The Death Dealer

Page 44

“I’m sorry,” Genevieve apologized when she got back in the car. “It’s such a beautiful statue that I just had to get a closer look.”
“Sure,” Joe said, and pulled back into traffic.
Genevieve had been given a large bedroom with a queen bed and a garden view. She wondered if Joe would be sharing it with her tonight, since she wasn’t sure of their footing at the moment. He had stayed with her last night, but that could have been simply because he was a good guy. He wouldn’t have left her alone, not when she had barely been able to stand.
But she was glad when he took it for granted that they would be staying together and went with her to her room. “This place was really a nice choice,” he told her, when she opened the door. “Leave it to Adam.” When she looked at him questioningly, he grimaced. “I probably would have opted for a chain hotel.”
She smiled. “Adam is good,” she said simply, then headed into the bathroom to shower. She closed the door, but she didn’t lock it. Then she turned the water on hot. And waited.
But he didn’t come. She sighed and picked up the soap.
You can initiate things, you know, she told herself. But she had already done that, hadn’t she?
She had already soaped herself when she heard the door open. And then he stepped in behind her. A swift sensation of gratitude was quickly replaced with simple physical pleasure as she felt the bulwark of his body behind her. He pulled her close, reaching for the soap, then running it up and down her body in sweet suggestion.
She turned to face him. As steam and water cascaded around them, she looked up into his eyes, somehow feeling guilty, feeling that she should tell him everything.
But before she could say anything, he kissed her. Long and deep. It felt as if his tongue dipped down into the heart of her, as if they were locked together in the mist and heat. When his mouth lifted from hers, she met his eyes and would have spoken, but he whispered a soft, “Shh,” and she was lost.
His hands caressed a path down her back and encircled her buttocks, lifting her closer to him. Excitement drove through her like fire, and she pressed herself flat against his body.
They clung to one another, and his mouth found hers again, hot and sensual, no tenderness involved, just a need that seemed to fill her every cell with a soaring sensuality. She ran her finger over the wet skin of his shoulders, then down his spine. He reached past her, groping for the faucet, turning it off, and then he lifted her against him, stepping from the tub.
They didn’t bother with towels. On the bed, his tongue coursed over her, as if he could lick her dry. She gasped and shuddered, and the headboard hit the wall as he shifted above her.
“Shh,” he teased. “You don’t want to wake the neighbors.”
She nipped his shoulder, pushing him back, pushing him down. She moved with abandon against him, her body slick as she rubbed against him. She kissed and teased the muscled flat of his stomach, stroked his thighs, caught his erection in her hand. She heard his breathing deepen, catch, heard the growl that escaped him as she crawled atop him.
He wrapped his arms around her and swept her beneath him. She met his gaze, smiling, alive, feeling ridiculously vital and excited. She locked her thighs around him, and a soft moan escaped her as he thrust into her.
They began to move.
And whisper.
Words that inspired, that caressed, that soared alongside their passion.
The air was cool, his body was fire, and each thrust and parry seemed to drive her more insane. His lips found hers, broke away, found them again, and she heard the bed squeaking and didn’t care. The world began and ended with him.
She climaxed violently, her body a vise around him, shudders tearing through her at volatile speed. She felt his power as he climaxed with her, jerking into her, once, again and then again. Her arms tightened around him, and she clasped him tighter, feeling the matching drumbeats of their hearts. He caressed her head, smoothing back her damp hair, cradling her tenderly to him.
There was a loud thunk from the other side of the wall. They stared at each other, startled, then laughed.
“Is that Brent and Nikki’s room?” he whispered.
“Shush,” she teased.
They didn’t say anything else. He held her, they dozed and then they made love again.
As she finally drifted to sleep, she wished that she could really talk to him, that she dared to pour her heart out to him, to tell him about the fear and the wonder of what was happening to her.
They were so close, and yet, there were still such…ghosts…between them.
CHAPTER 18
The next day Brent called Ryan Wilkins and told him that they suspected a visitor to the Poe Fest might have been responsible for the Morton murder, then suggested that he might want to talk to the costume shops that had rented out Poe costumes at the time. He also told Wilkins that Joe was convinced something had been taken from the house: the bulk of William Morton’s notes on Poe.
Brent took the wheel when they left for Baltimore, because Joe was on the phone with Raif.
“I got the phone records, but I’ll be damned if I know what they prove,” Raif said.
“Did you find any calls between anyone in the society and Lori Star?” Joe asked.
“No. Were you expecting me to?” Raif asked.
“No. I was just hoping. Anything unusual at all?” Joe asked.
“They all called each other a lot, that’s for certain. Let’s see, there are more from Lila Hawkins to Eileen Brideswell than to any of the other members. And Larry seemed to call Thorne and Don more than he did anyone else. A lot of calls went out from Thorne to both Lou Sayles and Barbara Hirshorn.”
“Interesting,” Joe said.
“Yeah? Well, the weather can be interesting, too,” Raif said wearily. “I’ve traipsed all over New Jersey—with the blessing of the cops there—and I’ve still got nothing.”
“Have you checked on boats?”
“She didn’t take a ferry over, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Raif said.
“No, what about rental boats?”
“Hey, what are you, my captain or something?”
“Is that a play on words, or are you just being pissy?” Joe asked him.
“Of course we’re checking on boat rentals,” Raif said. “Shit.”
“You might want to check to see if anyone rented a Poe outfit anywhere,” Joe said, wincing slightly.
“What?”
“And check around with the neighbors about it.”
“You mean, Bigelow’s neighbors? Or Lori’s? Doesn’t matter. We’ve talked to the neighbors.”
“But you haven’t asked them if they saw anyone dressed up like Poe walking around—” he said.
“They would have said so, don’t you think? I mean, that would have been pretty weird.”
“It’s New York, Raif. Think about it. How much weird stuff do you walk by every day of your life?”
“All right,” Raif said. “Why the hell not?”
They hung up, and Joe saw that Nikki and Genevieve were both looking back at him gravely.
“What?” he said.
Genevieve shook her head.
“We’re just glad that you mentioned the Poe costume idea, that’s all,” Nikki said.
He turned away without replying. He wasn’t admitting that ghosts were out there talking to people. He was simply…grabbing at any straw.
But he knew.
When they reached Baltimore, they went straight to the Poe house on Amity Street. Poe had gone to live there after one of his arguments with his foster father, and it was probably a place where he had found happiness. He had live there with his aunt, Maria Clemm, and his future wife, his cousin Virginia. He had done a lot of writing in the house, and though the house itself was the real attraction, it also held Poe’s lap desk, which he used when traveling, his sextant, and a full-size color reproduction of the only known portrait of Virginia.
The house itself consisted of a living room and kitchen on the first floor, with two bedrooms above and an attic. It had been saved from demolition by the city’s Poe society in nineteen-forty-one, and was reverently maintained.
They moved on to Church Hospital, where Poe had died.
It was originally called Washington College Hospital. Poe had arrived there in a carriage on October third, eighteen-forty-nine. He was attended by Dr. John J. Moran, who, later in life, made his living by telling the tale of Poe’s death, which meant he had expanded on it so much that the truth was hard to discern from the fiction. But the facts seemed to be that Poe had arrived, after a disappearance of several days, in a state that appeared to be drunkenness. He was taken to a tower room, where alcoholics were usually kept to keep them from disturbing the other patients. Poe’s cousin, Neilson Poe, tried to visit him on the sixth but was told that Poe was too excitable, so he left. Neither he nor any member of the family would ever see Edgar Allan Poe again, at least not alive.
His cause of death was listed as “congestion of the brain.”
Because it was still a working hospital, they simply stood outside and looked at the building.
Genevieve realized that Joe was watching her, and she looked at him and smiled. “It was so sad, the way he died. His whole life was so sad.”
“The grave site?” Adam suggested, and they moved on.
Even in death, poverty had followed Poe. He had originally been buried with no headstone. Later, Maria Clemm had written to the same cousin who had tried to visit Poe as he lay dying, and Neilson had commissioned a monument.
It would have been a nice one, Joe thought. Neilson had asked that the Latin for “Here, at last, he is happy” be inscribed on one side, while the other side would have read, “Spare these remains.” But the monument had been built near the train tracks, and a train wreck had destroyed it, and Neilson hadn’t had the money to pay for another.
Poe’s stone did not go up until eighteen-seventy-five. By then, Poe had at last received tribute from his fellow writers. Letters from Longfellow and Tennyson, among others, were read at the ceremony. Eventually Maria Clemm was buried beside him, and the remains of his beloved Virginia were brought from New York to rest with him, as well. Somehow, his birthday was mistakenly written as January twentieth instead of January nineteenth, an error that remained.