Blood Red

He tried not to think about that too much as he slipped into his own bed. He had no claim on her. There was nothing that had happened between them that gave him the remotest right to be upset when she didn’t come home.

But he was upset, just the same.

VI

He’d left the lights on to savor every moment. He told her as much as he disrobed her. At first it was just the same as always, there was no connection, no difference between Jason and a hundred others she’d been with before. That suited her just fine. She didn’t want to experience anything different.

That changed when he went down on her, starting at the back of her neck and working his way slowly down her spine to her buttocks and then her sex. He did things with his tongue that left her shuddering, every muscle in her body drawn taught and her skin almost feverish with arousal.

She lost track of all time after a while and gave herself over to the sensations. It wasn’t love or even a parody of love; it was pure carnal knowledge and she reveled in it.

She was normally in control of what happened, but he never gave her a chance to take command. He assaulted her again and again with sensations that seemed to almost go beyond physical. It wasn’t like with the priests. That was different from this. That was natural. Whatever it was that Jason did, it seemed to defy reason and mock what she knew of the realms of possibility.

Eventually, he tired of foreplay and the actual sexual encounters began. Jason screamed several times and Maggie joined him. She didn’t drift into sated sleep; she was knocked into unconsciousness by the experience.

When she woke in the morning, Jason was making coffee. She knew she should have been tender at the very least, but she felt wonderful. It was nice to relax for a while before he came into the room and served her breakfast in bed.

She drank the coffee eagerly, almost scalding her tongue but not minding in the least. Her mouth tasted funny; a taste that she thought she knew but couldn’t place.

Chapter 8

I

Richard Boyd was not a happy man. He was, in fact, a very annoyed police detective. His life would have been easier if people would have just stopped putting files into his IN box.

Instead, they kept giving him new cases. Not a bad job, he mused, except that people around these parts are disappearing in a damned big hurry. That was the problem; he wasn’t a homicide detective, he was just a schmuck in charge of missing persons.

He leaned up against the railing along the Cliff Walk, lighting his cigar with a lighter that resembled a blowtorch and had a flame strong enough to resist the winds.

All along the side of the cliffs there were lawns that seemed impossibly green for autumn, and trees that were exploding into spectacular arrays of colors. This was the time of year he liked best. Screw the summers when there were too many tourists. He didn’t need extra people in town any more than he needed increased prices at the gas pump. Then there were the winters to consider, when scraping ice off his car and shoveling snow off his sidewalks seemed to take most of his free time.

“You must think you make a pretty picture there, Richie.” The smart-ass was his partner, Danforth Edward Holdstedter the Third; better known to Boyd as either Danny or dickhead, depending on his state of mind. Right now he was Danny, but he was pushing it. Danny looked just as preppy as his name implied, with perfect blond hair, blue eyes, and a dimple on his chin. He was also so damned cheerful it hurt to be around him for too long. Unfortunately, he was very good at finding missing people.

“I think I’m gonna put this cigar out in your eye if you don’t shut your face and let me think.” Most people would have thought the threat was serious. Danny knew better. Boyd was happiest when he was threatening physical injury. Besides, Danny had him by a good sixty pounds.

“So why are we out here, exactly?” Danny moved closer and leaned over the side of the railing, staring down at the waves where they were lapping against the rocks. Danny did that every time, convinced that at least half of the people who disappeared in the area were actually so much jelly after falling into the waters of the bay. It would certainly explain the recent track record.

“Well, Danny, my boy. We have eight cases in this area that have something in common; can you guess what that is?”

“They all fell off the side here and became jelly?” The kid always sounded so hopeful when he said that.

“No, not quite.” He thought about it for a second and shrugged. “Well, maybe, but we don’t know it for sure.”

“Then tell me.”

“They all live in this area.”

Danny stopped kidding around when he heard that little tidbit. There was nothing remotely funny about the idea that eight people from the Cliff Walk had mysteriously vanished.

Sure as hell, it would be a bad thing if someone else made the same conclusions.

II