Awaken the Devil Read online

  She scooted out after him and had a little trouble herself staying upright on her tottering heels. But she knew it was not the effects of her half a glass of beer that was keeping her off balance. It was her companion and his string of surprise revelations. She wished, not for the first time, that her motivations for fostering this friendship were pure.

  The cold night air seemed to work slightly to return him to his normal state of control. "Get back into the cab, and I'll have this man take you home." He didn't sound like he meant it as a friendly suggestion. He was ordering her home.

  "Chandler…"

  He didn't even let her finish. "I said go home." He didn't say it exactly like a parent would, but it was still enough to raise her ire. Then he destroyed it just as easily. "I'm drunk and tired, and I can't think straight. I can't be responsible for you and me as well. I'm sorry. Please just go home."

  Silently she got back into the cab and murmured her address to the driver. As they pulled away from the curb, she saw him standing in the doorway with his forehead resting against the wood. She wished, suddenly, that she had never met him at all. That he was still an anonymous stranger living his tightly controlled life, and she would never have to look at him and know that he had been ignored and mistreated, abused and unloved. That he would just be another guy, and she wouldn't feel the urge to be the one he leaned his head against when he was suffering.

  She swallowed against her suddenly thick throat and stared out the window, drowning in a new litany of bitter regrets.

  It was nearly impossible for her to drag herself out of bed in the morning. Heartburn and recriminations made for bad bed partners. She'd had trouble falling asleep and now trouble waking up. She stumbled into the kitchen where Josh had let himself in with his key and was eating the last of her Special K. She stared at him.

  "What are you doing here? You ate the last of my cereal. I don't have anymore, you know."

  "Good morning to you too. You get hit by a cab last night? You look like crap." He shoved a giant spoonful of early morning carbs into his mouth. He himself looked like he had been on a two-day bender without a comb or another pair of pants.

  "Something like that. What are you doing here?"

  "I finally got more back from Emma, you know my friend the gossip columnist. I thought you would want it right away. And also I was out of milk."

  "And apparently incentive to bathe. Go shower, and then tell me what you know." He disappeared into the back of her flat, and she shook the empty cereal box and sighed. She slid two pieces of bread into the toaster and checked all the messages that she hadn't bothered with the night before. A solicitor, her dry cleaning was ready, and Mac mumbling about his responsibility and now hers. She sighed again and ate her toast dry.

  Josh came back out looking and smelling considerably better although he was still wearing the same wrinkled clothes. "Josh, how long have you been wearing that outfit?"

  He grinned rapaciously. "Does that count the hours I wasn't wearing them in the last two days?"

  "Forget I asked and just stop right there. What have you got? Besides a bevy of sexually transmitted diseases?"

  He laughed. "Speaking of STD's, I got the skinny on Helena Dorsey Bentley. That chick makes me look the Virgin Mary as far as I can tell. She seriously got around. I got the impression that most people pretty much thought she was a whore."

  "Yeah, I've heard that." She mumbled.

  He gave her a curious look. "From who?"

  "Chandler."

  "Chandler." He mimicked. "Well, Mrs. Bentley was astonishing. I was able to actually verify seventeen separate lovers in a single year. There were others on the list I wasn't able to verify. She didn't even try to hide her affairs. Carried on right in front of the Mr. as though he wouldn't care. Do you think he cared?"

  "Probably. She was making a fool of him on purpose. Wouldn't you care?" Helena had used that skill he had talked about for understanding people to know exactly what he was, exactly what would bother him the most—ignoring their daughter and engaging in public affairs.

  "Good enough motive for murder."

  "He didn't kill her, he's…he's nice. Kind of."

  "Yeah, so are bears. And speaking of murder, I've got something else to show you about your new best friend."

  She swiped at her hair in irritation. "Don't be sarcastic. Just show me what you've got."

  "Okay." He pulled out a piece of paper from the back pocket of his rumpled jeans. "I made this list. This is every woman who has died or disappeared while working for or with his lordship. Take a gander." He handed the paper over.

  There were seven names on the list. Two of them were familiar to her. Eladora Coxton and Helena Bentley. She scanned Josh's handiwork. He had scrawled a fairly organized list across the paper.

  Eladora Coxton, AKA Tawny Reed. New York. Guys and Dolls. Throat slashed by unknown assailant in her own apartment. Twenty-two years ago.

  Ashley Harold. Boston. Some Kind of Wonderful. Killed by a hit and run

  driver in front of the theater. Sixteen years ago.

  Helena Bentley. Hertfordshire, England. Throat slashed in own home by unknown assailant. Thirteen years ago.

  Lisa Farrish. London, England. Just North of North. Throat slashed in own home by unknown assailant. Ten years ago.

  Elizabeth Jones. Zurich, Switzerland. Gotta Getcha Some. Missing. Nine years ago.

  Carolina Richards, Los Angeles. You Don't Know Jack. Strangled outside a night club. Seven years ago.

  Giette Ruderisch. Berlin. Skirt. Missing. Five years ago.

  "Josh," She pushed air out of her lungs. "Where did you get this? I mean, this is disgusting."

  He scowled at her. "I didn't kill the girls, honey, I just made the list. It wasn't hard to do. I'm surprised the cops haven't done it already. I'm guessing it's because most of them happened after Helena rather than before. Those cops weren't tracing back because they didn't suspect him. Lucky for us, I do. I'm pretty sure he had a sexual relationship with at least five of these girls."

  She felt sick as he scooted in and pointed at the list. "Eladora Coxton. Pretty sure that one was a go. According to all the interviews I conducted, he was very sweet to her. They had a good relationship and her friends liked him. Ashley Harold I'm not even trying to finger him for. For one it wasn't his M.O. Secondly as far as I can tell, he never engaged in any kind of extracurricular activities while he was married. And I can tell a lot."

  At least there was that. Fielding would have guessed as much. Somehow she would believe him to be a murderer before she could believe him to be the kind who would break his marriage vows, no matter how unhappy he was.

  "And the others?" She had to force the question out. Actually five women wasn't too bad for a man in his forties. It meant he probably used care in selecting a bed partner, and at least there was that, too. But she still didn't want to hear about it. Especially since they were all dead.

  "Okay. Helena's a gimme. Lisa Farrish, 'nice girl' was the description I got from everyone I talked to. Same with the Coxton girl. Apparently our boy has a little hard-on for the nice girl type. It was the description I got almost straight across the board. Nice girls. Nice dead girls. Except Helena and everyone agreed she was just a bitch, but all the other girls were considered sweet."

  Nice girl. The moniker she had been given all her life. Overlooked by most boys as being one of those girls. The kind you didn't take advantage of. Or murder.

  "Okay," she said, forcing the word past her rapidly tightening throat.

  "Elizabeth Jones I'm not sure about. Everyone says she was 'nice' so there's that, but no one can exactly support that they were ever together. And there's no mode of death to use as a comparison. She just disappeared one day. Carol Richards. No way. Nightclub waitress and a real loose one. Not his type at all.

  "Giette Ruderisch is another one I just can't say for sure. Another nice girl, real Catholic schoolgirl type. Missing, too. I hate that, when they just disappear. Her
friends thought she was up to some hanky-panky with someone in her cast, but they had no specifics. I'm liking her for a Bentley victim though."

  She turned away. It was one thing to know that someone you…whatever she was doing with Chandler…had ex's. Everyone had at least a few. But it was another to see their names in black and white. Hear the word sex in a conversation associated with it. And what if he had killed those girls? She couldn't believe it, but there were so many that could still potentially be tied to him. How could she so casually deny what was right in front of her? It seemed a strong possibility that her instincts were wrong. That he was a killer after all.

  She spent Saturday with Mac who was showing some improvement but seemed steadfastly unwilling to discuss Chandler or his supposed debt. She spent Sunday hiding in her house. She read books she hadn't gotten to in the weeks since she had started Pirates. She drank tea and watched Love Boat reruns. She tried to pretend that everyone she had met in the last few weeks didn't exist, but with very little success. Especially when it came to Chandler. He was on her mind almost every minute that she didn't purposely fill it with something else. And sometimes he slipped in even when she did. She hated what he had done to her, and she hated what she was doing to him.

  And the girls were on her mind, as well. She spent long minutes staring at Josh's list and thinking about them and how they had died. Could Chandler be their killer, really? Could it be possible that she could have grown so…fond of someone who had done something so awful? She didn't think it could be true, but she was frankly becoming afraid of trusting her own judgment anymore. If he was anyone but Chandler and she had seen the same list, would she be so sure of his innocence? She didn't even know anymore.

  On Monday morning, she and the other designates were separated off to have their training on Armand's number. Armand floated in and out of the smaller stage area at the back of the building, and Chandler never made an appearance at all. They were mostly guided by Lynette, and Fielding was left with the impression that Lynette didn't quite measure up and was sent to do her job wherever Chandler thought would be the easiest. So why had he kept her on for so many years? Or maybe he was just trying to avoid Fielding herself.

  The more moves that Lynette outlined for them the more that Fielding began to regret impulsively allowing herself to be roped into this number. Not only did it unabashedly remind her of Calor Profundo, it was a partnered dance and her partner was Kyle, who loved to fling his sexuality in the face of others. She had no problem with his being gay, in the general sense. She did have a problem with it when he was supposed to be her forbidden lover, and he wasn't willing to even pretend at being straight. The level of sensuality that they were clearly going to be expected to produce during the number was going to be hard to come by when her partner insisted on making it clear he would have preferred she come with different equipment.

  Lynette seemed capable of teaching them the mechanics of the moves with little trouble, but Fielding felt certain that Armand and Chandler were going to regret turning over the reins when he saw how rigid they all were compared to what he had surely seen in Havana, indeed what they had just seen in the club.

  Their rehearsal ran over the allotted time, and when they were finally released, she found most of the line gone and Daphne waiting for her in the system of hallways between the two stages. She looked into the room over Fielding's shoulder with a frown on her face. Fielding rolled her eyes.

  "Relax, he's not in there. You know, I still have a job to do, and you and Josh aren't helping."

  "Well, I'm just trying to make sure that you don't end up like the others."

  Fielding was suddenly furious. "What do you mean the others? Did Josh show you the list?"

  "No," Daphne said, frowning, her nose wrinkling up. "I don't know anything except he told me there were others. What do you care anyway?"

  Her almost constant headache returned with a vengeance. "Let me do my job my way, okay, Daphne? That's all I'm saying. I have it under control."

  Daphne looked skeptical, and frankly, Fielding was skeptical, but she refused to deny it. She was still in control of her own destiny, and it didn't include being a murder victim, with or without the citizen safety patrol.

  "Alright. Do you want to go to the movies with me and Leslie?"

  "Uh," Fielding looked at her watch. "Sure, let me do something really fast. I'll meet you at the theater."

  Daphne again looked suspicious, but Leslie had arrived so she just nodded instead of speaking her mind yet again, as though Fielding didn't know what was on it.

  "Alright, see you there." The words were a clear warning that if she didn't see Fielding there, Josh would be hearing about it.

  She felt strongly like flipping off Daphne's retreating form but managed, just barely, to act like the adult that she was. She wandered back to the other stage standing in the wings and seeing, for the first time, the leads in rehearsal. The person she didn't see was Sara. It was too bad, too. In her distraction since their initial meeting, she hadn't managed a conversation with the star of the stage. More the pity, since it had been one of her goals at the beginning.

  Who she did see was Armand and Chandler. Armand was standing stage right watching with the man in the Atlanta Braves cap, and Chandler was working with the ridiculously good-looking, dark-haired thirty-something who was probably the male lead. She didn't recognize him.

  "We've been over this before, Jason." Chandler's tone of voice made it obvious that he really had been over it before and remembered every instance. "If you can't manage to put some intensity behind it, the whole thing will fall flat." He took a deep breath and exploded out a line in a powerful tenor that surprised her even though it shouldn't have. Of course he had to be able to sing. He had been in the shoes of all of them before he had moved into the leadership role.

  Jason looked a little annoyed but did a fairly good job of reproducing the same sound Chandler had made.

  "Do you like what you see?" The sarcastic question came from behind her. Fielding barely managed to stifle a scream. She hadn't even heard someone come up behind her. She pressed her hand to her chest.

  "Sara, I didn't hear you."

  The older woman smiled slightly. "I'm like a ninja. Were you looking for someone?"

  "Oh." Fielding told the truth. "You, actually. I mean, I was hoping that I'd see you."

  She shot a look at Chandler and Jason then back at Fielding. "Me?" There was irony in her tone. "I'm not as interesting as…some people to a young girl like you."

  It was Fielding's turn to stifle a laugh. Then it suddenly occurred to her the implications of Sara's words. She wasn't that transparent was she? No. She refused to believe it. "I'm not that young, and believe me I really wanted to talk to you. I'm a huge fan."

  Her eyebrows rose. "Really? Which is your favorite? If you will indulge me in a little bit of vanity."

  "Of course. You've earned the right to a little vanity. I don't even know if I can say. The first musical I ever saw was a filmed version of you playing in South Pacific years ago."

  Sara looked surprised. "I was in the chorus. How did you even know?"

  "Well, my uncle's girlfriend told me. She told me it was old and that you were a big star. I think I was eight at the time."

  Sara looked lost in her own thoughts. "That was twenty four years ago almost. It was the line where I met Chandler and Liz, Lynette, and Helena…" She frowned suddenly and shook her head. "I didn't know anyone had a copy of that old thing."

  "Well, I don't anymore, but I watched it a hundred times over. It may have been the start of my love affair with the musical."

  "I like you," Sara said suddenly. And she didn't look happy about it. "Don't trust him."

  "What?" For a moment Fielding wasn't sure whether Sara was having some kind of breakdown or something.

  "Chandler. Don't trust him."

  She forced herself to play the part even though Sara's sudden urgent warning was playing havoc with her senses. "You
don't think he knows what he's doing? I like his dances." She strove for wide-eyed ignorance.

  Sara's lips turned up slightly. "I think he knows exactly what he's doing. You're a good girl." The words held a new ominous meaning after Josh's report. "Just don't go into a room alone with him. It isn't right."

  Fielding fled the stage after struggling to produce some kind of normal sounding response. What did Sara mean? Was she warning her against Chandler's possible propensity to kill, or was she giving some kind of rules for the moral high ground? The whole conversation had left her confused and disturbed. She checked her watch again and then headed for the movie theater. She could probably stand a couple of hours alone in the dark to sort through her thoughts.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the time the movie was over, Fielding had had one thought about what Chandler and Sara had told her and what they meant together. While Leslie and Daphne chatted about the leading man and his pervading popularity with the press and the ladies, Fielding did a little math in her head. Chandler had been married to Helena within six months of the beginning of their relationship. That had been twenty years ago. Chandler had mentioned that he had met her, and she had not been interested until later when she had discovered his title.

  Fielding simply had not realized that later meant so very long. Helena had waited three years to pursue him. Somehow, Fielding had almost believed her to be a creature of opportunity. Someone who had seen a Duke and seen what she wanted in front of her. Someone who had been in the right place at the right time for a masterful stroke of deception. But it had not happened that way at all.

  It was just as he had said—Helena Bentley had made her own luck. And that made it all the worse. She had purposely found him after years so that she could use him terribly, and that made the whole thing all the more awful. Like the difference between a premeditated murder and one that was a crime of opportunity. How could she be so callous?