by Snow, Nicole
“Long story, babe,” Leo says, and yet I pick up on what he’s not saying.
That’s not a story he can tell me in front of Zach.
I’m just floored, white-knuckling the wheel.
I knew there’d always been something strange about that Tiger boy who made my face feel too warm, only for him to disappear into thin air. And then, so many years later, this tall, handsome man with the easy smile and strange violet eyes and wild ink appears. Sometimes, maybe I even had the same feeling, this faint whisper in the back of my mind.
The same freaking boy. And I’d never known.
He’d never told me.
He’s just full of too many secrets, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I really don’t.
But I can’t say anything else right now. I’m too confused, too conflicted, so I leave Leo and Zach to their quiet chatter about old Heart’s Edge.
They get on so well it’s like they understand each other in a way that almost makes me feel left out, like they already know the big crazy thing I still haven’t told them. Deep down, I’m glad, though.
A boy should get along with his father.
A man should get along with his son.
I keep quiet all the way back to our cabin. Leo carries Zach on his shoulders as we take the trail through the woods. It’s more well-worn by the day, before it had just been an impression in the brush. Now it’s a troubling reminder of how long we’ve been here already. But I’m not expecting a package waiting on the front deck.
A package in a familiar custom pink and white striped bakery box branded with the Sweeter Things logo on the side.
Strange.
I don’t think I gave anyone in Spokane the address here. I’d just told my store manager I was visiting my hometown to look after my sister.
Something tells me not to pick up the box. But something else tells me I can’t afford not to.
Glancing at Leo, the subtle tension making his shoulders rigid tells me he senses it, too.
Something’s not right.
I unlock the door and step inside, while Leo gently swings Zach down with a little alley-oop that makes him laugh and lift his arms high before landing on his feet. He gives the boy a little nudge on the shoulder.
“Go wash up so you can help make dinner,” Leo rumbles. “Your ma and I need to talk.”
Normally, Zach would be full of questions.
But that quiet intuition he gets from Leo is so clear. He gives me a long, thoughtful look, then slips over and hugs me tight before walking out of the room without a word.
That’s my dumpling. Sometimes, a kid just knows and listens without even being asked.
Leo and I exchange another worried look. He gives me a nod that says, go on. Open it.
So I set the box on the dining table and flip it open. It hasn’t even been taped, the four closing panels just layered to keep it in place, and that chills me.
No way it came in the mail, then.
Someone just left it here.
“Careful,” Leo whispers, and I swallow hard, nodding as I peel the cardboard back.
It’s...a phone?
An old-school flip phone, apparently. The type that just barely takes grainy pictures and plays videos, something nobody uses unless they’re buying the prepaid cards you get on gas station shelves and top up every thirty minutes.
“I don’t understand,” I say, staring down at the phone, resting there grey and steely in the bottom of the box, but Leo hisses under his breath.
“Burner phone,” he bites off, his voice oddly clipped and angry.
Huh? Why’s he so mad over a phone?
I lift my head, looking at him. “Do you know what this is?”
Under the hood, his eyes are flinty and dark. “Might be a message from an unknown number,” he growls. “Check it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Reasons. I’ve had to use these things before. Check it.”
Something about the way he says it scares me. My entire body numbs, and I bite my lip, starting to pick up the phone—then I change my mind and snag a napkin off the kitchen island, using it to pick up the phone instead. There could be fingerprints on this thing, and I don’t want to wipe them off.
I flip the phone open carefully.
The screen lights up like it was waiting for me. There’s a little icon in the upper left, the tiny stylized symbol of a cassette tape that says Leo’s right.
There’s a message. Sender listed only as Unknown.
Sweet Jesus. I’m terrified to think who might be leaving messages for me on an untraceable phone.
I blink hard and punch the keypad, pulling up the voicemail menu.
You have one (1) video voicemail.
Holding my breath, my throat tight and my stomach turning itself inside out, I hit Play.
And instantly wish I hadn’t.
The sound of my sister screaming shrieks out.
My heart does a nasty somersault, and I shiver, clapping one hand over my mouth, the other thumb tapping frantically at the volume button to turn it down before Zach hears.
Oh my God, no.
I can’t watch this.
But I have no choice. I think the only reason I don’t hurl the phone away is because Leo’s right there, leaning in close, his warmth and his strength holding me up while I stare at the video between panicked breaths.
It’s Deanna. No mistake.
She’s tied to a chair with her arms behind her back, her clothing torn. Her face is bruised on one side, like she’s been struck, her mouth split open, tiny abrasive lines of red on her face.
Thin lines.
Like cuts, deliberate and cruel.
And someone has a handful of her hair, chestnut locks like mine just a shade darker. They’re wrapped around a gloved fist so thick and strong it can only belong to a man, dragging her head up sharply while she screams again.
I can’t see who it is! He’s just a shadow behind her, cut off at mid-torso.
All I see are thick, toned arms in a sleeveless shirt.
Don’t hurt her, you bastard, I want to scream, as if he can hear me. As if I can magically cross space and time and stop this.
He drags her head back until her jugular is bared, and strokes something across her throat, making her flinch and rattle and whimper. Leo’s hands go so tight.
But it’s not a knife like I fear.
A brush?
Yep, a flipping hairbrush, and slowly he draws the bristles up along her jaw with a touch that’s almost intimate, while she cringes and leans away. The brush slowly pushes into her hair at one temple, then draws back with this slow, evil care that’s intentional, controlling, and so, so sick.
“Such lovely hair.” The voice that comes through is garbled, distorted, deep and mechanical. “Such a shame we had to get blood in it. Do you want me to wash it for you, Deanna-Dee? I’d love to wash your beautiful hair.”
I’m frozen down to the bone. This is gross, and even with the strangeness to his voice, it’s oily and dark and oddly possessive.
“Voice synthesizer,” Leo growls, nearly startling me out of my skin. “He’s using it to disguise his fucking voice.”
“But who—”
My sister’s voice cuts me off—frightened, whispering, but still so angry, so brave. “Get away from me, you freak.”
“Can’t do that. We have to say hello to Clarissa, sweet Dee.” The whole time the brush strokes slowly through her hair, pulling just hard enough to make her wince. “Now look at the damn camera and say hello. Smile real pretty.”
“You don’t want her—she’s not the one! Leave her alone!”
“She must be, since you won’t tell me otherwise.”
The awful hand snared in Deanna’s hair tightens and the brush disappears.
Only to be replaced with a pair of scissors.
Deanna’s eyes roll wide and wild as she jerks her head back against the point that drags against her throat, just barely pressing down e
nough to dent, and I whimper in the back of my throat, eyes burning, welling.
I can’t stand it. I’m terrified any moment that point will dig in, and I’ll see my sister’s blood cascading everywhere—
“Tell Clarissa to come to me, Dee.”
“I won’t,” Deanna spits. “I won’t!”
“So uncooperative. You almost don’t deserve to keep this.”
There’s a sharp snick, and I can’t help myself—I squeeze my eyes shut.
But there’s no scream, no gurgle, no wet sound. I can still hear Deanna breathing, sniffling, and slowly I peel one eye open to watch Deanna’s hair go floating loose from that creep’s grip.
Some of it, anyway.
He’s cut off a thick hunk of it, holding the part knotted against his fist while the rest falls raggedly against her neck. He strokes his thumb along the gleaming strands in his fingers.
“Next time, I’ll take more,” he snarls, excited. “More to remember you by. Unless your sneaky fucking sister stops fucking around. You get one chance, Clarissa. Leave everything you have at the museum and just maybe I’ll let you and your pretty sister run away from me in one piece. Or maybe...”
This time when silver flashes, the scissors slicing a thin hole in Deanna’s shirt, I know where those small abrasive cuts came from. I gasp, fingers against my mouth while she lets out a cry, twisting at her bonds, all while that leering voice mocks us both.
“Or maybe I can just send her back in pieces. Make your choice, Clarissa Bell, or I’ll make it for you.”
* * *
I don’t remember passing out.
I just remember the video going dark, leaving a blank screen, and realizing that Leo was saying something. But I couldn’t understand him. His voice was coming down a long, far-off tunnel into nothing.
Everything just faded.
Now I’m waking up on the couch, staring up at the ceiling as everything comes rushing back.
“Deanna!” I gasp, jerking up—only to wince and press my face into my palm as my head throbs.
“Careful,” Leo growls. I realize he’s on the edge of the couch at my feet, watching me. “You almost hit the floor. I barely caught you.”
“Thanks,” I murmur. “Nice of me to go full fainting damsel on you, huh?”
“Forget it, Rissa. You’ve been under a lot of stress, hardly taking care of yourself. All your energy goes into Zach.” I can see his smile faintly under the shadow of his hood, but it’s really there in his voice. “You were just overwhelmed.”
“Because that creep—that creep—” My voice catches, nearly breaks. I swallow hard, running a hand through my hair.
Such lovely hair. His sick voice floats back to me.
I shudder. “Who was he, Leo? What does he want from me?”
“Got a few good guesses, but nothing concrete. Whatever it is probably has a lot to do with those coordinates.”
Lightning flashes through me. “You think there’s something there...and he thinks I know what it is?”
“I think,” Leo speaks slowly, measured. “Maybe he didn’t notice the coordinates, babe. But he thinks whatever Deanna knows, you know it, too.”
“I only know what I overheard from my father. And what you told me. You’re the one with all the secrets. Not me.”
He stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, you never told me you were Tiger,” I throw back. “I was just a little girl who’d lost her friend. I almost mourned you when you disappeared! Then you let me fall in love with you without even telling me you came back!”
“Clarissa...” He works his hands, opening and closing his fists. “There’s shit you didn’t know about me as a kid. Heavy fucking shit. Things were done to me. I didn’t want you or the other kids dealing with that. You didn’t need to know—”
“What? Didn’t need to know you?” It’s all boiling out of me and I can’t stop it.
Yes, I feel like a flaming hypocrite when my biggest secret is in his room right now and can probably hear me, but my emotions are so flipping raw.
I’m glad Deanna’s alive, but terrified knowing some sicko has her. “It feels like you don’t want me to know you. Even now you hide your face. You won’t tell me what you’ve been doing all these years, why you’re Nine, why you were in prison—”
“You know why I was in prison!” he throws back, chest heaving with his deep, rapid breaths. “You know fucking why. You know what I did that night. To your father, for you, for the town. Nine was my prison number, Rissa. Nine-Oh-Seven. Nine. That’s who I became.”
I flinch back, staring at him, my throat tight with those tears I’ve been fighting off for so long. “But what you did to my father was to save me...we could’ve gone to the police, the FBI, Leo. We could’ve cleared you.”
“Bull. Galentron made damn sure no one would believe it was justified homicide,” he says bitterly. “They painted me as crazy. A nut who’d lost his mind, who killed the mayor and set the Paradise Hotel on fire. A maniac who wanted to kill everyone in the town. I was their patsy, their excuse, their fucking lie. Easier than admitting they meant to turn loose a deadly virus...and the only person who could’ve testified on my behalf fled town.”
Me.
Oh God, he means me.
I could’ve saved him, could have...
Stop. I clutch my fist over the awful ache in my chest.
It’s too much, I can’t stand it, and I shake my head sharply. “Leo...Leo, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I was scared. I had to get Deanna out of here, and Zach...”
My ears pinch shut, hot shame weeping out.
He’s deadly silent for a long moment, then he turns his head away, inhaling sharply.
“Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that,” he says, his voice calmer. “I don’t blame you, Rissa. At all. You didn’t put me in this hell and it’s not your fault.”
“But it is my—”
“No. Blame Galentron and your old man. Blame every soulless maggot who engineered this shit. The rest? We’ll call it fate. And fate isn’t always a kind SOB,” he says firmly, like that’s the end of it. “Enough bickering. Let’s focus on Deanna.”
I can’t speak for several seconds. The guilt inside me weighs a ton, imagining the horror Leo went through in the hospital, in prison, all because I was so scared I just ran away without looking back. I was young and had Zach to think of, plus a little sister who’d suddenly had her world split in two.
And a man from Galentron paid us a visit a couple weeks after everything happened. He told us he’d watch over us, to let him know if we needed anything. But the bigger message? The one that killed me?
We’re watching. That’s what he laid out plain as day. And I knew our lives would just go from bad to worse if we ever tried to go to the police, the press, or...
God. I didn’t know what to do.
Not when the man I love killed the man who’d abused me for most of my life.
But now that I think of it, I’ve always run away, haven’t I?
Even when I started making candy late at night in the kitchen, I was running.
Hiding in my fantasies.
Distracting myself when it was my sister’s turn to take the brunt of Papa’s fury, telling myself there was nothing I could do without making it worse. And then, the one time I tried to stop it, it did get worse. Coward or not, I’ve always had a reason why I ran.
And Leo’s about to give me another as he says, “I think we should go to the coordinates.”
That snaps me out of my thoughts, everything crystallizing as I stare at him. “What? But it could be a trap!”
“Don’t think so,” he says. “Think about it, Rissa. If he knew about the coordinates, he’d just go, take whatever’s there, and leave. He’d get what he wants and wouldn’t need you or Deanna. Best way to figure out what that is, what he’s after, is to get it ourselves.”
“Do I even want to know?” I sigh. “I told Deanna to leave things alone, and now w
hatever she knows brought her to him. I don’t want to know what she knows.”
“There’s no choice,” Leo growls. “We can’t ignore the only possible bargaining chip in our arsenal.”
“No.” I shake my head sharply. “Leo, I can’t go running around chasing coordinates when I have my son to think of. If we go out there and get hurt, what happens to Zach? What then?”
He just looks at me gravely. It’s like I’m getting angrier and panicky while he’s getting calmer and braver, and that’s pissing me off more.
“So what do you think we should do?” he asks.
“Turn the phone over to the police!” I say, flinging a hand out. “It’s evidence. There might be prints, they could...I don’t know, they could clear up his voice and maybe identify him? The Missoula police might come back soon—”
“And they might not for months,” he says. “What you’re asking for could take days of tedious police work. Weeks. Deanna won’t have that much time.”
The hard, cold implacability of that—the reality I can’t stand to face—feels like it smashes me in the guts. I stare at him, but he’s hard, still, quiet. That granite courage that once made him my rock now makes him this stranger, this wall I’m dashing myself up against when I feel like I’m breaking.
“Get out,” I whisper. “I can’t believe you’d say something so cruel. Just...go!”
Leo remains silent, eyeballing me, everything in those hot amethyst eyes telling me I know he’s right.
I can’t stand to look at him.
That’s why I turn away. So I don’t have to watch as silent footsteps take him away, and the creak of the door tells me he’s disappeared into the descending gloom.
* * *
I guess Zach picks up on my mood because he’s silent and morose during dinner.
He doesn’t even ask me to help him with his homework before he washes up, changes, and goes to bed on his own. He’s such a grown-up little boy sometimes, and when he’s so self-sufficient, there are times I feel like he’s growing away from me, going somewhere I can’t reach.
Once he’s in bed and asleep, I settle on the edge of his bed, smooth his hair back, and press a kiss to his brow.