’ll get it all back.”

“What?” She sat up fast, the world getting fuzzy for a second as she looked at his face. Ben was looking across the park, his eyes tracking a couple of crows talking smack to each other in a language that only crows know.

“I’ll get it back.” He said the words so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that she could almost believe he meant them.

“No, Ben.” She shook her head, visions of what Brian Freemont would do to a kid the size of Ben dancing in her mind. “He’d tear you in half.”

Ben got a strange little smile on his face and shook his head. “I didn’t say how I’d get it back.”

“Ben, I mean it. He’d probably kill you as soon as he’d look at you.”

Ben finally looked her way and shot her a quick wink. “Just shows what you know, Danni.” He stood up and stretched, his narrow waist exposed to the cold air as his shirt lifted.

“Ben, seriously. Thanks for everything, thanks for being here and listening, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

That little smile again and then he was walking, looking over his shoulder for a second to shoot her another wink. “I’ll get it back.”

He seemed so calm and that was what scared her. Ben was maybe too calm; the sort of calm that always precedes the worst storms.

Maggie leaned forward, her forehead resting against the interior door of the confessional, her eyes half closed as she stifled a moan. Father Flannery sat behind her, his hands on her waist, barely moving. He gasped and then rested his head between her shoulders. His skin felt like warm marble as she moved, slowly, gently rocking back and forth, making the moment last as long as she could. There was something almost sweetly innocent about the man she seduced and wickedly delicious about the act they were engaged in. For the first time in a very long while, she felt something more than merely physically active.

His teeth scraped the back of her neck, and his breaths lashed at her skin. His hands were actually trembling, his fingers clutching at her sides as she continued to slowly increase the tempo of their dance.

Just on the other side of the vestibule door, she could hear people moving, and through the small crack that separated the door from its jamb, she could make out three parishioners walking down the main aisle of the church, heading for the pulpit.

Flannery’s body was almost perfectly rigid under her, and she knew he heard them, too. Despite the gravity of the situation, or maybe because of it, she felt a smile playing at her lips as she moved his hand from her waist until she could nibble on his index finger. His other hand moved of its own will and cupped her breast through the simple white blouse, so reminiscent of the uniforms she’d worn back at Sacred Hearts.

He said a small blasphemy as she pushed herself back against his body and started moving faster, in short, tight circles over him. Getting him into the confessional for a different sort of activity had been amazingly easy. One look, three sentences, and a condom in her hand, and he had been putty.

She just hadn’t expected to enjoy this anywhere near as much as she was. Forbidden fruit was sweet, after all.

His teeth clamped down harder and for the first time he started moving in reaction to every motion she offered. His actions were frantic and she knew he was about to come.

Maggie bit down harder on the priest’s finger, sucking at the skin caught between her teeth as he bucked beneath her, whimpering and sweating and maybe dying a little.

She bit harder still as she climaxed, the feelings hitting her hard and with completely unexpected intensity. The skin between her teeth broke and the flavor of his blood danced across her tongue. He mumbled another blasphemy into her neck and she managed to hold back her own sounds through sheer force of will.

It was almost twenty more minutes before the church was empty and they could safely leave the confessional. He came at least twice more in that time and Maggie gave up trying to count hers.

She left the church a short while later, her body still echoing the pleasures she’d just had. She wore a smile for the rest of the day and into the night.