'You got a blanket?'
'In the trunk, sure.'
'Stars…maybe some moonlight? Sounds good, yeah.'
'Great choice.' Lucas took the Interstate west, exiting onto a small highway, finding a still-smaller two-lane on which they found a family-run restaurant where the proprietors and their children-Mexicans-all knew Lucas and welcomed him like an old friend, while Meredyth stood back observing, smiling, nodding as Lucas chatted in Spanish with them.
In a matter of minutes, the father held out a fully packed picnic basket with cold cuts, bread, cheese, and wine, and Meredyth took it while Lucas pushed money into the man's hands.
A few miles down the road, Lucas turned onto a deserted desert road, tall cactus looking on like silent sentries while Lucas's car sent up a flume of particles and sand. A dirt cloud followed them like a dervish as they raced for the lavender-hued rocks beneath the moon and stars in the distance.
The moonlit night painted the hills and corresponding gulches with a variety of colors, deep and abiding, yet changing from moment to moment, like the breeze itself. Meredyth was caught up in the sights, the peace, and the feel of this hideaway he wished to share with her. 'I come here alone a lot,' he said. 'When I have more time, I go out farther, all the way to the Diablo Spinata-Devil's Spine. Now there's a mystical place, filled with ghosts and spirits of the past.'
'Take me there sometime,' she replied.
'I will.'
'Promise?'
'Promise.'
From the trunk of his car, Lucas produced an Indian blanket, beautifully woven, and with the basket of food and drink in hand, he escorted her to a favorite spot, spread the blanket, and welcomed her to partake. Together they lay for a time beneath the twinkling lights of the firmament.
Pointing back in the direction of Houston, she asked, 'What's that strange light in the distance?'
'That'd be Houston.'
'Houston, really?'
'Lights of the city.'
'I thought it was a kid's ball field all lit up.'
'Nope…trust me, it's the dome of light over Houston.' He then pointed to the crisp, clear sky directly overhead. 'No show like this in Houston,' he said, falling back on his elbows and going into a deep silence.
After a long moment of listening to the desert sounds, she said, 'Thanks, Lucas, for bringing me here.'
'You must be hungry. Let's eat.'
She reached over and grabbed hold of his shoulders, pulling him down over her, kissing him passionately. For the moment, the food was forgotten.
'Ever spend the whole of a night in the desert?' he asked.
'Well…no…not till now.'
Dr.Arther Belkuin couldn't stop shaking. He was almost caught inside a police station with a box containing the severed right hand of Mira Lourdes. It had been the second package he had delivered to Dr. Meredyth Sanger, while Lauralie had delivered a second package to Detective Lucas Stonecoat. And still she had not explained why they were doing this.
He thought of his practice, his livelihood, his clients, and the multitude of animal patients he helped each day, and he thought of how it would play in the newspapers if it should ever come out that he, Dr. Arthur Belkvin, Professor of Animal Surgery at the Dean King School of Veterinary Medicine, had been arrested for misusing his surgical skills to pick apart a dead woman's corpse for sexual favors from a woman half his age, one of his students. Being a murder accomplice somehow did not bother him so much as the humiliation he'd brought down on his profession, a profession that had its own Hippocratic Oath- to do no harm.
He shivered at the thought of being found out. Of being called out. Of being labeled a man who had once been a fine upstanding practitioner in the art of saving life, but who now dealt in death. But I've killed no one, he told himself. She's done the killing. I couldn't even swing the ax hard enough. Anyone can see that I'm not the monster here. No, he told himself now, I'm not a monster… just an Igor to her twisted Frankenstein.
As Arthur drove home, anxiously checking his rearview for the flashing lights in pursuit, certain that at any moment they would come, he wondered at his own hold on reality. Common sense told him that most certainly someone had taken down his license plate, but another voice kept saying he could-if caught-end it all here and now! Flag down a cop and put the blame where the blame belonged, square on Lauralie, whose very presence turned him into a spineless lapdog. God, someone had to know why he did what he had done.
How certain he felt that someone had recognized the make and model of the car. He pulled down the street on which he lived, for the first time calming as he saw his apartment come into view. He could see his two greyhounds in the window grown big with excitement on seeing his approach. Smart boys, they knew his car from sight. Lauralie was somewhere inside the apartment as well, likely watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which he hated.
Lauralie awaited him inside, but he hesitated going any further toward the steps. 'Am I crazy? This isn't me! I don't behave like this. I'm not a psychopathic maniac, but what I'm doing…that's psychopathic, man! What the hell else do you call going about the city delivering parcels stuffed with the remains of a dead woman! Maybe 1 am mad. And to what purpose? And to whom do I owe this deviant behavior if it's not to please Lauralie? And what is her purpose in all this?'
A neighbor, walking a dog, having watched him talking to himself in such animation, embarrassed at now being seen, waved and called out, 'Howya doin', Dr. Belkvin? Nice night, huh? Not too many good ones left before that old East Texas cold's going to set in.'
'Doing fine, thanks.' Lauralie's shadow was doing a sensual dance behind the blinds, music blaring. The neighbor watched her form gliding about for a moment before saying, 'Well…got to walk dinner off. Later, Dr. Belkvin.'
'Later. Harvey.'
Harvey would have something to talk about when he got home, Arthur thought.
Lauralie now peeked elflike from behind the drapes, having put the dogs into the back bedroom. So lithe and beautiful a prize Lauralie represented, a symbol of an ideal of sorts, something of a joie de vivre that raced around in his brain-a Tinkerbell, always fragile, always just out of reach even when you had her in hand, Arthur thought. Joy, yes, but she was also an annoying ethereal scratch across Arthur's soul, because Arthur knew that he denied the truth that lay in wait, that Lauralie would never be possessed by anyone, and could never truly be his. She was like the lover who sang in the song, We'll sing in the sunshine, we'll laugh every day-yay…and then I'll be on my way. That folk-song character promised a year before she had to leave, and Arthur knew that he'd have even less time before Lauralie flew away, despite her protestations and promises and declarations of love.
She gestured for him to hurry up, her large lips puckering into a teasing kiss against the glass. No doubt she was anxious for his report on tonight's success. She'd want to know all about it, every detail of how he had infiltrated Sanger's world. He'd have to make it good; he must keep her happy, but what about his own happiness? He was far from happy, he told himself as he made his way to the front door.
He jammed the key in the lock. 'Well, God damn it, it's time I got some details,' he shouted to the empty night.
'I couldn't agree with you more,' she said, pulling open the door, revealing herself as nude, and tugging him inside.
Arthur fell into her warm arms, his determination to get to the bottom of her obsession with Dr. Sanger put on hold. Lauralie's young body, radiating a passionate heat, her eyes aglow in the soft light of the apartment, her arms tightening around him, her thighs wrapping about him, inviting him into her, to become one with her, all conspired to melt away his fears, doubts, questions, and agitation.
Arthur couldn't resist. He embraced her, and she kicked the door closed, passionately pawing at his clothing and alternately kissing him and pleading for the details just as he'd expected. 'How did it go? Did you place the package on her desk like I told you to?'
She was turned on, her body heat permeating through his clothing. She swallowed his mouth in hers, sucking
