Untouched

by Lauren Hawkeye

  He rarely saw his supervisor, since the man seemed to have deemed him more competent than average and felt no need to check in with him. The warden? He’d met him only once, and that by chance.

  “Is there something wrong, sir?” The formality was tacked on as a habit, the way he’d always addressed his superiors on the force. He knew that Macklehenny, his supervisor, was amused by it, but Nate suspected that he also secretly liked the hint of respect that was so hard to find anywhere in this kind of a facility.

  “That remains to be seen.” Macklehenny’s voice was brisk, and though Nate felt a twinge of anxiety, he brushed it aside quickly enough.

  He knew that he hadn’t done anything wrong. The anxiety came from one thought only—losing this job might mean moving, and moving would take him away from Alexa.

  Not that they’d discussed the future. But he also knew that he would do anything in his power to make them work.

  Macklehenny gave a quick knock on the door of the warden’s office when they arrived, then proceeded to enter, Nate trailing in his wake. He was taken aback to find two uniformed police officers seated by the warden’s desk.

  Instinctively he felt his spine straighten, the rigid bearing of his training instinctively moving his body.

  He felt the eyes of the cops on him as he followed Macklehenny into the room. He nodded once at them, then at the warden.

  The female cop, whose nametag read Preston, eyed him up and down, making him feel a bit like a subject about to be interrogated. But she only said one thing.

  “Former cop?”

  He felt his lips curve up in a hint of a smile. “That obvious, huh?”

  She gave him the same whisper of a smile back. “Never leaves you.”

  No, he thought. No, it didn’t. People grew, chose new paths, and either overcame adversity or were sucked down into the mire of it, but either way, the past changed you. Influenced those decisions he’d spoken of with Alexa only the night before.

  “Sit down, Fury.” The warden gestured Nate toward the seat right across from him. Though Nate really would have preferred to stand, he didn’t put up a fuss.

  There was a serious tone in this office, for lack of a better word. Something was about to explode, and Nate felt like he was in an action movie, trying to run from a bomb, except he had no idea where that bomb was.

  He’d just opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, but Preston beat him to it.

  “You’re probably wondering why you’re here.” She raised an eyebrow at Nate’s look of frustration. “You’re not in any trouble. At least not that we know of.”

  “We’re just wondering if you can shed any light on this.” Her partner, a massive man with skin the color of ebony, whose tag read Block, handed him a piece of paper covered by a plastic protector.

  “What is it?” Nate asked, quickly taking note of as many details as he could. Cheap, generic computer paper, a little on the thin side, like the inmates were granted as a privilege. The sheet looked like it had been folded over multiple times, and had been smoothed out to be read now.

  The writing on it was in blue ink, scratchy and hard to read. At the very top of one side, written in the clearly male hand, was Nate’s own name, clueing him in to what this document was.

  “Did Eugene Higgins write this?” He watched as Preston and Block cast a quick look at one other, communicating in that wordless way that partners did, before Preston, who had clearly been given the role of chatty cop, nodded.

  “This was found last night, in a cell check. He’d hidden it in his mouth, but Officer Stark noticed that his cheek looked a little puffy.” That explained the ink smears. Gross, but not surprising. “May I ask how you knew it was written by Higgins?”

  Nate took another long look at the paper before returning his attention to Preston. “During rec time yesterday I was shadowing Higgins. I watched him write something long, both sides of a piece of paper. He then tried to give it to me, as a gift, I thought. I refused. He thought I wasn’t paying attention after that, but I watched him fold it up into a very small square and tuck it into his pocket.”

  Nate cast a puzzled look at the warden. “May I ask what this is about, sir? Higgins had been allowed the paper and pen due to good behaviour.”

  The warden nodded, but Block cut him off. “And why would Higgins have wanted to give you a gift?” There was no censure in his tone, but Nate felt his hackles rise.

  “A couple of weeks ago, there was an altercation between Higgins and another inmate in the mess hall. I intervened, and accidentally got cut by a shiv meant for Higgins.” He rubbed at the healing wound absently. “I was really just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Higgins... he took it like I’d sacrificed myself to save him. Started paying special attention to me. Like we were best friends.”

  Nate’s eyes cut to the warden. “That’s why I didn’t take the paper when he tried to give it to me. I didn’t want to encourage him.”

  The warden nodded, but again was cut off from speaking by Preston. “Why don’t you take a read?”

  Thoroughly puzzled now, Nate turned his attention back to the paper he held in his hand.

  To Officer Fury,

  I’d picked her out. I was watching her.

  Invisible fingers danced over Nate’s skin.

  She wasn’t like the other girls. She was clean and bright and the rest of them, they was all whores. That’s why I wanted her so bad.

  “I’ve read this.” Nate looked up from the paper in shock, noted the equally startled looks on Preston and Block’s faces as he spoke.

  “I thought you said you didn’t take the paper from Higgins...” Preston started, but Nate ignored her, turning back to his reading.

  Yes. Yes, it was unmistakeable. The writing, the spelling and grammatical errors. Not a carbon copy, but still similar, like a person telling the same story twice over.

  This paper had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, been written by the same person who’d outlined such a heinous crime in the book that he and Alexa had gone over yet again that very morning.

  Which meant...

  “Do you know what Higgins is incarcerated for, Officer Fury?” This was Block, who, Nate noted, was taking extra special care to note Nate’s reactions.

  “Rape,” Nate replied hoarsely. “It’s why he was attacked in the mess hall.”

  “Yes, rape,” Block replied, disgust twisting his face. “Rape and more. He targeted a young woman, gained her trust, let her befriend him. Then he beat her into unconsciousness, raped her, beat her again, and left her for dead.”

  “Jesus Christ.” This, this was why he didn’t like to know the full extent of the inmate’s crimes. He couldn’t work among them if they knew how deeply they’d ventured into the darkness.

  “He was picked up the next morning for shoplifting, and taken in when the arresting officer discovered him shoving his victim’s underwear between the seats in the back of the squad car.”

  By this point Nate’s ears were ringing. He’d heard worse, had seen it with his own eyes, but this...

  Why was a version of this story hidden in Ellie’s attic?

  “He confessed once arrested, even wrote down the details. But he wouldn’t give the victim’s name in the confession, and even though we were able to match it up pretty quickly...”

  “Is there something in here that would seal the case up tight?” Without waiting for a reply, he continued to read. When he got to the last line, he felt every cell of his body infuse with ice.

  This note, addressed to him, would guarantee that Higgins would never again see the light of day. Because, in this horrible, awful recounting of the crimes of a psychopath, Higgins named his victim, and signed his name.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flower sales were slow in Florence that day. After arranging all the loose fresh cuts into bouquets that were, to her eyes at least, a vast improvement on her first attempts, and then bleaching every bucket in the place, along with various other c
hores, Alexa had succumbed to boredom. She’d settled on a stool outside the shop with her sketchpad and a fresh charcoal pencil, but nerves over Ellie’s imminent arrival kept inspiration from coming.

  Her fingers drifting over the snow white paper, she employed an exercise that she used when she felt blocked. Not unlike Freud’s free association method of therapy, she quickly sketched anything and everything that came to mind... a banana, a hammer, a quick and dirty caricature of Channing Tatum.

  Her mind drifted after her fingers lingered on Channing’s stellar abs, and she found herself thinking of Nate... and from Nate, thinking of that morning in bed, when he’d held her after her nightmare.

  Her nightmare. Barbed wire. Her hand began to move as she captured the image from her mind’s eye on paper.

  A car pulled up as she was sharpening the lines on the spikes. Thinking that it might be a customer, Alexa dusted black powder from her hands onto the thighs of her jeans before looking up from the paper.

  Shock rippled through her when she recognized her mother’s silver BMW. Disbelief made her feel as though she’d been yanked into a parallel universe when her normally immaculate mother stepped out of the driver’s side of the vehicle dressed in yoga pants and a plain, worn button down shirt.

  “Mom.” Alexa slid slowly from the stool to approach her mother, caution warring with happiness. “What are you... I mean... I’m confused.”

  She’d told her mother she needed some time. Tracy Cunningham was a great believer in space, and it had never occurred to Alexa that she wouldn’t honor that. And she’d have been pretty damn angry about it, except...

  Except that Tracy looked terrible. Her skin was pale, there were purple bruises beneath her eyes. And she wasn’t wearing makeup. None.

  Alexa could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her mother bare faced.

  “Mom.” The familiar frustration and love swamped her. “I told you. I don’t blame you.”

  Tracy accepted the hug, but when she pulled away her lips were pressed together in a tight line. “You might after we’re through talking.”

  “What?” Alexa’s brow furrowed. “No, I really don’t think I will.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.” Tracy, clearly familiar with the layout of the building, gestured to the apartment above. “I... we need to talk about something important.”

  A stone settled heavily in Alexa’s gut, and there was no room for it, not with the one already lodged in there over what she had to tell Ellie. “Mom, today is really not a good day for this.”

  Her mother opened her mouth to argue, but was interrupted by another car pulling up to the curb. Alexa was swamped with the heat that she always felt upon seeing Nate when he stepped out of his SUV.

  “Hi,” she couldn’t help but smile at him, even with the way the day had been, and even knowing that her mother was watching them. Oh, to hell with it, she thought, standing on her toes to claim a kiss—she’d deal with the maternal inquisition later.

  Nate kissed her, but it tasted like desperation. Puzzled, she pulled away, noted the book in his hand, and felt a surge of panic.

  “Nate. This is... ah... my mother.” She stepped back, noted that Nate’s eyes had already locked on the older woman. They seemed to be communicating without words, tension arcing between them in a way that Alexa didn’t understand.

  “Do you two know each other?”

  “No.” Nate shook his head.

  Tracy smiled sadly. “But you know, don’t you?”

  Another weird silence. Alexa felt like her nerves were going to scream. She looked to Nate for an explanation, but he didn’t provide her one, though the arm around her waist squeezed.

  “Yes, I know. I know everything.”

  “Anyone care to fill me in?” Alexa asked irritably. She was damn sick of secrets. Especially since she seemed to be the only one around who didn’t know them. “Like, now?”

  “Let’s go upstairs, baby.” Nate’s arm urged her toward the door of the flower shop, but Alexa stood firm.

  “No, thank you. I think I’d like to know now. Right now.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at first Nate, and then her mom. “The sooner, the better, actually.”

  “We’re not doing this on the street.” Always happier when she could take charge, Tracy seemed to draw herself up taller. She raised an eyebrow at Nate. “There’s no going back from this, you know.”

  This time it was Nate who seemed sad. “She has a right to know.”

  Alexa groaned out loud. They were driving her insane. “Unless you’re about to tell me that you two have a love child that I don’t know about, spit it out.”

  “Not happening, babe.” Without warning, Nate scooped Alexa up and hung her upside down over his shoulder. She stilled with shock before pounding on his back with her fists.

  “Nate. Not okay!” Raising her head as best she could as Nate carried her into the shop, she looked at her mother for help.

  Tracy, however, was busy, locking them in as she tucked her cell phone between her cheek and shoulder.

  “Eleanor?” Her eyes flicked to Alexa’s as she spoke, apology shining in her eyes. “When will you be back?” She made a few noises of agreement, and on the other end of the line, Alexa heard what she would have placed money on being her sister’s voice, raised in anger.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Eleanor. But it can no longer be helped.” Tracy hung up the phone just as they all herded their way through the cooler and up the stairs, leaving Alexa limp and silent with shock.

  What the hell was Ellie’s phone number doing in her mother’s phone? To her knowledge, they’d never met—her mother had only known that Joseph had had another child.

  And why hadn’t anyone bothered to tell Alexa anything?

  Her heart was pounding when Nate set her down on her feet, then urged to a sitting position on the couch. She bounced right back up to her feet, ready to battle, sinking back down when she saw the weariness on her mother’s face, and the sadness on Nate’s.

  “Please, tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded, looking at the man who had stolen her heart, knowing that he wouldn’t lie to her. “Is it Ellie? Did you find out something about the book?”

  Tracy sank into the armchair beside the couch where Alexa perched. Nate instead chose to seat himself on the coffee table. He arranged himself so that his thighs framed Alexa’s, his hands could hold her own, and their faces were close.

  “Deep breaths, baby,” he said, before turning to look at her mother. “Maybe you should start.”

  Tracy nodded crisply, seemed to falter, then pulled herself back together. She looked at her daughter, and her eyes were full of grief.

  “What do you remember about the time around your accident, Alexa? Has anything come back to you at all?” Tracy’s eyes studied her daughter’s face, searching for... something.

  Alexa swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong, and she had no idea what it was.

  “I... no. Nothing, really.” Her stare flicked helplessly to Nate. “I remember that I went to a bar, and had a drink. I was celebrating a big sale on a painting. But after that... nothing, not until I woke up in the hospital.”

  Tracy turned to Nate. “Why has this all come to a head now, then? I don’t understand.”

  To Alexa’s surprise, Nate pressed his forehead to hers, sucking in a deep breath—as if he was drawing strength from her.

  “There was book, hidden in the attic, here,” he finally said, looking back at Tracy. “Copies of letters... I’m guessing it was part of a confession. Something that the police have in their custody.”

  Tracy blanched. “Gabe.”

  Alexa looked sharply at her mother. “How do you know Gabe? How do you know Ellie?”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Rising, her mother came to sit beside her, pulling her into a hug. Nate held her close, too, and Alexa’s heart hammered against her ribs so hard she felt certain that they would crack under the strain.
“I’m so very sorry.”

  “Mom. Nate. Please.” Her stare flicked from one to the other, her entire body clenching with tension.

  Tracy closed her eyes for a long moment, and when she opened them again, they were wet with tears. “You were never in a car accident, Alexa.”

  Alexa recoiled as though her mother had backhanded her. Before she could form a word, Nate caught her face in his hands.

  “Breathe. Just breathe. We’ll get through this.”

  Dread crept down her spine, horrible possibilities whirling through her mind. But in the end, she never, never would have guessed the words that came out of Nate’s mouth next.

  “The book... those letters weren’t about Ellie. Alexa, baby, I’m so sorry. But they were about you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Time stopped. Frozen, Alexa was frozen, her body encased in ice that would protect her from the horrible, horrible truth that she had just learned.

  But the ice couldn’t stand the heat of the moment, and finally, finally she was able to focus, to look at Nate, at her mother, both of whom were crying.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered through numb lips. “That’s not possible.”

  Tracy rubbed her daughter’s back; Alexa couldn’t feel her mother’s touch.

  “You went out that night, like you remembered. You called me from the bar, telling me about your sale.” Her mother swallowed. “You were... found... the next morning, in Sunrise Park.”

  “But...” It was so hard to speak, yet so important to. “How was that book here? Ellie didn’t know I existed.”

  “She did,” her mother replied, voice thick with unshed tears. “She hadn’t known for long, but she knew. When she saw the article about the... about what happened to you, in the Phoenix papers, she tracked me down. Wanted updates on your... condition. I... you weren’t able to tell anyone details of what had happened, though we knew what... how... he had... left you. And then he wrote those notes for the police. I knew, but since you didn’t remember... I decided not to share them with anyone. But if she had copies of those notes, then I’m guessing that Ellie got them from her husband.”