Perry panted and then whimpered, but he didn’t retreat -- he pushed down onto Nick’s cock -- stubborn, insistent, shivering with a mix of wanting and hurting -- and then Nick was in. And not moving, not taking was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. He held himself in check, taking the time to soothe and pamper until it was Perry who initiated, a little awkwardly, but Nick met him, let him set the pace, and soon they were caught up again in that frantic tempo, the push and pull, the drag and draw, that slow, delicious friction rapidly building to something frantic and ferocious until at last they tumbled off the edge into the deep end of ecstasy.
They found themselves at last leaden limbed and catching their breath on the beach of a new uneasy understanding.
* * * * *
Let the journey begin, the faded, peeling billboard read. A young man in dress uniform gazed keen-eyed into a future that had surely come and gone by now.
“See,” said Perry. He nudged Nick who studied the billboard with a sardonic smile curling his mouth.
“I think nowadays the slogan is accelerate your life.”
“Hoo-boy!” Perry said.
“Hooyah,” Nick agreed, amused.
The morning was bitterly cold. The weatherman was prophesying snow for the weekend, although the skies were blue as the belly of an iceberg. Nick and Perry had woken early, fucked lazily and lovingly, and decided to go into the village to see what the sheriff had turned up.
Not that Nick expected a lot of cooperation from the sheriff, but it never hurt to ask -- or push. Hard.
A gust of icy wind rattled down the street, blowing the Christmas lights strung through the trees lining the sidewalk, and Perry began to cough.
“Come on, Camille,” Nick said. “Let’s get you some cocoa.”
They went inside the bakery -- the same one, Perry pleasantly informed Nick, where Mr. Watson had died -- and Nick got a coffee for himself and cocoa and glazed doughnuts for Perry.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes; stay here where it’s warm,” he said briskly, and with that he was gone, vanishing down the street with that quick, purposeful stride.
Perry sat down at one of the little half tables scrunched against the wall beneath a Norman Rockwell calendar and dunked his doughnuts in the cocoa, watching the Christmas shoppers on the street outside
Fifteen minutes passed with no sign of Nick. There was no need to be nervous. It had probably taken him longer than he had expected. If anyone could handle himself, it was Nick. Nor would Nick forget about him and drive back to the estate. Perry’s anxiety persisted.
He stepped outside the shop, scanning the busy streets.
“Hey, buddy.”
Perry turned. A big man in a blue parka was shoving a paper his way. At first he thought it was a flyer, but then he realized it was a photo.
“You ever see this broad before?”
Perry stared at the man’s craggy face. Something about him was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place him. He stared at the photograph.
The woman in the picture was young and thin-faced. Her raven hair was styled in one of those big hairdos, her makeup red and harsh.
“Well?” the man demanded. “You seen her around?”
Now Perry remembered him. He was the ugly looking customer from the diner.
Perry concentrated on the woman’s bone structure, mentally erasing the eyeliner, the ugly hair… His gaze narrowed. Holy…!
It was Jane maybe six or seven years ago. She looked harder, grimmer -- and yet there was something haunted and vulnerable in her painted face.
“You do know her,” the man said, watching Perry alertly.
Perry looked up, his expression blank. “No.” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. She looks like a lot of people.”
“You know someone else who looks like her?”
Perry shook his head quickly. “I just mean she doesn’t seem like anything special.”
The man said oddly, “Oh, she’s something special, all right.” He put the photo back in his jacket pocket.
“Are you a cop?” Perry inquired.
The flat eyes met his own, and Perry felt a little prickle at the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. Keep it to yourself, though.”
“Sure.”
He glanced around, and Nick was striding down the street toward them, his face impassive, but eyes alert. Did he think there was trouble here?
Perry nodded to the man and moved away. The man continued to watch him. Had he done anything to give away his recognition of the photo?
Nick reached him, asking, “Who’s your friend?”
Perry glanced back. The man was walking into the bakery.
“I don’t think he’s anyone’s friend.”
He told Nick about the photo of Jane back in the day, and Nick said grimly, “He’s no cop.”
“How do you know?”
Nick shook his head. “I just know. Do you think he believed you about not recognizing the picture?”
“He seemed to.” Perry glanced back uneasily. “It doesn’t look like he’s watching me.”
Nick put his hand briefly on Perry’s arm. “Yeah, and let’s not get caught watching him, or he’ll know it’s bandits at twelve o’clock.”
“If he’s not a cop, why would he be asking about Janie?”
“Why don’t we ask Jane?” Nick said.
They were in the pickup and on their way back to the estate when Perry remembered to ask, “Did you learn anything at the sheriff’s station?”
“They’re releasing Teagle. They got confirmation on his alibi. He couldn’t have killed Swiss, and even these idiots can see that the two murders are probably connected.”
Perry said slowly, “Maybe Miss Dembecki thought Swiss was a burglar and used her trusty poker on him.”
“And then what?” Nick questioned. “Shot Tiny when he tried to blackmail her?”
Trying to imagine Tiny having the smarts to attempt blackmail was even harder to picture than Miss Dembecki blowing him away with her trusty .44 Magnum.
Perry shrugged. “Probably not. But I think Janie is right. I think Miss Dembecki is losing it.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Did you notice how excited she was at the idea of the passageways?”
Nick nodded.
“And she’s been searching the grounds, searching the gazebo.” Perry sighed. “She must have been in my rooms for a reason.”
Nick kept his eyes on the road. “You think she’s looking for the jewels too.”
“I do, yeah. If she’s getting senile, then I guess there could be another explanation of course, but…”
“That’s how I read it,” Nick agreed, and Perry felt foolishly flattered.
“What do you think happened? Shane Moran hid the jewels in one of the secret passages and then was killed before he had a chance to retrieve them?”
“Now that…I have no idea.” Nick considered, chewing. “I guess it’s possible. If it’s a fact that he and Alston’s wife were lovers, she might have told him about the passageways. In fact, he may have already known about them -- they may have used those tunnels to smuggle booze into the house. The question is why would Moran stash the jewels at all? Why wouldn’t he just leave with them? What would there be to come back for aside from them?”
“Why did he hang around in the woods to get shot?” Perry agreed.
Their eyes met.
“Verity Lane?” Perry suggested.
Nick frowned. “You think he thought she might change her mind about leaving?”
“Maybe.”
Nick grimaced. “Then he was pretty stupid.”
“Maybe he just really loved her a lot,” Perry said quietly.
* * * * *
There was a local news van parked beside the bridge leading to the Alston Estate. A marked police car blocked its access, but the deputies pulled out of the way for Nick’s truck.
Inside the house, Jane was pacing up and down the front hallway.