pages.
I dreamed I had to climb a glass mountain that glittered in the glare of a savage sun. I was in the company of a man and woman who claimed to know the way but did not… when I woke in the darkness, my eyes were wet as if I had been crying.
“I just noticed something else.”
Cardinal looked up. She was contemplating the far wall of the garage.
“My mother-I told you she was living here the last few months of her life? She was in a wheelchair much of the time. She had a motorized one in the house, but she also had one of the basic push models. It was folded up and stored out here.” She pointed a slim finger at the garage wall. “And now it’s gone.”
22
Delorme pulled back the glass shower door, thought about it for a moment, then closed it again. Instead, she went to the bathtub and put the plug in and turned on the water. She knelt there feeling the water until the mix of hot and cold was right.
She went into the bedroom and pulled the curtains and took off her clothes. For a while she sat on the edge of the bed listening to the water run in the other room. Now that she was on the bed, she thought maybe she should skip the bath and just get in between the sheets. You wouldn’t sleep, she told herself. You’d just lie there running the whole day over and over again in your head.
She went back to the bathroom and poured a capful of foamy stuff into the water and swirled it around. She stood in front of the mirror to put her hair up and secured it with a headband, then put her left foot into the tub. Just hot enough to sting. She turned the cold on and swirled the foamy water around with her foot for a minute. Remembering the light, she stretched and reached for the wall switch and flicked on the night light near the sink.
As she lowered herself into it, the hot water rose over her up to chest level. She could see half of her reflection in the shower enclosure, and beyond that the open bathroom door. She soaked a washcloth and squeezed the water out, then lay back, covering her eyes with the folded cloth. Sound of water rattling into the overflow drain. She sank down so that her shoulders were submerged.
The steam felt good in her lungs and she breathed it in deeply, letting it out with a sigh. She lay there for a while commanding her muscles to relax, but she didn’t really believe that kind of thing worked and gave it up after a while. The water began to cool and she sat up to turn on more hot.
While it was running, she thought she heard a floorboard creak, and turned the water off again. She sat listening, hand on the tap, water dripping. Clearly the hot bath thing wasn’t an instant cure for tension. She soaped up the washcloth and went over her entire body, toes to shoulders, before lying back again for one last soak. She closed her eyes and the image of her bed, the cool sheets, drifted into her mind.
Another sound. Movement of some kind, not quite identifiable. Silently, she submerged her hands to stop any dripping sounds and listened. Her back was to the door, but the entire dark rectangle was reflected in the shower enclosure. The human instinct was to lie still, to wait for danger to pass, no matter how fast the heart might pump, and it was going full tilt already. Her bathrobe hung from the hook on the back of the open door.
She pictured rushing to the bedroom, the dresser, the gun. Fuck the bathrobe. On three, she told herself. One, two…
But then he was in the doorway. Leonard Priest-every toned, buff inch of him was standing in her bathroom doorway-wearing absolutely nothing.
“Christ,” he said to her reflection. “I thought you’d never get undressed.”
Delorme watched his reflection as he came into the bathroom. He stood near the tub, penis just above her head level, and folded his arms.
“Little de-stressing in the tub? Little home spa routine? Very nice. Very sexy.”
Delorme considered a swift punch to the balls. He was just out of reach.
“You’re scared, sweetheart. I can see it in your face. But a little bit of adrenalin at the right time can make just that bit of difference, turn a ho-hum encounter into something truly memorable. What are you thinking right now? What images are going through that wicked little mind of yours?”
“You mean other than the image of you driving over here in the middle of winter stark naked?”
“Taxi. Fully clothed.”
“Or the image of you jimmying my back door?”
“Wax impression. When you came for dinner. Little trick I learned in Borstal. But we can discuss your back door if you like.” He got down on his haunches so he was at eye level, looking at her. “I know you, Lise. Maybe better than you know yourself. Look at that-I can see your heartbeat in the foam. Amazing.”
“I’ll tell you what I find amazing, Leonard. I find it amazing that you can break into a cop’s house-a cop who suspects you of murder-and wait in the basement with no clothes on until she comes home. What’s truly amazing is that you can do all this and yet have no clue that you have a serious problem.”
“No problem.”
“You’ve never heard of addiction, I guess.”
“Sex is not a drug. It’s natural.”
“You take a serious risk of getting shot and you don’t consider it a problem?”
“Like I say, Lise-adrenalin. Part of the fun.”
“Uh-huh. So it’s not just the women who like to be scared.”
“Definitely not.”
In one swift motion, Delorme grabbed the sides of the tub and pulled herself up.
Priest stood up and fell back a step. “Whoa. Pussy alert.”
“Hand me that towel.”
“Very nice indeed.”
Delorme reached past him and grabbed the towel. “Give me a minute.”
“I’m not leaving this house until we finish what we’ve started. What you’ve started, to be brutally frank.”
“Leonard.”
“All right. But I’m taking this.” He unhooked her bathrobe from the back of the door.
“Give me the bathrobe.”
“Nope. Sorry.”
“You’re really asking for it, aren’t you.”
“Ooh, yeah.” He held the robe out and twitched it a couple of times, toreador-style.
“Trying to provoke my dark side.”
“I got news for you, honey. You’re all dark side.”
He left the room without closing the door, and a moment later the bedsprings creaked with his weight.
Delorme dried herself quickly. She wrapped the towel around her waist, had a second thought and took it off. She went into the bedroom, where Priest was sitting on the edge of the bed with her Beretta in his hands.
He looked up and said, “What a body. It’s enough to make me believe in God.”
Delorme put her hand out. “Give me that.”
He raised the automatic in both hands and pointed it at her. “What if I said no?”
“Two things. First, I’ll disarm you, which will be very unpleasant. Second, you won’t get laid.”
“Lots of women talk tough.”
“It’s something I know about myself. I would literally rather die.”
“Really? Death? Death rather than have sex with me?”
“Rather than be forced.” Delorme reached and gripped the barrel of the Beretta, not hard. The safety was on, but still.
“Ooh, you’re very forward.” He pulled the gun back. “Tell you what. Let’s just put it over here.” He swung his legs up and rolled away from her across the bed. He reached up and put the gun on the windowsill behind the curtain. Then he lay on his side and patted the bed beside him.
