Corinne Jawalski was not impressed by an early Sunday morning visit from Carol. She yawned as she pushed the heavy brown hair back from her face. “I was hoping to sleep in. I’ve had a very heavy week.”
“There’s one little matter I’d like to clear up.”
“Oh, yes?” said Corinne, unimpressed.
Carol looked around the apartment. The flatmate was nowhere to be seen, but piles of magazines, empty bottles, and one high-heeled shoe next to a saucer with several lipstick-stained butts indicated her presence.
“No, I don’t smoke,” said Corinne, following her glance. “And I’ve told Beth not to, but she’s too selfish to stop.”
“May I sit down?” asked Carol, convinced that it would be pointless to wait for ordinary courtesies from her.
Corinne nodded ungraciously. “All right, but you won’t be long, will you?” She began to pace impatiently.
“I imagine you were angry after Collis Raeburn’s call on Saturday night,” said Carol conversationally.
A shrug. “Nothing to be angry about.”
“He told you that Alanna Brooks was to continue as his singing partner for the foreseeable future, didn’t he?”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s been corroborated.”
Carol’s confident tone convinced Corinne. “All right, ” she said sulkily. “So he said that. So what? He’d have changed his mind the next day.”
“He was dead, then.”
The intentionally brutal words brought tears to Corinne’s eyes. As she turned her face away, Carol said gently, “Were you lovers?”
The truculence had gone from her voice. “Yes-until the last month or so, when he wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
Appalled, Carol thought, He didn’t tell you that you could be HIV-positive… She said, “Do you know why he changed?”
There was pain in her voice. “I couldn’t get him to talk to me. He said he’d tell me later, but he never did.”
Carol was torn between the desire to warn her, and relief that she couldn’t. She said, “You didn’t leave the concert and go to see him at the hotel to discuss why he’d changed his mind?”
Corinne sat down, putting her face in her hands. “What was the use? He wouldn’t discuss anything… I think he’d begun to hate me…”
Carol resisted the impulse to comfort her. She murmured a few platitudes, then escaped into the warm Sunday morning, her thoughts about Collis Raeburn savage. Guilt had made him cruel; pride and arrogance had kept him silent.
She went into work to find Mark already there, looking incongruously young in a sports shirt and shorts. He followed her into her office waving the photograph of Raeburn in the gay bar. “Bingo,” he said. “Turned up two of these guys last night.”
“And?”
“And Collis Raeburn was a regular. Called himself Col and, I gather, was regarded as being a risk-taker. Sniffed a bit of cocaine, but wasn’t a heavy user. He’d try any new designer drug that was around, just for kicks. Lot of sexual partners-as long as they were good-looking and young, he didn’t care who they were.”
“Graeme Welton ever on the scene?”
Bourke grinned. “We think as one, Carol, but in this case to no avail. Had Welton’s photo shown around the bars last night, but no one recognized him. Any relationship he had with Raeburn was strictly private.”
“And Amos Berringer?”
“Madeline Shipley was absolutely right. We couldn’t find him, but he’s still around, trying to keep a low profile. The little prick’s too stupid to keep totally quiet, but all he’s saying is that he’s got some money for keeping his mouth shut and he knows where to get some more.”
“Bring him in, Mark.”
“The payoff’s probably from Kenneth Raeburn, trying to plug the leaks.”
“It could be someone else. Let’s find out.”
“Almost forgot,” said Mark. “You haven’t had time to read the Sunday papers, I suppose? No? Well you’re going to be very interested in an item of gossip. Hold on, I’ll get it for you.”
Mark had circled it in heavy black ink. Under the heading SINGING AND SUING? the columnist declared, “An impeccable source tells me that all is not well in the Eureka Opera Company. Hit by the tragic loss of Collis Raeburn last week, the company is reeling as top prima donna Alanna Brooks threatens legal action against her leading man, Lloyd Clancy, citing defamation and slander. Is this the end of Edward Livingston’s dream of an opera company for the twenty-first century?”
“It’s all that deep breathing when they sing,” said Bourke. “It drives them mad.”
Carol sent Mark home, went out for a brief lunch, then spent the best part of the afternoon wading through the paperwork that had all but buried the in-tray.
Aunt Sarah called to say that David had inveigled her into taking him to a movie: “I’m just a pushover for your son, Carol. He’s promised me popcorn and a movie about a big dog, so how could I resist?”
Carol was quite aware she wouldn’t have resisted either, but she said, “Don’t let him talk you into anything else, Aunt. He’ll be demanding McDonald’s next. I think you’d better put him on so I can straighten him out.”
She grinned at David’s elaborately casual tone. “Yes, Mum? We’re leaving in a minute.”
“You’re spending the money I gave you, aren’t you?” she said with mock severity. “You’re not letting Aunt Sarah pay for everything?”
“Oh, Mum!”
Suddenly feeling weak with love for him, she said softly, “Darling, have a good time. I wish I were going with you.”
A few minutes later the phone rang again. “You work too hard, Carol,” Madeline Shipley said. “I just caught your aunt and she said you were there. I’m at home, alone. Will you call in? Have a drink with me?”
Carol felt an unsettling combination of wariness, grief, indefinable longing, and sexual hunger. “I’m tired, Madeline, and I’ve got another hour here, at least.”
“You’re not that tired. It’ll only be for a while…”
“You just won’t give up, will you?” said Carol, with a reluctant smile.
“Never. Carol-”
“Okay. I give in.”
Carol’s light tone disguised the jolt of excitement that made her hands unsteady as she replaced the receiver. What was it that made her so cautious? Her natural reserve? Allegiance to Sybil? Suspicion that Madeline could get under her defenses?
She smiled as she said aloud, “Courage, Carol. You’re not a virgin.” And maybe, she thought, Madeline’s only offering a drink…
“Whiskey?”
“Please.”
Carol seated herself in a lounge chair and looked around the room with feigned interest. Madeline handed her a cut-glass tumbler and sat down opposite. “Tell me about Sybil.”
Carol’s chin came up. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Of course there is, but you don’t want to say it. That’s all right. It would help, that’s all.”
Before Carol could give the acerbic reply that would deliver a verbal slap, Madeline added, “Me, Carol. It would help me.”
“Help you? How?”
Her eyes were intent. “I’d know the situation. What I was up against.”
“I don’t want to play games.”
Abruptly, Madeline was on her feet, pacing. “It isn’t a game, Carol. I’m very serious.”
Taking a gulp of her drink, Carol thought, I should go… but I don’t want to. Madeline had moved behind her chair. Without turning her head, Carol said flippantly, “You aren’t going to attack me, are you?”
She heard the click as Madeline put her drink down, then the light touch of hands on her shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Looking up at her, Carol said severely, “I’m taller than you and I outweigh you. And I’m a police officer. You haven’t got a chance.”
Madeline’s copper hair brushed her cheek. No, Carol thought as she willingly lifted her mouth to the kiss. She broke away to say, “I’ll spill my whiskey.”
There was a tremor in Madeline’s voice. “Drink it, Carol. I want to taste it in your mouth.”
“This is-”
“Right. You were going to say this is right?”
Carol half laughed, half groaned. “You’re implacable. Is it any good putting up a resistance?”
“Only if it’s a token one.”
Go for it? thought Carol, knowing already the decision was made. She put down her drink, stood, opened her arms.
Madeline kissed her lightly, withdrew. “Do you like to be teased?”
“No.”
“Of course you do. You’re just not used to it.”
Carol was focused on Madeline’s curved lips. She wanted to kiss her aggressively, forcefully. To have her respond with compelling ardor. To have her heart race as hers was racing…
Madeline stepped back. “Come to bed.”
In a dream of passion Carol followed her. She was her center, her focal point, her target. Nothing else mattered.
Madeline was half-laughing, dominant. “Don’t undress, Carol. I’m going to make love to you first with your clothes on… slide my fingers into your hidden places… set you on fire.”
Carol, her voice husky, said, “I’m that already.”
Madeline chuckled softly, her voice a caress. “It’s only a little flame, darling. I’m going to make it a bonfire, so that you’re consumed entirely.”
She pushed Carol gently against the wall, leaned into her, a knee between her legs, slowly began to unbutton her shirt.
This is so different, thought Carol, shutting her eyes. She suddenly felt free to do anything, say anything, be anything. “Madeline…”
“It’s all right darling. Let me show you what you really want, what you’ve always wanted.”
Her breath caught at Madeline’s touch. The barrier of her clothes was at once an impediment and an excitement. Madeline’s mouth was hot against her throat. Hands sliding under her bra, tantalizing with the lightest of contacts. Carol made an inarticulate sound.
“Don’t hurry me,” said Madeline. “I won’t be hurried.”
Her touch was soft, maddening, provoking-but never quite enough.
Carol could hardly speak. “This is cruel.”
“This is what you want.”
Madeline’s fingers burned as they entered her. The compulsion of desire licked at her thighs, flamed in her groin. “I’ve got to lie down.”
“No, Carol, you’ve got to stand up.”
Never like this. She couldn’t see, could only feel-surging, scalding waves of sensation. “I’ll fall.”
Madeline’s commanding voice whispered against her cheek, “Be brave, darling. You can do it.”
Knees locked, head back, moaning with the delight of the pulsing ache that transfixed her, Carol abandoned herself to her body’s hunger. And with that submission came deliverance. Held tight in Madeline’s arms she shuddered with release. “Oh, God.”
“Now you can lie down,” said Madeline.