In This Skin Page 5

  ”Dinner's on the table, boys. I'm going back to bed for a while.”

  Benedict saw that the young guy (the guy he now knew to be Ellery Hann) still helped her by the arm. A moment later Ellery Hann slipped out the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. He had none of the coarse features of his brother and father. The bones of his cheeks and jaw were fine. Even the skin looked smoother and brighter than the dull, stubbled and blotchy faces of the two men nearest Benedict.

  The one called Matt caught Ellery's eye and jerked his head in the direction of Benedict. ”This guy says he's got your wallet?”

  Ellery's bright, intelligent eyes fixed on it. He nodded.

  Matt sniffed. ”El says it's his.”

  To Ellery, Benedict said, ”Do you want to check the contents to make sure the-”

  Matt interrupted. ”It's cool. Besides, it wasn't the money you were interested in.”

  Benedict leaned forward to catch a close look at Ellery. It also took him so close to Pop that he could smell the man's pungent breath. ”I just wanted to make sure you were okay when I brought the wallet back.”

  Pop growled. ”Why shouldn't he be okay?”

  ”Yeah.”Matt sniffed. ”What did you do to him?”That was obviously intended to stir the big man's anger again. Matt was disappointed that the old man hadn't slung a couple of punches in Benedict's face.

  Thanks for nothing, Matt, Benedict thought. Just when he figured he could slip away from this house-of-not-so-many-delights without a pair of black eyes.

  ”Yeah…”Some mental image sidled into the man's heavy skull. A mental image that disgusted him. Rage flared in his eyes. ”Yeah, what have you done to my son! Your sort revolt me! You know that?”

  Benedict stepped back. This time Ellery slipped under his father's elbow as the big guy posed there with his hands on his hips, all belligerence and venom. Ellery stood between the two, looked down at the wallet and nodded. Benedict handed it to him. Ellery glanced up at him with two clear blue eyes. He nodded a thank you, then ducked back under his father's timber-like arms to disappear into the gloom of the house.

  There was one of those pauses, an empty void that begged someone to say something or do something.

  ”Whatcha want? A certificate of gratitude?”Pop swung the door shut. It crashed against the jamb two inches from Benedict's nose.

  For a second Benedict didn't move, despite the urge to head back to his car as quickly as he could. In the bright light of day he'd gotten a close look at the young man with the stammer. Last night the guy had had the face of a crushed strawberry. His nose and eyes were split. Blood splashed everywhere. Less than twenty-four hours later Benedict had seen Hann's face close up as he took the wallet. Was there a scab or a graze or a bruise?

  No. Nothing. Only the faintest mottling on his cheek that could have marked the position of two-week-old bruises. Nothing else.

  So, Ellery Hann, how do you heal from a vicious beating in twelve hours?

  Answer me that one.

  As Benedict returned to his car he found himself puzzling over the question without an answer.

  ***

  By late Saturday afternoon Noel was getting horny again. They were alone in Robyn's house. She knew it was right for him to slip off her skirt, then start kissing her inner thighs the way he always did. Only in her heart it didn't feel right.

  Why is it that my libido's decreased while Noel's has skyrocketed? Robyn Vincent pulled his head to her chest as they lay together on the couch.

  She ran her fingers through his softly curling hair while he massaged her breasts.

  Oh, God, I want to run screaming for the bathroom. If he tries to push himself into me I'm gonna scream. I know it. I'm gonna yell, scratch him. But that's the last thing I want. I love him. He loves me; this should be perfect.

  She closed her eyes. Music from the stereo filled the room. Romance should have floated in the air. Instead…

  ”Robyn?”

  ”Hmm?”

  ”You all right?”

  ”Yeah. I'm fine. Why?”

  ”The muscles in your arms are like steel.”

  ”Must be a little tense.”

  ”A little?”He sat up. ”Anything you're not telling me?”

  She almost flinched. Had she been so transparent that he saw her anxiety? She forced a smile. ”I'm cool, baby.”

  ”Good.”He kissed her on the mouth. ”You were starting to worry me there.

  I thought you were building up to breaking some bad news to me.”

  Robyn tried to laugh in a lighthearted way as if what he'd said was ridiculous. It sounded strained to her ears. Off the top of her head she said, ”Mom and Emerson are at a shareholders' meeting today. He's been planning a merger with one of his major rivals.”She shrugged. ”Everyone's been walking on eggshells here lately ”It's that important?”

  ”You should hear Emerson rehearsing his shareholders' speech in the bathroom day and night. I know more about plastic injection molding than any other nineteen-year-old I know. Ow.”

  ”What's wrong?”Natural concern came so easy to Noel. A guy in a million.

  Sensitive. Good-looking. Talented.

  ”Ouch… ouch. I must have been sitting awkwardly. It's just a cramp.”

  ”In your stomach?”

  She smiled. ”It happens.”

  ”But I didn't think your… ah… you know?”

  ”Period? It's OK to say the word, Noel.”She laughed, genuinely amused at his sudden shyness. ”No. I'm not due for a couple of weeks.”

  ”Phew. What a relief.”Grinning, Noel unfastened a couple more shirt buttons, then placed a muscular hand on her knee. ”Come on, let's go to the bedroom. It's time I put some real effort into relaxing you properly.”

  He kissed her on the mouth again, his hand running up the outside of her thigh. Crunch time. She'd been trying to postpone this. There was no way she could permit him to make love to her. Yesterday she'd almost gone out of her mind when he slipped inside her. His penis had felt invasive… something completely alien. Repellent. Now she'd have to come out with the word: NO. Tell him she couldn't make love. But what excuse could she make that didn't sound lame? A headache? Would he suspect her of falling in love with some other guy? As his tongue worked against hers and the rush of his respiration filled her ears, her mind clamored, striving to find some excuse.

  ”I'm going to undress you slowly,”he murmured, his eyes inches from hers. ”Then I'm going to start at your toes. Kissing… kissing all the way up… then I'm going to make my tongue work for a living.”He smiled. ”I'm not going to rest until I've…”He shut one eye and grinned. ”Not rest until I've pleasured you. Then I'm going to make love to you very gently, very slowly. I'm going to take at least an hour. Because I want to stay inside you for as long as I…”He kissed her throat. ”… possibly…”Then kissed her chin.”… can.”

  Standing up, he effortlessly picked her up from the sofa. Once she'd adored it when he cradled her in his arms. She'd always felt so safe and so loved. Now she wanted to scream. It took all her willpower not to fight her way from his grip.

  A crunch of gravel came from outside.

  She stiffened. ”That's my mom's car.”

  ”Are you sure? ”Positive. Can't you hear the garage door?”

  ”Oh, damn.”He wrinkled his nose in disappointment.

  ”Don't worry lover man.”Relieved, she kissed him on the cheek as he carefully put her feet first on the floor. ”I'll fix some food and we can watch TV in the conservatory!' ”I'd rather be making whoopee with you, Robyn.”

  ”You and me both.”Wow. A little white lie.

  He hugged her. ”But it won't be long until we're alone again.”He gave her a loving squeeze. ”Mom and Dad will be playing tennis tomorrow morning. Come over then.”

  Robyn scrunched her shoulders and smiled as if nothing could give her greater pleasure. The thing was, she felt a massive sense of relief that her mom was home.

  ”Back ea
rly, isn't she, Rob?”Noel frowned. ”I thought you said six. It isn't even four yet.”

  ”Change of plan, I guess.”She touched his chest. ”Don't forget these.

  I'll go brush my hair'' She left him to fasten his shirt buttons. When she returned from her bedroom, she found her mother standing at the top of the stairs, blocking the way. She looked formidable, a guardian of the gate.

  ”Mom?”

  ”I've asked Noel to go home.”

  ”You've done what?”Robyn shook her head, bewildered. ”Why on earth have you-”

  ”Robyn… Robyn. Hear me out. Please.”Standing there in her business suit she wore the grimmest of expressions.

  ”But why send Noel home? What must he be thinking? I'm nineteen, I-”

  ”Robyn. Emerson's downstairs in the lounge. He has to make some telephone calls… a lot.”She managed to make ”a lot”sound so ominous that Robyn's words dried. ”You're right, Robyn. You're nineteen. You're not a child, so I'll tell you how we stand. The shareholders voted for Emerson's company to merge with JLZ.”

  ”That's what he wanted, isn't it?”

  ”Yes.”Her mother's eyes glittered. ”But they're ungrateful sons of bitches, Robyn. They also passed a vote of no-confidence in Emerson.

  He's had to resign from the board.”

  ”They can't do that, surely”

  ”They can. The shareholders own a majority of Emerson Holdings' shares.”

  Robyn's stomach muscles twitched. The spasms were returning. When her mother stopped speaking, Robyn whispered, ”He's going to be all right, isn't he?”

  ”We'll survive.”

  ”They'll have to buy out his interest in the company, won't they?”

  Her mother took a steadying breath, so she could regain that glacial composure of old. ”Everything's in hock to the bank. He doesn't have one red cent that he can call his own.”Pale-faced, she let her eyes rove back down the stairs, taking in the walls and expensive rugs. ”Last year Emerson's company went through a bad patch. I mortgaged the house to get him on his feet again.” She turned around and walked swiftly downstairs with the words, ”Don't get sentimental about this place, Robyn. It belongs to the bank now.”

  The muscles jerked so painfully in Robyn's stomach it came like a blow.

  She turned away so her mother didn't notice. The pain doubled her.

  Unable to straighten, she somehow managed to reach her bedroom where she folded in on herself, lying down on the floor, her knees up to her chest. Spasms tore through her body as if the muscles fought one another, trying to tear themselves free. The pain came with such a flaming intensity she couldn't think coherently When the pain subsided at last the one word that formed clearly in her mind was: Homeless.

  Insanely, the second the word homeless formed in her mind, her stomach muscles fluttered again, threatening to spasm with that searing flash of agony. At that moment she knew a profound change had taken place inside of her. But what change? Why do I feel as if I've lost control of my body? In the distance she could hear Emerson shouting into the telephone. In another room her mother was weeping.

  CHAPTER 5

  Unless you plan suicide, or you've been nailed with a date for execution, you rarely know when tragedy is going to strike in your life.

  Tonight's finger of fate is going to point at these two teenagers.

  They're walking toward the haunted-looking structure known as the Luxor…

  ”You're kidding me.””No, I'm not.”

  ”You gotta be.”

  ”Have you seen the prices those old posters are fetching on eBay?”

  ”But in there? At this time of night? You don't know who's lurking-”

  ”It's deserted, Kay!”

  ”Yeah, apart from the psycho with the butcher knife.”

  ”Here's the flashlight. Wait…”He caught her by the wrist. ”Don't switch it on here.”He grinned in the gloom. ”Wait until we're inside.

  Okay?”

  ”Or the cops will see us? Right.”Uneasily she looked up at the mock-Egyptian tomb-maybe-temple facade of the Luxor. ”Knowing my luck I'll be going home in a cop car-or a casket.”

  He wasn't listening. ”Come on, there'll be a way in somewhere.”

  Kay followed. Despite her initial aversion to Leon's plan, a growing excitement tickled her veins. She'd been a tomboy as a kid. She loved these wacky stunts, sneaking into orchards to steal apples or even petty shoplifting in her local supermarket. It had only been items like candy or products she didn't even want or need, oven cleaner or dental floss.

  The buzz was the thing. The buzz. A blast of adrenaline that filled her with electricity that made her feel alive. The other great love of her life when she was twelve was to run with a gang of boys to the railway track and leap onto the coal trucks as they rumbled toward one of the power plants. They'd ride them for a mile until the train hauled by an aggregate's yard. There, they'd jump from the train onto mounds of bright yellow builder's sand. All the time yelling, laughing, waving their arms, screaming ”SHIIIIIIT!” at the tops of their voices. Then came the added rush of being chased out of the yard by the security guard who only had three speeds-tortoise, slow and waddle.

  Jeepers-creepers! He had man-tits that jiggled like a hooker's when he moved.

  Now five years later and aged seventeen, the old magic returned. That old buzz.

  ”Hey, slow down, Kay!”

  ”What's the matter?”

  ”We're supposed to be doing this quietly. You know? Surreptitiously?”

  ”Come on, Leon. No one can see us here. This place hasn't been open in years.”

  ”Well, take it nice and easy girl, OK? If I get in any more shit my probation officer's going to quit saving my ass.”

  ”Leon, you won't get jail for this. It's only a few posters.”

  ”Right.”He grinned again, and brushed a curl of hair from her cheek. A friendly gesture of affection. ”But take it easy. There might be broken glass and stuff.”

  Kay found herself smiling one of those aren't-I-pretty kind of smiles that she hated to see on a girl when they were going all drippy luvy-duvy. ”Aw, come on, Leon. Let's find those posters.”

  They walked along the Luxor, keeping close to the wall. With the time creeping toward midnight, they moved in all but total darkness. Kay felt the crap of ten years' neglect shift and crackle beneath her feet.

  Broken bottles. Cans. Fast-food clams. Discarded tires. A child's stroller even sat outside the fire exit. For one queasy moment Kay thought a baby sat in the stroller but it was only a nude plastic doll minus a head.

  ”Charming place,”Leon whispered.

  ”Yeah, reminds me of home.”

  ”Wait, wait, girl. This looks like it.”He'd noticed a loose board over the door. The panel beneath had been kicked through. ”Looks like someone's already been inside.”

  ”They might have taken the posters.”

  ”Nah, they'd have been looking for lead piping or brass fittings.”He grinned. Kay noticed for the first time what a beautiful white his teeth were. ”They won't have been interested in posters. They'd have been a pile of crap to them. Grab this. I'll go first.”He handed her his flashlight as he went down on all fours to crawl into the shadowed interior of the Luxor. With a tingle down her spine she saw how rounded his buttocks were, while the muscled thighs made her knees begin to twitch. Stop it, you idiot, she scolded herself. This is Leon. You've hung out with him since you were ten. The strongest emotion you ever felt over him was when he threw a Star Wars action figure at you and cut your lip. You kicked him between the legs so hard he'd had to sit on his rear for a full ten minutes, nursing his bruised nuts with both hands. Of course, they'd only been eleven years old then.

  They were still out enjoying adventures together, even though they'd hit seventeen. This time Leon had suggested they visit the old Luxor where his ma used to work as a waitress twenty years ago. He'd been trawling through the auction pages on eBay and found that collectors were paying
hard cash (and plenty of it) for old pop and rock memorabilia. High on the list of collectibles were concert posters. A dog-eared Talking Heads poster from 1977 fetched twelve hundred bucks, while an early REM poster signed by the band brought some lucky owner more than five thousand. And if you had a poster of a pre-Army Elvis or pre-Yoko Beatles, then you had the price of a new car. Leon's idea was simple. Get into the Luxor.

  Get some posters. Auction them on eBay. ”You've gotta believe it, Kay!”he'd told her. ”There's gotta be posters in there. We'll be banking thousands, just you wait and see.”

  So she went along with it. They'd ridden out here in Leon's decrepit Honda with a pair of flashlights and high hopes. Only now she found herself taking a weird turn. She couldn't stop gazing at Leon. She found herself scanning his face as if she half expected to find something hidden there. And she kept finding reasons to touch him, whether to make a joke so she could pat his muscular arm or playfully jab him in the stomach with her fist. He took it in good fun, just like when they were kids, laughing and dancing around her. But the reasons why she patted him or play punched him were… well, they were different now. She tingled in his presence. She couldn't stop touching her hair, fluffing it, pushing it back, stroking strands down over her shoulder.

  ”Whoa. Kay. You going to stand there all night?”

  ”Uh?”

  ”Flashlight. It's black as midnight in here.”

  ”Sorry.' She handed him the flashlight, heard a click and saw the wash of radiance illuminate a red-painted concrete floor.

  ”Pass me your flashlight through first. Take it easy coming through; there's some tacks jutting out of the doorframe. There's no broken glass or nothing. You'll be okay.”

  She crawled through, then held up her hand for him to help her up. She wanted to feel that big strong hand around hers. He misinterpreted.

  Instead he gave her a flashlight.

  ”There's no windows here, so no one's gonna see lights from the road.