Bloodstained Beauty

by Ella Fields

  I didn’t understand, and the only way I could was to meet him there.

  I realized then, as I made sure I kept watch on the time, that I must’ve trusted him. At least enough to meet him where the water’s shallow but loud, and darkness falls heavy.

  As I gazed back out the window to the house where I’d spent months making memories, making dreams, and making excuses, that gnawing, acidic taste of my heart’s pain returned, filling my mouth and my eyes.

  It was time to say goodbye.

  Miles’s truck was in the drive, and I leaped from my car, quickly sliding the envelope that contained my false happily ever after into the green mailbox before the sorrow had my hands latching onto it, desperate for hope, for any longer.

  Back in the car, my hand poised over the keys in the ignition, the tsunami of grief for what-if, for what could’ve been, rocked me. After all our time together—the good and the bad and the beautiful—this was how I was going to leave it?

  No.

  That wasn’t me. I might have been foolish in blindly trusting a man who always seemed so far out of my reach, but I wasn’t a coward. I unclipped my seat belt, wrenched open the door, and plucked the envelope out of the mailbox.

  The porch light flickered on as I raised my hand to knock. Noticing the door was ajar, my hand fell to my side as I took a step forward.

  “… may be so, but I’m your fucking wife. Don’t I get a say?” a woman shouted, her voice, her pain, barreling down the hall to escape the cracked open door and lock my feet in place.

  “I’m tired, Milo. Tired of the lies, of feeling like I’m losing you every week you spend with that child. You’re getting nowhere anyway. Please, just go back to HQ and end this.”

  Milo?

  Tears of desperation coated every word she hollered, but I definitely wasn’t hearing things.

  Torn, I looked back at my car, at the street, only just seeing the black SUV parked a few houses down.

  “No, fuck that. You knew. You knew what this would involve.”

  My mind screamed at me to go, to leave. It’d connected the most important dots, but my heart was still unable to comprehend such insanity.

  So I pushed the door open and walked inside.

  Miles, or Milo, growled, “You fucking pushed me into this as much as Anthony, Shell. And don’t you dare say you didn’t.” I’d never heard him sound so angry, so upset, but that didn’t stop my feet from carrying me down the hall to the living room. It was what he said next that did that. “I told him we should leave her alone. We didn’t need to go this far, and you disagreed. And now that we have, that I have, you’re compromising everything by being here.”

  The envelope slipped from my hand, fluttering to the tiled floor. The floor we’d never got around to buying rugs for. The dining table mocked me from where it sat next to the window that faced the backyard, waiting to one day be expanded for more visitors.

  And as they saw me standing there, right outside the living room, the audacity to look shocked by my presence, it was apparent I was the visitor here.

  Amelia, or Shell, cursed and glared with wet eyes before storming right past me, the front door slamming in her wake.

  “Jem,” Miles rasped, his expression one of utter terror.

  “I came by to …” I stopped, blinking down at the ground to where the envelope sat and made a gesture to it. “Yeah.”

  Then I turned and raced out the door. Miles’s feet slapped against the tiles as he came after me.

  With my keys already in the ignition, I peeled out without even checking for cars and battled the urge to throw up the whole way back to my apartment.

  Hauling my duffel downstairs, I threw it into the trunk as tears clouded my vision.

  Milo.

  Lies.

  That child.

  Everything became clear yet was still so fucking unclear at the same time.

  Why? Why would he lie to me, and why would she and this other Anthony person encourage him to?

  Headlights illuminated my trunk as I rearranged my bags, then shut it.

  A door slammed as whoever it was that’d pulled up behind me got out, and I took that as my cue to get the hell gone.

  Before I could close the door, I was hauled out of my car, a scream stuck in my throat.

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  “Miles, let go.” He slammed my door shut, and I struggled as he maneuvered me to the sidewalk. “I swear to God, I’ll knee you in the junk again.”

  He chuckled, but the sound was dry and unfamiliar. “You can try, Jem. But I’m prepared this time.”

  “Seriously, let me go before I scream for someone to call the cops.”

  He lowered his lips to my ear. “I’m a federal agent, so that’ll do you no good and only waste our fucking time.” I stopped struggling and stared up at him in disbelief.

  Remorse filled his eyes. “I’ll explain, but we need out of sight. Unlock the door, please.”

  When I just stood there, not entirely sure I shouldn’t elbow him in the ribs and make a run for it, he whispered, “I’ll never hurt you,” he paused, “not physically. But I need to keep you safe, and I can’t do that if you don’t at least hear me out.” His cheeks puffed as he blew out a breath. “I can get in a lot of shit for telling you this stuff, so please believe me when I say I’m only trying to help you.” He swallowed. “Because despite what you might think after everything, after whatever you heard, I do love you.”

  I unlocked the door, and he followed me upstairs and inside my closed up, lonely apartment.

  Needing to sit down, I waited on my couch as he flitted about my apartment, plucking things out of cupboards, a fake potted fern on the windowsill, and then disappeared into my room.

  Joining me in the living area, he opened the window, and I saw a blur of black sail through the air, the window locking before I could hear where they landed.

  “Bugs,” he said, then took a seat on the Ikea coffee table in front of me. It groaned beneath his weight, and he cursed, shoving it back and taking a seat on the ground instead.

  “Bugs,” I said the word over and over before finally acknowledging the obvious truth. “You planted them in my apartment?” The pieces kept clicking together, like a puzzle that suddenly warped in your mind’s eye, and your fingers couldn’t collect the pieces fast enough.

  Miles waited, apprehension stamped all over his face.

  My voice hitched over the words. “You’re undercover.”

  A nod was his answer.

  “You’re married,” a broken whisper.

  Another nod.

  I knew it then, that my initial wonder over this worldly, rugged, older man was for a reason. “It didn’t make sense,” I admitted with a self-deprecating laugh. “Your sudden and intense interest in me.”

  He dragged his hands down his face. “I wasn’t, at least, not at first.” As his hands dropped to his lap, his eyes glistened, and then he smiled. “But you grew on me pretty quick, Jem-Jem.”

  “Don’t,” I croaked. “Don’t call me that. Your job, god, was anything real?”

  “You and me, we were real, and yes, I did do some side landscaping jobs when I could. And you know I worked at the school.”

  Time slipped by as we stared at each other, as I tried to come to terms with this new reality.

  “Why?” It was all I could eventually settle on, and really, all that mattered at that point.

  Miles, or Milo, didn’t hesitate. It was as if he’d been waiting. Just itching to tell me. “Thomas Verrone has been a pain in our asses for some time now. We couldn’t catch a break. And then you, someone he was showing a great deal of interest in, applied for a teaching position at his daughter’s prep school.”

  My heart sank. “You …”

  He nodded once more. “I’m sorry, Jem.”

  I wouldn’t have gotten that position. It was all setup. Invisible strings being pulled behind the scenes. “How?”

  “One of our guys made it happ
en with a few fake endorsements.” His head ducked. “And, well, a donation.”

  He let that sit there, and I let it bruise, but then I raised my shoulders and swallowed down the tears when I remembered the name for all of this. “Thomas,” I said. “You’re after him?”

  “Have been for a while, but the bastard is too clever.” Miles licked his lips. “We were never supposed to put you in this kind of danger.” He croaked out a laugh. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Not long before you applied for the job, we found out he was watching you.”

  I knitted my brows. “Watching me?”

  “He’d been doing some digging. Your family’s farm, where you attended college, where your sister lived … and probably much more. You were a sitting duck, applying for jobs at the time and apartment hunting, so we made the decision to step in. To try to keep you safe as we watched and waited to see what he’d do while we continued with the investigation.”

  “You wanted to catch him? By using me?”

  “No. But in a sense, if he were to try something, and you were under our watch, then we’d be able to act fast. We could keep you safer than if you’d been on your own, and maybe get closer to him. Two birds, one stone.”

  Fear skittered over and down my shoulders, and I clenched my hands together to quell any shaking from starting. “Keep me safe? What would he have done?”

  Miles searched my gaze, hesitating.

  “I can handle it. It’s what you’re here to tell me, isn’t it?” My voice cracked from both trepidation and frustration. “So, tell me exactly why I’m in danger, and why you’re doing all this.”

  “He’s a murderer, Jem.”

  Bile gurgled up my throat in an instant. Images of Thomas’s lips on mine, of his hands touching my face, of his scent, his rare smile, invaded and made my head pound. “What …? He …?”

  Miles cursed and came to sit beside me, but the touch of his skin on my hand only further intensified the turbulence inside my stomach. “There are whispers of the things he does but never any proof. They call him The Sculptor.”

  My eyes shut, ears ringing. “Why?”

  “Jem, you don’t need to know that. You know enough to know he’s danger—”

  “Why?” I yelled, surprising him and myself.

  “Okay.” Miles raised his hands. “Okay.” He drew in a breath, then nodded, as if confirming with himself that I could handle it. “He’s … his victims, if they live, are scarred or disfigured. He’s known to torture some of them, Jem.”

  Hearing him use my name in the same sentence he used to describe those horrors had me reaching my limit.

  I raced, barely making it in time to the kitchen sink, heaving and retching and spitting, but nothing exited my stomach.

  “I suppose it’s stupid to ask if you’re okay.” Miles stopped beside me and laid a hand on my back. “I’m sorry, so fucking sorry for bringing you into this shit.”

  Tears spilled, my chest heaved, and I turned on the tap, splashing water into my mouth and onto my face. “You’re sorry.” I rounded on him. “Jesus, you asked me to be your wife, and you already fucking had one!”

  Miles stood frozen, and if I could have seen out of the haze burning my eyes, I’d see the one burning his own. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for you. But after that first time, here in this apartment with your fucking Care Bear watching …” He sniffed, chuckling. “It became real. It became all that mattered, believe me, and it screwed everything up.”

  I believed him. Even though he’d ripped my world out from beneath me with his lies, I heard his truth.

  “I get that this is a lot to take in, but we need to talk about what happens now, Jem.”

  “I never asked for this,” I mumbled, ignoring him.

  “I know. Fuck, I know.”

  I’d always thought these things existed only on TV. In books. Inside nightmares. Never even once did I think the realities that people swore were real would invade my cozy, safe little life.

  “What do I do?” I wheezed, raking shaky hands through my hair. “What the fuck do I do now? He …” I stopped.

  Thomas.

  The bridge over the creek.

  He thought I was meeting him. A glance at the old clock, the one my dad insisted on hanging in my kitchen, told me it was five past eight.

  A killer was waiting for me.

  “He what, Jem?” Miles tugged my wrists, taking my hands away from my hair, and I noticed dark strands had woven between my fingers. “Talk to me.”

  I couldn’t. A boulder made of every emotion imaginable had wedged in my throat, and it was all I could do to breathe. I looked around my kitchen, at my apartment, not knowing what to do.

  Home.

  I had to go home. Where there were guns and miles of land.

  Where Thomas Verrone was supposedly waiting for me.

  I couldn’t think about that. He wasn’t Hercules. He couldn’t stop a moving car, and I couldn’t stay here.

  “Lou Lou.” Her name left my lips without my brain even sending the signal, my heart squeezing painfully tight. “Oh, god. He has a daughter.”

  Miles’s brows pinched, and he ran a finger over his chin. “She seems okay, and school records don’t state any concerns for her well-being.” He muttered what sounded like, “Clever bastard,” again. “But … she’s not his.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t have proof exactly, but I think she’s the daughter of one of his victims.”

  Jesus-someone-stop-this-crazy-train-Christ.

  I stormed past him, intent on getting out of here, and yanked my keys from the door. I needed anywhere that wasn’t stagnant, that didn’t further increase the panic biting at my insides.

  “Jem!” Miles called and grabbed my hand out in the stairwell. “Shit, wait. Where are you even going?”

  “Home,” I said over a rising sob. “I need to go home.”

  He cursed again, climbing down the steps until he was on the one below me. “I’ve got you, Jem.” His eyes begged mine to trust him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t trust anyone in this world I’d blindly walked into. “Come home, and I’ll speak to my superior. Worst-case scenario, we’ll get you set up in protective—”

  “Oh, my god.” A bout of laughter gurgled. “Oh, my fucking god,” I cried and wiped beneath my eyes. “This is insane.” The words were drawn out, my hands still shaking, keys rattling, as I dug my palms into my eyes.

  Miles tried to pull me against his chest, but I pushed him away, almost sending him down the last four steps. “I’m going, and don’t you dare try to stop me, Milo.”

  With that, I ran out into the night and climbed into my car. Adrenaline spiked through my veins and fueled my drive home.

  Miles’s truck followed me, but once I’d turned onto the long rock and dirt paved drive that led up the hill to my childhood home, he turned back.

  Dad found me in the barn the next morning, cursing as I reloaded the barrel of the rifle.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Life,” I said, closing the casing and staring at my dad’s sun weathered face.

  “You look like you’re nine years old again, running home after seeing a snake in the back field.”

  The memory had my shoulders rising with a huff. If only it were as simple as one deadly snake.

  You could outrun a snake, shoot it, or lob off its head with a shovel. But the kind of snake that’d infiltrated my life, filled it with poison, and caused everything to turn inside out—a kernel of fear inside said there’d be no stopping him.

  Didn’t hurt to try, though.

  I stared back at the holes marring the haphazardly hung paper. Paper that was worn from years of sitting on a dusty barn shelf. “I’m okay. Just trying to expel some stuff, I guess.”

  I couldn’t tell him. Not when I was certain I wasn’t even supposed to know. Retired cop or not, I didn’t think that mattered when it came to federal investigations.

  “Here,” Dad said, taking me by the shoulders. �
��Square your feet more, that’s it.”

  I breathed in, pictured Thomas’s face—those eyes—and the tremors that shot through my hand steadied as I took aim at the bales of hay where the paper bull’s-eye hung.

  I exhaled slowly.

  You simply unnerve me, Little Dove.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  And missed by three inches.

  The bullet shot through the wood at the back of the barn, and Dad clucked his tongue. “You never did master the art very quick.” He moved behind me, hand on my lower back. “Cradle it like it’s a fucking baby, Jemmie.”

  Trying to outsmart the burning in my eyes, I shifted my hold and steadied my breathing. My heart slowed to a steady pound in my ears.

  Scared and battered, but still beating.

  “That’s it.” With his hand still on my lower back, he said gently, “Inhale, good. Finger ready, two-thirds of the way out. Easy.”

  I took aim, exhaling as he said to.

  I’ve got you, Jem-Jem. I swear.

  Gently, I squeezed.

  Bull’s-eye.

  Hay rained over the barn, the paper shredded and fluttering to the ground.

  “Fuck yeah.” Dad laughed. “But you’re cleaning that up, Jemmie.”

  The sound of tires crunching over dirt had me running out of the kitchen to the porch.

  I slipped on my flip-flops as Miles pulled up in his truck and jumped out.

  Correction, Milo.

  The screen door squeaked as Dad opened it to investigate behind me. “Shit’s sake. Want me to shoot him? Or have you been practicing for this particular moment?”

  Holding back a snort, I gently nudged him back inside. “It’ll be fine. I’ll just send him away.”

  He grumbled, rubbing his hands on a rag. “You’d better.” He shut the door.

  “Jem,” Milo said, eyes red rimmed and wearing the same clothes as the night before.

  I walked down the steps, making him follow me to his truck, out of earshot.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He frowned at my hissed tone, then whispered back, “I’m here to take you some place safe.”