Chapter 5 Suspicions
FIVE
SUSPICIONS
NOELLE
Life isn’t fair, Noelle, but isn’t Christmas supposed to be?
I should forget what he said. I told him I was going to bed, but I haven’t. Long after he walked up the stairs, heading to take a shower, I sit at the table, torn between wanting to guzzle the last of the champagne from the bottle and hiding out in my rented room again.
I’m being ridiculous. I know I am. It’s just…
those were my words. I know they are. The night before I heard about Charles Dutton’s death, I wrote that exact line—excluding my name—in my private journal on my computer.
I was thinking about how, if there’s one time of year I should be able to trust and enjoy, it’s Christmas.
Those five men ruined that for me… they ruined me…
and all I wanted was something to be fair.
Of course, then I saw the news article the next morning, and a jolt of satisfaction had run through me.
Finally, I thought. Finally, the worst of them got just what he deserved.
This Christmas, things were finally balanced.
They were finally fair. I got exactly what I wanted…
but how did a stranger from Springfield know that?
With as many coincidences that have piled up since Patrick arrived at the chalet, this could be just one more.
That’s what I tell myself. As I get up from my seat at last, drifting into the living room to turn off the switch that controls the electric fireplace, my gaze goes to the Christmas tree in the corner.
The small white lights blink softly, almost mesmerizing me. Between that and the flames, the whole room is cozy. It looks like safety, but all of a sudden, I’m not so sure it is.
My fingers curl around the edges of my phone. I’ve carried it with me all day, part habit and part hope that the service will return. It hasn’t yet, and I don’t bother checking again. What’s the point? Call for help? Text someone? Text who?
And, honestly, what would I say?
Hey, I’m stranded in a chalet with a stranger who just quoted my private journal at me, but it’s fine because there’s a festive tree to put me in the holiday spirit, and he’s pretty hot?
I slip my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and listen to the distant rush of the shower water over my head.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I think about Patrick and his unexpected arrival at the chalet.
I think of how perfect it is that he’s a cop in Springfield, and how he was content to spend the whole day listening to me chat while I stuffed my face with cheese, crackers, and cookies.
I think of how I caught him watching me curiously out of the corner of my eye once or twice, and how there was an intensity to his expression whenever he thought that I wasn’t paying attention to him.
Something’s off. I don’t know what, but there’s no way I can go to bed without making some sense of it.
Coincidence or not, I have to know what inspired him to make such a comment.
Whether he was just bringing it up because it’ll be Christmas the day after tomorrow or…
well, I don’t know what the or could be. Either way, I have to find out.
Because if I don’t know, I’m going to invent answers and scenarios until I go insane.
And if I do know…
At least I won’t be helpless like I once was.
True, I’m stuck in this cabin. It’s not like I can get away from him if he turns out to be a threat.
I don’t even know why I’m suddenly so certain that there’s something fishy going on here this Christmas…
but the only way to prove that there isn’t is to ask.
By the time I reach the bathroom, I don’t hear water anymore. I can’t tell if it’s the pounding of my nervous heart drowning it out or if Patrick’s finished his shower. Light seeps under the closed door, so I think he must still be in there, under the shower spray or not.
Guess I’m about to find out.
My hand lifts, prepared to knock. I mean, I should knock. Just like he did last night, I should knock until he lets me in. He was polite, right? I should be, too.
Then again, being polite is how women like me end up being taken advantage of and hurt, and that’s precisely why I don’t knock. I grab the doorknob instead, this sudden need to know urging me to turn it quickly and shove in the door.
If he’d locked the door, I probably would’ve lost my nerve.
Taking it as a sign that he wanted privacy, I would’ve convinced myself I was being ridiculous and returned to my room.
Only Patrick hadn’t locked the door, and though it’s not like I’m taking that as an invitation or anything, I barge into the bathroom before I think better of it.
The shower’s off. It must’ve been a hot one because the steam rushes out of the room as I take a few steps into it.
It clears enough that I see Patrick North standing in front of me, one of the chalet’s lush towels slung low around his hips.
Water beads on his shoulders and his sculpted chest, running down his middle, easing toward his dark happy trail.
For a second, my mind does the stupidest thing possible. Completely forgetting my suspicious nature, I gape as I notice just how fucking beautiful a half-naked Patrick is.
He’s not pretty. Not polished, either. His sweater hid how built he really is, and while that is the first thing that catches my attention, that’s not what has me gasping.
Oh, no. It’s when I see the tattoos his clothes concealed that I just about forget how to breathe.
The ones on his right shoulder hit me first. Multiple small green leaves are inked over his muscled flesh, a string of green ivy attaching them in a design that might’ve been delicate on a man much harder than the one I’m seeing with new eyes.
In Springfield, a tattoo like that means something—especially when it’s on a man who has a four-inch black-and-white dragonfly inked on his left forearm.
My stomach drops down to my feet.
A dragonfly… no. A Dragonfly.
Patrick North is a Dragonfly, and if rumors about what those leaves mean are true, then he’s a very dangerous one at that.
And that’s because organized crime might’ve slunk into Springfield long before I was old enough to understand how crooked the city is, but I grew up with the stories anyway, especially once the Dragonflies and the Sinners Syndicate ran Springfield.
For so long, there have been whispers. Warnings.
Names like ‘Damien’ and ‘Devil’ that were murmured like prayers and muttered like threats in the very same breath.
The Libellula Family owns the East End of Springfield.
My apartment is firmly in territory they own.
Full of mobsters and gangsters and criminals who sell drugs and run guns and pass counterfeit bills around…
of killers and monsters who mark themselves with Damien Libellula’s trademark dragonfly and those leaves…
and unless I’m way wrong, I’m trapped in a chalet on a mountain with one of them.
No one in Springfield would dare wear a dragonfly on their skin if they weren’t loyal to Damien Libellula and his Family.
Add that to the leaves and… yeah. I’m cooked.
Unless I pretend like I’m some na?ve little girl who’s never heard any of the stories about the powerful men who run my city, which might be a lot easier if I stopped gaping at Patrick’s ink.
I try my best, but that becomes even more of a problem when I swap ogling his tattoos for ogling him.
The towel is the only thing between me and what he looks like completely naked. That realization has my cheeks heating up again, my pulse roaring in my ears as the bathroom air turns thick and suffocating.
He could be a murderer after all, and still I can’t help but be attracted to him. Shit. I knew those five bastards broke me, but I don’t think I realized how much they did until I have to resist the urge to hope that his grip on that towel isn’t as good as it seems to be.
Finally, as though he’s just noticed that I burst in on him, Patrick steps toward me. And I notice something else. He never flinched. He never jumped like any normal guy would to have a strange woman barge into a bathroom while he was finishing up with his shower.
Instead, as I force myself to meet his eyes through the remnants of the steam, his expression is almost… amused.
“Ah, Starling,” he says, low and calm. He lifts his hand, ruffling his wet hair, making his muscles flex with the motion even as he purposely shows off the dragonfly tat. “If you’d wanted to join me in the shower, all you had to do was ask. I would’ve waited for you.”
I blink at the nickname he used, assuming that’s what it is. Starling… what the hell is ‘Starling’? And where the hell did it come from?
And why does he think I would do that? Up until this very second, I thought I was doing an excellent job at hiding my attraction to him.
Patrick definitely didn’t give me any clue that he was interested in me, though—to be fair—he’s a guy.
It’s just the two of us here, and if he decided he wanted to get lucky for Christmas, I’m kind of his only option.
So, yeah, he’d take a shower with me if I offered, only I hadn’t.
I’d come to…
To…
“You’re not a cop,” I blurt out before I can think better of it.
Patrick doesn’t argue with me. With a small smile, he runs his fingers over the dragonfly tattoo on his forearm. “You sure about that? You don’t know how much of the Springfield PD is bought and paid for by people like us.”
If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. Us. That tattoo means one thing. The fact that he says ‘us’ like that? Yeah. I know exactly what he is.
He’s a mobster.
I’ve lived in Springfield my whole life.
There are parts of the city that are more suburban; my parents still own their house on that side of town.
The rest of the metropolis is an urban center broken into five sections: the West Side, the Northern Edge, South Springfield, East End, and the downtown area that’s actually the center of it all.
The crime syndicates have their fingers in all of it, and even if you try to pretend you don’t know, it’s inescapable.
The daring look on Patrick’s face tells me that he will be, too. But the look in his eyes? There’s something else there, something dark yet wicked, and it has my stomach flip-flopping as I finally rip my gaze away from him.
Too bad it lands on the pile of clothes he placed on the counter before he climbed in the shower—and the shiny dark grey gun that’s nestled on top of his sweater.
Damn it! I knew he had a gun!
I yip, suddenly too frightened to do anything but stare at the weapon. It’s the first time I’ve seen a gun in real life and not just in the movies or on TV, and I gape at it as if I expect it to go off on its own.
I shiver, and Patrick’s deep voice reaches me through the fear.
“Starling—”
Grateful for the distraction, for the reason to stop staring at that gun, I glare over at him. It’s probably reckless, especially with the weapon so close, but I can’t help myself as I snap, “My name is Noelle.”
“I know.”
Oh. Okay, then.
Patrick grabs another towel. He swipes it over his face, drying the water droplets spattered on his skin, then lays the damp towel over the pile so that he can cover up the gun.
Then he adds, “Your name is Noelle Halliday,” and my blood goes cold.
I swallow, forcing my next words out around sudden panic. Because I… I never told him my last name. I was fucking careful not to do that. I was Noelle, and even if he’s Patrick North—assuming he didn’t come up with a fake name—I couldn’t be Noelle Halliday with a stranger.
And yet, he knows.
“How do you know my name?” I whisper.