Voracious - Alice Henderson [73]
Approaching the door, she once again took in the cabin’s small size. “If he does show up, there’s not much room to hide.”
“I don’t think he will.”
She studied the cabin reluctantly. “Well, let’s do this as quickly as possible.”
“Here goes,” Noah said, trying the doorknob unsuccessfully.
“Did you really think it would be unlocked?” she started, trailing off as Noah smashed the French door pane closest the knob.
“No,” he answered.
Reaching through the hole in the jagged glass, Noah unlocked the door from the inside. Madeline glanced around nervously.
“What is it?” Noah asked.
“I guess I thought the cops could sense a law being broken miles away and would come for us.”
He nodded. “I felt that way myself the first few times.”
She raised her eyebrows as he opened the front door. “The first few times you broke into houses?”
“The first few times I committed crimes.”
She swallowed as he paused in the doorway, waiting for her. “What kinds of crimes have you committed?”
He smiled. “Oh, nothing serious. You know, a little B and E, some minor theft of food and clothes over the years, that kind of thing.”
“Oh.” She wondered if he was leaving anything out. Centuries of pursuing a killer could warp any person’s mind. With an obsession carrying you from year to year, you could very well skew your ideas of where justice ended and madness began.
Noah stepped toward her. “What is it? You look like you’re about to run away.”
She looked into his concerned eyes and felt foolish. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just my overactive imagination.” Her gut told her Noah was safe. He was a good person, determined to stop this killer. A lot of people wouldn’t be so selfless. It was too easy to roll over and let bad things happen, to not think about others. Most people would have grieved over their lover and then moved on, too scared or too weak to pursue justice when the law failed to deliver. She studied Noah’s face, his old, wise eyes, slight growth of whiskers, sandy blond hair curling about his face.
She reached up and touched his cheek, feeling the warmth of his face on her palm. Slowly she stepped forward, closing the distance between them and pressed her lips to his, breathing in the delicious scent of him. He returned the kiss, wrapping a hand around her back, pulling her even closer. Her mouth longed to drink him deeply, and the tip of her tongue came out, lightly brushing his, an electric sensation passing through her. She pulled away, hunger in her eyes, and watched as he slowly opened his eyes, his mouth still parted and wanting.
They watched each other for a few moments, and then she said, “I guess we have work to do.”
He nodded.
Madeline touched the doorknob as she entered, expecting to get something. But so many people had touched it over the years, it only gave off static: a wash of feelings and emotions of hundreds of people who had rented the cabin in years gone by.
Beyond the front door lay the kitchen, a modest setup including an ancient propane stove that had probably cooked food when Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons first sang on the radio. Next to it stood a genuine icebox, the kind you actually had to put ice into to cool its contents. In the center of the room stood a Formica-topped table, scarred with decades of use, and two cheap aluminum chairs with plastic cushioned seats, cracked and spilling their polyester stuffing.
Madeline moved about the kitchen, touching the chairs, the table, the stove, the icebox. The last she opened, admitting a terrible reek into the room. Wrinkling her nose, she peered inside. Nothing. But decades of use had taken its toll. Too many people had left food in there to go bad, and the lingering stench was