“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
If Emma hadn’t filled me in on the conversation she’d had with Tammara, when she told Tammara about Paul and what he’d done to Trent and Michael, I would believe Tammara. She’s that good.
“So you’d have no problem if Emma tells the cops what she knows about them?” Marcus asks.
Tammara shifts in her seat. “What do you want from me?”
“We want you to promise that you’ll leave us alone. If you can’t do that, we will report everything we know to the cops. I’m not saying they won’t figure it out on their own. They’ve been investigating where the messages came from. But leave us alone and we won’t tell them anything. Can you live with that?”
She nods, eyes averted.
“Also, we want to know about Rosemary Carson,” I add.
“Who?” There’s no surprise in her voice, only confusion.
“Fake love letters mysteriously appear, supposedly from Amber to the psychopath,” Marcus says. “And since you’re the queen of fake letters…”
Her eyes widen. “I had nothing to do with those. I swear.” The panic in her voice seems genuine, leaving me unsure what to believe.
“Look—” he scowls at her “—if you’re not telling us the truth and the cops discover you were responsible for all the letters, you could be facing serious time.” We don’t know if it’s true, but we’re betting she doesn’t either.
Tammara pales, her skin a stark contrast to her bright auburn hair. “I’m telling the truth. All I wanted was to scare Amber away so you’d come back to me. I’d never do anything that would cause the killer to be set free.”
At least we agree on something.
Chapter Sixteen
Marcus
“How’re you doing?” I stroke my fingertips along Amber’s spine. She shivers at my touch, and I smile at how she responds to even my smallest gestures. I have almost as much power over her as she does over me. Almost.
Her eyelids drift shut and a small smile curves on her lips. “Mmm.” Her head is on my naked chest—one of my favorite places for it—and her gentle hum vibrates through my heart.
I laugh at her telling nonanswer. She opens her eyes and traces her fingers down each rib and along my stomach muscles.
Reluctantly, I capture her hand. “I know what you’re doing, Kitten, and it’s not gonna work.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, looking away.
Except she does. She was hoping to distract me so we wouldn’t have to talk about what happened earlier in her dorm and how the fucking trial date has been delayed. Her plan worked. She distracted me. Just not for as long as she would have liked.
I let out a heavy breath. “I’m worried about you. You’re supposed to be getting better, but with everything going on, things are getting worse. Your nightmares are getting worse.”
She shifts her body off me and lies on her side, elbow against her pillow. “I’d rather talk about Ryan’s gravestone. You helped me get an A in math. We had a deal. Why won’t you take the money I promised you?” We’ve already gone through this. I didn’t earn it.
“Brittany helped you get the A. That wasn’t part of the deal. And you’re my girlfriend. I can’t accept money from you.”
She gives me a look that warns me what she thinks of my opinion. If my pride had nuts, I don’t doubt that she would knee it there. “Well, if you’re not gonna take it, then we need to figure out another way for you to raise the money, especially since you haven’t been able to work.”
Frank fucked up my job in Chase’s old man’s garage. Until my shoulder is fully healed, Tony doesn’t want to take a chance that I could make the injury worse.
“You could tutor again.” She leans over and teases my lips for a heartbeat, before pulling away a fraction of an inch. “But you better not fall in love with your student this time.”
I grin. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve had my quota. You’re the only girl for me.”
“Glad to hear it.” She smiles at me in the way that makes me both weak and horny.
I roll over and skim my fingers along the curve of her breast. She sucks in a sharp breath. God, can I ever get enough of this woman?
I close my mouth over her nipple and circle it with my tongue. As much as I want to honor my brother for his sacrifices, and the sacrifice that cost him his life, I’d rather spend the day making love to Amber. Making love to her and distracting her from her fears and currently messed up life.
“Marcus,” she moans and my dick is hard and ready for action again.
“Hmm?” I hum against her nipple.
“We could do a fundraiser.” She struggles to get the last word out as I play and suck my way to complete distraction. “Jordan and her parents do…they donate…the proceeds to a charity that…that helps kids deal with domestic abuse.”
I vaguely hear her last words as my lips find hers, and my fingers find another of her body parts to keep me entertained—and render her unable to talk.
Chapter Seventeen
Amber
The bitter wind blows through my winter coat and I shudder. The only thing that will warm me is seeing my friends and Marcus. Coffee wouldn’t hurt either.
I rush to the Student Services Building and buy a large coffee with extra milk and sugar. As I spot Jordan at our usual table, a weird feeling that I’m being watched creeps through me. I swivel around. Unlike outside, where people were more interested in escaping the cold, the Marketplace is filled with curious onlookers, their eyes focused on me.
Even though I have a thick coat on, I wrap my arms around me, preventing them from seeing the real me instead of the image the media has inadvertently painted in their heads. The real me is more likely to break.
I sit across from Jordan and force a grin on my lips. “Hey.”
She gives me a weak smile in return. “I heard about what happened yesterday in your room. Brittany freaked when Becca told her.”
“About which part? That the cops searched our room or about what they found?”
“Probably a little of both.”
I close my eyes for a moment before opening them again. “She hates me, doesn’t she?” We didn’t have a loving relationship when we first became roommates. That was my fault. Well, more like my nightmares’ fault. Things improved when I helped Brittany after she was raped by her now ex-boyfriend, but there’s only so much she can handle before she changes her mind about our friendship. I’m just relieved the cops didn’t find anything she didn’t want them to see.
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s worried about you. We all are.”
“Not everyone is.” My gaze jerks to a nearby table where guys keep checking me out, their perverted thoughts written on their grinning faces. “Anyway, I’m fine.”
She looks at them for a brief moment before powering on. “Is that what you’re saying or what your therapist says?”
Therapy is supposed to make a difference, but even my therapist admitted I’ll experience delays in my recovery due to everything going on. The goal is to keep things from getting too deep.
I sip my coffee and welcome the heat, which is ready to scorch away the chill growing inside me. “She said I’m fine. Anyway, Brittany might not hate me now, but I’ll have to spend more time in our room and less at Marcus’s. Did you hear what his neighbor said about me on the news?”
“Everyone did, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Now everyone thinks Marcus is into violent sex and he isn’t.”
“Marcus is a big boy. He’s not going to care about that. He wants to be with you. And he already had quite the reputation before you guys started dating. What’s one more thing to add to it, even if it isn’t true?”
“What’s this about my reputation?” Marcus asks, sliding onto the chair next to me—minus his sling. Chase joins Jordan and hands her a hot chocolate.
Marcus scowls at the table of guys n
ext to us, who’ve been eyeing me up the entire time. They turn away from us, laughing.
I ignore them and touch his injured arm. “You don’t have to wear your sling anymore?” I say, hoping to distract him from getting into a fight.
“Nope. Got the all clear to stop using it, but I’m supposed to go to physio for a few weeks.” He screws up his nose then places his palm against my lower back. Heat radiates through my body and jolts back memories from last night. In his bed. “So, what’s that about my reputation?” he prompts.
I open my mouth to respond but a newspaper is slammed down hard on the table, narrowly missing my coffee. I startle and my words still in the back of my throat.
“Have you read this yet?” Emma snaps, glaring at the newspaper. Scared to find out what she’s talking about, I can only shake my head.
“According to this—” she stabs the newspaper with her finger “—Melissa told the reporter that she witnessed you and the murderer making out a few weeks before you went missing.”
I open and close my mouth, unable to make a sound. My friends stare at me, waiting for me to say something. Anything.
“She told the reporter she never said anything to Trent because she didn’t want to hurt him. And she said she was even more shocked after Trent’s death, when she saw you again getting all cozy with the murderer.”
The guys at the next table over whisper to each other while watching us. I don’t have to turn to know they aren’t the only ones being entertained.
I want to say something, but I can’t. Numbness fills me as I stare at the paper. I’m back to feeling like that girl from last spring. The girl who had had her whole life ahead of her. The girl who would have one day played college basketball. The girl who dreamed of becoming a vet. The girl who spent two weeks, five days, and eight hours either handcuffed to a wall or curled up on a bed with a kitten who was her sole source of comfort.
The girl who wondered each day if she would live to see the end of it, and who almost didn’t when the man who professed his love set his house on fire. “Don’t worry, Amber. You and I were meant to be together. Forever and ever.” The words ring like funeral bells in my brain. He had it planned all along. My murder. His suicide.
Amber
If only he had doused the house with a flammable liquid, then he would have been nailed for arson and attempted murder. Instead, he made a romantic candle-lit dinner for me, and “accidentally” set the house on fire.
Amber. I blink, then realize the voice isn’t a memory in my head. The numbness slowly recedes until it’s a shadow lingering at the edge, waiting for another chance to push me under.
“Amber.” Marcus touches my face. “What happened?”
I lean into his hand, grounding myself once again, like I did when the cops searched my room yesterday. But I can’t rely on him. I need to learn to ground myself on my own. Eventually he’ll grow tired of the craziness that’s my life and walk away.
He’d be insane not to.
“What happened?” Marcus asks again.
“I’m not sure.” I smile, but judging from the frown on his face, he didn’t buy it. “I’m okay now.” I glance at Emma, ready to explain that it’s all a lie. I never kissed Paul. At least not until my life depended on it.
The anger on her face from earlier is gone. “I know Melissa hates you,” she says, her voice soft against the murmurs around us. “I can’t believe the bitch would do this.”
“Why does she hate you?” Jordan asks.
“She had a thing for my brother,” Emma explains. “It wasn’t mutual and she blamed Amber for that.”
Everyone looks at me, waiting for me to elaborate. “Trent and I were best friends for years before we started dating. I knew she was crushing on him, but then who wasn’t? He was good-looking and sweet and funny.”
Marcus stiffens, and I kick myself. While he tries to act like it doesn’t bother him that Trent is part of my heart—and always will be—I can tell it upsets him whenever I say anything nice about my old boyfriend. I can see it in his eyes. He feels like he’ll never be able to compete with Trent even though Trent’s never coming back.
I reach for his hand and thread my fingers with his, telling him that I love him. Trent will never have my whole heart. Only Marcus has a chance for that.
“Anyway, I started developing feelings for Trent, beyond us being best friends. I should have told Melissa, since we were friends at the time and she had been asking me to set her up with him. But I didn’t. And then out of the blue he kissed me and everything between us changed. To say Melissa was mad would be an understatement.”
Emma makes a face that tells me I’m right, then pulls up a chair from a table behind me as I study the newspaper.
“What the hell am I going to do?” What I want to do is scream. “I’m not sure how much more I can take of this. It’s like everywhere I go, people are watching me and judging me. And I keep getting this weird feeling someone’s stalking me. Am I always going to feel this way? Will I ever feel normal again?”
“It’ll get better, Amber,” Jordan says. “You have to believe that.”
“I don’t know if I can anymore. If I’m the victim, why is everyone treating me like I’m the fucking criminal?”
They all look at me, eyes wide. If I weren’t so upset at everything, I’d laugh at their reaction to my swearing.
Marcus recovers first and lightly squeezes my hand. “Because Paul’s sister is determined to make you into the criminal so her brother goes free.”
Emma turns white and I silently curse him. “Emma, it’s gonna be okay. Paul won’t come after you.”
“How can you be so sure? He killed my brother.”
“He killed Trent because Trent loved me and stood in the way of Paul’s delusions. So unless you plan to make out with me in front of him, I think you’re pretty safe.”
Chase snort laughs.
Jordan shoves his arm. “God, you are such a guy.”
“Glad you’ve noticed,” he says, tone oddly serious before giving her a goofy grin.
While Marcus and Jordan give Chase a hard time, a weird feeling that someone is watching sets me on edge. I glance over my shoulder. No one is looking in my direction, but I still can’t seem to shake my old paranoia.
Chapter Eighteen
Marcus
I enter the Student Services Building, the freezing air still clinging to me. I survey the open area and spot Amber. I’m about to call her name, to stop her before she disappears into the Counseling Center for her weekly appointment with her therapist, when I spot a guy checking her out from several yards away. He pretends to read a brochure he picked up someplace, but his spy skills need a lot more work.
Even before her name was splashed on the news and she became a “celebrity” on campus, guys have paid attention to her. It’s hard not to. She’s beautiful, especially because she doesn’t see herself that way. And that innocence about her appeals to me—and every other guy.
But something about this guy unnerves me.
She strides down the hallway. The guy places the brochure on a table and walks after her.
And I follow him.
He stops when she gets close to her therapist’s office and he whips out a small camera. What the fuck? Before he can take a photo, I grab hold of his arm. Amber pulls the Counseling Center door open and steps inside, not once turning around.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I ask, glaring at him. He’s a good several inches shorter than me and his muscles have never been introduced to weights.
“It’s none of your business.” He yanks his arm from my hand.
“Well, since that’s my girlfriend you were planning to take a photo of without her consent, I’m making it my business.”
“I wasn’t gonna take a picture of her. I-I was gonna take a picture of the Counseling Center.”
“Bullshit. I saw you back there.” I point in the direction we came from. “I saw you check her out and I saw
you stalk her. Now tell me the truth or she’ll be filing for a restraining order against you. And that’s gonna make your life real tough if you really are a student here.” I’m bluffing. I have no idea if Amber can get a restraining order unless she can prove this isn’t a onetime event. But since she complained the other day that she felt as though someone was stalking her, I suspect this isn’t the first time he’s followed her.
The guy holds his hands up. “Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you. I’m a journalism major. She’s a hot topic right now and I figured a different angle on the story would be great for my portfolio. It’s not like I’m hurting her.”
“She’s a person, not a hot topic,” I growl, my face inches from his. I can smell the fear seeping from him. “And you don’t have the right to harass her.”
“You’re wrong. I have the First Amendment backing me.”
“The First Amendment doesn’t give you the right to harass her, asshole.”
“I’m not harassing her. The public has the right to know if an innocent man is being convicted for a crime he never committed.”
Something inside me detonates in a series of explosions and I shove the jerk against the wall. “The psychopath is not an innocent man. He killed two people and nearly killed her.”
“Some people don’t believe that. They believe your girlfriend is guilty, not Paul Carson.”
I slam him against the wall again. “You don’t even know what the fuck you’re saying.” I’m ready to keep smashing him against the wall until he finally realizes Amber’s the victim.
“Let him go, son,” a man says behind me.
Still holding on to the asshat, I look over my shoulder and groan. My hands drop away from the guy and I turn to face campus security.
“He assaulted me for no reason,” Asshat says.
“He’s stalking my girlfriend,” I counter. “And taking photos of her.”
The man looks from me to Asshat. “I don’t have time for this. If you’re serious about the stalking, then you can file a report with campus police.”
Let Me Know Page 12
