Chapter 11
11
ELLIE
“ U gh,” I complained to the ceiling, dragging a hand through my hair in frustration. “This is ridiculous.”
After another disgusted look at the cracked full-length mirror, I turned from my reflection and stripped off the Aerosmith 1974 tour T-shirt. Crumpling it into a ball, I chucked it toward the “clean but too lazy to hang back up” pile like it had personally attacked me.
Scavenging through the overflowing laundry basket, I withdrew a dark tank top and sniffed the pits.
Not terrible.
I selected an oversized sweatshirt from the clean pile and slipped both on. Returning to the mirror, I twisted left and then right, making sure my lean hips and small ass looked decent in the ripped leggings I’d thrown on earlier.
“You will not make a big deal out of this,” I said, pointing to my reflection with a scowl. “Do not make it awkward. No bringing up dead bodies.” Which really sucked because that was why he was here, and it was super interesting. “No murder talk. And for the love of all things holy, do not?—”
A knock on the front door paused the short pep talk.
“Be there in a second,” I shouted over my shoulder. Turning back, I gave myself one more once-over. “You deserve to have fun. You deserve to want this with him. You deserve this small freedom to do something for yourself.” I narrowed my eyes. “Do not do that thing where you talk too much, share too much, and leave yourself open for someone to take control. No matter how cute he is.”
Smoothing the sweatshirt down over my hips, I spun around and made my way to the door, snagging a salted caramel sucker from the candy bowl on my way. I stripped the thin plastic wrapper from the candy and popped it into my mouth. Inhaling deep to steady my growing nerves at seeing Chandler, I gripped the doorknob and gave it a twist.
All the air rushed from my lungs and the butterflies that fluttered in my belly died midflight at the sight of the man standing on my stoop.
“Hey, Stan,” I said around the sucker, leaning my body weight against the edge of the open door. “What’s up?”
“Just checking in on you,” he said as he shifted to look over my shoulder into the apartment.
I frowned at the move and stepped closer to the doorframe, closing the door to block the view inside.
“I’m good. You?”
“Good, I guess.” He dug both hands into the back pockets of his coveralls and rocked back on his heels. “Been busy with things.”
I attempted a smile, but for some reason the disappointment of him standing on my doorstep and not Chandler spoiled my good mood. “Yeah, I get that. Life never stops, does it?” I slid the caramel-coated lollipop from one side of my mouth to the other, not really knowing what to say next. This random visit was odd.
“Listen, I was wondering if you’d, you know….” He pursed his lips and turned his face to the dark, cloudy sky. “Do you want to come over? We could watch that show you’re watching on Netflix or something.”
Both brows rose up my forehead in suspicion. “Stan, how do you know what I’m watching?” A creeped-out feeling raised the short hairs along the back of my neck. Ever since Chandler delivered the basic profile of the killer, I’d been overanalyzing every white male’s subtle movements and words and listening to my gut instincts. And right now, those instincts screamed that something was off about this random visit from my neighbor. Sure, we hung out, and he checked in on me occasionally, but this was the first time he was nervous and strange when asking me to come over.
Stan released a nervous laugh and grasped the back of his neck. “You use my Netflix account, Ellie. It pops up under my ‘currently watching’ list.”
A rush of embarrassment warmed my cheeks. Internally I chastised myself for thinking the worst of my friend. Apparently I was terrible at this profiling thing. Stan wasn’t the one being awkward, I was. “Right. Sorry, I’m just?—”
“On edge because they found another body?”
“What?” I stood tall, giving him my full attention.
His gaze skirted down the crumbling concrete walkway in a nervous motion. “I got a call from a buddy down at the department. They found another girl earlier tonight. Thought you knew.” He squinted out into the parking lot like he was searching for something. Or someone. “Your new friend not tell you?”
“Haven’t seen him today. Wait, how’d you—” I cut myself off and shook my head. “Right. Your friend at the department told you about Chandler.”
“Chandler, huh?” he grumbled. “First-name basis with a Fed, are you? All them government employees are shady as hell, girl. Best not get too close.”
“He’s not like that,” I said defensively. Popping the sucker from my mouth, I twirled the thin cardboard stick between my thumb and finger.
“They’re all like that, Ellie. Don’t be a fool.” My confidence in Chandler’s good nature wavered, my shoulders rounding a bit as I deflated at his remark. Maybe I was a fool like he said. Fooled by Chandler’s good looks, deep laugh, and sultry gaze that spoke to my soul. “Listen, you don’t understand how this works out here, but I do. And as your friend, I need to warn you about that guy. He’ll use you to get what he wants.” A quick look to my full chest suggested exactly what Stan thought Chandler wanted from me. “Then he’ll toss you to the side. You can’t trust them, any of them. Swann, the Fed, that Ranger.”
Doubt swarmed my thoughts, making me rethink every comment, every move Chandler had said and done since I met him that night in the bar. But none of it felt deceptive.
“Come on.” Stan reached out and lightly gripped my shoulder. Years of being submissive to a man’s demands stopped me from moving away even though I didn’t want to go with him to his apartment. “We deserve a night of fun.”
I didn’t want to hang out with him right now even if it was innocent. But I couldn’t voice that, couldn’t make the words form and force them out of my throat. This was my problem. It would always be my problem. I froze in situations like this. The requirement to shove down my wants and dreams and desires to make sure the man in control of the situation got what he wanted would never fade.
“Ellie?”
Stan’s grip faltered at the deep voice from behind his shoulder.
“You expecting him?” Something flashed behind Stan’s dark eyes that seemed at odds with his casual stance.
“Yeah, I am.” I couldn’t meet Chandler’s gaze, which I could feel burning through me. “Thanks for the offer, Stan, but I’m just going to hang out here tonight. Another time maybe.” Devil’s balls, Ellie. What the fuck is coming out of your mouth? “Or not.” The crestfallen expression that overcame Stan’s face had guilt racing through me. “Or yeah, another time. I’m, uh… I need to feed my fish.” Turning to the door, I slid through the small crack, my large chest slowing my escape as it caught on the door’s edge. “Witch’s cunt,” I hissed at myself before closing the door.
Ear pressed to the door, I listened to the muffled voices on the other side while calming my conflicting thoughts regarding the sexy agent. This was what I’d always be. A bit broken, a lot messed up. Constantly at war with the voices in my head and the ones in my heart. I knew what was drilled into me from an early age was backward, but that didn’t make not falling back on those teachings and lessons any easier.
In fact, it made it harder. Because when I did stand up for myself, or speak up, or say no to someone, the wave of guilt was almost enough to drown me from the inside out. So which was worse? Dying from guilt or being the perfect submissive woman I was raised to be, even if I hated every second?
The cheap wooden door rattled beneath my cheek, a pounding knock reverberating through the small apartment. Taking in a deep breath, I popped the sucker back into my mouth and forced a wide smile before pulling the door open.
Forearms pressed to either side of the doorframe, Chandler’s concerned gaze searched my face, scanning down to my bare feet and back up again. I couldn’t breathe with him this close, his upper body inches from me.
“You good?”
I nodded, still unable to speak. With my tongue, I moved the sucker from one side of my mouth to the other. Those light blue eyes tracked the movement.
“Want me to leave?”
I shook my head.
A tentative smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “If I stay, will you talk to me?”
This time the smile I offered him was genuine as I slowly nodded. Shifting back into the apartment, I waved an arm, inviting him inside. Stepping over the threshold, he watched me as he moved past and stood in the middle of the living room. After closing and locking the door, I followed him, tucking my fingers inside the cuffs of the sweatshirt and holding the edges.
“You cleaned,” he remarked.
Inside, I beamed at his acknowledgment of the clean apartment. “I hoped you’d like it.” A deep line formed between his brows. Shaking his head, he rubbed a hand over the top of his hair. “What’s wrong?” I scanned the room, looking for anything I missed. “I can do more if that’s what you want.”
Turning, Chandler placed his hands on my rounded shoulders. In a quick move, he shifted them back, forcing me to stand tall. A single finger beneath my chin raised my lowered face. “Ellie, you did this for me, not you?”
“For you.” My brows pinched, showing my internal confusion. After he cleaned the kitchen last time, I assumed he wanted things clean, which was why I spent an hour picking up. “I wanted to do something that would make you happy.”
He sighed, minty breath brushing past my cheek. That finger slipped from my chin to trace along the length of my jaw. My lids shuttered closed at the soft touch and tingles it provoked all throughout my body.
“I appreciate the gesture, but you didn’t have to do this for me.”
“Is it not enough?” Panic built, making it hard to breathe. Maybe I’d missed something.
“Ellie, you’re missing my point.”
“What’s that?” I swallowed down my thundering heart that seemed to clog my throat.
“You are enough. Just you.” I startled when he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to my own. Heat bloomed where our skin touched. The hand on my shoulder slid lower until our fingers interlaced. “Do it because it makes you happy, not me.”
“I don’t know how to shut it off.” My confession was barely a whisper.
“Shut what off?”
“My… training.”
Cool air brushed across my forehead. I immediately missed the feel of his skin on mine and the connection it held between us.
“I see.” Tightening the hold on my hand, he pulled me toward the secondhand green and red plaid love seat. He dropped to the sagging cushion and leaned back, urging me to sit down beside him. “Is it something you want to talk about?”
I swallowed and slid the sucker from between my lips. “Not really. It’s complicated and depressing.” I released a humorless laugh. “Plus, that’s not why you’re here.” Stan’s earlier remark flashed to the forefront of my mind. “Right?”
“You want to know why I’m here?” Sparks of electricity zapped across my skin where his thumb brushed along my knuckles.
“Desperately,” I breathed.
His features softened. “Because you invited me. Because I can’t think about the case one more minute or I’ll go insane. Because I like hanging out with you. Because you intrigue me, and I can’t get enough.”
“Oh. Well, that’s… unexpected.” I popped the sucker back in my mouth and smiled around the white stick.
“I have no expectations for tonight. Honestly, I’m excited you texted, offering me a chance to step away from the police station and that creepy house.” He visibly shuddered. “All those religious paintings seem to stare into my soul.”
Relaxing against the couch, I laughed at the random comment. “The owner was the preacher at the Church of Christ.”
“Well, that explains a lot.”
“Explains a lot of what?” I chuckled around the sucker.
“Most religions use fear to encourage a stand-up lifestyle, to be sinless, as if that’s possible. Keeping those pictures around the house offered him the constant reminder that he was failing and so was his congregation, which helped motivate him to be harsher, demand more, always thinking of ways they were failing.”
“Whoa.” I turned on the couch and tucked both feet under my backside. “That’s deep symbolism for too many pictures of the crucifixion.”
“Just a theory.” He surveyed my apartment, his features tight with concentration. “And your pictures tell me you’re really into cats.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Cats are okay, I guess, but I didn’t like the bare walls. They remind me too much of there . I bought these on the clearance shelf at the thrift store.” Swirling the tip of my tongue around the nearly dissolved caramel, I chastised myself for what I was about to bring up. “I heard there was another body found tonight.”
“News travels fast in this town.” Chandler rested his head along the back of the couch. “Yes, a new victim was discovered.”
“Was she like the others?” I pressed, curious to know if this new victim was also a no one like me.
That deep line formed between his brows. “Honestly, I don’t think so.” Peeking one eye open, he shot me a weary look. “Do you really want to hear this? We could always talk about something less… morbid.”
“I like morbid.” I rested my cheek against the scratchy cushion. “Does that make me odd?”
“If it does, then I’m odd with you. The demented mind is fascinating.”
“Agreed.” Standing from the couch, I inhaled my first deep breath since I found Stan standing outside my door. Tiptoeing to the side table, I snagged the full candy bowl. I placed it in the space between us on the couch and sat, pretzeling my legs. “It’s why I watch the crime shows and documentaries rather than girly movies or sitcoms. Just not my jam.”
Chandler sat up to pick through the candy, looking all the way to the bottom before choosing a green apple Blow Pop. “And what is your jam?”
I twisted the end of my sucker as I debated my response. “The unusual, figuring out why things are the way they are. The root cause, I guess. Growing up, I loved watching the community go about their daily lives. There were little things I’d notice, like who was fighting or who was unhappy.” I tapped the now soggy stick against my lower lip. “I like seeing past the mask.” Shrugging, I dug into the candy bowl for my next delicious treat.
“What’s with the candy?”
“Partly because it helps remind me that I’m here, free. And then there’s… well, have you ever been denied something?” Hand still in the bowl, I peered up through my long dark lashes. “Like really denied something? Where you were forced to watch someone else enjoy something but you weren’t allowed to because they said so?”
Chandler’s face flushed crimson. “Can’t say that I have.”
I shrugged and went back to digging. “Well, it sucks, for one, and two, it makes you crave the thing you were denied, so when you get a chance to have it, well—” I raised the bowl an inch off the couch to prove my point. “—you go overboard.”
“He would do that? Make you watch him eat something he denied you?”
“I know it sounds absurd. Believe me, I know it does. After watching all those shows and seeing how some people were mistreated, or the kind of abuse that could’ve been inflicted, it’s not that big of a deal.”
A large hand engulfed my own. I paused my search for the grape Laffy Taffy I knew was in there somewhere.
“Physical abuse and emotional abuse are two very different things. But they are both abuse. Do you understand that?” I nodded and shrugged at the same time. “He did that to prove his power over you, to control you and take away any thought you had of being able to stop him. Let me guess, he did it as a form of punishment.”
Again I nodded. His grip tightened a fraction.
“Was that the only form of punishment?” Chandler’s words were sharp, his tone menacing. Even so, not an ounce of fear slithered through me. No. Somehow I knew his anger was toward the man who caused my suffering and not me.
“Pass,” I said, swiping my hand between us like I was clearing the board.
He laughed. “So we get a pass on answering questions?”
“I do.” Smiling, I pulled the small candy I’d been searching for from the bowl. “What’s your jam, Chandler Peters?”
“My jam. That’s a tough one.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I’ve thought about it lately. Work has consumed me as of late. Going from case to case because that’s where I’m needed. But is that my jam?” He tilted his head right, then left. “I’d say it’s what I do, what I’m good at. The reading people, understanding who they are at the core, is something that, like you, I’ve done my whole life. Emotions, outside of anger, weren’t allowed growing up, so I learned how to read between the lines from an early age.”
“They were religious,” I said as a statement instead of a question. Not sure where that came from, but something about the underlying passion he had in his tone when he spoke earlier gave away his dislike for religion. “Overly so, I’m guessing.”
“Right.” Pride radiated off him. “You might have a future with the FBI.”
“I don’t have a future beyond this.” I motioned around the apartment. “This is my destiny. Jacob made sure of that.”
“What if that could change?” He sat up and leaned closer, putting only a foot between our faces. “What if you were able to leave here and move on?”
“I’d never look back,” I whispered. “That sounds terrible.”
“Not to me.” For some reason, I believed him. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Ellie.” His gaze flicked from eye to eye like he was trying to read inside my mind. Hell, maybe he was.
“Don’t you already know? You’re the profiler.”
“I told you before, you’re a tough case. And it would be nice for someone to tell me what they were thinking and why instead of having to pick through the clues and subtleties to piece it all together.”
I nodded. That made sense. Being told what someone was thinking and the why would be a nice break for him. But did he really want to know what made me tick? The deep, dark, scary thoughts and ungrateful pieces of me? Would he run and hide?
“What if you don’t like what I have to say?” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear only for it to slide loose because of the short strands. “I told myself I wouldn’t go down this path with you.”
“What path is that?”
“Opening myself up for you to see what makes me, me.”
“Why would that be a bad thing?”
“Because it’s dark and ugly. Because it gives insight to pieces of me that you could use to control me like others have before. If I keep those dreams of living outside of this town to myself, then they’re mine. Only mine. Not for anyone to laugh at or keep just out of my reach. In my head, they’re safe.”
“All of you is safe with me. Your hopes, dreams, and past. All of it. I want all of it. I want all of you. Not to control but to understand. To unwrap and help you untangle the good from the bad that’s been woven into your every thought and action. Let me help, Ellie. If nothing else with our time together, let me help you find a way to live. Live a life you want, not one you feel is destined for you.”
Swallowing the last bits of Laffy Taffy, I let myself get lost in his searching gaze. Allow all the unwanted thoughts, the sins of my past and fears of my future to bubble to the surface, putting all my ugly on display for him to see.
With the courage his words created, I squared my shoulders, inhaling deeply for strength to get my biggest, darkest secret out into the world. The one terrible thought that I’d kept hidden all these years.
“This isn’t the life I want. But neither was the one I lived before. If my destiny is to continue struggling through life one day at a time, hour by hour, fighting with myself and putting on a brave face, then I don’t want a life at all. I’m an ungrateful survivor, and for that, maybe I deserve to going back to being his victim.”
I sucked in a breath, prepared for the backlash. Waiting for him to tell me I was ungrateful for the gift of life I was given.
But something unexpected happened instead.
Eyes a bit wild, Chandler reached between us, cupped my face between his hands, and held me steady as he bent forward to seal his lips against my own.