After three hours of waiting, Josie decided to head home. She left the food bags tucked under the bench, not having the heart to take them with her. Maybe Gavin would come later, or one of the kids. When she got to the sidewalk, she turned and checked one last time, but the bench remained empty.
* * *
“Hello,” Rob said, smiling at his phone.
Monica huffed, her end of the line unusually silent.
“Monica?”
“I miss you,” she answered.
“I miss you too, Button.”
Monica squished her face up at the nickname, unable to decide if she liked it or not. In all her years, Monica Marie Templeton had never had a nickname, or anyone to give her one. Her parents had been stiff, formal people who never called her anything but her given name. It never occurred to her to mind.
“I hate when you work late,” she said, walking to the fridge and grabbing a beer. “Can’t you just be at my disposal? I mean, any Southern gentleman would pride himself on doing that.”
“Well, ma’am, I do have to make a living. I’m finishing up now.”
“I had the worst day. First there was no Internet for like four hours. They shut us down because of a security breach or something. Then I got locked out of my building because I lost my work ID tag.”
“I’m sorry, darlin’. Tomorrow will be better,” he promised.
“Well, I guess I could say any day I make it home without a pending lawsuit or a threat on my life is a good day.”
“I’ll make it all better when I see you,” Rob answered, his voice trailing off.
“You sound distracted. I’ll let you go. Please get here with a quickness. I need you.”
“Yes, dear.”
Monica hung up and took a long sip of her beer. Time flew by quickly as she prepared dinner. An hour later, a tap at the door interrupted her stirring. She threw open the door and pulled Rob down for a searing kiss.
“Damn, that was quite a greeting,” Rob said, panting against her lips.
Monica dragged him inside and pressed him against the wall, her tiny body acting as a wedge to keep him in place.
“I told you I missed you.”
“Well, I’d say that was obvious,” Rob answered, chuckling.
“I’m home alone and you’re not around. I have to sit here and entertain myself with reality television and tabloid magazines. It’s torture.”
She fetched a cold beer and handed it to him. Rob took the bottle and downed half of it in one swallow. She watched as a drop of the amber liquid seeped from the corner of his mouth, carving a path down his chin and neck and soaking into the collar of his T-shirt.
“Subjected to bad TV and trashy gossip. What’s a girl to do?” he asked.
“Well, I suppose I could always entertain myself, but I like it better when you do it.”
He smirked and picked her up by the waist, placing her on the counter. Rob loved the feel of her tiny body enfolding him. He loved how her large personality was wrapped into this tight little package of dynamite. He loved her curly dark hair and cheerful eyes. She was devious and spunky and always kept him on his toes.
“Now that’s something I’d like to see.”
They kissed deep and hard until Monica had to come up for air. She recovered quickly, hopped down from the counter, and returned her attention to dinner while Rob parked himself in front of the television.
While her rice dish simmered, she went to check on Rob, finding him asleep on the sofa. Monica hated that his job was so demanding. Some days she could sense the stress on his body, feel it in his tense embraces. But not now. He was fully relaxed and it made her heart happy to see him so untroubled. His forearm was thrown over his eyes as he slept. She sighed at the sight of his handsome pout.
A shrill noise cut through the air and she recognized the ringing of her cell phone. Running to her purse, she answered out of breath.
Monica fell into the closest kitchen chair, stunned by Josie’s voice on the other end. There was no chitchat, only Josie requesting a double date tomorrow evening. She felt as though the room swirled around her feet. This was Tristan’s doing, she knew that, but she would take redemption any way she could get it. After ending the strange yet thrilling call, she sat in a daze of hope and absolution.
“Button? You okay?” Rob asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway.
Her blank expression shifted to an enormous smile as she nodded and leapt into his arms.
“Are you working late tomorrow night?”
“Nope.”
“Good, we have plans.”
* * *
“Oh my God, that conversation was painful. Why the hell did I let you talk me into that?” Josie whined, clicking her seat belt into place. “Seriously, I feel like I need a Xanax after that phone call.”
“She can’t be that bad,” Tristan said, laughing. “Besides, I want to get to know your friends.”
“I told you, I don’t have any friends.”
“Tennessee Williams said, ‘Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.’ Friendships are the cultivation of relationships with people who are like you, believe in you, and share your burdens. You have Monica and Alex. That’s more than I’ve got.”
Tristan started the car and watched as Josie crossed her legs tightly, appreciating the rumble of the engine. She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the seat.
“I fucking love this car,” Josie whispered, not sure if she meant to say it out loud or not.
She slid her hands down the tops of her thighs and back up again, concentrating on the rough feel of the denim vibrating beneath her fingertips. Tristan eyed her actions, almost losing his breath at the sight.
“She’s got a 396-cubic-inch, 325-horsepower turbojet V-8 engine with a Muncie 4-speed.”
“I have no idea what any of that means.”
“It’s a sixty-seven Impala. A classic.”
“It’s fucking hot.”
Tristan delighted in the purr of both his girls. He tried to concentrate on the road in front of him instead of the vixen by his side, who suddenly looked like she wanted to devour him.
“So I’m finally going to see your place? I bet you have everything covered in plastic so that cleanup is easy when you kill your victims,” Josie teased, looking to Tristan. His expression remained unchanged. “Maybe there are whips and chains with leather-padded tables and shock collars?”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Tristan answered.
“Not bad at all,” Josie replied, playing along. “I’ve seen worse.”
Tristan gave her a devious smile.
“Oh! I know! You’re a geek, right? You have six thousand Star Wars figurines worth a small fortune displayed on custom shelves around your house?”
He shook his head, “Wrong again. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
Josie smiled and couldn’t imagine ever being disappointed in Tristan. She watched the city pass by, morphing from the dark alleys of her life to the amber- and neon-lit streets of his. The sidewalks got cleaner, the buildings looked nicer, and the kids hustling on each corner vanished with each passing block. She didn’t mind living in the seedier part of the city, she was comfortable there. Josie wondered if she’d always been that way.
“Dean Moloney lives right outside New Orleans?”
“Yeah, in Gretna. That’s where we lived.”
“So he had to have known me back when we lived there. I was a kid. What the hell could I have done to him?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been asking myself that for days now. It has to be related to your dad. I’ll take a look at any court cases Earl was involved with and see if I can make a connection.”
“I wish I could remember,” she whispered, the desperate longing in her voice painful to Tristan’s ears.
Tristan watched Josie stare out the window again. He would give anything to be inside that head of hers, to jar those trapped me
mories loose so that she could remember her parents and how much they loved her. He reached for her hand and held it beneath his on the gearshift, knowing it would bring her some comfort.
They came to a stop and Josie looked around, amazed at how much their surroundings had changed in such a short drive. He hopped out and grabbed Josie’s bag while she took in the building before her. It looked like a typical San Diego apartment, surrounded by palm trees and wrapped around a courtyard. It’s stucco façade looked aged under the streetlights.
“I’ve never been tagging in this neighborhood. Looks like it could use some flair.”
Tristan frowned and led her across the street. They climbed a set of stairs, where he fumbled with his keys before finally entering apartment 2D.
“I’ll just put your bag in my room. There’s beer in the fridge if you want.”
To say Josie was surprised by his home was an understatement. Sure, the walls were white and the carpet was tan, but that is where the generic appearance ended. There was a built-in bookcase lining one wall, with a space cut out for a television. The entire thing was filled with books. New books, old books, hardbacks, paperbacks, every kind of book she could imagine created a patchwork mosaic look to the otherwise plain space.
There was an open laptop on a small wooden table with two mismatched chairs parked beneath it. A well-worn sofa graced the living room. Besides that, there was no other furniture. She stepped to the bookcase, trailing her finger over the spines of the books. None of the titles were familiar to her, and suddenly she felt small and far out of her league.
“My collection.”
Josie jumped at his proximity. She turned to face Tristan, leaning against the shelf.
“I can see that,” she answered.
He eyed her as though she were a fixture, a lovely piece of art hanging on his wall. His eyes stayed glued to hers as he stalked forward. His gaze pinned her there. Tristan stopped mere inches from her body. His large arms grabbed the shelf behind her, caging Josie in like the willing prisoner she was.
“I love having you here, in my space,” he said, ducking his head and whispering against her neck.
“Your space?”
“Yeah, you know, the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and—”
“Tristan,” Josie interrupted. He raised his eyebrows. “Shut up.”
She closed her eyes and reached for him. Sliding her index fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, she pulled him closer. As always, a blaze consumed her, and she wondered if this feeling of longing would ever be satisfied. After what seemed like a lifetime, Tristan met her lips with his own, placing sweet, simple kisses there. Every so often, his tongue would trace across her lip and she’d forget to breathe.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he said.
Breaking away, Tristan reached above her head and pulled down a book. He led Josie to the sofa and drew her down next to him.
“It’s our freshman yearbook,” he said, answering her questioning eyes.
Josie looked on with anticipation, eager to see a tiny glimpse into her past, a past that apparently had been happy and normal. While she was thrilled to learn about her early childhood, normalcy was something she couldn’t even fathom.
As they went through each page, Tristan excitedly pointed out their friends and favorite teachers. Sometimes he had stories to accompany the candid photos and stories to accompany those stories. Josie listened intently, soaking in every word he said and staring at the frozen gray faces on the page. When they got to the student section, she noticed some sort of bookmark sticking out.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Tristan flipped the page to reveal a small metal barrette snapped onto the page.
“It was yours,” he said. “I found it in my room about a week after you moved.”
He ran his finger down the page until he stopped at her face. Josie looked on, intrigued by the younger, fuller face and familiar eyes.
They continued flipping through the book, Tristan pointing out some candid shots of her. These were much happier. She looked carefree and shy. Josie grinned back at the photos, wondering if, back then, her smiles were genuine and unrehearsed.
Next, Tristan turned to his photo, not even caring that Josie laughed until her side hurt. The sound of her genuine laughter made him want to capture it and hold on forever.
“You were so skinny! Your hair was out of control!”
“I was prepubescent. You loved my hair,” he countered. “And you loved me.”
She looked down at her lap, stunned by his words. A heavy silence fell between them until Josie worked up the nerve to ask what she wanted to know.
“Did you love Fiona?”
“Yes, I did. I would’ve never stayed with her if I hadn’t. It was different, though. Different from this,” he said, motioning between them.
“I kind of hate her,” Josie said softly, focused on a hole in her jeans.
“Yeah,” Tristan said, dropping his arm around her shoulders. “But why?”
“Because she hurt you. Because she had you for all that time and didn’t appreciate it.”
Tristan placed a kiss right below her ear and whispered, “It should have been you.”
This time the silence felt different. It was warm and comforting, a blanketed feeling of desire and love.
“Do you have a picture of her? I want to see.”
Tristan reluctantly nodded and went back to the shelves, pulling out an envelope from between two books. He took his seat next to Josie again and opened the envelope, pulling the photo from inside.
Josie stared at the picture. The girl was beautiful, with blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was everything that Josie wasn’t. She tried to associate this girl with the hurt and pain that had been inflicted on Tristan but failed to make the connection. There was an innocent happiness imprinted on the glossy paper. Fiona was smiling and hugging a boy who wasn’t Tristan.
“Who’s he?” she asked.
“That’s her twin brother. I never knew him. He died when they were sixteen. I stole this photo when I left her. It was stupid. I just did it to hurt her.”
Josie nodded, understanding completely.
The next morning, Josie woke to find herself in a real bed with clean sheets and fluffy pillows. Her head lay on Tristan’s bare chest while one arm and leg were thrown across his body. She stifled a yawn and rolled onto her back, stretching the muscles in her arms and legs. The room was flooded with sunlight and she couldn’t believe that she’d slept so late despite it.
She turned toward Tristan, her eyes memorizing every nuance of the man before her. He lay on top of the covers, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. His black pajama pants sat low on his hips, immediately coaxing her eyes upward. Each peak and valley of his muscled chest and abdomen were highlighted by the sun’s rays, causing golden shadows across his skin. The vibrant shapes and twisting lines of ink clung to his arms as if they never could belong anywhere else. Long fingers wrapped around a weathered paperback book that was folded over on itself. His hair was growing out now and had become a bit of a zigzag-patterned mess. The stubble on his jaw caused a slightly darker shadow to his face, and she hummed at the memory of what it felt like beneath her fingertips. Tristan’s mouth was open just slightly, his pink tongue sliding back and forth across his bottom lip keeping time with his eyes on the page. Perched halfway down his nose sat a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking up from his book.
“Since when do you wear glasses?”
“Oh,” he said, instantly reaching to pull them off. “Sometimes when I read.”
Josie grabbed his hand, halting his movements and smiled up at him.
“I love them.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yep. You’ve got that hot nerd thing happening.”
“Hot nerd? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
<
br /> “What did you just call me?” Josie teased.
She placed a kiss on his lips and hopped over, heading to the bathroom. Tristan shook his head in disbelief, loving how she always had a way of surprising him. Marking his page, he placed the book on the nightstand and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind.
He’d been up since dawn, his thoughts reeling. Josie was in danger, and he needed to know why. He couldn’t believe that he let her talk him into staying three extra days. This time could be better spent assuring her safety.
She emerged from the bathroom and instantly he understood exactly how she’d persuaded him. Her mere presence sang to him, called to his weaknesses. Josie was beautiful with her tousled hair and endless legs standing at the foot of his bed. It had been awhile since he’d wanted to share his life with anyone, but here she was and Tristan cherished the sight of her.
* * *
Mort stepped into the shower and let the water run over his face. He leaned his forehead against the cool tile and grinned, still excited about yesterday’s find. He had sat outside Josie Banks’s North Park apartment the previous day waiting to catch a glimpse of her. He couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her, if for nothing else than to confirm that she did exist. He stared at the building with loathing, begging it to reveal her.
Finally she’d come trotting down the steps with a large bag slung over her shoulder. She was a dark and brooding beauty compared to the teen girl in the photo he’d memorized.
She was small, an easy target for someone like himself. But she hadn’t been alone. The guy by her side was young, probably her age. His arms were covered in tattoos. His smile for the girl was easily recognizable as one of affection.
Mort had snapped a few photos of the couple and watched as they disappeared down the block. He grinned sinisterly at the idea of being rid of her. Hell, killing her would probably be doing her a favor. After all the shit she’d been through, she might even welcome him like an angel of mercy. He’d never spent this much time and effort on a job and felt a bit put off that he’d become so attached to the girl. Not that he wouldn’t carry out his mission, but it would definitely feel different from every other kill.
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