A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(74)
I'd burn them as soon as I had the chance.
I pulled myself together, found the case of wine and returned to the front of the house. The bride was holding a black lace thing with dangling garters up to her chest and posing for the camera. I had to set the wine on the bar before I dropped it. The room whirled around me. I put my head in my hands and massaged my temples.
My mother had an outfit like that once. It was the first thing I'd taken. One night when I was about thirteen, she shooed me to my bed over the garage early because a friend was coming over. It had been a hot day, and I'd been out in the sun for hours. I was thirsty.
I knew I wasn't allowed into the house when she had visitors, but all I could think about was water. The more I tried to push it from my mind, the more I craved it. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.
I crept from the garage and peeked into the living room window to see if the coast was clear. It wasn't. A man sat on the couch. My mother stood by the mantel.
The black thing she wore fit her like a second skin. It accentuated rather than covered her naked curves. I was horrified to see her dressed like that, but I couldn't look away.
That was when I learned some women have a secret art. Not all women, but some. Those who do use cotton and lace and rayon and chiffon to weave spells that can break a man. I put them on sometimes, the clothing I take. They're like armor. They shield me from lust. The ancient Spartans believed warriors only gave into their more base nature to have children, never to satisfy themselves. It's a sentiment I respect.
I stole my mother's bustier the next day and hid it in an old toolbox under a workbench in the garage. She accused my sister at first and sent her to her room. But after several days of steady denials, my mother shifted the blame to Patty, Angela's only friend, and ended that relationship. My mother ruined most things for my poor little sister.
"Are you okay?" The mother-of-the-bride was at my elbow.
"Just a bit of a headache." I lied.
"Can we make an appointment to taste wines for the reception? I've had too much this afternoon to make a good decision." She giggled like a schoolgirl and touched my arm. I itched to slap her hand, but refrained. I can control myself, which is more than I can say for some women.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Art pulled his baseball cap lower. He'd parked under the shade of a crepe myrtle down the block from Humboldt Realty and The Leaky Barrel for an hour and a half. He'd run home and given Jason a frozen pizza and instructions to feed and care for his siblings. At four, he'd returned. The wine shop didn't close until five, but he didn't want to take any chances.
The owner was guilty of something. Art didn't know what, but he felt it in his bones. The last time he ignored this feeling he'd suspended Brian McKibben instead of Dwayne Pratt. He wasn't doing that again. Regardless of how ridiculous he felt, he had learned the hard way to follow his gut. Right now, his gut was telling him to follow the goat man.
While he waited outside the shop, he had plenty of time to research the art of tailing a person on his phone. The first thing he'd learned is that he shouldn't be viewing the building through his windshield. Instead, he should be watching it from a side or rear view mirror. He moved the car.
He also learned it was best to know as much as possible about the person you're following. There wasn't much information online about the goat man. His name was Mo Cotton. He was a level two sommelier. He lived in Laguna Hills in a condo, and he'd opened The Leaky Barrel three years ago.
Art sat up straighter. Five cars full of women pulled out of the parking lot, one right after another. The shop must have closed.
He waited, on alert. A minute stretched into fifteen. He began to wonder if Mo had been in one of the five cars, and somehow he'd missed him.
Just as he was about to get out of the car and wander in the direction of the store, another vehicle appeared in the lot's exit. Art saw a bearded profile in the driver's seat of a blue sedan. He turned the key in the van's ignition and idled the engine.
The sedan made a right onto Golden Lantern and blew through the first stoplight. Art drove in the opposite direction looking for a place to make a U-turn. It was a couple of blocks before he could do it safely. By the time he was going in the same direction as Mo, he could no longer see the man's car.
Art sped up as much as he dared, but didn't see the sedan. Frustration gripped him. Golden Lantern bisected the Coast Highway before it ended in the harbor. Which way should he go?
He breathed a prayer and went south. The Dana Point house was south on the highway; maybe Mo Cotton was returning to the crime scene? He'd always heard criminals did that. Of course, maybe he wasn't a criminal at all. Maybe he was just your friendly neighborhood pervert, and that was the guilty vibe Art had noticed.
His shoulders tightened as he wove through traffic. His hands felt sticky on the steering wheel. What the hell was he doing? He was a school principal. He drove a minivan. He wasn't James Bond. He came to an open stretch of highway and scanned the road ahead. He struck the dashboard with the heel of his hand. The goat man was gone.
#
Art drove to the Dana Point house only because he was out of ideas, not because he believed he'd find anything there. It was barricaded with crime scene tape, forlorn and empty looking. He sat staring at it for several minutes before heading out to the highway. He turned north, toward home.