"You should speak cautiously about the dead, Howard. Keisha was a nice girl and doesn't deserve your insinuations about her character." She closed the door behind her with a sharp click.
So much for diplomacy.
The man reverently touched each artifact arranged on the small altar. Then he lighted exactly seven virginally white candles and placed them strategically around the room so as to produce the most dramatic view. Next, he pinned the photographs to the tag board wall at the altar's right-hand side because, of course, the offering of the Man of Holiness must stand at the right hand of God.
Black and white photos, all of them very startling, in his modest opinion. He'd taken the pictures and developed them himself, all sharp and crisp tableaux, unmarred by the muddy brilliance of color. How could one see the clear beauty of absolutism when the photographed objects were saturated with image gradients and hues? Color obscured meaning. Only the starkness of black and white indicated the unvarnished truth.
The persons in these photos showed naked reality.
He hung them in strict chronological order according to when he'd taken them and then stood back to admire his collection. He caressed the third photo, his favorite. He believed the grainy texture captured the moment of death's realization the best.
The woman had been an aspiring actress, reduced to the waitressing common among girls gone to Hollywood. Lowly work, for which she was paid a pittance. He thought she showed extraordinary potential, but her fate was inevitable. He particularly enjoyed running his fingers over the picture's germane sections and reliving the sticky reality of the event.
"Sweetheart," he whispered aloud, "you were one of the best." She hadn't known, of course, that he had photographed her. By then she was too far gone to be aware of such trivia as cameras.
The man placed a velvet cushion on the floor before the altar and knelt, genuflected, and folded his hands in front of his chest. A surge of foolishness rose up in him. Despite his religious ties, he wasn't sure God existed. But it didn't really matter because a moment of incredible peace descended on him, and a shiver akin to religious fervor – or an orgasm – shook his body with the force of a surging river.
The closing of the front door drew him out of his meditation. Instantly he became as alert as a fox. Who had a key to this apartment? It was unthinkable that anyone had access to his quarters… possibly to this private room.
Agitated, he pushed up from the cushion and put out the candles one by one with the eighteenth century candle extinguisher he'd discovered by chance at an antique store in Oregon. When he exited the room, he triple locked the door and replaced the plain panel which fitted easily into the door frame. He re-hung the cheap art deco painting, giving it one last glance before he started down the stairs.
"Hi, there," the woman said, smiling broadly up at him where he paused at the landing. "Long time, no see."
"Didn't know you had a key," he said mildly.
"Silly guy, I don't, but I remembered where I'd left a spare from… before… " She fumbled with the words, and he knew she was suddenly aware of how bold she'd been.
She'd made a copy? He trembled with anger at the possibility.
"… when I used your key once," she finished.
He pushed down the rage and grinned in a way he knew she found charming and cosmopolitan – she'd actually used that word one time to describe him after one of his sessions of wild sex with the silly bitch.
He stepped up to greet her. "It's fine," he said. "I'm just surprised to see you."
"I finished early today," she added, as if by explanation, and hung her coat on the oak clothes tree which, along with a ceramic-topped entry table, was the only piece of furniture in the foyer. She dropped her keys into the glass bowl. "I thought we could order pizza."
Conjuring up images of the heavy meal, his mind revolted at the idea of red sauce mingled with stringy white substances and brown animal meats. Maybe with the correct wine. He sighed and began the descent. He reached for the heavy bag she struggled with and dropped a quick peck on her cheek. For now, she'd expect that much.
Oh, well, at least she'd be good for a quick fuck. She was hardly up to any intellectual stimulation, but didn't he keep her around for the occasional time when a good screw was just what he needed?
"You order," he suggested, "and I'll pick up a bottle of wine when I get the pizza."
"Cool," she answered, moving to the kitchen and the drawer beside the sink where he kept the take-out menus.
She'd become far too familiar with him, he thought, as he watched her bend unnecessarily to adjust her shoe strap, her back toward him. Giving him a full view of her lack of underwear. He rethought his position on giving her the immediate boot. Maybe a few more trysts for old times' sake. Did the vapid girl even know what a tryst was?
"No anchovies," she said, holding the phone to her ear and covering the mouthpiece with a hand that sported rings on every finger.
"You remember." He smiled like a shark.
"I remember everything about you, honey," she answered coyly, "and I mean everything." Her heavily mascaraed eyes dropped to a spot below his waist.
Definitely good for a few more rounds. Even if he had to tolerate pizza and cheap, empty-headed conversation.
"Back in a minute," he said, grabbing his coat from the rack and heading out into the brisk night, tugging the collar close around his neck.
At the liquor store he chose a moderately-priced bottle of Burgundy before picking up the pizza and walking the quarter mile back to his apartment. The food would be cold by the time they got around to eating it – rather, before she devoured it – but he had no intention of letting the heat of the moment slip by.
She might get one slice eaten while he set up the camera. She would need the extra energy because he had every intention of keeping her very occupied tonight.
Chapter Eighteen
Olivia didn't look at all surprised when Jack showed up on her doorstep without warning. He hadn't meant to see her alone again before he left for the mountains, but her accusing eyes had wounded him all day. He told himself he'd explain what little he could and beg her forgiveness.
Those sharp green eyes darkened several shades as she swept them over his casual clothes – jeans and a black tee shirt under his leather jacket. She stepped back and opened the door wider. Barefoot and looking very young in jeans and a collared shirt, she took a seat on the sofa in the living room. Jack chose a wing chair in the opposite corner, putting distance between them.
"I never meant to take advantage of you." The the words spewed out of his mouth sounding common and inadequate.
"You left me," she said after a painful pause.
The truth stung. "You think I used you."
"I may have been young, Jack, but I always knew what I wanted." She tucked her bare feet under her legs. "What I didn't know was why you left after… well, you know." She lifted her slender shoulders. "It was my first time. I suppose I was immature enough to dramatize the whole event, but I felt as though you'd saved my life. I thought it meant something." A small smile crossed her lips. "Very foolish of me."
A white, hot jab of anguish stabbed Jack's gut.
Moving to Oakland from Texas at the age of fifteen actually had saved his life, he reflected, considering his father was in prison and his mother ran through men and alcohol at the fast pace. He'd been a mess when he came to live with his foster parents, kicked out of juvie and given one last chance to reform.
Turns out his one last chance had been Olivia. She'd saved him then and he couldn't help wondering if she'd save him now. "It's complicated," he said, looking at his interlocked hands dangling between his legs. "I wanted to call you, let you know what happened, send a postcard, but – "