by Susan Stoker
“Why are you here?”
At that, Taylor looked up and met his gaze. “Because you need me,” she said simply.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say or do, but it wasn’t turning his back on her and striding into his living area to sit on his couch.
Mentally shrugging and deciding that his ignoring her was better than his kicking her out, she continued prepping a simple spaghetti dinner. He had ground beef and a can of sauce. He didn’t have spaghetti noodles, but elbows would work just as well.
He didn’t say a word for the thirty minutes it took to prepare the meal, but after she’d plated everything, set the table, and told him dinner was ready, he got up and came to the table to join her.
Sighing in relief that she hadn’t had to force him to eat—not that she had any idea how she’d do that—Taylor sat next to Eagle. He picked up a fork and began eating unenthusiastically, but eating nonetheless.
She took a second to rest her hand on his thigh under the table and squeeze gently. She wanted him to know she was there for him. He didn’t have to say a damn word, and she would still be there.
He stilled, but Taylor ignored that and removed her hand to reach for her fork. They ate in silence, but she swore that Eagle seemed a little less tense. He even helped bring the dishes into the kitchen when they were finished, but instead of letting her put the plates into the dishwasher, he took hold of her hand and not very gently towed her into the living room. He sat on the couch and pulled her down beside him.
Taylor immediately curled into him. Eagle grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch with one hand and covered her. Only then did he speak.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“It’s okay,” Taylor said. “I’m not your mom—you don’t have to tell me where you are or when you’re having a shit day.”
“But as a friend, I should’ve at least texted.”
Taylor nodded in agreement. He should’ve. But she wasn’t going to hold a grudge. “I was worried about you.”
She heard him inhale deeply through his nose before he said, “If the shoe had been on the other foot, I wouldn’t have been happy if you didn’t call me when you had a bad day.”
Taylor didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure how to. She hadn’t had any bad days since she’d met Eagle. But if she had, she was pretty sure the first person she’d want to talk to about it would be him.
“I’ve seen a lot of awful shit in my life,” he said. “Babies lying dead in the dirt with their heads cut off. Women who have been so abused they’re nothing but walking zombies. Men who’ve been tortured so badly they aren’t recognizable as human beings anymore. I’ve seen more ways of killing someone than you could even imagine. Burning, stabbing, burying someone alive, shooting, beheading, hanging, starving someone to death, cutting out someone’s heart while they’re still alive . . . you name it, I’ve seen it.”
Taylor shuddered but didn’t interrupt him.
“But I’ll never understand it. Never understand how someone can feel so much hate that they purposely want to torture someone else. We’ve been following the case of a serial killer in Albuquerque. He’s been targeting sex workers. He kills them and takes them out to the desert and buries them in shallow graves. There’s nothing particularly new about that. Men have been killing prostitutes for centuries. They feel as if they won’t be missed, or that they’re somehow ‘less’ of a person, which is bullshit. Anyway . . . the authorities believe it’s been a while since he’s killed. They thought he’d either moved or died. But we got the file today of a recent DB that was found just outside the city.”
“DB?” Taylor asked quietly.
“Dead body. She was pregnant. Eight months. The killer cut the baby out of her body. The police suspect the mother was alive for that, as well . . . and that he possibly made her watch as he strangled her baby. Then he forced the victim to drink her own blood before sexually assaulting and killing her.
“I mean . . . think about that,” Eagle said in a voice so tortured it made Taylor want to cry. “She was covered in blood from her baby being cut out, surely in utter agony, and he raped her.” Eagle shook his head and closed his eyes. “I can’t imagine what she was thinking—and that’s what gets to me. What was she thinking? Was she wondering why no one was coming to help her? Why she’d been targeted? If he was going to do even more unspeakable things to her and her dead child when he was done getting his rocks off?”
Tears leaked from Taylor’s eyes. His words were horrific, there was no doubt, but she cared more about the absolute agony Eagle was clearly feeling.
“I want to find him. To make him hurt as badly as he made his victims hurt,” Eagle said. “But the police don’t have enough information to track him down. It’s almost unbelievable in this day and age that they can’t find him. He needs to pay, Taylor. I want to make him pay, but I can’t do that if I don’t know who he is.”
She buried her head in his chest and tried to hide her tears. She had no idea what to say to make him feel better, so all she could do was hold him.
“He could be anyone. He could be the guy in the grocery store bagging your shit up. He could be the nice middle-aged guy who lives next door. The man everyone thinks is quiet and introverted. All I need is a name and a face, and I’ll hunt him down. He won’t be able to hide from me,” Eagle said, his voice breaking.
Then, as if he’d just realized he wasn’t alone, his arms tightened around Taylor. She did her best to keep her sobs under control, but it was no use. Eagle lifted her chin with his hand and swore when he saw the tears on her face.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’re going to have nightmares about this shit.”
Taylor shook her head. “I’m not crying because of what you said,” she told him honestly. “I’m crying because you feel so bad. I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.”
He stared at her for a long moment before admitting, “You don’t have to say anything. Just you being here is helping.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, I can see how much it’s helping.”
His lips twitched. He didn’t exactly smile, but at least he wasn’t scowling anymore. “It does. If you hadn’t come over, I’d probably have drunk that entire bottle of Jack. You fed me, and now you’re holding me. Just feeling you in my arms makes me remember that the entire world isn’t all bad. But it scares the hell out of me that there are people out there who could do that to another human being. I just don’t get it.”
He gently wiped her cheeks with his thumbs before guiding her head back to his chest once more. Then he surprised her by twisting and lying on his back, taking her with him. She was sandwiched between him and the back of the couch, but there was nowhere Taylor would rather be.
She moved her hand so it was resting under her cheek, and they both lay there in silence for a long few minutes.
“On Sundays, I go to the Dementia Senior Care Center,” she said quietly. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before. It’s not a big deal. I volunteer there a few hours every week. I feel a connection with the residents. I visit the same people week after week, and yet they never remember me. Every time I show up, I’m a stranger to them.”
Eagle ran a gentle hand over her hair, his fingers getting trapped in her curls.
“I always explain why I’m there when I arrive, because I never recognize the person working at the desk, and I know they’re probably exasperated or laughing behind my back because they know who I am, since I’ve been there so many times. I hate that, but not for myself . . . for the residents. Are the same staff members laughing at them too? One of the biggest fears I have is being put in a home like that. Being surrounded by strangers who don’t bother to introduce themselves to me when they come into my room. Having them pull down my gown to listen to my heart or whatever, and having no idea if they’re really a doctor or some pervert who just wants to get his jollies by looking at an old woman’s tits.
“It’s stupid, I know, but these are the things I think about. So I go every Sunday. I tell everyone I sit with who I am, and why I’m there. That seems to calm them, even if they don’t remember me. Sometimes we have a conversation about something they remember from their pasts, but other times we just sit in silence.”
Taylor felt stupid going on and on, but after Eagle had opened himself up to her, she felt compelled to do the same. And she’d told him one of her greatest fears, something she’d never told anyone else.
“Elder abuse is abhorrently real,” he said quietly. “And I imagine it’s even worse when the patients can’t verbalize what’s happening to them or can’t really remember it. Those men and women are lucky to have you on their side.”
“I don’t really do anything,” Taylor protested.
“Wrong. You show up week after week. You look after them, and the staff knows that. I’d like to think that they aren’t purposely being mean to you, and you being there on a regular basis shows how much you care. I’m proud to be your friend.”
Taylor was beginning to hate that word. Friend. But tonight was about him, not about how she felt about him . . . and how she knew she had to come to terms with the fact that they’d probably never be anything but friends.
“You want to know what I believe that woman was thinking?” Taylor asked.
Eagle stiffened, indicating that he understood what she meant. “Yeah.”
“I think she was beyond pain,” Taylor said firmly. “You can’t be hurt like she was and not dissociate. Her nerves were probably severed, and she wasn’t feeling anything he was doing to her. She probably felt as if she were floating. I bet when she closed her eyes, she could feel her baby’s soul calling to her, and she was relieved she could join him or her in the afterlife.” Taylor was crying again, but she didn’t stop. “Whoever killed her was probably pissed he couldn’t touch her thoughts. He wanted her to be afraid, to beg for her life, but I bet she refused. Didn’t give him the satisfaction. People like that, they want their victims to be afraid. To feel power over them. But I’m guessing she didn’t give him the satisfaction.”
Taylor was talking out her ass. She had no idea what that poor woman had been thinking or feeling, but she wanted to believe that after having a child cut out of her womb, she couldn’t feel much of anything afterward.
“Thank you,” Eagle whispered.
“I know it doesn’t make it better, but—”
“It does,” Eagle interrupted. “I still want to find and kill him. But it helps.”
Taylor nodded against him.
The last thing she remembered was thinking of how comfortable Eagle’s chest was. She’d slept against men in the past, but none of them had made her feel as safe as she felt right at that moment.
Eagle felt Taylor’s phone vibrating in her back pocket. She was fast asleep against him, and he didn’t want to wake her. He pulled it out slowly and saw she’d gotten a text from Bull.
Bull: Everything ok? You’ve got five minutes to respond or I’m on my way over there.
He should’ve been pissed at his friend, but instead, all he felt was gratitude that Bull was looking out for Taylor. He put her phone on the table next to the couch and blindly felt for his own cell. After finding it, he unlocked it and typed out a quick text to his friend.
Eagle: Tay’s good. Promise. Sleeping on me so I can’t call. Will tell you all tomorrow. Thank you for sending her . . . and looking out for her.
Bull’s response was immediate.
Bull: You okay?
Eagle: No. But I will be.
Bull: That was some fucked-up shit today.
Eagle: Yeah.
Bull: Yell if you need anything.
Eagle: Will do.
Eagle put the phone back on the table and looked down at the woman in his arms. He regretted what he’d told her tonight. He shouldn’t have put all those images in her head. He knew better. Eagle had seen a lot of bad shit, but that didn’t mean he had to share it with Taylor.
But she hadn’t freaked.
Thinking back over the night, Eagle couldn’t help but smile. She’d obviously been nervous, but she’d barged her way in, taken over his kitchen, and simply been there for him. Hadn’t begged him to talk to her, to tell her what was wrong. She’d just taken him in her arms and held him.
And he loved her.
It’d only been a fucking month, but he loved her. They hadn’t kissed, hadn’t done more than hold hands every now and then, and he already couldn’t imagine Taylor not being in his life.
She made a cute noise in the back of her throat and squirmed against him, trying to get comfortable. Eagle knew he should wake her up and get her home, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to hold her. Wanted to feel her hair against his neck and feel her breaths against his chest. If this would be the only time he was able to hold her, he wanted it to last.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “You’re amazing, Flower,” he whispered.
To his surprise, she mumbled, “You too,” before going silent once more.
Grinning, Eagle put his head back and did his best to relax. He finally admitted to himself that when he’d read the report about the woman out in New Mexico, all he had thought of was . . . What if that had been Taylor? It was stupid. She wasn’t a prostitute, wasn’t pregnant. But just the thought of someone doing that to her, of hurting her, had made him lose it.
Tightening his hold, Eagle made a silent vow to continue with Silverstone for as long as he could. He wanted to keep people like his Taylor safe, and the only way to do that was to make sure those who wanted to hurt others never got the chance.
Chapter Seven
Things between Taylor and Eagle had been different ever since the night she’d gone over to his apartment. She’d woken up the next morning, and the first thing he’d said was, “Good morning, Flower.” Then they’d continued on as they had before, and neither had mentioned her sleeping on top of him all night.
But something was still different, in a good way. Eagle had never not called her again. They talked less and less about superficial stuff. Although he still wanted to know what she did each day.
“How was your day?” he asked after she’d picked up the phone that afternoon, not too long after she’d spent the night at his apartment.
“It was fine, I guess. I went to the library to proofread for a change of pace and got into a long conversation with a guy there.”
“About what?” Eagle asked.
“About American history. He saw the textbook I was proofing, and we got to talking about the Civil War. It was interesting, and he was nice.”
“That’s good. Want to come over tonight?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“Good. I should be home around four thirty. I can pick up something for dinner on my way,” he told her.
“Not necessary,” she replied. “I can make something.”
“Nope. You made us dinner the last two times.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Taylor told him. “I like to cook.”
“Let me spoil you,” Eagle demanded.
How could she argue with that? “Okay. Fine.”
“Want me to swing by and pick you up?” he asked.
“No. I can drive over there. I’m finishing up this last chapter, then calling it quits for the day. I do want to get through a few other smaller jobs before I come over, though.”
“Okay. But text me when you leave so I know when to expect you.”
“I will. Eagle?”
“Yeah?”
“Did everything go okay today . . . you know, talking about missions and stuff?” It had been a week since he’d had his mini breakdown, and she wanted to make sure he really was all right.
“Yeah. I’ll tell you about it when you get here. It looks like we might be headed out relatively soon.”
Taylor’s heart skipped a beat. She tried to keep her voice as nonchalant as possible. “Yeah?
”
“Don’t panic,” he said gently, and she realized he could read her better than anyone else in her life ever could, even over the phone.
“Impossible,” she retorted. “I know you and your friends are supermen and all that, but I’m going to worry every second you’re gone. You’re just going to have to deal with that.”
“I hate to cause you worry, but I have to admit, it feels kinda good,” Eagle admitted.
There. That. Eagle saying things like that made her feel as if something vital had changed between them. But then he’d go back to being the buddy he’d always been. It was confusing as hell.
“And just for the record, you had two typos in the texts you sent me today. I thought as a proofreader you were immune to that kind of shit.”
Yup. Right back to teasing her.
“Yeah, well, you know, I have to keep you on your toes,” she retorted.
He chuckled. “That you do. I’ll see you later, Flower. Drive safe.”
“Always,” she told him, echoing what he said to her when she told him the same thing. She clicked off the phone and closed her eyes.
She’d fallen hard for her best friend, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Did she tell him she was ready for more and risk making things awkward between them?
No. She couldn’t do that. She’d just have to get over her crush, or infatuation, or whatever it was. The last thing she wanted to do was lose him in her life completely.
Forcing herself to concentrate on the textbook in front of her, Taylor did her best to put Eagle out of her mind for at least a little while.
At ten minutes past five o’clock, Taylor pulled out of her apartment complex and headed for Eagle’s place. She was sitting at a stoplight when her car suddenly jerked forward, the seat belt tightening painfully against her chest for a split second.
She was confused for a heartbeat, then realized someone had hit her from behind.
“Shit,” she mumbled. Looking behind her, she saw a man in an older-model Cadillac. It was dark brown and looked like it was on its last legs. She wasn’t a car person, so she couldn’t even guess what year it was.
