Chapter Twenty #2
He stiffened in my arms and came with a low shout.
"Charlie. Fuck, Charlie."
I held him against me as he came, the thump of his heart against mine so intimate it brought tears to my eyes. His body relaxed and I became aware of wetness between my thighs.
We hadn't used a condom.
Shit.
Lucas pulled away, realizing our mistake only a second after me.
"It's okay," I said when he turned green eyes filled with guilt in my direction. "As long as you're clean, it's okay. I'm on the pill, and I haven't had sex since I was last tested—except with you."
"I'm clean," he said immediately.
"Okay. Then we're okay."
We'd gone from the most intense sex of my life to chilly and awkward in the space of a minute. I rolled out of bed, suddenly desperate to be alone.
"Bathroom?" I asked. Lucas pointed to a door on the other side of the room. I shut the door behind me, trying to ignore the ache in my heart. This would be so much easier if we'd stuck to having sex.
Lucas's bathroom was masculine and plush, with river rock detailing around his enormous shower and more of those cool poured concrete countertops holding custom sinks of amber glass.
Not eager to face Lucas yet, I stepped into the shower. It took a minute to figure out the dual shower heads, but once I did, I was tempted to stay all night. I didn't. Keeping my hair out of the spray, I washed my body with Lucas's soap, the scent spicy and deep, and braved the bedroom again.
Lucas was tucked into his king size bed, taking the side closest to the door, as he had at my house.
"I put your stuff in the drawers closest to the door," he said.
"Thanks." I got a nightshirt, trying not to enjoy the way my things looked neatly stacked in Lucas's dresser.
It doesn't mean anything, I reminded myself.
Crawling into bed, I rolled to my side and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep. Lucas said nothing, just pulled me across the mattress until he could tuck me into his side.
His body surrounding me with warmth, I fell asleep.
Sometime later, I woke to the discordant tone of two phones sounding the same alarm, but out of sync. My phone and Lucas's phone. The perimeter alarm.
The perimeter alarm at my house.
I shot upright in bed to see Lucas grabbing his phone off the nightstand. He checked the screen, scowled, and dialed.
I couldn't make out everything he was saying as he pulled on his clothes, the phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear. When I started to get up, he spun on his heel to face me. Pointing a finger at me, he wordlessly commanded me to stay put.
I ignored him.
I wasn't going to do anything stupid, but it sounded like people were on their way and I was wearing a nightshirt with a cartoon moose on the front. I needed clothes.
"Yeah, as long as the cameras are recording it, I'll stay put and wait for the black and whites. Yeah. Yeah. You have a clear shot of his face? Yeah. Call me back."
"What's going on?" I asked.
"I told you to stay there," Lucas accused.
"No, you pointed at me. And I'm not going anywhere, I'm just getting dressed. What's going on?"
"Someone is trying to force open your door. They don't know we have them on camera, and he's still there. The police are on their way. Brennan and a black and white. He'll try to keep it quiet."
"Was that Brennan on the phone?"
"No, Cooper. He called Brennan before I called him."
"What are you doing?" I asked, watching him tie the laces of his boots and strap his gun into a side holster.
"Waiting here with you. You're not in danger. We're better off letting the police arrest this guy than for me to go charging over there. The longer he tries to break and enter while he's on film, the better for us."
"Can I look out the window?"
Lucas sighed. "Can I talk you out of it?"
"I don't think so."
"Fine, follow me. Don't turn on any lights."
I followed Lucas through the dark house to the living room.
Two floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the fireplace faced my house.
I pressed my face to the glass, but the night was dark and I could barely see anything.
A shadowy figure moved on my porch. It looked like they were prying at the door with a crowbar.
What the hell?
That wasn't exactly subtle. It was like he didn't care about being caught. Or he was sure no one was home. But I thought Lucas and Brennan said Hayward knew I had security.
"I can't see anything," I whispered.
"I know. Try this." Lucas pulled me back from the window, leading me back into the hall before passing me his tablet, the view from the security cameras already up.
Evers had installed high-definition night vision cameras. I already knew they looked clear and crisp in daylight. I was shocked how much detail I could see at night.
"I don't think that's Hayward," I said after a minute.
"I'm sure it's not. He wouldn't put himself on the hook for breaking and entering. It's probably someone he hired."
Two cars swung into the driveway out of nowhere. Doors slammed and I heard shouts. A figure vaulted onto the porch and tackled the intruder, startling her into a long, high-pitched scream.
Wait. Her? That was a woman's scream.
A woman?
What the hell was going on?
Lucas shot for the door, me on his heels.
"Stay here," he ordered.
"No way," I said. The intruder was down, contained by the police. I'd seen it myself. And I wanted to know who she was.
"Goddamnit. Then stay behind me."
It must have been relatively safe. Lucas never would have let me leave the house if it weren't. We raced out the front door and across our driveways to find two uniformed officers standing in my yard and Detective Brennan on my porch putting handcuffs on the intruder.
Once I hit the bottom step and saw her face, I gasped.
"Marissa Archer?" I said in disbelief.
Her head swiveled to face me and her eyes lit with a fervor that had me stepping back.
"Olivia. Olivia. You're dead," she screeched, calling me by my mother's name. "You were murdered. Murdered. No one believes it, no one listens. It wasn't Hugh, it was him. It was him. They knew and he killed them. He killed them all. Olivia."
"What do you mean?" I asked, my head spinning.
Marissa Archer was the last person I would have suspected of stalking me. I barely knew her. We were social acquaintances at best. She'd been friends with my parents when they were younger but they hadn't been especially close. I'd remember that. She was little more than a stranger.
Detective Brennan leaned down to pick something up from the porch while Marissa Archer continued to wail my mother's name. He held up a square envelope.
I'd seen something like that before and I knew what he'd find when it opened it. I was wrong, but not by much.
I'd expected another crime scene photograph of my aunt and uncle's death like those that Jacob and Vance had received.
Almost.
This one was of my parents. I didn't need to see it to know. The way Detective Brennan looked from me to the photo and back told me everything.
"It's my parents, isn't it?" I asked. He nodded.
Marissa was still calling out my mother's name, desperate to make herself understood.
Ignoring everyone else, I stepped closer to Marissa and said, "Who was it, Marissa? Who killed them? Do you know?"
Nodding her head so hard I thought she'd knock herself off-balance, she said, "I know it all. I know all the secrets, I know everything."
"Who was it?" I demanded, my heart surging in my chest. Never in my life had I ever needed to know anything as much as I needed to know this.
Could Marissa Archer really know who killed my parents? It seemed impossible.
Her eyes burning with a desperate fervor, she leaned toward me and whispered, "He knows someone knows, but he doesn't know who. Left me for her. That stupid slut. He killed them. Killed them all. And I'm the only one who knows. The pictures make him crazy. He's scared now."
"Charlie, step back," Lucas said, trying to drag me away from the insane woman on my porch.
I yanked my arm free.
"No, Lucas, I want to know."
He grabbed my arm again and leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Princess, step back. She's nuts. She doesn't have anything to tell you."
"She does, Lucas," I hissed back. "She knows something."
He shook his head. Proving him right, Marissa began to sway back and forth, singing to herself, "All over. All over now. He can't find me, he can't find me."
"Who?" I shouted, trying to break through her descent into madness. "Who killed them? Who can't find you?"
Her head shot up and her bright eyes met mine. The singing stopped. In a clear, level, almost sane voice, she said, "Tell them. Tell them he's still out there. And he's not done. Not yet."
Her head dropped, her eyes closed, and she fell silent.
What the fuck? What did that mean? Okay, it was obvious what that meant. It was either a warning or a threat.
He's still out there. And he's not done.