by Liz Bradford
When they finally went in at 3:30 the secretary informed them she was in a meeting, so they waited longer. Adam’s insides were fumbling all over themselves in anticipation of seeing Ella. He didn’t know how she would react. It had been too long, and he had no idea if she still hated him.
Ella smiled. The meeting with Aidan’s parents had gone beautifully. They were all on the same page as to how to help the boy succeed this school year. She sang “Blessed Assurance,” one of her all-time favorite hymns, and erased the white board. But she was interrupted by a knock at her door. She turned and found Amelia Johnson, Molly’s mom, standing in the door way.
“Amelia, come on in. Molly is doing fantastic.” Ella turned towards her desk. As she turned, she noticed a man come in behind Amelia and assumed it was Caleb. She grabbed a paper off her desk. “Molly did great on her math paper today! Didn’t miss a one…” Her voice trailed off as she locked eyes with Adam Jamison’s. Her entire body went rigid. She quickly broke his gaze and looked at Amelia. “But I’m guessing that you aren’t here to talk about Molly if he’s with you.” The disdain in her voice surprised her.
“We need to talk to you about something.” Amelia motioned to the table at the back of the classroom. “Can we sit down?”
“Just tell me Amelia.” She was starting to tremble. Why were they here? She couldn’t even imagine, but she had a bad feeling about it.
“Ella, really, we should sit.”
“No, just tell me!” She pressed her heel into the floor fighting the urge to stomp her foot on the floor.
“Well,” Amelia took a step closer, but Adam hung back.
Ella couldn’t even bring herself to look at him again.
Amelia rubbed the palm of her hand. “Ella, we were handed a file this afternoon, and it was yours.”
Ella closed her eyes, and Molly’s paper dropped from her hand.
“We believe your attacker is back in town.”
Sheer terror coursed through her body. Ella shook, her breathing erratic. Her worst nightmare was coming true.
“Let’s sit.” Adam’s strong voice surprised her; the boyish tenor she remembered had become a rich baritone.
She nodded and headed to the table at the back of the classroom. She sank into one of the chairs, and Amelia and Adam each sat in a chair on either side of her. She gripped the table in front of her. Her world was crashing down. Not only did Amelia now know about her past, now Adam did, too. The very thing she had kept a secret for so long… she knew Adam would put the pieces together.
“Elly, breathe.” She looked up at Adam. She hadn’t heard that nickname in ages; he was the only one who ever called her that. She closed her eyes and obeyed, taking several deep breaths and slowly letting them out.
“Office Max. He killed someone?” She looked at Amelia.
“Yes, he killed a young girl that he had raped a few days earlier. But he’s also killed one of his victims from seventeen years ago,” Amelia said.
Adam put his hand on the table near hers, so she pulled her hands into her lap. It was impossible to miss the hurt and regret that flashed across his face.
“Ella, we want to keep you safe,” Amelia said.
“Security at my apartment is pretty tight.” Her voice came out more confident that she expected. Because even though it was secure, she wasn’t sure she’d feel safe anywhere right now.
“Ella, that’s not enough.” Amelia folded her hands on the table.
Where could she stay? It’s not like I would stay with Adam. Where did that thought come from? “I guess I could stay with my parents.”
Adam replied, “No, Ella, they still live in the house you grew up in. He’d be able to find you there.”
“I already talked to Caleb, if you are okay with it, we’d like you to stay with us.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a—”
“Keeping a friend safe could never be a burden.”
“Okay.” Ella tried to process all that was happening. She feared the flashbacks that were likely to come back at the news of her attacker being back. He was supposed to be dead in a ditch somewhere, not still alive and still taking victims.
“Are you ready to go? We can go back to your place and pack a bag and then go to my house.”
“No. There’s no way I’m going to be able to teach tomorrow. I need to prep for a sub and let the office know.”
“That makes sense,” Amelia asked. “Would you like me to go talk to the office, while you do what you need to?”
“Yes, that would help. Maybe they won’t ask you questions.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.” Amelia got up and left the room, but Ella just sat there next to Adam, unable to move.
“Ella, I had no idea,” Adam finally spoke.
She waved a hand at him. “Don’t, Adam.” That gave her the motivation she needed to get up and go to her desk. She started pulling things together for a sub and making notes. Initially, Adam stayed at the table but eventually wandered to the front of the room and leaned against one of the student desks in the front row and watched her.
She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. Her hair was normally very unruly, but she had managed to get up early enough to straighten it this morning, but now she just wanted it up in a ponytail. She searched her desk, her purse, her school bag. Finally, she found a hair tie and pulled her hair up.
As she finished her last note to the sub, Amelia came back into the room. “Wow, I’m glad you let me tell them. They asked me a ton of questions, of which I answered very little. I can only imagine how hard they would have been on you.”
“Especially since I would have had a hard time just saying, ‘I don’t feel well.’”
Amelia and Ella exchanged a brief smile. At least it was Amelia that was here and not another detective.
They headed to her apartment, leaving Ella’s car at the school. She rode in the backseat of the unmarked police sedan while Adam drove. Adam pulled into a parking spot near her building and turned to Ella, “I’m going to go up and check it out first, just in case, all right?”
“Okay.” She handed him her keys. It was a little weird to think about Adam going into her apartment without her. She quickly thought through how she had left it that morning. Not too bad, as far as she could recall. Adam exited the car and went into the building.
Amelia turned to her, “How are you holding up?”
“Okay for now, I guess. I know it will catch up to me eventually though.”
“Know that I’m here for you. I may be the detective on the case, but I’m your friend first.”
“I know, thank you, Amelia.” Tears nearly pooled in her eyes, but she was able to blink them away.
Amelia’s phone rang. “All clear for us to come up?” She asked without even saying hello.
Ella could hear Adam’s answer, and the fear in his voice, even though the phone was up to Amelia’s ear. “No! Don’t get out of the car. I already called it in. CSU is on their way. Can you find someone to get Ella, maybe see if Caleb or Jared can come get her? I’m going to need you up here.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“You’ll have to see it, but not Ella. You can get her stuff for her. She is NOT to come up here.”
“Yes, sir.” Amelia hung up and turned to Ella.
Ella stared out the front of the car. All air drained from her lungs. What on earth happened up there? She was officially scared out of her mind. She blinked her eyes and tried to keep her mind in the present despite the tunnel threatening to close in on her.
“Ella, Caleb’s at work, so I’m going to call Jared, and see if he can come get you, okay?”
Ella nodded. She kind of knew Jared and Becca from church. Becca had always seemed intimidating but nice enough. Jared and Becca were cops, so at the very least Ella knew she could trust them with her safety.
She remained in a fog of fear as squad cars and a CSU, or crime scene unit, van pulled into her parking lot. Jared pulled up next to
them. Ella followed Amelia’s lead as she exited the car and went to Jared. She left with Jared and went back to his and Becca’s house, while Adam and Amelia investigated whatever had happened in her apartment.
Chapter 5
Adam stood in the middle of Ella’s apartment holding a broken picture frame. The picture of him and Ella down at the lake when she was twelve and he was thirteen made him smile. He couldn’t believe she had kept it in a frame in her living room even after all that happened. He stared at the mess an intruder, most likely the unsub or unidentified subject, had left.
Amelia entered the apartment and apparently saw the message on the wall, which appeared to be written in blood. She let out a little shriek. “Oh my!”
Sorry I missed you. See you soon, Ella. The message made Adam’s skin crawl. That man had been in Ella’s apartment intent on killing her tonight.
“Hey.” Amelia stepped across the room to stand beside him and put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. We have to get this—”
“We will, Jamison, we will. But I have to ask you a question. What on God’s good earth happened between you and Ella? I need to hear it from my partner before I hear her side.”
He looked back down at the picture in his hand. “Let’s just put it this way. We were best friends, but I was a jerk to her in high school. That’s the super short version. Basically, she has every right to hate me.”
“I’m not sure she hates you, but clearly she was uncomfortable around you. Are you going to be okay working this case?”
“Yes, I will. I’m sure it made her even more uncomfortable considering why we were there. I had no idea she had been raped.” He couldn’t decide if wanted to collapse in a hole or beat somebody up. He knew he could do his job, but this was pushing what he could handle.
They worked the scene for a while before leaving the rest to the CSU crew. Right before they left, one of the techs called out to them. “Hey, Jamison, Johnson. I think we can definitively say that the message was written in cat blood.”
The two detectives went to the balcony where the tech had called from. Adam followed him out with Amelia right behind him; there they saw where he had moved a chair revealing the filleted corpse of an orange tabby.
“Oh, gross!” Adam had a tough stomach, but the sight of the cat threatened to bring up any contents of his stomach. He immediately blocked Amelia’s way knowing the pregnant lady wouldn’t be able to hold her cookies.
Amelia turned away. “All right, I don’t need to see that. Ella wasn’t here, so he decided to kill her cat. That’s just…”
“Repulsive?”
“Among other things. Let’s get out of here and check on Ella.”
“Please.”
They went to the station to get their personal cars before heading to Jared and Becca’s. It was already past seven, anything else that needed to be done would have to wait until morning.
At Jared’s, Amelia went straight to the family room where Ella was sitting on the couch with Becca. Adam stayed in the kitchen with Jared, who offered him the leftover Chinese that was scattered across the island.
“How’s she holding up?” Adam nodded towards Ella.
“I think they’ve stayed off the topic of what is happening, but I have a feeling once she starts talking about it, she’ll break down. That’s how Becca always is anyway.”
“Tough on the outside, not so much on the inside? That sounds like the Ella I used to know, but that was a long time ago.”
Adam turned to the women and asked if they needed anything.
Amelia said, “I need to eat, but I can get it myself, Adam. You eat.”
Once Adam had fixed himself a plate, he pulled a dining chair into the family room and sat across from where Ella sat on the couch.
“Adam, tell me what happened in my apartment, please.”
He looked deep into her dark brown eyes. The fear there was intense, but so was the sorrow. He knew the sorrow was partially his fault, and he would have to rectify that, but this wasn’t the time or place. “It’s not pleasant, Ella.”
“I don’t doubt that. But I need to know.”
“Well, clearly there was an intruder. They emptied your bookshelves, several of the picture frames that hit the floor broke, and the cushions were pulled off the couch and slit open clearly in a fit of rage. We believe that he was expecting you to be home, and when you weren’t, he got angry.”
“I am normally home. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I’m always home by four on Thursdays, so I can make it to my kickboxing class by five. But I was still at school with you guys at five. You guys saved my life… How did he get in?”
“Not sure. There was no sign of forced entry. But there’s more, Ella.”
“What?”
“You have a cat, right?”
“Yeah, I really dislike that thing, but he came to me a few years ago and wouldn’t leave, so I let him stay. Wait, what happened to the cat?”
“Well, he killed it. And Ella…” he hesitated.
“Spit it out, Adam!”
“He wrote a message on your wall: ‘Sorry I missed you. See you soon, Ella.’”
He watched a shudder work its way through her entire body. All he wanted to do was draw her into his arms but based on her reaction to the closeness of his hand earlier that wasn’t going to be a good idea.
“Seriously, the cat? That’s just ridiculous. Good thing I wasn’t very attached to it… but still.” Her expression grew a little darker; her eyebrows were deeply furrowed, and her shoulders slumped a little further forward.
“Hey, we are going to keep you safe. You understand?” She was looking at her hands in her lap. He searched her face, hoping she would look up. She finally did and met his eyes.
She nodded.
“Call me if you need anything. You’ll be safe with Caleb and Amelia, but don’t hesitate to call me. You are not to be alone, got it?”
A slight smile lifted one side of her lips as if she was amused by his overbearing reassurance. “Okay, Adam. Thank you.”
He pulled a business card out of his pocket. It seemed such a silly way to give Ella his number, but it was the easiest since his cell phone number was on the card. She took it.
“Are you ready to go back to my place and get some rest?” Amelia asked.
“I am. Not sure how well I’ll sleep, but I need to try and relax at the least. Thanks, Becca. Adam.” She got up.
Adam jumped to his feet. He deposited his plate in the kitchen and walked them to the door. Amelia and Ella left, and Adam turned to back to their hosts.
“Jared, Becca, thanks. And thanks for dinner.”
“No problem.” Becca pulled him into a hug.
“Are you going to be okay, Jamison?” Jared asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He lied. He wasn’t fine. He knew that as soon as he got home, he would open his liquor cabinet. Today had been too much.
“Thanks for opening your home to me, Amelia.” Ella set her bag down in Amelia’s entry way.
“You’re welcome. Caleb will be home around midnight, and the kids are staying at my folks tonight.”
“I feel bad to have displaced them.”
“Not a problem. They sleep over there on a fairly regular basis; it’s not displacement at all. I thought it would be better for you tonight to not have to worry about disturbing them.”
“Yeah, that does help a bit. Thanks. I haven’t had flashbacks in a long time, but they have a tendency to not be pretty.”
“Let me know what you need. Don’t hesitate to wake me. I’ll probably be up going to the bathroom anyway.” Amelia rubbed her belly.
Ella nodded. She was tired but knew that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. In fact, she feared going to sleep because she knew the flashbacks would come as soon as she turned off the light.
“I’m going to get my pajamas on and have a cup of tea. Want to join me?”
“I’d like that. Where sho
uld I settle in?”
Amelia motioned for her to follow her up the stairs. “I was thinking you could sleep in Carter’s room. He can bunk with his sister since she has a double bed. Hope you don’t mind sleeping in a race car bed. At least it’s a twin and not a toddler bed.”
“Sounds good.” She let out a slight chuckle.
Amelia pulled some sheets out of the linen closet in the hall and helped Ella make the bed. Once Ella had changed, she met Amelia downstairs where she’d already started the water for tea. Ella sat down at the breakfast bar. But had no words to say.
Amelia spoke instead. “I don’t want you to think about the case at all this evening, so I’m going to ask you something else that I hope isn’t off limits.”
Ella’s curiosity was spiked. What is she going to ask?
“You and Adam clearly have a past. When I walked into your apartment this evening, he was holding a picture of a much younger version of the two of you. He told me a little, but I’d love to hear your side of the story.”
Of course, that’s what she would ask. Why didn’t I think of that? Ella didn’t try to stop the goofy smile that she felt slip up the corners of her mouth. “Oh goodness. That’s a can of worms that doesn’t end pretty.”
“You’re blushing. Now you have to tell me.”
She laughed at her friend. “You need sleep. Heaven forbid I keep the pregnant lady from her rest.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Already talked to the Captain, too. I don’t have to come in until you are up to talking about the case. So, we can sleep in tomorrow.”
Ella shook her head. She wasn’t getting out of this. “Fine, to the couch. It’s a long story.” Both ladies grabbed their mugs of tea and went to the family room. Ella took a seat on the couch and debated where to start. She could tell stories about her and Adam for the next year. “All right, well, where to start? I know.” She knew exactly the part of their story that Amelia would want to know most. “Adam was my first kiss, and I was his.”
