Devious - Lisa Jackson [102]
“Yes! Oh . . . God. No, not really.” She shook her head, and the light over the sink caught reddish glints in her hair. How many times had he left their bedroom, seeing the summer sunlight as it streamed through the window to cast fiery sparks in her tangled hair? How many times had she opened a sleepy eye, caught him gazing at her, and slowly grinned, an open invitation that he’d never refused? If he tried, he could smell the scent of their sheets, dried in the hot Texas sun and smelling of her perfume and sex. He felt a tightening in his groin and denied it.
This was definitely not the time.
“That’s the problem,” she was saying. “Frank O’Toole doesn’t seem capable. Hell, I believed him when he said he loved her and I can’t . . . I just have trouble thinking of him with her. At least like that.” She glanced at the pages on the table, and her lips tightened.
He knew what she meant. The sexual acts, more dark than loving in Camille’s descriptions, didn’t fit with the man who helped the sick in hospitals, spent time with children in St. Elsinore’s orphanage, gave of himself to help build homes for the needy here in New Orleans after Katrina and in other places as well. Her lover had been strong. Sexual. And, it seemed, had a sadistic bent that was more cruel than kind.
Frank O’Toole?
But who really knew what a person was capable of?
Outwardly normal, inwardly twisted and dark.
He’d once seen a picture of a prim little churchgoing woman in her fashionable skirt and suit jacket. Her hair had been a blondish white and perfectly coiffed in the little-old-lady helmet style, her smile as sweet as Georgia peaches. She had to have been pushing eighty. But the next shot was of her naked, tattoos and piercings over every inch of her skin, her nipples pierced, her pubic hair shaved, her look turned raggedly sexual. It wasn’t her placing body art all over her body that he found so odd; it was the fact that she’d allowed the picture to be taken and placed on the Internet.
Maybe it had been Photoshopped.
Maybe she hadn’t allowed it.
Maybe her head had been put on someone else’s body.
It didn’t matter. The image stayed with him and reminded him that no one really knows what goes on in someone else’s head. Otherwise, why would there be so many confused neighbors who couldn’t believe the man next door had been a wife beater, a pedophile, or a murderer? Too many times he’d witnessed people convinced that the accountant next door had been the perfect neighbor.
So Frank O’Toole, priest or not, could certainly be the man who liked to bind Camille’s wrists to an iron bed as he poured oil over her body and the man who had found ways to keep her aroused far into the night with objects that tickled, delighted, and caused just a tiny bit of pain. O’Toole could be the lover who had spread her arms and legs and flogged her back, getting hard before thrusting into her from the rear, waiting as she arched up to him, her desire more acute with the threat and sizzle of torment. He could also be the man who would ultimately be proved to be Camille’s killer.
“Sick son of a bitch.” Valerie rinsed out her glass, absently patted Bo’s head, and walked into the living room, where she sat in her favorite chair. She looked up at Slade still seated at the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick. “For doubting you. For taking her word over yours.” She laced her fingers and unlaced them again. “I was wrong.” Her voice was an awkward whisper.
He should walk across the room and pull her to her feet. He imagined tipping her head back, brushing the hair off her cheek, and kissing her eyelids as he murmured platitudes and accepted her apology, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when everything between them was raw and unspoken.
The easy thing would be to pull her body next to his, lift her off her feet, and carry her into the bedroom. In his mind’s eye, he saw her naked beneath him, anxious and hot, lifting her hips to his as he thrust into her. Her hair would be wild on the pillows, dark with sweat, her breasts full, dark, incredible nipples