“I eat my lunch here. I like it.”
“What’s to like?”
“I–I just like it.”
Dyce heard the clink of glass against stone, then the voice of another man.
“You keep your hooch stashed here, son? Come here to drink where your parents don’t know about it?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Didn’t say it was illegal. Is that why you come here?”
“I like a drink once in a while,” Nordholm said defensively.
“You know the place well, do you? Would you know where someone might hide if he had to?”
“The old well house, maybe. Or the cellar. But I would know if anyone was around.”
A fourth voice spoke. “You can see right through what’s left of the floor into the cellar from here. There’s no place to hide.”
“There’s an old root cellar down there, dug into the ground. I don’t think you’d want to hide there very long, but you could.”
“Marquand, check out the root cellar. Mr. Nordholm, I want you to show me the old well house. Lieutenant, if you and your men would examine the barn, please?”
Dyce heard voices scattering, then calling to each other from the distance, moving around. They stayed for a long time, searching, until finally the doors of the cars slammed again, then the tractor engine roared to life.
I’ve lost him, Dyce thought. He was perfect and I lost him, the police took him away from me. Just thinking about the young man made him terribly excited again. It was safe now; the FBI visit had just proven that. It was safe, but they had taken the young man away from him.
Dyce turned his head and studied the cop. The man’s eyelids were beginning to flutter. He needed another dose… and while he had his sleeve pushed up and access to the vein… The cop was a poor substitute, but Dyce was so excited.
Becker caught her as she walked in the door and lifted her off her feet, kissing her deeply, then standing her against the wall. He held her up with his body as he peeled off her clothes, then entered her while she was still off the floor, lowering her slowly as she wrapped her legs around his waist. His passion was overwhelming and contagious and Cindi was ready when he entered her, then ready when he was and they both cried out in completion as he was carrying her toward the bedroom. Becker stood on the stairway, shuddering like a man freezing while Cindi clung to the banister to support them.
After he laid her on the bed he kissed her lips and face with a tender urgency for several minutes. When he embraced her it was so firmly she gasped involuntarily and only then did the intensity of his passion subside.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Cindi said after a few moments, “but what was that all about?”
“Lust?” said Becker.
“No,” she said. “I mean, maybe partly. But it felt more like-need.” Becker was quiet.
“You felt wide open, John. I thought I could have reached right inside you and touched your heart-if I hadn’t been so preoccupied.”
Becker murmured something against her neck.
“What?”
“You already have,” he said.
“Have what?” She pulled away from him far enough to look him in the eye. “If you’re going to break down and say something good, I want to be sure I hear it right.”
“You’ve already touched my heart,” Becker said.
“Really?” She shook her head vigorously. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can think of to say. You haven’t whispered many sweet-nothings, you know.”
“I know,” said Becker. “I was afraid to start, didn’t think I could stop.”
“You don’t have to stop now.”
“I’m a frightened man, Cindi.”
“You, John?”
“A frightened man.”
She realized the seriousness of his tone. “I know you are,” she said. “I’ve just never been sure of what.”
“That’s some of what Gold and I have been looking at,” he said.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, hoping very hard that he would. “I know that’s private.”
“Part of the cure is making it unprivate. Admitting it. Aloud. To myself. To my loved ones.”
He faced away from her, pulling his knees to his chest.
Cindi could see she would have to help him with this.
“And I’m a loved one?”
Becker nodded. She put her hand on his back and felt him trembling. For a moment she thought he was truly frightened-or crying, but when he turned to her again, he was grinning ear to ear.
“Isn’t that stupid? I don’t mean loving you; I mean that it’s so damned hard to say. It’s stupid, it’s stupid.”
“So is that what you’re actually saying, John? You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you care to say it directly? I hate to be a stickler about this, but everything is sounding rather oblique.”
“I love you,” he said.
She touched his cheek. “I’m glad you told me,” she said. “I’ve been reading so many tea leaves, trying to figure it out… I’m sorry. I’m not really taking it lightly. Maybe it isn’t that much easier for me to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Becker said. “I’m not asking for a response. It’s just something I had to face up to and deal with.”
“Why now?”
Becker eased back down on the bed. “That’s the other thing that frightens me,” he said and the joy was gone from his voice.
“What?” She rose up on one elbow to look down at him. He was staring at the ceiling.
“What else frightens you, John?”
“Me,” he said. “I scare the shit out of myself.”
The room fell silent as Cindi sank back to the bed. A neighbor slammed a car door and yelled at a child.
“Can you tell me why?” she said finally.
“When I come back,” he said. “I’ll try then.”
“Come back from where?”
Becker paused a long time. “I’m not quite sure. Wherever I need to go.” He rolled over and put his hand on her hip and ran it slowly along her thigh.
“And I’m not quite sure who I’ll be when I come back,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer but ran his fingers the length of her leg, then feathered them across the skin on the back of her knee.
He’s the sexiest man in the world, she thought. I have no idea what’s in his mind-I’m not sure he does-but I want him so.
“Can you promise at least that you will come back?”
“Yes. That much I can promise. I don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave you… I don’t want to find out what’s going to happen-but I seem to have a talent for coming back.”
That will have to do for now, Cindi thought. He moved his hand to the very top of her inner thigh and just held it there where it burned a hole in her skin.
“You have a lot of talents,” she said as she leaned forward to kiss him.
As they made love she thought of saying, “Thank you, Mr. Gold,” but didn’t for fear she would be misinterpreted under the circumstances.
