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  "Berlin is harmless."

  Maddie thought about the almost hypnotic power Eddie Berlin had lazily emitted. Thought about her sister's notes. Evelyn's claims. Her own reaction to the man. Harmless wasn't the word she would have used to describe him. Beguiling, maybe, but never harmless.

  She'd been around him only a few minutes and she couldn't get him out of her head. Several times she'd caught herself fantasizing about how his mouth would feel pressed to hers. And his hands… His hard body…

  Gable made a quick check of his watch, then got to his feet, chair scraping the floor. "Listen," he said, beginning to show signs of impatience. "I've got to pick up my daughter for an orthodontist appointment." He lifted his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. "I'll file a missing person report, but unless something comes up, some tangible evidence of possible foul play, that's all I can do." He rubbed the back of his neck, looked up at the ceiling, then at Maddie. "You may not know it, but then again, maybe you do, but your sister is a prostitute."

  "And that makes a difference?"

  He looked at her in a speculative way, as if he wondered what she did for a living.

  "My sister is a person. She deserves the same attention you would give anybody."

  "I'm not dismissing her because she's a prostitute. What I'm saying is that your sister's lifestyle wouldn't be all that traditional. She's an adult. She doesn't have to answer to anyone. She can go away for a month, or six months, or a year without checking in with anybody. It's not like she's a teacher, or an anchor on Channel 6 News. Prostitutes have no commitments except to their pimps. They come and go."

  Maddie understood what he was saying. They were talking about Enid here. Enid who'd stolen her car. Enid who'd never felt a shred of remorse, who didn't have a conscience.

  Yes, Enid probably just skipped town. Met some rich guy and took off with him.

  But what if she hadn't?

  That's what Maddie had to find out. Even if she had to start the investigation herself. She couldn't ignore the feeling that something might really be wrong. And that Eddie Berlin might be in some way connected to her sister's disappearance.

  Gable left his little cubbyhole of an office. Maddie followed, practically running to keep up. "Can't you at least talk to him?"

  Gable stopped. "Okay. I'll stop by his place when I get the chance."

  Get the chance? He was brushing her off. He'd make sure he never got the chance. "When?"

  "When? Soon."

  "How soon."

  She wasn't going to stop, wasn't going to let it go until he gave her an answer.

  He must have realized how determined she was. "Three days. No more than three days, okay?"

  Not okay, but it would have to do. "Yeah. Okay."

  "I'm not promising you anything. Eddie isn't receptive to people. He just wants to be alone. People don't understand that. It makes them think he's strange. It scares them." He looked her in the eye, giving added emphasis to his words. "A man's entitled to privacy. It doesn't mean he's guilty of something just because he wants to be left alone."

  ~0~

  Sitting at Enid's desk, receiver to her ear, Maddie punched in the first telephone number in Enid's appointment book. It turned out to be her sister's pimp.

  "She owes me two grand. I loaned her the money to buy a car. When you find her, send her my way."

  A car.

  Enid hadn't changed.

  "Have you heard anything from her?" Maddie asked.

  "Not for a month. She owes lots of people money. I figured she skipped town. My girls do that all the time. Take off with a client and don't come back."

  It was beginning to look more and more like that's exactly what had happened. Maddie was just letting her imagination overrule common sense. But then she'd never had a whole lot of common sense.

  "Hey, you looking for work? I can use another girl, especially now, with Enid gone."

  "Actually I'm in the market for something I can do fully clothed."

  He laughed. "Everybody's bashful at first. But they come around. I've got an easy job to start you on. Recluse that lives outside of town. Just called me about a girl with dark curly hair and white skin. You got dark hair?"

  "Y-yes."

  "Don't matter. The only time Eddie calls is when he's loaded. Too loaded to perform. All he does is pass out."

  "I'll take it.”

  Chapter 8

  It's Amazing

  Maddie wormed her way into one of Enid's skin-tight dresses.

  She couldn't breathe.

  She bent over to pick up a pair of high heels. Her breasts shifted, and one nipple popped out over the top of the red fabric.

  She tugged at the plunging neckline, pulling it higher. The hem crept up. She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her panties were showing. There was no way to keep both areas covered at the same time.

  This was ridiculous. She couldn't step out the door in such a getup. She'd be arrested for indecent exposure.

  Al—her pimp's name was Al—had told her Eddie would be so drunk he wouldn't even notice her hair color. If he didn't notice her hair color, then maybe he wouldn't notice anything else.

  Arm bent like a pretzel, Maddie unzipped the back of the dress, then fought her way out, tossing the restrictive garment to the floor.

  Air.

  Wonderful air.

  She tried on two other outfits, both just as bad.

  She was too practical for such clothes. What if her car broke down and she had to walk? What if the smothering heat took a turn and it got chilly? And the main thing. Comfort. If she was going to snoop through Eddie Berlin's house while he was passed out on the couch, she needed comfortable clothes. And if she needed to run fast, or at least as fast as an out-of-shape person could run, she needed her own shoes. Practical shoes.

  She also decided it might be a good idea to wear something hard to get into. Or rather, hard to get out of.

  Her own cutoffs along with a black T-shirt. A leather belt that should have come with its own set of pliers, it was that hard to undo. A pair of jogging shoes for a quick getaway.

  Chastity. Just call me Chastity.

  Makeup?

  Forget it. Time was a wastin'. She didn't want to take the chance that he might sober up.

  A wasted Eddie Berlin would even out the playing field.

  ~0~

  Maddie knocked on the loose screen door, her knuckles sore from repeated attempts to rouse someone. From inside, a dog barked.

  She knocked again, this time with her fist.

  "Nobody home."

  She jumped, her breath catching.

  The voice had come from behind her.

  It was a voice she recognized, even though she'd only heard it one other time.

  Eddie Berlin.

  She swung around, her eyes searching the clearing. Had he sounded drunk? On the verge of passing out? She hoped to God he had. Or she was in trouble. Big trouble, with a capital B that rhymed with E.

  "Eddie?"

  The wind kicked up. Dry grass rustled.

  "Hello?" she asked.

  His voice came to her from somewhere. Or nowhere. Because after all, that's where she was.

  "Do you know that if one tapeworm eats another, it gains the wisdom of the digested tapeworm?"

  Wisdom? She moved down the steps, toward the voice. "What kind of wisdom? Like the secret of the Taos Hum? Like whether or not See Threepio and Artoo Detoo are gay? Or whether or not Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon really works as a soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz?"

  He laughed. And her heart rhythm fluctuated in the most disturbing way. Maybe the field wasn't as level as she'd thought.

  Now she could hear music.

  A radio?

  Faint. Seductive.

  "They did these tests. Put the worms in mazes, then fed a mazed worm to an unmazed worm. The unmazed worm figured out the maze the first time."

  "Amazing."

  He laughed agai
n. "That's what I thought." A pause. "You're funny, know that?"

  "It runs in the family."

  She moved down the steps, in the direction she thought the voice had come from. He must have been hiding in the trees at the edge of the clearing. He must have been watching her.

  She stared hard into the thick trees and tangled undergrowth. Had she seen a movement? A flicker of something? Were those—

  Her foot caught.

  She seemed destined to keep up the grand entrances. Once again she went sprawling facedown, this time her fall was broken by a body. By a warm, firm, bare-chested body.

  Eddie Berlin.

  Lying face up in a tangle of weeds. Just lying there in the blazing sun, as if he didn't have a brain in his head.

  She started to push herself away when arms encircled her, holding her down, holding her compactly to his chest.

  "I was hoping you'd come."

  His speech was a little slow, as if he were thinking over his words carefully. She could smell the alcohol on him. It came from the sweat shimmering on his skin. It soaked into the front of her T-shirt.

  "I mean that in more ways than one."

  It took her a second to catch on. When she did, heat rose in her face, and she felt a tightening deep in her belly.

  "L-let me go."

  She was suddenly scared. He was supposed to have been completely out of it. She'd expected to be able to push him over with her pinkie finger.

  The sun seared through the back of her black shirt. Beneath her, his body radiated heat.

  "I told Al I wanted you."

  Before she could think of a new plan, his hand somehow worked its way between their two hot bodies. In less than a second, her belt, her chastity belt, was undone. The buttons on her pants popped open all the way down, and his hand was slipping inside her panties, his fingers quickly and expertly finding their way inside her.

  She let out a little gasp. A little yelp of total surprise.

  "Unzip my pants," he whispered. "Unzip my pants and straddle me."

  "Stop." She pushed at his arms.

  "Cover me."

  "Stop!"

  "You feel so good. So good."

  He rolled, so she was pinned to the ground beneath him, her breasts crushed against his naked chest.

  She felt him fumbling between them, then heard a zipper going down.

  She shoved her fingers deep into his hair, made two fists, and tugged as hard as she could. "Stop!"

  "Ow! Damn! Ow! Stop it! Let go of my hair. Damn!"

  She kept her hold. "I'll let go as soon as you get your hand out of my pants."

  "Okay! Okay!"

  His hand sprang away.

  "Now let go of me."

  He let go, rolling to his back.

  She jumped to her feet, one hand struggling to keep her shorts from falling around her ankles.

  "Whatsa matter with you?"

  She said the first thing that popped into her head. "I don't do it with drunks."

  "That's a good one," he mumbled, letting his arm drop across his face. "You're a hooker and you don't do drunks." His speech was thick, slurred. Lucky for her that he seemed able to control himself, drunk or not.

  "That's a good one," he mumbled again.

  This was the first clear look she'd gotten of him since their strange encounter.

  And Lord. What a sinful temptation he was.

  A perfect body, all suntanned and glistening, chest rising and falling from the exertion of their little battle. A path of dark hair leading south, disappearing into the low-slung waistband of baggy gray shorts that were still unzipped.

  The perfect sin.

  Nobody would know.

  He probably wouldn't even know.

  Hands shaking, she struggled with the buttons on her pants, finally getting the last one. Then she went on to the traitorous belt.

  "You… taste… good."

  What?

  She looked up from where she was jamming the metal prong in the punched hole. And she died right there.

  He had his fingers in his mouth. The ones he'd had inside her.

  Her knees went weak. She wanted to melt to the ground beside him. On top of him. Around him.

  The picture he made was so erotic, so hot.

  Pure temptation.

  Bad. So perfectly bad. So badly perfect.

  You'd be an idiot to pass up a guy like this.

  "I took it too fast, didn't I?"

  "Too fast?"

  "You said you're new at this. I went too fast. I scared you."

  "Y-yes. You did." He was scaring her now.

  "Let's start over.”

  Chapter 9

  Cover Me

  Mesmerized, Maddie could only watch as he rolled to his stomach, watch as his hand came out, his fingers wrapping around her ankle.

  "Don't go. I'll be good. I swear."

  She swallowed. "Bad wouldn't be so… so bad," she admitted.

  Eddie. A bad-boy name. As bad-boy as you could get.

  He crawled toward her. Then, on his knees, he ran both hands up her bare legs, sliding them inside the frayed openings of her cutoffs, his fingers moving under the elastic of her panties.

  She didn't know how it happened that she went from shoving him away to wanting him. Maybe it was because lately she'd begun to feel that other people were experiencing life while she just sat there, watching the parade go by.

  He pressed his face between her thighs.

  She let out a low moan. She fell to her knees so that she faced him, hip to hip, chest to chest.

  She thought he smiled, but she wasn't sure. She was aware of the smell of damp earth, aware of the sun beating down. As he lay her back on the ground, Maddie looked up and caught a glimpse of ancient tree branches and moving clouds. It made her feel dizzy, so she closed her eyes.

  She had the strangest feeling that she'd known him for years, loved him for years. It was as if he'd touched her before, held her before. Not in a past life, but this life. And for the briefest of seconds, she understood the empty feeling that came upon her at the oddest times.

  In those darkest of moments she'd turned to him, only to find he wasn't there—and never had been. The Big Empty.

  He undressed her.

  Air rushed across her nipples. Then his mouth was there, wet, seductive. Her skin, her body, was singing, was ultrasensitized.

  His hands moved over her, bold. Not in a soft, exploratory way, but with something close to ownership. There was no hesitation when his lips took hers, no hesitation when his tongue plunged into her mouth.

  "Rubber?" The question was a whisper, his mouth wet against her ear.

  Mmm?

  Her head went back. Her spine arched. She grabbed, her hands touching his hot skin, his back, his thighs.

  "Did you bring—"

  Someone was making a strange sound, a kind of keening want.

  "Wait. I have to get a—"

  She couldn't wait. She wrapped her legs around him.

  Thrust.

  There was a pain, far-off and sharp, and then there was nothing but heat.

  Pounding heat.

  Writhing heat.

  Sweating heat.

  Hard.

  Wild.

  Hot.

  Coming.

  Coming.

  Coming.

  And then it was over.

  Swirling, sunlight burning into her eyelids.

  Drifting.

  Weak.

  Shaking.

  A weight. Against her. On her. Pressing her to the ground. A warm breath against her face, her ear.

  Inside her. He was inside her.

  "Your name," he whispered, pushing her sweat-soaked hair from her neck. "I don't even know your name."

  Reality crashed down.

  What had she done?

  With both hands, she shoved at his chest. "Let me up! I have to get up!"

  He complied, rolling away.

  She jumped to her feet. Something hot
and wet trickled down her inner thigh.

  Not bothering with underwear, she jammed her legs into her cutoffs. Then she grabbed her T-shirt, shoved in her arms, and tugged it down over her head. She snatched up her bra and panties and balled them up in her hands.

  She had to go. Had to get away.

  He grabbed her hand, shoving something in the palm.

  Money.

  A wrinkled-up hundred-dollar bill. There was the corner of ol' Ben's head.

  She tilted her hand. The money fell to the ground. She stared blankly at their feet. Her white bare feet. His bare feet. His bare, suntanned, sexy feet. And the money. On the ground between them.

  She let out a choking sob, turned and ran.

  She had no awareness of her sprint from Eddie to her car, but suddenly she was there, jerking open the door.

  She dove in. Why was it so hard to see?

  She was crying.

  Impatient with herself, she swiped at the tears with the back of one hand. She turned the key and pumped the gas.

  The starter screeched. She let go of the key.

  She tried again.

  And again.

  Something slammed against the car.

  Eddie.

  She screamed.

  She pushed down the door lock.

  Eddie stood next to the car, his hands splayed against the closed window. His lips were moving. She couldn't hear a thing over the roaring in her head. She tried the starter again. The engine turned over. As she pulled away, Eddie slammed his fists against the trunk of her car.

  In the rearview mirror, she saw him standing there, wearing nothing but shorts, elbows high, fingers digging into his hair.

  She rounded a corner. Suddenly, there in the middle of the lane was a man on a bicycle.

  Maddie slammed on the brakes, just missing him.

  She sat with both hands wrapped around the wheel, shaking, staring straight ahead.

  A face appeared at the window.

  The man had a scraggly beard and long, dirt-blond hair. Judging from the front of his Star Trek T-shirt, he'd had spaghetti recently. Or maybe not so recently.

  He rapped on the window.

  She rolled down the glass.

  "Is Eddie home?" he asked, not seeming in the least alarmed at almost being run over.

  She brought her fingers to her hot, swollen lips. "Eddie?"

  "I've got some stuff for him."