Chapter 17 Rowan
ROWAN
It’s been nearly a week, and it seems my Abi has passed her test.
I keep an eye on the news all week, checking it compulsively when I’m at home or alone in my office at the hotel.
There was a single story about a body found off Pier Fourteen on the local news, and then nothing more.
“The police do not suspect foul play,” the pretty newscaster says in a segment uploaded to YouTube.
“But the city would like to use the incident to remind anyone visiting the beach to mind all safety and warning signs before entering the water.”
They don’t share the man’s name, which irritates me. As pleased as I am that Abi understood what I needed her to do, that she covered up the death as beautifully as she tends to the cemetery before the heat of the day settles in, I want his identity.
I lean back on my couch as the video ends. There are a handful of comments underneath it, all variations on what a terrible tragedy it was. More irritation rankles in my belly. It wasn’t a tragedy at all. He deserved his death. Certainly more than most of the people I’ve killed since Uncle Nash.
I toss my phone aside. The sun’s just starting to set, which means it’ll be time for my nightly visit to Abi’s house.
I’ve been watching her every night since it happened, of course.
As soon as full dark hits, I’m patrolling the cemetery and her property both, checking in on her through the windows when I can.
I haven’t gone inside, though, not even when she’s asleep.
I know that if I do that, I won’t be able to stop myself from touching her.
So I stay out in the hot, humid night, my killing face keeping me hidden. No one’s come for her. I haven’t even felt that odd, inhuman presence again. Not at her house, not on the beach. Nowhere.
It’s vanished.
That makes me a bit nervous, I’ll admit. I tell myself I scared him off.
When night falls, I make the trek to Abi’s. On foot, like always—the last thing I need is Rowan Hanover’s car to be spotted by the Hatch Street Burial Grounds. But the walk isn’t far. It’s why I bought the beach bungalow where I did. To be closer to her.
Her house looks as it has all week. Dark.
Shut up tight. I keep a wide berth around the front porch—there’s a camera installed there now, right above the doorbell.
It appeared at the same time the door was repaired.
I don’t blame her for it, not really, but it means I can’t check the integrity of the lock.
I make the rest of my rounds as usual. I sniff the air to see if anyone’s close by. I double-check that the darkened windows downstairs are locked. I try the back entrance. When I’m satisfied, I make my way to the oak tree and shimmy up the trunk.
She’s watching TV tonight, the way she does most nights. I don’t recognize what’s on the screen, but it looks like science fiction. A ship in deep space, dark industrial corridors, computers blinking like Christmas lights.
I wish I could be in there with her. She’s anxious, as she has been all week, although it seems worse tonight. I don’t like that. I don’t like not knowing why.
Whatever she’s watching ends, the credits blinking by on the screen. Abi sits forward and rakes her fingers through her hair, then stands and, to my dismay, walks out of the living room.
Damn it. I had just settled in, and there’s no other tree that lines up with any of the other second-floor windows.
I slide out of the branches, keeping my eyes on the house.
The lights in the window tell me where she’s going.
I assumed it was to bed, even though it’s still early, but no—the light in the stairwell window snaps on, bright and unexpected.
I watch her shadow move past it, then follow the trail of illuminated glass until she gets to her kitchen.
The kitchen is the only part of the living quarters that’s downstairs, since everything else down there makes up the funeral parlor. Unfortunately, it only has one small window that doesn’t show much of anything. I stick to the shadows, watching Abi move back and forth in front of it.
Then the kitchen light goes out.
I creep around the side of the house, waiting to see where the light trail takes me.
But everything stays dark. I close my eyes and try to see her that way—through sound and presence.
I can feel her, a heart beating inside the house’s wooden and brick walls, but I can’t tell where she’s going.
There’s only the sense of movement, and sadness, and fear.
It cracks my heart in two.
And then suddenly, all of Abi’s stormy emotions are blaring like an alarm. And then I smell her, a sweet and honeyed ribbon on the wind.
She’s outside.
For a moment, I’m paralyzed with uncertainty. Did she hear me? Are there more cameras that I can’t sense? Is she leaving?
No. I don’t think it’s the last one. And her fear is dull and quiet. A background fear, not the spike of adrenaline I would expect if she had seen an intruder.
I melt into the shadows along the edge of her yard, following the trail of her scent until I find her standing on her front porch, elbows resting on the railing, the salty wind blowing her hair away from her face.
She’s holding a small, clear glass, and even from here I can smell the alcohol in it, something floral and antiseptic all at once. She picks the glass up distractedly, the ice clinking as she brings it to her lips.
I wish I were that glass.
For a moment, all I can do is watch her.
The porch light is unnaturally bright and washes out her pale skin, making her look like a ghost. She’s in thin, flimsy shorts and a long, flowy tank top that clings to her breasts, but when she moves to take a drink, I can see the dark outline of her areolas through the fabric, which makes my breath quicken.
I move closer, my steps slow and careful as I skirt around the flower garden.
The sunflowers bob their heads in the wind.
But Abi’s looking straight ahead, at the cemetery, and her emotions are so strong that I almost feel them for myself.
The fear and anxiety, yes. But something else, too.
Confusion, maybe. Guilt. Whatever it is, it cuts like a knife.
Abi straightens her spine, takes another drink. There’s nothing to separate us. No walls or thick, distorted windows.
I step forward again, and this time I let my step fall heavy.
Immediately, Abi’s fear spikes. She jerks her gaze toward me, although she blinks blindly behind her glasses.
“Hello?” she calls out, her fingers tightening around the railing. “Who’s there?”
My heart is thundering. I don’t think I could turn back even if I wanted to.
“It’s me, little detective.” I take two large steps, moving into the edge of light cast by the porch.
Abi gasps, jerking herself back so her drink sloshes around in the glass. “You,” she breathes, and beneath my killing face, the skin on the back of my neck prickles. “What are you doing here?”
I step up to the porch. Her emotions have shifted again. The fear’s abated, which makes my chest warm. The confusion is still there. Heightened, if anything. But there’s also a curl of heat beneath it. A sparking of excitement.
“Making sure you’re safe.” I step onto the porch steps and into the light. I can feel the buzzing heat of it, even through my killing face.
“What do you care about that?” Abi asks.
The question cuts through me. How can she not understand what she is to me?
Because she’s terrified of you, dumb ass.
The voice sounds like Uncle Nash, and I hate it, especially since I know, deep down, he’s right. I can sense the fear coming off her, even if it’s nowhere as intense as the fear from the night she was attacked.
Abi stares up at me, lips parted, eyes big and glossy behind her glasses.
“Someone attacked you,” I say slowly. “I want to make sure it won’t happen again.”
“Why?” Abi’s voice wavers. “So you can attack me instead?”
Another slice of despair. “No,” I snap. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”
We stare at each other in the sallow porch light. The air smells like her. Like funeral flowers and sweet fresh lemonade.
I take a step closer. She doesn’t pull away.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks softly, curling her glass up against her chest.
I stop; it brings me up short. But then I nod silently, my curiosity burning hotly.
“When you—” She stops and looks out toward the cemetery.
“No one’s here,” I say. “Just us. You can say whatever you need.”
“How can you know that?” She looks over at me again, her eyes narrow.
I don’t answer because I don’t have one. I just know when people are around. I always have.
“Well, when you—helped me.” She stresses the word. “When you, ah, cleaned up afterward, I thought you were going to—” The glass shakes, making the ice clink. “Take it to the dump? Get rid of the trash completely? But instead you—”
“I told you, there’s no one here but us.” I clear the space between us so that I’m close enough that I could touch her, if I wanted. Abi gazes up at me, her breath shuddery and soft. She’s afraid, yes. But she’s not only afraid.
I wrap my hand around hers and move to set her drink down on the railing. She doesn’t fight me, and I’m glad, because it was mostly an excuse to touch her, and I keep my hand draped over hers as I speak.
“You’re asking why I let the body be found,” I say softly.
Abi sucks in a breath. Then she nods.
I draw my hand up her arm—slowly, cautiously. If she told me to stop, I would. But she doesn’t, not even when she glances down at my gloved hand and bites her lip.
I tuck my fingers beneath her chin and make her look at my killing face again.
“There was an investigation, wasn’t there? Were you asked to autopsy the body?”
“Yes.” Abi breathes out the word like a sigh. She glances out at the darkness again, then says, “And I—I had to fake my report so they wouldn’t—”
“Good girl.” I slide my hand around to the side of her neck. Even though the leather of my gloves I can feel her pulse fluttering. My cock throbs, stiffening even further. “That’s what I wanted you to do. A test, like I said.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she says tightly. “If his tox report came back clean, they would have known something was wrong.”
“But it didn’t come back clean.” I stroke along her neck, wishing desperately that I could kiss her again. I refrain, though. “Did they find a name?”
“I found a name,” Abi says stiffly. “His fingerprints were in the system.”
I sense a shift in her emotions then, a flash of anger like a sun flare.
“And?”
“Julian Bernet.”
The name feels anticlimactic. I thought I wanted to know who tried to hurt her, and I do. But the name doesn’t actually tell me that, I realize. I’ve never heard it before.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” Abi picks up her alcohol, but I stop her before she can take a drink. I want her clear-headed.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asks me darkly.
I pull the drink away from her. “So when I ask if I can touch you, I’ll know your answer is honest.”
It comes out before I can stop it, something I would never say as Rowan Hanover. But it has an immediate effect on Abi; her body flushes, her lemony orchid scent deepens.
“Why do you want to touch me?” she whispers.
“I told you before,” I say. “You’re beautiful.”
Then I tilt the drink on its side so the alcohol pours into the morning glory twining around the porch lattice.
“But first,” I say. “Tell me about this Julian Bernet.”
Abi gapes up at me, stunned like a deer.
Then she blinks and sputters out, “I don’t—he was arrested for breaking and entering a few years back.
That’s why he was in the system. Didn’t serve time.
I—” Her voice tightens again. “I spent hours trying to find out more about him,” she whispers.
“He’s not from here. He was born in Montana and lived along the West Coast for a while.
I don’t understand what he has to do with any of this. ”
I cup her cheek in my hand and tilt her face up toward me again.
“Some people are just killers,” I tell her. “Maybe it was random.”
“He was coming after me,” Abi says darkly. “Olivia Pearce, then me? That’s not random.” She hesitates, staring up at my killing face. I can feel something opening up inside her. “Olivia Pearce helped me with something when I was younger,” she says softly. “She helped keep me from going to jail.”
“You think I don’t know that about you?”
Abi’s eyes widen. Her fear spikes. God, it smells fucking good.
“And you still think it’s random?” she manages to sputter out. “And not a message?”
A weighted silence passes between us.
“Like one of my messages?” I finally ask. “No, little detective. It’s not the same.”
Before she can protest, I rub my thumb over her cheek. She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t tell me to stop.Not even when I trace my thumb over her bottom lip.
But god, do I feel her tremble.
I think that’s why I ask what I do next. Because I have a name, even if I don’t have much else. I can look into it later. But not right now. Right now, I want to feel Abi tremble again.
“Now,” I murmur. “Can I ask you a question?”
Abi stares at me, drinking in my killing face. The scent of orchids is overwhelming.
“May I touch you?”