by Freya Barker
“I know. And I didn’t mean to be flippant. I know you have cause to worry.”
“Guess we’re all stretched a little thin. I’ll be another hour or so. I’ll make it up to you then,” he promises, his voice much warmer now.
Twenty minutes later, I have my pan of brownies ready to go in the oven. Joe has been sitting at the counter the entire time, following the process. Really, I think it was just an excuse to watch Nigella, but whatever. The moment I drop the bowl and spatula in the sink, he leans over the counter and snatches them back out.
“You’re throwing out all the good stuff,” he mutters, before scooping the minute traces of batter from the inside of the bowl with his finger and licking it off.
It doesn’t take long for the warm, mouth-watering scent of chocolate to waft through the apartment. I take yet another peek at the timer to see if it’s ready to come out when I hear steps coming up the outside stairs. Joe is up and out of his chair in a flash and steps cautiously up to the entrance.
“Just me,” Neil’s familiar voice sounds outside, and Joe opens the door.
“Damn, what smells so good?” he says, marching in with bags in his hands. And before I have a chance for a closer look, he drops them and stalks toward me. Without taking his eyes off me, he turns his head slightly, saying to Joe over his shoulder, “There are a few more things in my truck if you don’t mind, Joe.”
Joe just chuckles and disappears out the door.
“You know, babe,” Neil says when he has me cornered against the counter. “Every time I come home and find you still there, I can’t quite believe my luck.” His nose rubs along mine and his eyes are seething with emotions.
“Neil, honey...”
“When I was growing up,” he continues undeterred, “there was one thing I wished for every birthday and every damn Christmas but never got, because according to my parents, it would make a mess. Until I met you. Then you became all I wanted, but it felt like I’d never have that wish either. I’m smarter now, though. I know if there’s something you want bad enough, you find a way to make it happen.”
My hands have come to rest on his chest where I feel his heart pounding under my palm.
“Do you know that’s why I call you Pup?” he asks with a bashful little smile, and I shake my head. “You’re my unattainable wish, and yet, here you are,” he says pulling me close with one arm at the small of my back and his other hand curling around my neck, his thumb stroking my jaw.
I’m lost in his gaze, my own blurring with emotion, when a voice sounds right outside the door. “Is it time yet?”
Neil’s eyes roll up to the ceiling. “A minute!” he yells before looking down at me again. “I figured since I was successful once, I’d see if I could make another dream come true. For both of us.”
“Sorry!” I hear from outside, “He got away!”
I shift to look around Neil’s body just in time to see a dark whimpering mass barrel toward us, almost knocking both of us over.
“Chaos...”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Neil
It had taken me much longer than anticipated at the animal shelter. If it hadn’t been for the sheriff who happened to walk in with a stray cat he picked up on his rounds, I may not have been able to take the dog home. Drew can be a charming bastard when he wants to be and in no time had the two older ladies manning the place, eating from his hand.
“You owe me.” He smirked at me when he passed me on his way to his patrol car. Yeah, I do.
I don’t think I could’ve given Kendra anything that would’ve had more impact. The tears running down her face when she dropped to her knees and hugged the big dog were happy ones.
Chaos. Weird name for probably the most docile dog I’ve ever met, but when one of the ladies told me he was retired from the DEA, it piqued my interest. He was sitting upright in the passenger seat of my truck, looking straight ahead, his tongue lolling, looking eager to get wherever I was taking him. I’d had to stop at Kendra’s house to pick up the dog stuff she’d already bought for him. It was enough to tide him over for a day or two.
I’m lying on my back on the bed recapping the day in my head. Kendra is curled up against me while the dog is snoring on the floor beside me, and I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to get to the couch without waking everyone. Hadn’t quite thought that through when I followed Kendra into the bedroom earlier. The rhythmic sounds of Kendra’s breathing and the dog’s snores are quickly lulling me to sleep.
-
“James, movement at two o’clock. What can you see?”
I can barely hear the voice of Fitz through my headpiece. He’s down there somewhere trying to get the drop on a group of insurgents who’ve been targeting our supply transports the past two weeks. Yesterday’s attack that killed a UN worker hitching a ride woke up the brass. As of last night, our objective is to find, identify and neutralize. It’s a nice way of saying hunt them down and eliminate them. For some reason, this order gives me a sense of impending doom.
I’m lying on what remains of a roof after last night’s bombing, peering through the sight on my rifle, scanning the area Fitz indicated. I don’t see any movement there, but from the corner of my eye I see the glint off a rifle sticking out a blown out window to the left.
“Fitz,” I hiss, but only the crackle of static comes back. “Jesus, Fitz. Ten o’clock sniper.”
Suddenly the rubble littered street down below comes alive with gunfire. Four of my buddies are on the street below, carefully making their way from building to building, including Fitz. Dirt flies up, partially obscuring my view of the scene below and I focus on the window where the rifle I spotted earlier is laying heavy fire into the street. I slow my breathing down, reset my sight and wait for the right moment. The instant the barrel of the rifle reappears, I take my shot and watch as a body comes tumbling out the window. The fabric of the thawb he’s wearing floating behind him like wings.
When I get down, I find only three of my guys standing. Fitz is down, the blood pooling around his body and half his face gone. The pain in my chest at seeing my best friend dead at my feet turns into a burning anger, and in long strides, I walk toward where the body had fallen from the window. I find him among a pile of rubble. He looks small, lying in a crumpled heap. In my anger, I kick his body over. A boy, no more than twelve years old, with a face innocent and still in death, stares up with unseeing eyes.
-
Wet. My face is wet, and an unfamiliar whining hits my ears. Cracking open my eyes against early morning sunlight sneaking in through the blinds, the first thing I see is the dog’s nose just inches from mine on the mattress. He’s the one whining, but as my hand comes up to stroke his big head, I can hear the staccato of his tail against the floor. Shit. I fell asleep. Slowly I turn the other way, hoping the dog or I didn’t wake Kendra. No such luck. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed beside me, her eyes sad but her mouth smiling.
“Hey,” she murmurs, her hand reaching out to brush the hair from my forehead.
“Hey back,” I respond, my voice more of a croak.
I look at her, wondering what I’ve done to wake both her and the dog. Did I hurt her? As if I’ve wondered out loud, she leans in and gives me a soft kiss on the lips. “You didn’t touch me.” Her words are reassuring, but at the same time they concern me. How much does this woman see? How much have I given away?
“You know,” she starts, leaning over me to pat Chaos on the head. “I’m thinking the dog has more qualities than he shows at first glance.”
“How so?” I ask, folding my arms behind my head.
“It’s his whining that woke me up. You were muttering in your sleep, obviously dreaming, and he was sitting beside you licking your face. I think he senses your distress.”
Slightly uncomfortable, I pull myself up to sitting, patting the mattress beside me. Kendra crawls up and settles in against me, her hand on my stomach. A pathetic little whimper draws my attention back to the dog,
whose tail hasn’t stopped thumping the floor, looking at me eagerly. “Oh fine,” I grumble. “Get up here you big lug.” All it takes is one tap of my hand on the mattress, and the heavy dog jumps up, crawling over me and lying down between our legs, his head resting on my thigh. His warm brown eyes never leave my face.
Despite the nightmare that is forcing me to relive the one thing I’d love to forget, I feel content—even happy—in this moment. I let Kendra’s hair, which is floating loose around her face, run through my fingers and consider telling her everything. Before I can even stop myself, the words are coming. Slowly at first, but soon tumbling out of my mouth, racing to the end. The end; where I shot and killed a boy no more than half my age. Just a child.
Kendra’s hand flexes on my stomach but surprisingly she doesn’t move. There’s no exclamation of shock, nor are there platitudes, neither of which I would’ve handled very well. There’s just the dog, his eyes full of adoration on me, and the softly crying woman warm against my side. And for the first time in the last eight years, my heart feels as light as a feather.
Kendra
“Want more coffee?”
Arlene walks up to the table lifting the thermos. We’d been late finally getting out of bed. After Neil’s early morning nightmare and subsequent confession, we didn’t say much. Not in words anyway. Mal had come to the door, and Neil was able to convince him to take Chaos for a brisk walk before relieving Joe outside. The moment he closed the door on Mal, he was back in bed, and we let our bodies do all the talking.
“Please.” I smile at her, pushing the leftovers of my breakfast to the center of the table and handing her my mug. Neil is already shoveling my leftovers in his mouth and Arlene just shakes her head at him.
“Bottomless pit, that one,” she observes as she pours the coffee. “Never known him to say no to any kind of food offered. Growing boys and all that.” Neil doesn’t react, but somehow the reference to him as boy doesn’t sit well with me. Even though I called him that quite often, up until just over a month ago.
“Actually, I hardly think Neil can be considered a boy, Arlene.” Perhaps it came out a little too sharp, because suddenly I feel both Arlene’s and Neil’s surprised eyes on me. Avoiding Neil, I focus instead on Arlene, trying to soften my earlier tone with a smile. Arlene smiles back, a calculating glint in her eyes.
“Glad to see your eyes open and alert this morning, honey,” she says with a wink, before picking up the now empty plates and heading back to the kitchen.
“Me too,” Neil agrees, keeping his voice low and reaching for my hand across the table. “Very glad. Thank you, Pup, for earlier and for coming to my defense now.” His tone is soft but slightly teasing, and I simply shrug my shoulder in response. I figure he probably wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing the first and I know I don’t want to discuss the latter.
His eyes turn away from me, and when I turn in that direction, I see Mal standing in the doorway with a phone to his ear. His chin lift is almost imperceptible, but Neil seems to understand what it conveys, because he immediately stands, takes out his wallet and throws some bills on the table.
“We’ve gotta go,” he says, pulling me up from my seat.
The guys exchange a few words that I can’t quite distinguish since Arlene is yelling goodbye. Before I know it, I find myself hustled up the stairs with Neil in front and Mal behind me. Once inside the apartment, Neil immediately pulls out his phone while Mal stands beside the window, peering outside. Not quite sure what the hell is going on, I can feel the tension in the room is thick. I sink down on the couch, listening to Neil’s side of a conversation.
“Where?” I hear him bite off to someone on the other side.
“What time was that?—And it took you ’til now to notify us? What the fuck, Drew? Have you contacted Gomez?—Well, thank God for that, at least. No, I don’t want any more attention drawn here than necessary. We’re fine here. You just find that bastard.” With that, he ends the call, throws his phone on the counter and pulls at the hair on his head. “Fuck. Son of a whore. Motherfucking idiots!” His voice booms so loud in the small space that I’m sure the patrons downstairs in the diner can hear the curses flying out of his mouth. Poor Chaos, who was sleeping on his bed in the corner, crawls almost on his belly over the ground to sit beside Neil, leaning his big body against his legs.
“Chill,” Mal admonishes from his spot by the window, and I just pull my knees up on the couch, silently freaking out. Things just got really scary and I have no clue why.
Some of what I’m thinking must’ve shown on my face, because Neil is beside me on the couch in a flash, Chaos close on his heels. The arm he puts around me is only partly reassuring, given the tension radiating off him. “What’s happening?” I manage, a bit wobbly.
A meaningful look is exchanged between the two men, but before I have a chance to work up a head of steam over that, Neil explains, “Your neighbor across the street, the old lady, called the sheriff’s office. She says she saw someone slip from between your house and the house next door, getting into a car she claims having seen before, early this morning. Says it looked like the same guy she saw sneaking on the porch last week. That and the car he got in this morning was the same one parked down the street last week.”
He’s here. He’s watching my house. Fear crawls up my throat in the form of bitter bile and I struggle to keep my breakfast where it is. Suddenly, being cooped up in this apartment with Neil indefinitely doesn’t seem like such a bad option.
Neil squeezes my shoulder, demanding my attention. “The deputy Drew who had been keeping an eye on the place, was called away on a domestic disturbance call close by. Apparently, he never got back to your house. Doesn’t look like whoever was there tried to get in. The grass on the side of the house was trampled a bit but he could’ve been looking for exterior wiring for the alarm system. What it means, Pup,” he says, now holding both my shoulders with his hands, “is that he’s still around. He was close enough that if a half-decent law enforcement officer had been on the job, he might’ve been off the streets.”
“Knowing he’s close is not a bad thing,” Mal points out. “It also means we can tighten the circle. Especially now that we have a description of what he’s driving.”
“I don’t understand,” I wonder out loud. “What does he want with me? I don’t get this focus.”
“You messed up his pattern. He’s a psychopath who seems to be working from a script. From what we can tell, you were supposed to be the seventh in his cycle, but you slipped through his fingers,” Mal answers me straight, and a cold realization comes over me.
“But he took an eighth woman, didn’t he? Last week?” Neither Neil nor Mal look me in the eye and the stark truth of what this means settles in my bones. “She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s why he’s come back, because she’s dead.”
“We don’t know that, Pup. We can’t know that for sure,” Neil mumbles as he hooks me behind my neck and pulls me to his chest.
-
The rest of the day I spend trying to read a book and watch some TV, while the guys spend most of their time keeping watch and talking on the phone. Gus and Joe both popped in and had muted conversations over the dining room table, which apparently has become security central. I’m pretty sure if I asked, they would tell me what is going on, but frankly, my head hurts from everything I already know. So instead of trying to listen in, I try not listening, often disappearing into the bedroom. Neil occasionally checks in with a touch or a kiss, a soft-spoken question from time to time, but I don’t want to distract him from what he needs to do.
I’ve just cleared away the dishes of the simple stir-fry I threw together and fed Chaos, who’s been happy with the attention lavished on him. Mal offered to get something from downstairs, but I wanted something to do. Pulling mugs down from the cupboard for the coffee that is almost done brewing, I almost drop them when I hear the distinct ring of my phone. Setting the mugs down, I scramble for my purse and the phone l
ocated somewhere in its dark depths.
“Hello?” I sound out of breath and a familiar snicker sounds on the other side.
“Please tell me I interrupted you schtumpfing the hot hunky guy Mom tells me you hooked up with.” My sister giggles. “Now that would be a true reversal of roles, wouldn’t it?”
“Karly... I... it’s nothing like that. I just had to run to find my phone.” I turn to Neil, who is observing me from his perch at the table, a smile slowly stretching over his face. In response, I roll my eyes and turn away from him. My sister—always getting me in embarrassing situations.
“Oh, you had to burst my bubble, didn’t you? Well, wherever you are, you’re not home, because I’m standing on the porch and there’re no lights on anywhere.”
“You’re... Wait, what? My house? Karly, what are you doing at my house?” I can’t hold back the panic in my voice and my sister doesn’t miss it.
“What the blazes is going on, Kenny?” she demands as I feel Neil stepping up behind me. Mal already has his phone out and is furiously punching numbers.
“Honey, get in your car right away and find the diner. It’s only three blocks west from where you are. Just head back out to the main road, and—“ A rustling and the sound of something hitting a dull surface stops me mid-sentence.
“NO!” I hear Karly scream in the background before the phone goes dead.
“Neil...” I whisper, turning and holding out the dead phone in my hand.
He doesn’t say anything but lifts me up in his arms, just as I feel my knees folding. With Mal leading the way, he runs down the stairs with me, as if I were weightless. Mal already has the diner’s kitchen door open and hustles us inside. Seb looks up from the grill and takes in the three of us.
“Shit’s going down. Right now, she’s safer here in a crowd,” Mal directs at Seb, who nods in apparent understanding. Part of my brain is trying to figure out how it is all these guys can communicate barely using any words, while the other part is still hearing my sister’s scream.
