Blood Red

Chapter 4

The car was a complete wreck. The front end had wrapped itself very neatly around a telephone pole, and the engine was halfway out of the hood. What was left of the windshield lay across the entire mess, covered with strands of hair and lightly drizzled in blood. The steering wheel looked more like a pretzel than a proper circle, and the seatbelt had been completely torn free of its moorings.

Brian Freemont looked at Alan Coswell and shook his head. “You mean to tell me someone got out of this and walked away?”

“Screw that.” Coswell lit a cigarette, careful to step away from the wreckage, just in case there might be some gasoline left in the area. It wasn’t very likely. The car had been there for at least a day and the spillage from the ruined tank had long since evaporated. “What I want to know is how anyone driving down this road could miss the fucking car sitting here.”

Brian kept his voice as calm as he could; he was doing a damned fine impersonation of a sane man as far as he was concerned. “No street lights. Not a lot of traffic out here, except on the weekends. Hell, the only thing down this way is a make-out spot.” He knew it well. He’d used it a few times back in high school and a lot more often since he’d joined the force. This was one of his favorite roads for finding a little action on the side.

He thought about a few of his recent conquests. The girls he’d had along the side of the road were pleasant distractions. It was easier than focusing on the shit his life had become in less than twenty-four hours.

Coswell snorted and coughed, a chest cold doing its best to work itself deep into his lungs. That was what he got for being a smoker as far as Brian was concerned. The fact that Coswell felt like shit also helped Brian stay outwardly calm in the face of personal disaster.

His life had become absolute hell since the phone call the day before. Piece by little piece his entire life had slipped down into a cesspool, and it didn’t look like he could do a damned thing about it until the next time the badly disguised voice on the phone called him.

“Jesus Christ, Freemont! Are you even listening to me?” He turned to see Coswell glaring at him. The man’s fat face and walrus mustache always annoyed him, but he was a sergeant, so Brian faked giving a damn.

“Sorry. I was trying to figure out what happened to the body.” It was a lie, of course. He couldn’t have cared less. Nothing much mattered right now except getting his world back in order, before everything else could crumble away.

“Come look at this shit.” He moved his flashlight over a section of the car’s front. Brian nodded as he walked around the rear of the vehicle. They hadn’t looked over there yet.

It was hard not to see the marks once they were in view; there was nothing subtle about them. There were two hand-prints imbedded deep into the metal on the front passenger’s side. The metal had crumpled around the indentations, and the paint had been lifted completely away, as if it had adhered to the hands that struck the side of the car.

“What the fuck?” He moved closer, crouching next to the door to study the deep dents. “I mean, damn. Should we get the fingerprint kit out?”

Coswell snorted his laughter. “Yeah, kid. Lemme just yank that outta my ass for ya.” He rolled his eyes and started back toward the cruiser. “I’m gonna see what’s taking the damned detectives so long.”

Freemont glared at the other officer’s back, and looked again at the car in front of him. The sheer force of the blow that would have left a mark like what he was staring at now would have been enough to shatter the bones in any person’s arms like they were cheap glass. It might explain why the car had been abandoned. No one would want to stay around to face the police if they’d smeared someone all over the side of the road. The police seldom understood about that sort of thing. They tended to suggest a few years in jail as a good method of getting over the guilt.

The longer he looked, the more puzzled he grew. He looked at the trajectory of the car and studied the ground leading to the crash site. The skid marks were obvious for only around four feet and then they left the road a good fifty feet or more from where the vehicle now rested. It was either going at an incredible speed on the back road or…

“No fucking way.” He scowled and walked up to the road and the deep black rubber trails that were obviously new enough to associate with the crash.

Brian Freemont was not stupid. He might not have been a rocket scientist, but he’d studied hard to get through the academy and he’d also studied on the side as well, learning all he could about accident scenes and forensic pathology along the way. One day he planned to get back to school and learn enough to get himself set up as a coroner. It was an elected position and technically you didn’t even need to have a medical degree, but he wanted to do it right. He had dreams, and they didn’t end with a little college-grade pussy on the side of the road now and again. His conquests with the girls were strictly a bonus, not a life-long ambition. The point being that, even though he was hardly the most honorable man, he knew what he was looking at with better than average knowledge.

The skid marks never even turned away from the course of the road. The vehicle had never swerved. It had been driving along nice and easy—probably at around 30 miles per hour too fast for the road conditions—and then it met something that hit it hard enough to push it off the asphalt and through the air, at least fifty feet.

And that something had hands.

Brian looked the evidence over again, ignoring Coswell as the man came back from the patrol car and stared hard at him.

“You look like you ate a bug. What’s wrong?”

Brian looked over at the sergeant and thought about giving him a straight answer. “I just can’t get this. It doesn’t add up.”

“Yeah? That’s why you’re not a detective. Leave it to the professionals, Brian.” The slob seemed to think the whole thing was a joke, but as much as he wanted to respond that it was a serious situation, he bit his tongue instead. He had enough shit going down in his day without adding anything else to his list of bad events. Coswell was exactly the sort of sorry asshole that would take any comments he made and turn them around on him later. He was a prick.

His cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket and Brian answered it without even considering that he wasn’t supposed to carry the damned thing on duty. Screw Coswell on that one, at least. He knew the man was carrying a phone of his own.

“Hello?”

The voice from the previous morning spoke into his ear. “How has your day been, Officer Freemont?”

He looked at Coswell. The man was busily scratching his nuts as he looked at the marks on the car again.

Brian walked away from the site, wanting to make sure his sergeant didn’t hear any of the conversation.

“What did you do, you son of a bitch?”

“Nothing that I can’t fix.”

“Then you better get to fixing it!” He forced himself to calm down. It wasn’t easy. As of nine A.M., Brian Freemont had discovered that he had no checking accounts, no savings accounts, and was two months behind on his house payments. His finances were in ruins. He had to come to work and act like nothing was wrong in his life, but everything was wrong. Every single damned thing was very, very wrong.

“Listen to me carefully. Listen to the numbers I’m going to read to you, and pay very close attention, Officer Freemont.” Brian held his breath. “Are you listening? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Good, because I want this over with as much as you do.” The man started talking, firing off a litany of numbers that Brian knew very well. They were the numbers for his car note, his mortgage, his different bank accounts. His blood seemed to slow down in his veins as he listened and he had trouble catching his breath. The voice read off his Social Security number, the policies for his life insurance, for his vehicle insurance, for his retirement accounts. By the time he was done, Brian Freemont was sweating bullets.

“Okay. Okay. What do you want?” He could barely recognize his own voice.

“You have files at your home, or hidden away somewhere else. I’m guessing you have a lot of files; police files that could cause a lot of trouble for a few friends of mine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The voice on the other end did not suddenly break into laughter, but he heard humor when it spoke again. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about. We’re not mentioning names yet, Officer Freemont. I could. I could give you several. But we haven’t reached that level of unpleasantness.”

“What do you want?” His chest was burning, and Brian had to wonder if he was having a coronary.

“I have five things to say, so listen carefully. One: I haven’t even hurt you yet. The worst thing you have going so far is a bounced check fee or two. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Number two: I can hurt you. I have everything that makes you a person in this country. I can have you audited by the IRS. I can have your back taxes examined with a microscope and make sure you pay interest on every penny that you ever earned. I can make sure that all proof you ever paid any taxes goes away as easily as your bank accounts did. I can ruin you so badly that Humpty Dumpty will look good next to you. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. Yes, I do.” Had he ever wanted to cry so badly? His hands were shaking and the world had bleached to a dark pulsing gray in his eyes.

“Three: one of the girls you did wrong is pregnant. She wasn’t with anyone but you. That means she’s carrying your baby, and that means you are going to lose your wife if you aren’t very, very careful about how you handle this. She doesn’t want your child, but she’ll carry to term if I ask her to because she knows she can ruin you like you did her. Do you understand?”

“Oh. Oh God.” His voice was cracking and he couldn’t feel his legs. “Oh, please, don’t do this to me.”

“Be quiet. We aren’t done yet.” The voice spoke without malice and that made it worse. “Number four: You get off work at seven P.M. tonight. By eight P.M., I want you to gather all of the evidence from all of the girls you did wrong and I want you to bring it to the edge of the Cliff Walk, right next to the spot where you’re parked now. I want you to set that evidence down and I want you to go back to your home and wait for a call from me. Do you understand me, Officer Freemont?”

He nodded, forgetting that he was on the phone for a moment.

“I have spoken to several girls about you. You will bring all of the evidence packets, because if you miss one of the girls I spoke to, I will carry out every threat I just made. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Yes, I do understand.” His mouth felt so dry, so painfully wretchedly dry, that he could barely make the words form properly.

“Number five: If you do everything I just told you to do and you follow my instructions exactly, I will give you back your life. This is your one warning, Officer Freemont. If you deviate from what I’ve told you in any way, I will ruin you.”

The phone went dead in Brian’s hand. He barely noticed. His body shook and his face glistened with sweat, but he was unaware. His mind went numb for several minutes. When he could think clearly again, Coswell was talking to the detectives and they were looking over the crash site carefully.

Brian Freemont had planned to discuss the tire tracks with the detectives, but the idea had slipped his mind.

He only had one thought that didn’t escape him. He had to get those damned files down here by eight o’clock or he was royally fucked.

At least as fucked as every girl he’d set up for a little fun.

The irony was not missed by him, but it was most assuredly unappreciated.

Ben had experienced two of his favorite things the night before and well into the morning. He’d had a wonderful conversation that covered the whole spectrum of discussions, and he’d spent time with Margaret, no, with Maggie Preston. The worst of the morning breakfast crowd had overrun the diner and then left for other places by the time they left the diner, and he’d felt so bad about it he’d left Sally an embarrassingly large tip. Funny, she didn’t seem at all embarrassed. She just smiled and told him to come back any time.

After that he walked Maggie home, the conversation slowing down only because both of them were tired and even all the extra cups of coffee only went so far to keep them conscious.

“I had fun.” She stretched and smiled as she spoke and Ben found himself smiling right back.

“Me too. It’s nice to meet an insomniac with a personality now and then.”

Maggie laughed and her hand moved over to squeeze his fingers for a second. Then she leaned in and kissed his cheek. A moment later she was pulling out her apartment key and slipping through the door. “See you in class, Ben.”

He’d walked numbly into his own apartment, and sat down on the couch. The smile lingered long after he sat down and he was almost certain he’d never wash his cheek again. Well, not for a while at least.

And now, one day later, he was still amazed by the kiss on his cheek. Maggie had gone to school and he had seen her there, but once again she was strictly there to study. She smiled and waved, but beyond that there was no contact. Not that he had expected any.

The policeman on the other end of the line was not at all happy to receive the call. He sounded stunned when he heard that Ben knew where he was. The chances were decent that he’d even looked around the area in a panic, trying to figure out where Ben was hiding. It wouldn’t do him any good, because he’d never even seen Brian Freemont and he certainly hadn’t gone out into the woods to watch for him. All it took was listening to the police radio broadcasts to know where the man was.

Ben smiled when he thought about the desperation in the sick bastard’s voice. He forced the smile to go away. He couldn’t take this as a game. It was serious business.

He turned off the cell phone and started wiping it clean. That was the second phone he’d used, and it was going into the trash.

Somewhere across the way, Maggie was probably sound asleep. He was thinking about getting some rest himself, as he had a test to study for later and his eyes were dangerously close to crossing. He wasn’t going to do himself any good if he didn’t catch up with the Sandman at some point.

And then Maggie walked out of her apartment and he was wide awake again. She was dressed in a simple gray skirt and silk blouse, with a matching jacket, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He watched her as she left, amazed by her as always. It wasn’t something he could define; it went beyond her obvious looks, but whenever he saw her, his day was made more complete.

“Romantic pabulum.” He sighed and turned on the CD player near his laptop. He had a paper to finish and it wasn’t going to write itself. Norah Jones started singing songs directly into his soul and he let her.

He wrote, just as he was supposed to, but in the back of his mind he was looking forward to being out near the accident site where he’d called Freemont. There would be packages waiting for him and he intended to go through them meticulously.

Danni Hopkins was a sweet girl, and he intended to make sure she got her life back. He also intended to make a few phone calls to the other victims of Freemont’s game and let them know that they were free and clear.

Then, and only then, he’d consider giving the crooked cop back his life.

Kelli walked into the nurse’s station at the elementary school with a frown on her face. Teddy was lying back on the small cot they had in the corner, his hand over his eyes. He was asleep, but it was a fitful slumber at best.

“Teddy? Sweetie?” She moved over to him and sat on the edge of the cot, careful not to knock them both through the air. It was hardly designed to have a grown-up sitting on its edge.

He looked as pale as death and for a second, even knowing that he was breathing, she thought he was dead.

Then Teddy opened his eyes and smiled apologetically at her. “Hi, Kelli. I’m sorry.” His voice was weaker than she’d heard come from him in the past and it bothered her a bit.

“What for, honey?”

“You have school today.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re way more important.” She ran her fingers through his hair and smiled at him. He closed his eyes and his face relaxed a bit. “Why don’t we see about taking you home, okay?”

He nodded his head, and closed his eyes as he waited for her to speak with the nurse.

A few moments later, the portly woman who worked as the school’s medical expert sat down with Kelli and they had a brief discussion. Ellen Cranst was in her late thirties, if Kelli had to guess, and while her face was heavy and her hair was pulled back in a harsh bun, she had a pleasant demeanor that took away from her otherwise harsh appearance.

“He seemed to be doing just fine this morning, but as soon as the kids went out for recess he just dropped like a stone. I was afraid he’d been stung at first, but I didn’t see any evidence of it.”

“I don’t think he’s allergic anyway.” She tried to think back to any allergies at all, but Teddy was a strong little kid, and there was nothing to remember.

“Well, he seems to be doing better now, but it might be best if he took the rest of the day to rest. If he’s bad in the morning, it might be time to see a doctor. You never can trust the flu season to wait.”

She thanked the woman for her time and bit her tongue on the patronizing tones the nurse employed, and then took Teddy with her toward the parking lot outside.

They hadn’t made seven steps out the door before Teddy grew pastier than ever and swooned. Kelli was strong enough to carry him the rest of the way to her car. She tucked him into the passenger’s seat and drove as calmly as she could.

He was sweating rivers of perspiration and she almost took him directly to the hospital, but decided to check with his parents first.

The new neighbor was outside, gardening of all things, when she pulled into the long driveway of the Lister house. Jason Soulis looked her way as she tried to lift Teddy’s dead weight from the car, and then moved in her direction.

He moved across the street without bothering to look in either direction, and was by her side long before she could finally pull Teddy from the side door. Without bothering to ask her, he gently urged her aside and swept the boy into his arms.

Soulis moved with her, asking her to open the door of the house and she did, gesturing for him to go ahead inside. He carried Teddy into the living room and placed him on the couch.

“Have you called a physician yet?” His tone was calm, but almost completely professional.

“No, it just happened.”

“Perhaps you should do so now.”

He opened Teddy’s shirt and began rubbing his palms over her charge’s chest. Then lowered his head and placed his ear against the pale adolescent skin, listening.

“His pulse is strong, but erratic. It’s possible he was bitten by something or ate the wrong foods. I would guess he’s having an allergic reaction.”

She dialed William Lister’s office number and got him on the first ring.

“This is Bill Lister, what can I do for you?”

“Bill? This is Kelli. Teddy got sick at school and he’s not doing well. I didn’t want to take him to the doctor without checking in with you first.”

Soulis had removed Teddy’s shirt and was now working on his shoes and his pants. He showed little emotion, save for a small expression of concern. She was tempted to question his motives, but his approach was clinical.

“Is he all right now?”

“Well he’s really weak and the new neighbor, Mr. Soulis, helped me get him inside. He thinks it might be an allergic reaction to something.”

“Oh, Kelli. We trust you. If you think he needs to be at the doctor’s, go.” He paused for a moment. “But please, call me as soon as you know anything. I’d be on my way to there right now, but I’m due in court in less than fifteen minutes.”

“All right, Bill. Should I call Michelle?”

“I’ll take care of it, Kelli. You just get Teddy squared away, okay?”

She looked over at Teddy, where Soulis was rubbing his extremities as if to warm them. “Okay, I’ll let you know when we get there.”

She hung up the phone and Soulis looked at her. “I think an ambulance might be a better way to go, Miss.” He pointed to an angry red mark on Teddy’s leg. “It would seem your friend has been bitten by something.”

Teddy’s head rolled to the side, and a small moan crept past his pasty lips. Kelli dialed 911.

Tom Pardue woke up just after noon and glared at the sunlight pouring through his opened curtains. He could have sworn he’d closed them the night before. Then again, there’d been a girl in his bed the night before, too.

He sat up and looked around his bedroom. Clothes were scattered around the floor, his cast-offs from last night, but no one else’s things were there.

“Stupid bitch.” He’d been thinking of going at Liz a second time. She was good in the sack. Also, she made the sweetest sounds when she was crying. He liked a girl that could cry for him.

Just thinking about it got him in the mood, and he climbed from his bed, annoyed all over again that she wasn’t there.

He walked from the bedroom into the hallway, and stopped for a moment to listen. A small noise from the kitchen caught his attention and Tom nodded as a smile slipped across his lips.

He walked the rest of the way on his toes, and as quietly as he could manage. He had a feeling that Liz was about to make his whole day better.

The kitchen was big; it was one of the things he liked about the house. There was an island in the center, complete with a chopping block, and several stainless steel countertops ran along the entire wall of the room. Most of Tom’s food was delivery, but he liked the appearance of a professional kitchen for those rare occasions when he had something catered. It didn’t happen often, but now and then he had get-togethers for his more prestigious clientele.

Mostly it was for show, but it was also a great place to sit and relax. It was also one of the first places a lot of the girls looked if they were trying to find out where he hid his dope.

Liz might be making him breakfast, or she might be trying to steal his stash. The former would get her a few brownie points. The latter would take care of his desire to hear her cry again.

Liz Montclair was a good-looking girl; she was cheer-leader material, with lustrous sandy hair and wide hazel eyes. She also had a mouth that was beyond generous. Like most of his hookers, she was a college student. He liked to get the girls young, before the shit they went through on the streets could make them look older than their years. Liz was already starting to show the signs of her bad habits. She was starting to get a little too hooked on the heavier shit. Her weight was going down and she was going to lose her looks if he didn’t make her curb her taste for partying.

That, or he could just find a few more whores.

He watched her as she carefully moved from cupboard to cupboard; searching the various containers for where he might have hidden what she was looking for.

He waited patiently, knowing full well that she was getting closer to being in deep trouble. It only took her four more minutes to find the stash, and by then she was so desperate that she wasn’t even paying attention.

He waited until her hand was deep inside the container of rice before he stepped all the way into the room. She was on her hands and knees, her face focused solely on the contents of the container.

He waited for the look of triumph when she found the baggie inside and then cleared his throat. Liz started, shocked by the sudden sound, and dropped the canister of rice. It rolled twice, spilling easily a pound of grain across the hardwood floor.

“You having fun there, Lizzie?” He walked closer, looking at the mess she’d made, his eyes taking their time in reaching the shocked and frightened features on her face. She was a pretty girl, with the sort of face that every guy would love to take home to meet the folks. She also looked so damned sexy when she was afraid.

“Tom!” Her voice broke and she stuttered. “I was just going to make you breakfast in bed!”

“I’m sure you were.” He walked closer until he was looming above her. Liz looked up, her bottom lip trembling and her eyes already starting to tear. “Lizzie? Honey? We seem to have a problem here.”

“I was just… I was gonna pay you, but I need a fix.”

“Of course you do.” He reached out with his hands and pulled the baggie from her fingers. He tore the package open and threw the contents in her face, watching her as she coughed uncontrollably, her face going red from the violence of her fit. “Help yourself, honey. It’s nice and pure.”

And it was, too; Tom doubted there was a better source anywhere for powdered sugar. Liz’s lungs tried to compensate for the inhaled confection; it wasn’t working out. She kept coughing for almost a minute, and when she was finished, she stared at the floor, her lips licking at the white powder on her face.

“What is that?” She wiped at her face, smearing white paste across her features and wiping a few spots of moisture away.

“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to leave anything like that lying around my house?” Tom reached out and grabbed a thick handful of her sandy blond hair. “Time for you to learn a few lessons, Lizzie.”

She started crying, her eyes grew wide and her hands reached up to stop him from pulling as hard as he was. He repressed a shiver of lust. First the discipline, then the sex. He had to make sure she understood who was boss, and then he’d demonstrate his affections.

Tom hauled back on her hair as hard as he could, and Lizzie wailed out in pain as her hair separated from her scalp. He knew she was going to be feeling that for a few days, oh yes, and he knew she’d be feeling a lot worse before it was done.

His knee slammed into her taut belly and doubled her over. To make sure she was really, really getting his point, he struck her there again as she coughed and dry heaved.

By the time she was done retching, he was sporting an erection. “Never try to steal from me, Lizzie. And never try to just borrow something of mine without asking. I let you off with a warning last night. I told you if you stole from me, we would have to work things out.”

Liz nodded her pretty head, the tears still flowing from her eyes, though she no longer had the strength to actually cry. He walked into the living room for a moment and reached into his very small stash, the one he’d taped to the inside of the closet, far from where people would be able to see it with a casual glance.

When he returned to the kitchen, Liz was back on her hands and knees, and trying to sweep up the crap all over the floor with her hands. She was hyperventilating, her chest hitching at high speed, sucking in air without really getting much relief for her lack of breath. It did lovely things to her perky little tits.

He dropped the nickel bag on top of the rice and watched her pick it up. Liz looked at him with wide, desperate eyes, asking for his permission. He nodded and she attacked. When she was done, she had white along her nostrils that was a slightly different color than the trail left by the confectioner’s sugar.

He could see when the coke hit her system. Her body relaxed and she almost managed a smile.

He was pretty sure she was about to say thanks to him when he tackled her and started tearing the clothes from her body.

She wasn’t even considering the idea of thanking him before he was done. Now and then a girl got uppity and he was forced to put her back in her place. Liz had broken the rules twice in one day. For that reason, he got inventive.

When he was finished and she was pinned under him, he leaned in close and licked her earlobe. Liz twitched, but couldn’t possibly get away from him. Then he withdrew from her, his erection fading as he rolled off of her sweet little body.

Tom leaned over and winked at her crying face. “Bet you didn’t even know you were still a virgin anywhere, did you, Lizzie?”

She shook her head and started crying again.

Tom ran his hand over the side of her face, leaving streaks in her white sugar makeup. “You remember something, Liz. I choose your clients. I’ve been nice with you and kept you away from the rough ones.” She tried to nod her head, but didn’t seem to have the energy. “You mess with me again and I’ll leave you for a couple of really sick fucks. Those boys like to use knives to make their own fuck holes.”

She broke down again and Tom let himself smile. Sometimes life was good.

Maggie waited until the other two priests had left before she approached Father Wilson. He was a lean man, with less hair than he’d had the year before and a warm smile for all of his parishioners. He was also a man who was accustomed, if she was reading him the right way, to the finer things in life.

He’d had a sermon once about the wild things he’d done when he was younger, and how he’d almost lost himself in the decadent ways of his youth before God called him home.

That made him a little bit different as challenges went. He’d had sex before and probably on several occasions. His face still held on to some of the looks that had probably made him very popular with the girls in his neighborhood when he was younger. Mostly, he looked at the women in the audience when he gave his sermons, and she had little doubt that part of him still longed for the good old days.

She was wearing her Sunday best today. She wanted to make sure he noticed her. Father Flannery had been easy; he was lonely and he liked younger women. Father Harris had been more challenging, but she’d figured the best way to handle him was to basically assault him in his bedroom. She was fairly confident that she could manage with Father Wilson as well, but he was an intriguing challenge.

He seemed so set in his ways, and even if he looked at the women in the church more than he looked at the men, that was almost to be expected. Also, he didn’t try to look down her blouse nearly as often as the other two did. They were subtle, but she knew how to read them. Father Wilson wasn’t quite as easy to peg.

She couldn’t find him at first and wondered if she had made a mistake. It was possible that he’d left before she got there, or that he was off doing any number of things that she had no desire to learn about. The business of running a church was hardly what she thought of as exciting news.

She found him in the vestibule behind the altar. Donald Wilson had been waiting for a moment alone. He had his eyes closed and was masturbating as quietly as he could, his mouth making motions as if he were speaking, but no sounds came from him.

Maggie watched him for several seconds, taken aback by his actions. Then she cleared her throat and got his attention.

He might have been more horrified if she’d been the Pope, but probably not. Wilson tried to stand and pull his dark slacks up at the same time, his face beet red and his hands trembling. He was close to the point of no return in his ministrations, and she looked where he had been attending to himself with a certain level of amusement, but she also tried to hide it.

“I—”

She didn’t let him get any further than the one word. His blue eyes were wide and his entire body was prepared for flight before she reached out to give him a little assistance.

A few moments later he was leaning against her, his face buried in her hair, and begging her not to tell anyone. Maggie turned her head and kissed his forehead softly, and then lowered to her knees in front of him and did things with her mouth that kept him speechless for quite some time.

A short while later she stared at the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood near the front door of the church as she leaned over the altar and he entered her from behind.

He was more imaginative than the other two priests had been. He was also less vocal. When they were done, she walked him back over to the alcove where she had caught him in the act and gave him one kiss on the lips before she left. His secret would be safe with her.

Maggie felt invigorated as she started back for home, and she felt as relaxed as she ever had. Several people who saw her thought to themselves that she was a woman in love as she walked; the soft, sweet smile on her face was a wonderful sight to behold.

It wasn’t love, but it was as close as she ever let herself get. The three men she had been with in the last couple of days had all managed to bring her more pleasure than she’d experienced sexually in her life. Maybe it was something about priests, or maybe it was the fact that they all so desperately wanted her again. Whatever the reason for her pleasure, she wasn’t even trying to hide it.

She made a short visit to the library, where she checked out three books she knew would be useful for her term paper. It was still a few weeks before she’d really have to worry, but it was best to get the work done early and she had the time.

Ben, from across the hallway, was just getting ready to leave when she came home. He smiled sweetly and made a quick wave before he closed and locked his door.

“Hi, Ben.” She smiled back, pleased to see him. He was funny and he was cute and she liked him. “You heading out somewhere?”

“Yep. I have to pick up a few packages. From my friend. The one I called.”

She stared blankly for a second and then remembered what he said he was doing to a crooked cop. “Really?”

“Yep. He’s supposed to leave them out for me and I’m going to check on them.” He looked at his watch. “He should just about be done setting everything in place.”

“Want company?” The last thing she’d expected to come out of her mouth was a request to come along on what could be a dangerous little trip. She didn’t need to get into any trouble with the law, that was all there was to it. But she was curious about Ben and she was doubly curious about what he had planned. And she was restless. Very, very restless.

Ben looked at her for a few seconds and she could almost see him working out all of the details in his brain.

“If you don’t, it’s okay.” She laughed to show him the truth of her words. “I won’t be offended or anything.”

He blushed, even in the growing darkness, she could see it. “Well, it’s not exactly legal. I just don’t want you getting into any trouble if he’s outsmarted me.”

“I could be your alibi.” She smiled and brightened, then winked conspiratorially. “You could say we were just making out if anyone gives you trouble.”

Ben looked away for a second and she saw a smile start on his face. He was blushing worse than ever.

“Okay. If you want to.” He put his hands into his jacket pockets. “You need to change first, or anything?”

“Yeah, gimme just a sec.” She slid into her apartment and shimmied out of her skirt as she walked toward her bedroom. There was a nice dark pair of jeans and a sweater that would be perfect for sneaking around in the woods. By the time she’d changed her clothes, she was actually looking forward to the trip more than she had expected.

It was the risk. That was the conclusion she came to. It was the risk that made it so damned exciting with the priests, and it was the thrill of being mischievous that had her heading into the woods with a man she barely knew, all so she could watch him commit a crime.

Too many years of playing it safe and working hard had made her a thrill junkie. She hoped it was temporary insanity, because she didn’t need the complications in her life.

But that was okay, too. Now and then everyone needed to have a little fun.

Later, she’d have reason to doubt the wisdom of those words.