by Kitty Thomas
Was that his truck? Claire couldn't remember. She'd been unconscious for the trip to his house. She shuddered trying to block out the memories as they slithered to the surface of her mind.
“I-I think he might still be here,” Claire said, backing away. “L-let's go.”
“Are you kidding? This place is deserted and falling apart. I know a house that hasn't been lived in.” Ari stepped off the porch and moved around to the truck. “Come here,” he said, motioning her to him.
Claire followed him to the truck, keeping a wary eye on the house, waiting for that man to burst out the front door with a gun. She'd feel a lot safer if Ari's gun wasn't in the holster.
“The bastard left the keys in the ignition,” Ari said.
Claire watched as he tried to start the truck up. Nothing. It didn't even click over.
“Battery's dead. This truck hasn't moved from this spot in years. Do you believe me now that nobody's living here?”
Claire nodded slowly, but she still wasn't sure. It was true that there were no other cars here and this wasn't a place you could easily live without transportation.
Ari went out to the mailbox and opened it to reveal a stack of unopened mail including very old warnings of impending electricity shut off.
“See? Place is abandoned,” he said, pulling out the mail. He rifled through it, then put a few pieces in his back pocket. Claire glimpsed an envelope that said Edward Fuller on the front. It felt so strange after so long to have her captor's name.
She followed Ari back onto the porch.
“Stay outside,” he ordered.
If she stayed outside, she could run. He had to know that. Could he know he'd broken her will to leave him so completely that he could trust her out here in the open air unfettered while he searched the house?
“I-I can't. I want to be with you.” That sentence was about so much more than just this moment. And they both knew it.
“Then stay close behind me. And don't touch anything.”
For the moment Ari didn't seem worried about the rules between them. His single-minded focus appeared to be on finding something that would help him track down the man who'd hurt her. She wanted to tell him that killing a man wasn't as easy as it seemed. She'd been so sure she could do it only to learn the hard way that she couldn't.
The front door of the farmhouse wasn't even locked. The power was out. The air was stale. Whatever had been in the fridge when the power had been shut off was putting out such a stench of decay, she almost vomited from it.
Ari searched the entire upper level, Claire close behind him. They found no clues of where her captor might have gone. It looked like he'd just... left. It didn't even look like he'd packed a bunch of things or even bothered to clean up his dishes. Claire gripped the edge of the counter and doubled over as a full-on technicolor flashback hit her. It knocked the wind out of her as the vivid memories assaulted her senses.
It was those ugly yellow plates in the sink that brought everything back, so real it was as though it were happening in that moment. Those ugly yellow plates. The food he barely fed her down in that dirty awful basement. She could hear the snap and crack of his belt moments before he beat her with it. She flinched and cringed away as if she could stop the blow that was coming.
“Claire?” Ari rushed to her side and pried her fingers off the counter, causing the present to come back in a rush. She clung to him, burying her head in his shoulder as she cried.
“Let's go,” he said. “You don't need to be in this place. The mail is all I'm going to get. I think it's enough to find the son of a bitch.”
Claire glanced up and saw the basement door. It stood open, taunting her. She moved toward it as if under some spell.
“Claire, no,” Ari said.
“I have to. I have to see it.” She didn't know why she needed to see it. She'd seen it plenty. It had haunted her dreams for years. But she felt pulled there as though somehow she knew closure could never be possible unless she took just one last look at that basement. Maybe if she saw it empty in the daylight she could wake up from the nightmare for good.
Ari sighed. “Okay.”
He followed her down the stairs while she gripped his gloved hand for dear life. When she was halfway down the stairs, she let out a gasp.
A chill traveled over her skin, chased by goosebumps. “He's been dead this whole time. I killed him.”
What remained of Edward Fuller lay stretched out along the floor, arm extended out as if grabbing for someone... grabbing for her. The knife lay a few feet away. A large dark red stain had formed on the ground underneath him. There was a broken window at the top of the basement wall—the obvious entry point for the wild animals that had picked the bones clean.
20
Claire stood numbly in the backyard of the farmhouse, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as Ari buried the very little that was left of the man who'd kept her in the basement. Edward Fuller. It was still impossible to think he had a name. That whole time he'd had a name and bills and a job out in the real world somewhere. He'd bought groceries and gone to the doctor and watched TV like a normal person.
She thought back to the day she'd escaped... that hand around her ankle, the feel of which seemed as if it had been burned permanently into her skin... kicking him in the face, running and not stopping until she reached a road with cars she could flag down.
The whole time she'd thought he'd been coming after her, that he would catch her. But he'd been busy down in that basement, dying. She'd killed a man. But she didn't feel broken because of it... not like she had with what she'd done to Ari. She felt relieved. Maybe some unconscious part of her had known Ari wasn't the guy.
Claire watched as dirt was thrown in on top of Edward's remains. It had taken Ari hours to dig even with the ground soft from recent rains, but it still wasn't six feet deep. He said he thought it was probably deep enough. And with nothing really left but bone, well the animals had already taken what they wanted. So it seemed unlikely more would be coming back to dig the rest up.
When he was finished, Ari went back to the old beat-up truck, put it into neutral, and pushed it until it was over the ground he'd just dug up. Then he went out to the barn and brought back a bunch of wooden planks and concrete blocks and piled them haphazardly near the truck, further disguising any evidence the ground had been disturbed. Not that anybody else would be out here. And if anybody ever was again, by that point there wouldn't be any sign that anything had happened at all as grass grew around concrete blocks and planks and tires, the ground going solid and hard again. Maybe someday bulldozers would tear the house down, and Edward would be discovered. It would just be another mystery no one could solve and that no one cared to, since this man had obviously been loved and missed by no one.
Claire followed Ari back into the house and watched as he got rid of all evidence anything had happened in the basement. It was all somehow less horrifying knowing that she'd killed that man years ago. He couldn't find her again.
“When you escaped what did you touch?” Ari asked.
They both knew it was unlikely anyone would ever investigate this site—since they hadn't already. But Ari had decided it was better to erase any evidence she'd been there at all. And she couldn't say she disagreed with that. Somehow it seemed as though wiping away the fingerprints could somehow undo it... make it not real.
“Just the door handles. A-and the counter today.”
Ari nodded. He wiped down any area in the basement she could have left fingerprints as well as the door knobs and the counter. By the time everything was done, she was starving. So she knew he must be with all the work he'd done in all the hours that had passed.
He took a trash bag from under the sink and took his shirt off, tossing it into the bag, then he put the bag in the trunk of his car. They didn't talk on the drive. But he stopped at a drive-thru of a burger joint just inside town and got them both burgers and fries and colas. The girl at the drive thru stared appreciative
ly at his bare chest, but made no comment. If she thought it odd that he was driving around town without a shirt before the full springtime had even hit, she was too dazed with lust to question it. Ari parked in the parking lot while they ate.
Still silence.
The sun was setting when they reached the house. Ari parked in the garage, took the bag from the trunk, and carried it inside, holding the door open for Claire. He stripped the rest of his clothes off, shoes too, until he stood naked in the kitchen. He shoved everything he'd been wearing, including the black gloves, into the bag. The gun and holster were spared this indignity and lay on the kitchen table.
“Claire? I need yours too. Strip.” It was the first words he'd said since he'd spoken into the drive-thru speaker box to articulate their food order.
Claire took off the clothes and shoes she'd worn to the farmhouse. She had no objections to Ari destroying them. She didn't think she could ever look at these articles of clothing again without being reminded of this day.
She stood beside the glass door and watched as he took the bag of clothes outside. Ari built a fire in a fire pit he'd no doubt made himself. He tossed everything but the bag into the fire. He looked savage, standing naked under the darkening sky, the fire lighting up the hard planes of his face and body.
In that moment he seemed like someone who existed in another time. A more primal, animal time. This feeling was punctuated by how little he'd said to her over the course of the day. She could see the intense anger in his face, but it wasn't aimed at her. She knew just by looking at Ari, that the anger inside him was directed at the man she'd already killed.
Was he sorry he hadn't been able to take Edward's life from him? A wild and frenetic energy still clung to Ari as their clothes burned in the fire. Finally, he turned back toward the house, his eyes meeting hers through the glass pane that stood between them. He moved with purpose to her.
When he was inside, he grabbed her arm without a word and steered her back to his bedroom and then to the master bathroom. He turned the water on and got two towels and laid them on the marble counter top while the water heated. Steam started to fill the room.
He led her into the shower where he proceeded to carefully wash every part of her, starting with shampoo in her hair. When she was clean he pointed to the towel on the counter. Claire got out and wrapped herself in one of the towels. She sat on the edge of the oversized garden tub, watching Ari as he finished showering. He shut the water off and dried himself with the remaining towel.
“Get in the bed,” he practically growled at her.
Claire did as he said, unsure still what to make of this terrifying and decidedly less calm version of him. He joined her a few moments later. Warm naked skin pressed against warm naked skin.
His breathing came out harsh. His heartbeat thundered in his chest, thumping against her skin. She felt like she should be the one upset today. She'd gone back to the farmhouse—that awful place that had broken her down into so many pieces. She'd had the beginnings of a flashback. Between the two of them she should be the one on the verge of a meltdown, but in recent hours Ari had gone some place dark and wild deep within himself. A place beyond speech or organized thought.
She wasn't even sure if he understood all the things he was feeling.
“Master? Are you okay?” she found herself asking.
A harsh, dry laugh was the only response.
“You know, I could let you go now. The biggest excuse I've used to keep you is gone. He's dead. He can't get you. You'd be safe out in the world now. It's not like you don't have money to take care of yourself. You don't need me. And I know you wouldn't go to the police.”
Claire tensed. She didn't care what it said about her, she didn't want him to let her go. She did need him. She was about to give voice to these feelings but Ari's voice stopped her.
“But I won't. I don't care if you'd be safe. I don't care if I'm not the noble hero anymore, and I have to play the villain. I need you here with me.”
“I need the same thing,” she whispered, barely feeling real as those words slipped softly past her lips.
He held her tighter against him. His grip didn't loosen until the exhaustion and all the emotions he'd been holding onto released in sleep.
Claire wriggled out of his embrace. She went to the big walk-in closet and put on another T-shirt, and a hoodie and jeans and shoes and went outside. Ari hadn't locked the sliding glass door behind him with his fingerprint when he'd come back into the house. But the gates on the outer perimeter were locked so it wasn't as if anyone could really get in or out. It was only the illusion of freedom.
Claire stood outside next to the fire, watching as the flames leapt up to lick at the cool air. Their clothes had long burned away. The fox stood several yards off, his gaze going between the fire and her. He stared at her for a long time as though trying to figure out the answer to a riddle—or maybe trying to understand who she was and why she was here.
As she watched the fire die down into embers, she thought about the long journey to this moment. All the fucked-up things that had happened. But if they hadn't happened, she never would have met Ari. She never would have had this thing that was so right it no longer mattered to her how wrong it was.
She went back into the house and spied a box of dog treats on top of the refrigerator hidden behind a box of cereal. She took the box down, took out a couple of treats, and went back outside. But the fox was gone.
Claire sighed and left the treats out on the terrace then went inside and got back into bed with Ari. He shifted in his sleep, pulling her to him. And they slept the sleep of two people ready to leave the past in the past.
Epilogue
With each month that went by the things that had happened in the basement seemed to blend further into faded half-forgotten memory. Finding the evidence her tormentor was truly gone and watching Ari bury it had offered her a kind of closure. The nightmares never returned. And Holly never returned.
The two of them had settled into a strange sort of kinky domesticity punctuated by the occasional foursome with Kane and Saskia. And the occasional appearance from Marcus who kept a respectful distance from Claire.
As it turned out, Kane knew all about art restoration. He was teaching her. Once she could do the work properly, he had the connections to get her freelance restoration projects. She was so excited to be able to do the work she'd always wanted to do. Ari had already set up a workroom for her in the art wing of the house.
Now it was Thanksgiving. Claire sat in the passenger side of Ari's car in the circular driveway of her parents' estate. He came around and opened the door for her. He offered a hand to help steady her in the high-heeled boots she wore. When she stood, her black wool skirt slid back down over the tops of the knee-high boots.
“What do you call me inside?” Ari asked.
“Ari,” she repeated for the thousandth time. He'd made her call him by his nickname the entire long drive to Thanksgiving dinner. And she was still afraid she'd slip and call him Master.
“Trust me, even if I slipped up, nobody would notice. These are the most self-absorbed people you will ever meet.”
“What are your parents’ names again?” Ari asked. He looked like he was actually nervous about meeting them.
“Wendi and Charles.”
She hadn't really wanted to go to Thanksgiving dinner. Claire hadn't spoken to her mother since New Year's when she'd begged out of the party, with the fake flu. But they would notice if she didn't show up for the holidays, and unless Ari wanted her to be listed as a missing person, she had to show up at some point.
At first she hadn't thought he would risk taking her. After all, she could get help, escape him. But he no longer seemed concerned by this possibility.
It was so strange holding hands with him like some normal couple—the kind of people who picked out blenders and bath towels together. He didn't let go of her hand when he rang the bell. They stood on the porch under the massive columns, fre
ezing their asses off while they waited for someone to hear the door.
“Oh fuck it, let's just go in,” Claire said. It was way too cold already to just be Thanksgiving. She pushed the door open and pulled Ari inside.
“Do they know I'm coming?” he asked.
“No, M-” she caught herself.
Ari bent down to her ear and whispered. “If you say that word while we're at your parents' house, you will receive the most dire punishment you've ever received when we get home. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.” She had to fight the clawing need to say that word. It just didn't feel right not giving him a title. It felt like everything she said was somehow incomplete without it now.
“Good girl,” he said, leaning in and nipping her throat with his teeth. He grabbed her ass just as her mother walked into the entry way.
“Claire, you look fabulous! Have you lost weight? And that necklace is stunning! It's so chic and sophisticated. You should wear that all the time.” Wendi pulled her close for air kisses then released her to look at Ari.
Claire's fingertips strayed absently over the gold collar at her throat. Her mother would lose all composure if she knew what the jewelry meant. But at least Wendi could get her wish. Claire would be following her advice to wear it all the time.
Wendi gave Ari a very obvious once over. “And who is this tall drink of viking re-enactment?”
Ari actually blushed at that.
“This is Ari,” Claire said.
“Please tell me it's serious,” her mother said as if she were imagining mini vikings running around the house at Christmas.
“Oh, it's very serious,” Ari said. “I'm not sure there is a way it could be more serious.”
The butler appeared then to unobtrusively take their coats. Then Wendi led them to the dining room, apologizing that they were too late for cocktails.
“Charles!” Wendi said when they reached the dining room. “Claire brought a man to Thanksgiving! I can't remember the last time Claire brought a man to Thanksgiving! Can you?”
