Read Online Six Dead Men by Rae Stoltenkamp - Free Book Online Page B

door lock to secure the door. She lowered the toilet seat lid and sat down. Flutters of panic still nudged at her body. Madie gripped the toilet roll holder and the edge of the toilet when the trembling in her hands resurfaced. Leaning her head against the partition she allowed herself to relive the episode in Deed's office. Needing to, wanting to.
    She was pacing in front of his desk; trying to steady herself so she could tell him the crazy idea she had swimming about in her head. Suddenly he was there in front of her. His hands were on her shoulders, then his arms were cocooning her. She felt again that moment of respite she had not felt since she had found out about Calvin’s death two days ago. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the moment. She felt the cool cotton of his shirt against her cheek and heard the quickened beating of his heart. She remembered, with pleasure, how the pulse of his heartbeat began to be echoed by her own. She wanted to stay burrowed in against the refuge of his chest and encircling arms. Madie felt his lips resting lightly on her hairline and the warmth of exhaled breath as it fluttered against the baby hairs near her ear. But as she relived the moment when she slowly opened her eyes and caught sight of the photographs of Calvin and the others; her panic rose all over again. The picture of Calvin had been the one she'd had to identify him by, the stark one taken in the coroner’s lab. Calvin’s face was tinged a cold blue. His lifelessness had leapt from the still photograph into the room. Next to Calvin's photograph was a picture of a crumpled Piaggio which she recognised. Next to that another picture of a body with another familiar face on a slab. Next to that the picture of 2 Tone's body slumped in a bed. And a ferocious fear for Deed's safety had reared up inside her.
    I've killed him. She wasn’t sure what to do. She felt such a strong desire to run back to him. I have to leave him alone. Walking into his office today had stilled so much of the panic she had been feeling. The quiet strength he exuded helped her feel more centred. She had thought he would know what to do, would believe her if she told him her theory. She was sure he would.
    But then there had been the unexpectedness of him touching her. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted to feel his touch until ... His hands on her shoulders had been like that Nat King Cole song, Unforgettable, her mother always played. The residue of Deed's gentleness still clung to her, with the faintest scent of his maleness. Even now she still wanted to clamp herself to the safety of his bulk. But a crow of fear was pecking away at her now. I have to stay away from him.
    She forced herself to think about the photographs on Deed's desk. She closed her eyes at the memory and the pictures sprang up against the inside of her lids. Madie hastily opened her eyes and focused on the stainless steel features of the toilet locking mechanism. But she could not escape thoughts of Curtis' mangled Piaggio. She remembered how the flowers and teddy bears tied to the lamp post had gone grimy so soon and how guilty but thankful the family had been that Junior had escaped the accident unscathed. That lamp post with its floral obituary had been on her daily route to work but Madie found it so painful seeing the reminder of a young life wiped out too soon that she did a detour from that day onwards. And she remembered how her sadness had deepened because there was hardly anyone at Curtis' funeral. Junior was the only one there who had cried. And now she thought about how she had spent time with the young man and that she had not truly known him. And she thought about the possibility that her merely knowing him was enough to contribute to his death. And iciness engulfed her veins.
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    Madie sat hunched in a corner seat of the intercity train heading to Manchester. She had a book open in front of her, but she wasn’t reading it. She had not turned a page