The Eyewitness

by Nancy C. Weeks

  “I’m not normal, Em.”

  She let out a huff. “You say things like that, and it drives me crazy. There isn’t a thing about me you don’t know. It’s past time we even that scale.”

  Alec’s fingers clenched the steering wheel. “Damn. You don’t expect much from a first date, do you?”

  “We need some time alone.” She opened her bag so he could see inside. “I finished the journals. I need the file, and you should finish these—and quick.” Em nodded at the next light. “That’s your left. I ordered us a large with everything, and it’s ready.”

  Alec’s mind swirled with questions as he pulled into Grotto’s parking lot, but he kept them to himself. Once the pizza was warming the back seat, he pressed the accelerator to the point it was almost uncomfortable and made it home in record time. When the car was parked, they both sat still, the silence fueling the tension. He faced her. “You really don’t want to do this, Em.”

  “I jumped to that horrible conclusion for one reason. You hide everything from me. What is so awful about you that you keep yourself—”

  “Fine. You win.” He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. No breathing exercise was going to calm the bile churning his stomach. Adding greasy pizza and beer would be fun. “For the record, this conversation isn’t going to help you trust me.”

  He opened his door, and Em followed suit. Once inside, he set the pizza on the counter and handed Em his keys. “Take them.”

  “Why?”

  “If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

  “I’m not going to walk out on you.”

  He turned his back on her. “This date was your idea. What’s first: pizza or my fucked-up past?”

  Em took the pizza, turned the oven on low, and opened the door. Then she pocketed his keys. “Between you and food, this time I choose you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brave words. Now if only the butterflies would go away.

  Alec’s intense stare made Emersyn’s heart skip. She hadn’t thought this through. Her unease didn’t stem from hearing what he had to say. She sought answers to their problems, hoping somehow she could fix the damage and make a difference. But Alec’s past couldn’t be fixed, and it was cruel to make him relive it.

  “Em, you’re staring. That’s my thing.”

  “Maybe I should just go.”

  “I thought we were going to talk.”

  “I imposed this little get-together on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “What if I want you here?”

  Hell. Didn’t expect that. “What exactly do you want to happen here, Alec?”

  “Talk only. You keep asking me to open up to you.” He paused, studying her. “Have I scared you away?”

  “I don’t scare easily.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he murmured, tucking her hand into his as he strolled to a door off the kitchen.

  She pulled back. “I thought—”

  “For this conversation, I need visual aids. Come with me.”

  His voice was low, tender, and those butterflies started somersaulting in her gut. He opened the door to a staircase that led down to what appeared to be a finished basement.

  Much of the area was an extensive, well-organized workout area. This was where those hard muscles had been formed. In the far corner, canvases leaned against the wall, their fronts to the cement. Black steel shelving lined a connecting wall. Each shelf contained a collection of paintbrushes, colorful tubes, and rolls of canvas. A weathered oak workbench was the center focal point of the room. It appeared Alec was in the process of stretching a canvas. “I spend a lot of time down here,” he said in a husky whisper.

  Patience was the key. Whatever Alec had to tell her, she couldn’t rush him. Start simple. “Do you paint here too?”

  “No. This is my workout space. By next winter, I’d hoped to build a sauna into the far corner.” He pointed toward the opposite wall. “And install floor-to-ceiling cabinets for my painting supplies. For now, I store the materials here but paint upstairs in the main room. It was the windows on the first floor that sold me on this place. I love the view of the woodlands, and the light is perfect.”

  Why am I down here? The words froze on the tip of her tongue. There was nothing threatening about the basement. So, she couldn’t place a finger on why she was so damn nervous.

  Alec moved to the worktable. “I finished this painting last week. I haven’t had time to frame it.”

  He rolled out the canvas, and Emersyn sucked in a noisy breath. At first glance, all the eye could make out was a kaleidoscope of rich colors. Then the outline of a couple tangled together popped right off the painting, making her pulse bounce under her skin. Hot, steamy sex. She couldn’t tell where the male began and the female ended. It was if they floated in air, their bodies in complete harmony with each other. In the bottom right corner, the title was inscribed with a thin, slanted brushstroke, The Dance. Alec’s initials were underneath.

  Images of them on the dance floor floated through Emersyn’s mind, sending another jolt of raw need into her core. Why was he doing this to her?

  She shoved the memory back. She was jumping to conclusions again, not giving Alec a chance to explain.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “You told me you wanted something painted with you in mind. It’s yours.”

  The best and worst day of her life. He’d captured the best part. That was what it had felt like dancing with him, like they were floating.

  “Alec, when we are together, you ignore this thing between us as if it doesn’t matter.” Emersyn couldn’t take her eyes off the painting as she steadied her voice. “But you can express it on canvas with such brilliance.”

  “Of course it matters, Em. But that doesn’t make it okay.”

  “Why?” Her voiced caught and broke.

  He dropped her hand and stalked toward a closet door. He yanked it open with such force Emersyn expected the door to rip from its hinges. He took out a stack of canvases and lined them up against the worktable. These paintings weren’t a fusion of dynamic colors like the paintings she had seen so far. Large, angry strokes of paint in black, grays, and reds splashed across the surface without rhyme or reason. None of the paintings were similar, but the emotions they tugged from her gut were. She turned her head away, trying to control the pounding of her heart against her rib cage. Words escaped her.

  “My therapist placed a paintbrush in my hand at sixteen. He had tried everything else to help me control the fury, but it was as intrinsic to me as my skin. I took the point of the brush and jabbed it into the white canvas, ripping it to shreds.” Alec moved to put the table between them. “He was a patient man. He removed that canvas and put another up on the easel. That scene replayed itself for the next ten or so sessions, until he physically forced my hand into the paint and onto the canvas. ‘Alec, release your anger by smearing it for all to see. Then let it go.’”

  Tears slipped down Emersyn’s cheek. She started toward him. He held his hand out.

  “Don’t. Stay there.”

  “I just want to—”

  “You can’t fix this, Emersyn.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  It hurt. Em was their thing. If she lost that, she lost what little connection she had to him.

  His gaze fell on the paintings. “It still lives in me. Day and night. Nothing will ever erase it completely. Joe knew that. He never said the words, but I always understood.”

  “Damn it, Alec. Understood what?”

  “Joe never wanted me anywhere near you because I’m no better than the man we’re hunting.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  He stood with his hands on the table, his gaze on the floor, taking in deep breaths before letting them out slowly. The silence made Emersyn damn jumpy. But she gave him time.

  “Did Joe ever tell you how we met?”

  “No, and I never asked. You and Dad had a unique relationship. If he’d wanted me
to know, he would have told me.”

  “Joe was called in on a domestic violence case. A man had beaten his wife to death.”

  “Oh, Alec . . . ”

  “It took four men to pull me off my father. I pounded him to the floor with a broom handle then went at him with my fist until my knuckles were bleeding and raw.”

  She took a step toward him. Again, he stopped her.

  “I was fifteen and would have killed him with my bare hands if the cops hadn’t shown up.”

  This time Emersyn didn’t move a muscle. “What happened to him?”

  “My father is serving a life sentence, and it was my testimony that put him there.”

  “Good. Someone should have helped you and your mom. It never should have gotten that far.”

  “People did, but it’s hard to fight a cop.”

  Emersyn felt breathless as her hand reached out to him. She dropped it back to her side. I can’t fix this.

  “Your father was a cop?”

  “And he knew how to cover the truth. I stopped asking for help around age seven. I gave up on my mother at ten. She’d decided that cocaine and the bottom of a bottle of anything alcoholic were more important than me.”

  How many beatings had Alec endured from that bastard? And the thought that no one cared enough to go the extra mile to help him. “I’m sorry. We failed you, and your mother. It’s fucked up, Alec. Wrong. No one should have to live like that.”

  “My world didn’t work that way.”

  Not knowing what to do with the rage pumping through her system, Emersyn lifted one of the canvases. “What do you feel about this one?” she asked, holding it over her head.

  “I hate it.”

  “Me too.”

  She smashed it against the table, breaking one of the corners. Before Alec could respond, she struck the corner several times, one hard hit after another, until the frame was in pieces. Then she went over to the metal shelving unit.

  “Em, what are you doing?”

  He took her arm, but she yanked free and grabbed a pair of scissors from a Mason jar. With the frame hanging half off, she took the point of the scissors and tore into the painting, tearing it into large chunks. “Someone should have helped you.”

  When that painting was torn to pieces, he handed her another. Then another. Out of breath, she leaned her back against his chest and filled her lungs.

  “Your dad saved me, Em. He got me into a good group home and made sure I went to my court-appointed anger management sessions. He hounded me to get a college degree and, by some miracle, convinced me to be a cop.”

  “Not fucking soon enough.” She struck the fourth painting against the table’s corner then ripped it into unrecognizable pieces. She stood straight, her spine stiff and the muscles in her upper arms throbbing.

  “If you want another go-around,” he said, selecting a painting, “take a whack at this one. I always had a particular hatred for it.”

  She shook her head. “Your turn.”

  He leaned the frame back against the table. “I’m good for the moment.”

  After scanning what was left of the paintings, he lifted The Dance. He didn’t say anything for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, rough. “I’m this man,” he said, facing her. “But I can’t deny this side of me.” He tapped one of the darker paintings with his foot. “The abused become abusers. I won’t subject the monster that lived inside my father on anyone. It dies with me.”

  “You think you’re somehow tarnished because you share that bastard’s DNA? Well, shit, I want him dead, too. As for your mother, she didn’t deserve what happened to her, but she failed you in the worst possible way.” Her hand clenched into a fist at her side. “By your logic, my wanting to hurt them makes me just as bad.”

  He spun her around, his hands grasping the back of her neck. “Don’t ever compare yourself to the monsters who raised me.”

  “You don’t get to be the only angry one here.” She caressed his cheek, and the pulse at his neck jumped. “You matter to me.” She swung her hand out at the horrible paintings. “I can’t erase your past, but I’ll be damned if I allow you to believe you are like him. You’re not!” She reached for The Dance. “This is life. Passion, love . . . ” She forced air into her lungs and fought for control. He needed to hear her. “No one fought for you when they should have. Well, I’m here now.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Your plan to hide away from life, alone, sucks. Find a new one.”

  The compassion in his expression rocked her all the way down to her toes.

  “It’s my life, Em, and my choice is to live it alone.”

  “So, your plan is to turn your back on the people who care about you as if we don’t matter.”

  “You think you don’t matter to me?” He charged over to the back wall and flipped around the backwards paintings. None of them resembled The Dance, but each one pulled at her heart.

  “Are they all me and you?” she choked out.

  “I have to get the emotions out somehow or . . . ”

  “They are . . . We’re breathtaking.”

  “Just paint on canvas, Em. Nothing more.”

  “That was cruel, and deliberate, Alec.”

  “I keep the canvases behind this door as a daily reminder of just how cruel I can be.” His back stiffened as his fists settled at his hips. “Ask Angela. She has witnessed me at my worst.”

  Emersyn couldn’t reach him, and the right words for this moment didn’t exist. The only person who could change Alec’s mind was Alec.

  “My mom has always told us that you have to love yourself first in this life. I never understood until now.” She moved in close, resting her hands on his waist. “You’re one of the good guys, Alec, and the only one who sees the monster inside you. You don’t need to hold on to those terrible paintings as a reminder. They’ll be with you until you change here,” she said, placing a palm over his heart. She brought her lips to his in a silent plea to open his mind, his heart, to the idea that he could change.

  He broke the kiss and ran his thumb over her wet cheeks. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. You get that, right?”

  “I’m not like all those other people in your life who gave up on you. I’ve had years of practice wearing down the most stubborn man ever born. Maybe this is what you need to find Dad’s killer. Honestly, I don’t know what it’s going to take to change your mind, but I’ll think of something.”

  He gripped her shoulders and gave her a slight shake. “Don’t make this harder than it already is. There can be no us, not e—”

  She pressed her lips to his so the word ever stayed buried. She’d kissed him to shut him up, but need and desperation took over, taking the kiss to a place she had not yet visited. Her arms circled his neck, and she moved against him, close enough that the pressure of his jeans set her core on fire. He didn’t break away but took over, demanding everything from her. It had to be his way of saying good-bye.

  Em broke the kiss. “We’re not done.” She returned to the workbench and slipped The Dance into a shipping cylinder she found on the bottom shelf. “I’m accepting this for the time being,” she said, nodding at the tube in her right hand. She fisted his keys in her left palm until it hurt. “When you stop being such a pigheaded moron, I’ll bring it back, and we can see about finishing what we started on the dance floor. If you paint us after, that’s the one I want.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nothing in Alec’s life had prepared him for the loneliness that struck the instant Em closed the basement door. He listened for her footsteps on the staircase, his gaze on the ceiling, following her movement across the foyer to the front door. He waited for a slam that would shake the townhouse, but his Em never did what he expected. The clicking sound of the door closing was barely audible.

  He yanked his cell from his back pocket. McNeil’s man, who had followed them into the lot, would trail her home, but for his own peace of mind, he would track his tru
ck.

  The phone slipped from his hand to the concrete floor, cracking the screen, and his control slipped. He moved fast, slamming both hands on his workbench and flipping it on its side. The walls closed in on him. Trapped. Alone. Always alone.

  Fuck, go after her. He reached for the basement door and froze. It would take just one time, a slip in his resolve.

  “Fuck this!” he roared. “I made the right decision.”

  He slammed the door open, and it banged against the wall. He took the steps to the first floor, crossed the family room, and charged upstairs. His rage was at its breaking point, and if he wanted to keep his hard-earned home intact, there was only one way to cool the monster. He entered his bathroom, turned the shower on cold, and stepped under the showerhead. Water poured over him, soaking his shirt and jeans. He didn’t turn off the faucet until his breathing was back to normal.

  Chilled to the bone, he tore off his wet clothes and left them on the shower floor. After a quick dry off, he picked a pair of jeans from his laundry basket and stepped into them. Then he hunted for his running shoes under his bed.

  Em had done a number on him. That’s the one I want. The erection that followed was painful. And she knew exactly what she was doing.

  Sleep was impossible. Alec would exorcise his demons with total exhaustion. A ten-mile run should do the trick. He pulled on a thick hooded sweatshirt over a long-sleeve T-shirt and left the bedroom. At the front door, he eyed the drawer where he stashed his gun and badge.

  Not a good idea.

  A key sounded in the front door. Em. He yanked it open to find a man he’d never met on his porch. Before he could form a sentence, the stranger stepped forward and locked his hand around Alec’s neck, yanking him forward. Every one of Alec’s muscles stiffened at once. He pulled back his fist, but the needle prick at his neck froze him in place. An intense burn ran through his veins as his head grew heavy. His knees buckled, and he hit the tile floor. The weak arm he swung lost what little momentum it had and stole his last breath. Darkness pulled him under.

  • • •

  Alec shook his head and immediately regretted the move. Nausea roiled in his stomach as his memory slipped into focus. Whatever drug that bastard had pumped into his veins made his head pound like a fucking steel drum.