And yet, he kept climbing the stairs, trusting to instinct, Lyn's freely admitted enthusiasm, and the pure dumb luck that had brought them together.
He reached the landing and stopped, the pounding of his heart contrasting with the utter silence all around him. He stared at her door, wondering, still, if he should knock.
Putting an end to his doubts, the door opened. Lyn stood on the threshold, wearing a long, sleeveless nightdress, buttons running down to the hem, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She smiled at him and reached out with one hand. "I was hoping you'd make it."
He took her hand and followed her through the room with all the boxes. She didn't lead him to the living room, though, but chose another door to the side, crossed a hallway, and entered a warm, sweet-smelling bedroom, lighted by a single candle beside a large, old-fashioned four-poster bed.
She turned in the middle of the floor and placed her hands on his shoulders. Without a word, she slid his coat off his arms, letting it fall to the ground.
He removed his jacket and shirt, and the rest of his clothing, with her help, until they stood as they had upon entering, she still in her nightdress, he now totally naked.
Only then did he rest his hands on her waist, his fingers warming to the feel of her skin beneath the thin cotton. He drew her near to him, her arms slipping around his shoulders, and they kissed as never before-slowly and deeply. Joe moved his hands up across her shoulder blades and down along her sides, over her hips, feeling his excitement building.
He stepped slightly away and began unbuttoning her nightgown, not hurriedly, enjoying how the candlelight caught her eyes, and the smooth contours of the skin he was revealing.
When he'd reached her navel, he returned to her shoulders, slipped the nightdress's straps off, and let the garment gather in a circle around her waist.
"My God," he murmured, drawing her near again, feeling her shiver slightly as her breasts pressed against his bare chest. They kissed again, and with one final sweep, he slid his hands under the swath of cotton at her hips, dropped it to the floor, and lifted her up, feeling her legs lock around his waist.
He carried her the short distance to the bed, and they both half tumbled into its embrace, laughing.
Chapter 20
Willy stood perfectly still in the darkness, adjusting to the cold. He was beyond the glare of a nearby streetlight, in the shadow of a rickety, wooden triple-decker dating back a hundred years, in one of the poorer sections of the village of Bellows Falls.
There wasn't much activity. It was late, the traffic all but petered out. The weather was keeping most pedestrians off the sidewalks, and although there were windows still glowing with light, Willy was pretty sanguine he'd be left alone.
Not positive, though. Bellows Falls was quirky enough to hold back a surprise. A pretty village, with ancient mills, once fueled by the power of its namesake cascade, it was wedged between the Connecticut River and a prominence named Oak Hill, whose sheer bulk appeared to shove and compress the village onto a narrow shelf paralleling the water's edge.
Unfortunately, Bellows Falls had a reputation at odds with its appearance. Where once those mills had kept both mansions and worker housing bustling and trim, now their stagnant silence had relegated too many buildings to the status of neglected, parceled-up tenements.
The spirit of the place struggled on, the efforts of its boosters telling and ongoing, but the sheer weight of its financial challenges was like an iceberg's bulk-just under the surface and massive in proportion.
Sadly, as a result, Bellows Falls was a prime place to conduct police business. Which was why Willy was here now.
He checked his watch slowly, sensitive to making any sudden movements. He'd been here two hours. Ever since being told by old man Griffis that Wayne Nugent had raped Andy in prison, Willy had been in quiet pursuit of the man. E. T. hadn't stopped at just the name. With prompting-and occasional breaks for more beer and some sobbing-he'd also delivered other pertinent details, all of which had helped Willy get a line on Nugent and begin tracking him down.
Not that it had been a huge challenge. Nugent was one of humanity's too common opportunists-neither clever nor calculating, but certainly unhesitating to grasp every offer that came within reach. He randomly raped or robbed or simply self-indulged with drugs and liquor. He stayed with people, sleeping with them, robbing them blind, or both, leaving behind a wake of disgruntled sources all too happy to unload into Willy's accommodating ear.
His latest harbor was a woman in Bellows Falls who lived on the second floor at the top of a narrow exterior staircase, across from where Willy had been waiting ever since he'd spotted Wayne downing shots at one of the watering holes on Rockingham Street.
It wouldn't be much longer. It was after two a.m., when the bars closed. Nugent was guaranteed to push the limit and then stagger out toward his latest version of home.
It was then that Willy intended to intercept him, between one oasis and the next, and to begin a conversation he anticipated would result in Nugent's arrest. Lord only knew how many times Willy had made just such things happen in the past-and Wayne Nugent was just the kind of guy he loved to go after. The fact that the man's involvement with Dan Griffis's misbehavior or Leo's car crash was peripheral mattered less to Willy than his own discovery that a bad man had gotten away with driving a fellow human being to suicide. In Willy's mind, this was merely a logical extension of Joe's initial assignment to pump E. T. Griffis for everything he could get.
Nugent first emerged as little more than a dark motion against a somber background, although Willy, a combat-trained sniper, had little trouble spotting what most would have missed entirely. He pulled back farther into his own shadows and watched as his target drew nearer, studying his hands, his gait, his manner of dress, and estimating from his body language how he might react to a sudden crisis. He also studied the man's clothing to see if any allowances had been made for quick access to a weapon.
Satisfied, he waited for Nugent to walk past, trailing a cloud of cheap beer and cigarette smoke, and soundlessly fell in behind him.
As Nugent reached the bottom of the exterior staircase and placed his hand on the wooden railing, Willy clearly but quietly ordered him, "Police, Wayne. Do not move."
Nugent's reaction was hair-triggered and totally unexpected. He didn't freeze, startle, twist around, or shout in surprise. Instead, as instantly as if he'd been launched from a cannon, and using the riser under his foot as a push-off, he simply propelled himself backward, guided solely by Willy's voice.
Caught completely by surprise, Willy tried fending off the sheer bulk of the body hurtling at him, sidestepping and throwing up his good arm for protection. He staggered backward, hit the hood of a parked car with the small of his back, and catapulted over as Nugent, deflected by the impact, came up against the car's side instead, thereby managing to stay on his feet. As Willy rolled off the hood and fell hard to the ground, Nugent took off at a sprint.
"God damned son of a bitch," Willy swore as he staggered to his feet and gave chase, amazed by the other man's reflexes. Already, Nugent was halfway down the block, despite his inebriated state.
Willy had given no thought whatsoever to asking the local police department for assistance with this, purely on principle. And even now, as his quarry began vanishing into the darkness, he didn't rue his decision. He was hoping, however, that Nugent's adrenaline would run out sooner rather than later.
As it turned out, that didn't matter. When Nugent reached the next major cross street, a car pulled up out of nowhere and-in defiance of typical behavior-came to a complete stop at the sign. With the same reactive fluidity that he'd used against Willy, Nugent ran straight up to the driver's door, yanked it open, pulled out the astonished young man at the wheel, and all but threw him across the sidewalk. In the time it took Willy to cover five yards, the car's rear wheels were burning and squealing as the vehicle peeled away, its open door slamming shut from the momentum.