45. Lilah
45
LILAH
I forced myself to stay off my computer that night. I’d been spinning my wheels on the dark web, doing random searches on the regular web, and rereading press releases from the Blackwell PD for weeks.
Enough already.
But giving up my research for the night didn’t mean I could sleep. The conversation with Daisy and the Beasts replayed in my mind, the moody setting of the old house on the hill giving the whole thing a dreamlike quality.
It would be easy to see Daisy as a heroine from an old book, tragic and traumatized, but I’d sensed steel behind her eyes. I didn’t know everything that had happened to her, but whatever it had been, she’d survived it.
I would survive this too. I had to, for Matt. I had to get back to my life, start building for us again, because Matt was going to need me someday whether he realized it yet or not.
I got up and went downstairs to find Jude, even though I wasn’t at all hungry. He was there, in the kitchen like always, drawing on his sketch pad. The great room was quiet except for the soft scratch of his pencil and the crackle of the fire in the living room.
My breath caught in my throat as I approached him, wearing sweatpants and no shirt, the ink on his arm undulating as his muscles flexed with the movement of the pencil.
“Do you come down for me?” I asked, sliding onto one of the chairs at the island. “Or is it just a coincidence that you’re always here at two a.m.?”
“Both. I’ve never been a good sleeper.” He closed his sketch pad and turned his deep brown eyes on me. “You’re a bonus.”
“Are you trying to get me into bed again?” We hadn’t broached the subject of what had happened between Nolan, Jude, and me but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been thinking about it.
A lot.
He leaned over, resting his arm on my chair while he kissed me long and slow, before pulling away. He tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear.
“I’ve never actually gotten you into bed, boss.” He grinned. “And yeah, I’d definitely be down for that sometime real soon.”
I was apparently down for that too because I had to restrain myself from straddling him then and there.
“I wouldn’t be opposed,” I said, glad I sounded demure and not like the horny slut I was becoming.
“You didn’t come down here for an orgasm,” he said. “Or did you?” I smiled and he stood. “Want a grilled cheese?”
“Actually, I think I’ll pass on the grilled cheese tonight. My stomach feels nervous.”
He sat back down. “Nervous how?”
“I don’t know. I just keep thinking about everything Daisy and the Beasts said, trying to find something that connects what Piers Cantwell was doing to whatever Vic and Mr. Suit are up to. It’s like I know it’s there, but I can’t quite find it.”
“You sure you’re not seeing what you want to see?” Jude asked.
I sighed. “Maybe.”
I wanted to solve the mystery, although I’d stopped telling myself it was just so I could go back to my real life. Somehow it felt easier to connect it to a bigger conspiracy than to chalk the whole thing up to a couple of guys taking advantage of a lost girl.
And also, there were too many weird parts: like Mr. Suit and his bodyguards and the way they’d chased me through the woods on snowmobiles like I was some kind of mob witness who might be their downfall instead of just a messed-up girl who could barely hold her own life together.
Maybe that was why the image of the girl being shoved into the car haunted me. I’d been all alone in the world, without a single soul other than Matt to care about what happened to me. How long would it have taken someone to notice I was missing if they’d taken me instead?
Would anyone have mourned me? Would anyone have even looked for me?
Jude pulled me to my feet. “Come on, boss. I think I might have something that might help you sleep.”
“Does that something involve you naked in bed?” I asked, half hoping.
“Not this time, although it could be arranged.” He led me to the sofa. “Wait here.”
I watched as he put another log on the fire. Embers crackled and burst to life, flying above the stack of burning wood like a mini fireworks show.
“Pretty soon it’ll be too warm to have a fire every night,” he said.
I knew what he meant: spring was slower to come to the mountain, but evidence of its arrival was everywhere in warmer days, verdant leaves unfurling on the trees, the happy trill of birds chirping.
“It’s been nice,” I said. “I’ve always wanted a fireplace.”
“All the more reason to eke out every fire until summer.” He returned to the sofa and sat next to me, then pulled me with him as he lay down.
“Is this your magic sleep trick?” I asked, easing into the crook of his arm. “Lying on the sofa?”
“It is a comfortable sofa.”
“Indisputable.” The midnight blue suede put my thrift-store couch to shame.
“You need a blanket,” I said, thinking about the crocheted blanket I’d kept across the back of my couch. “For naps and stuff.”
“You have a point. Huge oversight.” He sounded almost wounded.
“It’s okay though. You’re pretty warm. Plus we have the fire.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Have you ever done yoga nidra?”
“Is that some kind of sex thing?”
He laughed and the rumble of it traveled to the far reaches of my body. “No, it’s a sleep thing, a sleep meditation. It can clear out your nervous system too, empty the mind.”
An empty mind sounded amazing. "Does it work?”
“It does for me. Sometimes I get up and draw anyway, but when I really need sleep, I can usually get there with yoga nidra.”
“How do you do it?”
“Well, first you just relax. Close your eyes and let your body feel heavy, let your head feel heavy, even your face.”
“Let my face feel heavy?”
He craned his neck to look down at me. “It’s not going to work if you keep talking.”
“Got it. No talking.” I pretended to zip my lips and throw away the key, then worked on making my face feel heavy.
“Now take three really deep breaths in through your nose and exhale forcefully through your mouth.”
We did it together and I laughed at the sound it made, like a whoosh of wind. Then I remembered the no-talking rule and figured it probably extended to laughing.
“Now three more inhales through the nose, but this time when you exhale, do it like you’re breathing through a tiny straw so it takes a while to get all the air out.”
I got less distracted as I followed his instructions, my mind quieter as it focused on letting the air leak slowly out of my mouth instead of exhaling all at once.
“Feel the places where your body is in touch with me or the sofa,” Jude said, his voice softer, slower. “Starting with your head and working your way down.”
I noticed the warmth of Jude’s bare chest under my cheek, the push of my shoulder into the sofa, my hip, my thigh, the way our feet, Jude’s bare and mine in socks, touched.
“Sense the room around you,” he said. “The ceiling, the walls, the floor.”
It was weird but when I paid attention, I could sense it. I could feel the living room sheltering my body like a giant cocoon.
“Now listen to the sounds around you, starting with the ones farthest away.” Jude’s voice had gotten almost hypnotic, and my mind started to feel fuzzy. “If you listen closely, you can hear the wind outside.”
I heard it, not blowing hard, but there every few seconds.
“Don’t work to hear it. Just notice it’s there, then notice the sounds that are close: the crackling of the fire, my voice, the inhale and exhale of your own breath.” I was drifting now, not asleep but maybe as relaxed as I’d ever been. “Now we’re going to notice parts of our bodies, one by one. You’re not going to move them, you’re just going to sense them, starting with your right hand, the top of your hand, your palm, your thumb, first finger, second finger, ring finger, little finger. Notice your right wrist… your forearm, elbow, shoulder… right chest… right waist… hip… thigh…”
It was the last thing I heard before I fell into sleep.