same day?”
Angelica stared at a spot on the wall behind his shoulder.
“That’s one I don’t have an answer for, Mr. Kieran. But I can tell you that that day changed all of our lives. There is a presence in that cliff. We all felt it. It has been a shadow over my life ever since.”
“So do you suppose it was a ‘presence’ who sent me this little note?” Joe asked, waving the yellow paper in the air. “I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t have to buy anything. I don’t know who left you that note, but I can tell you that they were right. You want to know about things that are best left alone. There is a reason that it’s almost never people from Terrel who die on Halloween. It’s because we leave well enough alone. Very few people are stupid enough to spend much time swimming in the bay. You just never know when it might get hungry.”
“I’ll offer you a different reason,” Joe interrupted. “I’d say that there’s some weird little sect of people in Terrel who like to have little Halloween sacrifices every year. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re wrong, but I told you that you would not believe my story.”
Angelica reached forward and shut the scrapbook. But she didn’t sit back.
“There’s a devil that lives in Terrel’s Peak, Joe. And if you look hard enough, you’re going to attract its attention. You don’t want it to turn its sights on you.”
“Sounds a bit like a threat.”
She sighed. “I’m trying to help you.”
Angelica stood and stepped around the table to stand in front of his chair once again. Her eyes didn’t waver from his as her hand undid the ocean blue sash, allowing the robe to slip from her body to pool on the floor. She straddled his left knee and kissed him full and hard on the lips. “Now, are you going to help me?”
This time, Joe didn’t push her away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
His apartment seemed cold and sterile in the light of morning after a night in the wanton whimsy of Angelica’s bedroom. Joe couldn’t quite remove the smile plastered across his face as he kept revisiting the moves of the night before. Angelica had practically dragged him to her bed, and she was not a woman who should have needed to drag anyone. She certainly knew what she was doing once she got there, that was for sure. The muscles in his belly and thighs ached with the memory of her expertise! She was flexible and inventive.
But he doubted her motives. While she seemed aroused to the point of savagery when they tangled in her sheets, he somehow doubted that it had anything to do with his own rugged good looks. Because he didn’t really have any, he thought as he stared into the bathroom mirror. He pulled the razor across his cheek and tried to still the voice within him that kept asking why.
But his questions kept being obscured by the memory of her golden skin folding and moving around him, the feeling of his hands moving over the softness of her perfect breasts, and of her tongue in his mouth eagerly seeking his core.
He still didn’t buy the evil spirit explanation. Angelica was hiding something about the cliff from him, and incredible sex or not, he intended to track down exactly what it was. Maybe it was time to give the other ladies of this apparent circle a visit.
Starting, he decided, with Karen Sander.
Joe left his apartment intending to set up a meeting after work with the Sander woman, but the day didn’t go quite as he planned. There’d been a burglary overnight at the 7-Eleven on the west end of town, and he ended up spending the bulk of the afternoon tracking down the police chief and the witness, a slow-speaking high school kid, for comments. Which backed up his other stories. Which meant that when he got home it was ten P.M. and it was too late even for Hungry Man dinners. He collapsed into bed without thinking about deadly peaks or palm readers. And with Randy off on vacation to Florida for two weeks, he didn’t have time to think about them
Angelica stared at a spot on the wall behind his shoulder.
“That’s one I don’t have an answer for, Mr. Kieran. But I can tell you that that day changed all of our lives. There is a presence in that cliff. We all felt it. It has been a shadow over my life ever since.”
“So do you suppose it was a ‘presence’ who sent me this little note?” Joe asked, waving the yellow paper in the air. “I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t have to buy anything. I don’t know who left you that note, but I can tell you that they were right. You want to know about things that are best left alone. There is a reason that it’s almost never people from Terrel who die on Halloween. It’s because we leave well enough alone. Very few people are stupid enough to spend much time swimming in the bay. You just never know when it might get hungry.”
“I’ll offer you a different reason,” Joe interrupted. “I’d say that there’s some weird little sect of people in Terrel who like to have little Halloween sacrifices every year. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re wrong, but I told you that you would not believe my story.”
Angelica reached forward and shut the scrapbook. But she didn’t sit back.
“There’s a devil that lives in Terrel’s Peak, Joe. And if you look hard enough, you’re going to attract its attention. You don’t want it to turn its sights on you.”
“Sounds a bit like a threat.”
She sighed. “I’m trying to help you.”
Angelica stood and stepped around the table to stand in front of his chair once again. Her eyes didn’t waver from his as her hand undid the ocean blue sash, allowing the robe to slip from her body to pool on the floor. She straddled his left knee and kissed him full and hard on the lips. “Now, are you going to help me?”
This time, Joe didn’t push her away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
His apartment seemed cold and sterile in the light of morning after a night in the wanton whimsy of Angelica’s bedroom. Joe couldn’t quite remove the smile plastered across his face as he kept revisiting the moves of the night before. Angelica had practically dragged him to her bed, and she was not a woman who should have needed to drag anyone. She certainly knew what she was doing once she got there, that was for sure. The muscles in his belly and thighs ached with the memory of her expertise! She was flexible and inventive.
But he doubted her motives. While she seemed aroused to the point of savagery when they tangled in her sheets, he somehow doubted that it had anything to do with his own rugged good looks. Because he didn’t really have any, he thought as he stared into the bathroom mirror. He pulled the razor across his cheek and tried to still the voice within him that kept asking why.
But his questions kept being obscured by the memory of her golden skin folding and moving around him, the feeling of his hands moving over the softness of her perfect breasts, and of her tongue in his mouth eagerly seeking his core.
He still didn’t buy the evil spirit explanation. Angelica was hiding something about the cliff from him, and incredible sex or not, he intended to track down exactly what it was. Maybe it was time to give the other ladies of this apparent circle a visit.
Starting, he decided, with Karen Sander.
Joe left his apartment intending to set up a meeting after work with the Sander woman, but the day didn’t go quite as he planned. There’d been a burglary overnight at the 7-Eleven on the west end of town, and he ended up spending the bulk of the afternoon tracking down the police chief and the witness, a slow-speaking high school kid, for comments. Which backed up his other stories. Which meant that when he got home it was ten P.M. and it was too late even for Hungry Man dinners. He collapsed into bed without thinking about deadly peaks or palm readers. And with Randy off on vacation to Florida for two weeks, he didn’t have time to think about them
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