Direct Strike by Lorelei Buckley

Author:Lorelei Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

For three days Zoey hadn’t heard anything but Lance and a busy landline–Mitch, Sterling, doctors, none of whom she cared to talk to. She started to believe her gift, like the scar on her shoulder, had grown lighter or diluted with time. She’d just dedicated herself to the cause and then poof, the voice went away. This made her ears hot.

Lance had picked up one change of clothes from the hotel. He should have packed more. In his travels he’d purchased a laptop. He booted it in the office nook and searched for information on Amos Rayfield and the Rayfield Ranch. The only things circulating the internet were articles regarding his hanging and a blog by a guy who suggested Amos hadn’t done it soon enough. Apparently the Asian blogger had literally bumped into Amos outside a grocery store, setting off an avalanche of racial slurs. Clearly, no one missed Amos.

Despite irritation, profuse sweating and headaches, Zoey managed to decrease her pill intake, but felt she owed her success to Lance and his penis. The more sex she had, the less she thought about Milo and Amos and ghosts.

Another morning and Zoey awoke pleasantly with Lance’s breath warming the nape of her neck and his finger wiggling inside her. She avoided interpreting her abstract dreams and lost herself in his touch. He pulled her close and, from behind, pushed his erection into her moistened puss. He pumped slow and easy, deep and deeper, until she’d reached that final overall tingle.

She sighed, releasing an unexpected deluge of apprehension.

Afterward he followed her into the shower and lathered her like an explorer of the human frame, starting at her toes. With his eyes closed, he announced the location of his hands. “Heels, calves, knees, thighs, ass, hips.” He swirled soap over every fleshy crevice. “Sweet meat, scar, navel, ribs, breasts, nipples, yum, nipples, fingers, arms, elbows, shoulder, lightning’s wrath, throat, lips.” Lance opened his eyes, leaned in and ended his expedition with a kiss. “This house is clean.”

Words that conjured a visceral sense of unfinished business… The shrine in Chicago? Evil at large? Or was it confusion, what to do, where to go, who to be?

“Shit,” she blurted and rinsed off.

She stepped out from under the water flow and dried herself. She rubbed ointment on her disappearing wound and wandered into the bedroom, where she slipped on jeans and an airy top. As she combed her wet, tousled hair, Lance walked up behind her, already dressed in yesterday’s slightly wrinkled denim.

His smile made everything else appear shabby. “Hey, Hawthorne.”

“Morning.”

“Tea?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Not a problem.” He headed downstairs.

She patted the puffiness under her eyes with her fingertips and jerked at the sound of a shattering dish.

“You okay?” she yelled.

“Yeah! Butter fingers, heh. Where’s the broom?”

“In the garage!”

She kissed Milo’s picture and heard the downstairs door creak open, but she didn’t hear it creak closed.

“Lance?” she hollered.

Dead silence.

“Hello? Answer me, Lance.”

Strangulation?

Her blood iced. She shoved her feet in her shoes and descended the stairs. Nervous heart battered her chest.

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