Chapter 7
Reed
She’s a vision stomping through my crime scene. A veritable goddess from above with her muscular legs and narrow waist. Her lush hips and thighs. Her dark blue gaze scanning this mess like she’s going to draw out all its secrets and solve this mess right here and right now.
Thank god she took over the interviews. I don’t need that shit right now. I hate reporters more than I hate string beans. And that’s a helluva lot by the way.
She moves away and like an idiot, my eyes can’t help but follow her. That’s how I almost miss him.
There’s always a crowd at stuff like this. Disasters bring out the kookie-loos. I hate it. But sometimes there’s a good reason to be glad that they come.
The guy in the ball cap at the back of the crowd. The reason I noticed him.
He’s so damn still. Everyone else around him is talking, their hands waving around in the air. But not him. He’s so damn still that he almost doesn’t look real.
I can see the gleam of his eyes in the shadow of his cap and that’s another part of what I noticed.
Because they’re looking at the same thing I am.
Her. The damn gleam of his eyes is focused solely on Mercy’s tiny figure moving through the still-steaming piles of debris. When she squats down and pokes at something with a pencil that she pulls out from behind her dainty ear, his eyes follow her.
Just like mine.
My breath catches. My feet slowly move towards him. Careful, calm. Keeping him in my sight at all times. So close. My fingers itch to grab him. Find out what he’s doing here.
But I know. I should be hollering. Should be running.
But like he knows exactly what I’m thinking he turns his head towards me and I see the scarring on the side of his face. See the dark gleam of his eyes. The cynical curl of his lips.
“Hey!” I holler. And just like that, every eye turns towards me and away from him and the asshole disappears with another smirk at me.
“Dammit!” I holler and take to my feet, pulse pounding. I know it! This is him. The guy I’ve been chasing.
Pushing through the confused, milling crowd that seems to grow larger and thicker until I’m slowed to a walk trying to push my way through them.
Mercy meets me, her eyes so damn blue and curious. “What?”
But he’s gone. My eyes scan the area desperately. “He was here. He was right here. Dammit!” I growl and slap my thigh, so damn pissed that I’m practically vibrating with it.
Mercy’s eyes widen into beautiful blue pools of indigo. Her head whips around and those chestnut curls fly around her head like a halo backlit by the sun, glowing with fire and energy. “Who? The guy? He was here?”
“Shit!” She stomps through the crowd, pushing and hollering. “Get back! Move!”
But like cattle nobody moves, just staring at us like we’ve lost our minds.
But watching her brings back exactly what scared the hell out of me.
He wasn’t watching his masterpiece or whatever the hell you want to call that mess.
He was watching her. And that last smirk he shot me? That smirk said he knew what I was thinking.
That I’d do damn near anything to protect that woman. Because Mercy is mine. She has been since I saw her for the first time and she chewed my ass out.
And he knows it now. Chills creep down my spine and I force my way after her.
I can’t let her out of my sight. Because if I do, she might be the next mess he leaves burning somewhere.
And I’ll burn down this whole damn town to make sure that never ever fucking happens.
Again.
“I can’t believe he was right there! Did you get a good look at him? Anything that you remember that could help us find the fucker?”
“I know him.”
Her pretty head whips around and she stares at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. Hell! Maybe I have.
But I know that fucking face. Know that evil damn sneer. Those cold damn eyes, like a shark.
“You know him? Who the hell is he?”
“Frank Murtaugh.”
Her eyes go a little fuzzy. Like she’s thinking. And I wish she’d remember so that I don’t have to say the fucking words out loud. Dig into my chest and rip my fucking heart out all over again.
The house is quiet. Mom’s gone at work and we’re alone here. Feels like the first time we’ve really been alone and there’s something crackling in the air.
But it doesn’t make things any easier. I stare down at my feet, my gaze turning inward, lost in all the old memories, pain.
“He was a firefighter for our department about ten years ago. My little brother Roger had just started working with us. He was nine years younger than me. Went away to college to study English. I always hoped that he’d get a nice, safe job. Not follow in my footsteps. Or our father’s.”
“Your father?”
My gaze turns inward. “My dad was a firefighter. He was killed in a huge fire when Roger was born. I was only nine.”
“Oh, Reed,” she breathes.
I turn away. I don’t want to see her sympathy. All I want to do is get through this.
“Roger spent his whole childhood following me around but I begged him to go away to school. Get his degree and follow another path.” Sighing, I run my hands through my hair.
“But he did it and came back home to join the fire department instead of the English department at the school. It was what he wanted and I couldn’t talk him out of it.
” I huff out a frustrated breath. “I fucking tried. So fucking hard. But he was insistent.”
I thought it would all be alright. Until that night. Closing my eyes, I clench my fists, fighting the pain washing over me.
Finish it, I growl to myself. Get it done and get the hell out of here and go lick your damn wounds in peace!
“He was on for the night and I was off. I had a date and I was looking forward to it. It was our third date. You know…”
She whimpers and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. I was gonna get fucked. I’d gone through a long damn dry spell and even though we were dealing with a bunch of strange fires, I needed it.
My stomach churns and tears well in my eyes. “I was willing to let my brother go on-duty alone because I wanted to get laid.” It hurts to say it.
But it’s true. I’m an asshole.
Her hand touches my arm and I shake it off, not wanting the comfort I feel when she touches me. “You didn’t know.”
My head comes up, pain ripping at me. Tearing at my insides like a vulture rips apart a meal.
“I knew it could happen. I’m not an idiot,” I snap.
“We had some strange fires going on around here and I should have been on-duty. I should have been there. But I needed some fucking pussy,” I spit out like it tastes dirty in my mouth.
She flinches away from me and I’m glad. I don’t deserve her sympathy, her sweet touch.
“He hit that night. Hit a barn just outside of town. Place went up like dry tinder. My brother…”.
My voice breaks and I choke on the welling emotions rippling up in my chest. “He went in. Heard that there was a damn dog in there and went in to see if he could find it.” Tears trickle out of my eyes but I can’t stop now.
“He never made it out. The damn building came down on him. The guys tried like hell but they just couldn’t get in to even retrieve his body until the next morning.”
I say it cold, clinical. Like it doesn’t matter.
“We finally tracked that son of a bitch down at one of the fires. He didn’t get away fast enough. I went in a burning building after him when he tried to run in to kill himself.”
She gasps and when I look up at her, she’s so damn white she looks like she’s ready to pass out. Her hand trembles over her pale lips.
“That fucking bastard wasn’t about to get off that easy. Not after what he did,” I bite out.
I dragged his ass out on fire and beat it out with my fists and a blanket.
It didn’t help.
“He went to jail for arson and for killing my brother. There’s no fucking way he should be out yet. He got thirty years.”
“What about parole?” She asks.
“Yeah. He is eligible at some point. But surely not yet.” I’m already reaching for my phone. Pulling it out to call my best friend.
“Jasper. Do you know if Frank Murtaugh got parole?”
“I thought you knew. He broke out of prison six months ago. Stole a truck from a psychologist that was there. Turns out that she’d helped him plan it. But he left her to take the fall. She’s going on trial in a few months.”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“You’re a victim. They should have notified you.”
“They didn’t.”
“Well, he is. Why?”
“I saw him.”
“Shit,” he hisses. “Where? When?”
“This morning. The fire. He’s the guy.”
“Dammit!”
My thoughts exactly.
“He’s here. And he’s pissed at me. For not letting him die,” I whisper, my eyes following Mercy as she paces by the window.
“So you be extra careful and don’t go anywhere alone.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.” I hang up and eye her slim body. She’s my weak link. The one thing that Frank could take away from me that would fucking destroy me.
And he knows it. I close my eyes, chilling fear crawling up my spine.
He will be coming for her. And I can’t let anything happen to her or I will lose my goddamned mind.
My fingers tremble as I reach out to stop her. Her dark brows lift and her soft lips open to ask me what I want or need or whatever the hell she’s thinking.
But I lean down and my lips claim hers. She softens into me, all that softness that I shouldn’t touch, shouldn’t sully with my filthy, guilty hands.
But I grasp her hips tight and pull her closer, sinking into every gasp and moan she makes, my lips punishing hers brutally, twisting and turning and taking.