by Jane Blythe
“You spoil him rotten, don’t you?”
“He’s the only family I have left. Had,” he corrected, because this woman sitting before him was exactly what he needed to move forward, have a family of his own. “You should get some more sleep.”
“I am tired,” Florence admitted, fighting back a yawn.
“I’ll be right back.” Eli picked up the tray, returned it to the kitchen, tidied up, and then went back to Florence’s bedroom. He found her sitting up in bed right where he’d left her.
“I don’t think I even have the energy to lie down,” she said when she saw him.
“I can help with that.” He kicked off his shoes, then threw back the covers and slid into the bed beside her.
“What are you doing?”
“Staying here with you so you’re not alone.” Curling an arm around Florence’s shoulders, he helped her shuffle down and then lay down, he tucked a pillow under her head, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and settled her against his chest. “Sleep, princess. I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying right here with you, close your eyes and sleep. I got you, baby, you're not alone anymore.”
Neither was he.
After a decade of loss, losing his brother, watching his mother waste away as she battled cancer, losing her and then his dad, and then giving up his nephew, he was tired of being alone and tired of losing the people he loved. Florence filled that void, made him feel hope again like the future wasn't one endless abyss of loneliness.
“I'm right here,” he said again, more to reassure himself this time, then he kissed her forehead and closed his eyes, comforted by the warm, soft body, pressed up against his.
* * * * *
7:46 P.M.
There would be no mistakes this time.
None.
Mess ups were for failures. How many times had he been called a failure in his life?
Hundreds?
Thousands?
He wasn't sure, but more than he cared to think about.
As a child, it had been the often repeated mantra in his house. Why hadn't he gotten straight A’s on his report cards? Why didn't he make the basketball team? The baseball team? The football team? Why wasn't he smart enough? Why wasn't he sporty enough? Why wasn't he good enough?
There were, of course, no answers to those questions.
He didn't excel at anything because he wasn't good enough.
Not good enough.
Never good enough.
At least not until now.
Now, he was a killer who had stalked the city for eighteen months, kept the cops at bay, left no trail for them to follow, and had sixteen bodies to prove it. He had used his weaknesses to his advantage, played on the fact that no one ever noticed him, and he had triumphed for once in his life.
The only way to prove to everyone in his life who hadn't noticed him, hadn't cared about him, hadn't believed in him wrong, was to keep killing.
Knocking on the door, he waited for it to be answered.
He didn't have to wait long.
The door was thrown open, and a pretty lady with long blonde waves cascading down her back dressed in a business suit and bare feet stood there. He knew she’d just arrived home because he’d watched from right beside the front door to the building as she walked inside.
Of course she hadn't seen him, perhaps if she had her fate would have been different, but like always, he was the shadow that no one noticed.
“Hello, may I help you?” she asked.
“Evening, ma’am, just letting you know the electricity will be going off at eight, there was a problem in the neighboring building that requires us to shut things down for at least an hour.”
“Oh, really?” She looked annoyed. “I was going to video call with my boyfriend who’s traveling overseas for work.”
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” he said, not sorry in the least. “Please sign here to indicate that you’ve been notified.” He held out the clipboard.
With an irritated sigh, she snatched it from his hand and scribbled her name on the sheet of paper. Before she could hand it back, he whipped out his hand and clamped it around her neck, shoving her inside the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him.
Learning from the last time when the woman had managed to get the drop on him, he increased the pressure on her neck, squeezing until she passed out. Then he dropped her unconscious body on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief.
Everything had gone smoothly.
Last time had been an anomaly, he’d been thrown from his game by Detective Florence Harris managing to get a read on him. It was disconcerting for someone who was used to being invisible to finally be seen. It was like his cloak had been removed and his nakedness made clear for all the world to see.
But he’d come up with a plan to get rid of the detective.
He was going to take care of this woman, and then he was hoping that the cop would be waiting for him at the next dumpsite. As soon as he saw her, he was going to shoot her, aiming his car at her hadn't worked but a bullet between the eyes would do the job. He was a good shot, not perfect—because he wasn't perfect at anything—but he was good enough to hit his target.
Right now though, he had a different woman needing his attention.
Kneeling down, he dragged the woman’s hands behind her back and added more duct tape than was necessary to bind her wrists. Then he pulled over a chair from her kitchen table and hefted the woman up and onto it, securing her with an entire roll of tape because he was so paranoid about something going wrong.
By the time he was done, the woman was starting to come round.
“Who are you?” she croaked through a throat he knew had to feel like it had been covered in sandpaper.
“No one,” he replied simply. “I've never been anyone. Do you know what that’s like? No, of course you don’t.” He gave a derisive laugh. “Look at you.” He lifted a hand and ran his fingertips down the woman’s cheek. “You're beautiful, I bet everywhere you go everyone is looking at you. Guys want to have sex with you and women want to be you.”
“I…I…it’s not…I don’t…” the woman stammered.
“Don’t lie to me,” he warned. “I don’t like liars. My parents didn't like lying, verbally berating their children, that was fine, but lying was a big no-no. Do you know what it’s like to be the invisible middle child? Not the smart one, not the sporty one, not popular, not anything.”
Pacing across the room, he raked his hands through his hair, that familiar feeling of being lost in the dark, alone in the world, nowhere to turn for help or comfort began to soak through his body. It didn't matter how many times he told this story it didn't take away that pain.
He always thought it would, and it did for a little while, a day or two maybe, but then it came back.
He was back to being that scared little boy, desperate to please his parents, get them to notice him, but deep down knowing it would never happen.
“When I was twelve, they left me at the airport. Didn't even notice that they’d left me sitting in a seat at the gate when they boarded the plane. It wasn't until they were looking for a cab in an airport in Melbourne, Australia, that they realized I wasn't there. It’s a fourteen-hour flight from LAX to Melbourne Airport, the seats were three in a row, me and my two brothers sitting together with our parents in the row in front, how could they not notice I wasn't there? Do you know that not a single person came up to me in that airport to wonder why a kid was sitting alone for hours?”
“I-I'm s-sorry,” the woman murmured. “B-but I don’t know wh-what this h-has to do w-with me.”
“Of course you don’t.” He stalked back over to her and grabbed her around the neck again, hard enough to make her wince, but not hard enough to cut off her air supply. “Everyone notices you.” His free hand grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed it hard enough to make her grimace. “You throw these things in men’s faces and get whatever you want, you flaunt your beauty, use it to your advantage,
but you don’t notice anyone around you, do you? Do you know that we’ve met before?”
Her green eyes grew wide, and she gave a small shake of her head.
“Of course you don’t. Because no one ever notices me. You weren't the first to walk right on by without sparing me a second glance, and you won't be the last. Guess where we met, if you get it right I might let you live. Might,” he repeated with a wink.
She shook her head, silently begging him not to make her play this game.
Releasing her, he pulled up a chair and sat in front of her, knee to knee. “Come on, it’s a good chance, you should take it while you can. What about I give you three guesses, that’s fair, right? Right?” he repeated when she didn't say anything.
“R-right,” she agreed.
“So let’s have at it, where did we meet before?”
“At the gym?” she asked, uncertain eyes watching him warily.
He huffed a laugh. “Do I look like the kind of guy who works out regularly?”
Unsure how to answer that she gave a single shake of her head.
“That’s one guess down, two to go.”
“The grocery store?”
“Not even close,” he replied. “You only have one guess to go, better think really hard before you answer because if you get it wrong, you're going to have to be punished.”
Tears slid down the woman’s pale cheeks, and she shook her head again, her eyes pleading with him not to do this. Too bad for her he had never been shown any mercy in his life, so he saw no reason why he should bestow any on her.
“Time is ticking by,” he said. “I want to be a fair guy, give you your three chances, but if you want to forfeit…” He raised a brow.
“No,” she said quickly. “Did we meet on the subway?”
“We did not,” he informed her, standing. “That was guess number three. You failed. You know what that means? It’s time for your punishment.” A smile graced his lips as fear consumed the woman, it was nice for once to be the center of someone’s world instead of being ignored.
FEBRUARY 17TH
6:17 A.M.
Florence yawned and stretched, surprised when her arms hit a warm, hard body.
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she turned her head and looked up to see Eli smiling down at her.
Had he spent the night?
The last thing she remembered was him feeding her soup—which was not only cute and sweet but surprisingly attractive—as they talked about his nephew. She remembered him getting into bed beside her and holding her in his arms, then exhaustion must have taken hold because that was where her memories ended.
“Morning, princess, how are you feeling?” he asked when he saw that she was awake.
“Better,” she replied. It was true, her head still ached, but it was now more like a distant throbbing than the knifing jackhammer that had been there yesterday. This wasn't her first concussion, and she knew she’d be in pain and a little shaky for the next couple of days, but she was definitely ready to go back to work today. She wanted to know what Jake had found on both her attacker and the Dumpster Killer.
“Soup and sleep, the cure for everything,” he said with a grin as he leaned down to capture her lips in a soft kiss.
Florence was getting used to the feeling she got whenever they kissed, the idea of her and Eli as a couple was starting to sink in, feel more natural. “You stayed the night.”
Eli frowned at her. “Of course I did. I told you I was staying. You think I'm the kind of guy who would leave an injured woman alone?”
Right.
He’d stayed because he felt obligated.
“Whoa, what was that?” He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and wouldn’t let her turn her face away. “I said something wrong then, but you're going to have to help me out because I have no idea what.”
“It’s just,” she started, averting her gaze since she couldn’t turn her head, “did you just stay because you felt obligated?”
“Obligated?” His dark eyes grew round. “You really think that I would spend the night here just because I felt obligated?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. He’d spent the whole night sleeping in her bed, and yet he hadn't pressured her for sex. In her history, sex was all men cared about.
“What's running through your pretty head, princess?” Eli asked, his voice was tender, and his hand that swept across her cheek was gentle.
He was breaking every preconceived stereotype she had of men like him. Boring men were meant to make her feel safe, not wealthy playboys, and yet here she was, in Eli’s arms, feeling more secure than she ever had in her life.
“I want to understand, sweetheart. Tell me, tell me what’s scaring you.”
Eli sounded so sincere that she found that words started tumbling from her mouth. “You know that my childhood wasn't great. My mom always had a new man in her life—our lives—most didn't last more than a few months. They weren't the kind of guys to take an interest in a couple of kids with trust issues and emotional problems. A couple beat my brother up before he got too big and could fight back.” She paused to drag in a breath because what was coming next wasn't easy to talk about.
“I’m right here,” Eli said as he settled her against him, snuggling her head under his chin, he rubbed circles on her back.
“One of the men my mom picked up in a bar was a serial killer. Little girls under the age of ten. I was eight. He was called the Coffin Killer because after he assaulted them, he would sedate them then put them in a coffin, leaving them to asphyxiate.”
Instead of asking questions like she thought he was going to, Eli picked up her right arm and pushed the sleeve of her sweatshirt up, revealing a tattoo of a branch of cherry blossoms. “You survived.”
She curled her fingers around his and clung to them. “He didn't put the needle in properly, when he put the drugs in my system it didn't knock me out like it was supposed to. I was woozy but not out, he put me in a coffin, left to do something, and I ripped out the IV and ran. The house he’d taken me to was right in the middle of town, I ran out onto the street where a passing car stopped. By the time cops arrived on the scene he had fled. There was a scar on my arm from the ripped IV, when I turned eighteen and got out of River’s End I wanted to do something to cover it up.”
Eli’s arms tightened around her until his grip was almost painful, but she welcomed it. She’d never been held like this before like she mattered, like someone cared that she was hurting. “Did they find him? Arrest him?”
“No. His name was just an alias, no one knows his real identity. I'm his only living victim, he’s been killing for nearly thirty years now, over fifty known victims. He still contacts me, I think he might have been the one who broke in here.”
“You think?” Eli demanded.
“I didn't spend much time around my mom’s boyfriends, I didn't know that man, I couldn’t identify him, he drugged me and most of what happened is hazy. He’s never made contact with me like that before, he just writes me letters. I'm the one who got away, and it’s his way of making sure I never forget him. But I won't,” she said softly. “I can never forget them.”
“Them?”
Realizing her mistake too late she tried to tug herself free from his hold. “Him, I meant him,” she mumbled.
“Uh-uh, sweetheart. Another of your mother’s boyfriends hurt you, didn't he?”
What did she have to lose? She’d gone this far, she may as well go the whole way. “I was sixteen, my brother was off at college. My mom was passed out drunk, her boyfriend wanted sex, he couldn’t have her so he took me instead. Fletcher doesn’t know, if he did he would have blamed himself, and I was worried about what he would do. But it wasn't his fault, he looked after me as best he could when we were kids. He’d joined the military, he was happy, he had broken away from that life, and I didn't want to drag him back into it. You’re the first person I've told.”
“That was very selfless of you, but wh
at about you, Florence?” Despite Eli’s calm voice, she could feel his body vibrating with anger beneath hers.
“What about me?”
“You needed someone to be there for you, so you didn't have to go through it alone.”
“I made the best of things, I worked hard in school, got out, went to college, and now I have a job where I save lives, where I stop things like what happened to me happening to other people. And if I can't, then I at least get the person who hurt them off the streets.”
Lips pressed to the top of her head. “Thank you for trusting me. This is why you think that I'm just interested in sleeping with you? Because in your experience, men only have one thing on the brain; sex.”
Florence nodded.
“That’s not me, honey. If I wanted sex, I know where to go to get it. What I want from you goes so much deeper. You’re amazing, you know that? Beautiful, compassionate, smart, strong, I admire you, and I'm attracted to you. I want you, Florence. All of you. Your heart, your soul, and yeah your body, but only when you're ready to give it to me. You know what?” He tipped her face up so she was looking at him.
“What?” she whispered, mesmerized by the affection she saw shining from his eyes.
“You are worth every ounce of effort I'm putting into winning you, and worth every ounce of effort I’ll put into our relationship, into you. I can see in those pretty baby blues of yours that you don’t think you're worth it, but you're wrong. You’re worth everything I have and more. What those men did to you was despicable, detestable, it makes me want to do things I didn't even think I was capable of. But it doesn’t affect the way I see you, it doesn’t change anything, you're everything I've been searching for, and I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I wish you could see yourself as I do. You’re like a warrior, ever since you were a little girl with blonde braids, blue eyes, and freckles.” His thumb traced across the smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. “A warrior who’s conquered more in her life than most people ever have to. A warrior who isn’t fighting a war on her own anymore. I'm here, princess, all you have to do is believe it. Let me fight with you.”
