26. Hunter
Chapter twenty-six
Hunter
I’m beginning to feel like there’s a third person in this marriage. Dylan. But it’s not Ellie’s fault, it’s mine. He’s constantly in the back of my mind, like an annoying song stuck in my head, except … he’s dangerous.
Ellie’s started to open up about her relationship with him these past few weeks. And even though I hate hearing what he’s done to her, I want to help carry the burden. Heck, I’d like to take the burden away from her completely.
My conversation with her after the gingerbread house competition replays in my mind, trying to tease out any little detail I can find that will help me find out who Dylan really is.
But I’m coming up short.
So I did what any person in my position would do—I made an appointment for Ellie to spend the day at a spa in Cypress City.
Turns out, Cypress City Day Spa has a whole prenatal pampering package—which costs an arm and a leg but is totally worth it. Ellie deserves the best, but also, I need to do something today that I can’t really explain to Ellie. At least … not yet.
Once Ellie’s away at the spa, I contact Dylan’s mom, Tracey. Though Dylan had told Ellie his mom had passed, Connor recently uncovered that was a lie.
I introduce myself to Tracey as Captain Hunter Dawson—my real name and rank. I walk a very thin line in the conversation—insinuating that I’m with the police without ever stating it. I tell her that I’m investigating a domestic assault case involving her son—also technically true.
She agrees to meet with me but gruffly informs me she hasn’t seen or heard from her son in almost a decade. “You might be wasting your time, Captain,” she tells me.
I assure her that I’m not.
On the drive out to the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, my mind spins with all kinds of theories as to why Dylan changed his name and what could be on his juvenile record.
It could be anything from drugs to animal cruelty and beyond.
It’s probably not murder, I muse. Even juveniles would have to do hard time for that.
After finding out the extent of Dylan’s controlling nature and his violence with Ellie, I wonder if he hurt anyone in his younger years.
When I pull up to the house—a double-wide on a gravel road—there’s a woman outside smoking as her dog relieves itself beside her.
I get out of my truck and she waves me inside without a word as she flicks her cigarette into the dying grass.
She disappears into the house and I hunt out the cigarette, stubbing it out with my boot before following her into the trailer.
The front door opens into a small living room with a faded plaid couch and a tidy kitchen across the way. Sunlight streams through a window above the sink and a tiny caddy holds a bowl, mug, and spoon drying beside it.
The inside of the trailer is neat and orderly. Except for the lingering scent of cigarettes, it could be a brand-new model. “Want some water? I’ve got some of that fizzy kind,” Tracey says, her Southern accent thick.
“Sure.” I glance around the space, taking it all in. There are no personal mementos, no pictures, not even a calendar hanging on the wall. Tracey’s dressed in scrubs, with an ID tag clipped to her top that says she’s a CRNA at Ranger Pine Hospital.
Her dog—a tiny, fuzzy thing—sniffs at my boots before going to lay down on a folded-up blanket beneath the kitchen table.
Tracey hands me a grape-flavored can of Waterloo—objectively, the worst flavor. I thank her anyway.
“Well, what do you want to know, Captain?”
She leans against the Formica counter, crossing her arms. I guess we’re not sitting down for this conversation. I stand awkwardly between the kitchen and living room.
“Can you tell me a little more about Ezekiel?” I ask, making sure to use Dylan’s birth name, as I crack open the can. It fizzes up, threatening to go over the edge. I quickly take a sip, but a few drops land on the vinyl flooring beneath me. “Uh, sorry.”
Tracey narrows her eyes but doesn’t move. She doesn’t offer a paper towel or something to clean it up, and when I look around, I don’t see anything to wipe it up with, not even a kitchen towel. So I stand there, the drops of Waterloo between my feet, uncleaned.
“What? You need his entire life’s story to figure out why he hit his wife?” she asks.
I can’t tell if she’s being defensive or if she suspects I’m not who I say I am. “Anything relevant would be helpful.”
“He was a good kid. Real sweet.” She shrugs, as if to say I’d wasted my time coming here. “The quiet kind, real studious.”
She leaves a gaping silence after this pronouncement. I ask more questions:
Does he have siblings? No.
How was he with other kids? He was kind of a loner.
Did he ever get in trouble at school? Never.
“I saw that your son had a sealed juvenile record, what was that for?”
“Can’t you cops unseal it?”
“It’s not that easy,” I say truthfully.
She smiles, an odd expression. “He forgot to turn in an assignment at school his senior year. He was real intent on getting’ outta here and goin’ to a big college.
He thought he’d never get in if he didn’t get this assignment turned in because it was such a big part of his grade.
Important class. So he broke into the school and turned in the assignment.
” Tracey smirks at the disbelief that I’m sure is written all over my face.
“Turns out, some other kids broke in that same night and put shavin’ cream all over the principal’s office.
Buncha punk kids. He got picked up with ’em. Bad luck.”
“And you believe that?”
She snorts. “I told ya, Officer. This was a waste of time.”
“Is there anyone who knew Ezekiel in high school who might still be in touch with him?”
“Nah,” she says immediately. But then, she seems to think about it and says, “There was one kid. Quentin Long. We were neighbors for a bit, but those two stayed together mostly. Quentin had a troublemaker’s streak, but Zeke kept him in line.
I told ya, he was a good kid. Even got Quentin into college.
But last I heard, Quentin was doing time, so that’s not much help. ”
I ask a few more questions about Quentin, but Tracey is mostly uninterested in helping. It seems I was lucky to even get that information from her.
I shift to lean against the couch, careful not to step into the Waterloo drops. “Can you tell me about Ezekiel’s dad?”
“Oh now, he’s the one you’ll really want to know about.” She opens the fridge, pulling out an oversized mason jar of cold brew coffee. She pours herself a glass, topping it off with some cream and a couple of ice cubes. “You’re about twenty-five years too late, though.” She laughs bitterly.
“He was always a real physical guy. Relieved me of a couple of these,” she opens her mouth, gesturing toward a few missing teeth at the side of her smile. “Those things don’t grow back, ya know.” She chuckles and it turns into a deep, smoker’s cough.
“I’m sorry,” I say genuinely, because I’m not sure what else to say. After a beat, I ask, “Was Ezekiel’s dad physical with him too?”
She stares at me for a little too long. It’s the first time she’s really looked me in the eye for any length of time.
It gives me a moment to inspect her—she looks like she would’ve been pretty as a younger woman, but life’s been hard on her.
Her skin is sallow and sunken into her thin face.
Dark circles and deep wrinkles line her eyes.
The thought comes unbidden: what would this woman have looked like if Dylan—Ezekiel’s—dad had been a good guy?
The question hits me square in the chest—and makes me want to protect Ellie all the more.
Finally, Tracey speaks. “He wanted nothing to do with me or his daddy after high school. Took off and I never heard one word from him one way or another.” She takes a sip of her iced coffee. “Good on him, I always say. It’s news to me he has a wife.”
“Well, he doesn’t anymore.”
She shrugs like it’s not her problem.
I guess it isn’t.
A strange mix of emotions follows me out of Tracey’s double-wide as I drive back to Cypress City to pick up Ellie. I grip the steering wheel, trying to make sense of what Tracey told me—and everything she didn’t.
He was a good kid. Quiet, studious. His juvenile “record” did seem like a stroke of bad luck.
Even if he was among the kids who made a mess of the principal’s office, that’s not exactly a precursor for abusing your wife one day.
Or other more nefarious criminal activity.
My instinct tells me that avenue is a dead end.
But the fact that his dad was also abusive? That’s a red flag.
A quiet doubt lingers in the back of my mind about Quentin Long. As I cross back into North Carolina, I call Connor and catch him up on my conversation with Tracey. “Can you find out anything and everything about Quentin Long from Bellevue, Tennessee?”
“Sure thing, Cap.”
By the time I get to the spa, I’ve decided I need to kick Dylan out of my head.
It’s easier said than done, but when I help Ellie into the truck, she’s glowing and gushing, and that helps get rid of Dylan real fast. I close the door, hurrying around to the driver’s side, where she tells me all about the various treatments she received.
“Oh, Cleo invited us to come to her hot tub tonight! She just had it cleaned out and it’s not too hot yet, so she said it would be the perfect way to end off a relaxing day.”
“Did your doctor say that was okay?” I ask her, eyebrow raised.
She gives me an exasperated look, one that I’ve been getting in increasing intervals. “Stand down, soldier,” she jokes. “Remember Dr. Green said last time that I can take baths as long as it’s not too hot and I’m not in there for too long.”
I press my lips together, still feeling uncertain. I don’t want Ellie to do anything that would risk Sweetpea.
Ellie throws her hands up. “As long as I’m not sweating, she said I’m good. She said it would be good to relax my body.”
“Fine, fine,” I say, reaching across the console to put a hand over Ellie’s belly. “But not one drop of sweat,” I tell her.
She giggles, her face all dewy from whatever they did at the spa. “Not even one drop.”
An hour later, I’m sitting in very lukewarm water, waiting for Ellie to join me.
Cleo really wasn’t exaggerating when she said it wasn’t hot.
It’s at an almost-irritating temperature where you’re not hot and you’re kind of mad about it.
Similar to my conversation with Tracey today, just unhelpful enough to be kind of annoying.
I sigh, leaning my head against the back of the hot tub when the sliding glass door opens.
And my brain short-circuits.
Because when Ellie brought up going to the hot tub, I didn’t think about Ellie in her bathing suit.
And, to be fair, whatever she’s wearing barely counts as a bathing suit. I guess you’d call it a bikini, but all I see are red triangles that cover the necessary parts.
I’ve seen Ellie in a bathing suit before, when we were teenagers during the summer trips to the river. But grown-up Ellie is … wow.
“Oh my gosh, Hunter, don’t look at me,” Ellie chastises, wrapping a towel around herself as she catches me gawking. “I never bought a maternity bathing suit, so this is the only bathing suit that fits.”
I don’t tell her that fits is an overstatement, because I’m too busy cleaning the proverbial drool off my chin. Every neuron in my lizard brain is booing as Ellie tightens the towel around her.
“I know I look ridiculous,” she says as she teeters on the steps. I rush to her side, taking her hand and press my other hand against her back as I help her into the hot tub. The pointless towel is thankfully tossed to the side of the hot tub.
Lizard brain is cheering.
Once she’s settled inside, I say, “Ridiculous was not the word coming to mind.”
She rolls her eyes, as if I’m just humoring her. “Well, how would you describe this?” She waves a hand over her bikini-clad body and I swallow as my eyes trace where her hand just gestured to.
“Ridiculously hot,” I tell her, my voice low, in case Cleo can hear us from inside. “Ridiculously sexy.”
“Come on,” she scoffs. “I’m pregnant, Hunter.” She grabs my hand and puts it on her belly, as if to make her point.
I trace my hand around the side of her stomach, thrilled at the bare skin contact. The water in this hot tub may be lukewarm, but at this point, I’m boiling.
“You’ve always been beautiful, Ellie,” I whisper.
She turns her head so that our faces are so close, I’d just have to barely lean in to kiss her. Her eyes search mine, and I see the insecurity there—the uncertainty in her body that she’s trying to navigate.
“And now …?” she asks, her voice breaking.
“And now, this pregnancy is definitely doing you some favors that I am absolutely not complaining about.” I glance down at her and then back up, meeting Ellie’s shocked brown eyes.
“Hunter!” She smacks a hand across my bare chest, and I wonder if she still thinks I’m pulling her leg.
“What?”
“You’re being such a-a—”
“A what?”
“A man!”
I laugh, low and deep. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Ellie. But I am a man. And I’m telling you, as a man who cares for you”—loves you—“and deeply respects you, I also find you wildly attractive. Even, and maybe especially, like this.”