Months passed before she tried again. But gradually, when she sensed Waters grinding his teeth from animal frustration, she would roll over in the dark and use her hands on him, or pull him onto her for a quick mechanical release, during which her face remained painfully tight, her eyes glassy. Sex performed out of duty was almost worse than no sex at all, but how could he tell her that? Occasionally the quality of those experiences improved slightly, but never did they last more than a few minutes, and afterward Lily always looked like a lost and embittered child.
Tonight’s kiss at the foot of the stairs, her placing his hand over her breast: these were not part of her repertoire of marital duty. If it had been any night other than this one, he would have been filled with joy.
“Lily-”
She put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“I don’t really need to right now.”
“It’s not for you,” she said. “For me.” She pressed his hand hard against her breast, and he was shocked to feel her nipple stiffen.
“Are you serious?”
She nodded. “Let’s don’t talk about it, okay? Let’s just do it.” She took his wrist and pulled him toward the master bedroom.
By the time they reached the door, she had undone her blouse and pants enough to slip out of them in seconds. She turned and knelt before him, undid his belt, and roughly pulled down his khakis. Then she slid down the comforter and pulled him into bed.
“Lily?” He took hold of her shoulders. “What’s going on? What’s changed?”
“I don’t know.” Urgency filled her eyes. “I just want you. I know I can feel good right now. Let’s don’t talk anymore.”
She kissed him again, deeply this time. He felt trapped in a dream, his movements clumsy and unreal. Instinct told him to get the act over with quickly, lest he do something to trigger one of Lily’s depressive episodes. He slid gently over on top of her, but when he moved to kiss her mouth, she pushed down on his shoulders, something she had not done for years.
“Down there,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
He closed his eyes, then slid down her belly, kissing as he went. She responded forcefully, startling him with her moans. He had not heard such sounds from her in so long that he felt he was with a stranger. On the verge of climax, Lily dug her nails into his shoulders and pulled him up to her mouth. He kissed her and went inside, stunned by the intensity of his own arousal. The woman beneath him now he had thought gone forever. It was as though four years of self-imposed deprivation were being exorcised in minutes. Her face was flushed, her skin blotchy and covered with perspiration, her breaths quick and labored. As he shut his eyes and went with her movements, her cries became so loud that he put his hand over her mouth. The last time sounds like that had come from this room, Annelise was four years old. She would panic if she heard them now.
Suddenly Lily locked her legs around him and screamed, her cry breaking through his fingers, her arms locking around his neck, cutting off his air. Still he pressed down with his back muscles, trying to intensify her climax if he could. Dimly, he realized that he could not breathe, but that was a small price to pay for the emotional transformation he was witnessing. Mallory used to let her head hang off the bed to deprive her brain of oxygen during orgasm. Something similar was happening to him now. He was torn between jerking his head free of Lily’s grasp or remaining still while she finished. In seconds, his will no longer mattered. He began to peak with her, and her arm came loose from his neck, flooding his brain with oxygen.
“Jesus,” he gasped, rolling off of her. “Lily…”
“I know,” she panted. “It’s been so long. I honestly forgot what that felt like.”
She started to speak again, but her words disappeared into a sob. Turning, he saw her cover her face with her hands. Tears ran from beneath them.
“I’m so sorry…I don’t know why I’ve been like I have.”
“It doesn’t matter, Lily. Don’t think about it. You just broke through a wall. Let your feelings out and try to sleep. Thinking doesn’t help with things like this.”
She reached out and took his hand. “I’m so glad I haven’t lost you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
From nowhere, the specter of Tom Jackson rose in his mind. What could the detective want with him? Waters felt a sudden compulsion to go out to the slave quarters and get a zero-gauge Rapidograph in his hand. Make a list. Do an analysis of his situation. Vulnerabilities. Options. Possible solutions. He’d have to burn it after he made it, of course.
And what about Cole? The pumping unit? Should he drive over to his partner’s house and confront him? Or make a few discreet calls and try to discover if the rumors Will Hinson had mentioned were true? When Lily’s breathing deepened, he started to slide out of the bed, but she caught him by the arm.
“Don’t go,” she said sleepily. “Stay with me.”
“I need to brush my teeth. And call Tom Jack-”
“No. No worrying about anything tonight. Stay close to me. I feel so good right now.”
He sighed and lay back down, so hyperalert that he felt like running three miles himself. Lily’s breathing continued to deepen, but her hand did not release his arm. As he lay there, anxiety building to a crescendo in his chest, he heard the den phone ring. If the volume was up on the machine, he could sometimes hear the outgoing and incoming messages from the bedroom.
“You’ve reached the Waters house,” said Lily’s perky recorded voice. “Leave a message at the beep, and we’ll call you back as soon as we can.”
The machine beeped.
“John? Tom Jackson here. I hate to bother you at home, but I’m trying to run down some leads in this Eve Sumner mess. Just routine stuff, really, but I need to talk to you when you get a minute. Thanks, bud. See you.”
Chapter 12
“And when I woke up,” Waters said, “Eve was dead.”
Penn Cage did not speak or even blink. He looked exactly like what he was, a former lawyer who had heard almost everything in his time.
“And now Detective Tom Jackson is trying to reach me,” Waters added. “He says it’s about Eve, but that it’s routine. That’s all I know.”
“Do you think you killed her?” Penn asked.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t think I did, but as far as I know there was no one else in the room.”
Penn sighed and focused somewhere in the middle distance. Waters had made his choice of confessor in the depths of the night, after long reflection. He had no desire to talk to a psychiatrist. For one thing he didn’t know any. For another, a shrink couldn’t give him legal advice. He had known Penn Cage since he was a child, and though Penn no longer practiced law, he had served for years as a prosecutor in Houston, Texas, where he’d sent more than a dozen killers to death row. Penn Cage knew about murder.
He also knew about human frailty. After writing several successful legal thrillers, he had given up the law. Then his wife died of cancer, and his writing stalled. When he returned to Natchez with his young daughter to try to
