Unforgivable (Romantic Suspense) Read online

  “You didn’t look very comfortable with him.”

  “I’m not. He kind of gives me the creeps.”

  “Any particular reason why?”

  “I get the feeling he likes giving me the creeps.”

  He seemed to absorb that with interest, then nodded toward the empty drive. “Gary been bothering you?”

  “You set off his siren, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged, reminding her of that insolent teenager she’d known so long ago. “I came over to see if you were okay and saw him in the house. You looked beyond uncomfortable, so I gave you a chance to get him out of the house.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to thank him or not. It depended on his motive for sending away law enforcement. And for coming over to begin with.

  “Remember what I told you about not trusting anyone,” he said. “I mean it, Katie. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone, don’t let them near you.”

  How could she explain that she had to ride with Harold? “Silas, tell me what’s going on. The sheriff said he found stuff about girls who’d disappeared at your house…files and pictures and…sketches.”

  He raised his arm against the column and leaned his face against it. “Why’d you send Gary over there, anyway?”

  “I didn’t,” she said on a rush, then wondered why she was so worried about what he thought of her. “Ben saw your truck in your drive.”

  “Did he know you’d been over there?”

  “I wasn’t sure, so I told him just in case. I keep causing you trouble, don’t I?”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Neither time was.”

  He was looking at her in a way that made her feel all gooey inside. Not that appraising kind of way Gary did, or in Harold’s leering way. This was different, sensual. The way a wolf surveys one of his pack. He nodded to the swinging bench in front of the window. “Talk to me through the window.” Then he walked over and sat down.

  She almost suspected he didn’t trust himself with her. In any case, it was a good idea, talking through the screen. She set the gun on the couch next to her and opened the window. He sat sideways on the bench, his profile not much more than a silhouette. He was quiet for a few moments, as though figuring out how to word what he was going to say. She took the sketch from the coffee table and ran her finger across the worn edge. She would ask him about this once she had an explanation of the missing girls.

  His arm rested along the top edge of the bench, only inches from her face. He turned to her and rested his chin on his arm. “Do you think I’m some kind of murderer?”

  Hey, she was supposed to be asking the questions around here. “I don’t know. Deep inside, no. But you have to admit you’ve given me nothing to base your innocence on, being mysterious about being here, being mysterious period.”

  She could feel his gaze right through the screen. “Why are you even talking to me then? If you’ve got the slightest inkling that I kill women, why would you let me within two feet of you?”

  She folded her hands on the top of the sofa and propped her chin on top of them, only inches from his face. “I don’t know. Maybe the deep down feeling overrides everything else, at least until I hear it from you.”

  He flexed his fingers, and she heard a soft sigh escape him. “Katie, sharing doesn’t come easy to me. I’ve always been a loner, you know that. Nobody knows me, maybe including me. I’ll tell you what I can, what you’re prepared to hear now.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you keep warning me not to trust anyone?”

  “That’s one of those things you’re not prepared to hear yet.”

  “I see. Okay, start with the pictures and stuff.”

  “I told you about running off to Atlanta. I lived on the streets for a while, did odd jobs, did some things I’m not proud of, but I survived. I started writing about the things I saw on the streets and sending them to newspapers. After selling a few freelance pieces, The Constitution hired me full-time. I covered crimes and I wrote them better than anyone else. They liked my ability to show the crime from the victim’s viewpoint. That’s what I’m good at, expressing their feelings.”

  She wanted to know what things he’d done that he wasn’t proud of, but she sensed he wouldn’t part with that, either. “So you got off the streets then?”

  “Yeah, I shared an apartment with a friend who was also trying to get her life together.”

  For some reason, that word—her—stuck Katie like a pin.

  He paused for a moment, no doubt thinking of her. “A few years later, an editor of a publishing house saw my work and offered me a deal to cover a love triangle story in the Hamptons. They obviously liked it, because they offered me another and then another. That’s what I do, Katie. I write about murder, deception, the ultimate betrayal. I write about pain and destruction.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. And I make a decent living at it.”

  She was so caught up in his personal story, she’d momentarily missed the connection. “So that’s why you have all those notes and pictures?” The relief was plain in her voice.

  “Yes. There were two disappearances outside the Atlanta area back in 1989 and 1990. They were loosely connected because of one body being found without a shoe and the other girl’s shoe being found. There were a couple of other disappearances, too, but nothing was found. I’d become…interested in the case because of those.”

  “I thought crime writers got involved once the murderer was found.”

  “Not always. Sometimes we get involved if there’s evidence of a serial or spree killer. But this was dropped because nothing else happened that matched or indicated a continuation. Only I didn’t drop it. I pursued it on my own time, but found nothing. Eight years later I got involved in the case again.” Whenever he paused, she wondered if he was deciding what to tell her and what to omit. “I started investigating disappearances in small towns southeast of Atlanta, going through old microfiche and talking to law enforcement. I found a pattern that no one else found. Some cases could be linked logically, but not all of them. Because the disappearances occurred all over, and mostly in small towns, nothing was connected. I decided to follow my instincts and start a full-scale investigation.”

  “The sheriff knows about the connections now.”

  “I figured he did, and that he also thinks I’m the one taking the girls.”

  “He does,” she answered without thinking about it. Silas’s explanation made sense, yet she knew he was holding back a lot, too. “Why didn’t you tell me you owned the house and property?”

  “I told you, sharing isn’t easy for me. Even with you.”

  Those last three words were weighted with some emotion she couldn’t place. He had shared some. “So, you like to be trusted, but you have trouble trusting people, is that it?”

  “Something like that.” He traced a line across the screen between them with his finger, making her feel that he was somehow touching her. “You’re the reason I kept the property and house. I’ve never been anywhere that felt like home. I don’t even own an apartment in Atlanta anymore. I realized I spent more time at the office space I rented than at home, so I got rid of the apartment and made a bedroom there.”

  She put her hand against the screen. “Tell me why you kept this place, Silas. Why because of me?” She held her breath and waited for his answer.

  He kept tracing that line back and forth, and he tickled her palm where her hand pressed against the screen. “You were the only good memory I had of this place. You were probably the only good thing about my life. I held you in the first moments of your life and I knew you were special. I was so touched that your mom trusted me to help her—well, truth was she probably didn’t have much choice. She’d gone into labor at the trailer and the only other person who was around ran to call the midwife. She was so scared. After you were born I helped your mom from time to time, doing things around the trailer. The kind of th
ings a five year old can do, I suppose, but I felt like I mattered, like I was helping. Then my dad caught wind of it and went through the roof. He figured I was taking time away from him to help Ellie, so I couldn’t come anymore.

  “Life sucked and the kids in town hated me and then you came to me to help you with the kitten. You were everything good and right with the world. You were pure and you were willing to fight for what was right.”

  She couldn’t stand talking to him through the window anymore. She walked outside and sat down on the far side of the bench. “Tell me about my mama, Silas. Tell me about the day I was born.”

  “You were all slimy and looked a bit like a prune.”

  “Ew!” Their laughter faded together. She leaned closer and asked in a soft voice, “Tell me what she did. Was she happy?”

  Silas had tucked his leg beneath him and sat sideways to give her room to join him. He reached over and touched her chin before letting his hand drop. “She was in total awe of you. You came fast, but she had a hard time of it. But you wouldn’t have known that when she held you, when she saw you. Even slimy and pruny, you might as well have been an angel. We both just stared at you until the midwife got there. Then she cut the umbilical cord and cleaned you up and you really did look like an angel. And as I watched you grow up, you became beautiful and smart and strong. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I didn’t lust after you. I just wanted to protect you, to keep all the world’s harm from you.”

  She could see his face better now in the dim light from the house. It was his voice that touched her, the way he spoke about her. She felt everything inside her melt. If only she’d really grown up to be beautiful and smart and strong. If only Silas could have protected her from harm.

  “Was my father around then?” she asked, because saying anything else was too dangerous.

  “I never saw anyone around who could have been your dad. Ellie never talked about him, either. I asked once, and she said, ‘There is no dad,’ and it screwed up how I thought things were supposed to happen for a long time.”

  They both laughed, though it was a softer laugh. Katie would probably never know who fathered her, and she wasn’t sure she cared. All right, sometimes she cared a little.

  He ran the tips of his fingers over the top of her hair, sweeping it out of her face. Even that innocent gesture made her shiver. “I thought I’d be like a big brother to you, you know, take care of you and all. It didn’t work out that way.”

  She could hardly breathe as the feel of his fingertips contradicted his words. She wasn’t feeling at all sisterly about him. She wanted to crawl in his lap and put her arms around him. She tightened her fingers around the top of the bench to keep herself in place.

  “Why do you keep notes on serial killers?”

  He looked up for a moment, thinking. “I can’t really explain it. It’s like an obsession, I guess. I want to know what makes a human being cross the line into inhumanity. What makes him not kill one day and kill the next.”

  “Why is crime writing who you are, Silas?”

  He rested his hand only inches from her hand on the back of the bench. “When you live in the dark too long, the dark begins to live inside you.”

  Before thinking about it, she covered his hand with hers. “Then walk away. Look into the light.”

  He started to lean forward, as though to kiss her. His mouth, in fact, hovered over hers for a fraction until he completed the movement and got to his feet. He reached behind his neck and unclasped the gold chain. He held the chain in his grip, and the cross swung like a pendulum at the end. “Your mom gave this to me the day after she had you. She wanted me to have it as a thank you for helping her. I hid it from my dad for years, knowing he’d hock it for cash. I’d planned to give it to you later, and then when I came back to town years ago. It didn’t seem like the right time, and I’m not sure how Ben would have reacted anyway. I want you to have it now.”

  He held it out to her. She watched the cross swing toward her, then back to Silas. Her heart caved in at the gesture, and at the thought of having something of her mother’s. “But it’s yours,” she said in a hoarse voice. “She gave it to you.”

  “I was just keeping it for you. Wear it to ward off evil.”

  She’d seen him touch it in a subconscious gesture and wondered if he really felt that way about it. “Put it on me. Please.”

  He hesitated, then stepped forward and reached around her. She was woman enough to admit that’s what she wanted, him to stand close and make her feel…well, like a woman. She also wanted the symbolism of him putting it on her, transferring the gift. He smelled awfully clean for someone who had no running water. She wondered if he bathed in the creek that ran through their properties. His chin nearly touched her nose as he finished the clasp and stepped back.

  It still felt warm from his body heat. She touched the bars of the cross. “Have you worn this for long?”

  “Since my father died.”

  “Wait, I have something for you, too.”

  She went into the house to the tune of his protests. After rummaging in her jewelry case, she returned with a quartz crystal. “Crystals are supposed to have special powers. Let’s believe this one will chase away the darkness.”

  “I can’t take that. You keep it.”

  “But why? You gave me this.”

  “It’s just…I can’t.” He closed his hand over hers with the crystal in her palm. “I want you to have this, too.” He handed her a wrinkled piece of paper with a phone number on it. “It’s my beeper.”

  “Why do you have a beeper?”

  “So my editor can get hold of me while I’m on assignment. It’s easier than giving him a lot of different numbers. And I don’t have a phone here, just my cell phone, which I don’t keep on all the time. If you need me, page me. Leave a 911 and I’ll be right over.”

  She wrapped the paper around the crystal. “You won’t owe me anything if I give this to you, you know. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a gift, that’s all. I don’t expect anything from you.”

  He still didn’t take the crystal. “That’s what a gift is.”

  “There’s a price for everything, Silas. What they say about there being no free lunch, it’s true. Everything has a price tag on it, an expectation. That’s obviously what you think, that if I give you something, there’s some sort of expectation. I’m just saying there isn’t.”

  He looked into her eyes and said, “God, Katie.” He ran his hand back through his hair and looked away for a moment. “I’d better go. Being around you is…harder than I thought it would be.”

  He started to step away, but she grabbed his arm. “What do you mean? Am I a horrible person? Tell me, Silas. I need to know. Is that why no one in town likes me, because there’s something wrong with me?”

  He closed his eyes, and she saw the muscles in his jaw tic. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “There must be. You just said being around me is hard.”

  He opened his eyes and took her wrists in his hands. Her knuckles brushed against his stomach. “Being around you is hard because…I don’t want to want you, Katie. I don’t want to lose myself in you. I don’t want to kiss you again. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Why are you here?” she whispered, her voice breaking at everything he’d said. He wanted her. He wanted to kiss her.

  “To warn you to be careful. To make sure you’re safe.”

  “From what? You’re confusing me. Safe from what?”

  His gaze scanned her face, and his voice was low and deadly. “From someone out there who’s hunting women for sport, the man who killed Carrie Druthers and a lot of other women just because he enjoys doing it, because he can. He’s been watching you, Katie. And it’s someone you know.”

  When the phone rang, all the blood rushed to her head and nearly wiped her out. She sagged against Silas for a moment before catching her b
alance. “I’ve got to get that. It’s probably Ben.”

  Her shoulder bumped against the doorjamb as she made her way inside. “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey. Just checking to see if everything’s all right. You sound a little breathless.”

  “I was in the shower. Ran to get the phone.” She was facing the kitchen, not wanting to see Silas while she spoke to Ben. “I’m fine.”

  “Has Silas bothered you at all?”

  She nearly jumped when he appeared in the open doorway. He pushed the door closed, locked it, and walked toward her with a determined look on his face. He looked bigger inside her house than he had on the darkened porch. His hands brushed by her shoulders as he passed her and went into the kitchen. Then he walked outside and closed the door quietly behind him.

  “Katie, what’s wrong? You didn’t answer me. Has Silas been there?”

  She swallowed, though it felt like goose feathers coated her throat. “No, but….” Headlights slashed across the living room again. “Someone’s here.”

  “Keep me on the phone. See who it is.”

  She walked woodenly to the door and saw Gary’s Explorer. She locked the door and went to the window where she’d just been talking to Silas.

  “What do you want?” she asked, holding the phone where he could see it.

  “I was just heading home and checked again. Silas’s car is there, but he’s not. Which means he’s around here somewhere. Do you want me to check around the house?”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you. The house is locked tight and I’ve got Ben’s beeper number if anything comes up.” But it wasn’t Ben’s number on the paper still clutched in her damp palm.

  “He’s a long while away, Katie. You should be calling me if you hear anything.”

  “I will. Thank you.” She closed the window.

  “Was that Tate?” Ben asked.

  “It was Gary. He’s already been by once.”

  “Well, you didn’t sound very grateful that he was checking on you. Thank him right now. Before he leaves.”

  “I don’t like him, Ben.”

  “He’s doing his job making sure you’re okay. Now thank him.” Ben’s voice went firm, as though he were talking to a child.