Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
FREDDIE
Ellie’s hair cascades over my chest as she lies beside me, both of us collapsed on her bed. It’s silky soft between my fingers as I trail from tress to tress in the quiet bliss of after.
I can’t help but touch her. It’s like a compulsion at this point. Which is crazy, because I came into this looking for information, and suddenly I’m caught in a messy web that I fear will hurt us both soon enough.
Somewhere between the first lemonade in the pub and this moment, my motivation has muddied. Do I still want to break this case and be the first to publish the scoop? Absolutely. Do I want to do it more than I want to keep Ellie from being hurt again? Unknown.
We’ve only just started getting to know one another. That’s not something to throw a story like this away for. If I can actually find out what the story is. The truth that seems to be lurking under a murky surface, just out of reach.
My mind drifts to the scene of the most recent murder. At first, there were rumours of an accident, but I heard first-hand when the firemen discussed piled-up cushions and a body with fresh blood beneath it. Burnt to a crisp? Yes, but no one doubted it was an accident.
And the detective was there. Ashworth. I saw him from where I lurked in the neighbours' bushes, surreptitiously snapping a few photographs.
The way he slammed the door in my face has him high on my shit list too.
Sure, being a reporter was often seen as barely a step up from being a cockroach, but still.
The police usually understand. We have a mutually beneficial relationship. Sometimes.
But this Ashworth fucker has been impossible to reach. He looks like a sleazy fucker too. One of those guys who makes your skin crawl when he looks at you for too long.
Ellie’s scrolling her phone idly as we relax, finding our voices again post coitus. Eventually, she rolls onto her stomach and faces me.
‘I still feel guilty,’ she says, her eyes bewitching me all over again with those thick lashes. ‘About Sam. Here I am smiling again with you, and he’s still missing. I don’t know if I’m stupid for not moving on fully, or evil for not waiting.’
I trace my fingers up her arm, the skin there so soft. ‘You’re only human, Ellie. How are any of us supposed to know how to act in a situation like that?’
‘He’s not coming back, is he?’
‘I very much doubt it.’ Few people disappear into thin air with no bank activity and resurface again. The odds are incredibly slim.
‘Is it bad that even if he does, I don’t think I could be with him again?’
It’d be great for me…
‘Whatever’s happened to him, you don’t owe him anything. You guys only dated for a few weeks, and you can’t hold on indefinitely. Well, I guess you could, but you only live once, and you deserve to live big.’
Ellie tips her head into my touch before crawling up beside me and resting her cheek on my bare chest. ‘I’m not sure he was even that into me, looking back.’
My interest rises, and I hate that even in bed with a beautiful woman, the reporter side of me can’t fully disengage. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Sam was so sweet to me. Spoiled me. But there always felt like part of him was switched off, kind of inaccessible. Not just the physical stuff, but almost like if I got too close, it made him freeze.’
Seeing the way he’d looked at Pete in that picture, I can imagine why that might be. Survivors cope in different ways, and one of those is to freeze up when intimacy presents itself in future. It’s not proof of anything, but it’s another potential clue.
I stroke her hair and breathe gently, hoping my silence will keep her talking. It’s a bit shitty to use that tactic against her, but it’s one that works more often than not.
‘Plus, he was so weirdly obsessed with my brother. He never even met him.’ Her words unlock a spot deep in my brain, and a thousand questions pour out. I don’t voice them all, because I don’t want her to get protective again.
‘Obsessed, how?’ I ask, hoping it sounds non-committal.
‘He asked me a lot of questions about him. What he’s like. Where he lives. What he’s into.’
‘And they’d never met? That is weird.’
‘I kind of wondered if Sam was into guys. He just wasn’t like a lot of men I’ve dated. At first it felt like a good thing, but in hindsight…’ she trails off, her fingers grazing over my nipple in a terribly distracting way.
So Sam was weirdly obsessed with a man he’d supposedly never met, and connected to the other guys on my board. Was Liam connected to them too? If so, he could be in danger.
‘He didn’t ask about him that last week, though.
Good thing too as Liam and Kat disappeared into some sort of freak sex cocoon for a few days.
I didn’t even know they were dating then.
By the time I saw them after Sam was gone, they’d been at it so hard they looked almost malnourished.
Kat thankfully kept the details to a minimum, because ew.
’ Ellie scrunches up her nose before laughing.
I’ve had plenty of sex in my life, but never have I shagged so hard I forgot to eat.
Not to mention an unreliable alibi. Kat didn’t like Sam. Sam was obsessed with Liam. Liam dated Kat. Sounds like a spaghetti bowl’s worth of coincidences.
But there’s nothing concrete there either.
I need to find a connection between Liam and Sam.
A kernel of guilt bites when Ellie wriggles up and kisses me. Those perfect, sweet lips of hers are so insistent already.
The case can wait.
And with Ellie, maybe I’ll prove that you can shag so desperately that hunger fades. If any woman can make me feel that, it’s this one.
Abandoning my work for a bit, I pull her on top of me and set about making her forget all about Sam. And Kat. And everything but the pursuit of pleasure.