21. Elijah
Hours later, I’m still thinking about that kiss.
Even as I sit here beside Andie with Eliza, Lance, Michael, and the sheriff, I can’t get my thoughts straight. Which, given our current predicament, is probably not a good thing. Especially since, the deeper I get, the more I realize that I’m not sure how I’ll let her go when it’s all over.
“Thank you all for being willing to meet me,” Sheriff Vick says as he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a notepad then turns his attention to Andie. “We received a call from the anonymous tip line about someone who claimed to have seen George Johnson dragging something large into the backyard of your gran’s house on the night your mother was murdered.”
Her green eyes go wide. “What?” she whispers.
I know she’s thinking of the fact that we just saw him earlier today, and probably about a million other things, so I reach under the table and take her hand. It’s warm, and she threads her fingers through mine, squeezing gently as though she needs the comfort.
“Since he doesn’t live here in Hope Springs anymore, we wanted to verify the information and make sure it wasn’t just someone using your past to lead us astray.”
“And?” I ask when he doesn’t immediately respond.
“According to his parent’s neighbors, he got into town just after your gran’s funeral and has been here ever since.”
“So it’s possible?” Andie whispers.
“He won’t tell us where he was. Says he didn’t do it, of course, but he has no alibi for the night of your mother’s murder.”
Andie pulls her hand away and stands so abruptly she nearly knocks her chair over. “He killed her?”
“We have no evidence to prove he didn’t and only the call that places him at the scene.”
“What about the guys at the lighthouse?” I ask. “George wasn’t there.”
“How do you know?” Andie asks. “They were all masked. He could have been one that got away.”
“He doesn’t fit the build,” I tell her. “Those men were hired muscle there for a single purpose.”
“What about the library?” Eliza asks.
“He could have been using that and the damage to Edna’s house to scare you,” Lance tells Andie. “Groomers will do that. Scare their victims into a corner until they feel as though they have nowhere else to turn.”
“It’s also possible they aren’t connected,” the sheriff says.
“But unlikely,” Michael replies.
“I will agree with that.” Sheriff Vick reaches into the folder he brought and hands me a stack of papers. “Here are the rap sheets for the men who died at the scene and the one we arrested.”
I already have them, but I don’t tell him since the way I got them wasn’t necessarily aboveboard. Aggravated assault. Armed robbery. After giving them a brief look over, I offer them to Lance and Michael.
“Any idea who the others are?”
“No. All of these men ran in different crowds before this attack. As far as we can tell, none of them even knew each other.”
“So this was incredibly organized,” I comment. The person who set it up didn’t just hire a crew and go with it, they handpicked each and every member.
“Which makes the idea that George is involved with them even more unlikely.” Lance turns to me. “Is there anyone from your past who might have a reason to come after you now?”
I spare a look at Andie, but she’s facing away from me, Eliza standing at her side.
“I looked into it. But the crew I ran with before is either all in prison or dead.” I swallow hard, hating the words even as I speak them. Andie turns to me, and I know I’ll have to talk about this a second time.
In more detail.
“What about any relatives of theirs? Close friends?”
I shake my head. “I don’t see how. As far as anyone knows, I’m already dead too.” Honestly, that part of me died a long time ago.
“There has to be something we’re missing,” Michael comments as he sets the background checks to the side. “Can we get in to talk to George?”
“I want to do it,” Andie says quickly.
“What? No. You don’t need to do that.”
“He’s in custody, which means he’s not a threat. If he’s not talking, then let me try. Maybe he’ll tell me.”
“Andie, that’s a terrible idea,” I tell her, recalling how she’d behaved today.
“I deserve to try to get answers, Elijah.”
I swallow hard. She’s right. I know that. Everyone here does. And it’s entirely possible that George will confess to her. That she’s an obsession he hasn’t been able to kick, and when he saw that her grandmother passed away, he knew she’d be here and he’d have a chance to capture her attention.
People have done worse things for less.
“I want to talk to him,” she insists. “Can I?”
“I don’t see what it will hurt,” the sheriff says. “Honestly, I’d be grateful for a break in this so I can put it to bed. The town is already restless over having one dead body. Even if no one cared much for her, the murder is making everyone nervous.” He smiles apologetically. “I’m sorry to be so callous.”
“No need to apologize,” she replies. “It’s the truth.”
* * *
As soon aseveryone is gone and the place is locked down, I head into the office to check our security monitors. Everyone who came here today knows how to check for a tail, but I still worry they’d be followed.
“What type of crew did you run with?”
Andie’s leaning against the doorjamb, staring at me. I knew this was coming, but I hate that it’s a piece of my past that will stain her view of me. “After my parents died, my grandmother tried hard to raise me to be a good person. But I fell in with a bad crowd.”
“What did you do?”
“I fought,” I tell her. “Bare-knuckled brawls for money. In basements, garages, warehouses, alleys—wherever we could get into on short notice.”
“Like underground fight clubs?”
“Exactly like underground fight clubs. I was fast, and because I could take a hit and get back up, I made good money doing it. Was able to pay off most of the hospital debt from my parents’ accident.”
Andie stares at me, but if she’s surprised, I can’t tell. “So you fought for money.”
“Yes.”
“When my grandmother found out about it, she was furious.” I can still see her face. Her reddened cheeks as she glared up at me. The shame I’d felt then is just as heavy now.
“How did she not already know? A teenage boy coming home with bruises would raise a lot of red flags.”
“I was fast,” I tell Andie. There’s no arrogance in the statement because it’s a fact. “I rarely got hit. The times I did, I explained that I’d been roughhousing with some of the guys at school. No big deal and all that. Boys will be boys. That’s what she’d say anytime I came home with a bruise. Anyway, a few days later, she had a stroke. It was the second one she’d ever had, and she made me promise to do something more with my life, so as soon as she was healthy and back home, I joined the military.”
“Why did you choose to leave her?”
“I had too many connections in Los Angeles—that’s where I’m originally from.” I swallow hard, recalling just how difficult it was to make the decision to leave. “I knew she’d never leave the friends she had there, so I made the choice to take myself out of that life as soon as I’d graduated high school.”
“And you never looked back?”
“No. Once I got in, I realized that I loved the structure. That I was good at doing what needed to be done. So I put everything into that and became a Ranger.”
“How long did you fight for?”
“Two years.”
“I never would have pegged you as the type.”
“Not many do,” I admit. “Lance was a homeschooled genius. Michael, the town’s golden football star. I craved the violence that came from fighting. It was like breathing oxygen for me. The thrill of the battle, the blood staining my fists. That’s not something I care to advertise.”
“You’re not that man anymore though.”
“I still fight.” I think back to the men who attacked me. To the way my heart hammered in my chest, my blood pounded in my ears.
“But now you fight for something more than money,” she replies. “When you said that lesser men survived, you think you’re lesser because of what you’ve done?”
“The men who died that day deserved to live. They’d never done anything worse than get a speeding ticket.”
“And you think because you were a troubled teenager, who took out his anger on a willing participant, you deserved to die?”
When she says it, it sounds foolish. I feel foolish for thinking that way. But I can’t help the guilt I carry. “In a way, yes.”
Andie straightens and crosses toward me. She stops right in front of me and tilts her face up to look into my eyes. “I stand by what I said, Elijah. You are not a lesser man. You did bad things. So have I. Maybe that’s why we get along so well,” she adds with a half-smile.
“You have no idea the anger I felt when George was standing behind the truck. I wanted to hurt him.”
“Then that makes two of us. But the thing is, Elijah, we didn’t. And that means something.” She stares up at me, and I move closer, dropping my head down to kiss her. The feel of her soft lips beneath mine jump-starts the desire in my veins.
I cup her face, tilting it up so I can deepen the kiss.
Never, in my entire life, have I felt such heat for someone. Andie makes me want to be a better man. She makes me want to risk everything for a single lifetime at her side.
The phone rings, and we break apart.
With my gaze on hers, I back toward the desk and retrieve the landline. “Hello?”
“I need to speak with Miss Montgomery.” The tone is clipped, to the point. And instantly recognizable even though I only met her once.
“How did you get this number?” I ask her assistant.
“She gave it to me when she called me earlier. I need to speak with her. Now, please.”
Pulling the phone away from my ear, I offer it to her. “It’s your assistant.”
She takes the phone, gaze never leaving mine. “What is it?” Andie’s face pales, and her eyes widen. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Please do what you can.”
“What is it?” I ask when she hangs up the phone. “Be where?”
“My investors are all backing out,” she replies. “Apparently, I’m being accused of stealing designs.” Her brows draw together as she processes. “It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never stolen anything. I swear.”
The pit in my stomach grows because I know this is no coincidence. “You’re being drawn out,” I tell her. “It’s a trap.”
“But this is my life, Elijah. My livelihood. I have to defend it. There’s a meeting the day after tomorrow with my investors. I need to be back in New York for it.”
“Andie—”
“I have to go, Elijah.” She steps past me, so I reach out and grab her hand.
“Then let me come too.”
“Fine. You can come. Just—” She takes a deep breath. “I can’t believe this is happening. Everything is burning to the ground. My gran. My mother. Now this? What else can they try to take from me?”
Your life.
The words pop into my head, but I don’t dare say them out loud.
They’ll be echoing in my brain until the day we stop whoever is after her.
* * *
With Michael at the house,I step into the church.
Andie was still asleep when I left this morning, and thankfully, he’d been more than willing to come sit so I could make this trip into town. Honestly, he was probably grateful to hear I was going at all.
It’s still dark outside, but Pastor Redding always makes it into the church before sunrise. Edna told me that. She’d spent nearly every morning here, praying and having coffee with the pastor’s wife.
A door at the side of the sanctuary opens, and Pastor Redding steps out. He seems surprised when he sees me, but that shock turns to delight.
“Elijah. Is everything okay?” His expression turns concerned, so I nod quickly.
“Everything’s fine.” But is it? I take a seat on a pew toward the middle of the sanctuary. When I’d come with Edna, she’d have me sitting front row. I still remember the first Sunday after I’d helped her with the groceries.
I’d been sitting in a back pew, and she’d grabbed my hand, practically dragging me to the front.
Pastor Redding sits down beside me. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing new. That’s not true,” I admit quickly. I just lied. In church. To a pastor. Shaking my head, I sigh. “Andie Montgomery.”
He chuckles. “Ahh, yes.”
“She’s just—she’s a force of nature.” I can’t imagine any other way of describing the way I’m feeling. I’d been set in my ways before she showed up. Content with my loneliness. But now, the idea of losing her terrifies me.
Especially since I know how quickly everything can be lost.
“Andie is that,” he says. “She was always quiet, but there is a storm in her.”
“I think I’m falling in love with her, and I’ve only known her a week.”
“You’ve known of her a lot longer than that,” he replies.
“Fair enough. But I didn’t care much for what I’d heard.”
He laughs. “Edna loved her. You loved Edna. It stands to reason you saw some good in her even before you met.”
“So you’re saying I only love her because of my connection with Edna?”
“No. I’m saying that you likely are feeling a connection that is partially rooted in your shared affection for Edna. Everything you’ve built with her is you, Elijah. Why are you so afraid of it?”
I clasp my hands in my lap.
“How is your PTSD?” he asks when I don’t respond.
I’ve spent more than a few days in these pews after a nightmare, and sometimes just vocalizing what I’m feeling has helped me move past it and get a few easy nights of sleep. But the demons always return. They cling to me in that desert. Granules of sand that sear my skin.
“It’s been worse lately.”
“Because of what’s going on with Andie?”
“Possibly.”
He grunts in understanding.
“Lately, I’ve been so angry. I’ve wanted to cause pain to everyone who hurt her. I feel the desire to hunt them down and make them pay. I’ve always struggled with a violent heart,” I tell him. “It’s what I fed back when I was fighting. Every hit I took, every fist I landed, was like a balm for me.”
“You’re worried that you’re reverting?”
“I know I am. I don’t know how else to explain it. Those men in the lighthouse?—”
“They were there to hurt you. To hurt Andie. Do you regret stopping them?”
“No,” I tell him truthfully. “But?—”
“Before you found God, before the military, what would you have done to George Johnson after learning what he’d done to Andie? Or Stanley—I heard what he did to her in that diner,” he adds. “So tell me, what would you have done to them?”
My gaze lands on the stained-glass window behind the crucifix. “I don’t feel comfortable speaking it aloud in church,” I say with a half laugh.
“God already knows what you’re thinking, Elijah.”
“Fair enough.” I shrug. “I would have made them bleed. Taken vengeance for her without thinking about it.”
“And what did you do when Stanley Johnson grabbed her arm?”
I take a deep breath. “I threatened him.”
Pastor Redding laughs. “But you didn’t make him bleed, did you? You didn’t attack him.”
“If he hadn’t let her go, I would have.” Just thinking of that day infuriates me. The terror on her beautiful face, the fury on his. “If he hadn’t let her go, I would have ripped him apart.”
“Elijah.” He touches my arm. “Just the simple fact that you hesitated shows your growth. You may have had a violent heart before, I won’t argue that point, but you’re changed now. Reborn in your faith. The man you were before has died.”
As he says it, Michael’s words also echo in my mind.
“You carry guilt for the man you were before you joined the military, and even though that man died a long time ago, you’re acting like it was him who walked out of the fire. Not the man you became after finding your faith.”
Both men offer reminders that I’ve desperately needed. I am different.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t still struggle.
In fact, choosing to change who I was means the battles will only get harder.
“Thank you,” I say to Pastor Redding.
“I hope I helped,” he says as he stands. “My door is always open. And might I suggest you visit Romans chapters seven and eight? I think the message there is going to resonate today. Have a good day, Elijah. And tell Andie I said hi. I’m praying for you both.”