Page 35 of His Sweet Torment
“I love the way your body moves, those beautiful breasts, your soft belly… those thighs… god…your exquisite face…”
He began to pant as he pulled and stroked himself, his eyes taking her in, the flush of her skin, her hand moving on her sex, how red and swollen her labia were, her arousal obvious. “Mio Dio,Padme…I’m going to fuck you in every way tonight…every way…”
Padme came quickly, crying out his name, again and again, her body undulating with her movements, and when a moment later, Enver came, his seed spilling onto her belly, she was so aroused that the moment his hand touched her clit, she came again, making them both laugh. They got their breath back and his cock was inside her, and they moved together in rhythm, focusing entirely on the other.
“Enver?”
“Yes,il mia amore?”
Padme pulled his head down to kiss him. “I love you. There isn’t a way to tell you how much, there are no words. You are my life.”
“And you are mine,cara mia…the only thing in this world I care about. The only one I will ever want…”
As the rain lashed down outside, they forgot about it, forgot about eating or sleeping, or the rest of the world and made love long into the night until exhausted and sated, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Dale opened the door but then shut it as quickly. He turned to Severin. “I’ll ask one last time. Are you sure?”
Severin was pale, her usually radiant dark skin almost gray. “I’m sure.”
Dale led her into the mortuary and checked the number on the door. He pulled out number three, balking again at the cover on the body – or what was left of it. He looked up at Severin who nodded and took a deep breath in. Dale lifted the cover and heard Severin’s gasp of distress. The headless torso was badly mangled, but now the medical examiner had cleaned it, the stab wounds in the abdomen were obvious, crisscrossing across the center of the belly, slicing through the navel. Dale had seen the same pattern of wounds on Chaley Saunders’s body. Vicious, brutal and merciless, inflicted to cause maximum pain. The body’s limbs were crush but intact, and slowly Severin picked up the right hand and cradled it in hers. For a few minutes, she studied it then closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
“The doctor did say he thought she was already dead when she was thrown in front of the train. They interviewed the driver who said he just saw a flash of something being pushed out. He had no time to stop, he’s pretty destroyed, poor guy. Doc said her abdominal artery was severed in the stabbing; she would have bled out in minutes.” Dale swallowed the bile in his throat. “Sev?”
“This isn’t my daughter,” she said quietly. “It isn’t Padme.”
“Sev…”
She opened her eyes and smiled sadly at him. “When she was shot by Brian Dedalus, I spent weeks at her hospital bedside holding her right hand.Weeks,Dale. I got to know that hand very well. She had a mole on the joint between her finger and thumb. Next to it, so small you would never know if you hadn’t seen her hand up close, was a small strawberry birthmark. This poor young woman doesn’t have the mole or the birthmark. It isn’t Padme, and now I’m wondering why Henry Jones is so convinced it is.”
Dale stared at her. “You’re sure?”
“Never more so.”
Dale chewed over this information in his mind. It had been Henry who had told him the DNA was Padme’s, Henry who had spoken to the medical examiner without him. Henry who had questioned then released Ingles without charge. All of which was fine, and above board…except this wasn’t Padme. Dale believed Severin with all his heart. Another thing suddenly occurred to him. “The bullet wounds.” He gestured to the torso. “Where Padme was shot, there’s flesh taken from those sites externally, but then there’s no mention of internal scar tissue from the bullet path.Jesus…Jesus.” He felt his body begin to quiver. “None of this makes sense, Sev. Why would Henry be so eager to pronounce this body as Pad’s?”
Severin was studying him. “Maybe he helped her leave the country. Hell, that’s what I would have done…he’s been her mentor, her friend since she was a teenager. If anyone could get her safely out of the country, it’s him. Do we say we know?”
Dale shook his head. “If he arranged this body to look like Pad’s, it may be to throw Ingles off her scent, so I think our best plan is to keep the status quo. Devastated mother and friend. Sev…we need to have that funeral, even if the casket is empty. Jesus, yes, that’s why Henry said a close casket, it all makes sense now. Shit, why didn’t I think of it?”
Severin smiled, the light back in her eyes. “She’s alive, Dale. She’s alive and safe and happy with Enver, I know it with every bone in my body.”
Dale nodded, a hopeful smile on his handsome face. “You’re right, Sev. Padme’s alive.”
Dale didn’t feel as happy on the day of the funeral. Severin played her part almost too well, utterly distraught, but it was Padme’s friend, the ones who didn’t know she was alive, that he felt for. Harpa Malhotra was inconsolable, sobbing openly, her beautiful elder sister Cosima trying to comfort her through her own sadness. Mikah Ray looked shattered; Arlo Forrester’s face was stone-liked, gray with distress. Beth, Padme’s employer at the bookstore, held Severin’s hand, looking older than her age, grief making her seem bent and elderly. Dale read a small poem, his voice breaking before Henry took the podium.
“Ten years,” he began, coughing to hide the break in his voice. “Ten years ago, I met a young eighteen-year-old woman. She almost ran into my car on her bicycle and she, well, she cussed me out. The sight of this beautiful young Indian American girl angry with me…that day, it just made me laugh especially the salty language coming out of her mouth. I started to laugh – I can’t even tell you why. She just stared at me for a long moment then burst out laughing too. We were fast friends ever since that moment. I saw in Padme something I rarely see –joie de vivre,a joy of life. Given her upbringing, the abandonment by her birth parents, she could so easily have gone to the dark side, but she never did. When she found her true mother, Severin, something was set off inside her – a spark. A spark, a will to better herself, to become what her intelligence her street smarts, her warmth promised. She exceededallof that promise. She found great happiness with a remarkable man, and it is a tragedy that they were torn apart and that they were not reunited before this terrible ending.”
Dale closed his eyes, trying not to focus on the pain in his chest.It’s not real, it’s not real. She’s alive, somewhere.He wanted, desperately to believe it entirely, but until he could confirm that she was still alive and not being held against her will, he had to hold back his excitement. If Ingles still had her, Dale was sure that he was inflicting great torture on her – and that he had no intention of letting her go alive.
Which meant only one thing. Dale had to go and find out for himself. He had to find Ingles.
Harpa Malhotra didn’t have any tears left. She moved around the empty kitchen of her restaurant, closed ‘due to bereavement’ and wondered if she would ever feel normal again. Padme was dead. Harpa and Padme had been as close as sisters and now…Cosima knocked at the open door.
“Hey, sis.”
She wrapped her arms around Harpa. Harpa leaned into her older sister, breathing in her clean, comforting scent. “I can’t believe she’s gone, Cos.”
“I know, Harp. It’s unreal.”
