Malice. Lisa Jackson
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as she imagined his rage. She played her trump card. “Kristi will wonder why you’re not home. She’s already asking questions.”
“And what do you tell her? The truth?” That her mother can’t keep her legs closed? He didn’t say it, but the condemnation was there, hanging between them. Hell, she hated this. If it weren’t for her daughter, their daughter…
“I’m not sure how long the stakeout will be.”
A convenient lie. Her blood began a slow, steady boil. “You and I both know that the department doesn’t work its detectives around the clock.”
“You and I both know a lot of things.”
In her mind’s eye she saw him as he had been in the bedroom doorway, his face twisted in silent accusation as she lay in their bed. Sweaty, naked, she was in the arms of another man, the same man with whom she’d had an affair earlier. Kristi’s biological father. Rick had reached for his gun, the pistol strapped in his shoulder holster, and for a second Jennifer had known real fear. Icy, cold terror.
“Get out,” he’d ordered, staring with deadly calm at the two of them. “Jesus H. Christ, get the hell out of my house and don’t come back. Both of you.”
He’d turned then, walked down the stairs, and left without so much as slamming the door. But his rage had been real. Palpable. Jennifer had escaped with her life, but she hadn’t gone. She couldn’t.
Rick hadn’t returned. They hadn’t even fought about it again. He’d just left.
Refused to answer her calls.
Until today.
By then it had been too late.
She’d already met her lover again. As much out of retribution as desire. Fuck it. No one was going to run her life, not even Rick-effin’-Bentz, superhero cop. So she’d met the man who was forever in her blood.
Slut!
Whore!
The words were her own. She closed her eyes and hung her head, feeling lost. Confused. Never had she planned to cheat on Rick. Never. But she’d been weak, temptation strong. She shook her head and felt black to the bottom of her soul. Who was she so intent on punishing? Him? Or herself? Hadn’t one of her shrinks told her she didn’t think she deserved him? That she was self-destructive?
What a load of crap. “I just don’t know what you want,” she whispered weakly.
“Neither do I. Not anymore.”
She saw an inch of liquid remaining in one martini glass and drank it down. The noose tightened a notch, even as it unraveled. God, why couldn’t it be easy with him? Why couldn’t she remain faithful? “I’m trying, Rick,” she whispered, gritting her teeth. It wasn’t a lie. The problem was that she was trying and failing.
She thought she heard a muffled footstep from downstairs and she went on alert, then decided the noise might have been the echo in the phone. Or from outside. Wasn’t there a window open?
“You’re trying?” Rick snorted. “At what?”
So there it was. He did know. Probably was having someone tail her, having the house under surveillance. Or worse yet, he had been parked up the street in a car she didn’t recognize and had been watching the house himself. She glanced up at the ceiling to the light fixture, smoke alarm, and slow-moving paddle fan as it pushed the hot air around. Were there tiny cameras hidden inside? Had he filmed her recent tryst? Witnessed her as she’d writhed and moaned on the bed she shared with him? Observed her as she’d taken command and run her tongue down her lover’s abdomen, and lower? Seen her laughing? Teasing? Seducing?
Jesus, how twisted was he?
She closed her eyes. Mortified. “You sick son of a bitch.”
“That’s me.”
“I hate you.” Her temper was rising.
“I know. I just wasn’t sure you could admit it. Leave, Jennifer. It’s over.”
“Maybe if you didn’t get off bustin’ perps and playing the superhero ace detective, maybe if you paid a little attention to your wife and kid, this wouldn’t happen.”
“You’re not my wife.”
Click.
He hung up.
“Bastard!” She threw the phone onto the bed as her head began to pound. You did this, Jennifer. You yourself. You knew you’d get caught, but you pushed away everything you wanted and loved, including Kristi and a chance with your ex-husband, because you’re a freak. You just can’t help yourself. She felt a tear slither down her cheek and slapped it away. This was no time for tears or self-pity.
Hadn’t she told herself that reconciliation with Rick was impossible? And yet she’d returned to this house, this home they’d shared together, knowing full well it was a mistake of monumental proportions. Just as it had been when she’d first said “I do,” years before.
“Fool!” She swore under her breath on her way to the bathroom, where she saw her reflection in the mirror over the sink.
“Not pretty,” she said, splashing water over her face. But that really wasn’t the truth. She wasn’t too far into her thirties and her dark hair was still thick and wavy as it fell below her shoulders. Her skin was still smooth, her lips full, her eyes a shade of blue-green men seemed to find fascinating. All the wrong men, she reminded herself. Men who were forbidden and taboo. And she loved their attention. Craved it.
She opened the medicine cabinet, found her bottle of Valium, and popped a couple, just to take the edge off and push the threatening migraine away. Kristi was going to a friend’s house after swim practice; Rick wasn’t coming home until God knew when, so Jennifer had the house and the rest of the evening to herself. She wasn’t leaving. Yet.
Swoosh.
An unlikely noise traveled up the staircase from the floor below.
The sound of air moving? A door opening? A window ajar?
What the hell was going on? She paused, listening, her senses on alert, the hairs on the back of her arms lifting.
What if Rick were nearby?
What if he’d been lying on the phone and was really on his way home again, just like the other day? The son of a bitch might just have been playing her for a fool.
The “stakeout” could well be fake, or if he really was going to spend all night watching someone, it was probably her, his own wife.
Ex-wife. Jennifer Bentz stared at her reflection in the mirror and frowned at the tiny little lines visible between her eyebrows. When had those wrinkles first appeared? Last year? Earlier? Or just in the last week?
It was hard to say.
But there they were, reminding her all too vividly that she wasn’t getting any younger.
With so many men who had wanted her, how had she ended up marrying, divorcing, and then living with a cop in his all-too-middle-class little house? Their attempt to get back together was just a trial. It hadn’t been going on long and now…well, she was pretty damned sure it was over for good.
Because she just couldn’t be faithful to any one man. Even one she loved.
Dear God, what was she going to do? She’d thought about taking her own life. More than once. And she’d already written her daughter a letter to be delivered upon her death:
Dear Kristi,
I’m so sorry, honey. Believe me when I tell you that I love you more than life itself. But I’ve been involved with the man who is your biological father again, and I’m afraid it’s going to break Rick’s heart.
And blah, blah, blah…
What a bunch of melodramatic crap.
Again