26. Eli
26
ELI
T he photo of Adelaide, the victim from Danville, looks up at me from the coffee table. She has her arms around her two blond boys, a smile lighting up her face.
The photo reminds me of my mother. In my memories my mom was always happy. She worked nights as a nurse at the local hospital, so she wasn’t always around much in the evenings, but she used to leave notes in my blinds. Every time I rolled them down to go to bed a piece of paper would flutter out. Even at fourteen I still liked finding those fucking notes. She’d tell me something funny one of her patients had said or done and wish me sweet dreams.
Adelaide Janson seems like she was a good mother. She was on the PTA. Took her kids to softball. Baked homemade birthday cakes. It takes someone really fucked up to hunt mothers. There’s a malicious cruelty to it because you’re not just killing a person, you’re killing a family too.
I know nothing is ever as perfect as it seems, discovering Maxwell’s victims were being abused proves that, but even if the husbands are pieces of shit, the kids are innocent. And I know first-hand they’ll never be the same again.
The door to the pool house opens and River steps inside. He takes in the autopsy reports I have spread across the coffee table, and I try not to hold it against him that he spent the night with Freya while I was here, trying to find a way to catch Maxwell. I would have had her in my arms too if I could’ve brought myself to stay.
Holding her open for River, watching him take her, had me hard as fuck and it took everything in me not take my turn and sink into her snug heat.
I jumped in the cold pool after I left and stayed there until I could think straight. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing at the moment. I haven’t told Freya it’s over and the longer I wait the more I doubt that I’ll ever be able to. And I have no idea where that leaves us.
River sits down on the couch opposite me and leans forward. He zones in on the photo of Adelaide before looking over at me, but he doesn’t comment on it. “Josh, Luke’s boyfriend, has gone missing. Angelica says she knows where he is.”
My brows dig down. “You think Maxwell took him?”
River shakes his head. “Not exactly. We think it’s a distraction but Freya’s not willing to take the risk. I’m sending you with her to Quantico.”
My chest tightens. “Just the two of us?”
“Yes.”
I gather the autopsy photos together because I need something to do with my hands and put them back in the file. “Send Jude.”
“No.”
My spine goes rigid. I glare at River. “Maxwell is here, in L.A. We’re closer than we’ve ever been before, I’m not fucking leaving.”
“Yes, you are.”
“River—”
“You’re going.”
Panic floods my mind and I lash out. I swipe the files off the coffee table as I stand up, rage shooting through me. “This is my case. I don’t care if you’re the fucking team leader you can’t take me off it.”
River raises an unimpressed brow. “I’m not taking you off the case, though the way you’re acting makes me think that’s what I should be doing.”
I breathe like a dragon through my nose, my fists clenched at my sides. “Fucking try it.”
River nods and stands up. He does up a button on his suit jacket and steps around the coffee table.
I square up to him. “I’ve spent half my fucking life hunting Maxwell. You don’t get to take that from me.”
“You’re too close to this case.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “You’re the one who brought me in on this.” I’d been drowning in my own pity before River recruited me for the FBI. “You were the only one who understood this is what I needed.”
“And now I’m the one saying you need space. And time with Freya.”
“Fuck!” I kick my heel back into the coffee table and the legs scrape against the wooden floor. My veins vibrate, every breath a storm in my chest. I turn my back on River and stare at the fucking Picasso replica on the walls.
River doesn’t move, he just talks to my back, his voice low. “You think I don’t know what this is about?” he asks. “You think I haven’t figured it out already? You forget that I was there, Eli. I was there when the police turned up at your door. I was there when you drunk yourself into oblivion as a teenager. I was there when this case became your life.”
The muscles in my neck spasm. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You’re scared because Freya changes things.”
“She changes nothing .”
I turn, glaring at River. He doesn’t argue, just holds my stare.
I should have realized he’d try and stop me. I work my tongue around my back teeth, trying to loosen my jaw. I can’t even find it in me to feel betrayed because I know how he feels. He’ll do anything to protect Freya.
I know because so will I, he just doesn’t understand that’s why I’m pushing her away.
“You’re going to Quantico with Freya,” River says. “Find Josh. I’ll keep you updated on the case.”
The door to the pool house opens before I can argue anymore.
Freya walks inside, her rucksack slung over her shoulder. “You ready?” she asks. Her eyes are slightly puffy, and her hand grips the strap of her rucksack a little too tightly. She’s masking it, but her friend is missing, and she’s scared.
Suddenly, I don’t have it in me to fight River anymore. I’m not letting Freya go to Quantico alone.
“Give me a minute,” I say before heading to my room to grab my bag.
When I come back out River’s got a soft hold on Freya’s chin. “Find him and come back to me. That’s an order.”
Freya bites her bottom lip. “Yes, Sir,” she whispers, her eyes sparkling.
River nods and lets her go, his fingers keeping hold of hers until the last second.
I cross the room and join her, but she stops when I open the door and turns back. “River,” she says, “I love you too.”
The words stab into me like a knife. My hand tightens around the door, and I look away. Jealousy fights against my need for revenge, two fucked up snakes twisting around each other. Strangling.
I want Freya.
And I hate the idea of letting her go. But she deserves so much fucking better than me.