Chapter 17 Rose
ROSE
When Phoenix still didn’t stop, I gassed it, yanked the wheel, cutting him off. The SUV bottomed out in a muddy ditch.
That stopped him.
“What the hell are you doing, woman?” He asked. “You just got yourself stuck.”
“Well if you weren’t so bull-headed—”
He opened my door. “Scoot over.”
“You scoot over.”
We both frowned at each other.
With a huff, I squeezed myself over my overstuffed organization caddy and into the passenger seat.
He turned off the car, grabbed something from the floorboard, then did something outside, behind the tires.
Phoenix slid into the driver’s seat beside me, taking up every inch of space like he was built for the truck and the truck for him.
The moment I sat down, I was engulfed by the scent of fresh rain and something unmistakably him—clean, masculine, and impossible to ignore.
He looked massive behind the wheel—shoulders brushing the seat back, forearms flexing as he gripped the steering wheel.
I felt small next to him. Not weak—just… protected.
He started the engine, threw the truck into reverse with effortless confidence, and within seconds, we were gliding back onto the road.
“What did you put under the tires?”
“Your car mat.”
“My what?”
“I’ll get you another.”
“Those were special-made.”
“I don’t doubt that. Where’re we going?” He glanced at the GPS.
“We aren’t going anywhere. You drive yourself home, and then I need to get somewhere. Fast.”
“You’re not going to make it.”
“How do you know I’m not going to make it?”
“Forty-five minutes. It’s been forty since you hung up with whoever called you.”
It was the first time I’d considered that Phoenix had heard my end of the conversation with Andrew. I looked at the clock. He was right. Andrew would leave for his poker night in five minutes.
I was in a pickle.
Following the Italian female voice directing him through the speakers, Phoenix hung a left.
We drove for a moment in silence, then—
“What exactly did you hear while I was on the phone?” I asked.
“We’re here.”
He turned next to a red-brick mailbox that matched a small, brick home a few yards from the road.
Manicured shrubbery hugged the house, matching the green shutters and garage door.
It was the quintessential “newlywed’s beginner house,” if not for the tie-dye curtains that were pulled tightly against the front window, and the two mismatched folding chairs encircled by empty beer bottles on the front porch.
A bachelor pad, by all counts. No cars were parked outside and the house was dark except for a dim light outlining the curtains. Phoenix parked in front of the garage.
I set my purse in the back seat. “Stay here, I’ll be right—”
The driver’s side door slammed shut.
“You’ve got to be kidding…” I muttered as I jumped out, my heels stabbing into the wet earth. “Hey.” I tip-toe-jogged around the hood. “I said, hey.”
Ignoring me, Phoenix walked up the porch steps.
“Listen, you don’t even know whose house this is, or why we’re here. Go sit in the car and wait. I’ll be five minutes.” Gripping the handrail, I jumped up the steps and fisted the back of his wet coat. “Phoenix. Go back to the car.”
He finally graced me with his attention and turned, blocking my access to the front door.
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Whoever called you, didn’t just upset you, they scared you.”
“Not true.”
“Yeah? Maybe we should add ‘do not lie’ to your list of goals. Your cagey eyes and trembling hands after you hung up told a different story. Not to mention the blush on your cheeks. Your neck was as red as the bottom of your heels. Whatever was said on that phone call scared you and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go into that house alone. ”
“This isn’t any of your business.”
“I just made it my business. Together, or not at all. Isn’t that right?”
I threw my hands up and pushed past him. “You’re impossible.”
“This coming from my therapist,” he muttered as we turned toward the door. I rang the doorbell, waited a few beats, then rang it again. My gaze shifted to the front window, looking for movement, or anything to indicate Andrew was still home.
I bypassed the doorbell and knocked.
“He was expecting you, right?”
“Yes. He might’ve left already, but…” I glanced back at the car where I’d left my phone. “Surely he would have called or texted me first.”
Phoenix nudged me out of the way and grabbed the knob.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
The door slowly opened, a pitched creak echoing through the air.
“Stay behind me,” Phoenix said in a tone that sent me on alert.
I watched his hand slide to the gun I didn’t realize he carried on his belt—regardless that his concealed carry license had been pulled.
I wasn’t surprised. If I knew anything about Phoenix Steele already it was that he didn’t do what he was told.
Funny; a car, he didn’t need. A gun, he couldn’t live without it.
It was interesting insight into the man, and made me wonder how much of his life was shaped by his time in the military.
The house smelled of cheap air fresheners, tacos, and the lingering scent of something herbal that suggested Andrew had his own license of sorts—a medical license.
The first thing I noticed was that it was dead silent. No TV noise, hum of a heater, whine of a dishwasher, no video game on loop, nothing.
The house was small with a living room beyond the entryway, bedrooms to the side, and kitchen at the end of the house.
The living room had the bare essentials, a massive flat screen TV streaming a baseball game on mute, a pair of mismatched, hand-me-down love seats, and in the corner, a lazy-boy complete with cup holders and an adjustable leg rest. On the coffee table, a half-eaten plate of tacos and a longneck.
“Andrew?” I called out and stepped beside Phoenix.
“I said stay behind me.”
Nerves tickled my stomach.
Phoenix kept his hand on his holster as we stepped down the hallway. The room to the left appeared to be an office of sorts—vacant, and lights off—and next to that, a spare room, which was also vacant.
Tap, tap, tap…
I frowned.
Tap, tap, tap…
“You hear that?” I whispered.
Phoenix’s eyes were laser-focused on the entryway to the kitchen, where the tapping noise appeared to be coming from.
A blast of cool air had the hair on the back of my neck prickling.
Phoenix drew his gun in such a smooth, routine manner I might not have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it.
My heart began to pound as we stepped into the kitchen.
And that’s when I saw it. My second dead body of the day.
I gasped. My body froze mid-stride as I stared at the motionless pair of legs outside, just beyond the screen door that was flapping against the wind. The rest of the body was out of view.
Andrew?
Phoenix grabbed my arm and yanked me to the corner of the room.
“Get down. Now.” His voice was strong, but calm.
I nodded incessantly, sinking into the corner of the kitchen.
An old, familiar place.
The corner of the kitchen… rain against the windows… my purple nightgown. Flashbacks of that night raced as I huddled in the corner and hugged my knees to my chest. My entire body began to tremble.
I watched Phoenix sweep the room, then step outside, onto the deck, as I sat there like a useless idiot.
Do something, Rose.
911.
I felt around in my pocket, then remembered I left my phone in the car. Screw this, I thought as I pushed to a stance. Thunder rumbled as I stepped outside, into the pouring rain, and my own nightmare.
“Get inside.” Phoenix yelled, but the words didn’t register.
Lightning streaked the sky as I stumbled backwards, gripping the door frame for balance as I stared down at the body on the deck.
Wearing the same vintage T-shirt as earlier, Andrew’s dead, rain-soaked body lay face-down on the wooden slats.
One arm was tucked under his body, the other splayed to the side as if he were hailing a cab.
His knees were bent awkwardly, with bare feet at the bottom of dark denim jeans.
It was absurd, my first thought was that his feet must be cold and that I should get a blanket for him.
Phoenix kneeled and slowly lifted the side of Andrew’s body.
I’ll never forget it. The way his arm dragged with the pull, the limpness of his torso swaying against Phoenix’s grip.
And the blood. My God, the blood. The pool of shiny, dark red pooling beneath his body. His shirt was saturated, the colorful swirls of what was once a Beatles T-shirt faded into a solid red stain of blood.
So much blood.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
As if in slow motion, Andrew’s head lobbed to the side, his glazed-over eyes staring blankly into the rain, his jaw slack as if he were in mid-scream.
The left side of his head was matted in blood and as gravity took its final movement, a flap of skin separated from his face, showcasing a laceration that sliced all the way to his ear, leaving it dangling by strings of skin.
Bile rose to my throat and I propelled myself backward, stumbling into the kitchen and falling to the ground inches from a brown, paper bag—the same one I delivered the teddy bear in.
My eyes widened as I grabbed it and ripped it open.
Empty.
I frantically searched the room. But there was no bear, no video camera, anywhere.
Nothing.
I looked back at Andrew on the deck, his ear dangling in the wind.
Then, I turned and vomited all over my Louboutins.