Tell Me Lies (37 page)

“It certainly isn’t funny,” she said, and shoved off her shorts, underwear, condom, and all, and tossed them toward him. “This is the Drake place. It’s deserted.” She sat cross-legged on the grass and said, “Make love to me here, right here. In the sun. In front of God and everybody. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

C.L. watched her and swallowed. “I’m with you right up to the God-and-everybody part.” He slid out of the car and came over to her, holding his hand out to her. “We’re fifteen minutes from your house. Why don’t we—”

“Here.” She yanked him down to the grass beside her. His shirt was crisp against her skin as she rolled into his arms, and he was hot under it, solid and hard against her. She kissed him and felt his hands move down her back as the breeze blew across her skin, and she let herself fall against him, pressing him down into the cool earth.

“Not a good idea,” he said when he came up for air, but his hands slid over her body as he said it. He rolled her over so that he was on top of her, all heat and weight, and her pulse beat quicker, kicked up by the music that still blared from the radio. “Now,” she said, and his hands slid up her sides until she shivered. He kissed her neck, and her ear, and finally her lips again, licking inside her mouth as she moved under him.

“I really want you,” he said when he came up for air. “But not here. Not without protection.”

“There’s a condom in my shorts pocket,” she said. “Get it. It’s been too long.” She pulled his face down to hers to bite his lip. “I want you
now.
Here. While the neighbors watch. So everybody knows.” She moved under him and watched his eyes grow dark and felt him hard against her through his jeans.

“Dumb idea,” he said, but his voice was husky and faint, and he kissed her again, softly, his tongue a tickle against her lips, then harder as she pulsed against him. His mouth moved to her breast, and her breathing kicked faster as he made her mindless with his tongue.

“Do it,” she whispered in his ear as his body moved against her. “I’ve been thinking about this all night and I’m so hot for you. We’re behind the car, people can’t see, and I want you so much. Do it hard, I want you now—”

She broke off when he brought his knee between her legs, his hands sure on her, and she moved to help him, the cool air between her thighs reminding her how empty she was and how she ached for him. He rolled to one side to unzip his jeans and she said, “Do it fast, just
take
me right here.”

He sat up to get the condom from her shorts and then smiled as he rolled back to her, a lazy, sexy screwup’s smile, and said, “Nah, let’s take it slow and make sure everybody sees us.” He slid his hand between her thighs as his body touched hers, hot and strong and broad looming over her, and she moved against his hand, closing her eyes against the sun, feeling the cool grass under her and his hot fingers slick inside her, making her breath stutter and her blood pound. “I love you,” she said, mindless with wanting him, and he said, “I know,” and kissed her, driving her into oblivion with his hands and mouth under the late summer sun while she touched him everywhere, mindlessly claiming everything about him as hers.

Cars drove by, and there were birds chirping, and some kind of farm machinery growled somewhere, but it was all just hum and chatter; the only thing Maddie heard was C.L. whispering in her ear, telling her the impossible erotic mind-bending things he wanted to do to her now, later, forever, while his body pinned her down and his fingers made her breathless with need.

She moaned against him, her hands fumbling at his zipper while her mind went clumsy with wanting him. And when she finally felt him hard against her hand, he said, “I lied, I can’t take this slow, we do this
now.”

She lifted her hips to his, and after a moment with the condom, he moved inside her, muffling her cry of relief with his mouth while he rolled so she was on top, pulling her hips hard down onto his. Maddie straddled him, her thighs spread across his broad body, and then shuddered as she felt him high inside her. She exhaled as he moved, watching him close his eyes, his lashes dark against his skin as he sucked in his breath. His face was strong, the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. She drew her breath sharply and pulsed against him, feeling his body tighten under her hands, and he rocked into her and made her dizzy with heat. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and she realized he was looking at her now, moving deliberately into her to make her shudder while he watched. “You’re brand-new,” he said, “but you’re still mine.”

She smiled down at him, biting her lip against the pleasure that lapped inside her. “Maybe,” she whispered, and he rolled to pin her beneath him, moving even harder into her.
“Mine,”
he said, and she tried to shake her head, but he moved again, deeper inside her, and she forgot to pretend and just clutched at him. “Harder,” she said through clenched teeth, and he took her without stopping again for words or laughter, surging into her in the soft grass beside his bright red car not twenty feet from the road, oblivious to everything but her. They were shameless and mindless for each other, and knowing that pushed her screaming up to meet him, all heat and light and then shudder and twist as she came hard, digging her nails into him as the spasms took her, until he collapsed against her.

And when it was done, all her self-doubts evaporated into the air with her reputation.

They lay gasping in the grass, tangled together in so much mindless pleasure that they both laughed, and she thought,
That’s the end of the old Maddie.

Gran would be so proud.

When he dropped her off at her house fifteen minutes later, Gloria’s head was bobbing down the other side of the fence. Probably edging her grass. “It’s hard not to know the neighbors,” Maddie said as she got out of the car. “Maybe I’ll move. That old farm has nice vibes.”

“So do I,” C.L. said. “You move, you’re moving in with me.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she went around to his side of the car and bent over to kiss him just because it felt so good.

“Are you nuts? We’re in public,” he said, and she kissed him again anyway, a good, long, thank-you-for-great-sex-in-the-sunshine kiss with lots of tongue that left him breathless and appreciative. “I’m coming back for my jacket,” he said. “As soon as I’ve seen Henry, I’m ripping that jacket off you.”

“This jacket?” Maddie flapped it open. C.L. closed his eyes and she grabbed his keys out of the ignition.

“Hey,” he said as she backed away.

“Walk,” she said. “I want a scarlet Mustang in my driveway.”

“Very funny, Hester,” he said. “Give me back my keys.”

Maddie walked away into her backyard, paying close attention to the way the silk lining of his jacket moved against her skin. If he followed her, that was fine. Great animal sex was wonderful, but she was due for some leisurely stuff, too, assuming C.L. was up for it. She was pretty sure he would be.

She turned to see if he was following, but he’d evidently read her mind and was slamming the car door.

“Fine,” he called to her from the front seat. “I could use the exercise. Stay here so I can get some more when I come back.”

She watched him walk away because she liked watching him move, and when he turned the corner she went into the yard and up her back steps.

“Maddie?”

Maddie turned and squinted at Gloria over the fence.

“Maddie, what are you wearing?” Gloria looked equally shocked and delighted. “Is that a man’s jacket?”

“It’s C.L.‘s jacket,” Maddie said. “We just made love out at the old Drake farm. I’m naked underneath it. Anything else you want to know?”

“Well, really, Maddie.” Gloria’s nose went up. “Brent’s only been gone two weeks.”

“That’s a long time to go without sex,” Maddie said. “Which reminds me, I understand you slept with my husband, and while I didn’t like him much, I’m not real happy with you, either. So you just keep your comments about my sex life and my grass to yourself.”

Gloria flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never—”

“He wrote me a letter, Gloria,” Maddie said. “Give it up. He ratted on you. I’m guessing you had sex with him in the garage, right in front of the neighbors. Which, come to think of it, was me. Tacky.”

Gloria’s lips were moving, but no sound was coming out, so Maddie went inside and let the screen door bang.

Maybe when Henry found the killer, he’d let her yell at him, too. It was starting to feel good, being the new Maddie, the one who wasn’t nice and got to tell people off.

And the new Maddie had great sex, too. Heartened, Maddie went to put on some good female country music. It was that kind of sunny, kick-ass day.

“Had a little trouble on the road,” C.L. said, trying to look like he hadn’t just had great sex.

“Oh, hell, C.L., in broad daylight?” Henry said. “If you aren’t a shit-for-brains moron, I don’t know who is.”

“Well, there’s Bailey.” C.L. tried to tuck in his shirttail better. “What did he have to say?”

“He said Maddie shot Brent.”

C.L. jerked his head up.

“Slow down,” Henry said. “It’s possible he’s telling the truth. We traced the gun and it’s licensed through the construction company. Maddie could have gotten it there.”

“Let me see him,” C.L. said grimly, heading for the door. “I want to hear this truth.”

It really had been particularly cheap of Brent to empty their accounts, especially since he’d had a quarter of a mil for his own expenses. It wasn’t like him, really. He’d had his faults, but he’d never been cheap. And he must have known she’d be bouncing checks all over town.

Maddie sorted through the mail again. She should be bouncing checks all over town; she’d never made that deposit Candace had called about. Where were the returned-check notices? Had Candace covered them somehow? And if she had, why hadn’t she told Maddie?

Maddie let the mail drop back onto the desk.

Suppose there weren’t any bounced checks.

Suppose Brent hadn’t emptied the account.

Suppose somebody at the bank had emptied it, so that Candace would have to call her and get her in there to open her safe-deposit box and incriminate herself.

Harold Whitehead couldn’t plan a night out, but the Websters probably could. So they’d empty her account, and then get Candace to call so they could stand around as witnesses—

Why would they get Candace to call? Why wouldn’t
they
just call?

Candace was the one who’d suggested the safe-deposit box. “Anything in your safe-deposit box?” she’d asked. Hell, yes.

Candace?

Maddie tried to make the pieces fit with Candace in the middle instead of the Websters, but it didn’t seem right. True, Candace was blonde, but she was also sane and established and not a little dull. The thought of Candace wearing crotchless underwear under her beige suits was absurd.

Except maybe she didn’t wear it. It had been a plant, something so shocking Maddie would have to confront Brent. A smart woman had stuck that underwear under the seat.

Candace was a very smart woman.

Candace had pulled herself up to become loan manager at the bank, but that was all she was ever going to be. Candace would have loved being the mayor’s wife. She wouldn’t have been a Lowery anymore. All she had to do was get rid of Maddie.

You are paranoid,
Maddie told herself, but then where were the overdrawn notices? Her mother said Candace practically ran the bank; she could have gone down alone to get that box with Brent’s key.

Once Maddie looked at the possibility, it seemed obvious. Candace was a financial whiz. Candace would know everything Brent needed to skim money from the company. She even handled the deposits and the company accounts. It had to be Candace.

Except the kidnapper’s voice had been male.

Candace had been seeing Harold Whitehead, but Maddie couldn’t imagine Harold making a kidnapping call, not even if Candace was dancing naked in front of him.

But Candace was dating Bailey, too. He wouldn’t kidnap anybody, that would be illegal, like blackmail, but if there wasn’t any real kidnapping, he might make the call. The finer points of the law had never been really clear to Bailey. The voice had been raspy like his. It could have been Bailey. But Bailey couldn’t kill anybody.

Candace might have.

Maddie frowned at herself. She’d known Candace all her life, all the way back to Mary Janes and cracked sandals. The whole idea was ridiculous.

Except it made sense. In spite of the kidnapper. Because of the cracked sandals. If Brent had been embezzling with Candace, if he’d decided to skip town and leave her holding the bag, if he’d dumped her and she’d realized he was panicking and she was going to go to jail—

Candace could have shot him. She’d worked too hard to be somebody to let Brent make her a nobody again. Or worse, make her the scandal of Frog Point.
Just like a Lowery,
people would say, and for the first time, Maddie wondered what it was like on the other side. She’d hated being born the good girl; how had Candace felt being born a loser?

Maddie had just had naked sex in public to get out of her straitjacket identity.

What would Candace do to keep from going back to hers?

Candace had had a lot at stake. She could have shot Brent.

There was really only one way to find out. Maddie picked up C.L.‘s keys and headed for the car. She’d go confront Candace and watch the look on her face.