A taint in the blood (12 page)

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Kate said, and watched him try to pretend that he'd forgotten she was standing there. "What can I do for you, Jim?" She let her eyes linger on his mouth. It was wide and firm and she already knew he could kiss.

With a fascination he couldn't help, he let his eyes roam, too. Then he remembered why he was there and said in a gruff voice, "Where's Kurt Pletnikoff?"

She blinked. "Kurt?"

"You heard me. I know he came to town. George said he followed you in today."

"What?"

"Where is he?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you want with him anyway? I told you I'd stop him poaching bears for bladders, and I did."

"Oh, really? That must be why Dan called me this morning and said he'd found another carcass."

"What?" she said again, smile vanishing. "Where?"

He pulled off his cap and smacked it against his thigh. "Just below the Step, if you can believe that. Jesus, the nerve of this guy, shooting a bear that close to the ranger station. If Dan had caught him at it, I'd be working a homicide investigation right now. Anyway, that's it. Kurt's going down. Where is he?"

"He didn't shoot it," she said. "Not that bear anyway."

"How do you know?"

She thought back to the man she had confronted in the cabin the day before. "I just know."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Well, that's it, then. I'm totally convinced. I'll head on back to the Park and find out who really did it."

"Kurt's not why you're here," she said softly.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You're the one who followed me to town, not Kurt."

They were still standing in the entryway. He was a step, two at the most, from the front porch, ten feet from the door of his borrowed truck, thirty feet from the street and escape. He turned his head a fraction of an inch at a time and found her looking at him. He'd never been able to determine the color of her eyes. Sometimes they were hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes even green. Now they just looked dark, a little slumberous, and far too knowing.

He was suddenly and acutely aware of how alone they were in this house, how far they were from the Park and all the prying eyes and listening ears that helped him keep his balance on the tightrope of his libido. At the moment, his safety net of Auntie Vi and Auntie Joy and Auntie Balasha and Old Sam and Bernie and Bobby and Dinah was two hundred miles away.

A small plane buzzed far overhead. Outside, light was fading from the sky, and stars not seen for four months were winking into existence to preen themselves in the still mirror of the lagoon. Inside, the silence was still and heavy with expectation.

"Kate," he said, or tried to say. His tongue felt thick.

A slow smile curled lips that looked fuller and redder than they had a moment before. "Jim," she said, softly mocking. She stepped forward, and in spite of the red lights and the sirens going off in his head, he couldn't stop himself. He leaned down into her kiss.

Skin on skin, that's all it was, the light touch of her breath on his cheek, the faint smell of soap and shampoo and sweat and wood smoke that was uniquely Kate Shugak. He couldn't help that, either. He reveled in it, in fact, but then he caught himself and pulled back. "I don't want to do this," he said, his voice sounding weak in his own ears.

"Don't you?" she said, eyelids drooping, voice husky. "Okay."

He didn't move.

Still with that damn knowing smile on her face, she let her eyes slip down over him again. He could feel her gaze like a touch. He couldn't breathe inside his shirt. It was too tight, his pants were too tight, and his tie was knotted too tightly around his neck. His hand came up to loosen it.

"Don't," she said.

"Why not?" was all he could think of to say.

"So I can do this." She knotted a hand in the tie and used it to lead him up the stairs.

He looked down and saw his feet moving of their own volition. Their footsteps were muffled by the plush blue carpet on the stairs. It seemed forever before they got to the bedroom, which had what looked like an acre of bed in it, and at the same time he saw the journey in flashbacks, still shots, the heel of her thick white socks a little worn, the blue flannel caressing her ass. Her hair was damp and finger-combed, the ends drying in slight curls against her neck.

He halted in the center of the room and stood, dumbstruck, as she stripped leisurely out of her clothes, keeping her eyes on his face as a slight smile played around the corners of her mouth. She reached for his belt, and he might have made some kind of protest, one last plea for leniency, but by then she had swung him around and pushed him so that he landed on his back on the bed, and she was over him, and on him, and in him, and he gave himself up to the woman and to the night.

He woke up alone, splayed out like a starfish and about the same temperature. He was back on the bed, thank God, although the mattress had slid partway off the box springs. The pillows were gone. He turned his head and saw them piled in front of a chair, and remembered how they'd gotten there. The blanket was jammed between the edge of the mattress and the bed frame, the fitted sheet had popped its corners and clumped up into a ball, and all he had covering him was the top sheet, which appeared to be tangled around his left leg. He didn't have the energy to reach for it, so he lay there, goose-pimpled and numb, mostly because he wasn't sure he could move and he was afraid to find out.

He knew he must have slept at some point during the night, but for the life of him he couldn't remember when he'd had the time. Kate had been like a force of nature, overwhelming, relentless, inexorable. "Here," she'd said, and dutifully he'd gone there. "Harder," she'd said, and obediently he had stroked or sucked or thrust harder. "Again," she had said, and the good soldier had done as he was told. There had been no escape, even if he'd been inclined toward it, which parts of him most definitely weren't. He looked down to see if anything remained between his legs. He was immensely relieved to find that there was, although he wasn't certain there was any fluid left in his body.

He'd done it. He'd spent the night with Kate Shugak, the one thing he had been avoiding all summer long. He stared at the ceiling and watched the storm clouds gather.

Kate Shugak was a serial monogamist. That worked for some people, and she was one of them, but that group didn't include him. It was the one thing he knew absolutely. A relationship to him meant sex and a lot of it, along with a lesser amount of lazy affection, which he was more than willing to provide so long as it didn't take a lot of emotional work on his part. He didn't want anything to do with love.
Love,
Jesus, there was a word to frighten the living hell out of you. Love led to things like marriage and children and growing old together, not to mention spousal abuse and infanticide and murder. He'd responded to his share of domestic disturbances, he knew all he needed to know about love and marriage. He'd never told a woman he loved her, and he never would, and he sure as hell wasn't starting with the woman who had shared this bed with him, no way, no how. The very thought of it sent a chill right down his spine. Even if he couldn't feel his spine at the moment.

It wasn't like he couldn't have walked out at any moment last night. There were a couple of times at least that he'd been pretty sure she was asleep. Plus, he was fourteen inches taller than she was and outweighed her by at least eighty pounds. She couldn't have made him stay even if she'd been awake. He had stayed because he wanted to, and he had made love to her because he wanted it, but it was what it was, one night, and that's all it was. Any attempt on her part to make more of it would be rebuffed, kindly, yes—he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings—but firmly. He was still his own man, he still had ownership of his own soul, and his heart was not now, nor ever had been, in danger.

The rich aroma of fresh coffee drifted into the room. It was more than mortal man could resist. Groaning, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and let his legs slip to the floor. Some help from the bedpost and he was vertical again. Something squished beneath his bare foot. It was a used condom.

"Oh crap." He peeled it off and limped into the bathroom. He checked his crotch again in the mirror just to be sure—one cock, two balls, yep, all present and accounted for. He even felt himself up to make sure they weren't a mirage. He turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it and got in.

He arrived in the kitchen damp but resolute.

It was empty.

"Kate?" he said. There was no answer. "Kate?" he said again, raising his voice.

No answer, and no Mutt, either.

He opened the door to the garage. The Subaru was gone.

There was coffee in the automatic coffeemaker, a clean mug on the counter beside it. There was also a note on the table.

He eyed it with foreboding. It was probably some mash note, saying how wonderful they'd been together and telling him that she'd gone out to buy the ingredients for an elaborate breakfast, which he would be expected to eat massively and praise effusively, and over which he would be required to hold her hand and make cow eyes.

With reluctance, he reached for the note. It read:

Half-and-half in the frige.

I had a good time.

Thanks,

 
Kate

7

After a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, Kate found the pay phone at the Hogg Brothers and called Charlotte. Charlotte didn't want to talk on the phone—who knew why—so Kate got directions and hopped in the car. Mutt looked at her, tail wagging expectantly, and Kate unfolded the napkin holding the rest of her bacon. "Don't tell me I never sacrifice for you," she told her.

Charlotte lived in a big house, of course, on Hillside, naturally, as high up as you could go and not be in Chugach State Park, it went without saying. Kate had been on Hillside before, and that she had not been carted back down in an ambulance wasn't the fault of the person she had come to see. Her attitude increased with the altitude, and by the time she was knocking at Charlotte's door, she had formulated an entire scenario about Charlotte Bannister Muravieff and her life and times.

Charlotte destroyed the first stereotype by answering her own door, and the second by answering it dressed in ragged gray sweats, although she was as meticulously made up as she had been when she had come to see Kate in the Park. "Please come in," she said, standing back and motioning to Kate.

"Where did you stay?" Kate said. "I never thought to ask."

"Where did I stay where?" Charlotte asked.

"In the Park. When you came to see me."

Charlotte's brow cleared. "Oh, I didn't stay. I drove on home."