newspapers to deliver in the morning.”
“No way,” he told her. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. We’ll stay up all night. When it’s time to deliver your damn newspapers, I’ll help you. How does that sound?”
At five o’clock in the morning, in a driving rain, the two of them delivered the black-banded newspapers that announced President John F. Kennedy’s death. Garrison Ladd drove her around the route in his VW-Bus. Diana, barefoot but still wearing her blue dress, hopped in and out of the bus to send the papers sailing through the air. Gary Ladd was impressed that she never missed a single porch.
Afterward, back in her apartment, cold and wet and still laughing, she let him help her out of her soaked clothes. The wet taffeta was ruined, but Diana didn’t care. She didn’t look at it as he unzipped it and let it slip to the floor in a sodden heap. Nothing mattered except this wonderful man she was with who had the ability to make her laugh and feel beautiful at the same time.
She barely noticed as he unfastened her bra and slipped her garter belt and panties down to the floor. She stepped delicately out of them and stood naked before him while he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
“You’re shivering,” he said. He kissed her once, a long, lingering kiss, and she responded eagerly. Playfully, he nibbled at her ear. It tickled, and she giggled, but then she caught herself. She realized what was happening and tried to pull away.
“Don’t tease me,” he whimpered urgently. “Please don’t tease me.”
She closed her eyes and let herself melt against him while the room whirled around her. She tried to block out the sickening memory of her father’s drunken voice, but it was all there again in her mind, not only the night she’d spent in the closet but also that other terrible long-ago night after the first pre-rodeo dance.
A few of the boys took her out behind the school and offered to show her exactly what she’d have to do to win. They told her that any girl who came from the wrong side of the tracks wasn’t going to make it to the top any other way. Somehow she escaped them. She ran all the way home, arriving in tears with her clothes half torn off.
And just when she got inside, closing the door behind her, just when she thought she was safe, Max Cooper materialized behind her and switched on the light. Drunk, he was enraged when he saw her clothes. “Slut!” he shouted. “You worthless, no-good slut! What the hell have you been up to?”
Desperate to get away, she darted past him up the stairs. The booze slowed him down, and she got away clean, but Max plowed up the stairs after her. Upstairs, she locked herself in the bathroom and was sick, vomiting into the toilet. He banged on the door a couple of times. She heard him distantly, over the sound of her own retching. At least he didn’t break the door down. The wooden door kept his fists at bay, but his words found their mark all the same.
“You’re a bitch, Diana Lee Cooper! A no-good bitch of a prick-tease!”
She was washing her face by then, staring at her ashen face in the bathroom mirror. She wouldn’t be that, she vowed into the mirror. No matter what he called her, no matter what it was, she wouldn’t ever be that.
“What did you say?” she asked vaguely.
She stood with her head thrown back, her wet hair dripping on the floor behind her. Without her being aware of it, Garrison Ladd had kissed his way down her yielding neck and across the gentle swell of her breast. He closed his lips around one delicate, upright nipple. She moaned with pleasure as wild sensation shot through her body.
Reluctantly, he let the nipple go. Straightening up, he crushed her against him while his breath came in short, harsh gasps. Through the confines of his trousers, she could feel his urgent hardness straining against her. She pulled back from him again for a moment, far enough away to look up at his face and see the blazing intensity in his eyes.
That was when the second realization hit her-Garrison Ladd wanted her. Diana Lee Cooper was stunned by the unbridled passion in his wanting. How had she allowed it to happen? How had she let him go this far? Because it was too far-too late to tell him no, too late to make him stop. She remembered the promise she’d made, a sacred vow spoken to the frightened face of a girl reflected back in a pockmarked bathroom mirror while her father pounded on the door. There could be no turning back.
She reached up with both hands and pulled Garrison Ladd’s face down until his lips once more grazed hers.
“I won’t tease you,” she whispered fiercely. “Not ever.”
And she kept her word.
Chapter 8
They say a certain type of criminal always returns to the scene of his crime, and Andrew Carlisle fit that mold. He was curious. He wanted to know if anyone had discovered Margaret Danielson’s body yet; not that he would actually have gone up the mountain to see for himself, but he couldn’t resist pulling off into the rest area at Picacho Peak since it was on his way. He was rewarded by the collection of law-enforcement vehicles parked haphazardly around the picnic and playground area, which told him what he needed to know.
The highway patrol had cordoned off almost half the rest area, but a few tables were still available. He took his Thermos to one of those and settled down to watch the fun, which included several milling television cameramen, some reporters, and a few stray newspaper photographers.
“What’s going on?” Andrew asked a man who came by lugging a huge television-equipment suitcase.
“An Indian killed a woman up there on the mountain,” the guy said. “They’re just now bringing the body down.”
An Indian? Carlisle thought. No kidding. They think an Indian did it? He couldn’t believe this stroke of luck. For the second time in as many chances, fate had handed over the perfect fall guy for something Carlisle himself had done, someone to take the blame. Sure, he’d gone to prison for Gina Antone, mostly because the cops thought he’d driven the truck that had inadvertently broken her neck. They had never suspected the real truth, not even that wise-ass of a detective, because if they had, it would have been a whole lot worse. Now, here he was again with somebody else all lined up to take the rap.
One thing did worry him a little. It hadn’t taken long for the cops to find her. He hadn’t expected them to work quite this fast, but he was prepared for it anyway. He was glad now that he’d taken the time to clean the bits of his flesh from under her fingernails. With something like that, you couldn’t be too careful. His mentors in Florence had warned him not to underestimate cops. The crooked ones had a price-all you had to do was name it. Straight ones you had to look out for, the ones who were too dumb to take you up on it when you made them an offer they shouldn’t refuse.
“Mom, if Rita dies, will we put a cross on the road where she wrecked the truck?”
