Blood Red

Her face was familiar, but the dark curls of her hair obscured her features almost as much as the darkness that left her partially hidden from his view. And he was also having trouble looking away from the naked body that the moon was revealing to him.

He was not at all accustomed to seeing beautiful young women in his bedroom. The entire concept was unsettling to him. When he had been younger, he’d been tempted on several occasions, but he’d never given in to the idea of breaking his vows. Oh, there had been many a cold shower, and Mike Harris had certainly entertained all the thoughts that a heterosexual male is bound to have when he sees an attractive member of the opposite sex, but he’d used prayer and faith to keep him from deviating from the course he’d chosen to take.

He swallowed and felt his skin flush. “I said, what are you doing?” His voice was a little stronger when he spoke again, but not nearly as confident as he wanted it to be.

She moved forward, and much as he wanted to flinch away from her, Mike simply stared. His throat was dry and his pulse was thudding along merrily at his temples.

Margaret Preston leaned in closer, and he was shocked to recognize the girl he’d seen in church every Sunday for the last fifteen years.

“Maggie? What are you doing here?” His voice shook and part of the tremble was caused by fear, but there was definitely a healthy dose of lust in there as well.

Maggie lifted one delicate hand and placed a finger against her lips. “Shhhh. I think I made that obvious, Father Harris.” The voice of the young woman in front of him didn’t jibe with the voice he knew from years of Sunday School and the confessional. It wasn’t a child’s tones that she spoke with, though he had always thought of her as a child.

“Maggie, please, just get your clothes on and go home. If you’d like, we can discuss this in the morning.”

She climbed up onto the bed, her face once again lost in the shadows of the room, her body highlighted by the moonlight that painted her in shades of blue and silver.

“No, Father Harris, we won’t talk about this in the morning. We won’t talk about it ever. It’s our little secret.” Her left leg lifted and moved over his body, settling on the other side of his hips. A woman less than half his age was kneeling over him in the bed he had never shared with another soul, and he was both terrified and elated by the idea.

Her weight settled over his body, hardly a burden at all as she leaned in closer to his face, her dark eyes staring into his own.

“Maggie, please . . .” Was he begging? Oh, yes he was. He was definitely begging, because as much as he wanted to cast her away from the bed and scold her for her foolish notions, his body was reacting to her presence and his willpower seemed to have fled into the shadows.

Her hands lifted up to her shoulders, getting lost in her thick dark hair for a moment before they slowly ran down her torso, hiding and then revealing different parts of her perfection before she reached out and touched him. The contact was electrifying and paralyzing.

He wanted her to go away, wanted desperately for her to leave him alone again in the darkness of his one private place in the entire world.

He wanted her to stay, to fulfill the promises he saw in her smile, and the silken touch of her fingers, and the warm kiss she placed on his neck as she leaned over him.

In the end, only one of his wishes was fulfilled. But she was truthful, at least. It was their secret. No one ever had to know.

II

Ben didn’t go to sleep at all that night. He had other things he wanted to do. No, other things he needed to do.

He sat in front of his window and read the words on his laptop’s monitor, studying details that he shouldn’t have had access to, and making notes in a spiral-bound notebook.

From time to time he yawned, stretched, and took a break to get another cup of coffee, but after each of his short breaks he went back to his computer and searched for more information on his target.

Brian Freemont had three bank accounts, two mortgages, a car that he could barely afford, and a wife, Angela, who was pregnant. Amazing the things you could learn about someone if you knew how to crack a few security codes.

He jotted down the account numbers as he learned them, and made sure to note which bank each of them belonged to. He did the same with all of the credit card numbers, and the mortgages, and he made sure to get the Social Security number for his new obsession. There were phone numbers to consider, both the home phone and the cell. He made a point of copying down all of the numbers that had been called and that had called the Freemont residence.

Every time he started getting tired, he thought of Danni Hopkins crying into his shirt and woke right back up. It was easy to do. Danni was a good person, even if she liked to party a little, and he hated the idea that Brian Freemont might change the rules and decide that Danni needed to pay a second time for his silence. Or a third, or a fourth.