CHAPTER 26

Isla

“Are you awake?”

“I am now,” I groan into my pillow as Ben’s hand slides down between my legs.

I’m rolled halfway on my stomach, and his warm body is pressing up against me from behind, his deft fingers quickly finding my softening core.

“Need inside you, Pixie.” The low rasp of his voice and the feeling of his thick erection against my ass, triggers an involuntary shudder to run through my body, leaving my nipples instantly alert. With only the rough pad of his finger dragging over my clit, I throw my head back against his shoulder and moan deeply as the slow burn of a lazy orgasm washes over me.

My body had clearly been ready for his touch after a long week of sharing our bed with Mak.

Last night was the first time, since the explosion, Mak didn’t ask to sleep with us. Ben and I had exchanged a look, but we didn’t say a thing when she walked into what had been her mother’s room and crawled into her bed.

“I miss her smell,” was the only thing Mak had said in explanation as she burrowed under the covers. When we checked on her a few hours after, on our way to bed, she’d been fast asleep. Still, we left the door open so we could hear her during the night.

A quick glance tells me our bedroom door is now firmly shut; Ben must’ve closed it at some point.

“You ready for me, baby?”

Instead of answering him, I roll on my back and pull my sleep shirt up and over my head. Right away, he repositions, dropping his hips in the cradle of mine.

My eyes focus on his face hovering over me. The still sleep-swollen eyes. The creases in his brow and along his nose and mouth. The strong, slightly parted lips. An interesting face, an arresting face, even, but what makes it truly beautiful is the expression on it when he looks at me. My hand reaches up to scrape along his scruffy jaw.

“Gonna love you now, Isla,” he warns me with his lips almost touching mine. I can taste the mint of toothpaste on his breath and briefly worry about my own. Ben, clearly unconcerned, cuts off any possible protest by slipping his tongue in my mouth at the same time his cock finds my entrance and powers deep. He drowns my loud groan with his kiss.

-

“The old woman died?”

Ben is pacing back and forth down the hallway, and I’m in the great room, trying hard to distract Mak from his telephone conversation, but it’s not easy. Her head pops up and she zooms in on her uncle at those words. I see him wince when he spots her looking, and he throws me an apologetic glance before disappearing into our bedroom. 

The house is not small, but under these circumstances, it’s starting to feel even more confined than living in the trailer did. It’s not just the four of us either; it’s Neil, Damian, Gus and most of the other guys I’ve come to know over the past week, who could drop in at any time.

We’re all getting frustrated. Snappy and irritable at being cooped up day after day. Even with a large contingent of law enforcement looking for her, they haven’t been able to come up with a thing.

I know I’ve snapped at both Ben and Uncle Al enough, and this morning I even snapped at poor Mak. She came running from the bedroom, Atsa of course right behind her, and the two of them barreled into me. I was just coming out of the laundry room with yet another load of laundry, freshly washed and folded, and dropped the basket on impact. Clothes and towels all over the damn floor, which I hadn’t mopped in days, because with all the feet tracking through it, why bother. I made her cry, only to promptly burst into tears myself.

“What old woman?” Mak asks softly.

“I think they’re talking about someone your uncle met, who was very ill, but I can’t be sure.”

She doesn’t ask more, just nods and dives back into the computer game I downloaded for her on my laptop. I get up off the couch and join my uncle in the kitchen.

“Something’s gotta give,” I hiss at him on my way to the coffee pot.

“One of the hardest parts of the job—this was. The waiting, not being able to actively do something, anything, to help things along. Racking your brain to try and figure out what you might be missing. It consumes you.” His arm catches me around the neck when I try to move past him, and he gives me a quick hug. “Patience, my girl. You think it’s bad for you? It’s nothing compared what your man is dealing with. He’s so torn; I’m starting to see the cracks on the outside. He’s got some crazy chick from his past, who almost killed his sister, and is targeting his woman. He wants to be there for Stacie, but he’s afraid to leave you for too long. And more than anything, he wants to chase down that bitch, so everyone can breathe again.” He grabs my shoulders and gives me a light shake. “But he can’t do any of that. Not until something breaks, and something will, I promise you that. In the meantime, you’re going to have to reel it in. Whatever you need to do to relieve some of that pressure building on him, do it. I love you, my girl, and you know it, but that man is feeling nothin’ but guilt right now in every damn direction, and you’re only adding to it.”

I can’t remember a time when I’ve felt more ashamed. I barely manage a nod when my uncle finally releases his hold on my shoulders. I literally slink out of the kitchen, straight down the hall and into the bedroom. That’s where I find Ben, lying on his back on the bed, his arm flung over his eyes, and his phone still in his hand. He doesn’t even move when I crawl up on the bed and wrap myself around him. The only acknowledgement is his free arm sneaking around my body and pulling me in even tighter.

“Love you, Ben.” My voice is muffled by his sweater.

“Me too, Pixie. Me too,” he says, but his voice sounds exhausted, so I lift my head. His eyes peek out from under his arm and I smile. 

“Talk to me.”

Ben

Talk to me.

Easier said then done.

The death of Dorothy Banks weighs heavily on me. It feels like another on a growing list of strikes against me on the balance sheet. I don’t blame her. She was already dying, but then to have to watch your husband die, and at the hands of your own flesh and blood, would be too much. Her death, so shortly after the attack, is perhaps a blessing. What do I know?

“Her last memories before she died will be the most horrific ones a parent can experience,” I start, watching as understanding dawns in Isla’s gaze. “I know I wasn’t the one beating her or her husband to a pulp, but I might as well have been. This woman is like a guided missile, and anywhere I turn, anyone I touch, just becomes another target. The fucking irony is, I’m one who launched it.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters and I’m glad she’s not telling me it’s not my fault. I don’t think I could hear that right now, because I fucking need someone to blame, and I’m the most likely candidate.

“We can’t find her, Isla. Every day is another damn dead end and it would be so easy to get lulled into thinking that she’s gone to ground permanently, but that would be stupid.” I blow out a deep breath before I continue. “They found her car in the parking lot at the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc, just south of Cortez, yesterday morning, but no trace of her. She wasn’t in the casino, isn’t staying at any hotels, and no one’s seen her. Damian is checking with Cortez Cab, who runs shuttle taxis from the casino, to see if they picked anyone up there in the past couple of days who fits her description, but I’m not holding my breath. For all we know, she’s long gone, but the kicker is we can’t be sure.”

“No she isn’t,” Isla counters firmly, surprising me. “She’s not gone. Why would she be? From the start, she’s had one goal and that hasn’t been met yet. Nothing she does is rational, but it doesn’t mean she’s stupid, just that she’s unpredictable.” She swings her legs off the edge of the bed and sits up, letting her eyes drift to the window. I can see the wheels turning. “I think she’s not that far, keeping an eye on her objective—you. Probably thinking she cleared the way by getting rid of me, and is waiting for the right time to lay claim to you. She’s not in a rush, she’s been waiting for over a decade.” She smiles a little when she turns to face me. “You guys are looking for a hardened criminal, when you should be looking for a jealous and possessive—not to mention bat-shit crazy—woman.”

“How’d you get so fucking smart?” I growl, pulling her down on top of me. She grins, a wicked little gleam in her eyes.

“Always been that way,” she smarts off. “Which is why I know the one sure way to draw her out in the open.”

My hands on her ass freeze in their lazy explorations when I clue in on what she’s suggesting.

“Fuck no,” I say sharply, rolling her off me and jumping off the bed. I turn and tower over her. “Hell. The fuck. No.”

-

“It’s actually a good idea,” Neil says a few hours later. Fucking traitor. “We can have her covered from every angle. Especially if we contain her movements to just routine stuff in Dolores. The grocery store, the coffee shop; places she’d normally go.”

“I’m right here, you know?” Isla pipes up beside me. “Don’t be talking over my head like I’m some prop you’re moving around.”

I chuckle at her fire, but in the next moment the smile is wiped off my face, when Neil opens his mouth again.

“Oh, honey, trust me. I know you’re no prop,” the slick bastard coos. “And trust me, you wouldn’t feel that way either if I were moving you around.” Then he attempts to blind her with his smile. Throwing on the high beams with his ‘aw shucks’ attitude, when he’s nothing but a lecherous wolf in surfer boy disguise. It takes everything out of me not to knock out some of those shiny, white fucking teeth.

“Not a good time to poke the bear,” Isla warns Neil, laughing softly.

“I think unless you want to keep everyone locked down for God knows how long, or you’re aiming to move to Bolivia, this may be your only route to go.” This from Al, who’s been quietly sitting off to the side. The one person I thought would perhaps be even more dead set against this whole bait idea.

“I agree,” Gus puts his two cents in.

“We’ll keep her safe, my friend,” Damian says over speakerphone. He’s back in Durango, but called in on this meeting.

“I can’t believe this shit,” I mumble, dropping my head in my hands. “You’ve all lost your fucking minds. She’s got the biggest target on her back.”

I feel Isla shift beside me when she slides off her stool and steps between my legs. Her small hands cup my jaw and lift my head, as she leans close enough for our noses to touch.

“That’s exactly why,” she whispers.

“You’re killing me, Pixie,” I mumble, for her ears only, as the rest of the group starts discussing strategy. The two of us oddly removed in our private little bubble. “You’re asking me to—” Her fingers press on my lips, cutting of my words.

“No, honey. This is not you alone—not this time. This is all of us making that decision and sharing that responsibility.”

-

I watch as Gus’s big Yukon rumbles down the snow-covered drive. He and Neil had stayed for dinner and we just finalized plans for tomorrow. Fucking tomorrow.

I walk over to the lookout point, while Atsa is off sniffing around and doing his business before we turn in for the night. It’s a clear night; crisp cold air with little wind and no clouds. The light of the moon gives everything a blue hue: the trees, the snow, and the ice covering McPhee reservoir. It would be a nice night to go out on snowmobiles. The four-wheelers do well when you stick to the path, but less so when you try to take them into the soft snow. Maybe next winter we’ll invest in a couple of snowmobiles.

Seems like a luxury to be thinking about next winter. With Stacie still critical, and now Isla sticking her neck way the hell out, I don’t know what tomorrow will look like, let alone next winter.

I tuck my hands in my pockets and turn back to the house, the crunch of my boots in the snow loud in quiet around us. I whistle through my teeth for Atsa, as I make my way to the door.

“Come on, boy!” I follow up when he still hasn’t surfaced. I hear a few sharp barks, and then the crunch of something coming through the underbrush behind me.

Just as I turn around to look, the dog bursts out of the trees, panting like he’s just run a marathon.

Close. That was so close.

Lucky I’ve taken to carrying bear spray on me after a close encounter with that mountain lion a few weeks ago. Apparently it works well on dogs, too.

I had to come back out here—had to see him.

I heard the explosion, saw the ambulance rush away. I was standing right where he was standing just now, looking out over the campground.  I’d seen the way he hugged that woman who drove up, the one I’d mistaken for the mother of that little girl. But it had been her—that deceitful bitch had purposely misled me. I could see it clear as day when this woman came no higher than his chin, where the other woman was quite a bit taller. But she’d been driving her car, she’d been wearing the blue hat, I was so sure...

I took off then. Got as far as the casino parking lot, when my stupid car started to sputter. The next two hours I spent playing slots, or at least pretending to. I was invisible there for a little bit, until an older guy sat down beside me.

“Hi, there,” he said, pulling his stool a little closer. “Swear I come here every night, and I know I ain’t never seen you around. I’d remember a pretty face like yours.” The way his eyes roamed up and down my body repulsed me. The stench of days’ old sweat wafted off him and his breath stunk like the bottom of a dumpster. I’d been about to tell him off when a waitress walked up.

“What can I get ya, Martin?” she asked him, and he turned around to me.

“What’s your poison, gorgeous?”

It was on my tongue to brush him off, but I was afraid that might draw more attention than just playing along.

“Screwdriver,” I mumbled, keeping my head down.

I’d put up with his stench and his company, until I could figure out what my next move was going to be. I was never one to pass up on an opportunity, so I took the drinks he offered, suffered the noxious odors and finally, I let him take me to his home. When he was done taking what he wanted, I took what I needed: a shower, his keys, and his truck. I left him with his life—I think.

I had to come back. After all I’ve been through, all I’ve done, I deserve to have it all.

But I’m going straight for the prize now.