Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (17 page)

FORTY-FOUR

Walking up Miss Ettie’s
driveway lost in thought, she was nearly around the corner of the house before she saw it. A hunkering shadow—shoulders, the rounded form of a head—cast against the cobblestone walkway. Someone was on the porch.

Shouldering her duffle, Sabrina lifted the SIG strapped to her hip. She held it casually at her side as she continued walking, moving around the corner as if she were oblivious to the fact that someone was there, waiting for her.

“You missed dinner.”

“Damn it, Ry, I almost shot you,” Sabrina said, jamming her gun back into its holster. “What are you doing here?”

Riley held up a plastic container with a lid. “You missed dinner,” she said, repeating herself. “Again.”

That Riley sure is a peach, ain’t she?

Sabrina sighed, walking the last few steps toward the porch, dragging her duffle and laptop case behind her. “I know. I’m sorry, something—”

“Important came up,” Riley said, finishing her sentence. She set the container on the step beside her and stood, the smile on her face doing nothing to hide the hurt it tried to bury. “I remember when we used to be important.”

Sabrina dropped her duffle and leaned the laptop case next to it. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why? It’s the truth. It’s like you hate us.” Tears gathered in her eyes, glittering like sapphires in the porch light. “Me, especially.”

You think little Riley is ready for some fun and games?

She reached out without thinking, pulling her sister close, her heart breaking a little over the way she tried to pull back. She held her anyway, hands fisted in the back of her shirt, ready for the fight she was sure Riley was about to put up. “Please … please don’t say that. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her cheek against Riley’s temple. “I love you. You and Jason … you’re all I have.”

Sabrina opened her eyes to see her own bloodstained hands bunched in her sister’s shirt a moment before Riley stepped back, pulling herself loose. “Then why do you keep pushing us away?” she said, the tears that had only glittered before now streamed down her heart-shaped face.

Remember how tender you were at her age, darlin’? How soft and sweet you tasted. I do …

She closed her eyes again and took a step back, shaking her head a bit to clear the jumbled mess of past and present. “I don’t mean to.” It was all she could say, all she had left. “I want nothing more than to be … ”
Normal. Free.
“Home.”

“Then come
home
.”

“I can’t,” she said, unwilling to say anymore. She wouldn’t lay the blame for any of it on Val. She wouldn’t draw that kind of line in the sand between the two of them. She bent and picked up the container. “Thanks for dinner. Want to come in and sit with me while I nuke it?”

Riley took a few angry swipes at her cheeks, rubbing the tears away. When she finally looked at her again her eyes were dry. “No.” She turned and headed for the block wall that separated Miss Ettie’s backyard from theirs. She mounted a lawn chair she’d dragged over and hopped up. Straddling the wall, Riley turned back and looked at her for just a moment before she dropped out of sight.

FORTY-FIVE

Sabrina let herself in
quietly, dropping the spare key into the Blue Willow bowl on the counter before locking the door behind her. No longer hungry, she stored the container Riley had brought her in the refrigerator next to a covered dish with a note stuck to it that read:
EAT!

She shut the fridge and climbed the stairs to her room, shoving the key into the lock and giving it a twist. The door swung open, revealing a tidied room, a freshly made bed—all illuminated by the soft glow of the bedside lamp. She didn’t remember leaving it on, but she must have. Leaving a light on was more than just a habit, it was an involuntary reflex.

She dropped her duffle, leaning heavily against the door. She felt hollow, dried up, and feather-light, as if a strong wind could carry her away. In the space of an hour, her life had careened completely out of control. She was alone. Truly alone, for the first time in her life. The thought was terrifying.

Kicking off her boots, she left a trail of clothes on her way to the shower. She wrapped her SIG in a towel and set it on top of the tank, within easy reach. Her being here was too dangerous for Miss Ettie. On top of everything else, she’d have to find another place to stay in the morning.

Cranking the water on, she let it warm up before she stepped under the spray. Working the bar of soap into a thick lather, she scrubbed. Light pink swirled down the drain—blood she hadn’t managed to wash off at the scene. It was everywhere; in her hair, under her nails, soaked into her cuticles.

While she scrubbed she checked for nicks or cuts that might’ve provided a gateway for Sheila’s blood to enter her system. She didn’t see or feel any, but she checked anyway. They’d ask her when she went in for the baseline test as part of the blood-exposure protocol.

She tried not to think about it, focusing instead on cataloging a list of colleges and observatories in the area. One of them is where the killer would take his next victim. Finding the girl was all she had time for. All she could care about. How to find her was something she needed to figure out.

Physically, Bethany Edwards looked nothing like her, so the killer wasn’t choosing his victims off anything she could see in the mirror. She was years younger, lived miles away … how would she find his next victim without a starting point?

Out of the shower, she dried off before wrapping the towel around her middle and retrieving her gun from the back of the toilet. She had the bathroom door open and both feet across the threshold before she realized she wasn’t alone. Her SIG swung up, training on the figure framed by the window. “Turn around slowly and get your hands where I can see them.” Her heart was hammering so fast it felt like she was being punched in the chest—a rhythmic pounding that left her dizzy and slightly out of breath.

The figure turned, giving her a good look at his face. Her arms fell to her sides, the gun dangling from her hand, its weight the only thing keeping her from being carried away by the sudden storm that raged inside her.

Michael stood no more than ten feet away, a red envelope in his hand.

FORTY-SIX

“Are you hurt?”

Eight months gone and that’s all he had? It was a stupid thing to say, and the look she gave him told him so. Michael shifted in his boots, forcing himself to meet her gaze directly.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” she said, her expression carefully schooled into a look so passive she made the Dalai Lama look like a rage-drunk lunatic. He’d seen that expression before—it was usually followed by a severe ass-kicking.

Still, he pushed her, hating the panicked edge he heard in his voice. “Answer me—are you hurt?”

Sabrina tossed the gun onto the bed. Another bad sign. The last time she’d disarmed herself in front of him she’d rabbit-punched his kidneys so hard he’d pissed blood for three days. “No,” she said, crossing the room, her confident stride interrupted by a slight limp she tried hard to hide. Each footfall that brought her closer felt like a kick in the gut, a reminder of just how much his need for revenge had cost her. She reached past him to yank the curtains closed, letting her gaze drop to the envelope in his hand. “You went through my jacket.”

“Sure did. Who’s Calliope?”

Her eyes narrowed just a bit, enough for him to know he was pushing it. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that reading other people’s mail is rude?”

He shrugged. “Nope. She was too busy fishing me out of the drunk tank and nursing me through withdrawal to sweat the small stuff. Who’s Calliope?”

“I am,” she said, going for the envelope in his hand.

He’d been afraid of that. He held it out of reach. “What does it say?”

Her hand snapped out to latch onto the envelope and pull, but he held on. “Coming here was stupid.”

“I know … and I’m getting a bit tired of repeating myself.”

She pulled again, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.”

“
Nothing
doesn’t usually come written in Latin, on handmade paper.”

“Nothing or not, it’s got
nothing
to do with you.” She pulled again. This time he let her take it, suddenly very much aware that all that stood between them was ten inches of space and a bath towel.

He shifted his gaze to the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor. “There’s blood on your jacket. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She shook her head. “It’s not mine,” she said without offering further explanation, stepping around him to get to the other side of the bed. There she picked up her SIG and stowed it in its holster before dropping it on the nightstand, the envelope along with it. “You didn’t come here to do a welfare check, O’Shea,” she said over her shoulder, giving him a side view of her face and neck as she rifled through the duffle on the bed before pulling out a flimsy wad of black fabric. “So what do you want?”

Great question. One he didn’t have a ready answer for. Especially when what he wanted and what he was allowed to have were two completely different things. He took a mental step back, distancing himself from her and the messy tangle of emotion seeing her brought up. “I need to talk to you about—”

He’d seen her naked before. Spent six weeks in this very room watching every move she made and he’d done it with an almost Zen-like level of detachment. He’d viewed her in parts—torso, shoulders, legs, back. She’d been a promise he’d made. A means to an end. Nothing more.

This time, when she dropped the towel, he didn’t see parts—he saw
her,
and it was enough to stop him cold. “
Jesus
,” he hissed, averting his eyes to the lamp on the table next to her.

“You came here to talk to me about Jesus?” she said as she wound her long wet hair into a bun, tucking its tail into the coil to hold it in place. Somehow, with her hair up, she seemed even more naked.

Her tone drew his attention, and he found himself looking at her again. “No,” he said, nailing his gaze to hers. “I want to talk to you about Jaxon Croft,” his tone harder than he intended.

She stepped into a pair of shorts, if you could call them that, smoothing them over her hips before she reached for the second wad of fabric and shook it out. Her full breasts swayed gently, drawing his attention for a split second before he looked away. He could see her movements in his peripheral as she gathered up what he hoped to God was a shirt and pulled it over her head.

“Croft? What about him?” she said, drawing his attention again. This time she was clothed and settled on the bed, cross-legged, using the towel to squeeze excess water from her hair.

“He was in Jessup a few weeks ago, asking questions about me. And you,” he said, coming around the side of the bed to stand in front of her.

“I know,” she said, giving him a quick glance. “It started the day after I woke up in the hospital.” She arched an eyebrow at him, giving him a cynical smile. “He’s very … persistent.”

“He follows you?”

She leaned over and reached into her duffle, pulling out a comb. “Everywhere I go,” she said as she ran the comb through her long hair.

He felt something ugly crawl around inside his chest. Something impulsive and ruthless. Something that’d lead him to put two in the back of Croft’s head without a moment’s hesitation if he let it go unchecked. “Has he approached you?”

She stopped combing. “Approached? Has Croft
approached
me
?” She shrugged. “I guess you could say that.”

Something about her tone stiffened the back of his neck. “What did he say to you?”

“Oh, you know—
blah, blah, blah
, I’m blackmailing you—
blah, blah, blah.”
She said it so nonchalantly that it took him a second to comprehend what she was saying.

“Is Croft why you’re here instead of home?”

She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to decide how much of her life was his business, and he was suddenly sure she’d tell him to mind his own. Instead she looked away, down at something on the nightstand. The note card he’d found in her jacket pocket. She shrugged. “Val asked me to leave,” she said, finally looking at him again. “Things have been … difficult for us since I’ve been back.” She said it like she’d been on a business trip instead of abducted and shot by her own half-brother. “But the situation with Croft certainly isn’t doing me any favors.”

“What does he want?”

She shrugged. “You. He’s got this silly idea that I know your deep, dark secrets and he’s given me thirty-six hours to decide who I’m going to throw under the bus: you or Strickland.” Despite her blasé attitude, he could see it. She was scared and pissed off—a dangerous combination where Sabrina was concerned.

“I don’t understand. What did Strickland do?”

She gave him a sad smile. “The usual. He trusted me.”

He jammed his hands into his pockets while fighting to keep from looking away. “So … which one of us is getting run over?” Strickland was her partner. He’d stuck it out, risked his career to help her. He’d been there for her in ways that Michael never had been and never could be. It was simple: Strickland had earned her loyalty; he hadn’t.

“Neither of you. Croft gave me thirty-six hours to make up my mind. That’s all the time I need to make things right.”

It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. Whatever her plan was, it ended with her in the lions’ den. He shook his head. “No. I won’t let you.”

“Really? And just how are you going to stop me, O’Shea?” She chuckled a bit. “You can’t. Not without exposing yourself.”

He said nothing, forcing his expression to remain neutral, but the look on Sabrina’s face told him that she knew him better than he’d hoped.

“You can’t kill him.”

He met her gaze, surprised by the level of urgency he found there. It’d never occurred to him that she might actually care about what happened to Croft. The thought made fighting his ugly impulses harder than he would’ve imagined. “I’m pretty sure I can.”

She swiped a hand over her face before looking up at him. “If Croft turns up dead, I’m the first person who’s gonna get looked at. I have a perceived history of killing people who test my patience, remember?”

He remembered. The last time they were together, bodies started dropping, and it was Sabrina who took the heat for it. Not something he’d be willing to risk again unless it was absolutely unavoidable. “Thirty-six hours? Why so long?” he said, lowering himself to the bed, cutting her a long look. “He’s got to know you’d find a way to wriggle off the hook.”

“My guess? He’s hoping I use the time to call in the cavalry. Which is why your being here isn’t just a colossal waste of time, it also wasn’t your smartest move ever.” She set the comb aside and unfolded her legs, drawing her knees to her chest to prop her chin against them. “You should’ve phoned this one in, O’Shea. Or better yet, just trusted me to keep my mouth shut.”

He sighed, running a rough hand over the top of his head. “I need to know what he knows. How much he’s been able to dig up on me. If FSS has sprung a leak, I need to find it before Livingston Shaw does.” Because if Croft could connect him to Sabrina, so could the person feeding him information. If Shaw found out about Croft and his source, she was as good as dead, or worse—much worse.

Sabrina shrug
ged. “He’s not much of a sharer when it comes to you. All he’s told me is you’re not someone worth protecting.”

Whatever Croft was, whatever he really wanted with Michael, the man was honest. He stared at her for a long moment, unsure of what to say. Finally he cleared his throat.

“They never are, you know.”

“Never what?” she said, tipping her face to rest her cheek against her knee.

“My moves. They’re never smart when you’re involved.” He fought the urge to look away from her, focusing on the way her long lashes brushed against the pale skin of her leg. “You have a way of making me do the stupidest things.”

Sabrina gave him a rueful smile. “I’d say I’m sorry, but it’d be a lie, considering one of those stupid moves saved my life,” she said, skewering him with a dark blue gaze that caused his heart to pound, fast and uneven, against his chest. “I know it was you that day in the woods, not Carson. You promised you’d find a way back to me, and you did. You saved me.”

Her words gnawed at him, razor-sharp teeth that sank in a bit deeper every time he breathed. On impulse, he reached over and wrapped a hand around her ankle to pull her leg flat against the bed. The movement revealed the scar he’d only caught a glimpse of so far, a raised, silver-dollar sized knot of hard tissue punched into the top of her thigh, a long-line incision running through the middle of it. The bullet must’ve shattered and they’d had to operate.

The second she realized what he was looking at, she tried to jerk her leg back, but he held on, keeping it straight.

“Don’t,” he said quietly, running a slow hand up the length of her leg until it was parallel with her hip, skimming his fingers along the raised lump of rigid flesh. It was red, warm to the touch, as if it’d happened weeks ago instead of months. He imagined Wade standing over her, pulling the trigger. The terror and hopelessness she must’ve felt but would never admit to. “Whatever I did, it wasn’t enough.” It never was.

He let his fingers glide, finding smooth skin as he traced a feather-light touch along the inside of her thigh. He could feel a slight tremble, a quivering in her muscle along with a sharp intake of breath, soft and slow as she let it out. She dropped a hand to cover his where he touched her and for a second he was unsure if she would pull him closer or push him away.

“Michael, I—”

He forced himself to stop, leaning forward until his forehead rested against hers, relishing the feel of her breath against his face for a moment before he pulled his hand from under hers and stood. “I should go.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, not at all surprised when her face fell into its usually guarded expression. “I’m staying across the hall, won’t be here for more than a few days. I’ll try to stay out of your way, and I’ll try my damnedest not to kill Croft while I’m here.” He felt his mouth quirk a bit.

“Is that a promise?”

He didn’t answer; just let his gaze drift to the note card on the nightstand beside her. Was it from a guy she was seeing? Probably that cop who had a thing for her, what was his name? Nickels. He’d looked like the kind of douche who’d write love letters in Latin. Just remembering his name was enough to make him homicidal.

But what did he expect? He’d left her and the cop hadn’t. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had a choice or that he’d wished every second of every day that things could be different. The fact was, they weren’t and they never would be. She’d moved on. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t do the same.

He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the bitter lump that’d settled there. “Goodnight,” he said, forcing himself to finally turn and walk out the door.