Chapter 11
ELEVEN
The house was empty. Lock texted me an hour ago saying he wouldn’t be home until close to eight. Terrence, the young man from Bennett’s Place who OD’d the other day, was being released from the hospital into a rehab facility. Lock wanted to be with him.
I tried to put the image of Gretchen Small’s tangled smartwatch out of my mind. Every part of my soul told me the ribbon wrapped around it was no coincidence. It was the same one tied around Corrine Egan’s wrist. The same one tied around my own. And none of it made any sense.
Lock wasn’t violent. He wasn’t cruel. I’d handled hundreds of domestic violence cases, date rapes, sexual assaults, stalking.
There was always a sign. Always. A level of narcissism that a man like that couldn’t hide forever.
Lock was kind. Caring. Devoted to me. He would never hurt me.
He built his life around the guilt he felt when his little brother died.
But you’ve only known him for two years, Mina. It was my mother’s voice in my head. The cynic where my father had been the optimist. I missed them now. Their guidance. Their love. That feeling that I wasn’t alone in the world. I’d lived in that void for over a decade.
Until I met Lock.
I replayed our first meeting. Handsome, charming, patient, and kind as he stood up for that young boy in court who had no one else to speak for him. He’d been alone, just like me.
Until he met Lock.
Lock pursued me carefully, respectfully. Meeting me for coffee first. Then a walk in the park in front of the County Building. Another along the pier. It wasn’t until a month after we first met that he asked me out on a formal date.
It wasn’t until our fifth date that we kissed.
He walked me to my door under the moonlight.
He would have said goodbye, made plans to take me out again.
But I couldn’t stand it for another second.
Not touching him. Not feeling his lips on mine.
So I went to my tiptoes and grasped his face in my hands. Then I pulled him to me.
And from that instant, it was as if I’d lit a match. The passion between us was combustible. Undeniable. He asked me to marry him three months after we met. With time… with marriage… our passion for each other had only burned hotter.
I knew him. And yet, I trembled as I walked into Lock’s study.
He didn’t mind when I came in here. I’d been the one to suggest this room should remain his sanctuary. If he ever wanted to be alone, undisturbed, he only had to close the door. But he never did. Not once.
Still, I felt like an intruder as I sat at his desk. His leather chair warmed beneath me. His scent was everywhere. That tantalizing mix of his aftershave, the soap he used, and him. Even now, it sparked a flicker of heat under my skin.
I opened his laptop. The screen flared to life. He never kept it password protected. I don’t know what I expected to find. A file called “Women I’ve Stalked and Killed”?
I opened his hard drive. He was neat and orderly, creating folders for foundation business, bills, receipts, tax documents, household services, and payroll. He had a single file labeled “Photos.” I clicked on it.
What I found there made me smile. Lock dutifully backed up his phone’s camera roll once a month. He kept each backup in its own separate, dated file. I chose a random month from last year and opened it.
He took nature photographs that month. He caught peak fall color on the grounds. He captured the bluff overlooking the lake. Some of them were artwork. I kept scrolling until I hit upon a picture he’d taken of me.
I was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs on the edge of the rose garden.
The golden hour at sunset. He caught me staring at the lake.
There were more like that. Lock finding me in vulnerable but simple moments.
In one, I had my hair pulled back as I chopped vegetables.
In another, I was feeding the ducks out by the pond.
Another made my breath catch. He photographed me sleeping.
My hair fanned out on my pillow, my right arm stretched above my head.
The sheet just covered the swell of my breasts.
“Mina?”
I froze. Lock stood in the doorway. He’d already loosened his tie and discarded his suit jacket.
I vaulted to my feet, guilt washing over me. My mouth went dry. “You’re… you said you didn’t think you’d be back for a couple of hours.”
He gave me that sinful smirk as he walked across the room and stood at the edge of his desk. From there, he could see what I was looking at.
“That one’s my favorite,” he said, unfazed.
He reached over and pressed the arrow buttons on the keyboard, advancing the camera roll until he found another photo of me.
In this one, I sat in our bedroom window seat brushing my hair.
I wore a thin cotton nightgown, and you could see the silhouette of my naked body the way the sunlight hit me.
“Does it bother you?” he asked. “I suppose I should have told you I kept these.”
I stepped away from the desk. “No. Of course not.”
“Were you looking for one in particular? Or something else?”
There was no accusation in his tone, just mild curiosity. And yet, he’d caught me snooping through his laptop. Neither of us could pretend.
I felt unsteady on my feet. He was Lock. Of course, he sensed something was wrong. His brow furrowed and he took a step toward me.
“What is it? Did something happen, my little dove?”
Had he said anything else, I might have reacted differently. But all these weeks of anxiety and doubt came pouring out of me. I was angrier with myself than with him. But once I started, I couldn’t stop.
“This!” I thrust out my wrist and pulled the red ribbon out from under my watch. Lock’s eyes widened as I slipped the ribbon off and laid it on the desk between us. “How many other women have you given this to?”
Lock jerked his head back as if I’d struck him. It tore a hole in my heart.
“Tell me.”
“Mina,” he said, coming to me. “Did someone hurt you?”
“I just need the truth. I need to know if there’s someone out there who might still be wearing your ribbon besides me.”
That smirk again. “Where’s this coming from?”
I couldn’t tell him about Corrine Egan’s statement.
Or Amy Pasko’s. Or what had been found in Gretchen Small’s car.
They were all part of an ongoing investigation.
I couldn’t honor my ethical duties when it was convenient for me.
But as I stood there, I knew it was much more than that.
I didn’t want the truth if it was something I couldn’t bear.
“No,” he said, sensing me unraveling. “Mina, no. There’s no one else. How could you even think that?”
What could I say? I felt the earth shifting under my feet. When Lock was gone, I let my imagination take over. But when he was here, right in front of me, every doubt I ever had vanished. This was Lock. My Lock. The truth was in his eyes.
“This case… there are things I can’t tell you.”
“Of course,” he said. He took a relaxed posture, perching himself on the edge of the desk. He was no more than a foot away from me.
“There were things… similarities. Something one of the victims reported. I just needed to know.”
“You think I did something to one of your victims? Mina, what’s going on?”
I shook my head. I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. I could hear how absurd I sounded.
“No,” I said. “I don’t know. This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“You think I’m hiding something from you?
Mina, look, I don’t know what you think you heard or saw…
but you haven’t been yourself for weeks.
I thought it was about the pregnancy test. Another disappointment.
Maybe I’ve been selfish. I never wanted you to feel pressured.
I told you that from the beginning. But if you want to stop trying for a while. Baby, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“It’s not the fertility stuff,” I said. Was it? Did he have a point?
“Baby,” he said. “I’ve been a fool. I’m so sorry. I forgot about next week.”
“What?”
“May seventh,” he said. “You have an anniversary coming up and I’m a jerk for not remembering.”
May 7th. The day my parents died. I hadn’t remembered that either. It also meant another anniversary was coming up. Lock’s brother died on May 10th. Twenty-five years ago, as Eli told me.
“Whatever you need, I don’t care, okay? It’s natural that you’d be out of sorts. I should have realized. I should have been more sensitive. Look, whatever it is. Whatever you think I did…”
“Lock… I don’t…”
“Here,” he said. He grabbed a pad of paper off the desk and a pen from one of its holders. He furiously wrote, filling up the entire page. Then he handed it to me.
“You’re welcome to everything, okay? Whatever you need to satisfy your curiosity. My credit cards, banking passwords, social media profiles. You already know the combination to all the safes. Look through whatever you want.”
He took the pad back and wrote one more thing. “There,” he said. “That’s the passcode to my phone. Mina, take it all.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat feeling thick. “I’m saying everything wrong. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
I couldn’t think straight. He had me spinning.
Maybe he was right. What happened to my parents was always there, just under the surface.
It always came back strongest this time of year in fleeting images and sensations.
The campus police officer’s stern face. The radio on his shoulder that beeped until he clicked it off.
The curious faces of my suitemates as they hurriedly shut their door while the officer delivered the news.
The air in our eighty-year-old farmhouse turned deadly.
I’d been home that weekend. Just two nights before.
The officer’s phrases fragmented in my mind.
Never woke up. Peaceful. Nothing anyone could have done.
Then I was so desperately alone until I found Lock.
He stood in front of me now. Solid. Real. Worried about me.
“But you’re doubting me for some reason. You think I could ever care about any woman but you?” Lock said.
“Lock, no…”
His eyes went a bit wild. He came to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Are you leaving me?” His voice cracked when he said it. It was as if he went from a man to a lost boy right in front of my eyes.
“What?”
“If I’ve done something, you need to tell me.” He became so desperate. Needing me. As if I were the only thing keeping him tethered to this world. I was. But so was he. The thought of him walking away from me, leaving me truly alone, broke something in me.
What was I doing? Lock laid himself bare before me. He’d done it so many times. No secrets. No lies. He’d let me see the darkest parts of himself. It had taken months. Years. But we’d built trust between us. And in the span of twenty minutes, I could have wrecked it. Maybe I already had.
“No,” I whispered, stepping into his arms.
“I love you,” he said. “Mina, you’re my soul. I don’t know what you’re afraid of. Please don’t let it be me.”
His voice grew thick. As if he could barely get the words out. I’d wounded him. He thought I was going to leave him.
He pressed his cheek against my chest. I kissed the top of his head.
Maybe he was right. Maybe subconsciously, all those things he said clawed at me.
My parents. The constant stress of wanting to give him a child and fearing I couldn’t.
The disappointment of every month and another negative test. I’d fixated on coincidences.
I did the things my therapist had tried so hard to help me unlearn.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s nothing.”
He clung to me tighter. I felt my own heat rising. Lock needed me. Then he loosened his grip and looked up at me, his eyes filled with doubt and fear. Emotions that I’d put there.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him.
“You swear?”
“I’ll swear it every day for the rest of our lives.”
“Prove it,” he said, his voice going dark in a way that sent shockwaves of desire through me.
He had my red ribbon in his hand. A challenge. I held out my arm, exposing my wrist. Lock tied the ribbon back in place. Then he leaned forward and took my earlobe between his teeth, nipping me gently.
“Say it,” he whispered.
“Lock, I’m not—”
“Say it,” he demanded.
My insides turned to liquid.
“You’re mine,” I said. “And I’m yours. Always.”
He drew me to him, clasping his hand over mine.
He led me upstairs without another word as desire coursed through me.
Then his hands were everywhere. Unbuttoning my skirt.
Peeling off my blouse. When I leaned down to take off my heels, he ordered me to leave them on.
With expert one-handed skill, he unclasped my blue lace bra, then hooked his thumbs in the waistband of my matching panties.
The delicate fabric shredded as he tore them off me.
The ribbon he tied around my wrist would only be the beginning tonight.