“Because I never kiss and tell.” His eyes slid down to her pulsing throat, then back up. “And you should be damned glad I don’t.”
Want surged through her, as warm and golden as the morning sunlight. She craved to feel his hard lips on hers again, the rough, powerful mastery of his tongue inside her mouth. She became dewy with desire and tearful with remorse for what she desperately wanted and couldn’t have.
Eyes locked, neither realized that they were being observed from across the street. The sun was as good as a spotlight on them.
Willing herself out of the dubious present and into the disturbing past, she said, “Junior told me that you and Celina were more than just childhood sweethearts.” It was a bluff, but she gambled on it working. “He told me everything about your relationship with her, so it really doesn’t matter whether you admit it or not. When did you and she first… you know?”
“Fuck?”
The vulgarity, spoken in a low, thrumming rasp, sent shafts of heat through her. Never had that word sounded erotic to her before. She swallowed and made an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment.
Suddenly, he hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her against him, placing her face directly beneath his. His eyes bore into hers.
“Junior didn’t tell you shit, Counselor,” he whispered. “Don’t try your fancy, courtroom-lawyer bluffs on me. I’ve got eighteen years on you, and I was born smart. The tricks I’ve got up my sleeve, you’ve never even heard about. I’m damn sure not ignorant enough to fall for yours.”
His fist clenched tighter around the handful of her hair he was holding. His breath felt hotter and came faster against her face. “Don’t ever try to come between Junior and me again, you hear? Fight us both or fuck us both, but don’t tamper with something outside your understanding.”
His eyes narrowed with sinister intensity. “Your mama had a bad habit of playing both ends against the middle, Alex. Somebody got a bellyful of it and killed her before she learned her lesson. You’d do well to learn it before something like that happens to you.”
The morning was a washout in terms of discovering new clues. Nothing diverted her mind from the disturbing conversation she had had with Reede. If a deputy hadn’t knocked on the office door and interrupted them, she didn’t know whether she would have clawed at Reede’s eyes or yielded to her stronger urge to press her body close to his and kiss him.
At noon she stopped trying to concentrate and crossed the street to have lunch at the B & B Café. Like most people who worked downtown, that had become her habit. No longer were conversations suspended when she went in. Every now and then she even merited a greeting from Pete if he wasn’t too busy in the kitchen.
She dawdled over her meal as long as possible, scooting the yellow ceramic armadillo ashtray back and forth across her table and leafing through Pete’s printed brochure on the proper way to prepare rattlesnake.
She was killing time, loath to return to the dingy little office in the basement of the courthouse and stare into space, recounting unsettling thoughts and reviewing hypotheses that seemed more farfetched by the hour. But one thought kept haunting her. Was there any connection between Celina’s death and Junior’s hasty marriage to Stacey Wallace?
Her mind was steeped in speculation when she left the café. Ducking her head against the cold wind, she walked toward the corner. The traffic light, one of the few downtown, changed just as she reached the corner. She was about to step off the cracked and buckled concrete curb when her arm was caught from behind.
“Reverend Plummet,” she stated in surprise. Subsequent events had quickly dismissed him and his timid wife from her mind.
“Miss Gaither,” he said in a censorious tone, “I saw you with the sheriff this morning.” He could have tacked on any number of deadly sins to account for the accusation smoldering in his deep-set eyes. “You’ve disappointed me.”
“I fail to see—”
“Furthermore,” he interrupted with the rolling intonation of a sidewalk evangelist, “you’ve disappointed the Almighty.” His eyes rounded largely, then closed to mere slits. “I warn you, the Lord will not tolerate being mocked.”
She nervously moistened her lips and glanced around, hoping to see some avenue of escape, though she didn’t know what form it might take. “I haven’t meant to offend you or God,” she said, feeling foolish for even making such a statement.
“You haven’t locked the iniquitous behind bars yet.”
“I haven’t found any reason to. My investigation isn’t complete. And just to set the record straight, Reverend Plummet, I didn’t come here to lock anybody behind bars.”
“You’re being too soft on the ungodly.”
“If by that you mean that I’ve approached this investigation impartially, then yes, I have.”
“I saw you this morning fraternizing with that son of the devil.”
His maniacal eyes were arresting, if repellent. She caught herself staring into them. “You mean Reede?”
He made a hissing sound, as though the very name conjured up an evil spirit that must be warded off. “Don’t be taken in by his wily devices.”
“I assure you, I’m not.”
He came a step closer. “The devil knows where women are weak. He uses their soft, vulnerable bodies as channels for his evil powers. They’re tainted, and must be cleansed by a regular outpouring of blood.”
He isn’t only nutty, he’s sick, Alex thought in horror.