32. Melanie
CHAPTER 32
Melanie
Staring at nothing, I absently fiddled with the SPS whistle while Luke got our drinks from Rocco at the bar. Something about the nineties grunge playing in the background was oddly soothing. Maybe it was the familiarity of old songs and good memories.
Mostly good, at least.
Luke set our drinks on the table, then pulled his chair around next to me and sat. We’d chosen a spot against the wall. Neither of us seemed to want to have our backs to the room lately.
Living in a constant state of tension was getting exhausting. And we weren’t the only ones who were tense. The whole town was on edge. A nervous hush had settled over Tilikum, making people side-eye each other and cast worried glances over their shoulders.
I took a sip of my beer. In any other context, I wasn’t a beer drinker. But for some reason, at the Timberbeast, I was.
Luke put his hand on my thigh and leaned over to kiss my temple. I loved it when he did that. I really did. Although the fact that our town was being terrorized by a killer was starting to get to me, because I flinched .
“Is this worse?” he asked. “Maybe we should have stayed in.”
“No,” I said emphatically. “This is fine. I needed to get out.”
I’d been going a little stir-crazy. Ever since the most recent victim had been found, Luke had been stuck to me like a magnet. We mostly went to work, then his place, with the occasional stop at a restaurant or store. He’d even been finding excuses to pop into the lobby at the garage more often than usual, as if the perpetrator might come in and grab me from behind the desk.
The Luke-magnet wasn’t bothering me, but feeling like I was trapped was making my skin crawl.
“I’m just so tired of feeling like a prisoner,” I said. “I can’t walk up the street to grab a coffee or stop at the store by myself.”
He squeezed my thigh. “I don’t mean to stifle you.”
“No, it isn’t you. I was too paranoid to take the trash outside yesterday. I keep looking around and thinking he could be anywhere.”
“Do you want me to call Garrett again?”
“It’s tempting, but he'd have called if he had news he could share.”
“I know. I’m just so fucking frustrated. I hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”
A guy in a baseball cap wandered in and joined a few people at the bar. I remembered him, and several of the others, from high school.
Which reminded me of the other thread in my tangle of emotions. It was bright red, weaving in and out of the rest, a painful reminder of a once-broken heart.
Ever since our dinner with Paul and Marlene the other night, I’d been inundated with memories. Maybe it was because their house hadn’t changed. From the knit throw blankets on the blue couch to the hint of pine and lemon in the air, it felt like stepping back in time.
Or maybe it was all the photos displayed on their mantel and walls. So many of those memories were adjacent to my own, times that I remembered too.
Like the photo of Luke and Zachary in suits before prom. I’d been his date that night. His bow tie and vest had been pale blue to match my dress.
It was a night that hadn’t ended well.
But why was I letting that bother me? Who cared what had happened back in high school? I kept telling myself it had been so long. What we had now was different. We weren’t going to fall into the same traps, the same patterns.
Except what if we did? What if Luke Haven was a colossal mistake? What if I was attaching myself to him out of fear, like I had with my ex?
After all, I’d moved in with Jared because of the abduction. There I was again, basically shacking up with my boyfriend out of fear.
I took a drink of my beer, trying not to give in to my frantic emotions. But what if I was repeating the past, rushing headlong into another heartbreak?
The door opened again, and my back tightened. It was only Theo, but I wished people would stop doing that. Every time someone new came in, I wondered if it was going to be The Whisper.
Not that I’d know who he was. But if it wasn’t someone I knew, I’d have to wonder.
Then again, what if it was someone I knew? What if The Whisper was one of the townspeople? A regular member of society no one would ever have guessed was capable of murder.
Oh my god, was it Theo?
He grabbed a chair and pulled it up to our table.
“It’s not you, is it?” I asked .
He sat and his eyebrows drew in. “Is what not me?”
“The Whisper.”
Luke turned to me. “Seriously, Mel? My brother isn’t a murderer.”
“I’m sorry, I know you’re not. I blurted that out without thinking.” I shook my head. “It’s just, every time the door opens, I wonder if he’s going to walk in. And then I was thinking that I wouldn’t know if he walked in because no one knows who he is. Which made me think, wait, what if he’s someone we all know?”
“That is a weird thought,” Theo said.
“It’s like that cold case Garrett solved last year,” Luke said. “No one saw that coming.”
Theo shook his head. “That was crazy. Hey, have you talked to Mom and Dad?”
“No, why?”
“Dad’s been tailing Mom everywhere she goes. He even went to her knitting group. I guess he stood there with his arms crossed, glaring at everyone in the store, like a bouncer outside a club.”
“Sounds like Dad.”
“My dad isn’t letting my mom out of his sight either,” I said. “She claims it’s driving her up the wall, but she secretly loves it when he gets protective.”
“This whole thing is wild,” Theo said. “One guy has the whole town held hostage.”
“They’ll find him,” Luke said. “There’s no way he can keep getting away with it.”
I wished I shared his confidence. “Whoever attacked me got away with it.”
Theo cast an uncomfortable glance at Luke.
“Yeah, well they didn’t have a Haven in their department.” Luke squeezed my thigh again.
“You’re not leaving her alone, are you?” Theo asked, gesturing to me. “Like, ever? ”
“Nope.”
Theo nodded. “Good. Too many weird things have happened in our family.”
Luke took his hand off my leg and draped it over the back of my chair. I appreciated him so much, but I kept coming back to the fear that we were moving too fast. That his feelings were as mixed up as mine, and we weren’t being honest about it.
If it weren’t for The Whisper, I wouldn’t have basically moved in with him. We wouldn’t have been spending every waking moment together.
How much longer would he want to?
I was vaguely aware of Luke asking if I was done with my drink. And if I wanted to go home.
Home? Not my home. His.
I nodded without saying much. My insides were such a tangled mess, for once in my life, I didn’t have anything to say. I knew I was spiraling. That I probably wasn’t thinking rationally. But I couldn’t seem to stop. My thoughts were on an endless loop, repeating the same fear over and over.
When was he going to get tired of me? When was he going to realize I was too much?