Body Movers Page 25

  She managed a little smile, despite the sensations buzzing through her body at his touch. “It was both of us.”

  “When I look at you,” he said earnestly, “I can’t help myself. I just want to touch you, to feel your skin against mine. I’ve fantasized about you so much over the years, when I see you and you’re so real and beautiful—more beautiful even than I remember—I just…lose my mind.”

  She knew the feeling. When she looked at Peter, her brain emptied of common sense in order to process the torrent of sensations pummeling her body.

  “Like right now,” he said, sounding desperate. He dipped his head slowly to her mouth, giving her plenty of time to retreat.

  But she didn’t. After years of hoping that he would magically appear and save her, he had. She lifted her mouth to meet his and melted into his arms for the most intense, powerful kiss of her life. He tasted sweet, yet his lips were firm and demanding. Their young kisses had been born of first love, lust and discovery, but this kiss was born of adult hunger, denial and deprivation.

  He slanted his mouth over hers and speared his tongue inside, flicking the tip against her teeth, bringing back in a flood of sensory signals the memory of other delights they had shared. Her body had a long memory, coming alive under the slide of his hands down her back and over her hips, pulling her against his hardness.

  At the intimate contact, her breasts grew heavy and molten need swelled in her stomach. She moaned into his mouth, overcome with the desire to relive the earth-shattering lovemaking they had always shared. Peter broke their heated kiss long enough to pick her up and lay her on the couch. Then he covered her body with his, his eyes hooded with banked desire. He kissed her neck, blazing a trail to her collarbone, then slid his hands beneath her shirt to cup her breasts. Her nipples budded under the sensitive strokes of his fingers and she felt his erection surge against her thigh.

  “I want to be inside you,” he whispered, tonguing her ear.

  She sighed, rocking her hips against his, gratified at his groaning response. She tugged his shirt from the waistband of his pants, massaging the warm, smooth skin of his back. “I want that, too.”

  Suddenly, he stiffened, and she realized the phone was ringing, pealing through the empty house.

  “Leave it,” she whispered, reveling in the indention of his spine. But a few seconds later, she realized that something had changed, that Peter was pulling away from her, his expression dark and unreadable.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can,” she urged, pulling on his arm. “I want you to.” The phone continued to ring.

  “No,” he said, standing and shaking his head. “It’s not right. I’m only thinking of myself. That detective was right—I’m not considering how this affects you, and I should.”

  She sat up, feeling as if she’d been unplugged from an electrical socket.

  He looked at her, his gaze deep and passionate. “I love you, Carly, and I want to be back in your life, but not until this mess is over. I have to make everything right.”

  His words reminded her of where she’d spent most of her evening. She stood and straightened her clothes, her body still humming from his touch. With the phone ringing in the background, she said, “Peter, I went with Wesley on a call earlier this evening…in your neighborhood.”

  He frowned. “My neighborhood?”

  “A woman was strangled in her home. Lisa Bolton.”

  He froze, his expression anguished. “No…no. Oh, God, this changes everything,” he said as if he were talking to himself.

  She had expected a reaction, but his detached distress alarmed her. The clanging phone in the background strung her nerves tighter. “Did you know the Bolton woman?”

  He blinked and stared at her. “I should go. The police are probably looking for me.”

  The back of her neck tingled. “Why would you say that, Peter?”

  “They think I killed Angela. They’re probably going to want to question me about this, too.”

  He seemed inordinately calm for someone who’d just learned he might be a suspect in a second murder. Deadly calm. Still ignoring the phone, she followed him to the door, drawing hope from the fact that he’d seemed genuinely shocked when he’d heard of the Bolton woman’s death. He couldn’t be involved…could he?

  “Lock this door behind me,” he directed. “If that guy comes back, call the police, understand?”

  She nodded, wishing things were simpler, but knowing that things were likely never to be simple again. Life had been lived…things were complicated, and seemed to grow more so every day. “Thank you again, Peter, for…being here.”

  He reached up and caressed her cheek. “You’re welcome. Carly, if things go bad, just remember that I love you and that I tried to do the right thing. But I’m begging you, please stop asking questions.”

  Truly alarmed now, she asked, “Why? What do you mean?”

  But he simply opened the door and walked out, disappearing into the night.

  After she closed the door, she realized the phone had stopped ringing. No sooner had the thought left her mind than it began to ring again. With a sigh, Carlotta walked over and picked up the receiver, sure it was a bill collector because her and Wesley’s personal calls always came through their cell phones. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Wren, this is Detective Terry.”

  Just the man’s voice triggered an instant headache. “What now, Detective?”

  “I called to make sure you’d made it home safely, that’s all.”

  She blinked. “Oh.” The memory of being overpowered by The Carver’s thug rushed back to her, but there seemed to be no point in mentioning the encounter, not when she’d have to admit that Peter had emerged from the shadows to save her. “I’m fine, Detective. Thank you,” she added as an afterthought.

  “No need to thank me, just doing my job. If we have a killer on the loose, who knows who his next victim might be.”

  Something in his voice told her that he had a suspicion who the killer might be…and was warning her to be careful. The palm reader’s cautionary remarks came back to her: You are facing danger. And then the woman’s advice that she needed someone big and strong to protect her.

  Yet Peter was the one who might have saved her life tonight, or at least her honor.

  “Okay, then,” he said in her silence. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Detective,” she murmured, and slowly hung up the phone. She put both hands to her head and groaned, thinking of how her life had spun out of control since being reunited with Peter.

  And then a fleeting memory snagged on something in her brain and held. Lisa Bolton’s face had seemed vaguely familiar, and now Carlotta knew why.

  She had seen the woman at the party she had crashed, the one where she had run into Peter.

  28

  A fter a restless night, Carlotta woke feeling groggy and miserable. Peter’s touch haunted her, and his words tormented her. He was so close, yet at the same time, out of reach. The push and pull of emotions was wreaking havoc with her judgment. And in the back of her mind, she agonized over the possibility that he might have done something awful that would forever keep them apart. How could she both long for a man and fear that he was capable of murder?

  She threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  And if she didn’t have enough of her own problems, she expected that Tick character to ring the doorbell any minute, demanding cash. Wesley had promised he would “handle” it, but since he’d admitted to gambling away his check, she had no idea where he’d get the money.

  Unless he had more hidden stashes.

  She showered and dressed quickly, dreading the consultation appointment at the clinic where Angela had been Botoxed, but looking forward to having lunch with Hannah afterward. When she emerged from her room, she found a note from Wesley on top of a covered plate of French toast.

  Sorry about last night. Made my payment this morning. Lamb chops f
or dinner.

  Carlotta shook her head. Wesley obviously thought he could soften her up with food.

  She dragged her finger through the powdered sugar and syrup, then licked it off. He was right, the little turd.

  As she left for the appointment, she scooped the newspaper from the stoop and dropped it into her bag. On the drive, she resisted the urge to smoke a cigarette, but stopped to get an expensive nonfat latte. American vices, she decided, were driving the economy.

  Case in point: Buckhead Expressions was a five-story building with a luxurious lobby studded with gorgeous coeds dressed in pale blue lab coats sitting behind a black counter and wearing phone headsets. After she’d forked over the requisite three hundred bucks and was settled in the waiting room, she noticed the headline on the newspaper a person sitting across from her was reading.

  BUCKHEAD SERIAL KILLER?

  She nearly choked on her coffee, then yanked the paper from her bag and scanned the lead story.

  The police were investigating two murders that had occurred in the same upscale neighborhood in the space of ten days. The first murder, previously thought an accidental drowning, had been reclassified after questions surrounding the victim’s death had triggered an autopsy.

  Carlotta bit down on the inside of her cheek—at least she hadn’t been named.

  The second murder was more brazen, with the woman being attacked inside her home, in her bedroom, in broad daylight.

  The implication was clear—a killer was on the loose targeting beautiful, rich women, and his violence seemed to be escalating.

  Her heart thumped wildly and she wondered for the umpteenth time if she should call Detective Terry and tell him what she’d remembered about seeing the Bolton woman at the same party as Peter. And for the umpteenth time, she talked herself out of it. Chances were that half the people at those events were from the same neighborhood, country club, church, et cetera. The wealthy moved in herds—eating together, socializing together, and if rumors were to be believed, sleeping together. The wealthy formed close-knit, inbred groups and they protected their own, as evidenced in the newspaper article by the comments of neighbors:

  “We live in a gated subdivision with security systems, and still these people find a way to invade our neighborhood.”

  “You have to be careful who you hire these days. I do background checks and encourage my neighbors to do the same.”

  The locals, it seemed, were convinced the perp was an outsider, perhaps a gardener or a pool-maintenance worker. She doubted if any of them had considered the possibility that the murderer could be living among them, playing doubles at the club, raising money for his church, dropping his kids off at private school.

  “Carlotta?”

  She folded the paper with a crunch and looked up at a young woman carrying a clipboard. “Yes?”

  “We’re ready for you.”

  Carlotta rose, then made a rueful noise as she pointed to the paper. “Did you hear about the two women who were murdered?”

  The young girl nodded, then leaned in to whisper, “I knew one of them.”

  Carlotta feigned shock and awe. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Angela Ashford was a patient here.”

  “Did she by chance see the doctor I’m going to see?”

  “Yeah,” the aide said out of the side of her mouth. “Otherwise, you’d never have gotten in so quickly. Tuesday morning was her standing appointment.”

  Carlotta didn’t have to feign surprise this time. A shudder threatened to overtake her at the realization that Angela should be there instead of her. Her conscience pinged with the eerie sensation that she was stepping into parts of Angela’s life.

  She walked into the tiny exam room, a little overwhelmed by all the mirrors and the oversize ads for prescription cleansers, oral medications, topicals and the countless before-and-after photos of cosmetic surgery procedures. In the corner sat a computer screen where the pathetic “before” pictures and miraculous “after” images merged to make it appear as if the transformation occurred within seconds, skipping over the surgery itself and the weeks or months of recovery.

  Carlotta puffed out her cheeks in an exhale. If a woman had any confidence in her looks when she walked in, it was likely to be dashed within a very short period of time. She sat down and as the minutes clicked by, found herself staring into the magnification mirror sitting on the table. She scrutinized her pores, trying to remember how long it had been since her last facial. Then she was distracted by the fine lines around her eyes and mouth, conceding that some of the lines could no longer be defined as “fine.” And the recent sleepless nights were taking their toll—soon the bags under her eyes were going to need luggage tags.

  The door opened, snapping her attention to the man who strode into the room. Dr. Joseph Suarez was tall and barrel-chested—a definite possible fit for the men’s jacket that Angela had purchased, Carlotta immediately thought. Pleasantly handsome, he looked to be in his mid to late forties.

  Although, if he’d bought into his own procedures, the man could be seventy, she mused.

  He removed the gum he was chewing and tossed it in a trash can, then smiled at her as he picked up her chart. “Miss Wren?”

  “Yes,” she said, suddenly nervous.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Before she could reply, he dropped into the seat opposite her and reached forward to cup her face in his hands.

  “Um, I’m here for a consultation,” she murmured, wondering what he was frowning at.

  “Uh-hmm.” He moved her head from side to side. “You have a lovely neck.”

  She swallowed hard at the bizarre remark. “Th-thanks.” His fingers were butter soft, but strong and adept. She imagined them squeezing the life out of Angela and shivered.

  “Are you cold?” he asked in a way that made her think he didn’t really care.

  “A little.”

  As expected, he ignored her response as he ran his thumbs over her nose and cheekbones. “I can fix that.”

  “The temperature?”

  “No, the bump on your nose.”

  “I have a bump on my nose?”

  He nodded and angled her head so that she could see her profile in the mirror. “That bump.”

  “That’s not a bump,” she argued. “That’s a…hump.” Her mother’s hump, to be precise. “I don’t want it fixed.”

  “Okay,” he said easily, then proceeded to push and prod her skin as if she were a wad of Silly Putty. “Laser resurfacing will take care of the blotchiness, collagen injections will fill in your laugh lines and crow’s-feet, and Botox will help those forehead wrinkles.” Then he made a sorrowful noise. “I can’t fix your teeth, but I can refer you to a good cosmetic dentistry group.”

  She tongued the familiar gap between her front teeth, then frowned. “I don’t want to fix my teeth.”

  “Oh.” He sat back and lifted his hands. “What then?”

  The whole hard-sell routine had left her feeling a little blindsided, not to mention homely. With a mental shake, she reminded herself why she was there. “I’m interested in learning more about Botox. My friend Angela Ashford referred me to you.”

  The reaction was unmistakable. His eyes widened slightly and his mouth twitched downward before he reached for her file and pretended to peruse it—odd, since there was nothing to peruse other than her home address and phone number and the fact that the only medication she took was birth control pills.

  Which was anecdotal, considering her lackluster sex life, but not particularly noteworthy.

  “What…exactly did Ms. Ashford say about me?” he asked.

  At his suspicious body language, her stomach fluttered with excitement. She paused for effect, then gave him a coy smile. “Angela said the two of you—how did she put it?—had a special relationship.”

  He fidgeted. “Were you aware that Ms. Ashford had…passed away?”

  She nodded. “Everyone is torn up about it. Did you hear that the poli
ce had reclassified her death as a murder?”

  More fidgeting. “I think I read something about it in the paper.” He stood suddenly, then wiped his mouth with his hand. “I might have been too hasty, Ms. Wren.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you could postpone any work at all for at least another five years.”

  She perked up. “Really?” Then she realized he was trying to make a fast exit. “Hey, wait a minute, I paid three hundred dollars so you could tell me that I don’t need any work?”

  He walked over to a cabinet, opened the door and raked an armful of bottles and jars into a plastic bag. “Here you go,” he said, setting the bulging bag on the table in front of her. “That’s at least a thousand dollars’ worth of product. Have a nice day.” Then he opened the door and walked out, not bothering to close it.

  “You’re not going to get a referral from me!” she shouted, but her pulse clicked like a timer. The good doctor was definitely guilty of something besides a bad bedside manner. But could it be murder?

  She hefted her bulky bag of samples, not sure if she had enough information to pass to Detective Terry. Then she spotted the trash can and remembered the gum Dr. Suarez had been chewing—wouldn’t the detective be impressed if she were able to provide a sample of the man’s DNA? Probably not, she thought moodily as she set down her load and snagged a plastic Baggie from a dispenser. The man would probably just reprimand her again for “doing his job.” She grimaced at the feel of the squishy gum through the Baggie, then stuffed it in her purse.

  But as she walked to the door, a face on the computer screen caught her eye. The “before” picture wasn’t familiar, but the “after” picture was: Lisa Bolton, post eye and chin lift.

  Carlotta inhaled sharply. Coincidence?

  “There is no such thing as a coincidence,” Hannah declared over lunch.

  “Yes, there is,” Carlotta argued. “It’s not a stretch to imagine that two wealthy women in Buckhead went to one of the most popular plastic surgery clinics in Buckhead. What’s harder to imagine is why a successful plastic surgeon would murder two of his patients. But the man certainly acted strange when I mentioned Angela’s name.”