Into The Fire

At least there was a lock on the bathroom door. One of those old skeleton key things—if she’d had half a brain the night before she could have taken the key and locked her own door. And then Dillon couldn’t have come in the darkness to dump her suitcase. Had he stood there and stared at her while she slept? Doubtful.

The bathtub was a grimy, claw-footed antique with a shower overhead, but the water was hot and the grayish towels smelled clean. She combed her wet hair with her fingers and grimaced at her reflection. She’d thrown T-shirts and jeans in her suitcase instead of her usual professional clothes. She looked like a twelve-year-old, with her scrubbed, makeup-free face, wet hair and boy’s clothes. Any other twenty-eight-year-old woman would be happy to look so young. For Jamie it just reminded her of when she was sixteen and Dillon Gaynor was the terrifying center of her universe.

She’d had all sorts of fantasies about what it would be like if or when she saw him again. She’d be cool, calm, mature, with perfect hair and makeup, maybe a subdued suit and the string of pearls her parents had given her. The person she was raised to be.

Instead she’d shown up at his doorstep like a snowy waif. And he wasn’t going to look at her today and see the calm, professional woman she’d become. He’d see a kid, and he’d remember.

Maybe. Or maybe that night was just a blur, along with a thousand other nights. Maybe he didn’t remember.

But the problem was, she did.

The hall was still dark and silent, all the doors closed. She dumped her dirty clothes in a corner in her room, then glanced outside. It was getting lighter—maybe seven o’clock in the morning. She had two choices: wait for Dillon to get over his hangover and drag himself out of bed, or go down and start taking care of things on her own. It was a no-brainer. She needed to find out where her car was, get it towed, call Isobel, find some coffee, find something to eat….

The stairway was narrow and dark, and if there were any lights she couldn’t find them. She went down carefully, holding on to the rickety railing, feeling her way in the shadows. She got to the bottom, reaching for the door into the kitchen, when she stepped on something soft and squishy. Something big.

She screamed, falling back in the shadows, and then immediately she felt stupid. It was probably nothing, just a discarded piece of clothing….

The door to the kitchen was yanked open, and Dillon stood there, filling it, radiating impatience. “What the hell are you yowling about?” he demanded. “Did you fall?”

“I—I stepped on something,” she said, trying to control her stammer. “It was probably nothing….” She glanced down at the small square of floor at the bottom of the stairs. She gulped. “Or maybe not.”

“It’s a rat,” Dillon said, his voice as flat as his expression. “We get them every now and then.”

“You have rats?” she demanded in horror.

“Sorry, princess, but this ain’t the Taj Mahal. It’s an old warehouse, and rats come with the territory. They show up occasionally, but at least they’re dead. Someone must have put some rat poison behind the walls years ago and it’s still working. Every now and then there’s a nice fresh corpse, and I don’t have to worry about them getting into the food.”

Food, Jamie thought. She glanced down at the dead rat, but even a corpse wasn’t enough to distract her. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“Then go on into the kitchen and find yourself something to eat. Unless you were thinking of fried rat?”

She rose from her seat on the stairs and glared at him. Two steps up put her eye level with him, and the result was disconcerting. “Maybe you could move the rat first? I don’t want to step on it.”

Big mistake. Before she knew what he was doing he’d simply picked her up, swung her across the small square of floor and set her down in the kitchen. Letting go of her immediately, as if she weren’t any more appealing than the dead rat. Maybe less. “There you go, Your Highness. There’s bread on the counter and beer in the fridge.”

“Or course there is,” she said, hostile. “But I’m not in the habit of drinking beer for breakfast.”

“You oughtta try it. Good for what ails you.”

“Nothing ails me.”

“Nothing but that stick up your ass,” Dillon said pleasantly, picking the rat up by the tail. It swung limply from his hand, and she shuddered.

“I’ll save the beer for you,” she said, controlling her shudder.

“Good of you.” He carried the rat over to the back door, opened it and flung it out into the alleyway. “All taken care of,” he said.

“You’re just going to leave it out there? Spreading disease and God knows what else?”

“The bubonic plague is over. And if it comes back I’m willing to bet you’d be happy to have me get the first case.”

“You got me there.”

He seemed to consider the idea for a moment. “Besides, there are enough scavengers around that he won’t be there for long. He’ll either be eaten by his brothers or carried off by some stray dog.”

“What makes you think it’s a he?”

“That was for your benefit. I assumed you think all rats are male.”

“Good point,” she said. The kitchen didn’t look much better than it had last night. The bottles had been swept off the table, but the smell of cigarettes and stale beer lingered in the air, with the faint note of exhaust beneath it.

“Bread’s on the counter,” he said. “I’ll make coffee.”

There were exactly two pieces of bread in the plastic bag, both of them heels. “Where’s the toaster?”

“Broken. There’s some peanut butter over the stove—make yourself a sandwich.”

Isobel would have fainted with shock at the idea of peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. Jamie was just grateful for the protein. She sat down at the scarred oak table to make her sandwich, watching as Dillon reached for the coffeepot. He poured out the dregs, filled the carafe with water and put it back in the machine.

“Aren’t you going to wash it out first?”

“Why? It’s going to hold coffee, and that’s what it held before. What’s the big deal?” He leaned against the counter, watching her lazily.

“The old coffee oils will make it bitter,” she said, not even getting to the cleanliness part. From the look of Dillon’s littered kitchen, cleanliness wasn’t high on his list.

“Maybe I like bitter.”

“I have no doubt that you do,” she said. The bread was slightly stale, but it was solid, and she devoured her makeshift sandwich. “I don’t suppose you have anything as mundane as a soda?”

“They call it pop out here in the hinterlands, Your Highness. Check in the fridge.”

He’d been lying about the beer. They must have finished it all during their late-night poker game. The contents of the refrigerator consisted of a chunk of moldy cheese, half a quart of milk and enough cans of soda to satisfy anyone. She grabbed a Coke and shut the door, snapping the top and taking a long drink, letting the sugary caffeine bubble down her throat.

He was watching her, an unreadable expression on his face. Not that she’d ever been able to guess what he was thinking. “What?” she demanded irritably.

“You don’t strike me as the type who’d drink straight from the can.”

“Maybe I don’t trust your idea of cleanliness.”

“I’m sure it’s not up to your standards.”

“It’s not. When did you get my suitcase? Is my car here?”

“Your car’s still stuck in a ditch out on the highway. And I didn’t get the suitcase. Mouser was running an errand for me and he stopped and got it. You made quite an impression on him, but then, he doesn’t know you as well as I do.”

“You don’t know me at all. We haven’t seen each other in twelve years, and back then you had nothing to do with me.”

“That’s not the way I remember it.”

It felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She didn’t even blink. “And your memory is so clear after all these years?”

“Clear enough.” She wondered if she was imagining the faint thread of menace beneath his smooth tone. Probably not.

“I need to call my mother.”

“Why?”

“To tell her I got here safely. And to tell her I’ll be leaving as soon as the car is ready. This afternoon, I hope.”

“Hope away,” he said. “Mouser said your car was pretty messed up.”

“This is a garage, isn’t it? I’ll pay you to fix it.”

“I work on old American cars, not imports. Different tools.”

“Then I’ll call Triple A. If they can find someone to fix it I’ll stay in a motel until it’s ready—otherwise I’ll rent a car.”

“Honey, this town is the armpit of despair. The only motel around rents rooms by the hour, not the night, and no one rents cars but me.”

“So?”

He glanced at her. “So I don’t rent cars to drive out of state. No way to get them back.”

“I’d think you’d be motivated to get me out of here.”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said lazily, reaching for the coffeepot, which was now filled with thick black sludge. “I think I’m going to enjoy reliving old times. The halcyon days of my youth and all that.”

“Your youth wasn’t particularly halcyon.”

“Neither was yours, princess.”

“That’s not the way I remember it. I had two loving parents, a secure life, I had Nate as my brother and best friend. Until you got your hooks into him.”

He took a chair at the table, reaching for his cigarettes. It seemed like years since she’d been around anyone who smoked, and she watched with fascination as he lit the cigarette with a flip of his silver lighter. “Memories can be faulty,” he said, and blew smoke at her.

She would have liked to summon up a hacking cough, but in fact she’d never been particularly sensitive to smoke. Besides, he was clearly trying to bother her, and she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. “Maybe yours are. I think I’m a little clearer on details than you would be.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Where’s the telephone?”

“In the garage. It’s a pay phone—be sure you have plenty of quarters.”

“How do you manage to do business without a phone?”

“I don’t like people intruding on my privacy.”

“Then I’ll be doing my best to get the hell out of here. Just find me Nate’s stuff and I’ll give AAA a call.”

“What’s the hurry, princess? Nate’s been dead for three months—he’s not going anywhere.”

“Don’t you even care?” she demanded. “He was your best friend! A brother to you, and he died when he was under your roof. Don’t you feel anything? Grief, regret, responsibility?”

“I’m not responsible for Nate’s death,” he said in a detached voice.

“I didn’t say you were. But you’re the one who should have protected him. If he’d gotten in with a bad crowd you should have done something, anything, to help him….” Her voice trailed off in the face of his ironic expression.

“Maybe you better make those phone calls,” he said, rising and pouring himself a mug of steaming sludge. “You want any of this?”

“I’d rather die.”

“Sooner or later, angel face, you’re going to have to learn to lower your patrician standards.”

“You aren’t going to be around to see it.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m looking forward to it.”

The smell of the coffee was tantalizing. She knew it would be awful—too strong, too bitter. It would wreak havoc on her stomach and her nerves, and even milk and sugar wouldn’t make it palatable. And she wanted it, anyway.

She rose, shoving a hand through her wet hair. He was watching her, and she didn’t like it. The sooner she was out of there the better. “So my car’s still in the ditch on…what road did you say it was?”

“Route 31.”

“Fine. I’ll call AAA, I’ll call my mother, and I’ll make arrangements to give you back your privacy as soon as possible. That’s what you’d like, right? Have me get the hell out of here?”

“Do you have any doubts about that?” He stubbed out his cigarette, looking up at her above the thread of smoke.

In fact, she did. It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to have her leave. “I’ll just go get my purse. Maybe my cell phone will work here.”

“Maybe,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee and not even grimacing. “But I wouldn’t count on it. I wouldn’t count on anything if I were you.”

She didn’t bother arguing with him. She didn’t bother wasting another word on him—she simply headed up the dark, narrow stairs, stepping over the stained spot where the rat’s corpse had rested, going straight to her room.

In the gray light of a November morning it looked even less welcoming than it had before. The room was Spartan—just the mattress on the floor, the sleeping bag and her suitcase.

And no sign of her purse anywhere.

It was cold up here. Nate never thought he would be so cold, looking down on them. It was an odd sort of feeling—floating, dreamy, and then everything coming into focus. He should have known she was coming—he just couldn’t understand what had taken her so long to get here. His death would have shattered her, and there was no way she could move on with her life without getting answers. She’d come here to face his old buddy Dillon. The man who had let him die .

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it yet, even though he’d had a long time to think about it. Time had stopped making any sense, one day blending into another. He was trapped in this old building, unable to leave, but he’d heard her moving around, and known it was her .

The dead rat had been a nice touch. He left one every few days, not on a regular schedule. He didn’t want to be too predictable. He hadn’t expected Jamie to be the one to find it, but he didn’t mind. It meant Dillon had to come up with explanations, fast. And if he knew Dillon, he wasn’t about to tell her that the old factory was haunted by the ghost of her murdered cousin .

No, infested by rats was a preferable explanation. And it was. The rat of a man who’d betrayed his best friend and sent him to his death. And the King Rat himself, Nate Kincaid .

You can’t keep a good man down .

4

J amie searched, of course. It had been there when she woke up, hadn’t it? Dillon couldn’t have taken it—he’d been with her the entire time. And there was no way up to the second floor except that dark, rat-infested stairway, and no one had passed them while they sat arguing at the kitchen table.

Or maybe whoever had dumped her suitcase in the room had taken the purse. She wasn’t carrying a lot of cash, though her small supply of sleeping pills might appeal to some teenage druggie. And hell, what was Dillon but an overgrown teenage druggie? It had to be him.

She sat down on the mattress. She should go downstairs and confront him, demand that he return her purse. He’d deny taking it, of course. She was going to have a hell of a hard time getting out of here without her license and credit cards. No one would rent her a car, much less a room, without ID and credit. If he didn’t give it back to her she was stuck.

She stretched out on the thin mattress, staring at the cracked ceiling. He didn’t want her here. Why the hell would he do something that would keep her trapped here? Why, when he’d never liked her? If he even remembered that night so long ago, all he’d remember was what an idiot she’d been. What an embarrassing, pathetic idiot.

Twelve years ago

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, and the soft breeze of early summer riffled through his too-long hair. “Come here.”

Jamie sat frozen in the front seat of the old Cadillac, practically wedged between the seat and the door. The beer bottle in her hands was empty, and in the gathering dusk Dillon Gaynor looked like every good girl’s worst nightmare. And secret, shameful dream.

She’d had her share of them. They all had, all the good girls of Marshfield, Rhode Island. He was wicked, he was sexy, he was as pretty as sin. Just the sort to daydream about. Just the sort to keep away from. And she was sitting in the front seat of an old Cadillac convertible with him, alone in the woods, and she’d been fool enough to bring up the subject of kissing.

She didn’t move. “I was just kidding,” she said, unable to keep the thread of nerves out of her voice.

“I wasn’t.” He took the empty beer bottle out of her hands and threw it into the woods. And then he reached for her, pulling her across the broad front seat. The old leather was so soft and smooth she slid easily, until she was touching him, thigh to thigh, and he was looking down into her breathless face. “So where do we start?”

“You drive me home, then come back and get Nate and his girlfriend?” she suggested in a nervous voice.

“I don’t think so.” He picked up her hand and looked at it for a long, contemplative moment. “Baby-pink nail polish. Did that match your prom dress?”

She’d chosen the shade just for that purpose, but she wasn’t about to admit it. He wasn’t expecting her to. He just held her delicate hand in his large, callused one, rubbing his thumb over her palm, slowly, sinuously. “Such an innocent hand,” he said. “What naughty things have you done with it?”

“Nothing.”

“I can believe it,” he murmured, pulling her hand to his mouth. He put his mouth against her palm, and she felt a shiver run through her body. And then he licked it, and the feel of his tongue against her skin shocked her. “Time you learned,” he said. And he put her hand against his chest.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been wearing the usual ratty T-shirt. But tonight he wore a faded Hawaiian-style shirt, and it was partly open, and her damp palm was pressed against his warm flesh without the safety of thin cotton between them.

He was hot. His skin burned beneath her cold hand, and she could feel the slow, steady pulse of his heart, beating against her palm, moving down her arm and into her body, so that her heart was beating with his, but faster, much faster, and she was cold where he was hot, and she stared up at him, paralyzed.

He kept her hand captured in his, pressed against his heart, as he leaned forward and flicked on the car radio. U2 was playing—Bono was singing about sex and love, just what she didn’t want to hear. He leaned back in the seat again, his fingers touching hers, caressing them, one by one, as he slowly unbuttoned the rest of his shirt with his other hand.

She felt like a small white rat facing a hungry python. Mesmerized, she sat in the front seat of the old convertible and waited for him to make the next move.

This was Dillon Gaynor, the object of her teenage fantasies since the first time he’d walked into her parents’ house, whether she’d wanted to admit it or not. It was his skin beneath her hand, and he was moving his head closer, and he was going to kiss her, he actually was, and she closed her eyes, holding her breath, waiting.

He tasted like beer. And cigarettes. And sin, sweet sin. The baddest of all bad boys, and he was kissing her, his mouth moving slowly over her closed lips, his hand pressing hers against his hot skin, holding it there. She closed her eyes, telling herself this wasn’t happening, and since it wasn’t, she wasn’t doing anything wrong or dangerous, and she could just lean back against the ratty leather seat and let him kiss her. He lifted his head.

“Is that the way you kiss your boyfriends?”

The nice dreamlike haze vanished, and she opened her eyes, trying to sit up. He held her down. “I know there’ve been boyfriends,” he continued, and she realized he was moving her hand across his stomach, in slow, erotic circles. “Nate’s told me all about them. Jimmy McCarty and Jay Thompson. You have lousy taste in boys.”

“Is that why I’m here with you?” she said.

“Kitten’s got claws,” he murmured. “Open your mouth when I kiss you.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Tough. You’re playing with grown-ups now. This is how we do it in the big leagues.” He pushed her back against the seat and forced her mouth open before she could come up with another protest. He kissed her, using his tongue, slowly, thoroughly, and she felt a heat begin to pool in her stomach, radiating outward. Dillon Gaynor definitely knew how to kiss. What had been wet and sloppy with Jimmy was slow and mesmerizing with Dillon. She hadn’t even realized he’d released her hand, and she was slowly caressing the warm skin of his stomach, until she felt his hand on the waist of her jeans, heard the rasp of her zipper as his hand slipped inside.

She panicked. It didn’t do her any good, he was too strong for her. His mouth silenced any protest, his body pressing against hers kept her from escaping, and his hands, his fingers, slid beneath her plain cotton panties to touch her.

She had the strength to wrench her mouth away from his. “Stop it,” she whispered. “Let me go.” She could have screamed, maybe. But she didn’t want to.

He pushed her face against his shoulder, his mouth by her ear, and he took a small, wicked bite of her earlobe. “Just relax,” he said. “Consider this a graduation present.”

“But I didn’t graduate,” she murmured in a dazed voice.

“You’re about to.”

One of her hands was trapped beneath their bodies, but she wrenched the other free to grab his shoulder and try to push him away. He didn’t budge.

“Close your eyes, baby girl,” he whispered. “I’m about to show you a very good time.”

There was nothing she could do to stop him—he was too strong, too determined, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He pushed his fingers inside her, and she wanted to die of shame. And he was rubbing her, using his thumb, and she knew what he was trying to do, but she couldn’t even do it on her own, much less with a stranger touching her, inside her, rubbing her until she moaned.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he whispered. “That’s what I want to hear from you. Just a little bit louder.”

She bit her lip to keep from making any sound, but it didn’t do any good. She felt a spasm of reaction wash over her, and she shivered, her voice choked.

“Better,” he murmured. “But I think I want to make you cry.”

“Dillon,” she said in a cracked voice. Begged, though she wasn’t sure what she was begging for.

But Dillon knew. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, how to make her shiver and teeter on the very precipice, and then draw back, only to bring her forward again, stronger than ever, and she wanted to weep.

“Come on, baby girl,” he whispered in her ear. “Let go. Stop fighting me, stop fighting it. Come for me.”

She didn’t have any choice. It washed over her like an explosive force, as her body arched, rigid, and she wanted to scream, to cry, to make it stop, to make it last forever. It was too powerful, too overwhelming, and she let out a low, keening cry that he swallowed with his mouth, keeping her silent as he prolonged her orgasm past human endurance.

And then she collapsed beneath him, in a boneless, quivering heap, lying against his strong body in the front seat of the old Caddy, shaken and tearful.

He pulled his hand free and fastened her jeans again, pulling up the zipper and snapping the snap with experienced ease. Her face was wet with tears, but at least it was too dark for him to see, until she felt his fingers wiping them away in the darkness.

“What’s going on in there?” Nate’s slurred voice rang out in the darkness. “Are you corrupting my little cousin, Killer?”

“Of course not,” he said in a lazy voice, pushing her down on the seat, out of sight. “I tried to talk her into it but she’s too prim and proper. She just got tired of waiting for you and Rachel.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Nate said in a careless voice. She couldn’t see anything from her vantage point on the cracked leather seat of the old Caddy, but it sounded as if it was just as well. Nate and his girlfriend climbed into the back seat, and she could smell the sickly sweet scent of marijuana permeating the air, mixing with the smell of liquor. Not the beer that Dillon had been drinking, something stronger.

“Drive on, Jeeves!” Nate ordered in a lordly manner.