Watching Their Steps

by Alana Terry

  “He asked if I would enjoy having my toenails painted. A pale peach color, because he was quite fond of peaches.” She rolled her eyes. “He probably cancelled the first date so he could give his mother a foot massage,” she grumbled. “Seriously . . . that’s the kind of guy you find sniffing your shoes when you walk in the room. That is just . . . too much for me.”

  She tried to be bitter about it, but the absurdity of it was just too much to ignore, and we spiraled into an uncontrollable laughing fit. After everything that had happened, it felt refreshing just to laugh.

  “Feet,” I gasped as the moment faded and I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I couldn’t remember the last time joy had brought me to tears. I dropped to my knees on the floor next to Jace as she dried her own face. “Do you think he goes to shoe stores in his spare time and fondles the shoes?” I asked.

  Another laugh bubbled out of Jace, and she struggled to control it. “Stop, just stop,” she pleaded. “My sides hurt.” She picked up her eight of spades and tried to find the mate through tear-glazed eyes. I gave her a moment to look and then pointed to the correct card. She flipped it to find the eight of clubs. “Stop doing that,” she protested, but she was laughing when she said it.

  “You’re terrible at this game. Maybe you should quit while you’re ahead.”

  She stuck her nose in the air and adopted an atrocious English accent as she declared, “I eschew that kind of talk.” A quiet squeak of amusement escaped me at her “shoe” pun.

  A loud knock at the door drew our laughter to an abrupt close. The heavy weight of reality settled over the room as I gathered my legs beneath me and walked into the kitchen.

  “Oh, could you toss me my root beer?”

  I grabbed the nearly empty bottle off the table and tossed it to her before climbing back on my chair to see who was at the door. Officer Meredith stood outside on the patio, his expression pinched.

  We’d disturbed him with our laughter.

  I opened the door and his beady eyes swept over the apartment suspiciously. He looked down at me and asked, “I heard a lot of noise. Is everything okay in here?”

  I tried to stop myself, but I just couldn’t help it. I had to say it. “No worries, Officer. Nothing is afoot.”

  Jace choked and spewed her root beer all over the floor behind me. I bit down on my lips to contain the laugh tickling the back of my throat.

  Officer Meredith’s beady eyes narrowed as the joke breezed past him. “Okay. I’ll be right out front if you need me.”

  I closed the door, locked it, and dropped back against it with a quiet laugh.

  “I can’t believe you pulled out the word afoot,” Jace said.

  I pushed away from the door and walked back into the living room. “At least I didn’t say eschew. Who says that?” I sat back down on the floor with her and crossed my legs, eyeing the spread of cards as she tried to line up her next pair. “So . . . Sam, huh?”

  She blushed. “I don’t know. He’s cute, but you’re right about the no-nonsense thing. I wonder if he even understands jokes.” She pulled up the edge of a card and peeked at it before setting it back down with a frown. “And then there’s the fact that he’s a cop, which is a major drawback.”

  Jace didn’t share my dislike of law enforcement, so I wasn’t sure I understood her meaning.

  She sighed and there was a seriousness to her face that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “I know he’s not interested in me. But what if I let myself like him and he . . . ends up like Jacob?”

  My insides twisted with regret. “I worry about that too.”

  “They’re supposed to worry about you, not the other way around.”

  I shrugged and tapped a card. She flipped it over and gave me a flat look. She picked it up and set it aside with the matching card before drawing another.

  “I don’t really understand how you’re holding it together,” she said. “You’re always protected, but he seems to be able to get to you anyway. Doesn’t that scare you?”

  It terrified me. “A little.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I have to remember,” I told her as I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “He’s in there somewhere.”

  “He who?”

  “The man who’s doing all this.”

  “Have you told Marx about your memory problems?”

  I returned the flat stare she’d given me earlier. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because if the killer is from that forgotten part of your life, he needs to know. Your lack of memory is a huge curveball for his investigation. You should tell him.”

  I had already given Marx Collin’s name. How many more secrets would I have to share before this was all over?

  “I know how hard it is for you to share private things, but I think Marx is trustworthy. I don’t think he’ll judge you or broadcast your secrets to the world. He’s just trying to help you.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded.

  There was another knock at the door, but it was quieter than before, as if the person on the other side of the door was making an effort not to startle me. I only knew two people who would take that much care.

  “Holly, it’s Marx.”

  Fear fluttered through my stomach. He shouldn’t have been back this soon. He’d only left a week ago to track down Collin. Something must have happened.

  I walked to the door slowly and unbolted it. I peered at Marx through the crack. “Why are you back so soon?”

  “May we come in?”

  I glanced beyond his shoulder to see Sam. Sam wasn’t on duty for a few more hours, and it was strange to see him in street clothes.

  I stepped back to let them in. Their grim expressions made me wonder if someone else had died. I leaned to see past them into the yard. Nope, Officer Statue was still present and accounted for.

  “Ms. Walker,” Marx greeted.

  Jace froze for just an instant when she saw Sam come through the door in his street clothes. He looked entirely different in a sweater and jeans.

  The expression on Jace’s face told me Sam had just moved up the rank from cute to something more in her mind. Great. Now I would worry even more about him dying. Because I needed that pressure . . .

  “Holly.” Sam greeted me with a nod.

  “Sam,” I replied, trying to mimic his flat, deep voice.

  A ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

  “I need a word with Holly alone,” Marx said.

  Jace glanced at me with uncertainty. She didn’t want to leave me alone with what was apparently going to be bad news. “It’s fine,” I said after a moment of hesitation. If we were going to discuss Collin, I didn’t want her here.

  “I’ll make sure she gets home safely,” Sam announced.

  Jace looked at me again, her eyes a little wider this time. I gestured for her to be on her way with the cute but perpetually grumpy officer. To my surprise, she let him help her up the ramp.

  Before Sam pulled the door shut, I saw Jace mouth the words, “Tell him.”

  I watched Marx with apprehension as he dropped a folder onto the table and stripped out of his coat. He hung it on the back of the metal chair. He was moving with purposeful slowness, and I recognized the tactic. He was either avoiding an uncomfortable subject or delaying in order to give himself time to think.

  I slid my hands into my back pockets and searched his face for the information he was stalling to give me. “Well?”

  He opened the folder and slid a picture toward me. Fear squeezed my lungs as I stared down at the close-up shot of a man seated at a café table.

  Collin looked exactly as I remembered him: pale features, black hair, and eyes as hollow as chips of ice. That was the face that haunted my dreams.

  I hastily flipped the picture face down on the table and took a few steps back. I knew his evil couldn’t seep through the photograph into the room, but I still didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

  “Where . . . where did y
ou find him?” My voice quivered, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t just my voice; my entire body was shaking.

  Marx’s eyes softened with sympathy. “He’s in New York.”

  Chapter 19

  THE SHOCK OF THAT NEWS knocked the breath out of me. New York. Collin was closer than I thought. Even with the information floating around in the police database, I’d expected it to take him longer to find me.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. There was no easy way to break that news to you,” Marx said. “It looks like he’s been in New York for less than two weeks.”

  I stared at him, feeling a bit dazed. “How f-far away is he?”

  He hesitated. “About two hours from here.”

  “Two . . .” Fear choked my voice. I pressed my hands to my abdomen and tried not to sink into the panic pooling in my stomach. Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe . . .

  Memories of the last time he caught me flooded through me, and I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. I fought back the urge to vomit all over the floor. I knew what would happen if he found me again. Even if my mind tried to forget, my body always remembered.

  “I-I have to go.”

  I rushed to the bed and fished my travel bag out from under it. I started stuffing clothes into it with practiced quickness. This process had become so familiar to me that it was almost comforting, and I could probably do it in my sleep.

  I wouldn’t get far on foot, but I could at least put enough distance between me and this place that I would be okay for the night.

  “Go where?” Marx asked.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere . . .” I might have said safe, but there was no such place. “Somewhere he can’t find me.” I wasn’t sure that place existed either.

  “You don’t have to run.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then help me to. Holly . . .” I heard his heavy sigh of frustration as I went into the bathroom to grab my brush and toiletries. “If you walk out that door, you’re not just abandonin’ your friend, you’re forfeitin’ your life. There’s a killer out there huntin’ you. You’re not gonna get very far.”

  I stilled at the mention of my friend Jace. She meant the world to me, and it would break her heart if I left. She wouldn’t understand. I had never intended to befriend her because I knew, inevitably, this moment would come, and now I was reluctant to give her up.

  But this was how I survived. It was how I had always survived. My head and my body knew what to do in this situation, but my heart was struggling to accept it.

  I sank onto the edge of the tub and stared at the items in my hands with indecision. What was I supposed to do?

  God, I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what to do.

  I looked up when Marx appeared in the doorway. I just stared at him, too lost to figure out what to say or do. He crouched down so we were at eye level. “It’s gonna be all right, Holly.”

  I tried to hold back the tears as I admitted hopelessly, “I’m scared.”

  “I know,” he said in an exceedingly gentle voice. “And I know that when you’re scared you run. You’ve been runnin’ all your life—from one foster home to another, from one state to the next to avoid this man. You deserve a better life than that.”

  The tears spilled down my cheeks against my will as I choked out, “If I stay, he’ll hurt Jace. He’ll hurt her to make me suffer.”

  “We won’t let that happen.”

  “You can’t stop it from happening.”

  “Watch me,” he said with intense determination. “If or when he comes for you, Sam and I will be here to give him a very warm welcome.” His eyes implored me to trust him, and I wanted to.

  I didn’t want to run anymore. My spirit was so weary from moving from place to place and always looking over my shoulder. I was pretty sure the only glue holding me together was God. Without Him, I would’ve given up and fallen to pieces long ago.

  “I made you a promise, Holly, that I would keep you safe to the best of my ability, and I intend to keep it. That doesn’t involve you runnin’ off.” He held out his hands to me. “Please at least give me a chance to keep you safe.”

  I looked down at the bottle of shampoo and the hairbrush in my hands as I wrestled with whether to trust him or to trust the path I knew. He was asking me to take a huge leap of faith, to put not only my life in his hands but also Jace’s.

  I forced out a slow, quivering breath and then reluctantly placed the items into Marx’s waiting hands. His lips twitched with a barely restrained smile, and I realized he’d intended for me to put my hands in his, not the shampoo and hairbrush.

  “Good enough,” he said as he stood and set them back on the sink.

  A quiet knock on the door startled me.

  “It’s just Sam,” he informed me as he strode out of the bathroom. “I told him we would need ten minutes or so. I knew it wasn’t gonna be an easy conversation. I also wanted your permission before I fill him in.” When I drew in a breath to argue, he clarified, “No personal information. But you and Jace will be a lot safer if he at least knows the basics.”

  Sam didn’t strike me as the kind of man who passed along information lightly, but telling another person about Collin still made me nervous. “Okay.”

  “Come in, Sam!”

  The front door opened slowly and Sam stepped partway through the doorway. He glanced around cautiously, and his eyes snagged on me with a glimmer of concern.

  I had wiped away the sheen of tears before coming out of the bathroom, but my eyes were probably still puffy, and the tip of my nose had the irritating habit of turning as pink as a radish when I cried.

  That wasn’t embarrassing at all . . .

  “Everything okay?” Sam asked.

  Marx nodded. “Shut the door.”

  Sam obeyed and then walked to the kitchen table. I stayed by the wall near my bed, craving the comfort and security of space.

  Marx pulled two wallet-sized photos out of the folder on the table and handed them to Sam. “This is the man I went to investigate in connection with this case.”

  “Did you find any evidence that he’s our killer?”

  Marx sighed. “At most he’s five eleven. Our killer has a significant size advantage. I did notice him dinin’ in a restaurant . . . with a redhead,” he added with a glance at me. I stiffened. “Holly is his type, but he wasn’t in New York at the time she found the note card taped to her door, or durin’ the assault in the park when Jimmy was murdered.”

  “So he’s not our guy.”

  “In this instance, no.”

  Sam stared intently at the picture of Collin. “In this instance,” he repeated, picking up on Marx’s careful wording. “In what instance is he our guy?”

  “His name is Collin Wells,” Marx explained. “He’s in no way connected to this case, but he’s very much a physical threat. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his way here, and if he so much as breathes in Holly’s direction, arrest him. We’ll work out the details later.”

  Sam’s black eyebrows knitted together, and he turned his attention to me. He studied me as if he were trying to figure out just how the man was a threat to me.

  “Okay,” he finally said, returning his attention to Marx. “I’ll make sure Mer gets one of these.” He slid the pictures into the back pocket of his jeans. “So what do we know about the killer then?”

  Marx rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “I just cleared our only suspect. None of her clients or their significant others are involved. We’re back to square one.”

  Jace was right. I needed to tell them about my memory, because the answer might be in there somewhere. I didn’t want to part with that secret, because I was almost positive they would think I was crazy.

  “You said he has a significant size advantage. How significant?” Sam asked.

  “The Crime Scene Unit lifted a boot print from outside Holly’s window: a size thirteen carpenter boot. Given the depth of the print and t
he soil saturation, they estimated the man’s weight at about two-fifteen to two-thirty, and we know he’s approximately six four.”

  Sam let out a low whistle. “So not a lightweight then.”

  “No.”

  Sam stepped closer to Marx and leaned in to whisper, “What are your thoughts on training Holly how to use a gun?”

  “That there isn’t enough time to teach her to be comfortable with it, and it’s more likely to be used against her,” Marx answered without hesitation. “Why?”

  Sam glanced discreetly over his shoulder at me and then said in a voice so quiet I wasn’t meant to hear, “I wouldn’t bet on either of us in an unarmed fight with this guy. If he gets his hands on her and she doesn’t have a weapon, there’s no way she doesn’t end up dead.”

  I flinched at the unmistakable certainty in his voice.

  “We’re not talkin’ about this in front of her,” Marx said, and there was a distinctly angry edge to his voice. “Holly, we’ll be right back.” He pushed away from the table, and Sam followed him out the front door, closing it behind him.

  I puffed out a breath and walked over to my bed. I began pulling the packed items back out of the bag and putting them back where they belonged.

  I considered how I might approach the topic of my memory loss. I didn’t want to just walk outside and shout, “I have no memories!” But subtlety wasn’t exactly my forte.

  I knew no matter how rational the speech sounded in my head, I was going to sound like a lunatic when I put it into words. I just needed to get it over with.

  I put the last of my things away and walked back into the kitchen, pausing by the front door when I heard the two men talking.

  “Because she knows more than she’s saying,” Sam said, and his frustration added just a pinch of inflection to his normally monotone voice.

  “I realize she’s not forthcomin’ about everythin’, but she has her reasons,” Marx replied.

  There was a moment of silence before Sam sighed, “Look, I like Holly. She’s one of those irrationally caring people . . . and she’s also a little frustrating. I understand that you wanna protect her. So do I. But she’s endangering everyone, including herself, by withholding information.”