Nocturnal Part 28

"How did you find me?" I asked. Vestigial self-protectiveness born of years of psychiatric training had kept me from giving him my address, and I was more than unlisted. All the doctors at Pacific University kept their home addresses and phone numbers locked up like Fort Knox.

He shrugged. "I just got in the car, and I knew your address."

"You just knew knew it?" it?"

Derek grabbed the door frame. "He knows things about people, and when he's inside me I know them too. Like he knew your name."

I was speechless.

"Can I come in?" His wavy hair standing up in wild tufts, as if he'd been pulling on it. Tricholtillomania, my clinical mind said, before I told it to shut up.

"Well," I said hesitantly. Conflicting emotions staged a full-scale war in my body, concentrating in my stomach and chest.

Derek's long eyelashes fluttered as he slowly blinked. "Don't worry," he said quietly, "he won't hurt you. He likes you. It's me he wants to get rid of."

I opened the door. Derek had a guitar in a bag strapped to his back. His eyes were wet and bloodshot, as if he'd been crying. I resisted the urge to pull him into my arms and comfort him, instead ushering him ahead of me up the stairs.

Derek ignored my offer to sit. He leaned his guitar against the wall and hugged the window overlooking Seventh Avenue, staring down as if he'd never seen sus.h.i.+ restaurants and liquor stores before. I deliberately chose the couch instead of the armchair, sitting cross-legged so I wouldn't look like a shrink.

After a minute or two Derek turned to me. He gave me a small, pained smile. "You look terrible," he said. "Are you all right?"

Well, I guess I could give him points for honesty. "I had a rough day at the hospital, that's all."

"Hmm. I bet you have a lot of those. Have you eaten?"

I shook my head.

"Want to go out?" He glanced at my pajamas. "Why don't I cook us something?"

"You cook?"

"Pretty well, in fact. My mom made sure of that. Where's your kitchen?"

I pointed. "It's back there, but there isn't much to work with."

"Oh, I can work miracles." I followed him down the hall, trying not to stare, but his well-worn T-s.h.i.+rt did nothing to hide the way his sinewy back muscles flexed as he walked. The snake tattoo undulated across his gleaming skin before diving under the bandage on his wrist.

He opened my refrigerator, glanced at the contents, and closed it again. He turned to me and raised his eyebrows. "How do you survive?"

"Coffee and Clif bars."

He pushed his gold-flecked hair behind his ears. "Where's the closest grocery store?"

Twenty minutes later I was sitting at the tiny table in my kitchen watching a culinary miracle. From one pot and a dented frying pan, Derek had conjured fresh fettuccini and a sauce called sugo alla puttanesca, sugo alla puttanesca, an Italian name he refused to translate. Steam rose from the stove along with a heavenly spicy tomato aroma. I sipped a fruity Zinfandel while he sprinkled chopped basil over slices of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes on top of grilled ciabatta bread. an Italian name he refused to translate. Steam rose from the stove along with a heavenly spicy tomato aroma. I sipped a fruity Zinfandel while he sprinkled chopped basil over slices of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes on top of grilled ciabatta bread.

"Do you have any plates?" he asked.

"Of course!" I glanced sheepishly into the sink. "I'll need to wash them, though."

When the plates were clean, Derek ladled out saucy ribbons of pasta for both of us, topped with a light grating of fresh Parmesan cheese. For a few minutes silence reigned as we shoveled food into our mouths.

"This is really delicious," I said.

He winked at me. "You sound surprised."

"I haven't met too many men who can cook."

"Do you have a boyfriend, Maggie?" he asked.

I shook my head, looking down at my plate. "No."

"Why is a beautiful, accomplished woman like you not taken?"

A warm flush overpowered my normally pale cheeks. "I could say I'm too busy, but that doesn't begin to cover it. The job I do, it taps you out: mentally, physically, and emotionally. I just don't have the energy for a commitment."

The intensity of his gaze did nothing to ease my embarra.s.sment. "Maggie, a job should fuel you, not tap you out."

A jolt of righteous anger shot through me. "That's easy for you to say."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a singer. What you do is not exactly life and death."

Now it was his turn to blush. Chagrined, I encircled his wrist just above the bandage. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

He shrugged and placed his hand on top of mine. "You're right. What's going on now is the first life-and-death thing I've ever dealt with."

I pushed my plate away. "Why don't we go into the living room?"

"Remember that song you were singing at the hospital, Derek? It's an Irish lullaby, right?" I'd never learned the name, I realized, even though my mother had sung it dozens of times. I hummed a few bars.

He nodded. He was perched on the edge of the armchair while I was back on the couch. He looked as anxious as he had when he arrived at the door, but he smiled through it. "Yes, I love that song. It's from an alb.u.m of Irish lullabies I did a few years ago. It sold about six copies."

I perked up. "I bought an alb.u.m of Irish lullabies about three years ago. It was called Home through the Night. Home through the Night."

"That's it. Only five more copies to account for," he said drily, but I saw a tiny hint of a smile.

"But I don't remember your name being on it." I thought for a moment. "It was by the Fieldstone Brothers."

"It was a combination of our names-Derek Fielding and Eric Stone, a friend of mine. We just did the one project together."

"That was a great alb.u.m. I wished I could have given it to my mother."

"Why didn't you?"

My eyelids were suddenly heavy with the weight of tears. "She died when I was eight. Killed herself."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Derek folded his arms as if he was trying to hide his bandages from me.

"My mother used to sing that song to me when I was a little girl."

He smiled ruefully. "Not mine, I'm afraid. Drina's not much of a singer."

"Have you been playing much music yourself?" I asked, pointing to the guitar.

All pleasure washed out of his face, leaving the same blank misery I'd seen in the hospital. "I still can't play anything. Not since you were at my house."

"Have you been taking your medication?"

"Yes, Maggie. I'm taking the pills."

"Have you had any more, um, visits from Edgar?"

He shook his head.

"Well, that's good. Now, this thing with the music, it must be some kind of temporary aphasia brought on by stress. I'm sure if you give it time it will fix itself."

He looked at that moment as if he pitied my sad, closed mind. "No, Maggie, Edgar did something to me. It's like he wiped that part of my brain clean."

"So why did you bring your guitar with you tonight?"

"I thought maybe here, with you, something might come back to me. I loved the way your face looked when I was playing."

"Well, give it a try," I said, patting the sofa cus.h.i.+on next to me.

He sat next to me with the acoustic guitar on his lap, nervously chewing his lower lip and running his fingers across the strings. A couple of times he looked up at me, and I smiled, projecting encouragement. He strummed the guitar. A few discordant notes echoed through the room, sounding like a cat had run over the strings.

"It's okay," I said. "Maybe you should stop for now...."

The guitar skittered across the hardwood floor until it stopped at the opposite wall.

"I can't do it! The most important thing in the world to me, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d took it." He dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders convulsing with silent sobs.

Normally I considered the consequences before I took any action, however small. It often took me five minutes to decide between nonfat and 1 percent milk. But I didn't think at all before putting my arms around Derek. He returned my embrace, pulling me so tight my b.r.e.a.s.t.s were squeezed against his slender, muscular frame. His long, curly hair, smelling of cloves and sandalwood, tickled my cheek. He pressed his lips against my neck. His breath was warm and damp. My heart was so loud it echoed in my head, and I could feel Derek's heartbeat pounding equally wildly against my chest.

Then we were kissing, and it was just like my fantasy at the hospital. He kissed me like it was the last kiss he'd ever have. His tongue probed deeply as my own glided over the slick polish of his teeth, then they entwined, first softly, then with eager pressure. He encircled my neck and pulled my hair free from its band while the other hand lit fires over every inch of my skin.

I pulled back, suddenly frightened of what we were doing, of how important it felt. When he sensed my hesitation he kissed me harder. With one hand lost in my hair and the other under my pajama top, he deftly flipped me onto my back and pressed me into the couch. He positioned himself so that our bodies met at every point that ignited heat, and he savaged my neck and chest with licks, kisses, and nips.

The hard length of him, studded by the b.u.t.tons of his jeans, ground against me through the thin cotton of my pajamas. The intense pleasure was tinged with pain, but when he lifted himself off me I was desperate to make him keep going. I grabbed his hips to try to move him back. Instead he slid his cool hand into the waistband of my pajamas, stroking tiny circles on my abdomen before continuing downward. My thighs tightened in antic.i.p.ation as his hand slipped under my panties and between my legs.

Nothing else existed but his fingers as they glided over my damp and yearning flesh. My breath caught raggedly in my throat as he tortured me with hovering, feather-light touches. When my hips jerked upward, slamming against him, he groaned again, and then dived deeply into me. His talented fingers played me with strength and dexterity. Gasping with pleasure, on the edge of release, I opened my eyes. I wanted to see his face, to rea.s.sure myself that he was enjoying himself as much as I was. But when I looked up everything that was moving in me slammed to a halt. My blood stopped flowing, my heart ceased beating, the joy I was about to express died in my throat.

The face I was looking at wasn't Derek's.

Chapter 4.

As adrenaline flooded my body, all I could think of was how to escape. I tried to slide out from under him but the weight of his body, seconds earlier a pleasure, was now a trap. I pushed at his shoulders but his body felt like it was made of iron. Desperate, I freed one leg and kneed him in the groin. He curled into a ball, grunting softly. I scrabbled with my socked feet, flailing for purchase against the slick leather sofa. Finally I was able to push him enough that I could roll onto the floor. I crawled across the room and huddled against the wall, clutching my knees, panting raggedly.

In a minute or two the person who was no longer Derek recovered from his injury and sat up. With jerky movements that were the opposite of Derek's feline grace, he adjusted a nonexistent collar on the neck band of his T-s.h.i.+rt. He balanced his right ankle on his left knee and stroked his chin while he observed my s.h.i.+vering, clenched-up body. A thin white mist surrounded his head and shoulders, and more vapor emerged from his mouth each time the creature breathed.

The face I'd seen at the castle was strange and different, but I could see some of Derek in it. Now he was completely transformed. The lips were thicker, while the chin was more pointed. Derek's delicate straight nose had become broad and cauliflower-shaped, like a career boxer's. His chocolate-brown eyes were now s.h.i.+ny and black, with the iridescent glimmer of an oil slick. And the expression on this unfamiliar face! The evil, malicious countenance made a mockery of the human smile. It was as if someone had cut a U-shaped gash in Derek's face and pulled the sides of his mouth up with hooks.

I blinked several times, trying to clear my vision. My mind was playing tricks on me. Guilt over kissing a patient, even a former patient, was taking the handsome features of Derek Fielding and distorting them into something repugnant. But once I acknowledged this and understood it my sight should have returned to normal. Well, then, why wasn't that happening?

"What's wrong, Maggie? I thought you were enjoying yourself. It felt like you were enjoying yourself." The person I couldn't call Derek wagged his heavy eyebrows lasciviously.

"Do you have a last name?" My voice came out as a mousy squeak. Dissociative ident.i.ty disorder, my clinical mind said, but the primitive, animal part of my brain recoiled in horror, trusting only the evidence of my eyes.

"Edgar Templeton, at your service." Speaking in the same raspy, cigarette-scorched voice I'd heard in the hospital, he touched his hand to his waist and bowed slightly. It was an incongruous, courtly gesture, completely at odds with the scornful smile on his face.

I scanned the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. Unfortunately my spare, bachelorette pad apartment was severely lacking in bra.s.s candlesticks and loose hammers. I eyed a heavy biology textbook that had been gathering dust on the floor.

"Do you know Derek Fielding, Mr. Templeton?" I asked, as my fingers clamped onto the book and slowly pulled it close.

The iridescent sheen on his black eyes s.h.i.+fted as he followed my movements. At first he had appeared to have no pupils, but now I could discern an area of darker black in the center, shaped like a long, pointed oval. He had the eyes of a lizard.

"You find him handsome, don't you, Maggie?"

I struggled to keep my face neutral. Inside I was longing to scream and babble like a two-year-old, but only my rational mind could help Derek and me now. Growing up in New Orleans, I'd been fed the typical diet of ghost stories. Calamitous events always followed ghost sightings. A man cut off his feet to escape a ghost who had dropped a coffin on them, a woman jumped off a bridge because a ghost in a car was driving toward her. It wasn't the ghosts that killed them; it was their own stupidity. I told myself all through my childhood that if I ever saw a ghost I'd stay calm and ask them the location of Mama's lost wedding ring.

"I'll ask the questions, and call me Dr. Dillon."

He inclined his head in acquiescence. "As you wish. But I would appreciate it if you would call me Edgar. After all, we should be on a first-name basis, don't you think, after what we've shared?"

"When were you born, Mr. Templeton?"

He patted the left side of his T-s.h.i.+rt, as if searching a coat pocket. "Do you have a cigar?"

I shook my head.

"Cigarette?"

"No."