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That bitch Bellamy had killed Susan and had got off scot-free! Allen had paid with his life for her crime, while she’d gone merrily on her way, living the good life.
“Not for much longer,” he whispered.
He heard a door slam and figured it was Dent Carter storming out. Which was okay. Ray could catch up with him later. Right now, he wanted to feel the book writer’s blood on his hands. He wanted to wash his face in it, bathe in it.
He slid his knife from the scabbard, thrilling to that hissing sound.
He could hear her tread as she made her way upstairs. Only a few moments now, and the injustice done to Allen would be avenged.
He heard her on the landing. Coming down the hall. She was steps away, seconds shy of entering the bedroom. She was mere heartbeats away from death.
The bedroom light flicked on.
He took a tighter grip on the bone handle of his knife and held his breath.
Chapter 24
Dent wasn’t enjoying the kissing. Hers were sloppy.
He decided to skip the preliminaries and move things along. Reaching under the back of her top, he unhooked her bra strap.
“My, my. You’re eager,” she whispered and dug her tongue into his ear.
“I am.”
“Okay by me. I’ll just be a minute.” She went into the bathroom and, after pausing to blow him a kiss, shut the door.
He went over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it to test its firmness. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t be there long. Just long enough.
He had tried to coax Bellamy out of her retreat upstairs, but it was as though the plug had been pulled on her emotions. She’d paused on the stairs to deliver a parting shot, spoken in a monotone, her expression closed, cold, removed.
“Look at it this way, Dent, if it turns out that I’m the culprit, your name will be cleared. You do care about that.”
He’d left, telling himself that his leave-taking was long overdue. He never should have become involved with her in the first place. Gall had tried to tell him, but had he listened? No. He’d plunged in and, now he was sick of everything associated with the Lystons.
He’d had it up to here with right versus wrong. He was no longer interested in who had said what, who had done what, and he was tired of trying to fit all the pieces together. To what end? Okay, exoneration for himself. But in the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t much. He could live without ever being rubber-stamped innocent of killing Susan.
So if Bellamy wanted to end their affiliation here, this way, then it was fine and dandy with him.
While with her, he’d forgotten every life-lesson he’d ever learned. Like, don’t become involved in someone else’s mess. Don’t offer advice to someone who obviously doesn’t want it. Don’t be a sap and admit to feeling anything, because what does it get you? Nothing, that’s what. You wind up being not only rejected, but made to look like a damn fool as well.
He should have remembered that from all the times he’d cried himself to sleep for want of the mother who had cared so little as to have abandoned him. Or from the times he’d tried to get his father’s notice, only to be ignored.
His father, the wizard of indifference, had taught him one thing: People could affect you only if you allowed them to.
So he’d told himself that Bellamy’s problems were no longer his, that he was done, finished, and had sped away from her house in desperate need of diversion. He’d stopped at the first bar that looked promising. By the time he’d finished his second drink, she—he hadn’t caught her name and didn’t intend to—had taken up residence on the barstool next to his.
She was cute and cuddly. She hadn’t talked about anything even remotely serious. Instead she’d been flirtatious, funny, and flattering, all excellent antidotes for what he’d been dwelling on over the past few days.
He hadn’t noticed the color of her eyes, only that they weren’t haunted. Or angry and accusatory. Or blue, and soulful, and deep enough for a man to drown in.
She didn’t have a pale sprinkling of freckles on her cheekbones.
Her lower lip didn’t make him think of sin and salvation at the same time.
Her hair wasn’t dark and sleek.
Her main asset was that she was friendly and agreeable. No analyses, no whys and wherefores, none of that. In no time at all, her hand was making forays up his thigh, and he couldn’t remember exactly who’d suggested the motel, him or her, but here they were, and he was waiting for her to come out of the bathroom so they could screw and get it over with.
