A Kiss In The Dark

Zito sighed, motioning for Dylan to follow him around the wide porch. “Five minutes.”

The side of the house boasted a wall of windows, giving Dylan a distorted view into Bethany’s world. The thick, beveled glass denied detail, but not impression. Everywhere he looked, shades of white glared back at him—flooring, furniture, art.

Near the back of the house, French doors hung open, revealing another room, where a sheet lay draped over a form near the fireplace. Three uniformed cops stood around talking, while two technicians examined the fire poker. A photographer busily recorded the scene.

“No matter how hard it is, boys, we go on. From now on, I’ll be more like a father, than a grandfather. And you’ll be more like brothers than cousins.”

“But you’re not my father!” eleven-year-old Dylan raged. “And he’s not my brother! We don’t even like each other.”

“Then you’ll just have to pretend, won’t you?”

“It’s the St. Croix way,” thirteen-year-old Lance added, earning his grandfather’s approving smile. “It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

But there was no pretending now. Lance, the complicated cousin who’d never become a brother despite how hard Dylan tried, really did lie dead on the living room floor. And apparently Bethany had blood on her hands.

Remorse clogged Dylan’s throat, the hopes and dreams of two very different little boys who’d grown up to fall in love with the same woman. Somehow, he kept walking.

“She’s just around the corner,” Zito said.

Dylan stopped before turning, taking in the elaborate cabana and pool area. In the distance, the fading light of early evening cast the Cascades a giant, misshapen shadow against a horizon streaked with shades of crimson.

Even the sky seemed to be bleeding.

And then, for only the second time since that cold night on the mountain, when a snowstorm had shattered the preternatural indifference he’d lived with for six years, he saw her.

“She’s all yours,” Zito indicated with a sweep of his hand.

A hard sound of denial broke from Dylan’s throat. Zito couldn’t be more wrong. Bethany Rae Kincaid had never been all his. Never all anyone’s.

But still, his heart kicked, hard. And the years between them crumbled, just like they had on the mountain.

The ice princess, they’d called her in high school. She held herself apart from the world, refusing to fully give, fully surrender herself to anyone, least of all Dylan. Except when they’d been in bed. Then, she’d literally come apart in his arms. But after, after she’d always sewn herself up a little tighter.

Some things never changed.

The sight of her sitting in a chaise lounge, holding a black-and-white cat and staring toward the mountains, stirred something he’d thought finally dead. Her long chestnut hair was tangled, her creamy skin alarmingly pale. Blood stained her slinky ivory robe. Her feet were bare.

“Pink or red?”

She looked at him, laughing. “What?”

“Your toenails,” he said, running his hand along her high arch. “I want to paint them. Pink or red?”

The memory cut in from somewhere long forgotten, prompting Dylan to swear softly. In the end, she’d chosen red. At her wedding, she’d worn pink.

That damning, defining night in the cabin, there’d been no color at all.

Dylan clenched his hands into tight fists. Damn her. Damn her for turning him into a gnarled mess, while his cousin lay dead inside and she sat there perfectly calm. Untouched.

Untouchable.

He wanted to tear across the patio and take her shoulders in his hands, put his mouth to hers, breathe some life into her. He wanted answers. He wanted to understand. He wanted—

He wanted to stop wanting.

A cool breeze drifted across the flagstone, bringing with it the scent of jasmine that was quintessential Bethany. Or maybe that was only his imagination. Slowly, he stepped into the shadows of twilight and started toward her. Birdseed crunched beneath his loafers, drawing the cat’s attention, but not Bethany’s. Big and scruffy and missing most of one ear, the black-and-white narrowed yellow eyes and watched Dylan approach.

His heart hammered cruelly. Look at me, he raged silently. He wanted her to turn to him, acknowledge him. He wanted to see those startling blue eyes rimmed by the darkest, thickest lashes he’d ever known, see what truths lurked in those deep, deep depths. What lies.

But classic Bethany, she didn’t grant his wish. She just sat there, seemingly oblivious to the world around her, staring beyond the pool that looked more like a lagoon. The evening breeze sent ripples across the turquoise surface, while a stunning waterfall at the far corner babbled peacefully. The wall of rocks seemed to weep. Birds sang.

And deep inside Dylan, something twisted.

It was a damn peaceful scene for a murder.

Beth St. Croix stared blindly across the cabana. Nearly sunset, she knew shadows would be stretching across the pool, but she could bring nothing into focus. The world beyond was hazy, cold. Frozen.

Or maybe that was her.

Till death do us part rang with a finality she’d never expected on that cold day she and Lance had quit pretending theirs was a real marriage. Legal documents couldn’t make up for the distance that had settled between them. She could still see the suitcases sitting against the white marble of the foyer, the empty shelf in the entertainment center where CDs and DVDs had once been stacked. She hadn’t asked him to stay.

Hadn’t wanted him to.

Ma’am, where’s the body?

Horror surged, clogged. Bile backed up in her throat. Once, in a fit of rage, her mother had thrown an iron candlestick at a sliding door. The thick glass had cracked into thousands of misshapen pieces, but by some miracle remained intact. Fascinated by the sun streaming through the prism of color, a six-year-old Beth had put her hand to the surface, only to have the shards crumble, slicing her palm to the bone as they fell to the cold tile floor.

Now, with absolute certainty, Beth knew if she so much as moved, she’d shatter just like that door.

Wake up, she commanded herself fiercely. Wake up! It was time to leave this terrible dream behind, to claw her way out of the frozen cocoon where each breath stabbed like daggers. She had to make her legs work, so she could go back inside and make Lance wake up. Tell the police there’d been a terrible mistake.

Without warning, a low hum broke through the stillness, a sharp wind rushing through a narrow ravine.

“Bethany.”

Her heart staggered, but in some faraway corner of her mind, she wondered what had taken him so long. He always invaded the shadowy realm of her dreams sooner or later, tall and strong, eyes burning, touch searing.

“I came as soon as I heard.”

The hoarse voice settled around her like a steadying hand, a lifeline back from that frozen place she’d slipped into upon finding Lance. She wanted to turn to him, feel his arms close around her like they had one cold, desperate night. Instead, she held herself very still, acutely aware that if she so much as blinked, if she let go of that tight grip she held on herself, she risked losing hold of all those nasty sharp pieces she’d gathered up and shoved deep before the police arrived.

“Bethany,” he said a little stronger, a lot harder. “Look at me.”

No, she thought wildly. No. But slowly, she turned to face him. She’d never been able to deny him anything, at least not in her dreams. In real life the cost had been shattering, but she’d learned the importance of denying him everything. Fire burned. She knew that, couldn’t afford to forget.

He towered over her, his big body blocking out the last fragile rays of the sun. Familiarity faded as well. In her dreams, her memories, he always, always touched her.

Now he just stared, his eyes hot and condemning. And she knew. God help her, she knew. Dylan was here. Here! Which meant she wasn’t dreaming. She was awake. Horribly, vividly awake.