24. twenty-two
twenty-two
. . .
ASPEN
In the two days since my bathtub play time, I’d hardly seen Crew. Admittedly, he’d slept most of the day before when he got off shift, but now that he was restored, he was still suspiciously MIA. For some reason, he’d been locked in his office. But why ? Had I done something wrong?
Oh, God. Had he somehow learned what I’d done to myself in his tub with his name on my lips?
No, that wasn’t possible. The house may be wired, but there was no way in hell he’d have cameras in his private spaces.
Unfortunately, I was going crazy being cooped up, and I needed to let him know I was leaving.
I lightly tapped the door with my knuckles. “Crew?”
“Yeah?”
His voice was muffled, and I waited, listening, but only silence greeted me. He made no move to greet me face to face.
I sighed, suddenly irritated. Ever since dinner at the ranch, he’d been acting cagey and weird.
“I’m going to run into town. I want to run to the library again, and I’ll pick up something for dinner. Anything you want? ”
“Nah, I’m good. Be safe!”
“I always am,” I grumbled under my breath as I walked away, making my way through the house, purse slung over my shoulder and keys in hand.
Since I’d been staying with him, Crew had been kind enough to let me park in his garage, and I’d been more than a little grateful for it. Now, I wouldn’t have to worry about any more jump scares in the form of creepy notes left under my windshield.
At least, not while I was home.
My head would be on a swivel while I was in away, though.
When I reached town, I headed straight for the library. I was greeted like a celebrity, Ginny excitedly shuffling out from behind the info desk and sweeping me into one of those warm hugs.
“Oh, it’s good to see you, dear,” she said, clasping my hand and leading me back into the meeting room. “I kept those yearbooks stashed away for you. Take a seat, and I’ll be right back.”
“Oh, I can help, Ginny. You don’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense,” she insisted, waving me off. “Get comfortable. I can handle carrying a few little books.”
I wasn’t about to argue with her. Little old ladies like her were stubborn, and there’d be no talking her into letting me assist.
A few minutes later, she returned with a stack of yearbooks—then left again and came back with another. After two more trips, I had probably forty of them on the table before me. Damn, this woman was stronger than she looked.
“This is…more than I was expecting,” I admitted.
“I pulled them for each of the years those girls was in school,” Ginny said proudly. “To really give you the full scope of their high school careers.”
I glanced up at her with a grateful smile. “Thank you so much, Ginny. You are truly a gem.”
“It’s no problem, dear. Old ladies like me like to be useful.”
“So far, you’re the most useful person I’ve met in this town. ”
A blush flooded her deeply lined cheeks, a pleased smile gracing her lips.
“Thank you. I’ll leave you to it, but let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do. Thanks, Ginny.”
With a final squeeze to my shoulder, she disappeared.
I took my time flipping through the yearbooks, starting at the beginning with Roger and Vicky, smiling at any pages I came across that featured Birdie and her late husband, Jase. Despite being grainy and sepia-toned, I recognized his sons in his face easily. They’d all taken after him in one way or another—the height, the broad shoulders, the muscular build. The smile. The lack of real color to the pictures didn’t offer any confirmation, of course, but I could guess his eyes were blue, his hair the sandy shade each of his sons sported in variation. Birdie was still gorgeous, but she’d been a knockout when she was younger. Aria was a dead ringer for her mother.
Vicky had been as vibrant and involved in school activities as Birdie had said. I could hardly flip a page without her face appearing in a photograph.
She reminded me so much of my sister, my heart thumped painfully in my chest every time I looked at her. Was it her dark hair? Or maybe the way her energy seemed to leap off the page, making me feel surrounded by her spirit despite the fact that she was long gone?
Whatever the reason, I found myself lingering on her photographs, wanting to feel close to my sister in this fucked up way.
“I miss you,” I whispered, hoping Lola, wherever she was, could hear me.
By the tenth yearbook, I was scanning for victim number four, a girl who had been twenty at the time of her death, home from her sophomore year of college, kidnapped on her way home from the store. The second my gaze locked on her face, the wheels in my brain started spinning at warp speed, and a pattern emerged.
Suddenly, the weird ass email I’d gotten the other day made a lot more sense.
I spared far less time on the remaining eight victims, only going so far as flipping to the individual photos of each student from each grade to locate the girls before moving onto the next.
I knew what I’d find; I merely needed confirmation.
After glancing through the final one, I left them on the table in five neat stacks, collected my things, and rushed out to Ginny.
“Thank you so much again,” I told her. “I left them on the table because I’m not sure where they go. I can absolutely help you put them away, but?—”
“You run along, dear,” she said, gently halting my rambling. “I can tell you’re fired up about something.”
I gave her a quick hug and sprinted for the door.
Once safely behind the wheel of Black Betty and punching the doors locked, I checked my phone for the first time in hours to several texts from Crew.
HOTSHOT
Pizza sounds amazing. You don’t mind, do you?
Aspen?
Goddamnit, Aspen, text me back.
We’ve been over this.
If you don’t respond in the next two minutes, I’m coming to find you.
And you won’t like what I have to say when I do.
The last two came in as I was reading the first ones, so I quickly tapped out a response.
ME
Promises, promises
HOTSHOT
You are a goddamn pain in my ass.
ME
You love it.
HOTSHOT
Please tell me you got caught up at the library again and aren’t being held somewhere against your will
ME
…again
HOTSHOT
ASPEN
Cackling, I told him I was fine, that I was going to grab pizza and head home, then dropped my phone in the cupholder and set off. There was only one pizza joint in town, and luckily, they had take-and-bake pizzas with a variety of topping combinations, so I picked out a classic pepperoni and a loaded supreme, paid, and headed back onto the street.
At this time of day, when people were getting off work and running errands before heading home, downtown Dusk Valley bustled with people, the bulk of parking spaces along the street full. I’d managed to slide Black Betty into one a few blocks up, so with an extra pep in my step, I started that way. When I reached the first street corner, I paused for traffic, but as I was about to step into the crosswalk, the hair on the back of my neck rose.
In my line of work, I’d long since honed my sixth sense, and the ability to know when someone was watching me had become second nature, easy as breathing .
As if on cue, keeping in time with that creepy-crawly feeling sliding down my spine, my phone pinged with an email.
My hands shook as I withdrew it from my pocket.
FROM: [email protected]
No Subject
I see you, but so do too many other people. Broad daylight is such a bummer. I much prefer darkness illuminated by the glow of a flame. But don’t worry, little cockroach. Soon enough I’ll catch you alone, and I can finish what I started.
My fingers trembled so violently, I could barely hold onto my phone, so I stuffed it in my pocket in favor of studying my surroundings. Sweeping my eyes around the area, I took mental snapshots of all the people in my vicinity.
The man holding his young daughter’s hand.
The woman in a smart suit, phone pressed to her ear as she ate up the sidewalk.
The two women, clearly mother and daughter, exiting the diner with take-out containers in their hands.
The man standing on the corner a block ahead, hat pulled low over his face, shoulders hunched as he waited for a car to pass so he could cross the street.
I stepped into the street, the blare of a car horn barely penetrating my haze as I rushed to the other side, eyes locked on the man who passed from view around the side of a building.
By the time I got there, though, he was long gone, seemingly vanished into thin air .
I spun in a slow circle, searching for any sign of him, but to no avail. Eventually, I gave up and got behind the wheel of Black Betty to head home.
Too freaked out over the email and disappearing, I skipped right over the part where I started thinking of Crew’s house as home .
The man himself waited for me on the front porch when I pulled to a stop in the driveway, hands on his hips and a pissed off expression on his face. I hopped out of my car, grabbed the pizzas from the back, and walked toward him.
“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “You can’t be that mad.”
“All you had to do was text me. I was about to send out a goddamn search party.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine, hotshot. Ginny pulled like fifty yearbooks, and it took me ages to go through them all. Honestly, what could be safer than a library?”
“The house, for starters,” he grumbled as he followed me through the living room and into the kitchen. “Libraries have no security at all.”
I sighed. “You’re exhausting.”
“And you’re a brat.”
I’d barely slid the pizzas onto the counter when he grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him.
That worry in his eyes was back, the same expression I’d seen the last time I’d gone MIA for a few hours.
I fucking hated that look—had seen it on my parents’ faces too many times over the last seventeen years. The last thing I wanted was to stress anyone out unnecessarily.
Before he could start raging at me, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, sinking into his warmth, as well as the freshness of his detergent layered with the smokey scent that always clung to his skin. I was growing far too familiar with that particular blend, and after the filthy things I’d mentally conjured to get myself off in his tub the other day, this hug was likely the worst idea I’d ever had. But when his arms banded around my shoulders, somehow pulling me even closer, I couldn’t find a single cell in my body that cared.
Since my ordeal, mostly all physical contact had pained me. I wasn’t a fan of unwanted touch in particular, as it reminded me too much of the worst offenses I’d suffered at other people’s hands.
None of that bothered me with Crew. I liked having his hands on me, more than I cared to admit. Not only because I knew his hands were that of a protector, and that he’d never raise then against a woman in anger, but also because he calmed me. My negative thoughts and horrific memories quieted when he touched me.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured against his shirt, which was so soft against my cheek, I could damn well curl up there forever.
Crew relaxed against me, his rough exhale brushing against the top of my head.
“It’s okay. I just want you to be safe.”
“I get that,” I said, pulling away. “But you can’t fly off the handle every time I take a bit to respond to a text. You have to remember I’ve spent a long time on my own, and I’m still navigating having anyone give a fuck where I am or what I’m up to.”
“Your parents do.”
“That’s different.”
The change in his expression with those two words was subtle, but I was watching closely enough to see it happen. The slightly furrowed brow smoothed out, his dark eyes cleared, the tightness around his mouth relaxed.
And I knew why: he’d heard my silent admission.
He was different.
My parents were genetically predisposed to care what happened to me—and my mom, in particular, usually took it about twenty steps further. Like because she’d given me life, she could also control it .
Crew Lawless did not fall into that category. He cared because he chose to, because he worried about the woman he knew, the woman I was right now , not the amalgamation of every version of Aspen McKay I’d been all the years I’d been alive.
Silence stretched between us as we stared into each other’s eyes, and I angled my head to the side.
The answer to an unspoken question and a silent invitation.
The corners of his beautiful mouth twitched, as though he was amused by me, and he started moving closer. Slowly, clearly trying to give me the chance to back out, to back down.
I stood my ground.
His lips brushed faintly against mine, a teasing taste—and then a beeping rent the still air around us.
Crew leapt back like he’d been electrocuted, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he turned away, looking everywhere but at me.
“Oven timer,” he explained, then set about removing the pizzas from their shrink wrap so he could get them cooking.
I blinked in confusion, having no idea what happened. Why was he suddenly acting like kissing me would be the biggest mistake of his life?
I sighed. Men .
Needing to get away from him and the cloying awkwardness that hung in the air around us, I let him deal with the food while I disappeared to my room.
For every investigation, I kept a notepad of random thoughts, odd bits of information, and seemingly innocuous occurrences that may wind up being important later. Tucked in the back of this one was that note I’d found under my wiper the day I’d picked Black Betty up from impound, and I spent a few minutes detailing my findings at the library, then jotted down a couple paragraphs about the email, the people on the street, and the disappearing man .
A light knock came at the door as I closed it and returned it to the drawer of my bedside table.
“Yeah?”
“Can you come out?” Crew asked. “I want to show you something.”
“I guess,” I sighed, quiet enough that I knew he wouldn’t hear, and went to meet him.
When I opened the door, he jerked his head in the direction of the office.
“Oh, are you finally going to show me what had you locked in here all day?” I asked, awkwardness forgotten in my excitement as I followed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ I’m thirty-three, not sixty-three.”
Crew chuckled. “Fine. Then little phoenix it is.”
Little phoenix .
I turned it over in my mind for the few seconds it took us to reach the office door and couldn’t find fault. It made me feel powerful and strong. Reminded me I was a survivor, not a victim.
Reminded me of the man who ensured I continued to draw breath.
Crew stopped in front of the still closed office door, hand gripping the knob.
“You ready?”
“Yes!”
With a grin and a flourish, he twisted the knob and pushed, then reached in to flick the light on.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.
The far wall, which had once been home to the maps of the city and a corkboard, was now lined with paper. Stepping closer, my hand flew to my mouth as I gasped.
“You got the case file,” I breathed.
“Lane gave it to me the other night. ”
I turned and smacked him. “Gym equipment, my ass. Why did you lie to me?”
“I wanted to look it over first—and I wanted to do this.”
“My very own murder board.” I grinned at him, ire over his untruth instantly soothed.
He remained silent, allowing me the opportunity to study the spread. It would take me a few days to read all the reports and interview transcripts, but the same thing that had jumped out at me at the library was even more obvious now.
As though he sensed the wheels in my mind turning, Crew moved closer, the heat of his body and his intoxicating scent wrapping around me.
“What do you see?” Crew asked quietly.
I fingered the dark strands of my hair. I wasn’t entirely surprised by the discovery, but to see it laid out so plainly like this…my heart raced faster with the knowledge.
That while I’d obviously been targeted for my desire to solve this case, there was more to it than that.
“I see an awful lot of brunettes.”