“It’s just me, Ashli,” he assured her, reaching for her again. “It’s just me.”
She fought against him, trying to free herself from his hold. Shadows and demons blended together, fogging her senses. Hysteria rose within her chest, pushing her breath out in small clumps as her heart hammered in a wild staccato. The harder he tried to pull her into his arms, the harder she pushed away.
“It’s me, Ashli. It’s Lange.”
She stopped fighting, but she was stiff and rigid as he tried to gather her near. “Shhh,” he said, “it’s just me.”
Just for moment, she allowed him to hold her. She ached to stay there against his chest, absorbing his strength and his warmth, seeking comfort in the safety of his arms. She wanted him to hold her more than anything she had ever wanted in her life. She needed him to hold her. But he didn’t want her. The frustration of the weekend, of their entire relationship, added to the overwhelming grief she was feeling, and gave her renewed strength to shove against him. “Let me go! Get away from me!”
“Dammit, Ashli, I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t- don’t want your help!” she insisted, pushing hard at the wall of his chest. “Get away from me. Don’t touch me!” With a final wrestle that gained her freedom, she spat out, “It’s what you wanted, so ... Don’t. Touch. Me.”
They stood three feet apart, both gulping for air, both glaring at the other. Tremors still ran through Ashli’s body, causing her slight form to shake, but she stood her ground against the dark giant. He didn’t want her. She kept reminding herself of that, even as she craved to hurl herself into the safety of his arms.
Lange was the first to give. He closed his eyes, unable to hold her heated glare any longer. “Please, Ashli,” he said, his low, gravelly voice just short of begging. “Just let me hold you.”
“I can’t.” Her whispered words were a bequest of their own. Couldn’t he understand? If she allowed him to hold her, if she allowed herself to depend on him, to believe in him, to believe in them ... Couldn’t he see that just those few moments of comfort could destroy her? She squeezed her eyelids together, holding back fresh tears.
Lange stepped closer, closing the distance between them. This time, she allowed him to tug her rigid form into his arms. “Let me hold you.” His voice had an odd break in it. “I need to hold you,” he admitted in a rough whisper. He gathered her up close to his chest and buried his face into the strands of sunshine framing her wet cheeks. He didn’t question why his own cheeks felt damp, pressed against the clinging silk of her hair.
They held each other in silence, both fully aware that it could have been Ashli lying on that floor tonight. Now was not the time to argue. The rules of their relationship were of little importance in view of what could have happened. Each lost in their own thoughts, Ashli wept again while Lange held her with a fierce gentleness that took her breath away. They absorbed the other’s nearness, the other’s weakness, the other’s strength. Together they forged a strength that was greater than either of their own métier.
After a long time, Ashli spoke. “Tell me the truth, Lange. Do you think I was the intended victim?”
“There is no reason to even think that.”
Ashli pushed out of his arms. “Except for the fact that someone has been stalking me. And now my neighbor winds up ... mutilated, and most likely dead, and the killer brings evidence back to our house. I see only two possibilities. Either he’s trying to make a statement, threatening me about what’s to come, or else he made a mistake and killed the wrong person.”
Lange smiled gently down at her face, all splotchy and red, and yet still so unbelievably beautiful. “From what I understand, Jasmine was an Oriental woman in her late thirties, five foot seven, with short dark hair. You barely stand five three, you have long hair so blonde that it’s almost white, and you’re ten years younger. She was definitely not mistaken for you.”
“Then he’s sending me a message. So I’m still responsible for her death.”
“If it’s her foot,” he reminded her. “We’ll have to wait for prints and DNA to know for certain.” He hesitated before adding, “And that may not be the only explanation.”
Ashli stared up at him with piqued interest. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t mention it to the police, and obviously Sullivan is too green to have recognized the connection, but tonight’s incident is reminiscent to a string of disappearances that happened here over thirty years ago.”
“You mean like a serial killer?” she asked sharply.
The woman was definitely too smart to be called clueless. “They didn’t call it that back then,” he said. “And they weren’t necessarily murders. Even though the women were never seen again, the rest of their bodies were never found. But back in the late seventies, early eighties, several young women went missing. The only thing ever found was their foot. Most were confirmed as belonging to the missing women, but science back then was hardly what it is today.”
“So what are you saying? We have a serial killer who’s been mutilating women’s bodies for over thirty years?” She moved to the couch and plopped heavily onto its leather surface.
“More than likely, we have a copy-cat. Someone who’s read about the old case and decided to emulate his style. The odds of one person, killing and mutilating bodies for over three decades and getting away with it, are very slim.”
“And why do you know so much about a thirty- to- forty year old case?”
Lange shrugged as he sat down beside her. “In my spare time, I work cold cases. I’ve solved a few, but this one is still as baffling as it was from the first day. No signs of the remains, no connections between victims, no clear reasons of motive. Just seven feet, from seven different women.”
Ashli raked her fingers through her hair, unconcerned with tangling the blond tresses. “So you’re telling me to look on the bright side, it may not be my stalker that’s responsible for Jasmine’s dismemberment. We may just have a crazed serial killer on our hands, copying a thirty year old mystery.” Her voice was as heavy as her heart. “Somehow, that’s not very comforting.”
“I never said there was a bright side. I simply said it wasn’t your fault.” He pushed a strand of hair away that was stuck to her cheek. “We can talk about all this in the morning. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
“It already is tomorrow. And I doubt I can sleep,” she said dubiously, glancing toward the bedroom with obvious reluctance.
He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to go in the room alone, any more than he could blame himself for not letting her out of his sight. With a sigh, he settled back against the cushions of the couch and lifted his arm. After the slightest hesitation, she curled beneath the safe haven he offered. He held her without words, without kisses.
Eventually, they both fell asleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
With a heavy heart, Ashli went through the motions of a normal day, but it was far from being life-as-usual that following day.
She woke up stiff and sore from sleeping on the sofa, even if it had been for only a few hours. Lange was already up and in the shower, so she made her way into the kitchen in search of a coffee pot. She was on her second cup when Lange appeared in the doorway.
“I see you found the coffee,” he said needlessly, lifting a dark eyebrow.
“If I find nothing else, I always know where the closest coffee pot is.”
She looked so gorgeous sitting in his kitchen, her hair still mussed from a restless night’s sleep. Lange deliberately turned away from the image of perfection as he brewed his own cup. “I liked your pot so well I got one for myself,” he commented.
He seldom offered even the tiniest sliver of information about his own life, but this morning Ashli failed to notice. She was staring out the kitchen’s wall of windows, wondering if the rest of Jasmine’s body was out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
“I’ll
drop you off at work,” Lange was saying. “What time do I need to pick you up this afternoon?” When she just looked at him with a blank expression of confusion, he elaborated. “Remember, we left your car at Daisy House? I’ll have to drive you to work.”
“Oh. Well, I guess we could go by and get my car.”
“Not if you want to avoid the media.”
Ashli sighed. “I wonder how Mr. Parnell is this morning. Poor thing, he was so disoriented last night.”
“I’ll go by today and try to speak with him. See if maybe he saw something.”
It wasn’t until she finished her coffee that she answered his original question. “I’ll probably work late this evening,” she said belatedly. “I didn’t get to start on the berries last night because we were filming. You can pick me up around nine.”
“You need to get in bed early tonight. I’ll be there at six.”
“I have a lot berries to process. And I doubt I’ll be able to sleep. Nine or so is fine.”
He tried a different tactic. “Okay, I need to get in bed early tonight. I’ll be there at six.”
The day seemed to drag out forever, but promptly at six, Lange pulled up at Ashli’s Tea Party. He waited for her to find a good stopping point with her berries, even helping her transfer buckets back into the step in cooler. It was closer to seven when they finally left the restaurant, so when he suggested they go out for supper, she didn’t protest. Even though she was not really hungry, for once she did not feel like cooking.
It was their first time to go out to eat, but it was hardly a date. When Ashli’s phone wasn’t ringing, what little conversation they had was centered on her case. Lange didn’t seem to mind when her parents called, but his expression tightened when Detective Sullivan called to “check on her”. After watching his thunderous expression during Mitch’s call, Ashli decided it was best to turn her phone off for the remainder of the meal.
“Was Mr. Parnell any help today?” Ashli asked as she slipped her phone into her purse.
“None at all,” Lange said in frustration. “When I went by this morning, he was sleeping. I went back this afternoon and he was still groggy from the sedation and a little hard to understand.”
“Yes, sometimes I have trouble making out some of his words, too.”
“One thing came through loud and clear. I asked him if we could mount surveillance cameras around the house. He was adamant about not allowing it, saying something about disturbing the true spirit of the house, whatever the hell that means. Seeing as it’s a condo, I’m not sure he can make that decision on his own. I’m going to ask a lawyer friend of mine if he has that authority.” At least, he hoped Diane would take his call.
“It might help me find my peeping Tom, but it won’t help poor Jasmine,” Ashli murmured, as tears pooled in her eyes. “Detective Sullivan said there was still no sign of the rest ... of the rest of ... her body.”
“It hasn’t even been twenty four hours yet. But you do realize there is a chance that they’ll never find it, don’t you?”
Ashli nodded, her eyes downcast. “For her family’s sake, I hope that’s not the case. I can’t imagine what it must be like, never knowing for certain, like the families of those seven girls.” She looked up suddenly, catching his eye. “Lange?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I could see the files on those old cases?”
“What the hell for? Another sense of morbid curiosity?”
“Maybe I’m just playing amateur sleuth, but I keep thinking maybe there really is some connection between those cases and Jasmine’s, something a fresh set of eyes might see. I just feel so helpless right now, and I’d like to help in some way. What could it hurt?”
“Some of the information is classified,” he hedged.
“But some of it isn’t.”
Lange hesitated, weighing the consequences of letting her get embroiled in the old case. He could understand her need to be involved in some way, but he couldn’t risk putting her in any more jeopardy than she was already in. He doubted there really was a connection; he only brought up the possibility to deflect some of the guilt she heaped upon herself. Surely there was no danger in letting her look through a few old files on a thirty-five-year old crime. Finally he gave a slight nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Lange,” she said softly, the breathless quality in her voice once again bringing to mind Doris Day.
“Tomorrow I’ll see if I can get your car for you. I didn’t even bother today, with all the media there.”
“Was it bad?”
“I’ve seen three ring circuses with less chaos,” he said drily.
“I know I wasn’t very gracious about it last night, but thank you for getting me out of there. The last thing I need is for the media to make the connection that I live at Daisy House. So thank you for that.”
“No problem.” He brushed off her thanks, all the time knowing that he lied.
It was a problem, having her in his home. Now that she was there, he realized how empty it had been. In fact, he realized his life had been empty, until he met her. And now he feared that neither would ever be the same, especially when this case was through and it was time to say goodbye.
“We can stop by the market on the way home and pick up a few groceries,” he said, changing the subject. “I know my cupboards are pretty bare.”
“I don’t want to be a bother. As long as you have coffee, I can manage.” She flashed a smile, but it lacked her usual brightness.
His only reply was a loud snort. After he called for the check and insisted on paying for their meal, he drove them to a nearby supermarket.
It was such an intimate gesture, walking together through the grocery store aisles with a shared buggy, especially so late in the evening. Ashli noticed how the other shoppers looked at them, assuming they were a couple. The women eyed Lange with appreciation and Ashli with envy. She kept reminding herself they weren’t a couple, even when she asked him what he would like for supper the next evening.
“You don’t have to cook,” he said sharply.
“It’s the least I can do. And it will keep my mind occupied. It’s sort of like therapy.”
The thought of her cooking for him, in his own home, was so deliciously tempting that it scared him silly. If he allowed her to cook for him, how would he ever be able to eat another meal there, all alone, once she was gone?
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got plans tomorrow night, anyway.”
“Okay,” Ashli said hesitantly, wondering why he was suddenly so terse. She put the box of noodles back on the shelf. It was obvious he didn’t want her cooking for him, and she could eat her meals elsewhere.
Lange knew he was being brusque, but the intimacy of their shopping venture was not lost upon him. Even he and Lauren had seldom shopped together, mostly because they never ate together, at least not at home. Another reason he had to keep Ashli out of his kitchen.
“Then this box of coffee is all I’ll need.” She took it from the buggy, symbolically separating them even further. “I’ll wait for you in the car while you finish shopping.”
“I’m done,” he said roughly, even though there were only a handful of items in the cart.
They walked stiffly toward the checkout counter, any thread of intimacy now snapped free.
Back at his apartment, Ashli took a long hot bath and went right to bed, even though sleep was slow in coming. As if thoughts of Jasmine and Lange’s moodiness and Lauren’s overseeing eyes weren’t enough, she had to endure the lingering scent of Lange’s cologne on the bed sheets. Snuggling into the covers and imagining they were his arms around her, she finally fell asleep around midnight.
The next morning, Ashli packed her suitcase and informed her reluctant host she would be staying with Molly for the rest of the week.
***
By Friday, Ashli was back at home. A bomb threat at an area high school whisked the media away from Daisy House and an investigation gon
e cold. There were no new leads on the case, no witnesses to interview, no body to be discovered, and forensics had yet to confirm if the foot did, indeed, belong to Jasmine. Without a story to report, the media soon lost interest, and no one was happier about that fact than Ashli.
Even without the horror surrounding Jasmine and the interruption of not being able to stay at home, Ashli had a busy week planned. Having lost a day or two from her tight schedule and re-locating for a second time, by Friday evening, Ashli was frantically making up for lost time.
The entire house was scented with the enticing aroma of warm, sweetened blackberries. Every surface in her kitchen was covered with some aspect of berry cobbler, from the berries themselves, to flour for the crust, to an assortment of baking dishes used to pull it all together. When she heard the intercom buzz, she frowned at the interruption and wondered who could be disturbing her at a time like this.
“Yes?” she asked breathlessly, hurrying to answer it on the third buzz.
Her heart did a strange little flop when she heard the quiet voice on the other end. “It’s Lange. May I come up?”
She hesitated for a moment, glancing into the kitchen. She really didn’t have time for this, no matter what ‘this’ was; with Lange, it was always complicated. But the seeds of Southern hospitality were planted deep within her, and she knew it would be rude to refuse him. With a resigned sigh that came across the intercom, she buzzed him in.
When he reached the door, it took her a few moments to answer his knock. He wondered idly if she was primping for him.
“Sorry,” she said as way of greeting when she finally swung the door open. She brushed a strand of mussed golden white hair away from her cheek, leaving a smudge of flour in its place and dispelling any fantasy of primping on his account. Still, it took great discipline not to reach out and brush the smudge away with his fingertips, or, better yet, his lips.
“Cooking something?” he asked, taking a sniff of the fragrant air.
He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Page 13
