And then she became just as invested as he was in tracking down the families of the missing girls. While it was true that a few wanted nothing to do with them—and there was more than one door slammed in their face—the few people who did care made it worth it.
One was an East Indian woman in her late twenties who said she’d had to put her daughter in foster care because her parents had kicked her and the baby out of the house when they found out the baby’s father was a white man.
She cried when she saw pictures of her daughter and then cried harder when she heard about the girl’s murder.
“Please tell me where she is buried,” she said.
“That’s the thing,” Jill said gently, “We weren’t sure where to put her.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “I’ll take her. There’s a cemetery down the road. I want her there. I want her there by me. So I can visit.”
The death notifications were emotionally exhausting in every way. But at the end, when the last notification had been done, Harris felt good.
He’d done his job.
He’d done his best by those girls.
And that’s what mattered.
35
Present Day
Australia
Rose ended up staying in hospital for ten days, a few days longer than she’d thought she needed to be there. But the doctor had wanted to make sure the stitches were healed and that she’d run a full course of strong antibiotics through an IV.
The first few days, Rose had slept most of the time, which surprised her. She hadn’t realized her body needed it so badly.
Tilly and Tom came to visit every day, bringing flowers and food.
One time they’d even snuck Dylan in to see her.
The first day they’d visited, Rose had been touched but hadn’t been able to help looking excitedly behind them for a certain dark-haired young man with piercing blue eyes.
But Damon never showed.
Tilly and Tom didn’t mention him, which Rose found odd.
She didn’t want to admit it, but it felt like a slight that he didn’t visit.
The closest they came to addressing it was one night that Tilly mentioned she had to drop by and pick up some surfboard wax for Damon on the way home.
Rose had looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
Tilly said quickly, “Damon has a thing about hospitals.”
Rose looked away. She didn’t give a fuck about that. If he was her friend, he should have come to visit. Period. That was all there was too it.
Finally, Rose was discharged.
She agreed to rest at Tilly’s house for at least two more months before attempting to leave Australia. She would have a checkup every two weeks and then the doctor would decide if she was done with care.
“A wound like this doesn’t heal overnight. I’ve heard you surf. None of that. At least not until I give you the all clear.”
Rose agreed, but privately thought she would do whatever the hell she wanted as soon as she was released from hospital.
Finally, that day came.
Tom and Tilly were there to get her when she was discharged.
They took her out to a restaurant in town to celebrate. They all had scallops and oysters and red wine by candlelight. Again, Rose was disappointed that Damon hadn’t come.
When they got back to the stone house it was dark. Tilly had walked her down to the guest house and waited in the doorway until she’d crawled into the nice clean sheets of her bed, exhausted from the excitement after so many days lying in bed doing nothing.
She felt like she could sleep for a week.
When she’d passed Damon’s room, his door had been wide open, and the moonlight shone down on an empty bed.
It made her sad. So much for a special connection between them. She’d been fooling herself. Wishful thinking.
It felt like she’d only been asleep a second when a noise woke her. She sat up in bed, startled.
There was a dark figure in the doorway. She immediately recognized Damon’s familiar form and relaxed.
“Hey,” she said in a soft voice, sitting up and hugging her knees.
“Rose….” His voice broke a little. She didn’t answer.
He tried again, “I thought…I thought I’d lost you. I couldn’t bear to see you like that.”
Rose still didn’t answer. She was still pissed off about it.
“The longer I didn’t go see you, the weirder it seemed. I have a thing about hospitals. A phobia. But that’s no excuse. I have no excuse for it. I grilled Tom and Tilly every night when they came home about how you were. I’ve been a fucking mess since the second I heard you were hurt. God knows, it took every bit of my willpower not to just get fucked up, so I didn’t have to worry about you. Can you forgive me?”
In a second, he was at the bed, and she was in his arms. His mouth was on hers and his hands were in her hair. She grabbed him and pulled him on top of her, her need so fierce she was gasping.
“Am I hurting you?” he said drawing back. “Your injuries, I mean.”
She didn’t answer, just pulled his head toward her and kissed him even more passionately.
A strangled sound came out of his mouth.
Later, at dawn, they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms. After making love, they’d talked all night long, revealing themselves—their hopes, fears, dreams—to each other.
Rose fell asleep thinking she’d only been this happy once before…but she shook away that thought.
It was not the same. With Timothy, even if it hadn’t happened right after they made love, the Sultan would have made sure Timothy died one way or the other.
After a year of feeling guilty, Rose had finally realized that nothing she could have done would have prevented Timothy’s murder.
And this was different. The Sultan was gone. With a nice scar on his face to remember her by. He was far away by now. At least that’s what the authorities had promised her.
Nothing would happen to Damon. She would not let him leave her bed. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
36
Present Day
Australia
For the next three months, Damon and Rose were together constantly.
After they made love the first night, they spent every night after that in each other’s beds, exploring each other’s bodies, but also confiding their deepest and darkest secrets.
Rose realized quickly that she was falling in love. Even though she’d shared most of the same things with Timothy, she hadn’t ever showed him her darkest side. She’d been too afraid he would reject her. When she’d shared herself with Timothy, they’d been best friends, not lovers, and she’d completely rejected her life as an assassin.
But she told Damon she had killed and would gladly kill again.
Damon had his own demons. In return for her openness, he told her his secrets, his regrets, his downfalls, and shortcomings. He told her the real reason he’d come to Australia.
He’d had a girlfriend he wanted to marry. She’d stood him up on their wedding day.
He’d gone off a bender that lasted four days.
His parents were beside themselves looking for him. They stayed awake for days passing out fliers and talking to local media, saying there was no way he’d leave like that on his own.
His parent’s faith in his ability to be a good son had devastated him. He’d let them down in the worst sort of way.
He went from being shitfaced, black-out drunk all the time to shooting up heroin.
The only reason he’d been found was that the girl he’d been shooting up with had overdosed. She had been lying dead by his side for more than a day when someone else found them in the flop house and called 911. He’d been too fucked up to even realize she was dead. He’d been arrested.
That’s how his frantic parents found out where he was.
They bailed him out and told him he’d have to figure out how to get clean and sober.
He checked himself into s
ober living, and the day he got out, he hopped on a plane to Australia.
For some reason, knowing that Damon had faced his own demons made their relationship that much stronger. Rose felt more comfortable showing him all sides of her. She’d never been so completely transparent with someone in her life.
They couldn’t bear to be apart. Rose drove him to his sobriety meetings and read a book in a park while she waited.
Once a week, she swung by police headquarters with a fancy coffee for Inspector Harris.
The guy was a coffee snob.
Sometimes they talked about the Family. The trial was starting soon. Rose was going to testify for the prosecution.
But mostly, they talked about the Sultan and how he needed to be stopped.
“I’ve been looking at some missing girls in the Bahamas,” Rose said one day.
Harris smiled. “I was just about to say something about that.”
Rose smiled back. “What do you think?”
Harris sighed and said, “Could be his MO.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
“Wouldn’t be a bad place to visit.”
“I have an idea,” Rose said. “You and Jill could go there for your honeymoon.”
“Whoa!” Harris said, leaning back in his chair and putting up his palm. “Easy now.”
Rose burst into laughter.
But then Harris mumbled. “Might be worth a trip out there, though.”
Rose agreed. But right then she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Damon.
It was embarrassing, and she would never say it out loud.
How could being with a boy be more important than hunting down and killing Timothy’s killer? Even thinking it felt like blasphemy.
But her life was so good right then she didn’t want to jinx it.
Back at the stone house, it felt like a real family lived there.
Tilly and Tom had never been happier.
It seemed like it was going to go on that way forever, but one night as Damon carried their surfboards up the beach toward the steps, Rose plopped hers down and sat on it, facing the sea.
“What is it?” Damon said. “I told you to wait before you surfed. What if you’re not healed.”
Rose smiled. He was so protective of her. “I’m fine. The doctor cleared me. Plus, I was really careful and mellow out there.”
“Good,” Damon said and looped an arm around her. “What is it?”
Rose exhaled loudly before answering. He was not going to like the answer.
“I have to find him.”
“You can’t just let it go, can you?” Damon said.
“I can’t,” she said. “In a way, when I first met you, I thought maybe I could. But I can’t.”
It was so strange being with Damon. He knew everything about her. Every horrible thing she’d ever gone through. Even the fact that she was a trained assassin. And he still wanted her. He still wanted to be around her. He still looked at her with this tenderness that melted her heart.
Now, he nodded.
“You’ll find him. I know it.”
“You do?” she said. “You believe that?”
“Yes. You will do whatever you set your mind to, Rose. I know it.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For believing in me.”
He didn’t answer. He sighed and looked out to the sea. She examined his face, trying to make out his expression in the dark.
“I feel like we’re in sort of a happy purgatory right now,” he finally said.
That made sense to Rose.
“I have to go back to Florida soon. The fall semester is going to start. I’m enrolled in the nursing program.”
Rose swallowed her disappointment. She hadn’t realized he’d made a decision.
“Good,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You’re going to make a great nurse.”
“Thanks.”
They were both silent for a second.
“Hey,” he said suddenly standing. “Maybe you could come with me?”
Rose smiled. “Really?”
“Yeah. Of course. I’m going to rent a place off campus. And if you are based there, you can check out those rumors about the Sultan in the Bahamas. Florida is just a hop skip and a jump from there.”
“Hmmm,” Rose said. “That might work.”
“See?” Damon said beaming.
“When do you leave.”
He looked down. “Next week.”
“What?” Why didn’t you say something?”
“God, Rose. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying not to think about it. And I’ve been trying to get up the balls to ask you to come too, frankly.”
She instantly forgave him for not saying something sooner.
“I’ve got to stay and testify in the trail. I can be there about a week after you.”
“Perfect,” Damon said “That will give me time to get our place all settled.”
As they walked back up the stairs to the house, Rose looked around with a bittersweet feeling. She’d been so happy here. But she’d known it couldn’t last forever.
Epilogue
Later
Miami Beach, Florida
A song was playing at the beachside café that made Rose freeze, the smile instantly dissolving on her face.
The waiter had just delivered her meal—a salad with charred shrimp and a small ball of gorgonzola on greens scattered with candied nuts. Her fork had just dug in for the second bite when the lyrics of the song sunk in.
The woman was singing about a boy who was a train wreck and someone to avoid—until he smiled. And then Oh my god, he was so beautiful when he smiled that it hurt her heart.
Damon.
He’d invited her here—to Florida—and then disappeared.
When her plane had landed, she texted him.
She’d lost her phone on the way to the airport in the chaos to make her flight. When the flight was delayed, she’d bought another one at a booth in one of the terminals, so he didn’t have her new number. She’d texted him from the airplane in Australia saying that she had a new number, but he hadn’t responded.
She texted him again while waiting for her luggage.
Nothing.
She wasn’t overly concerned. They’d just spoken the day before. Something must have come up. He was probably trying to reach her at her old number.
It was only then she realized she’d never gotten the address to his place.
Rose called Tilly and Tom but hung up when she remembered they had gone to visit Tom’s elderly parents for the weekend. And besides, who knew what time of night it was there. She still hadn’t figured out the time difference.
She took a cab to a hotel and fell asleep immediately with Dylan’s head on the pillow by hers.
When she woke, it was night. She tried Damon’s number again. Then she realized he might be at work.
He’d said he was waiting tables at a fancy restaurant in Palm Beach. He probably was in the middle of a shift. Damn. She couldn’t remember the name of the place he’d said or she’d show up to surprise him.
It was then she realized she’d spent the last twenty-four hours making excuses for him.
The reality was, he should have been at the airport to greet her. She’d given him her flight information.
She was starting to become concerned. What if something awful had happened to him?
She called Tilly and Tom again. It went straight to voice mail. She didn’t leave a message, not wanting to alarm them. If they’d heard something, they would have called. They had her new number.
She got on social media, something she normally avoided. She had to set up an account to access it. Once she did, it wasn’t tough to find him. He had a Facebook profile. But he didn’t post there.
However, searching his name brought up something very interesting. He’d been tagged in a picture. By a girl. He had one arm slung around her and was looking down at her, his face close to hers.
His other hand held a bottle of booze. The girl gazed into the camera with what Rose could only call a smug-fucking look. The caption said, “Partying like it’s 1999 with my hot as fuck boyfriend.”
Rose looked at the date on the post. It had been the night before. The night her flight had arrived. What the fuck?
It stung. Badly. For a while Rose stared into the distance at the sun dipping low on the horizon. The sounds of conversation and silverware on dinner plates faded into the background.
Instead, all she could see or hear was the crashing waves outside the house on the point and the dark silhouette of Damon entering her bedroom that night after she’d thought he’d never come. Then came snapshots of memories of the night with him cradling her in his arms and both of them sharing their deepest and darkest fears and heartaches.
After a few seconds, Rose shook these memories away. She inhaled deeply and stood, leaving cash on the table beside her mostly untouched salad.
Outside the sidewalk café, she squared her shoulders and strode off in the direction of the harbor with Dylan at her heels.
The betrayal hurt like hell.
But a slow smile spread across her face.
It had taken a heart-wrenching photo to make her realize something she’d been denying for a while.
She loved Damon. Fiercely, fully, passionately loved him.
And she was grateful as fuck about it.
For a long time, she’d thought she’d never be able to care for anyone else after Timothy was murdered.
But holy fuck had she loved Damon. Still did.
And it was okay. It hurt so bad to see him destroying himself, but it didn’t take away from the realization that she loved him.
Tonight, she would hunt down the lead on the Sultan.
Tomorrow, she would go find Damon.
Her loyalty was not fly by night.
When she loved someone, it was for the long haul.
She’d given her heart to him. If he wanted it or not. Because really, it didn’t even matter if Damon loved her back. She loved him and so she would find him and do everything in her power to help him get back on track. Even if meant they would never see or speak to each other again. As long as he got help before he ended up dead. That’s all that mattered. Not her heart or her feelings.
Blood & Fire (Vigilante Crime Series Book 2) Page 13
