8. Knox #2
So, again, why the hell is she living on the border of the Valley? She can clearly afford better.
Rock music plays on the television, but I don’t recognize the song.
Not surprising if it’s new. I’ve only had seven weeks to catch up on the last four years.
Based on the titles, all of the books on her shelves are ghost stories or thrillers, mentioning hauntings and huntings, rituals, and taking souls.
Doesn’t exactly strike me as “cozy” reading material, but she appears to take comfort in them. The spines are cracked, and color-coded tabs stick out of the tops. I pull one of the books off the shelf and open it up where an orange tab marks the page to see—
Holy fucking shit.
To say I’m going to look at guns differently is an understatement, because this isn’t a thriller. At least not these pages.
It’s porn.
And a very different kind than the ones I’m familiar with.
Jesus.
Is this freaky shit what she’s really into? Because I could definitely show her a good time. Fuck, I’m hard just thinking about it.
Dude, focus!
I try to keep my head in the game and check her computer. The screen isn’t locked, displaying some kind of graphic design program. She appears to be working on a book cover, but the name on it isn’t hers. Pen name maybe? Or is she making it for someone else? No clue.
I do my best to remember the tabs and programs open so I can leave everything the way I found it, beginning my deep dive.
In just a few minutes, so many pieces to the puzzle that is Anna Evans get dumped on the board that I don’t know what to do with any of them. I save as many photos as possible onto a flash drive so I can reverse image search them later.
Because nothing’s adding up.
For one, none of the images of Blondie here show her as a blonde.
She’s a brunette. Don’t get me wrong. You’re more than free to change your hair to whatever color you want, but it also seems like she’s gotten a personality transplant.
For a girl who’s been locked away in her apartment with no human contact outside of her roommate, it’s more than a little curious to see picture after picture of her surrounded by friends dancing, drinking, doing karaoke, attending festivals, and everything else you’d expect from a twenty-something-year-old.
Unlike the paranoid woman I saw in the grocery store, she’s bubbly and smiley and not the least bit afraid of strangers.
Videos show her dancing with random men and women at a concert and kissing some guy she clearly doesn’t know at a pub on St. Paddy’s Day.
She’s a free spirit who isn’t afraid of her shadow.
So what the fuck happened?
I pull up the email that she’s logged into, not finding any messages that aren’t business-related. They all just reference design work. Nothing from friends or family. No notifications linked to social media accounts. Not even spam.
I really may have just hit the jackpot here.
I know Paradise City well enough to recognize that it isn’t the backdrop to any of her videos and photos.
This girl has completely cut herself off from her old life. New town, no friends, no contact, no fun.
People don’t do that unless shit went really wrong.
So, what are you running away from, Miss Annaleigh?
I make sure to keep an ear out over the music, so the second she shuts off the water, I put everything on the computer back how it was and remove the flash drive.
What the fuck?
The water’s been off for only ten seconds when the phone sitting on the bed begins chirping.
That’s not what disturbs me. It’s the fact that the bathroom door opens almost instantaneously at the sound.
Thank Christ the bedroom door is perpendicular to the bathroom, because it offers me the extra second I need to drop to the floor behind the side of her bed.
I have no idea whether she’ll come over here, leaving me with no choice but to maneuver my way under the bed.
The legs on it are tall enough that I’m not wedged in, but the abundance of shoe boxes leaves it a tight fit width-wise.
My shoulder pushes out the bed skirt a couple of inches, and all I can do is hold still as she pads into the room and turns on the light.
A gap in the boxes allows me to see a pair of sopping wet bare feet hurry over to the other side of the bed. Anna taps away at the phone and eventually curses, lobbing the device back onto the mattress by the sounds of it.
I hear her go back into the bathroom, but when I climb back out from under the bed, I see she didn’t close either door. Fuck. I’d be right out in the open if I try to leave now.
I only have to contemplate my options for half a second, because I don’t have any except to hide back under the bed. The only thing I can do now is wait for her to fall asleep.
I’m about to duck back under when I catch a glimpse of the phone on top of the mattress, the screen still lit. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I snatch it up to steal a glance at the screen.
It’s an email. I’ve never heard of the business, but by the sound of it, it’s some kind of graphics company.
And she’s just been rejected for a job there.
“ While the samples you submitted with your portfolio are impressive, we require a bachelor ’ s degree for the position.”
It’s not much to go off of, but at least it’s some detail about her that I can use to narrow down my search. She either hasn’t finished college or never started.
And it’s a hell of a lot more information than what the heading of the email offers.
The assholes couldn’t even be bothered to address her by name. It just simply says, “Hello.”
I only get to look at the phone for about eight seconds before I hear her walking out of the bathroom, forcing me to blindly lob the device back on the mattress and slide back underneath the bed frame.
Blondie pads her way back and forth across the room for the next twenty minutes, and I’m all too relieved when the mattress finally sinks under her weight.
Only, she doesn’t turn off the light.
Both nightstand lamps remain on even after she starts watching the television and furiously punches away at the keys on her laptop.
She’s not planning on going to sleep anytime soon.
Fuck me.
At least she’s got good taste. Without needing to look at the TV, I could recognize that dialogue from anywhere. She watches the last hour of Pulp Fiction before starting the original Scream .
The sounds of the keyboard eventually go quiet, and I peel back the bed skirt just enough to peek out, seeing the corner of the laptop on top of the nightstand.
Blondie’s finally winding down for the night.
If I stick my head out far enough, I can glimpse her reflection in the floor-length standing mirror she has positioned in the corner of the room.
The pillows previously stacked to prop her upright have been cast aside so that she now lies completely flat, and I can faintly hear her above me, her breathing turned deep.
Did she finally doze off?
I dare to slide out from under the bed and peer over the top of the mattress, finding her eyes closed.
But she isn’t sleeping.
I’m not sure if the masked killer does it for her, or one of the actors on screen, or if the mood just struck suddenly, but her hand is under the band of her sleep shorts, working herself.
Thank Christ that when she opens her eyes, she reaches for the nightstand on the other side of the bed, not noticing she has an involuntary voyeur.
But that involuntary status becomes muddled as she settles back on the bed, and a buzz can be heard over the sounds of the TV.
I’m back lying on the floor so that she can’t see me, unless she sits up and looks in the mirror.
A pair of sleep shorts and underwear topple onto the floor by my feet, and I can’t help but look at the reflection.
She starts on her back with her knees bent and spread, the vibrator between her legs, but it doesn’t last long until she rolls over onto her stomach.
Fucking hell.
I know I should look away, but I can’t. Not when that gorgeous bare ass is on display, her hips rolling as she grinds her clit.
Tiny whimpers and moans escape her, like she’s afraid of being overheard, but they grow louder the faster and harder she moves, and I swear all the blood in my body has rushed to my dick in response.
If there was a way for me to jerk off without her hearing me, I would, because it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.
She’s right at the brink of an orgasm—
But she abruptly stops.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
Did she hear me? Did I even make a sound?
What the hell just happened?
I prepare myself for her to look over the edge of the bed, for her to see me here and scream loud enough to wake the entire city.
I prepare to run.
But she doesn’t move, except to chuck the vibrator blindly onto the floor behind her. Even though it hits the carpet, the throw is hard, and the device bounces off and strikes the bottom of the desk, very likely breaking.
She doesn’t care. Blondie just grabs a pillow, jams it over her face, and buries a scream into it with such force that my own vocal cords hurt just hearing her.
Once she’s finished, she turns the volume up on the television, like she can drown out her frustration, and I’m reassured that at least I ’ m okay. She isn’t calling the police or running out of the room. She didn’t hear or see me.
But something’s still wrong.
She’s huffing and cussing, yanking her comforter up and reaching to shut off the lights.
I manage to get back under the bed in time as she shifts to my side of the mattress, but it’s hardly a relief. All I can do is lay here with the worst case of blue balls in my life, the image of what I’ve just witnessed now permanently imprinted on the inside of my eyelids.