She woke to Witt’s big body enveloping her. He snored lightly in her ear, a comforting, soothing sound of life, of normalcy. Warm and sated, she fit the spoon he created. She pulled the covers over her shoulder.
She thought of Cameron’s touch, and an unsettling sense of disloyalty threw off the last vestiges of sleep. Disloyalty to Witt. She should have been dreaming about him. Instead, as always, it was Cameron. Cameron whom she’d robbed of the one thing he’d sought, the ability to make love to his wife.
“You robbed yourself.” Cameron glimmered before her, his ethereal breath bathing her face.
“I love you,” she whispered aloud. “I’m sorry we never made love, not really.”
“We did in our dreams.”
Her throat clogged and the back of her eyes ached for the mess she’d made of her life with Cameron.
Against her back, Witt stirred. She must have been sleeping on his side of the bed, the clock was next to her. Half past eleven. They’d tumbled naked into his bed amid crisp white sheets and fallen asleep without making love again. She’d thought of waking him in the middle of the night...
She’d banked her blood lust for Bud Traynor, but she couldn’t forsake her vow to Wendy.
She had an hour and a half to sneak out, get to her car, or Sutter’s, and find the Rolls Royce. In the vision, the clock on the dashboard was the key. Whatever was going to happen would happen at one in the morning. She’d been given directions to the site.
Witt’s penis twitched at her backside, and his arm tightened around her as if her plans had entered his dreams. She’d never get out of the bed without waking him.
Still, she repeated the directions to herself, repeated them until they played endlessly in the back of her mind, like a tune that came back over and over throughout the day.
“You can’t take him with you.”
Cameron’s insistence quaked inside her. He knew something she didn’t. “Why?”
“It’ll never end if you don’t go alone.”
She closed her eyes, snuggling into Witt’s warmth and solidity. “He won’t let me leave.”
Witt mumbled something unintelligible, and both arms enveloped her, pulled her close until their flesh fused with the heat between them.
“There’s a way.”
“What?”
Cameron didn’t answer.
Witt did. “Who ya talking to?” His voice boomed in the quiet bedroom after the softness of Cameron’s in her head.
She didn’t have to answer. He knew. Silence. His body tensed against her back. He smelled of clean sheets, sex they hadn’t washed off, and the distance she’d put between them. She wondered how much he’d heard, how much she’d actually said aloud. Most likely all, which was why his arm shackled her waist.
He’d never understand she had to do whatever it was on her own. He’d never let her go.
The phone rang. It, too, was on the side she’d slept in. Rising on his elbow, Witt reached over her. She said a prayer of thanks. Cop thing, he’d have to go.
He laid back down behind her, his side to her back, his voice a pleasant buzz near her ear. “Calling awfully late, Mom.”
Max plummeted, remembering he was on leave or suspended or whatever the cops called it. His job wouldn’t be calling. No rescue there.
“What’s wrong?” Muscles rigid. “Are you sick ... Jesus, call the doctor.” Max shifted to her back and met his gaze. “I’ll be right there.” His nostrils flared. “And I’m bringing Max.” His blue eyes turned icy. “Why not?” All Max could hear was the frantic murmur of Ladybird’s voice and the utter quiet surrounding Witt. “I’m not leaving her alone.” His whitened fingers clutched the phone. “I don’t give a shit what Horace says.”
Max knew. Cameron had talked to Horace who had talked to Ladybird who had called Witt with an excuse to get him out of the house.
“We’re wasting time. If you’re sick, I’ll—” He sat up. Max lost sight of his face. “What do you mean she’ll die if I don’t leave her?”
God, Ladybird was laying it on thick.
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
Max soared—
He punched a button and turned to Max, his index finger pointing, “But you’re going with me no matter what she says.”
—and took a nose dive.
He rose from the bed, beautiful and unashamed in his nakedness. Digging in a bureau drawer, the muscles of his butt flexing in the moonlight streaming through the window, he turned. “My mother’s sick.” Maybe, he added facially. “We gotta go.”
Max sat up, the white sheet pulled to the top of her breasts. “Why don’t I stay here?”
Witt straightened, a pair of briefs, socks, and T-shirt in his hands. Without benefit of overhead lighting, his eyes were steel. So was his voice. He knew he’d been set up. “No.”
“But—”
“You”—his finger stabbed in the air—“are not leaving my side.” He bent, stepped into the underwear, then pulled the T-shirt over his head and down his chest, his skin dark against the snowy white. “We’ve established you need an alibi. Now my mother can testify as well.”
“I’m tired. I want to sleep.”