Silent Masquerade Read online

  “People don’t have guns if they don’t mean to use them,” Cara snapped. “And why else would you be so desperate to hide your true identity?” She nodded her head at his beard, her face twisted with scorn. “It’s obvious.”

  “Okay.” He let go of her so suddenly she almost fell. He pointed the gun at her, sweat forming on his upper lip, as it always did when he held a gun on anyone, even an unloaded gun such as this.

  “So you’ve got a make on me now. So how come you don’t have the sense to keep your mouth shut? Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you?” He was surprised that he was able to hold the gun so steadily, given the degree of his anger.

  He’d been nothing but good to this woman; he couldn’t believe she’d turned on him so completely, so suddenly. And which had come first? Opening the case and becoming suspicious, or vice versa? What had driven her to turn on him in the first place? He’d have sworn Cara would never go through his things. And he honestly believed that deep down inside she didn’t think of him as one of the bad guys.

  A woman didn’t give herself with the abandon Cara had last night if she didn’t trust the man she was with. Or did she? He didn’t know that much about women, if truth be told. He could count on one hand the number of women with whom he’d been intimate in his life, and none with whom he’d been intimate as he’d been with Cara.

  “You don’t have to kill me!” Cara shouted. “Not when I’m of more use to you alive.”

  Pain shot through him, a physical thing that tore the breath from his throat and punched him in the stomach.

  He lowered the gun and slowly pulled himself erect. He stared at her, jaw slack, eyes wide with disbelief. “Use to me? How?”

  “This whole business,” she spit out. “You. Me. Pretending to be married.”

  He would have laughed if he hadn’t been so angry at the unfairness of her accusation.

  “Aren’t we forgetting who came up with this brilliant scheme, Cara?”

  A look of uncertainty crossed her face, quickly replaced by one of relief as she came up with a retort. “You could very well have manipulated me into making the suggestion.”

  He did laugh at that, a scornful chuckle that barely cleared his throat before anger replaced it with a growl. “And just how did I do that? With hypnosis? Drugs in your food?”

  “I don’t know!”

  She was backing away now, inching toward the door. Bill didn’t know if he had the strength to jump up and stop her, even if he wanted to do so. Right now he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t rather have her disappear from his life forever. He couldn’t remember anyone ever hurting him more. Automatically his hand went to his side, where a narrow scar was a constant reminder of a knife wound from his early days in the field. No, the physical pain of that couldn’t touch the emotional hurt Cara was inflicting now.

  Cara stopped moving and pointed at the open briefcase. “I never thought to ask you where you were getting all the money you used to get us situated here. Honest citizens don’t carry that kind of cash around, for Pete’s sake. And honest citizens don’t have to hide behind multiple identities!”

  Her righteousness rang out in a clear voice, vibrant with barely concealed hysteria.

  It occurred to Bill that she, too, was on the edge, that she, too, was suffering. Of course. Whatever had driven her to open his briefcase, nothing would have prepared her for the shock of what she’d found there.

  He realized then that he was hopelessly trapped in a way he’d avoided all of his adult life. He was in love, and on the verge of making a commitment, one from which he’d never be allowed to escape.

  Too late. He might love her forever, but he could never act on it, because if Alvaretti found out, he’d use Cara as another means of getting even with him. No, what he had to do was get her situated and then disappear from her life once and for all.

  If she left now, with little money, no home, maybe no job, because she thought she had to hide from him...

  He stood up, his carriage stiffening with resolve. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I... Get away from you.”

  Her chin was thrust forward. Quivering, but nevertheless thrust forward with feigned courage. The absurdity of the situation struck him unexpectedly. Her anger, her courage, her threats, were all based on a fantasy. He was no killer. Granted, he still didn’t feel he could tell her the truth, but it was a far cry from what she thought of him.

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, his face softened, and he almost smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, really? And how do you plan to stop me? Tie me up? Shoot me?”

  “I think when you come to your senses you’ll realize that I could never hurt you, first of all. And secondly, nothing’s really changed. You know little more about me now than you did originally. Why should you walk out now? You’ve found a gun, but that in itself doesn’t make me a killer, does it? You’ve found a large amount of money, but does that prove I’m a thief?”

  Cara’s face reflected her confusion. She shrugged, but didn’t answer him.

  He lowered his voice seductively. “Cara, my love. Can’t you continue to take me on trust? Nothing’s changed. You’ve known I was on the run from the beginning. All you’ve learned from the briefcase is the means by which I’m able to keep going and to protect myself, if that becomes necessary.”

  Cara let her breath out on a long, heavy sigh and turned to the window. Dusk was beginning to dull the colors of the day, and she felt inertia beginning to set in.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “I want us to go on as before. We still need each other—that hasn’t changed.”

  “You make a good argument.” Her tone was flat. She turned back to face him. “But I can’t help it, Bill, I feel as if I would be naive to just ignore the contents of that briefcase as if I’d never seen it.” Her voice turned pleading. “Can’t you tell me something more, set my mind at ease a little?”

  “You want a guarantee.” Bill locked the briefcase and set it down on the floor beside the bed. “I can’t give you that, Cara. You’re going to have to take me on faith.”

  Cara shook her head and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Fatigue bent her shoulders, and she collapsed onto a chair, a scowl of frustration creasing her brows.

  “Why should I?”

  Silence hung heavy between them. Then Bill whispered, “Because I love you.”

  It was hard to tell which of them was more surprised by Bill’s confession. Cara saw the run of emotions reflected in his face and knew that her own face mirrored them.

  It should have been so easy to say, “I love you, too, Bill.” But there were too many unanswered questions hanging between them. And, even knowing he loved her, she wasn’t sure she could take him on faith. Which made her wonder about her own feelings. If you loved someone, didn’t you automatically take him on faith? She couldn’t answer that, either. Now that she’d calmed down, she knew that she’d overreacted both to the TV show and to what she’d found in the briefcase. The bottom line was, she’d have staked her own life on the belief that no matter what else Bill might have done, he wasn’t capable of murder.

  That still left myriad crimes that he might have committed, and that knowledge didn’t sit comfortably on her shoulders.

  She got to her feet. “Let’s go. I’d like to get settled into the new house before it gets dark.”

  “Does that mean...”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, except that for the moment I’m willing to go on as before. How I’ll feel tomorrow, or a week from now, I can’t promise.”

  Her last barb, thrown over her shoulder as she bent to pick up her suitcase, hurt Bill the most. “And when I say go on as before, I mean before last night.”

  * * *

  AN UNEASY TRUCE formed between them as they settled into the little house. Since they now worked different shifts at the park and didn’t take meals together, Cara was usually alone w
hen she was at home, and it was easy to pretend the house was all hers. When she thought about Bill living there, she quickly made herself think of him as a kind of boarder. In her mind, the house belonged to her.

  And she made it hers—buying colorful prints for the walls, covering the shabby furniture with throws, putting lamps in dark corners and shiny glass pieces on various tables around the rooms.

  They’d long since come to know each other’s food preferences, and without a word exchanged, she always bought apples and peaches—his favorites—for the fruit bowl, and he always left a carton of sweet and sour pork in the fridge for her when he’d eaten Chinese.

  She bought bagels for him. He left mocha-flavored instant coffee on the counter for her. She replaced his peanut butter when it was gone, and he added blackberry to the jams he knew she liked.

  If she held the jar of jam against her chest for a few moments before returning it to the lazy Susan, who was there to see, to question?

  There were two bathrooms in the house, so they didn’t have to share that intimacy, and for that Cara was grateful. She didn’t think she could stand to see the razor that carefully shaped his beard or the towel that wiped dampness from his masculine chest. She didn’t have to step onto a throw rug, damp with his footprints after his shower. And she didn’t have to wipe his toothpaste out of the sink before she brushed her teeth.

  There was only one problem. Every single time she looked at her bathtub, she was reminded of another tub, in a hotel room across town. It took an effort, but she forced herself to push the memory away as quickly as it came.

  They exchanged no words—spoken or written. If there were messages inherent in their food gifts, they were never acknowledged or admitted.

  Bill came in later than usual one night to find Cara asleep on the couch, her head crooked to one side and falling off the couch cushion, the book she’d been reading open across her chest. He knelt beside her and very carefully lifted her head onto the pillow.

  She opened her eyes and stared at him. “What are you doing?” she asked in a raspy whisper. The book slid off her body onto the floor. They both ignored it.

  “Your head was bent awkwardly. I was afraid you’d get a stiff neck,” he whispered back.

  “Nice,” she murmured, her eyes drifting shut. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah.” His hand was still at the back of her neck. He could feel the soft vulnerability there, sense that she was totally relaxed and only barely aware of the situation. Her lips were enticingly sleep-swollen, her cheeks flushed pink. He could smell the warm, soapy fragrance that lingered from her shower.

  If she was awake, she’d attack him ferociously for what he planned to do, but she was asleep—or almost—and he couldn’t resist, even if she whacked him a good one for it afterward.

  He leaned forward and lifted the light summer blanket down to her waist and bent to place his lips at the hollow of her throat. She was wearing a white cotton gown with spaghetti straps, and her breasts curved enticingly above an inch of ruffle. His lips inched along satin skin to those curves, and his tongue paid homage to the honey-sweet taste of her.

  Above his head, her lips breathed out a sigh of pleasure, and she arched her back in such a way as to give him greater access to the bounty he sought. Bill lifted his own head and saw that her eyes were still closed and she appeared to be sleeping still.

  But when he glanced down, he saw that her nipples were erect, their thick buds poking through the light fabric of her gown. Without thought, he bent to suck one of those buds into his mouth, and his body seemed to shimmer with pleasure as his tongue rolled around it.

  It was Cara’s moan that told him she either was awake and willing or thought she was having a very lifelike erotic dream. Her hands sought the silkiness of his hair, and she lifted her body to his marauding mouth.

  He pulled the gown to her waist and pushed her breasts together so that he might have the pleasure of both nipples at once.

  Cara cried out and clutched his head to her breasts. She had awakened, realized she was not dreaming. Every cell in her body seemed to hum with ecstasy; there was no way to recall her anger, to deny their hunger for one another.

  Her hand began to slide downward, when suddenly a horrendous noise broke the late-night silence, bringing them both to their feet. Cara snatched up the blanket to cover herself and followed on Bill’s heels as he fled to the rear of the house from where the noise had come.

  The sky was awash with moonlight. The neighboring houses, surrounding theirs in such close proximity, cast grotesque shadows over the white-lit grass. Across the backyard, a cat howled in angry frustration, and another feline leaped over the wooden privacy fence and up into the branches of a lemon tree.

  Nothing else stirred. No sound of runaway footsteps, or the revving of a car engine. Nothing was disturbed on their screened-in porch.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Bill turned back, prepared to reassure Cara that all was well and that they could resume their lovemaking.

  But Cara was gone. And when he went into the house, he saw that her gown had been removed from the floor beside the couch and her bedroom door was shut.

  She’d changed her mind, come to her senses.

  Bill went to bed alone after a punishing cold shower, and morning brought more of the same silence, as though the brief interlude of passion had never occurred.

  Chapter Nine

  Bill bit the last of the corn dog off the stick and threw the remains in a trash barrel. It was turning out to be a slow day, and he had been eating junk food out of sheer boredom.

  Something had kept people from turning out in the usual large numbers. As an easterner, he found it hard to credit the overcast weather for the diminished activity on the pier, and even if it should rain, it didn’t threaten to be more than what New Yorkers called `a slight drizzle.’ But it was soon clear that the locals didn’t see it his way. Which left mostly the heartier tourists who hailed from the Midwest and other, more eastern parts of the country.

  During one of the many slow periods that morning, Bill ambled over to the edge of the bumper-car concession and glanced up and across the boardwalk. Cara was at the ice-cream cart looking almost as bored as he felt. She was sitting on her stool, her feet resting on the bottom rung, her chin in her hands as she gazed out past the boardwalk to the beach area and the ocean beyond.

  Was she imagining herself aboard one of those fancy yachts or on a steamship headed for foreign ports? Was she, at that very moment, wishing she’d never met Bill Hamlin and could be enjoying a different kind of life here in Santa Cruz?

  She turned, as if she sensed his gaze on her, and he quickly averted his eyes and bent to pick up a candy wrapper from the sidewalk.

  After a few minutes, he dared another look and saw she was filling cones for two little boys, who were jumping up and down with excitement. Her grin when she placed a cone in each child’s hand struck an unexpected blow to his solar plexus. It seemed forever since he’d seen that sunshine-bright smile, and a lifetime since it had been directed at him.

  He turned away and walked under the roof that covered the bumper cars. Four children and three adults had positioned themselves in the cars that were lined up along the perimeter of the corral. Bill went to the edge and began pushing cars away from the rail. Usually he did that task so quickly and with such absorption that he barely noticed the occupants of the cars. But this time, as he was pushing the green one away from the rail, something drew his attention to the boy seated in the car.

  He found himself staring down into the most arresting green eyes he’d ever seen. It wasn’t just the amazing color, or the incredible lushness of the thick black eyelashes, that caused Bill’s breath to catch in his throat. The boy’s eyes contained such a look of profound sadness that Bill felt drawn down into a mire of despair, just looking into them.

  “You okay, kid?” Bill cleared his throat, surprised at the huskiness in his voice.

  Several expressions crossed the boy’s
face. First there was surprise, and then, as he glanced over at his parents, terror. And then his face settled back into a frozen nonexpression that was more unsettling than even that fleeting look of terror.

  Bill shrugged and turned away. He vaulted the rail and walked toward the controls.

  “My imagination,” he muttered to himself. “I’m beginning to think like Cara.”

  But all during the ride’s cycle, Bill couldn’t tear his gaze from the green car and the boy with the matching eyes.

  The kid looks familiar, a voice inside his head whispered. Nah, I’ve just been staring at him too long.

  Bill tried to distract himself by glancing over at the people around the outside of the arena. The two people he’d figured to be the kid’s parents were huddled together against the wall, staring at their son as if they were afraid he was going to disappear in a puff of smoke, right before their eyes.

  Just regular overprotective parents who’d heard too many horror stories about what happened to people on vacation.

  Suddenly, Bill realized that they didn’t have the usual look of vacationers. There faces were set in grim lines and, come to think of it, there wasn’t the usual look of parental pride in their eyes as they watched their son.

  They aren’t having any fun, Bill thought.

  “Not even the kid,” he mumbled aloud, turning to look back at the boy. The child sat in the car, hands on the wheel, letting the other cars bump into him, doing nothing about fighting back, not even trying to escape the other fun-seeking drivers. All the other drivers, adults and kids alike, were having fun.

  All but the lone youngster with the haunting eyes.

  Damn! Where have I seen those eyes—that face—before?

  The cars were slowing now, as the ride was about to end. For some reason, Bill gave the timer an extra twist, causing the mechanism to rev back up to full speed, keeping the ride going, keeping the boy there a little longer.

  His ploy for extra time didn’t help. When the ride came to an end, he still hadn’t figured out why the child looked so familiar.