Chapter 12.

The sun heated their naked skin as they played together in the river, the water refreshingly cool in contrast to the hot summer sunshine. Laughing, Lorie lifted a handful of water and threw it into Mike's face.

"You'll pay for that," he warned her.

When he reached for her, she didn't put up even a token resistance. He yanked her up against him, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, covered only by two strips of cloth and a string tie, pressed into his hard, naked chest. As he cupped her b.u.t.t with both hands, he lowered his head and claimed her mouth in a hungry kiss. She opened for him, took his tongue inside and closed her lips around him. He groaned deep and low, the sound rumbling from his throat.

Every cell in her body came alive, tingling, igniting with an internal fire that nothing except making love with Mike could extinguish. But only for a little while, only until he touched her again. It had been that way for both of them from the very first time he had kissed her.

With his arm around her waist, he walked her out of the shallow backwaters of the river, their bodies dripping wet as they stepped onto the sh.o.r.e. He slipped his hand inside her bikini bottoms and caressed her b.u.t.tocks. Her femininity tightened and released. Aroused by his touch, her body instantly prepared for mating. Her nipples hardened. Moisture gathered between her thighs. Her feminine core swelled with antic.i.p.ation.

Mike led her off into a secluded area in the nearby woods where earlier they had spread a blanket and eaten their picnic lunch. With sunlight dappling through the thicket of decades-old trees, he laid her down on the ratty old quilt he kept in the trunk of his prized Mustang. How many times had they made love on that quilt?

Sighing dreamily as she looked into the face of the man she adored, Lorie reached up for him and drew him down to her. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, and the upper swell of each breast. Then he pushed aside her clinging arms and lifted her just enough to untie the bikini top and whip it off her. Totally exposed from the belly b.u.t.ton up, she wriggled with pleasure as his hands explored every inch of her hips and b.u.t.t while his mouth moved over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stomach. When he nuzzled the edge of her bikini bottoms, she lifted her hips enough for him to drag them down and off. The minute she was completely naked, he buried his face in the triangle of auburn curls between her thighs. His tongue snaked out, seeking and finding her c.l.i.toris.

He licked. She whimpered.

He stroked. She shivered.

He sucked. She cried out his name.

Alternating his moves, he used his mouth and tongue to bring her to the brink while his fingers rose to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to give them equal attention.

Lorie speared her fingers into his thick black hair, encouraging him to give her what she so desperately needed.

He increased the tempo of his strokes until she came, her o.r.g.a.s.m rocketing through her, exploding inside her, shaking her from head to toe. Crying out with pleasure, she clung to him while he lifted himself up and shucked out of his wet swim trunks. Fully erect, his p.e.n.i.s jutted forward from a bed of black curls. She reached up and touched him. He groaned.

"I love you, Lorie. G.o.d in heaven, I love you!"

He thrust into her fully, her slick, wet body more than ready for him. He lifted her hips to bring her closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moved sensuously against him.

"I love you," she whispered as he delved and withdrew, delved and withdrew. "Love you...love you..."

Seconds later he came, grunting and trembling. His release triggered a second climax for her and the moment she came apart beneath him, Mike eased down on top of her, wet with sweat and panting softly.

She kissed him again and again.

He slipped off her and stretched out at her side. They lay there together, sated and happy, young and in love.

"Do you think it will always be like this?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think it will," he replied. "Even after we've been married twenty years and have half a dozen kids."

She rolled over onto her side and kissed his damp, darkly tanned shoulder. "Giving birth six times will probably ruin my figure. In twenty years, I'll be fat and flabby and-"

"And still s.e.xy." He ran his fingertips across her chest, from collarbone to collarbone. "Don't you know that I'll always love you and want you, no matter what? Nothing can ever change the way I feel about you."

She sighed contentedly. "I'll love you forever, Michael Birkett."

Forever...forever...forever...

Lorie woke suddenly, the word forever forever on her lips. on her lips.

She sat straight up in bed, her skin moist with perspiration, her body remembering the o.r.g.a.s.m she'd had in her dream. A dream that had seemed so real.

It was real, or at least it had been. Years ago when she and Mike had been together, a couple of kids who'd had no idea what the future held for them.

A soft rap on her bedroom door brought Lorie completely back to the present. She glanced at her bedside clock. 5:45 A.M A.M. Nearly an hour before her alarm would go off.

"Yes?" Lorie called.

"Are you all right?" Sh.e.l.ley Gilbert, the Powell agent who had replaced Maleah, asked her through the closed door.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"I thought I heard you crying out and I wanted to make sure everything is okay."

"Come on in," Lorie said. "See for yourself. I was dreaming and must have been talking in my sleep."

Sh.e.l.ley eased opened the door and peered into the semidark bedroom. She scanned the entire area and then smiled at Lorie. "If you're getting up, I'll go put on a pot of coffee."

"The coffeemaker is preset for six-thirty, but yes, please reset it to start immediately. I'll join you in a couple of minutes."

"Sure thing."

Sh.e.l.ley had arrived Sunday night and Lorie had liked her immediately. Medium height and solidly built, the thirty-something woman looked the way Lorie thought a female bodyguard should-intelligent, nondescript in appearance, and with a tough glint in her keen blue eyes. Her short, wash-and-go brown hair, a minimum of makeup, sensible, low-heeled black shoes, and all-business attire consisting of tan slacks, white shirt, and a black blazer only added to her overall aura of competence.

Although their conversations hadn't gotten personal, not beyond the basic facts, Lorie felt comfortable around Sh.e.l.ley. And she felt safe. Sh.e.l.ley seemed more than capable of defending not only herself, but Lorie, too.

Doing her best not to think about the erotic dream that had given her an o.r.g.a.s.m, Lorie hurried into the bathroom.

After flushing the commode, she washed her hands, dampened a cloth, and washed her face. Staring at herself in the mirror, she ran her fingers through her disheveled hair.

"It was just a dream," she told herself.

No, it was more than a dream. It was a memory of a long-ago summer day when Mike had loved her and everything had been good and clean and right in her world.

Duane Hines lived in a little town called Carey, Missouri, seventy-five miles south of St. Louis. He had been easy to locate. The last two letters he had written and sent in care of Dillard's Starlight Production Company-one letter to the late Hilary Finch Chambless and the other to Lorie Hammonds-had included his return address. If the man was a killer, he was a d.a.m.n stupid one.

At present, Derek and Maleah Perdue were a.s.signed to locate and speak to potential suspects. The main office in Knoxville had the job of locating all the Midnight Masquerade Midnight Masquerade actors. Each actor was being notified about the deaths of their three costars and asked if they had received any threatening letters during the past few months. Only if Nic and Griff believed that there might be a crossover in the potential victims and possible suspects categories would Derek and Perdue personally interview that actor. And the decision would be based on facts unearthed by Powell's investigation. actors. Each actor was being notified about the deaths of their three costars and asked if they had received any threatening letters during the past few months. Only if Nic and Griff believed that there might be a crossover in the potential victims and possible suspects categories would Derek and Perdue personally interview that actor. And the decision would be based on facts unearthed by Powell's investigation.

Derek preferred to drive, but he hadn't made an issue of it with Perdue, knowing full well that she was a lady who needed to be in charge. He would bet his last dime on one fact-somewhere in Perdue's past there was a man who had subjected her to complete and humiliating submission. All the signs were there, even if she wasn't aware of it.

The more time he spent with Maleah Perdue, the more fascinated he became with her. Despite her bristly att.i.tude toward him, he found himself liking her. He liked that she was smart and s.p.u.n.ky and worked diligently at keeping her emotions under control. He figured it really bothered her that he got under her skin.

Was there something about him that reminded her of the man in her past?

What other reason could there be for her to dislike him so intensely? It wasn't that he expected everybody to love him. h.e.l.l, even his own mother didn't love him. But for the most part, people in general liked him. After all, he was a nice guy, wasn't he?

"Look for number ten," Perdue told Derek as she turned off the main road and drove into the Poplar Creek Trailer Park.

A couple of minutes later, Derek pointed to a small, rusty trailer anch.o.r.ed beneath a couple of towering poplar trees. "There it is."

"Lovely place." She turned up her nose.

"Now, now, don't be judgmental."

"Oh, shut up."

Perdue pulled their rental car up beside an older model Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She got out and marched up the rickety wooden steps in front of the single door. Derek waited a few feet behind her while she knocked several times.

No response.

"He should be home," she said. "Our report stated that he was laid off from his last job a month ago and is drawing unemployment."

Perdue knocked again.

The door eased open and a dark-haired man in jeans and a wifebeater undershirt that exposed his hairy chest and arms looked at her and smiled. "Well, h.e.l.lo there."

"Duane Hines?" she asked.

"Sure am, sweet thing. And just who are you?" His grin widened, revealing uneven, discolored teeth.

Derek wondered in what universe did this skinny, yellow-toothed degenerate think that a woman such as Maleah Perdue would actually give him the time of day.

"I'm Ms. Perdue, with the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency," she told him. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about your obsession with the movie Midnight Masquerade Midnight Masquerade."

He stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language, then burst into laughter. "You're kidding, right?" His bloodshot, watery brown eyes narrowed as he ran his gaze over Perdue's body, pausing at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"She's not kidding." Derek stepped forward, coming up beside her.

Hines's smile vanished when he saw Derek. "You a private d.i.c.k, too?" He inclined his head toward Perdue. "You with her?"

"Yeah, I'm with Ms. Perdue. And we'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Maybe I don't want to talk to you," Hines said. "Maybe I just want to talk to her." He grinned lasciviously at Perdue.

"I'm sure that can be arranged, a private talk between the two of you," Derek said. "But you should know that the lady carries a ten-shot Ruger P93. And I've seen her at target practice. She's good. d.a.m.n good. Besides that, I've heard that she can disarm an opponent twice her size without breaking a sweat."

Perdue glanced over her shoulder at Derek and barely restrained the smile twitching the corners of her mouth.

"You're not cops, just PIs." Hines frowned. "I don't have to talk to you."

"No, you don't have to talk to us," Perdue said. "But one call and I can have the Carey PD out here in ten minutes flat. If you'd rather talk to them-"

"Who hired you?" Hines looked from Perdue to Derek. "One of them b.i.t.c.hes from that movie? Writing fan letters isn't against no law. I haven't done nothing illegal."

"Would you prefer to have this conversation out here for all your neighbors to see and speculate about, or would you rather invite us in?" Derek asked.

Hines glanced around and saw that several of the trailer park's occupants were milling around outside their trailers and doing their best not to be conspicuous about their curiosity.

"Come on in." Hines stepped back inside his trailer and left the door open.

The interior, though shabby and cluttered, looked and smelled fairly clean, which surprised Derek. Hines swiped a stack of magazines off the sofa and copies of Playboy Playboy, Penthouse Penthouse, and Hustler Hustler scattered over the floor. scattered over the floor.

"Take a load off." Hines pointed to the seen-better-days plaid sofa.

Derek waited for Perdue to sit and then he sat beside her, leaving a couple of feet between them, making sure he didn't invade her personal s.p.a.ce.

"Before I answer your questions, I want you to answer mine-who hired you?"

"Our agency represents the families of two of the Midnight Masquerade Midnight Masquerade actors," Perdue said. "You probably know the actors as Dewey Flowers and Woody Wilson." actors," Perdue said. "You probably know the actors as Dewey Flowers and Woody Wilson."

"Dewey Flowers," Hines sighed. "Now there is one sweet piece of..." He caught himself before finishing the vulgar expression and looked right at Maleah. "I've had more than one wet dream starring starring Miss Flowers, believe you me." His puzzled expression scrunched his face. "Did her family hire you to track me down and warn me to stop writing her? 'Cause that's all I've done-just write her some letters telling her how much I like her." Miss Flowers, believe you me." His puzzled expression scrunched his face. "Did her family hire you to track me down and warn me to stop writing her? 'Cause that's all I've done-just write her some letters telling her how much I like her."

"When was the last time you wrote to Ms. Flowers?" Derek asked.

"Hmm..." Hines rubbed his thumb over the beard stubble darkening his chin. "Sometime last year. Never heard back from that one."

"You didn't happen to send any letters to her home address this year, did you? Letters telling her that she was going to die?" Perdue focused directly on Hines.

"h.e.l.l, no! Is that what's going on here? Somebody's written Miss Flowers and threatened her? It wasn't me. Swear to G.o.d, it wasn't. I wouldn't harm a hair on that pretty little head of hers. Besides, where would I get her home address?"

Derek's gut told him Duane Hines was probably telling the truth. No doubt he was a s.e.xual deviant and an altogether reprehensible human being, but those undesirable qualities did not make him a murderer.

Derek and Perdue exchanged brief looks that he interpreted to mean they were in agreement about Hines. And ten minutes later, they left the trailer park and headed back to the airport where they would eat supper and catch a night flight to Laredo.

Once on the road a few miles from the trailer park, Derek broke the silence between them. "My educated guess is that whoever our killer is, he has the means to buy airline tickets from wherever he lives to Knoxville, Memphis, and Arizona."

"Yeah, I agree. And Hines looks like he doesn't have two nickels to rub together."

"Our killer isn't necessarily wealthy, but not only does he have to have enough money for airline tickets and enough to afford the fancy masks he left on each victim, but possibly fake ID, disguises, and hotel rooms. And he has to be able to take time away from his job."

"Travis Dillard could afford to pay for airline tickets to just about anywhere and it's possible he still owned the masks used in the movie."