Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers Read online

  Afraid he would notice, she set the wineglass down on the black, marble-topped coffee table and moved off toward the window, her gaze fixed on the magnificent view of the sea. She heard Zach’s footfalls as he moved up behind her, close but not quite touching. Just the thought of him standing so near made her breath hitch.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Zach.”

  “What? Stay here with me?”

  “Stay away from you. Be able to keep things objective.” She turned to face him. “This is more difficult than I ever imagined.”

  His hand came up to her cheek. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m going a little crazy here, too, Liz. When I’m with you, half the time I feel like running for my car, driving off and never looking back. The rest of the time…” He caught her shoulders and gently drew her toward him. “The rest of the time I want you so much it’s nearly impossible to think of anything else.”

  And then he bent his head and very softly kissed her.

  She was surprised by the tenderness, the control she knew he exerted. Surprised at the force of her own desire. For an instant, she stiffened, determined not to give into her feelings for him again.

  Then her eyes closed on a wave of need. She slid her arms up around his neck and kissed him back, wanting him as much as he wanted her.

  Zach deepened the kiss and all gentleness fled. The kiss went deeper, turned wild and hungry. His lips were hot and fierce, his kiss fraught with emotion, the turbulence inside him he couldn’t seem to put into words.

  Don’t do this again, a little voice warned.

  But he was already unbuttoning her blouse, easing it off her shoulders, his long tapered fingers encircling her breasts. He kneaded and caressed them, replaced his hands with his mouth. Elizabeth moaned and clung to him, knowing she should push him away and completely unable to do so.

  More kisses followed, deep, erotic kisses that left her breathless. Dark, seductive kisses that made her hungry for more. Her skin seemed to burn. Her nipples throbbed, and an ache began to pulse between her legs.

  They were standing in front of the windows, but the apartment sat high on the hill and jutted out toward the water so that no one could see. She made no move to stop him when he began to strip away her clothes. The sandals came off, her blouse and slacks, her lacy push-up bra. She wore blue lace thong panties, just a scrap of fabric that teased her sex as he palmed her, slid his fingers inside the lace to tease and caress her.

  Her head fell back as he kissed the side of her neck, and she thought how much she wanted him, how she craved this, craved him in a way she never could have imagined.

  He left her only a moment, long enough to strip away his clothes. Elizabeth watched in fascination, his shoulders so broad, his flat belly ridged with muscle, his chest wide and hard, the muscles flexing as he moved. His legs were long and sinewy, his biceps and forearms muscular and tanned from his work in the sun.

  She got wet just watching him, imagining the feel of him pressing her down on the mattress, sliding his hardness inside her. He must have read her thoughts for he simply shook his head.

  “Not yet. I promised you once the things we would do. I think it’s time I kept my word.” Moving closer, he slid his hands into her hair and drew her against the naked length of his body, began a slow seduction of her mouth.

  Long wet kisses turned her knees to jelly; hot, wild kisses made her ache inside. A little mewling sound came from her throat as he began a slow, determined assault on her neck and shoulders, then he took her breast into his mouth. She trembled at the feel of his tongue ringing her navel, sliding across the flat plane below.

  She shivered.

  “It’s all right, love, relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Kneeling in front of her, he pressed his mouth against the tiny swatch of lace over her sex, dampening the fabric, then his tongue slipped beneath the lace.

  “Zachary…”

  “Easy.” He slid the panties down her legs and urged her to step out of them, then returned to his task as if he had never stopped. His tongue slid wetly over her flesh, an erotic imitation of the act to come, and her body clenched with need. Her fingers slipped through the dark silk of his hair and she bit her lip to stifle a moan. Using his mouth and hands, he brought her to climax, an earth-shattering rush of pleasure that hit her so hard her knees buckled beneath her.

  Zach caught her up in his arms. Long strides carried him across the living room, down the hall, into his bedroom. Tossing back the gray satin comforter, he settled her among the clean white sheets and came down on top of her, his mouth claiming hers once more.

  “I want to be inside you,” he said between deep, erotic assaults on her mouth. “I want to get so close I can’t tell where your body ends and mine begins.”

  Elizabeth moaned, wanting exactly the same. The pleasure was incredible, but she wanted even more. She wanted to be joined with him, so close they were no longer two people but one single soul.

  As if he read her thoughts, he eased himself inside her, his dark eyes fixed on her face. He held himself in check for several long moments, letting her body grow accustomed to his size, the heavy length and weight of him, then slowly he began to move.

  He was big and hard and he filled her completely. Elizabeth clung to his shoulders, absorbing his heat, the power of his long, hard-muscled body, feeling the need build inside her. She arched her hips, taking him deeper still, and heard Zach groan.

  His movements grew faster, deeper, harder. He thrust into her again and again and the need inside her built.

  “Come for me,” he whispered, his deep voice a command, and Elizabeth let herself go. Her body tightened, broke free. She felt as if she were soaring, as if time stood still. She cried out Zach’s name, and the muscles in his powerful body went rigid as he followed her to release.

  For seconds neither of them moved. He pressed a last gentle kiss on the side of her neck then lifted himself away and lay down close beside her.

  Outside the window, she could hear the waves breaking on the shore at the bottom of the hill. The sound mingled with the beating of her heart and the turbulence of her emotions. She was in love with him. Running away from the fact wasn’t going to change that.

  Dear God, what should she do?

  Zach trailed a finger along her arm. “That was amazing,” he said softly. “I never knew it could be that way.”

  She turned a little so she could see his face. “You’ve been with dozens of women, Zach. How can this be any different?”

  His eyes found hers. “It’s different…because I never loved any of those women.” He said the words as if they explained everything, and Elizabeth’s world turned upside down.

  * * *

  They left the bed, went into the shower and made love in the hot, misty spray. They went out to dinner, then later that night slept together in Zach’s big king-size bed. But he never brought up the subject of love or anything to do with his feelings for her.

  Elizabeth said nothing, either. She had begun to wonder if she had actually heard him correctly, wondered, as she had before, even if it were true, what would it change? Zach was Zach and always would be. Whatever he felt for her, he would not stay.

  As the hours slipped past, even curled up beside him, Elizabeth couldn’t fall asleep. Her thoughts kept shifting from Zach and her love for him to Maria and the fear she felt for her friends.

  Miguel still lived in the house. What unseen danger did he face?

  She wondered what they might discover tomorrow during the meeting Ian Murphy had arranged with Carrie Whitt’s mother. And if they learned something important, what should they do with the information? Lying there in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, Elizabeth thought of the little girl who had appeared at the foot of Maria’s bed, warning her of the danger in the house.

  Elizabeth c
losed her eyes and prayed nothing terrible would happen before they got back.

  * * *

  The home Paula Whitt Simmons lived in with her second husband was much like the one owned by Detective McKay, a San Fernando Valley tract house, this one in a subdivision of small, boxy stucco houses in Sherman Oaks. Paula, now sixty-five years old, had been twenty-nine when her nine-year-old daughter, Carrie Ann, disappeared.

  “It was a terrible time,” she said as they sat at the kitchen table drinking lukewarm cups of coffee. “It seemed like it would never end, and instead of getting better it got worse.” Paula Simmons had short gray hair and the wrinkled face of a much older woman. As she lit up her third cigarette in the short time since their arrival, Elizabeth understood why.

  “How did it get worse?” Zach asked.

  “My first husband left me eighteen months after Carrie Ann disappeared.”

  “I’m sorry.” Elizabeth thought how hard it must have been to lose both a daughter and a husband.

  “The divorce wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t seem to pull myself together. George wanted a wife and all I could be was a grieving mother.”

  “Divorce is fairly common when the loss of a child occurs in a family,” Elizabeth told her.

  “I read that later, in one of those self-help books. Didn’t do much good by then. Lucky for me, eight years after Carrie Ann disappeared, I met Marty. He helped me get on with my life.”

  “Some people aren’t that lucky,” Elizabeth said.

  Paula nodded and took a long draw on her half-smoked cigarette. Some of the ashes fell onto the table and Elizabeth realized the woman’s hand was shaking.

  “If this is too hard—”

  “It’s all right. It happened a long time ago. I’ve had two girls with Marty. Raising them helped me come to terms with what happened to Carrie Ann.”

  “And what do you think that was?” Zach asked gently.

  “I think my little girl is dead. I think some monster took her away from me and killed her.”

  Elizabeth ignored the tightening in her chest and the shiver that slipped down her spine. “Can you tell us a little about her?”

  For the next half hour, Paula Simmons talked about the child she had lost. She told them how pretty she was, how people said she looked just like an angel. How smart she was, that she was in the gifted children’s program at school.

  “She loved children,” Paula said. “Especially babies. She wanted a little sister or brother so badly.”

  Elizabeth looked at Zach, whose jaw tightened though his gaze remained fixed on the woman’s face.

  “What did she call you?” Zach asked. “Did she say Mother or Mommy?”

  “She called me ‘Mama.’ I guess because I always called my own mother that.” Paula’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. This just brings all of it back.”

  Elizabeth had heard enough. She had begun to feel as if she knew the little blue-eyed girl who had been so beloved by her mother, and it made her ache inside to think what might have happened to her.

  With a glance at Zach, she shoved back her chair and rose to her feet, and Zach did the same. “We’re sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Simmons. But we really appreciate your help in this.”

  Paula made a jerky nod of her head. “On the phone, Mr. Murphy said that you wanted to talk to me about Carrie Ann. I figure you were with the police or something. But you aren’t, are you?”

  “No, we aren’t,” Zach said. “We’re just trying to solve a mystery. It may have nothing to do with your daughter. But I promise you, if it does, we’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “You don’t think she might still be alive, do you?”

  Elizabeth’s chest squeezed hard. “We have no way of knowing for sure, but we don’t think so.”

  “I don’t think so, either,” Paula said. “If she was, I think I’d feel it right here.” She pressed a fist over her heart.

  Elizabeth could feel the woman’s pain, even after all these years. “I think maybe you would, too,” she said softly, a thick ache swelling in her throat. She and Zach said goodbye, thanking the woman again for taking the time to talk to them.

  They left the house and Zach aimed the car toward San Pico. He had decided to drive his Jeep today and as the vehicle rolled along the freeway, Elizabeth thought of Paula Whitt and turned her face to the window, unable to hold back tears, hoping Zach wouldn’t see that she was crying. She didn’t realize he had pulled off the freeway into the parking lot of a supermarket until her car door opened and Zach hauled her out of the car and straight into his arms.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Just let it go.”

  Locking her arms around his neck, she started crying in earnest, great heaving sobs that shook her whole body. Zach just held on to her. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to make her stop, just held her and let her cry. She wished she could stay in his arms forever.

  “Better?” he asked as her tears began to ease.

  Elizabeth nodded but didn’t let him go.

  “In time this will all be over and your life can return to normal.”

  She dragged in a shaky breath, eased a little away but remained in the circle of his arms. “I’m not sure that’s possible anymore. Everything I thought was real has changed.”

  He held her a moment more, then let her go. Elizabeth climbed back inside the car and they rode in silence for a while, Zach’s gaze focused on the road. They were driving through the mountains, the hills dry and brown, the valley still some distance away.

  “That little girl I saw in the house…” Elizabeth said, “it’s Carrie Ann, Zach. I know it. Those monsters murdered her and now her spirit is trapped in the house. She’s been trying to protect Maria, trying to save the baby. We have to find out where she is, Zach. We have to set her free.” Her eyes welled again and she glanced away.

  “We’ll find her,” Zach said gruffly.

  “We need to dig…” She swallowed. “We need to dig under the house. The Martinezes buried Holly Ives in the basement. If they murdered Carrie Ann, there’s a chance they disposed of her body the same way. Since the new house is built where the old one stood before…”

  “I know. It’s the logical assumption.” He released a tired breath. “If Carrie Ann was murdered, that might explain why her spirit’s still there, even if her body isn’t. There are acres of open fields around the house. They could have buried her anywhere.”

  She swallowed. “I suppose that’s true, but I still think we should look under the house.”

  “So do I.”

  She turned in her seat. “Maybe after Carson hears what we’ve found out, he’ll let us search.”

  “I doubt it. Not without a warrant.”

  “Can we get one?”

  “I’m not real popular in San Pico, and even if I were, I doubt any judge is going to sign a warrant based on the appearance of a ghost.”

  “Then we’re stuck with having to go to Carson.”

  “I guess.”

  “But you don’t think it will do any good.”

  “My brother can be a real bastard at times. He’s determined in this, so, no, I don’t think it will do any good.”

  “Then let’s talk to the police.”

  Zach cast her a glance. “Maybe we should just get a couple of shovels.”

  Elizabeth didn’t smile. “Maybe we should.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  They reached San Pico as the sun was just setting Sunday night. Zach drove the car directly to the hospital to check on Maria.

  They found her propped against a stack of pillows, looking a little less pale, a little stronger, even with her belly a huge mound beneath the white sheet and some kind of drip running into her arm. Still, Zach could read the young woman’s exhaustion, s
ee her worry in the purple smudges beneath her eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” Liz asked as she approached the bed.

  Maria managed to smile. “I am much better. Miguel says I will be able to go home in a couple of days.” She looked over at Zach. “It is good to see you, Señor Harcourt. Did you find out anything about the ghost?”

  “We may have.” Zach glanced at Liz, not quite certain how much he should say, worried that he might upset Maria. He decided to leave out as much as he could, yet try to reassure her that they were moving forward to solve the problem. “We think the child you saw may be a little girl named Carrie Ann Whitt. She disappeared from her parents’ home in September of 1969.”

  “Did she die in the house?”

  “There’s a chance she died in the old house that used to be there before. We don’t know yet for certain. In the meantime, Miguel says you’re going to stay with Señora Garcia until the baby comes.”

  She nodded.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Liz said, holding on to her hand. “I told Miguel you’re welcome to stay at my apartment if you’d rather.”

  “I want to stay close to my husband and my home.”

  “I can understand that.” Elizabeth managed a smile. “In the meantime, we’re going to keep working to figure things out.”

  They talked a while longer, Maria a little more relaxed, since she wouldn’t be returning to the house. As they left the room, Zach spotted Miguel walking down the corridor, carrying a foam cup of coffee in his hand. He looked even more haggard than he had the last time they had seen him—his hair standing up in places, his clothes wrinkled. He saw them and came to a stop outside the door.

  “They are keeping her a few more days,” he said. “Then she will be able to go home.” His eyes were red and they darted nervously back and forth between Zach and Liz.

  Liz gave him a smile. “Maria looks much better.”