Riders Down by John McEvoy Read Free Book Online Page A

She smiled when she saw him and gave him a languid wave, face pointed toward the stars, her long black hair floating in the water. He dove in neatly and swam with powerful strokes fifty yards out into the cool water before turning back to join her.
    Greta said the heat had kept her from sleeping. He told her he knew what she meant. Then she stood up in the water, which was less than three feet deep this close to the pier, and shook the moisture from her hair. Her tanned shoulders gleamed in the moonlight. Claude felt himself grow hard as he dog paddled toward her and rose to his feet. With a lunge he moved to her and put his arms around her. He cupped her face in one of his large hands and kissed her hard, his other hand on her back, pressing her to him. It was a moment he had long imagined.
    To Claude’s enormous surprise, Greta planted her feet and tried to push him off. Her eyes were wild as she leaned away from him, fighting to free herself. He would not let her go. He barely heard her whispered protests. He pulled the strap of her swimsuit off her shoulder and grasped her left breast. He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her face to the side, her mouth tight with fright. “Stop it,” she begged. “This is a mistake. Let me go, please. We’ll just forget this ever happened.”
    Even more excited now, he yanked down the top of her swimsuit and again thrust himself against her. “What’s wrong with you?” he said harshly, his lips against her neck. “We’ve been heading toward this for years. Don’t you know that?”
    Greta fought harder. When she started to scream, he quickly covered her mouth with his hand, then looked down at her with a combination of astonishment and growing rage. How wrong he had been! How had he managed to so misread the situation, to misinterpret what he’d been sure was her returned love? Greta’s was now a face he barely recognized, so full of loathing were her eyes as they burned into his.
    Claude knew now that Greta would never, ever forgive him for his actions this night, that her report of what he’d done could destroy him. He could not permit that.
    With a sudden move, he wrapped his left leg behind her knees and kicked her feet out from under her. She was now on her back, partly under the water, and he straddled her, one hand still covering her mouth, the other clamped on her shoulder. She thrashed beneath him. His heart pounded as he pressed her head down beneath the water. For a few moments he watched her face, contorted by pain and terror. Then he turned his face to the night sky for the minutes it took until she was at last limp beneath him.
    A huge cloud momentarily covered the moon as he dragged Greta’s body over to the pier. He pulled the top of her swimsuit back into place. Carefully positioning her lifeless head, he rammed it against one of the pier’s stanchions. The resulting wound on her forehead was visible to him as moonlight flooded back down. It would appear that she had somehow slipped and accidentally struck her head, then fallen into the water unconscious and drowned.
    Claude trotted through the shadow of the pines to the rear entrance of the old house, then slipped silently up the stairs to his room. He felt enormously tired, yet at the same time exhilarated. Yes, it was a terrible shame what Greta had forced him to do this night. But he’d at least rid himself of what he could now recognize as a ridiculously useless obsession.
    The next morning Claude helped in the search once his beautiful cousin was discovered to be missing. He pretended to break down when Greta’s body was discovered down the shoreline. Relatives comforted him for what they believed to his wrenching grief at this tragic loss of the love of his young life.
    Whenever he looked back on that fateful August night, Bledsoe was always amazed and embarrassed. How could he have allowed his teenage hormonal seiche of love and lust to threaten his promising future? What regret he felt had