Her Darkest Nightmare

by Brenda Novak

  The cold nearly stole his breath. But it was plenty warm inside. The COs greeted him and put him through the standard security measures before he took the elevator to the second floor.

  The usual sounds of such a place seemed muted, which made him anxious. He hoped Evelyn was working at her desk, knew she often stayed late. What she’d said about searching Fitzpatrick’s office had him on edge, however. What if she’d been caught?

  Those fears escalated when he couldn’t get into the mental health offices. Her office light was on, but everything else—the entire reception area—was dark. Why would the place be locked up if she hadn’t yet left the prison?

  “Evelyn?” He pounded on the glass doors.

  When there wasn’t an immediate response, he turned, planning to get someone to let him in. But as he started walking away, he heard a noise and went back to see her approaching those glass doors from the other side.

  “I’m here.” She didn’t turn on the light, but she poked her head out.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why’s the place so dark?”

  “I’ll explain in the truck. Can you watch this area for a second? Don’t let anyone past.”

  “Why?”

  “Hang on.” She disappeared again. He saw her office light go off and another office light go on and off before she let herself out.

  “All set,” she said.

  With only partial lighting it was too shadowy to see her face clearly, but he could tell she was anxious. “Everything okay?”

  She pressed a finger to her mouth, signaling caution, but spoke plenty loud—almost too loud—when she responded. “Of course. Thank you for the lift. No way could I have made it home in this weather.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  “Did you make it past Tim Hancock’s?” she murmured as they got into the elevator.

  “Not yet. It got too late.”

  “And those bones?”

  “Part of a bear.”

  She frowned to show her disappointment, then cursed right before the elevator doors opened.

  “What?” he said.

  “I hope Officer Whitcomb isn’t down here.”

  “Why?”

  “He came up earlier to deliver a brownie to me, and I never acknowledged it, which will seem strange. I was too busy making copies.”

  “You’re worried about a brownie?”

  “He also left me a note that no one seems to know anything about the forged transfer order.”

  “Who’d he ask?”

  Once again she indicated silence as the elevator doors opened. Then they stepped into the main lobby. Fortunately, Officer Bramble was stationed there instead of Glenn Whitcomb.

  Amarok knew that was a good thing, although he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  Evelyn gave Bramble a polite smile, and Bramble wished her a good night. It wasn’t until both she and Amarok climbed into the truck and he pulled away that she let that smile fade.

  “Now what’s this about Whitcomb and that forged transfer order?”

  She cast a final glance over her shoulder at the prison as he rounded the circle and headed down the long drive. Hanover House had their own grounds crews who kept the driveways on the property clear, which made this part easy to navigate. But once she and Amarok got out onto regular roads it would be slow going with all the snow. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll explain later,” she said.

  “You’re not going to tell me now? What’s going on?”

  “I found something in Fitzpatrick’s office tonight,” she announced. “In a locked file drawer.”

  He shot her a look. “If it was locked, how’d you get into it?”

  “I sort of … stumbled onto the key.”

  “Which you put back, I hope.”

  “Of course. But the cleaning crew is going to have a hard time getting in tomorrow.”

  “They won’t suspect you.…”

  “No.”

  “What’d you find?”

  She pulled a manila folder out of her satchel. “This.”

  Slowing to a stop before he could reach the guard tower, he turned on the interior light and flipped through a stack of photocopies. “What is this stuff? Some kind of background check?”

  “On me!” she exclaimed. “It looks like Fitzpatrick was having me followed, watched.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea. It’s an invasion of my privacy. Look at this picture someone took through the window of my cabin when I was changing. That’s here in Alaska!”

  He studied a blurry shot of her in her bra. “You don’t lower the blinds?”

  “Usually, yes. But I live out in the middle of nowhere. The few neighbors I have can’t see into my bedroom—not unless they’re creeping around, like someone obviously was. And I’m guessing that day I just wanted to quickly change my shirt.”

  He glanced at a few more pages. These seemed to contain information on her family—her sister and parents and their addresses. “Did you find any files like this on the rest of the team?”

  “There was a file on each of us, but the others barely contained anything besides their résumés—maybe a list of awards and accomplishments, notes from their first interview, that sort of thing. I can understand him keeping that on hand in case he has to do a write-up on the team. I keep that sort of thing available for when I go after a grant or other source of funding. But their files didn’t contain anything of a personal nature—certainly not any half-dressed pictures!”

  “That’s true even for the other woman on the team—Dr. Wilheim?”

  “Stacy? The only picture Tim has of her is a professional head shot.”

  He picked up another list of names and addresses. “Who are these men?”

  She rubbed her hands together to ward off the cold. In her preoccupation with what she’d found, she hadn’t put on gloves. “Those are the men I dated in Boston. All of them.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” It wasn’t a long list. But, as reluctant as she was with romantic relationships, he wouldn’t have expected it to be.

  “Actually, some wouldn’t even fit into that category,” she clarified. “Mostly they’re professional associates who attempted to get to know me on a more personal basis, people I would occasionally meet for lunch.”

  He thumbed through more sheets and found a copy of her driver’s license. “How far back do these documents go?”

  “Five years—from the time I first met Tim. No, actually he’s dug up stuff from even longer.”

  “What’s this?” He held up an advertisement.

  “I used to live at that address. You’re looking at the flyer the Realtor gave out when I was selling my condo.”

  “Which has the diagram of the floor plan on the back.” Was that why Fitzpatrick had taken it?

  She grabbed something else. “And look at this—this is the announcement from when I opened my last practice.”

  Amarok shook his head at that but was especially surprised by what he found next. “Are these your college transcripts?”

  “Yes! Who can say how he got hold of those!”

  Amarok noted all the As. “I would’ve guessed you’d have marks like these.”

  She grabbed the transcripts. “All I did was study! Of course I had good grades.”

  “We don’t have too much in common,” he muttered.

  “You didn’t do well in school?”

  “Not particularly. But I didn’t apply myself. I hated it. Didn’t have the money for tuition, anyway. That’s why I left. I wanted to become a trooper.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with working instead of going to school, especially if it’s in your chosen profession.”

  “I just don’t see a guy who’s had to live by his wits his whole life getting with a woman who had the kind of privileged upbringing you did. You have an MD-PhD from Harvard. What are you even doing
way the hell out here?”

  “That’s how you’ve seen it all along.”

  “You said yourself that you have to go back to your family eventually.”

  She seemed about to say something significant. He hoped she would, because he really wanted to believe she was committed to seeing what she’d started in Hilltop through, with Hanover House and with him. Was she planning to go back in five years? Ten?

  When she looked away, he knew she’d decided against that moment of honesty or transparency or whatever. “The odds are stacked against us.”

  “Fuck the odds!” he said.

  Her eyes darted back to his face. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I’m pretty sure you do.”

  “Sex?”

  He tossed the file aside. “Seriously? If that’s all I wanted, I think I’d have a better chance with just about anyone else.”

  “So why aren’t you with someone else?”

  What answer could he give? Besides the obvious, the fact that she was a beautiful woman, there was no way to explain why he was so attracted to her. That sort of thing couldn’t be put into words.

  He needed to back off, somehow quash the desire he felt for her. “Forget it.”

  “Amarok—”

  “We have enough to worry about right now. I’m sorry I said anything. We just need to catch our killer,” he said, and held up the folder she had brought. “The most recent item in here—when is it from?”

  She hated to let their more personal discussion end on a sour note but didn’t know what else to do. “That picture of me in my bra couldn’t be more than two months old. You can see a sweater on the bed my mother sent me right before Thanksgiving.”

  “Have you ever felt as if your esteemed colleague might have a thing for you?”

  She gave him a helpless look. “Yes, but that’s not what this comes down to. It can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve never acted remotely interested in him. Never given him any reason to think I might be attracted to him or … or open to getting involved with him in that way.”

  “But he has hit you up.”

  “After we got here, he … he came into my office one night, late. Tried to kiss me. I was so surprised I shoved him, and he knocked his head against the wall. In retrospect, I could’ve reacted in a gentler fashion, but … he’s almost the last man on earth I’d want to touch me. Although I admire what he’s accomplished professionally, I’ve never even found him particularly likeable. Besides, he’s too old for me.”

  Amarok grimaced. “Why are you so hung up on age?”

  “Most people would agree that a decade is a lot, and he’s quite a bit more than that.”

  “Age is just a number.”

  “Every older woman who’s ever gotten involved with a younger guy tells herself the same thing. But I doubt very many of those marriages last, probably a lot less than the national average, which isn’t impressive to begin with.”

  He might’ve argued that that depended on how big the age difference was. But the fact that he was younger wasn’t the only thing he had going against him. There was a big disparity in their professions, their backgrounds, their education level. And he lived in a harsh and unforgiving part of the world that she would eventually want to leave.

  Like his mother …

  “You’re not going to respond?” she asked.

  “No.” Amarok drew a deep breath. “This storm is getting bad. I better get us home before we can’t get anywhere. Put that stuff in your briefcase until we’re past the guard tower.”

  She did as he asked, but he could tell she was upset.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked once they were beyond the gates.

  “The truth?” she demanded, her words a challenge.

  He glanced over. “Always.”

  “That I want to be with you—probably worse than you want to be with me. But I don’t know how, okay? I can’t build a bridge—between me and anyone, really, but especially a man like you.”

  “A man like me?”

  “Someone I find so … appealing.”

  Seeing her tortured expression made him feel bad. He had no business adding to her grief. He should’ve stayed away from her. He’d known that from the beginning—and he’d been trying, especially after she backed away from him last summer. But then she’d gotten stranded at Quigley’s and it seemed as if fate took over. No normal man could’ve been expected to refuse what she offered him when they met up in the hall later that night.

  “Don’t worry.” He slung one arm over the steering wheel as if he wasn’t as emotionally invested as he’d made himself sound. “We’ll take it one day at a time. Figure it out. No pressure either way.”

  She seemed relieved. “My trust is shot,” she admitted. “And this”—she tapped what she’d found in Fitzpatrick’s office—“isn’t helping. Again, it looks like I’ve trusted the wrong person.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be the wrong person. But I wouldn’t sleep with you now, anyway,” he added.

  She arched her eyebrows. “Really?”

  He winked at her. “Turned you down last night, didn’t I?”

  22

  I don’t feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt.

  —TED BUNDY, SERIAL KILLER, RAPIST, KIDNAPPER AND NECROPHILIAC

  Evelyn was glad when they reached Amarok’s. It had been a slow, arduous ride home. He’d had to dig out the tires twice, the snowdrifts were so high. But Makita was there to greet them and, as usual, Amarok’s house felt warm and cozy. She liked it there.

  He told her good night almost as soon as they walked in. Then she went to bed and he spent some time with Makita, taking him out before playing with him in the living room.

  As tired as she was, Evelyn figured it wouldn’t be difficult to fall asleep. But then she heard the shower go on—and the image of Amarok standing naked beneath the spray popped into her mind.

  Stop! Why would she put herself through the torture of wanting something she couldn’t have? Why would she put him through it?

  But her heart began to pound like it had the night she’d gone to him in the hallway.

  She wasn’t sure she was ready to commit to intercourse, exactly, but there was no doubt she wanted to be with Amarok, to feel his arms around her, to give and take both comfort and pleasure. She was so tired of the constant isolation, the aching loneliness.

  But would she only disappoint them both a second time?

  Telling herself not to even answer that question, she got out of bed. She wouldn’t think of failure. If he rejected her as he had last night, so be it. She’d never get beyond where she was right now if she didn’t keep trying.

  At least, that was the dialogue going through her mind when she knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Yes?” he said.

  She swallowed. “I-I’m coming in.”

  “I’ll be out soon.”

  “I don’t need to use the bathroom.”

  There was a slight pause. Then he said, “So … what do you want?”

  “What do you think I want, Amarok?”

  “We’ve already made this decision. Go back to bed, Evelyn.”

  He didn’t think she was ready. He’d said so before. But maybe he was wrong. Or maybe he just didn’t want to set his expectations too high. What if she pushed him a little? Pushed herself, too? What would happen?

  “Unlock the door.”

  “Evelyn—” His voice was more of a warning growl than anything else, but she ignored it.

  “I”—she hauled in a deep breath—“I want to feel your naked body against mine. If you don’t want to try to … to make love, it’s fine. We don’t have to do that.”

  There was no answer.

  “Amarok?”

  “It’s already unlocked.”

  Her hands were shaking as she turned the knob.

  When he heard her, he poked his head out of the shower. He was
scowling, still acting as if he’d send her away. But she wasn’t about to make that easy for him. Before he could say anything, she pulled off her nightgown.

  His nostrils flared as his gaze moved down over her. She could tell that her act of bravery had the effect she’d been hoping for. But his voice remained stern—maybe even gruffer than it’d been before. “It’s not a good idea, Evelyn. Not tonight.”

  “Because…”

  “Because I’m not capable of being the kind of lover you need. I’m exhausted and—”

  “I know.” She was so short of breath she could barely speak. She was exposing herself emotionally as well as physically. And yet she felt empowered by her own actions, by the fact that she was once again taking the initiative. “You’ve been working long hours. And you’re under a lot of pressure. I’ll understand if you can’t … you know … get it up. Maybe you can just hold me. That was nice last night.”

  “Get it up?” He barked out a laugh. “That definitely isn’t the problem. I don’t have the control I’m going to need to do this right. To go slow. To be gentle. To make sure you aren’t ever frightened or … or uncomfortable.”

  “Last time, in so many words, you said you didn’t want to make love to me as if I were a glass doll.”

  “I remember what I said. But I’ll do it if that’s what you need. It’s just … tonight I’m too wound up and frustrated and…”

  “And?” she prompted. Had he lost complete confidence in her ability to overcome the past? She hadn’t given him any reason to hope.

  “And hungry to know you trust me enough to let me be with you in that way. It wouldn’t be wise to approach something that needs so much patience and care when I’m on edge. You understand?”

  She nodded and picked up her nightgown, and he closed the curtain as if that was that. But she couldn’t make herself leave, couldn’t even make herself get dressed. Not while success seemed so obtainable.

  Once again tossing her nightgown aside, she stepped into the shower with him.

  He didn’t back away, but his eyes narrowed. “You’re only making it harder,” he warned, but before he could say more she slipped her arms around his neck.

  She heard him suck air in between his teeth, saw him close his eyes. But he didn’t move, didn’t react until she pressed herself fully against him and fisted her hand in his hair to bring his mouth to hers.