Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Her color had come back, he noted, but the haunted look in her eyes remained.
“Maybe he got on a plane.”
“Not in Columbus. He’s got money, and he’s been funneling it out since his release, so he’s likely got it stashed where he can access it. Odds are he’s either got fake ID or he’s working on that.”
“So he could go anywhere.” Her breath began to hitch. “He could come here. Somehow find out where I am, come here.”
Gideon set her wine aside, gripped both her hands. “Look at me and breathe. I’m not going to tell you that’s not possible. I’m going to tell you there are BOLOs out. I’ve put one out here to cover any possibility. He’s smart, but he’s twisted, and the twisted make mistakes.
“He killed his mother when he’d have been smarter to wait until she went back to Cleveland, then use that money to fly somewhere without extradition. Home free. He didn’t. He couldn’t. And she’s not around anymore to try to fix him, try to pull him out of the muck.”
“Maybe because she was. Someone has to be to blame, don’t they? The women he attacked, they led him on, they asked for it, they wanted it. His mother hires a lawyer, but he does nearly five years in an institution. She didn’t make it all go away this time, so her fault.”
“That’s right.”
“Mine, too, Gideon. I’m the reason he was locked up. So tell me straight, do you think he’s coming here? If he’s found out where I am. Or he’s working on finding out so he can come finish what he started with me.”
“Straight? I don’t know. If he aims here, aims for you, it’s stupid. He risks getting caught along the way because I promise you, they’re looking for him. He has to know, if he’s caught, it won’t be shy of five years inside. It’s forever.”
She saw the logic, and it should have reassured. But it didn’t.
“The part of him that’s wrong doesn’t believe he’ll be caught.
That part—I saw it when he choked me, when he hurt me—thinks he has the right, that he’s above the rules, even taking his mother’s car.
And he thinks: Look how smart I am—the text, the switched plates.
The fact is, he was smart enough, or lucky enough, to gain a week after killing his mother, to set it up so he would. ”
“It’s more circumstance. Smart would be hanging out on the beach in Mozambique.”
“Maybe, but it still worked for him. He could stop again, switch plates again. Which I can see you already thought of.”
“That’s right, and we’re looking into it. He’s a spoiled rich kid with a mommy complex who thinks because he has a dick women should do what he wants when he wants.”
“And he likes to hurt people, women.”
“That’s right.” No sugarcoating, Gideon thought, but a reminder. “Arden, what does he do when he’s confronted with someone he sees as a threat?”
She breathed out. “Runs away.”
“Also right. He’s twisted, a violent sociopath, but he’s also a coward.
“I’m going to move in here until he’s back where he belongs.”
“Wait a minute!” Galled to the core, she shoved up. “You think I need a man—someone with a dick—standing guard because I’m too weak, too helpless to take care of myself? You’ll just…” She circled her arms in the air. “Move in like it’s nothing, no big deal.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Knock that off.”
“‘Knock that off’?” Her breath sucked in on a hiss. “Don’t you tell me to knock that off.”
“Just did. I’m moving in because it’ll give both of us some peace of mind. I’m not standing guard. I’ve got work that means I have to leave the house when you don’t. Weak and helpless, my ass.”
Now he shoved up.
“He had you down once because he caught you off guard. You know who and what he is now. You moved across country, on your own, started a life here, on your own. That’s fucking brave.
He gets out like this and you’re not nervous, you’re stupid.
You’re not stupid. I’m moving in because we’ll both sleep better at night. ”
“No, no, that’s not what I want.”
She wouldn’t surrender to hysteria, though she felt some of it trying to bubble up. But she could be seriously angry.
“You don’t just get to say here’s how it is. I don’t want you to move in so I sleep better at night. Goddamn it, when you move in, I want it to be because it’s the next step we want to take. I’m entitled to that.”
She snagged her wine, nearly sloshed it over the rim as she gestured with it before drinking.
“I want it to be because we want to be together. I want it to be because we’re in love, and we’ll take the step after that and then the next, because fuck peace of mind, I want marriage, I want kids. He’s not going to screw up this part of my life, too. He’s not.”
She managed a shuddering breath, then drank again. “So you knock it off.”
He realized he’d never seen her go seriously off before. Since the dog’s reaction included trying to hide behind one of the counter stools, Gideon figured it didn’t happen often.
And he found it fascinating.
He took his time, absorbing it, picked up his wine, sipped, set it down again while she seethed.
“Are you proposing?”
He watched fury turn to confusion. “What?”
“I mean, I don’t see a ring. It’s lame, might be insulting to propose when you didn’t bother to get a ring.”
The fury swung right back. “You think this is a joke?”
“No, serious question. Just because I have the dick doesn’t mean I have to propose, but I have some standards.”
For a moment, he wondered if she’d throw something, because she looked capable of it.
“Meanwhile, let me backtrack. I’m moving in because it’ll give us both peace of mind—just shut up a minute, Legs.”
“Oh. Oh! ‘Shut up’?” With her shout, Zorro slunk into the dining room and under the table. “You don’t tell me to shut up!”
“Just did. I’m moving in because we’ll both sleep better at night. And I’m retracting the until. I want to be with you, Arden, seeing as I’ve been in love with you for a while now. That should cover it.”
“Don’t say that to placate me. Don’t say that out of some need to protect me.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. What you’re supposed to say is you’re in love with me.”
Tears blurred her eyes. “You know I am.”
“Let me hear it.”
“I’m in love with you.”
He took her glass, set it down again. “I didn’t know it, but I wanted it.” Framing her face with his hands, he kissed her, and with a tenderness that had the tears spilling.
“Don’t cry.”
“Just a little. I’ve got so much going on inside me. The awful and the wonderful.”
“Put the awful on hold. It’s just you and me tonight.”
“Working on it.” She pressed her face to his shoulder. “I need to get something out of your stocking.”
“Now?”
She drew back, then leaned in to kiss him again. She took his hand, pulled him into the living room. Obviously figuring the coast was now clear, Zorro followed.
After digging into his stocking, she took out a small, wrapped box with a little red bow.
“You don’t wrap what goes in stockings.”
“I couldn’t decide if it went there or under the tree. Open it.”
He pulled off the paper, opened the lid, saw the key. And just looked at her.
“It wasn’t a ‘move in with me’ key. It was supposed to be a ‘you shouldn’t have to knock every time you come over’ key.”
“Still a big step for you.”
“It was, but it looks like I skipped right over it to the next.”
“You’ve got a list of steps in your head, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
He took out his key ring, put it on. “Thanks.”
“Zorro needs to go out. Then…”
“Prepping the roast.”
“No, that’ll wait until morning. We’ve got a little time before midnight, and I definitely plan to be in bed making love with you at midnight.”
“It’s a good plan.”
“Good plans are my specialty. Now, the plan is, since I gave you one on Christmas Eve, you give me one. I want the one you made me.”
“How do you know I made you anything?”
“Because I asked you to.”
With a shrug, he picked up a present under the tree.
She stroked the paper, shook the box, angled her head.
“You could just open it.”
“I like holding on to the suspense first. Before you open it, it could be anything. Like a set of Russian nesting dolls or a wooden statue of Boba Fett.”
“Boba Fett?”
“It could be. A set of wooden candlesticks. A door knocker.”
“Maybe it’s a gargoyle.”
The light in her eyes simply danced. “Maybe it is.”
She sat, ripped off the wrapping.
“You tanked the guessing game.”
“It’s beautiful. A trinket box, and it’s beautiful.” She ran her fingers over the top and its carving of a dragon flying toward the sun. “You carved this?”
“You’ve got a thing for dragons or you wouldn’t keep one on the bed. On a bookshelf, in the dining room.”
“Zoey brought me the stuffed dragon for comfort when I was in the hospital. It worked, and started a trend.” When she opened the box, music tinkled out. “Oh, a musical trinket box! It’s playing … ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ It’s perfect. I love it, and it’s perfect.”
Cradling it, she jumped up to kiss him.
“It’s a big, fat, juicy bonus to be in love with someone who gets me. Thank you.”
“For the box or the bonus?”
“Both. It’s been a hell of a Christmas Eve.” Since Zorro whined by the door, she walked over to let him out.
“Dubecki, parental surprise—I really like your parents—we fought our way into being in love and you moving in, and I’m holding the first thing you made especially for me.”
She set the box on the table.
“I’m leaving it down here so I can show it off, but then it’s going on my dresser. Or my desk. Desk. When I hit a rough spot or a wall, it’ll cheer me up.”
Zorro yipped once at the door.
“And you had a hostage situation,” she said as he crossed over to let him back in. “I hope you’ll tell me about it. I don’t want you to feel you can’t bring work home, or tell me about the hard parts.”
There she was, he realized. The answer to questions he’d never thought to ask.
“If I’d had you in LA, everything would’ve happened the way it happened, because it had to. But I wouldn’t have felt so isolated.”
She held out a hand. “Why don’t we finish that glass of wine, and you can tell me what happened today.”
After he did, after she listened, he could put it away.
At midnight, with the rain drumming, with the wind whipping wet at the windows, they fulfilled the good plan.