Dangerous Obsessions

by Capri Montgomery

  “I like to go hiking, or to the rock gym on Sundays.”

  He shook his head no. That’s what she thought. Okay, she could give an inch, but not forever. They’d either have to put Levins back in prison or she’d have to get on with her life. She needed to keep doing the day to day things the same way she had for years. He may not have understood that, actually she was sure he didn’t, but she needed it. Her schedule was all she had and she couldn’t lose it.

  “When did you get over your fear of heights?”

  She had been scared of heights her entire life. When she was a little girl she had gone to the lake with her father and mother. They had been fishing, except for her, she didn’t fish. She just sat on the rocks out in the water and watched everybody else fish. For some reason, she suddenly felt as if the rocks were the size of a fifteen story building. She got scared. When it was time to leave she couldn’t move. She couldn’t walk back to the land. She just stood there, frozen in fear, looking down at the water beneath her. Her dad had to come back for her. He picked her up and carried her back to land and she never went fishing with him again. It was ridiculous, the rocks weren’t that high off the ground, but at five years old she just imagined they were and she panicked.

  She shrugged her response. “When I realized there were bigger things in life to fear.” It was as simple as that. She was still a little afraid. She could only get so far climbing outside of the gym before she’d have to descend, but after what Levins had done to her, after her family practically disowned her, she refused to let fear control her, to dominate her life and to stop her from doing things. At some point in that time she became the woman who did things, not always because she wanted to, but because she was afraid to. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She didn’t want that debilitating fear of not being good enough, of not being loved, of not surviving, to destroy what was left of her soul.

  “Anyway, if you want to shadow me at work you’ll need to meet me there by—”

  “When I said I’d be your shadow that’s what I meant. That means I’m riding with you to work; I’m staying with you in this house; I’m going to be everywhere that you are.”

  Everywhere? The man had obviously lost his mind. “I reserve the bathroom for private use,” she bit her lip to hold back the smile she knew would come if she didn’t contain it. His eyes narrowed, jaw locked and she could tell he was grinding his teeth. The look on his face was priceless. “Well you said everywhere.”

  “And I should have known you’d take that literally.”

  “I can ride with you all too. If I’m going to be in all the classes.”

  “Um…no. I’m on my bike, so three will definitely be a crowd.”

  “You bike to work. That’s a lot of exercise.”

  Her lips turned upward into a forced smile. “It’s a motorcycle,” she clarified. Most people knew what she meant when she said bike, and it had nothing to do with the kind you peddle. It was all about the powerful piece of equipment sitting between her legs, taking the curves of the mountains while feeling the fresh air caress her body. She loved it. Twelve years ago she would have never had the courage to even try to learn to ride one, but then again, twelve years ago she wouldn’t have had the courage to do a lot of things that she did now. Twelve years ago she hated people watching her. She hated public speaking or doing anything that required an audience. Now, she taught classes, conducted seminars, rode a bike…things had changed.

  Ever since Levins claimed her innocence, that precious commodity that people took for granted, she couldn’t look at the world the same. Before she knew there was evil in the world, but she assumed, like most people, that the evil wouldn’t touch her or her family, but it had. After that she went through testifying at his first trial. Had she been any younger, the prosecuting attorney had said, they wouldn’t have put her on the stand. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have enough evidence to convict him without putting her through hell to do it, but they wanted her testimony. They wanted the jury to hear what he’d done, and they wanted them to hear it from her.

  She hadn’t wanted to testify. She didn’t want to have to face him again, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to relive what he had done to her. Somehow she had managed to get through the trial, back then she had attributed that action to Greg’s support. Now she realized she was a lot stronger than she thought she was. Stepping out of her comfort zone wouldn’t kill her. After the second trial, and after Greg left her, she started forcing herself to stop letting unnecessary worries stop her. The change had been good for her; she loved her job, loved what she had a chance to do everyday, and she wouldn’t have had any of it if she hadn’t been forced to realize her ability to survive.

  “We’ll take my car.” Greg had that tone of authority in his voice again. Maybe all officers of the law had that tone. Maybe it was a required skill, the ability to infer finality through words.

  “You do that. I’ll take my bike.”

  Greg mumbled a curse. “Fine, she’ll take my car and I’ll ride with you.”

  “I’m glad we have that settled. Now,” She looked around him. He hadn’t brought any bags. “I don’t have any clothes for my shadows, but I do have a bedroom down here for the two of you.”

  “You still have a room upstairs?”

  She did. She had turned one of her upstairs rooms into a dance-workout room, then there was her bedroom, a bathroom splitting her room and the smaller bedroom that was left upstairs…the bedroom actually use to be bigger, but she didn’t need that much space in it so she enlarged the bathroom and made the bedroom big enough for a twin bed and a dresser. She couldn’t imagine he’d fit very comfortably in the bed with his long legs and big body.

  The man still looked good. Great shoulders, great arms, great everything. His dark hair and striking blue eyes still captivated her, but ten years was ten years and she wasn’t going to let the old feelings crop back up and ruin her emotional life…not this time. Distance, she needed to keep her distance, emotionally, physically, and every other way.

  “I’ll take the upstairs, Janet, you take the downstairs.”

  She would have thought they’d want to be together…but then again, he’d said this was work and if there was one thing she remembered about Greg’s personality it was that when he was working, he didn’t let personal interferences stop him from doing his job. The downstairs bed wasn’t any bigger anyway; she just wasn’t sure she wanted either of them upstairs with her.

  “Well, Duvall…this way.” She couldn’t bring herself to think of that woman as Janet. Janet was too personal and she preferred to think of her as simply an agent who would be leaving as soon as they caught Levins.

  Clair showed Janet the back room. There was a twin bed in that room too, but the room itself was bigger than the upstairs room. The bed was simple, cherry wood frame with a basic headboard, no inlays or decorative finishes. The bedding was a plain white down comforter, the sheets a solid shade of light green. There was one window overlooking the front yard on an odd angle, and had a marginal view of the acre of property in front of her house. She’d bought several lots when they went up for sell so she could have space. It wasn’t exactly a ranch or anything like it, but at least she could open her curtains without looking straight into her neighbor’s bathroom. When she lived in Denver she always had to keep her curtains closed, and she hated that. She wanted to let in the natural light, but letting in the natural light also gave her a clear view of the next door neighbor while he showered. Why the man couldn’t pull the shades was a mystery she never solved.

  There was a bathroom across the hall. She had a Victorian tub in the center of the room, a toilet and a sink. She didn’t have a shower downstairs, but then she never used the downstairs bathroom unless she wanted a relaxing tub bath herself. Her bathroom had the shower, no tub in sight, which she liked since she preferred showers to tub baths, but she had always assumed she should have at least one tub in the house just in case her body wanted total emersion fr
om time to time.

  “I really don’t have any clothes that will fit you.” Clair was five four and a half. Agent Duval was at least five nine. There was no way her clothes would fit height-wise. In fact, since Duval was now heavier than she was her clothes wouldn’t fit width-wise either. Duval wasn’t fat by any means. She was a healthy weight for her height, slender with negligent curves. She could have been a supermodel. The blonde hair, green eyes helped a lot too.

  Clair winced at her own jealousy. This woman was here to keep an eye on her man, to back him up, and Clair knew that. She didn’t have any misconceptions that Duvall cared about her safety. It wasn’t as if they had ever been friends. From the day she first met Greg’s “new” partner, she knew the woman didn’t like her. Clair was okay with that because she didn’t like her either. Ten years hadn’t changed much, but still she felt as if she should have been less hostile, a little nicer maybe…she would try.

  “We have clothes in the car.”

  She almost laughed. Greg had probably decided they should leave the clothes out of sight because he thought she might not open the door if she saw them. Maybe she wouldn’t have.

  “Oh, good.” Clair pointed out the usual necessities, towels in the linen closet, personal female items if she needed them. Clair was, if nothing else, slightly paranoid that she’d be downstairs and need something she didn’t have there, so she had the tendency to keep two sets of most of the things she might need when upstairs or downstairs. “If you need anything please let me know.”

  She excused herself and escorted Greg down the hall, her bare feet pattering on her cherry wood floors as she took the wide spiral stairs up to the second floor. “The bathroom is here.” She pointed to her left. “Shower only, so if you want a tub you’ll have to go downstairs.”

  She had every intention to keep moving onward, but he stopped and looked into the bathroom as if he were a buyer surveying the house.

  “Nice,” he said.

  She knew it was nice. She’d seen the idea in a movie once and expanded on it with her own flare. She loved the glass block, floor to ceiling, round shower with the natural sunlight coming through thanks to the window off to the side of the shower. She also had a granite top counter, she was going to go with marble for her sink, it was expensive, but worth the investment she figured. Right before she was supposed to put the money down on the slab of marble she had the brilliant idea to visit a granite wholesale shop, just to look, is what she had told herself. Looking did not convey a commitment to buy, but knowing her options would make her feel better about her final choice. What she noticed while out “just looking,” was that the granite matched the slate colored tile more.

  She had put a lot of time, love and attention into her home. She still had some work to do, things she wanted to change, but the bathroom was perfect. Maybe next year, provided she lived that long, she would put in the bay window that she wanted in the kitchen, and replace the doors with French doors. She loved the look of French doors, even if she didn’t love the work that would need to go into the place to make them happen throughout her house. Fortunately for her, the work she did at the gym often introduced her to people in all professions, and they were generally all willing to let her know just what they could do for her. If she needed a lawyer there was one who hit the weight machines every Monday and Wednesday who had been sure to provide his card. If she needed a GYN there was one who came to her Pilate’s class twice a week. If she needed a plumber she had one of those in her class too. Best of all, and probably the person she was most likely to let do work for her, was a slender red head who was a contractor. She flipped houses a lot, and knew a few things…a lot of things actually, about remodeling homes. She had given her a quote for the work on the doors; pricey, but doable.

  “Anyway,” she gestured for him to follow her. “This will be your room. “It’s only a twin bed. The room is small. You might be more comfortable down with your partner.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve slept in worse.”

  She had tried, but obviously she wouldn’t be getting the distance from Greg that she sought.

  “The mattress should be comfortable. Nobody has slept in it since I bought it.” It was a Pillow Top mattress so she’d bought for comfort to begin with, even though she never had any intention of having anybody stay over who could use it. The bed was much the same as the one downstairs, with the cherry wood finish and basic headboard, but at the end of the bed in this room she had a chest that served as a bench to sit on. It met flush with the top of the mattress so if his legs did hang off, which she was sure they would, he’d at least have the chest to rest them on comfortably. “Dresser’s over there,” she pointed out the obvious. “Towels are in the linen closet in the bathroom.”

  Now that the grand tour was over she had work to do of her own.

  “Where’s your room?”

  “Down the hall, the other side of the bathroom. You’ll notice you have a door that goes into the bath from your room, the other door in the bathroom connects to my room.”

  He wanted to see where she slept, for security purposes, so she took him down to her room. “What’s that room down there?”

  “The room I use to dance and workout. It’s not much, just hardwood floors, floor to ceiling mirrors on one of the walls and a few other items I need. Nothing you’d be interested in.” She walked into her bedroom. Now this was the room she’d spent her time getting together. She had a king size sleigh bed because she’d always wanted a big bed. She had seen the bed in Scarlet and fell in love with it, but she’d never been able to find one that looked as big, so she settled for the biggest bed she could find.

  “That’s a lot of bed for such a little woman.”

  She noted the dig at her body again and felt her muscles tense up. He didn’t have to like it, she did. “Who says I sleep in it alone,” she remarked. But she did sleep in it alone. She’d slept in it alone since the day she bought it. It sat there, against the wall covered in a sued brown and blue comforter with matching baby blue sheets. It looked perfect against the décor of her room. She hadn’t gone in for white walls usually, but she had for this room because the black and white pictures she added, the ones she had taken before her life turned upside down, didn’t need the distraction of busy walls.

  “No dresser?”

  “The closet is built out…or is it built in,” she thought for a moment, but decided the grammatical correctness of the sentence wasn’t really all that important to her. It didn’t matter whether it was built out or built in. She had made sure she had a closet built to hold her clothes. She had drawers for her underwear, hanging spaces for the clothes that needed to be hung, shoe racks to hold her dress, dance and exercise shoes. She had everything perfectly lined up with the dress clothes and shoes on one side of the closet, her everyday wear clothes and shoes next to that, the workout clothes and shoes on the other side, along with her adventure clothes, the ones she wore hiking or climbing and the shoes to match. She was a neat freak, always had been, always would be. God, she hoped they wouldn’t trash her house because she kept it pristine and couldn’t sleep unless it stayed in that condition.

  She had a forty-two inch flat screen television mounted on the adjacent wall from her bed, a chest to sit on by the window. She had wanted to add a balcony with French doors, but something in the back of her mind told her that wouldn’t be safe, so she didn’t invest the money in doing it. She did, however, invest the money in two ottomans that served the dual purpose of sitting space and storage, along with a matching rounded chair that she could curl up in and watch an old black and white movie when she wanted.

  Her room could have been featured in a magazine, and she was proud of that because she had practically designed it herself. She took ideas and went into left field with them, came back and found her balance to what she wanted in her house. She had been determined to make this place home, and she had done it. Despite not having a family to share it with, her family, she still thought th
is place more of a home than the broken one she’d left behind in Denver.

  “You’ve changed a lot since I was last here.”

  She could tell he wasn’t just talking about the changes to the house, both structural and decorative. He was talking about her. From her weight to her attitude, she wasn’t that same teenager who had followed him around dotingly. She had never been fat, but she had been more curvy than she was now. Over the years she had toned her body, knocked some of the fat off her thighs, developed the abs she thought she’d never be able to have, solid and sculpted without looking like a muscle bound woman. Her arms were lean, with only a hint of the usually dreaded underarm shake when she waved. She hadn’t been able to completely get rid of that, but then she hadn’t really cared too much. Nobody was perfect. She made sure she told Hank, one of the trainers at the gym, that whenever he’d offer to start her on a weightlifting regimen. She didn’t want to lift weights. She just, as she had told Greg, liked her body imperfections and all.

  “Ten years is a long time,” she finally said. “If you don’t mind I need to take care of some things. If you get hungry there’s some food in the refrigerator. I’m mostly a semi-vegan so there isn’t anything really by way of meat in there…maybe some salmon in the freezer, and I think a Cornish hen is still in there as well. Mostly I have veggies, some cheese, crackers, light stuff…” If he wanted anything else he was going to need to grocery shop because she definitely didn’t keep any really heavy foods in the house.

  Her biggest vice was dressing. She loved to make her mother’s old recipe for dressing. She usually made it by itself, but would sometimes cook a Cornish hen and make it a full meal…like she’d had so often as a child. Thankfully she didn’t have a lot of time to make that dish often. It was full of fat…and not the good kind. But everybody needed a vice and as far as vices went, dressing wasn’t all that bad. She didn’t do drugs, she didn’t smoke, she didn’t drink, she didn’t binge on sex…in fact she hadn’t had sex. After what Levins had done to her she never wanted it…no, she had once before. She had wanted it with Greg, but then he disappeared from her life and those feelings went away…apparently not far enough away given her initial reaction to seeing him.