14 - J. T. Ellison [109]
He’d made love to her then, taking his time, doing all the things that he knew she loved, until she’d screamed his name, and God’s, at the top of her lungs.
Her breath was starting to return to normal. Maybe there was a way to make this work after all. He was still in her, had her pinned against the mattress like a butterfly on a piece of cork.
“Let me up. I need to wash.”
“No, Charlotte. But I do.”
The blade was so sharp she didn’t feel the cut. Didn’t feel the knife sweep through the tender skin on her neck like it was butter. It took a moment to register what was happening, that he’d just done what he’d done. The lying bastard. Her eyes teared, and she tried to scream. There was the pain, finally, as she realized he’d cut her so deep, her vocal cords were severed. In a moment of disgust, she felt him harden in her and realized he was pumping away, coming again, crying out her name as she went away.
Forty-One
New York, New York
Tuesday, December 23
8:00 a.m.
Lieutenant Tony Eldridge and Detective Emily Callahan sat across the breakfast table from Taylor and Baldwin, industriously sucking down cappuccinos. They were in the Heartbeat restaurant of the W Hotel, ostensibly coming up with a game plan, a breakfast strategy session.
Ordering the food had taken nearly five minutes with all the specifics the New York cops asked for. Emily had requested organic granola, fruit cut with a fresh knife, local farm yogurt, wheat grass juice and an immunity-boosting smoothie, smiling unapologetically at Taylor. Eldridge opted for the steel-cut oatmeal with brown sugar, cranberries, raisins, toasted almonds and warm milk. Even Baldwin got caught up in the health frenzy, taking pastel eggs with fruitwood bacon and roasted potato veggie hash. Taylor tried to play along but felt like a child, ordering peanut-butter-and-jelly crepes. It was as close to normal as she could find on the menu. Even the food added to her sense of dislocation. The one thing of comfort was the orange gerbera daisy in the stainless-steel vase. Hard beauty for such a gentle flower, but fitting, somehow.
After the waitress left, Taylor fiddled with a ripe pear and took in the multicolored reflective glass column to her right. She wanted out of New York, wanted to get back home and…and…she didn’t know. She didn’t know what she wanted. Home seemed like a haven now, a place to escape to, to be rid of this city and its implied threats.
Baldwin turned over the cell phone. Eldridge promised to do everything he could to trace its origins, see if they could find some answers.
They talked of the things that gave them common ground until the meal was finished. Eldridge slurped the last of his espresso, setting the cup in the saucer delicately.
“Okay, Lieutenant, let’s run through this again. Tell me everything you remember about Delglisi, everything he said. We must be missing something.”
Taylor set the pear on her plate. She focused her thoughts, went back to that dank room. Smelled his cologne, heard his voice. Chills ran down her arms.
“A few things stood out. He said he had a business proposition for me. I asked if this had anything to do with the Snow White case, and he said I was closer to him than I thought. He said there was a situation that needed to be handled, and that if something happened to screw with his interests in Nashville he’d take the heads of my team. He talked about family.”
If something happens to jeopardize my interests in your fair city, I’ll start taking your friends’ heads off, one by one. She swallowed hard at the fury that rose in her gut. Just talking about the threat pissed her off.
“Did you get the sense he was referring to Snow White, or something else?” Baldwin leaned back in his chair, his coffee cup held loosely in his hand.
“Something else. He didn’t feel Snow White was a danger, that’s for sure. He called him a peon of a killer. Didn’t seem to think