Presumed Guilty

Chase had fallen asleep.

For a moment she sat beside him, listening to his slow and even breaths, wondering if he could ever learn to trust her. If she could ever be more to him than just a piece of the puzzle — the puzzle of his brother’s death.

She rose and pulled the coverlet over his sleeping form. He didn’t move. Gently she smoothed back his hair, stroked the beard-roughened cheek. Still he didn’t move.

She left him and went downstairs. The boxes of papers confronted her, other bits and pieces of that puzzle. She separated them into files. Article files. Financial records. Personal notes from M, as well as from other, unidentified women. The miscellaneous debris of a man’s life. How little she had known Richard! What a vast part of him he had kept private, even from his family. That’s why he had so jealously guarded this north shore retreat.

In the fabric of his life, I was just a single, unimportant thread. Will I ever stop hurting from that?

She rose and checked the doors, the windows. Then she went back upstairs, to the master bedroom.

Chase was still asleep. She knew she should use the other room, the other bed, but tonight she didn’t want to lie alone in the darkness. She wanted warmth and safety and the comfort of knowing Chase was nearby.

She had promised to look after him tonight. What better place to watch over him than in the same bed?

She lay down beside him, not close but near enough to imagine his warmth seeping toward her through the sheets.

Sometime during the night the dreams came.

A man, a lover, was holding her. Protecting her. Then she looked up at his face and saw he was a stranger. She pulled away, began to run. She found she was in a crowd of people. She began to search for a familiar face, a pair of arms she could reach out to, but they were all strangers, all strangers.

And then there he was, standing far beyond her reach. She cried out to him, held her hands out for him to grab. He moved toward her and her hands connected with warm and solid flesh. She heard him say, “I’m here, Miranda. Right here….”

And he was.

Through the semidarkness she saw the gleam of his face, the twin shadows of his eyes. His gaze was so still, so very quiet. Her breath caught as he took her face in his hands. Slowly he pressed his lips to hers. That one touch sent a shudder of pleasure through her body. They stared at each other and the night seemed filled with the sounds of their breathing.

Again, he kissed her.

Again, that wave of pleasure. It crested to a wanting for more, more. Her sleep-drugged body awoke, alive with hunger. She pressed hard against him, willing their bodies to meld, their warmth to mingle, but that frustrating barrier of clothes still lay between them.

He reached for her T-shirt. Slowly he pulled it up and over her head, let it drop from the bed. She was not so patient. Already she was undoing his buttons, sliding back his shirt, fumbling at his belt buckle. No words were spoken; none were needed. The soft whispers, the whimpers, the moans said more than any words could have.

So did his hands. His fingers slid across, between, inside all the warm and secret places of her body. They teased her, inflamed her, brought her to the very edge of release. Then, with knowing cruelty, they abandoned her, leaving her unsatisfied. She reached out to him, silently pleading for more.

He grasped her hips and willingly thrust into her again, but this time not with his fingers.

She cried out, a sound of joy, of delight.

At the first ripple of her climax he let his own needs take over. Needs that made him drive deep inside her, again and again. As her last wave of pleasure washed through her, he found his own cresting, breaking. He rode it to the very end and collapsed, sweating and triumphant, into her welcoming arms.

And so they fell asleep.

Chase was the first to awaken. He found his arms looped around her, his face buried in the sweet-smelling strands of her hair. She was curled up on her side, facing away from him, the silky skin of her back pressed against his chest. The memory of their lovemaking was at once so vivid he felt his body respond with automatic desire. And why not, with this woman in his arms? She was life and lust and honeyed warmth. She was everything a woman should be.

And I’m treading on dangerous ground.

He pulled away and sat up. Morning light shone through the window, onto her pillow. So innocent she looked, so untouched by evil. It occurred to him that Jill Vickery once must have looked as pure.

Before she shot her lover.

Dangerous women. How could you tell them from the innocents?

He left the bed and went straight to the shower. Wash the magical spell away, he thought. Wash away the desire, the craving for Miranda Wood. She was like a sickness in his blood, making him do insane things.

Last night, for instance.

They had simply fallen into it, he told himself. A physical act, that was all, a chance collision of two warm bodies.

He watched her sleep as he dressed. With each layer of clothes he felt more protected, more invulnerable. But when she stirred and opened her eyes and smiled at him, he realized how thin his emotional armor really was.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked softly.

“Much better, thanks. I think I can drive myself back to town.”

There was a silence. Her smile faded as she took in the fact he was already dressed. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I just wanted to make sure you got out of here safely.”

She sat up. Hugging the sheets to her chest, she watched him for a moment, as though trying to understand what had gone wrong between them. At last she said, “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to wait around.”

“I’ll stay. Until you get dressed.”

A shrug was her response, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Good, he thought. No sticky emotions over last night. We’re both too smart for that.

He started to leave, then stopped. “Miranda?”

“Yes?”

He turned to look at her. She was still hugging her knees, still every bit as bewitching. To see her there could break any man’s heart. He said, “It’s not that I don’t think you’re a wonderful woman. It’s just that…”

“Don’t worry about it, Chase,” she said flatly. “We both know it won’t work.”

He wanted to say, “I’m sorry,” but somehow it seemed too lame, too easy. They were both adults. They had both made a mistake.

There was nothing more to be said.

“It’s not as if any of this is incriminating,” said Annie, flipping through the notes from M that were arrayed on her kitchen table. “Just your routine desperate-woman language. Darling. If you’d only see me. If only this, if only that. It’s pathetic, but it’s not murderous. It doesn’t tell us that M — whoever she is — killed him.”

“You’re right.” Miranda sighed, leaning back in the kitchen chair. “And it doesn’t seem to tie in with Jill at all.”

“Sorry. The only M around here is you. I’d say these letters could cause you more damage than good.”

“Jill said there was a summer intern a year ago. A woman who got involved with Richard.”

“Chloe? Ancient history. I can’t imagine she’d sneak back to town just to kill an ex-lover. Besides, there’s no M in her name.”

“The M could stand for a nickname. A name only Richard used for her.”

“Muffin? Marvelous?” Laughing, Annie rose to her feet. “I think we’re beating a dead horse. And I’m going to be late.” She went to the closet and pulled out a warm-up jacket. “Irving hates to be kept waiting.”