“So, what do you want to do today?” I ask, quickly regretting it when Asher perks up, licking his lips.
I groan. “I know what I’d like to do, but something tells me you’re not quite in the mood to play around.”
He’d be right about that one. I’m more worried over Callum and everything the five of us concocted over the last two days. He’s supposed to contact Alessandra again, which shouldn’t be too hard since he went to her house the night I came home from the hospital. Yeah, that still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
Ever since that morning in the kitchen, everyone has been on their toes, walking around on eggshells. I don’t like it. No one needs to change their day-to-day activities just because someone killed Debra and tried to do the same to me. In fact, I would pay them to pretend that everything is okay. I don’t need anyone to treat me differently. I only want to feel normal, and I can’t do that if the past is always lurking through the shadows.
Just then, an idea pops into my head. The thought of that first morning in the kitchen has what Asher said whipping through my mind on hyper-speed. I wonder if any of it had merit, or if that was just the ramblings of a teenage boy that watches too many action/suspense flicks.
“Hey, Ash?” I inquire, leaning heavily against the kitchen island.
He cocks a brow. “Yeah?”
Tilting my head, I ponder how to go about asking this, but finally decide on laying it out.
“Do you remember that first morning after I came home from the hospital?”
He marginally rolls his eyes. “The morning I found you in bed with Quinn? Yeah, how could I forget?”
I ignore his snide remark, pressing forward, “What was it you said about maybe I wasn’t the target?”
He seems to mull it over in his head before replying, “That maybe Debra got into bed with someone that’s not necessarily the nicest person and it backfired.” He nods his head back and forth in an inquisitive motion. “Well, along those lines, anyway.”
“I wonder if she may have left anything in our house that could point us in the right direction,” I murmur, taking my lip between my teeth.
Yeah, I know what I’m doing, and unfortunately, so does he. He starts shaking his head before the last word falls from my lips. His lips purse in obvious disapproval, and he even goes as far as crossing his arms over his muscular chest. Like he closed down shop and there’s nothing or no one getting past any chink in his armor.
I beg to differ, because I have an advantage over most people and I’m not afraid to use it.
“Ash,” I sing-song his name in a seductive purr, slowly pushing myself up from the counter. Swaying my hips provocatively—not so much it looks like I’m trying, just enough to get him to notice—I round the edge of the counter and I’m pleased when he pushes away so I can settle between his spread thighs.
“Jess,” he says warningly.
“Maybe we could, um, I don’t know …” I step into him, pressing my front against his as I trail a lone finger down his chest. I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and the sound of him swallowing hard has my skin buzzing with vigor. “Go to her house and check a few things out.”
“T-That’s not a good idea,” he whispers, his voice nothing more than a wheezing breath of air.
“I’ll make it worth your while.” I lean toward him, taking his lips with mine. Coaxing his mouth open, I slip my tongue inside, searching for his. He doesn’t disappoint as his tongue eagerly laps at mine, and his arms unfasten from in front of his chest and he pulls me into him. I’m so damn glad my ribs aren’t hurting anymore, or I’d be nothing more than a ball of tears right now.
His breathing shudders as a full body tremble zips through him. The sexiest groan I’ve ever heard in my life emanates from inside his chest, causing goosebumps to dot along my sensitive skin.
“You don’t play nice,” he murmurs against my lips.
I nip his top lips. “Never said I did.” I smile, then take his lips with mine once more.
***
When we pull up in front of the house, I’m surprised to see no police tape surrounding the premises. You’d think after someone is murdered, there would be a lengthy investigation. But no, it doesn’t even look like there’s been a crime here to begin with.
The police would have to go through a suspect list, interrogate them, cross-examine, and even go back to ask again if something didn’t add up in a person’s report the first time. It could take months to get to the bottom of it, not mere weeks.
Something’s not right.
It’s like someone is trying to cover up Debra’s death, passing it off as nothing but natural causes. With the blurry images I can’t help but to replay over and over in my mind, there was nothing natural about the way Debra died. They strung her up and there were dozens of cuts and wounds all over her body. I wish I could remember more of that night, but my memory is taking its sweet time to come back to me.
Everyone knows the person who committed the crime always comes back during the aftermath. The police would have been a lot closer to finding out who did it if they have just scanned the crowd. But this is Silver Creek we’re talking about. The police are about as useless as an umbrella with holes in it.
On all those popular television shows, the killer always stands in the crowd, surveying everything around them. They want to see the end result of the crime; see it through the neighborhood’s eyes as they look on with obvious horror. They get off at that. It makes them thrive in their element. At least, serial killers do. And something tells me that this man has killed someone before.
I stop short, the epiphany nearly taking my breath away. How do I know it’s a man? It could very well be a woman.
Shaking my head, I stare at my old house from across the street. Even if I went with that, I’d still think it was a man that did this, and I can’t help but wonder why.
“I-I think it was a man,” I say hesitantly, hoping I don’t sound crazy. Because, I legit, can’t remember, I’m just merely going off a hunch.
“A man?” Asher asks from the passenger seat. “How do you know that?”
I shrug. “Just a feeling, I guess.”
He nods like that makes all the sense in the world, then goes a step further by opening his door and getting out. My eyes jerk up to his, connecting when he hunkers down on the side of the car. My gaze ask him what he’s doing, and his shout in return that we can’t stay here all day and need to get this over with. He’s right, of course. But that doesn’t make any of this any easier.
“Let’s go.”
Huffing, I pull myself together long enough to get out of the car. Trepidation like nothing I’ve ever felt before starts knotting inside my stomach as we make our way across the street. I feel that familiar fuzzy sensation float around the back of my mind and it has me stopping when we get on the front stoop, making Asher look back at me in silently inquiry.
Even though I can’t remember what happened that night, doesn’t mean this house doesn’t haunt my nightmares in its own right. So much happened here. From my father leaving, to Debra abusing me, and finally it being the scene of a crime that altered my perception of reality and life forever.
There’s a lot of death connected to this brick and mortar, and now I don’t think this is such a good idea. It will only bring up terrible memories, making it hard for me to focus over what we came here for.
“Maybe we should leave,” I mumble under my breath, staring up at the two-story colonial in front of me.
Such a sweet, sweet beautiful lie this house was. It provided safety and security to those that dared look at it, but pain and loss to those that lived inside of it.
I hear Asher growl under his breath. You know what, I don’t blame him. We’re supposed to be firmly inside the gates of my father’s estate, eating and watching movies. We’re not supposed to be out here gallivanting around town in a quest for answers to questions I may not even want to know the a
nswers to.
“You wanted to do this, remember?” he deadpans. “So, whether you like it or not, we’re doing it. Hell, maybe we’ll find something. Then again, maybe we won’t. But at least you can put this to rest, either way.”
And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? What if I find something I don’t want to find? What if I find something that explains everything and breaks me so thoroughly, I will never be able to piece myself back together? My heart aches from the thought. If there is a reason Debra has targets, then I need to find out if I was the cause or not.
I also need to find out if I’m an unsuspecting target, even if it irrevocably changes me.
CHAPTER 12
I’m ankle deep in depositions and mediation agreements when Asher comes waltzing into the room, wearing …
“Please tell me that’s not my bra.”
He smiles. “I knew you had a big rack, but damn.”
He can’t be serious for five seconds. I think he’s incapable.
While I’m going through Debra’s private documents, he’s been searching through the whole house for things unrelated to why we’re here. He says it makes the time go by faster, but that’s a load of crock, he just doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. What will make the time go by faster is if he’d start helping me.
“Asher. Focus,” I scold him, turning back to the documents in my hand.
After scanning the contents, I find it’s just another deposition over the mediation between her and my father. It speaks of things about bottom-lines, split assets, and who would retain custody of me. In every single one, Debra claimed that my father could have me if she got what she wanted, but it never said what she wanted or claimed to want. It was just an insinuation in paper form.
However, every piece of paper I find doesn’t paint my father in a good light. There is so much paperwork. All of it stating she doesn’t receive a anything; that he owes her nothing except the house she is—was—living in. There’s also a copy of the prenuptial agreement they both signed pre-marital venture. Even in there it states if the marriage culminates in a divorce, she would have no monetary gain from their marriage. She wouldn’t even be able to keep the Savoy name.
My father covered every single base with their marriage. Debra, on the other hand, relied heavily on the fact my father’s parents cared more about image above all other things. She never expected my father to go against the grain and leave her.
There’s something missing, though. I can feel it.
“Besides my bra, did you find anything?” I huff.
He walks around the room, surveying all the trinkets and bottles of Chanel No.5 Debra has scattered across her vanity. He takes in the lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes, foundation, and plethora amount of other various makeup that seem to lie in their certain place.
Even though I hate it, Debra and I were the same in that front. I hate anything out of place, because it makes it so much harder to find when it comes time to use it.
“Hm,” he says, picking up a tube of lipstick. “Your desk looks almost identical to hers.”
I roll my eyes. “That matters how?”
His pause has my eyes lifting from the paper in my hands. I see him slowly tilt his head to the left, then right, studying the contents of Debra’s vanity.
“Your desk is identical,” he murmurs.
Yeah, it is, because she hated to buy eclectic things, especially in makeup. And since I didn’t know much about makeup at first, I went with what I’d already seen lying on her desk when her and my father were out on the town. By the time I did, I already had more than I needed. The only reason I keep a makeup bag under the sink in my room was for those “full coverage” days. The days no clothes could cover the bruises she left me with.
“Your point.” I grind my molars, wishing he’d just get on with it and tell me what’s so special about identical things lying on our vanities.
He glances back at me over his shoulder, raising a brow in question. “Then why are you missing a shade of lipstick off your vanity?”
“Huh?” I slant my eyebrows inward as I climb to my feet.
“It’s shade—” He looks down at the lipstick tube in his hand. “What is this?”
He uncaps it and I instantly know which one it is. It’s the first lipstick my father bought me when I turned sixteen. It was part of my birthday present. I didn’t get nice things often, because crazy me, I didn’t think we had the extra money to splurge. Not after all the things my father had said about his finances being tied to his business.
“T-That’s a limited-edition shade. It’s Chanel Rogue Allure Velvet No.5.” I think it over, knowing it should be there and not elsewhere. I rarely ever used that shade, wanting to make it last as long as possible. Paying forty bucks for a lipstick will garner that reverence.
“If your vanity was the same as Debra’s, then you’re missing this shade.” He’s adamant, even going as far as shaking the lipstick in his hand with a jerk flick of his wrist.
Giving him a funny look, I walk away from him and head to my old room. But the moment I step inside, I get hit with a wash of dizziness that has me planting my hands on the door frame to keep balance. A flash of an image pops up behind my eyes, but it’s gone before I can make heads or tails of it. I know it had something to do with a window and screaming, but that’s all I can get.
I feel more than hear Asher step up behind me, his hands planting themselves on my hips. “Are you okay?”
I numbly nod. “Yeah. I just—it was so strange.”
Turning me toward him, I peer up into his worrisome eyes. “What’s strange?”
I shake my head, licking my lips as my connection breaks and I peer toward my window. It’s just how it always is, minus the curtain that used to hang on either side. Upon closer inspection, I step out of his arms and slowly walk over and see that it looks like the rod was torn from the wall. Bits of plaster and debris encircle two sets of holes.
“I can’t really remember, but I could have sworn I saw my window and heard a bunch of screaming.”
Asher is at my side in an instant. He pulls me into his arms, turning me toward him with a franticness that has my insides simmering with anxiety. “What did you see?”
“W-Why are you being so weird right now?”
“Just tell me,” he insists, wide eyes staring down into my confused ones.
“What I said. I saw a window—my window—and heard screaming before it was gone again.”
He stands there mutely for a moment, staring at me as if waiting for something to appear out of thin air. But when nothing happens, I hear the sigh he releases as he steps back and retrieves the phone from his pocket. I don’t ask questions, only stare at his retreating form, confusion riddling every facet of my being.
Yes, Asher may be eccentric, but he never acts the way he just did without cause. There’s something he knows, and I will get it out of him before this day is over with. I don’t know how much longer I can stand piecing my life back together on my own. It’s frustrating, has my anxiety all over the place.
Leaving him to it, I head over to my vanity, trying to swallow the knot forming in my throat. When I look over the contents of my dresser, I find he’s right; I am missing that shade. But where could it be? I know for a fact nothing from this house was moved after Debra’s death. Instead, my father chose to purchase everything new, so I would kind of have a fresh start in a new life. But nothing he can do will ever make my old life disappear. It will always be there, clinging to the back of my mind.
I’m staring blankly at the contents of my vanity when Asher returns, coming up behind me. He doesn’t speak, but then again, he doesn’t have to. I already feel the oppressive words he’s leaving unsaid. He wants to get out of here, but the thing is, I can’t. I need to find answers. Not just answers to the questions circling through my mind over the guys, but of my own life, too. I need them. Yearn for them. Nothing will make a bit of sense until I pick apart every facet, then piece it all back
together.
“Jess, is there anywhere else we haven’t checked?” he whispers against the side of my head, and I love the fact he’s offering me some kind of solace.
My mind whirls with possibilities. We haven’t checked the garage, basement, or attic. Any other place, we’ve checked twice over. Well, I have. He’s been going through everything under the sun, preparing for his debut as a drag queen.
Or maybe that’s his way of doing things. Find the least suspecting thing and go with it from there, otherwise, he wouldn’t have noticed that my lipstick was missing.
So, I tell him, and finally we both decide that the attic is the best course of action. Nothing should be in the garage, because I’ve been in there several times before and saw nothing out of the way besides the lack of my father’s tool chest. The basement is filled to the brim of old decorations my father and I used to put up for the holidays.
The only logical place would be the attic.
After gathering as much courage as possible, we make our way out into the hallway, and Asher pushes the almost imperceptible button that releases the attic hatch. We pull down the door, fold out the ladder, and both start our ascent into the darkness, hoping with it that it can shed some light.
I refuse to believe there isn’t anything relating to this inside the house. Debra wasn’t the most organized when it came to life, but I know for a fact she wouldn’t leave documents that could prove her guiltiness out in the open.
After stepping into the drafty attic, I point Asher toward the East end of the house while I go to the West. With a brief check of the time, I see we have just over four hours before we need to leave. I’m desperate, almost embarrassingly so. I don’t know why I feel the need to prove Asher’s statement right, but it feels like the right thing to do.
We search in silence for hours, and for the first time all day, Asher is serious about his quest. It begs the question of why, but I’ll taper that need down for another time. One where we’re not in a house where Debra’s life ended. Also, a place that makes me feel like eyes are watching my every movement.
Love Me, Baby: A High School Bully Romance (Silver Creek High Book 3) Page 8
