Chapter 6 #2
It also doesn’t really look like the home of a killer, but my guard is up when I pull into the spot where I parked my car the night before.
I have zero invitation to be here now. I’d left Leaf in a rush last night—he was still breathing heavily from his orgasm when I shut the door behind me and practically ran out the front door.
When I glanced back at him as I left the bedroom, he didn’t look upset. He looked resigned, which was the biggest gut punch of them all. The poor fucker seems dead set on hating himself, which isn’t uncommon when it comes to killers with a conscience.
Those are the hard cases. The ones that make me lose sleep at night because they know what they were doing is wrong. They feel fucking bad about it, and yet they still let themselves turn into a monster and do monstrous things.
One of the cases that haunts me most is a serial kidnapper my team worked on nearly eight years ago. His compulsion to take women, tie them up, blindfold them, and leave them in a ten-by-ten room for weeks at a time had been uncontrollable. But every time they cried, he cracked and let them go.
He scared them into never going to the police, but one time, it went too far.
One time, he slipped.
When we found the body, we found the evidence.
That single strand of hair led us to his front door, and the one image I will never get out of my head was the relief on his face when we put him in cuffs.
It was like he’d been waiting his whole life to be restrained—for someone or something to put a stop to him.
Fuck, all I can do now is pray to a god I’m not sure I believe in that Leaf isn’t that kind of man. That this really is some big misunderstanding.
That maybe he really is losing it over a groundhog.
Almost as if summoned, he appears, walking around the corner of his barn with that goddamn bat in his hand. He’s wearing short shorts and some kind of tiny crop top. On instinct, I start to reach for my gun before freezing and clenching my fingers into tight fists.
He doesn’t look murderous. He looks tired, like maybe he didn’t sleep after I left. Like maybe he tossed and turned all night with a hand between his legs like I did.
He shields his eyes with his free hand, then jerks his chin up in something like a hello.
“You’re here,” he says when I’m close enough to hear him.
“I felt bad about the way I took off last night.”
His mouth quirks up on the left side, an adorable little half smile that makes me want to pin him to the barn wall and bite his chin. “Worried about my feelings all of a sudden, Mr. Dark Web Arms Dealer?”
“I never said I was an arms dealer.”
“Do you run a secret diamond mine funded by the shadow government, then?” he asks.
I sigh and curl my hand around his forearm, dragging the touch down until my fingers reach the bat.
He doesn’t fight me when I take it away from him.
He doesn’t even look as I toss it down a few feet away from us.
Half the nails on it are gone, so I don’t think it would do much damage if he did hit me with it, but it’s instinct to disarm a potential criminal.
Although I am doubting myself now that I’m close to him once more.
“You listen to too many conspiracy theory podcasts. There’s no such thing as a shadow government.”
“Exactly what an agent of the shadow government would say,” he answers with a sniff. He steps in closer, then lifts his hand. I fight the urge to flinch away. I don’t like people coming for my face. My vision is important—I can’t afford for it to be compromised.
But he doesn’t do anything other than grab a leaf that must have blown onto my head. He smooths out the part of my hair that had been mussed and gives me a tired smile.
“Do I pass inspection?” I finally ask.
He snorts. “You could show up with a shaved head, wearing a clown nose and a tutu, and you’d pass inspection.” He regards me for a beat. “Has anyone ever tried to pay you with sex?”
My heart begins to hammer in my chest, my pulse so rapid it almost feels like I’m going to choke on it. I take a breath. I am not this flappable, damn it. I have been in literal hostage situations before, and my adrenaline has never been this bad.
“Why?” I’m struggling to hear my voice, but I can feel it, and it seems steady. “You offering?”
He quirks a brow, then shrugs. “I’d rather keep my sex free. Is that why you’re here? For sex?”
I choke on a cough. “Uh…no. I mean, not that last night wasn’t nice.”
“Mm. How nice?”
“Nice enough I jerked off to the memory when I got home.” I had long since learned to use the truth when I was lying. It’s like a weapon, and it’s working because his pupils dilate.
“Seems your head is okay, even after that whack I gave you.”
“Wasn’t all that hard.”
“You sure went down like it was.” I let out a small laugh as he glances down at my dick, then back up at me. “Well, since you’re here, you can help me. I just got done with Michael’s bullshit, and I need to clean up.”
My heart gets going again, but for different reasons this time. What does he mean by clean up? What does he mean by Michael’s bullshit? Am I about to walk into a room full of blood and viscera?
I say a prayer, then step back and let him lead the way into the rickety red barn.
The doors are wide open when I take a step inside and…
oh. It’s just typical farm equipment—terrifyingly sharp objects hanging above us, hooks used for god knows what, and a table saw for… whatever people use table saws for.
Please for the love of shit let it not be for chopping up bodies.
My gaze turns toward piles of wires on a wooden table and strange contraptions made out of plastic tubing I can’t make sense of, but there are no signs of blood anywhere, so that’s a plus.
Leaf catches me staring at the plastic tubing, and he blushes.
“Uh. Yeah. About this. I found some old camera equipment, and I attempted to make a trap for him but failed miserably. My friend shamed me for it enough that I abandoned the project. Which is just as well. I have enough money for a decent surveillance system.”
He points up, and that’s when I see the cameras attached to the corners of the ceiling.
Oh my fucking god. If there is a person trapped, there’s going to be security footage of him somewhere.
But this is not enough evidence to get a warrant.
No one named Michael has been reported missing.
In fact, no one in this area has been reported missing in over five years.
At least, no one who isn’t a runaway or wayward spouse.
“Anyway, he left this fucking mess,” Leaf is saying. He waves his hand around the floor, and it’s then I notice the dirt and a bunch of squashed vegetables. And, fuck, are those strawberries?
“He’s fucking destroying my life, Echo.”
I jolt. I’d forgotten I hadn’t told Leaf my real name.
“Seems so.”
He grabs a broom and a dustpan and starts sweeping. I should offer to help, but when he bends over to collect it in the dustpan, I just stare at his ass.
“I really never was this crazy before. If my aunt could see me now…well, that’s a bad example. She’d probably join in on the hunt. We didn’t know each other very well, and she was kind of a weirdo who didn’t like people coming onto her property or touching her stuff.”
That makes something in my mind rattle, but not enough to shake the familiarity to the forefront.
It’s weird that he inherited all of this but didn’t know her very well.
Unless Leaf is one of her only surviving relatives, it doesn’t make sense.
But I don’t know him well enough to ask, and I think if I do, he’ll get suspicious.
I run my fingers along the wires on the table, twisting one around my finger, shifting it.
My eyes are keen these days, even if they’re getting old and tired.
I do my best to look for droplets of blood that most killers miss during the cleanup, but the place—apart from the dirt and scattered vegetable parts—is clean.
Leaf stands up and dumps the old vegetables in the garbage can with a delirious sigh. “I’m going to head to the nursery after this. To get some new plants. Would you like to come?”
I watch him, telling myself to say no, but I just bob my head instead.
He smiles, changing the whole structure of his face for a single moment.
“I need to get some more plants and better fencing. Maybe some underground ones too. I actually need a fucking bomb shelter in the backyard to keep Michael out.” He gasps and then pulls his phone out, tapping on it erratically.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking online to see if there are any of those for sale.”
“I don’t think that’s something you can just buy online.”
“Well, you can buy tornado shelters and entire houses online. Why not a bomb shelter for my plants?”
“But how will they get sunlight?”
“Fuck the sun.”
He murmurs something unintelligible under his breath, and it’s then that I take his phone away and stuff it in his pocket. My hand skims his ass, and it distracts us both for long enough that he forgets all about bomb shelters.
“Come on. Let’s go get the plants. I’ll even help you dig the holes.”
He huffs and then brushes a hand through his hair. “Fine. I accept. I did lose it there for a moment. I apologize.”
I stare at him, and he blinks up at me. There’s that cute little freckle, the one right under his eye. “You did, but we all have our moments. Go on and get changed, and we can go.”
He glances down at his tiny purple shorts and midriff tie-dye shirt. Part of it is torn and exposes most of his shoulder. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
I roll my lips between my teeth. “Oh, I thought these were pajamas.”
“Fuck you.”
I let out a laugh, and he rolls his eyes. “I’ll go change into something less embarrassing then.”
“No, no, you don’t have to.” I reach for him, but he slips away.
“Can’t have you embarrassed to be in my company.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“And just so you know, I went years just wearing boring black for interpreting, so I do like a bit of color and pizazz.”
“Leaf…”
“But whatever. I’ll be right back.”
He disappears from the barn and into his house, leaving me alone.
I can’t help but scour the premises as best I can while in the daylight.
I’m looking for any trace of Michael, but just like I expected, I see nothing.
Just the typical farm equipment, a few empty horse stalls, large barrels full of nothing, and a few bags of lye and quicklime in the corner.
Nothing that screams murderer.
Although he could use the lye and the bins to dispose of remains.
I scrub a hand over my face and head to the barn doors when I hear Leaf calling for me.
He pokes his head in and then grins. “Sorry, forgot you might not have had your hearing aids in.” He signs this as well as speaks it, and I turn my head, showing him my ears. “Right. Ready?”
My gaze skims down his one-piece neon skin suit. Like something wrestlers would wear.
He looks ridiculous, but still my eyes skim over his body beneath it, the Lycra showing off every inch of him.
“Better?” he asks, and I roll my eyes.
“Alright. You made your point.”
He grins and then walks toward his car. “I’ll drive.”