Grant’s dad took one look at the state of us and barked at a deputy to wrap us in space blankets. He took a brief statement from Grant and Lex, then ordered Deputy Anderson to get us out of here. “We’ll take full statements tomorrow. Sage,” he added to me as I stood on my shaky legs, his face etched in grave concern. “You’re welcome to sleep over at ours tonight.”
I smiled weakly and thanked him, but declined. I wanted a hot shower and my own bed. And Grant’s house was only a half block up the road if I changed my mind.
Deputy Anderson, a stocky, muscled guy who had the look and bearing of a bulldog, attempted a gentle expression as he ushered us along the path to the clearing where we’d parked. A small group from the bonfire party had already gathered, standing about and whispering, peering into the dark trail from which we emerged. The rest, no doubt underage drinkers or pot heads, had likely fled at the first sign of flashing blue lights.
After making sure we were okay to get ourselves home, Deputy Anderson jotted down Lex’s details.
I’d assumed Lex was short for Alex or Alexander.
I was wrong.
Lexan Delacotte.
His name rolled over my tongue like roasted coffee, but I didn’t get a chance to savor it before the sour taste of stale bile invaded my mouth again.
After exchanging a quick hug with Kenzie and Haley, and assuring Grant I was fine to drive with Lex, we split up on a gloomy note that followed into the cab of Lex’s truck and stuck around for the ride home.
Lex kept one hand on the wheel, his thumb strumming the black leather. His other elbow rested on the door bar. He sent me the occasional glance, accompanied by a grim smile that didn’t require words to translate.
The promise of this evening, of Lex and me, had ended on macabre gloom. Where did we go from here? Nowhere, that’s where. Dead man hanging wasn’t the kind of memory to take with you into the start of a brand new relationship.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was thick, punctured only by the directions I issued once we entered town.
“That’s the one,” I pointed out the whitewashed two-story house on Primrose Street where I’d lived all my life.
We pulled up alongside the curb and Lex climbed out to walk with me. I paused at the top of the steps beneath the wraparound porch, digging into my purse for my house key, searching for some nondescript, adequate goodbye. “Thanks for the ride.”
He tipped his chin, studying me. “Are your parents home?”
I gave him a blank look, caught totally off guard by the question. It sounded foreign, an elusive whisper in a secret language I’d long forgotten.
The seconds dragged more of that thick silence between us until he deduced, “You’re still in shock.”
“I’m not in shock, it’s just…” I’d never had to utter these words aloud before. It’s always been common knowledge. Everyone just knew. “My father left us when I was a baby and my mom died when I turned thirteen.”
My voice surprised me, cold and hollow, missing all and any traces of the bitter anguish those words had once encompassed.
His expression fell. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said dismissively. “It’s been years since my mom... I’m over it.”
The look in his soulful eyes bled tears, all the tears I no longer cried. “You never get over it,” he said quietly. “My mother left three years ago and I never knew my father. So, I know, and I am sorry.”
A lump formed in my throat. For him? For me? The connection I’d felt earlier returned with a vengeance. We were practically cosmic twins. But maybe that was just me being melodramatic. It had been a rough day.
His gaze sank deeper and deeper into me, pushing out the world around us and stirring a hum at my breast. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
I blew out a shaky breath. “I’m sure, and thanks again for the ride.”
“My pleasure.” His hand came out, and dropped before his reaching fingers could brush my cheek. “Well, then…”
He gave me another timeless, breath-stealing look and then he turned and walked away.
I stood there, wondering whether I’d ever see him again as I watched him climb in behind the wheel and drive off.
@hawk
We stumbled across a dead man in the woods today. Just hanging there. Limp. Lifeless. Haley totally freaked out.
Shadow Horn was a relatively safe town and I’d been known to forget to lock my front door occasionally. Tonight I checked it twice before I went upstairs to shower. There was a horror in those woods and I couldn’t shake the feeling that some essence might have followed me home.
@hawk
I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean, it was horrific, I literally brought up my lunch, and I can’t stop thinking about his wife and children, if he has them, who will miss him. I feel terrible for him, but I’m not sure how I feel for me.
Some days it feels like I was born with a dark shadow I can’t outrun.
Today feels like maybe it finally caught up to me.
2
SAGE
After my shift the following the day, I returned home to find Lex sitting on the top porch step.
He stood as I walked up, brushing down his jeans. “Hey.”
My heart fluttered without permission. I thought I’d given up on him.
A grin pressed shallow dimples into his cheeks. “I wanted to see if you’re okay.”
“You’re checking up on me,” I said, undeniably prickled that he was only here to talk about last night.
Him and the whole damn town. Word had spread like wildfire, along with the fact that we’d discovered the poor man. Everyone assumed that meant I wanted to rehash it to death and ponder their theories with them.
I sighed. “Popular consensus is leaning toward a turf war.”
“You have gangs here?” Lex said in surprise.
“Have you met Shadow Horn?” I rolled my eyes. “There’s a roadside bar about ten miles north that’s home to a motorcycle club called The Red Cranes. They’re rough but I’m not sure I’d call them a gang. I would’ve thought you needed two gangs for a turf war, but try telling that to anyone with an opinion. Anyway, I’m fine, thanks for checking.”
“That’s not the only reason I came,” he said slowly, his tawny eyes sinking into me, wrapping me in warmth. “I wanted to see you.”
And just like that, I went a little weak behind the knees.
Sucking in a deep breath, I glanced around while searching for an ounce of resistance to protect myself from this boy and the trouble no doubt brewing. I was falling too hard and fast. He was too much. “Where’s your truck?”
“I walked.”
“From The Stables?”
“I like to walk.” He tucked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans, shrugging. “It’s great for thinking.”
The way he said it, he was familiar with having a lot to think about. The soft light in his eyes dimmed momentarily, suggesting most of it wasn’t good.
My pesky heart reached out to him. “Would you like to come inside?”
His grin returned. “Yes, I would.”
I let us in, tossing my purse on the hall table as I took us past the stairway, our footsteps a dull echo on the hardwood floorboards. It had been a year, but I still hadn’t grown entirely comfortable with the hollow sounds of entering my empty home.
Sunlight flooded the open living area from the wall of windows that faced the yard, picking up enough dust on the fireplace mantelpiece to shame a lesser being. I wasn’t fussed. There were worse things in this life than lazy housekeeping.
“Drink?” I called out, crossing behind the kitchen island toward the fridge. “Hot or cold?”
“Coffee, thanks,” Lex replied, his wandering stroll paused by the mantelpiece of memories.
Photos of me and my friends. My mother. My father. Lynn.
My mother was gone.
My father was a lifelong absentee figurehead.
&nbs
p; Lynn had disappeared from the face of the earth last year, on my seventeenth birthday no less.
My friends were about to go.
Soon, there’d be only me.
I grabbed the Moka pot from the stovetop, my gaze flitting back to Lex again and again as I filled with base with water and topped ground beans into the filter.
He picked up a photo frame, his thumb brushing the glass as he murmured, “You look just like her.”
He wasn’t just being polite or kind. I had my father’s coloring, dark brown hair and brown eyes, but everything else about me belonged to my mother. Her slender frame, the shape of her eyes and brow, her nose and her cupid chin.
“Sorry,” Lex said into the silence, replacing the photo on the mantelpiece. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not,” I sighed, screwing the pot chambers together and setting it to boil on the stove. “I don’t mind talking about her.”
It’s all I had left of her, the memories and a few shared words with friends now and then.
Lex sent me a smile and moved on to another photo. “Is this your aunt?”
There was only one other photo of an older woman.
“My mother didn’t have any family,” I told him. Her parents had been on the wrong side of middle age when she’d taken them by surprise. She’d been an only child and they died before I was born. “That’d be Lynn. She took care of me…after…” I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat. “Anyway, she’s not around anymore, either. She took off when I turned seventeen.”
Lex put the photo down and came over to perch on a stool by the island. “So who’s taken care of you since?”
I laughed at the absurd notion. “Lynn ran the house, she didn’t run my life. I’ve taken care of myself since I was thirteen. I know how to do it by now, thanks.”
“Seventeen is underage,” Lex pressed. “They didn’t try to put you in the system?”
“I’m not an orphan,” I reminded him. “My father left us, but he visits occasionally and he’s always provided financial support. After my mother passed, he engaged Lynn as the housekeeper to keep things running smoothly, but he remains my father and my legal guardian.”
Lex glanced around the room. “You live here alone?”
“For the last year, yeah.” The pot hissed and I snatched a cloth to remove it from the stove.
Remembering the embarrassment Arran caused me yesterday, I didn’t need to ask how Lex took his coffee. Syrupy thick and black. I poured him a shot of expresso and pushed it over the counter.
He lifted the small cup and breathed in the dark aroma. “This is heaven, thanks.”
“I don’t mess around when it comes to coffee,” I said with a cheeky grin to lighten the mood, scratching in the drawer for the milk frother when the door chime sounded. “Could you get that? It’s probably Grant.”
Lex’s brow hitched, but he slid his butt off the stool to go.
I smirked to myself and frothed the milk for my cappuccino, well aware I was more casual than most about house rules and guest etiquette. I’d grown up uncensored and unsupervised from the age when it really started to matter. Lynn wasn’t unkind or cold, but she’d never tried to be a parent to me. She’d cooked and cleaned and signed school slips and played taxi and made sure the bills were paid. Everything else, including my growing up, had been left to me. No wonder I was practically a savage.
The loud gurgling of steam hissing into milk drowned out everything else, catching me off-guard when Lex returned with the Sheriff in tow instead of Grant.
I switched off the frother and swallowed. “Sheriff? What’s happened now?”
“Nothing, my dear,” he said quickly, wiping his brow. “I’m here to get your statement. About last night? I’ve already spoken to Haley. She’s the one who found him? And I’ve spoken to Grant and Kenzie. I just need to hear your version for the record.”
I breathed out, the tightness releasing from my chest. “Sure. Would you like some coffee?”
He shook his head, his smile genuine but strained. “This won’t take long.” He glanced at Lex. “You’ve already given your statement, right?”
“Your deputy came around this morning,” Lex confirmed.
“Good… Do you mind giving us a few minutes?”
“I’d rather stay.”
I looked from one to the other and held my tongue. Not that I wasn’t comfortable with the Sheriff. He was the only fatherly figure I’d ever known, stern and formidable at times, always protective. But I didn’t want to send Lex away either.
The Sheriff’s mouth flattened. “Son, this is official business.”
Lex folded his arms and stepped right up to the Sheriff, tilting his chin to stare into the taller man’s eyes. “It’s better if I stay,” he said in a low, monotone voice.
“You should stay,” the Sheriff relented. “It’s probably better.”
Lex stepped aside and the Sheriff looked at me, pulling out his notepad.
What the hell just happened?
Lex turned to me with a reassuring smile as he picked up his cup and drained his coffee.
Shaking off the weird feeling, I poured the frothed milk and brought my cappuccino with me as I ushered everyone to the sitting area. Lex sat beside me on the sofa while the Sheriff deposited himself in the armchair across from us.
Between sips, I answered the Sheriff’s questions. There wasn’t much to tell. We’d stumbled across the hanging man and Grant had immediately called it in. We had no idea who he was, what he’d been doing in the woods or what might have happened to him.
“You’re doing great,” the Sheriff said. Then, “Now let’s go back to the day before.”
“The day before?” I asked, confused.
“The day of your birthday,” he said. “You worked the lunch shift at the Grill? Haley mentioned it.”
I set my mug down on the coffee table between us and settled deeper into the sofa, pulling my knees up, sneakers on the upholstery be damned. “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”
“Humor me, Sage.” He leant forward in his chair, pen poised. “Just walk me through it, as accurately as you can remember. Let’s start with you leaving the Grill.”
“My shift ended at five. Haley and I chatted at the lockers in the staff room, I… I don’t know how long,” I said, watching the Sheriff write down every word I spoke. This felt totally off. I wet my lips and continued. “I went straight home and got ready for…well, I was expecting my dad, but he never showed.”
The Sheriff glanced up at that, his eyes softening with something that looked like regret. Everyone knew the story of my sorry life in this town. “He didn’t call?”
“No.”
“Have you spoken to him since?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea why he cancelled?”
He hadn’t cancelled. He’d simply not bothered turning up. I shook my head, frowning. “You could call him, I guess.”
“We’ve tried,” the Sheriff said. “He’s not answering his cell. Do you have a landline for him?”
I shook my head again.
“Address?”
Another head shake. If he kept asking me these kinds of questions, I was going to make myself dizzy.
“When last did you talk to him?”
“I don’t know,” I said irritably. “How is this important? If you think I need him here because I’m traumatized or something, you’re severely mistaken.”
I’d learned to live without him a long time ago.
The sheriff sighed, sat back again, tapping the tip of his pen on the notepad. “Let’s move on.”
I snuck a look at Lex, who met my look with an encouraging smile.
The irritableness in me settled and I continued to answer the Sheriff’s questions. I’d headed over to the lake at about eight-thirty. There’d been dozens of people on south beach that night. And loud music. He wanted names, so I cherry picked a list to keep him happy. I left ou
t all the raucous behavior.
I hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary, but it finally clicked what this was all about.
“He was already dead then, wasn’t he?” The taste in my mouth turned sour. “He was hanging there in that tree all the time while we were partying.”
And the killer was there, too. Right there in the woods with us.
“Now, Sage, don’t jump to conclusions,” the Sheriff said. “Leave the details to us, okay?”
Lex sat forward, hooking the Sheriff’s gaze. “Is Sage a suspect?”
The Sheriff’s jaw went slack. “No, of course not. We’re just covering all bases, looking for any witnesses to get a full picture for the record. ”
“When and how did he die?” Lex said, his voice taking on that strange droning quality again.
“Forensic evidence and the coroner’s report indicates between 6 pm and midnight of the thirteenth,” the Sheriff answered plainly, confirming my suspicion that the man had been killed on the night of my birthday. “There were no signs of a struggle. We’re ruling this a suicide.”
Suicide. My next breath caught in my chest like a stitch. I slammed a palm to my chest, pressing as I exhaled slow and shallow.
Lex’s attention broke from the Sheriff to me.
“Sage?” He cupped my chin. “Hey,” he said softly, “are you okay?”
Deep breath in as I looked into his eyes. Long, shallow breath out. The warmth and concern gazing back at me absorbed some of the panic. Another set of breaths and the tight band around my chest released.
I nodded—I’m fine—and pulled my chin away to see the Sheriff on his feet, looming over us.
“It’s too much,” he said, his scowl deepening the frown lines at his forehead. “Dammit. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He usually didn’t. The Sheriff was notorious for being close-lipped about his work, especially where Grant and I were concerned. He still saw us as children. Our ears needed to be shielded.
“What do you mean?” demanded Lex.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m fine,” I added, including both of them with a look. “This whole thing is horrible.”
Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1) Page 3