Chapter 8
8
CHANDLER
E llie was a conundrum of the best kind.
Beautiful, confusing, funny, and that darkness about her was a mystery. A part of her I was desperate to dissect to help her accomplish what she wanted most from life.
To live.
When she said that in the truck, I realized I felt the same. When was the last time I breathed deep and actually saw a sunset before today? I might travel the world, have an amazing job, and have every opportunity at my feet, unlike Ellie, but she and I were still very much the same.
After meeting this woman who’d lived a hell I wasn’t sure I could ever comprehend and still wanted to live, now I wanted to as well.
I watched from the small kitchen table, eating cold Golden Chick, as Ellie moved about the rental house cleaning with the efficiency of a Marine. Yet her apartment was trashed. It was also unusual that she didn’t mind a strange man in her apartment. Usually women who’d sustained long-term trauma from a man were wary of all males, especially in such a vulnerable space.
Yet she invited me in without a single concern. On the way here, she explained her initial apprehension, that I would judge her because of where she lived. Sure, it wasn’t in the best part of town, if there was one, but I knew those “less desirable” apartments typically had a stronger sense of community than high-end neighborhoods. Her neighbor checking in the moment we pulled into the complex spoke to the quality of people living near her.
Not that I cared. Scratch that. I did care. Why? Who the hell knew. I had no right to worry about her safety, yet I did. Nor did I have the right to watch her tiny ass with the intensity of committing every inch to memory, yet I was.
“You’re staring again ,” Alec said as he passed by. The chair legs scraped across the tile floor as he pulled it out and sat across the table.
“How can you not?” I muttered, shoving another limp, cold fry into my mouth. Stale, disgusting food took the first year on the road to get used to, but now I barely even noticed.
Alec leaned back, tipping the chair onto the hind legs, and interlaced his fingers behind his head. Those gray eyes sparked with a hint of humor and mischief. Bastard was loving watching this. Whatever this was I had for Ellie.
“You could say my preferences lean more toward a woman who can handle all this.” He waved a hand down his thick chest. “She’s just a snack for a guy like me. I’d break that poor girl.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Noted.”
“Remember you’re here to catch a serial killer, not fall head over dick for the pretty local.”
“First, I can do both. I’m amazing at multitasking, asshole. Second?—”
“Wait, was that multitasking the asshole or?—”
I wadded up a used napkin and launched it at his head. He dodged to the left before it hit him between the brows.
“Second, I’m not falling. Just—” I waved a hand as I searched for the word. “—tripped.” Smiling at my choice in words, I bit off a chunk of chicken. “And yeah, I can do that too.”
Alec tipped his head back and laughed, the sound rumbling through the small galley kitchen.
Ellie glanced up from where she fluffed a throw pillow and smiled.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, dropping the pillow to the couch and making her way to the kitchen. Hip against the counter, she crossed both arms over her chest, pushing her generous breasts up higher, demanding my attention.
My throat dried up while every ounce of blood in my body rushed to my cock. “Fuck,” I barked at the pain of a steel toe boot nailing my shin. “Fucking bastard,” I snarled across the table.
“Tripped, my ass. You’re a lost cause.” Alec laughed. “Right. Anyway, Ellie, Chandler here was telling me all the ways he can multitask. Helps him achieve the goal faster.”
Her blonde brows rose up her forehead as she turned her petite face my way. “Anything you could teach me?”
Fuck. Me.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hissed at the smirking dickhead.
“No?” Those arms dropped and her shoulders rounded like I’d just kicked her damn puppy. “That’s fine. I just thought?—”
“No,” I said quickly to make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea about my reaction. Not that I wanted her to get the right idea either. What would she think if she knew all the dirty thoughts that raced through my head at showing her all the ways I excelled at multitasking? They sure as hell had nothing to do with work. “Alec’s being an ass about something else. But we can multitask now.” Not the way I wanted to, but considering I’d only known the woman twenty-four hours, no need to scare her away. “We’ll discuss the case while you do what you need to do.”
A wide smile bunched her cheeks, and those blue eyes shone with excitement.
Hell. Why wasn’t I discussing my sexual multitasking expertise again?
“You were serious earlier today? You’ll let me help with the profile?” she asked.
“Not with the profile, per se, but help us identify the unsub once we narrow down the profile.” I stood from the small wooden chair that was already making my ass go numb and stepped into the kitchen. Rummaging through the drawers, I searched for the junk drawer every house had. Of course it was the very last one of the row. Tossing a pen and notepad to the counter close to where Ellie stood, I nodded to both. “In case you want to take notes to help you remember the specifics of the profile.”
“Oh.” That smile turned shy. Tucking a midnight lock of hair behind a tiny ear, she met my expecting gaze. “I’m good. I have a really good memory. I have this thing I do to make sure I don’t forget anything.” She tapped her temple. “Maybe that’s something I could teach you.”
My dick twitched beneath my jeans. “I’ll be your student anytime,” I responded with a wink.
Her eyes widened. “Why did that sound dirty?”
“Because that’s the way he meant it,” Alec said from where he still sat at the table, smirking as he witnessed the entire interaction. “I brought enlarged photos of the murder wall you constructed like you asked.”
“Murder wall?” Ellie followed me back to the table, where I motioned for her to take my chair.
“Thanks, but it’s more of a victim timeline.” I took the photos from Alec’s extended hand. “I put each victim in a column with certain details of their case. This helps me identify the commonality between the bodies and murders. And that helps me narrow down the ‘why’.”
“Why some guy is murdering women is fairly easy to answer. Because he’s fucked in the head, right?” Alec mused, scrubbing at his jaw.
“Yes and no,” Ellie answered before I could. “What Chandler is talking about is the trigger, am I right?” I nodded, slightly turned on by her knowledge of how this worked. “Maybe this guy was unstable from a bad childhood or chemical imbalance, but the ‘why now’ is what we need to figure out. Then we go from there.” She turned her face up, clearly seeking confirmation.
“Correct. Not sure what that says about the training at Quantico when she stated exactly what I was going to say based off what she learned watching true crime shows.” She grinned and reached for the pictures, but I pulled them out of her reach. “What do you know about the condition of the bodies, Ellie?” I shot a look at Alec, who gave a minuscule head shake, confirming what I thought. “Have you ever seen a picture of a dead body?”
Ellie chewed at her lip, clearly giving my question some thought. “I know nothing about the condition of the bodies, and yes to the dead part. We buried our own at… well, you know.” She shook her head like she was dispelling a memory. Fuck, I wanted to crack her brain open and let all the memories spill into the room, cleaning the horrors she’d no doubt witnessed while living with the cult. “How bad is it?” She considered the stack of photos in my hand. “I’m assuming it’s bad based on your reaction.”
“The women were held captive and assaulted,” I said cautiously. “The evidence is on their bodies.”
With a deep inhale, she stood and stretched forward to grab the pictures from my hand, bending slightly to reach, offering a clear view down the front of her V-neck T-shirt. But like the motherfucking professional I was, I only glanced—for a long moment—before averting my eyes.
I held a breath as she sat back down and situated the pictures into a clean stack by tapping the bottom onto the table. With a comforting nod toward me, then Alec, she turned her focus to the photos. Only the click of the old-fashioned clock’s pendulum filled the quiet house as we watched her scan one picture after the other.
The only small reprieve I had to the worry churning in my gut was that the quality of the photos wasn’t as clear as the individual ones I’d taped on the wall. Alec’s pictures of the wall itself were just to jog my memory, not focused enough for her to see the detailed trauma.
“Seven women,” she whispered more to herself than to us. “These are kind of blurry.” Sitting back, she cradled the sore arm with the other. “And I’m not complaining.” Those blue eyes lifted, sending my heart hammering in my chest. “Can you tell me what happened to the women? The local gossip says they died by anything from sacrifice for witchcraft to being decapitated.” She tapped one of the photos with her pointer finger. “The latter I can tell is false.”
Clearing my throat, I pressed both palms to the tile counter and pushed myself up. Keeping my grip on the edge, I pitched forward slightly. “Based on the coroner’s findings, we suspect they were held for a length of time, abused physically and sexually before being stabbed in the heart. They were all found naked and disposed in shallow graves. What does that say to you?”
Tapping the end of her tennis shoe against the table base, she held my gaze, but I knew she wasn’t really seeing me as she thought through her response.
“He sees them as trash.” I nodded, pleased at her ability to pull the clues together. “But the rest.…” Ellie shook her head and slipped her fingers through the strands that fell around her face, the motion at the end snagging my attention when she continued raking her fingers like she was used to having longer hair to fiddle with. Interesting. Between the dark hair that was clearly dyed and what seemed to be a shorter haircut, it made me wonder what caused the drastic change.
What was her trigger?
I tipped my chin down to my chest and inhaled deeply. Fuck, I had to stop doing that. Analyzing every subconscious move was an annoying habit to women. Or the women I’d dated lately. But I couldn’t shut it off, and honestly, I didn’t want to. What I witnessed in their subconscious ticks was how I understood them beyond their words.
I was wrong at the bar last night. Ellie wasn’t dark and mysterious. She was amazing and engrossing.
“You know this breaks all kinds of laws, right?” Alec said, bringing me out of my own head. “Telling a civilian the specifics of the case.”
I shot him a glare. “Yeah, I know it’s not technically legal.”
“Illegal, really,” Ellie said. Alec and I turned our attention to her side of the table. “What? They mention it on cop shows that they can’t discuss the details of an ongoing case. That’s a real law, right?”
“If you knew that, then why did you suggest helping us?” I asked curiously.
“Honestly?” She huffed out a laugh and waved at the pictures. “I didn’t expect all this. I thought maybe you’d give me a heads-up on the profile so I could help you narrow down a list of local suspects. All this?” Using both hands, she motioned like her head is exploding. “It’s beyond what I expected and pretty damn cool. But I don’t want either of you to get into trouble because of me.”
“Eh, I was just busting his balls.” Alec waved off her concern. “And I’m hoping that if you see we trust you, then you’ll trust us with going to The Church.” She started to protest but he cut her off. “If we need it. Who knows? Maybe once we have a more detailed profile to work with, we’ll discover the killer to be a local or one close by and all this has nothing to do with The Church.”
“But like you said, they’re all like me,” she whispered. “A nobody.”
An overwhelming urge to punch Alec in the damn face for making her sad and then envelop her in a comforting hold slammed into me. The tile and grout molded into my palm under my tightening hold on the counter as I fought to keep myself from lunging forward and wrapping Ellie in my arms.
“Were there other women there like you? Born inside and kept hidden?” Alec questioned.
My blood boiled with rage as I watched Ellie’s shoulders round at him pressing an issue she clearly wasn’t okay with discussing.
“Alec, back the fuck off,” I said through a clenched jaw. “Ellie, if this is too uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer any of his questions.”
Alec shook his head and shot me a knowing look. Yeah, I got it: my “thing” for the woman was clouding my judgment regarding the case, but I didn’t care. He didn’t understand this strange connection I felt to her.
Not that I did either.
“It’s fine,” she whispered and chafed both hands along her forearms. “Yes, there were other girls, women like me. Most of the women who came into the community from the outside world didn’t make it long after seeing what the life would be like for them. Do you know their ages, by chance?” She hitched her chin toward the pictures.
“The coroner’s report stated anywhere between midtwenties to midthirties.” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop me from asking the next question. “How old are you?”
Please be legal.
Of course she was legal. But a long time ago legal or a short time ago was the question. I was almost forty. If Ellie was early twenties, I would kiss this hopeful connection goodbye. I would not date a twentysomething again. Been there, done that, and had no idea what they were even talking about on the date. What the hell was an influencer, anyway, and why the hell did they all care so much? Not that Ellie would be like the typical twentysomething, of course. She didn’t seem like the type to care how many followers she had on social media.
“I don’t know, actually.”
“What?” Alec and I both sat up tall at her revelation.
“What do you mean, you don’t know exactly?” I said slowly. Maybe she didn’t understand how birthdays worked?
She swallowed hard and hugged herself. Noticing the self-conscious movement, I slid from the counter and strode to my room, dug through my bag, and pulled out a new package of gum. Back in the kitchen, I placed it on the table and slid it over to her. Without hesitating, she pulled a stick free from the pack and folded it into her mouth.
It was like watching the effects of a drug as the tightness in her shoulders lessened and the tension in her spine eased, allowing her to relax against the wooden back of the chair.
Amazing. Truly curious.
“Thanks. How’d you know I needed that?” I smiled and raised both brows. “Right, you see everything. Being that perceptive must make you the best profiler on your team. Speaking of that, where is your team? You guys never go alone.”
My smile widened to the point that an ache built in my cheeks. “That part of the show is incorrect. We don’t travel around together in big teams. Maybe they used to, but now with so many cases, we’re stretched thin. We mostly go in alone these days.”
Something like understanding flashed across her face. “That must be exhausting.”
“It is.”
“And lonely.”
“Not having someone to talk to about the case, or hell, how terrible the hotel turned out to be does get hard sometimes. You know a lot about that, Ellie?” I was lost in her, in this simple yet riveting conversation. I didn’t care that we weren’t alone; it felt like we were by the energy and intensity strung between us.
“You could say that.” She chewed on the edge of her lip. “You wanted to know my age to see if it aligned with the ages of the victims. That way if I did know the women, I’d be able to tell you specifics of their personality, their life to see if anything aligned inside The Church or outside. Maybe it was something about the women specifically that was the trigger for each abduction instead of an outside urge.”
“You would make one hell of a profiler,” I stated, amazement in my tone. How she pieced all that together was shocking. Hell, I didn’t even think that when I asked the question, my motives purely selfish and nothing to do with the case. But she made an excellent point.
“Can’t happen.” Her smile was sad as her focus fell to the floor. “I’d have to exist first.”
My own grin fell. “Just because you don’t have documentation stating the fact, you do exist, Ellie. The lives we impact with our actions and character are more proof that we’ve lived than any stupid government bullshit.”
“What did you mean by you don’t know how old you are?” Alec stared me down in a silent “Get the fuck back on track” before shifting his attention to Ellie, softening his features to appear less hostile.
“We don’t—” She shook her head. “ They don’t celebrate birthdays, especially the women. I gauged my age based off how many certain seasons changed, but how old I was when I started tracking that, I don’t know.” Those light brows furrowed as she focused on the sixties-style linoleum flooring. “When I had to marry Jacob, they said I was eighteen, and that was about ten years ago. So I’m twenty-eight, I think?”
Twenty-eight. I could work with that.
“So around the age of the victims.” The scrape of the chair drew my attention to Alec, who stood and stretched his arms high overhead. A few particles of popcorn ceiling fluttered down when his hands brushed against it.
“You’re a giant,” I said.
“In all the right areas,” he shot back, waggling both brows up and down his forehead.
“Seriously,” Ellie said on a laugh. “I’m right here, guys. Can we keep the innuendos to a minimum and get back to the case?”
“Alec mentioned you’d be okay seeing the victims faces to see if you recognize them.” I stole two pieces of gum from the pack and slid both into my mouth.
“I want to help, but I’ve been gone for four years. They could’ve been recent recruits.” Grabbing my discarded foil wrapper, she used it to wrap up her chewed gum and grabbed another piece.
“We’ll show you the pictures tomorrow,” Alec said, rummaging through the fridge. “We need food.”
“Only pictures of their faces,” I clarified to Alec. “Especially the most recent victim. She doesn’t need to see that.”
“See what?” Her head tilted with curiosity. “What can’t I see, and why?”
I cringed. At my growing desperation to protect Ellie from demented aspects of the case, I piqued her interest instead.
“There was a note,” I said while rubbing at my brows. “Carved into her body.”
She winced. “What kind of message?”
“Two simple words that I still haven’t figured out. ‘Come home,’” I stated, staring her down to monitor her reaction.
Ellie bolted out of the chair so fast that it rocked to the side, crashing against the table with the quick movement. The loud sound made her stumble backward until she slammed against the wall, making the clock rattle with the impact.
Alec and I had our guns drawn in an instant, ready for an attack.
“‘Come home’?” Ellie’s faint whisper met my ears. “‘Come home’ was carved into her body?”
“What the hell just happened, Ellie?” Alec asked, his tone deep and menacing. “You scared the shit out of us.”
I monitored her shell-shocked look as I holstered the gun. Holding up a hand toward Alec, I cautiously stepped closer. “Does that saying mean something to you?” I asked in a calmer tone than Alec, even though my heart raced, threatening to pound out of my chest.
“Come home,” she repeated, her eyes flicking back and forth between Alec and me. “It’s a coincidence, right? It has to be a coincidence.” Her wide eyes searched mine. “Please tell me it’s a coincidence.”
“You’re safe with us, Ellie.” I dared another step closer, careful to keep each movement smooth and nonthreatening. When she flinched away, I placed a hand on her shoulder and tipped her face up to meet mine. “Talk to us. What’s a coincidence?”
“Today. Before today. Any day,” she rambled.
“I need a little more than that, sweetheart. What about today? Does this have to do with the man who took my jacket and hurt you?”
“What the fuck?” Alec exclaimed. I held up a hand, stopping his next line of questions.
“He asked… he said Jacob wanted to know if I’d gotten the reminders he’d left.” Wetness built in her lower lids.
“Okay, have you gotten any reminders?” She shook her head. “What does ‘come home’ mean to you, Ellie?”
“He said it.”
“Who said it?”
“Jacob,” she whispered. “When I didn’t come back. He told me to come home. He tells me to come home. And today, the man at the clinic, he said it too. He said it was time to return to my husband. That Jacob said it was time to come home. Please tell me this isn’t about them, that all this”—she jabbed a finger toward the pictures—“isn’t about me.”
Tears spilled out the corners of her eyes, dripping down her trembling cheeks. True fear radiated off her. I wanted to lie, to tell her it was a coincidence that the man who she was clearly afraid of wasn’t targeting her and leaving dead women as reminders.
But I couldn’t.
If I’d learned one thing in this job, it’s that there are no coincidences.