Part 34 (2/2)

May was taken aback. Then she realized that Geode would have called; he was an employee too. She was off the hook!

”Frank Tishner did,” she said. ”Then we took the van to another town and-”

”Your husband's body,” he snapped.

”What?” She had never heard Mid angry before.

”In Cyrano's van. You hid those bones?”

”OhmyG.o.d!” she gasped, appalled. ”They must have been still in there, in his body bag!”

”Did you not smell them?”

The s.e.x-they had both been so eager for it! Frank might be understandable, being male, but she-she should have realized that something more was goosing her along! She had been glad to oblige him, true-but she had had no reticence at all. She had wanted it. There in the car, where they might have been discovered at any moment, jammed in uncomfortably-of course those lingering pheromones had acted! She had driven that van all those miles, soaking them up, thinking of Frank with increasing ardor. Those pheromones, clinging to her, setting him off too!

”I think my husband had vengeance on me even in death,” she said.

”Your fingerprints-you wiped them off?”

May's heart sank. ”I-didn't think of it,” she said leadenly. So obvious, to wipe the wheel and gears.h.i.+ft and door handle clean, to remove the last vestige of her a.s.sociation with it. She had been so eager to get away from the van, and back with Frank, that she had bungled badly.

”Get those bones!” Mid hung up.

May got up, left the room, went down to her car, and started driving. She drove toward Ocala, depressed. At least Mid hadn't fired her outright. But she had let him down seriously.

There was something on the road. She could not swerve far enough to avoid it; there was opposing traffic. She ran over it-and felt the b.u.mp, and heard a horrendous hiss.

She had run over a badly twisted fragment of metal and punctured a tire.

She pulled over to the side, getting out of the way of other traffic. It could have been worse; she could have gone out of control and had a serious accident. As it was, all she would lose was time.

She unlocked and opened the trunk. She started to take out the spare tire-and discovered it was flat.

There was a cut in it. The tire had been deliberately punctured.

But why, and how? The trunk had been locked, and she had the only key!

Then she remembered Bull. He had taken her car. He must have done this as a special surprise for her, for such time as she got her car back. It was his way.

Twice now, in death, he had scored on her. How she hated that man!

There was no salvaging either tire. She was stuck.

She turned on the blinker lights and waited for help to come. The need galled her, but she knew that fretting was pointless. So she fretted.

Before long a car from the sheriffs department stopped. If she had had the flat in Citrus County it might have been Frank who stopped, but this was Marion County. She explained her predicament.

”May I see your registration, please?”

”Of course.” She kept it with the car. She opened the dash compartment-and discovered Bull's third mean-spirited gift. The registration was gone.

Was it somewhere in the hotel room, as her purse with her own identification had been? Or had he hidden it in his own car, which had disappeared? With sick certainty she knew it was the latter. He had taken it so as to hold her car hostage to his will. He might even have planned to make her drive her own car while he drove his, knowing that the moment she strayed he could report her car as stolen. He had died before he could put the whole of this mischief into practice, but this piece of it was bad enough.

Before it was done, she had to go to the station and make a call to Geode. Soon Mid called the station and established the owners.h.i.+p of the car. ”Don't go to the van,” he told her tersely. She knew why: she was now known, and any contact with the van on her part would be mischief enough. She was lucky the deputy hadn't checked her purse and found its keys. They would have to let the van take its chances. With luck it wouldn't be checked soon, and when it was, someone else might be a.s.signed to drive it away, and her prints would be obscured. She hated having to depend on luck, but it was now her best chance.

In due course she was on her way back to Inverness, tires repaired, chastened. She had messed up, and though Mid understood what her husband had done, it remained her failing. If anything else happened, her employment would be in trouble. Mid would not fire her with prejudice, because he knew that she had done her best, but she knew that sentiment went only so far with him. Her job was now as tenuous as Frank's job, for similar reasons. What damage Bull had done, even after his death!

She shopped for groceries again and went out to the ranch. She explained in more detail what had happened. ”So it is a gamble; when that van is checked, the bones will be discovered. If they are identified as Bull's, they will know that he had a connection with Cyrano, who is mysteriously missing. It will land here at the Middle Kingdom Ranch soon enough, because Cyrano was Mid's employee, and Bull was my husband, and I am Mid's employee. I will be under suspicion, especially if they find my fingerprints there. It will not be possible to hide the firefly much longer.”

”You have been so kind to me,” Jade said. She was calling herself that now, as the result of their conversation, but May was uncertain whether it truly helped. ”I am sorry to be the cause of such distress.”

”You are not the cause!” May protested. ”It's my husband, and the firefly, working in unwitting tandem. We have to get rid of the firefly! Then perhaps we can stifle the rest of it.”

”Yes, of course,” Jade agreed, subdued.

But privately May was doubtful that it could be done. The monster was such an ugly thing, its revelation would attract wide attention. In order to explain the bones they would have to reveal the firefly, and there would not be any quick end to the matter.

Still, if they killed the firefly soon, so that the depredations ceased, then they might go quietly out to the van before it was discovered and move it elsewhere, or at least remove the bones and prints. Then things might remain quiet. They could tide through-if they were able to wrap it up quickly.

Moderately heartened, May drove away from the house. Maybe she could find a pretext for another liaison with Frank; that notion cheered her.

* 41 - GEODE WATCHED HER go, then turned to Jade. ”The next time it feeds, we have to get it,” he said.

”Geode, I am afraid.”

”The firefly can't get in here.”

”I think it can.”

”Even if it could, there are two of us. We can stop it. That's the best way-to let it try.”

She looked doubtful. ”Still, I don't know. Geode, I love you. Come to bed with me now.'

They had had s.e.x several times yesterday, in the ambience of the firefly, and again at the house, to prove that they could do it without the firefly. That was important to them both. The barrier of his impotence had been broken This morning they had done it again, before getting up. And yet again, in the forest, near the cabin, when the remaining ambience of the firefly hit them. He was s.e.xually tired, yet the excitement of being able to perform was such that it was a pleasure to prove himself each time.

They went to his room and stripped. This time they made more of a production of it. He kissed her, and stroked her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and kissed them. She reacted as if electrified, her body getting hot. She ran her hands over his body, and caressed his member, and finally urged it into her. She had a hunger that was independent of the pheromones. What joy to do this, knowing that he could finish it!

”I love you, Geode,” she repeated. ”I want you to know that.”

”I do know it. And I love you. I could not do this otherwise.”

”I want you to understand how completely I do,” she insisted. ”Because I may ask you to do something strange, and I want you never to doubt.”

”Nothing is stranger than our love.” But how odd to hear himself talking this way, and meaning it! How readily the words of love came to him now, with her.

”I never really loved my husband. He was just-there. I thought I loved my son, but I have to confess that we really were not close. Only now have I approached anything like-”

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