Chapter 9
PUZZLE
GRAYSON
The hollow click signals the cell door locking.
I stand with my hands linked behind my back until the guard’s footsteps retreat down the hall. Moving toward the cot, I inhale deeply, taking in the lingering scent of lilac. The flowers dried up. Dead petals frame my puzzles.
I’m patient, but fuck, even I have my breaking point.
A year in prison was easier than those torturous few seconds spent touching her. Feeling her wet—so goddamn soft and perfect.
My muscles are fire as I settle my back against the cool wall, waiting until the lights finally dim to give me my regulated privacy.
I lift my tongue and dig out the tiny object I placed there in London’s therapy room. Less than two inches in size, the metal catch of her belt buckle wasn’t easy to obtain, but hell, it was so fucking satisfying.
Her sweet taste still lingers on my tongue, and the visual I have of her—mouth parted, eyes dark and soldered to mine—as my fingers pushed just inside of her…
“Christ,” I groan as I reach down and adjust my hard cock.
She’s lucky I had another goal in mind in that moment, otherwise I wouldn’t have stopped, wouldn’t have let her pull away.
A grin tugs at my mouth as I wedge the silver prong beneath a flap of cardboard on my puzzle box. I’m running out of hiding places.
Soon.
After I scrape aside the scattered puzzle pieces on the table, I unfold the timeworn article and smooth out the creases.
I’ve read it too many times already, but each time I do, I uncover another piece.
Just like piecing together my puzzles, London has left little details, tiny clues, for me to find and fit together.
Hollows, Mississippi doesn’t exist. But Sullivan’s Hollow does—what a coincidence, like we were meant to find each other.
It’s not printed on any proper map, but I don’t blame her or any of the residents within Mize for wanting to erase the past. New names and new histories.
That’s all that’s needed to create a different identity.
I wonder how much she remembers, or if she’s completely rewritten it, her memories some distant nightmare she dreamed long ago.
Nine young women from the ages of sixteen to nineteen went missing over the course of twelve years.
That might not seem like a lot, but to a small population like that, it’s a terrifying thing.
Most were chalked up to runaways, the article claims, blaming the teens for their errant ways.
In a small town, judgment outweighs truth.
The article is full of suspicion and outdated thinking.
There wasn’t even a detective placed on the case.
Yet there’s one significant piece that has bothered me for months. Not what’s in the article, not what’s mentioned—but what’s not.
The date the disappearances suddenly stopped.
I tuck the worn page beneath my most recent puzzle. It’s only half complete, but it’s already revealing so much of the picture. I scrape a jagged piece off the table and twirl it around my fingers, envisioning the golden flecks in her eyes.
My little psychologist has been living two lives for far too long, and I want to tease them apart. Like the puzzle I stare at now, the woman I need hides in the details. She’s buried beneath the lies.
Buried. Hmm, I like that.
I uncover the three-dimensional model on the table, the one I’ve been adding layers to for months.
It’s a poor substitute for my welding tools and kits at the house, but I almost appreciate the challenge to create out of practically nothing.
Layered paper and formed cardboard, a makeshift trap that has yet to be realized.
The obsession has to be fed.
I tear a corner from one of my puzzle boxes and fold the cardboard into a rectangle. It’s not ideal, but the crude box will do as I slip it onto the model with a smile.
It’s only a matter of time until all the pieces come together, and the picture is complete.
I tuck the model beneath the table, hiding it from view before I return to the jigsaw puzzle—a portrait of London.
I carefully trimmed and shaped a picture of her to overlay perfectly onto each piece.
The one I’m holding finds its home as I slide it effortlessly into place, revealing those eyes that captivate me
I graze my knuckles over her features, aroused by the tantalizing feel of the beveled edges of the linked puzzle pieces.
She’s almost complete.
Almost mine.
I continue to caress her completed puzzle long after the lights blink out.