Chapter 18
Jersey
Heat washes over me, and for a moment, I'm able to convince myself that everything is fine. Warmth isn't a bad thing. We need warmth in the form of arms wrapped around you when we're tired. We need warmth when it's cold outside—a warm jacket, a snuggly blanket. Hell, even the air from a vehicle's heating system.
This is a different kind of warmth, one that bites and stings. One that leaves pieces of yourself behind. Leaves you less than you were before you encountered it.
Flames lick at my skin, smoke filling my lungs to the point that I have to stop.
I can hear their voices and feel the rattle of their pleas for help deep in my bones as black, billowing smoke rolls over every inch of my body, making my eyes burn, and my lungs sting with the poison surrounding me.
The house is different than I remember, the tips of my boots catching on furniture that wasn't here the last time I stood in this room .
The smoke clears, just like it always does, the sight of Eden on the couch coming into full view, eyes wide open, needle in her arm, the cigarette she was smoking burning a hole in the couch beside her, although never burning her somehow.
"Daddy!"
The screams continue, two little voices pleading for help. Two tiny people who cry out for me, although I'm helpless and unable to get to them. I never make it. Getting to them is impossible.
Fire licks at my skin, but still, I grope around in the smoke-filled room helplessly.
By some mercy I'm not sure I deserve, I find the doorknob to their room, convincing myself that they'll be okay. The smoke is filling the other room, and Eden closing this door will have saved them .
I open the door only to find flames shooting up the walls, two tiny forms in one bed, even though they each have their own.
The smoke clears as if it is in partnership with whatever force needs me to hurt the most. Only my babies are no longer crying out for me. Like their mother, lifeless eyes stare up at the ceiling, forever unseeing, forever four years old.
I jerk, my body bringing me back to the present. I've had the nightmare enough to know that it isn't real. I never experienced that fire. I never clawed through an unfamiliar room in an attempt to rescue my babies. I never witnessed Eden dead from an overdose as her cigarette started a fire that killed my twin boys.
I was seven hundred miles away, on a job, when that happened. I was so out of touch, so involved in rescuing others, that I had no idea what was going on at home. My own children fell prey to a mother who vowed to care for them, a woman I fell head over heels in love with at first sight. I was so in love that I missed every red flag she waved in my face, too infatuated to see what was really happening.
Eden was damaged beyond repair when I met her, but my history with ICE had me convinced I could change her, and heal her of those wounds. I let myself believe I was enough.
Now I know better, and it took losing my babies to understand that mistake.
I stand from the bed, grabbing my boots and gun before walking out of her bedroom. I don't know if Caitlyn is still asleep or if I managed to wake her during my nightmare, but she doesn't follow me from the room.
I resist the urge to run my hands along my skin. There are no burns, no scars from the way that night shattered my entire world.
There's no outward wound, only the ones that eat away at me on the inside.
I've noticed her looking at the ring on my left hand more than once, and last night she had the courage to actually confront me about it. She's too astute and too observant. She knew without me speaking that I had lost Eden. Her mistake is thinking it was a love lost, but there will never come a day when I could ever forgive her for what she did.
As much as I blame myself for not seeing the warning signs, for being so enamored with her and believing her lies, she's the one who got high, fell asleep, and let my entire world burn to ashes.
I clench my hand tightly just before opening the front door of Caitlyn's little house, fighting the urge to put my fist through a fucking wall. The nightmare is never far away, but in recent weeks, with my change of job, it has been infrequent.
It feels as if it crept up on me tonight because I was lying beside Caitlyn. I have no doubt it's Eden's way of haunting me, reminding me that I don't have it in me to love anyone the way they deserve. In reality, there's no one worth the effort, not after becoming all too aware of just how easily someone can cut me off at the knees.
The cool air does nothing to stop the burn on my skin.
I had planned to wait until a decent hour to call Casper, but there's no time like the present. The sooner I can get someone on this, the sooner I can walk away and leave Caitlyn Rudd in my past.
I hesitate when I pull my phone from my pocket. Setting shit into motion will happen very quickly once the call ends, and I know from being right beside her that she tossed and turned all night long. I have no doubt that she's terrified of what's to come, worried that the man will hurt her in some way, torturing herself with the idea that he may have already invaded her privacy more than just following her home at some point.
A rustle beside me draws my complete attention, my phone back in my pocket and my gun in hand in the next breath. Any other day, my first thought would be a bear. With the weather warming up during the day, they've been wandering around the cabin more, looking for food.
But with what happened last night, I can't be too careful.
The sun is just barely coming up, the mountain keeping it from view longer here because she's at the base than it would take from our cabin higher up.
I feel like a fool when a fucking squirrel darts out from around her house. That man driving by last night, my sleeping beside her in the same bed, and then the nightmare has me on edge so much I actually nearly pull the fucking trigger.
I stomp my foot, alerting the damn rodent that I'm near so it'll dart away and go cause problems for someone else.
My heart is racing, partly still from the dream but also from the tail-twitching animal.
I tuck my gun away and pull out my phone, dialing Casper's number.
"What's up?" he greets, answering on the first ring, not sounding like I woke him up in the slightest.
"There's a problem," I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose in an attempt to ease the threat of a headache I can feel pressing outward from the backs of my eyes.
It's going to be a long-ass day. I can already tell.
"I don't think you'd have a problem if you stayed away from her like you were told to do."
The words make me freeze.
"How do you know anything about it? Did Jericho say something to you?"
"You do realize we have cameras in all the house's public areas, right? That includes the pool area."
"And you get your jollies off by listening to other peoples' conversations?" I grumble.
"I'm a thorough investigator," he says, a cheeriness in his tone that makes me wish I could wrap my hands around his throat.
I pull in a deep breath. His diligence will greatly benefit me, but I need to get past what feels like an invasion of privacy first.
"She was in danger," I say, knowing it's part of the truth. "Some piece of shit from the club grabbed her arm last night. She was shaken up. I drove her home. "
Silence fills the line as if he's waiting for more of an explanation.
He won't get one from me.
Nothing happened last night between the two of us, and if I can keep my head on right, then what happened here last week will never happen again.
A bird chirps somewhere in the distance, nature and the rest of the world finally waking up.
"Before Lark could show up to get me, that same guy that grabbed her drove by her house."
"You're certain it's him?"
"Same make and model of car, a newer looking Mercedes, dark blue or black. It was hard to tell."
I bend my neck to the side, not feeling an ounce of relief when it cracks, so I do the other side as well.
"I bet you could find out who he is if you—"
"Scott Wilson. He owns one of those themed dinner-and-a-show places on the main drag in town. From the looks of it, it's pretty lucrative, but I bet the IRS doesn't know he's cooking the books. Married, has two adult children. One has a lengthy criminal history, and the other lives out of the country."
"You found that fast," I say. "What's his criminal history?"
"Not much of anything," Casper says, but I can tell by the clicking of keys through the line that he's digging deep to make sure we don't miss anything.
A guy following a woman home and creeping by her house isn't great, but it also doesn't mean the guy is a serial killer or anything either.
"Looks like he had a run-in with the police when he was younger, a kid really. Looks like a minor vandalism, possibly like egging or something. He got community service, and that was it. I imagine there was no major damage. There was no restitution ordered."
"Nothing sinister? "
"There's not a thing on his history, but you and I both know that they don't always get caught," Casper clarifies, making my skin crawl. "You want me to send someone over there to relieve you? Jericho isn't going to be too happy that she may be in trouble."
"I can handle it," I assure him. "Keep digging."
"I'll let you know what I find," he says before the call ends.