And there, driving down the road, blaring EDM, I finally got that sound out of my head for at least a few minutes. I could think, but it wasn’t good. I wondered what I should do. Should I tell someone what I saw and heard? Besides Sammie and Devon, who would even believe me? It was insane.
I rested with my head against the headrest, unconcerned with the scalp oils that had found their way to it before me. I had to stop thinking that Helena Stelton murdered Paul Porter during their kinky sex. I just had to.
Chapter 4
Branson
Mercer was usually silent. He had a lot of demons and he never really moved outside of them. He was great at his job and I’d trust my life to him any day, but he had the kind of demons that came out even more in the middle of the night.
It was the second night since he’d moved in and I was wide awake at two in the morning, staring at my ceiling. Again. He screamed. He screamed loud enough to scare the shit out of me each time. I knew those screams. He was reliving the night of Luke’s death. Those were the screams that he’d let out after he’d pushed me away from an IED and had his own body blown to hell and back.
So I stared at my ceiling thinking of that night. When I did fall asleep, my nightmares were even more vivid than normal. It was like I was back there again.
I needed more furniture. Or carpet. Something. Maybe I could soundproof his room without him noticing and being offended. I just couldn’t do it.
I spent the nights listening to him scream and the days listening to Charlotte Crier bitch and moan about having security. I was ready to lose it.
Mercer couldn’t go home, though. The police had searched his house again and claimed there’d been a crime committed there. They kicked him out and set up some big crime-scene tech shit. When my contact did get back in touch with me, it was just to say that they’d found something in Mercer’s kitchen.
So, “something in Mercer’s kitchen” had led to him screaming his head off in my guest room. He’d refused to stay with Lauren, even though she’d practically begged him to. He’d refused to stay with Vince or Tucker, because they had bachelor pads and women over all the time. He couldn’t stay with Cooper because Sonnie was there. So that left me. The other scarred-up fucker who wouldn’t be having anyone over anytime soon.
I was happy to have him over. I just hadn’t realized how bad his nightmares were. It didn’t matter, though. No matter how bad off he was, he was welcome in my home. We were brothers. It didn’t mean I didn’t think about screaming right along with him through the night, though.
Everyone in the office was tense. The shit with Mercer was getting to be ridiculous. We’d all shrugged it off because we knew that Mercer hadn’t done anything. The cops weren’t letting up, though. They were wasting their time on him, but they didn’t see it that way. They were convinced that Mercer had hurt his girlfriend.
Lauren had been flitting in and out of my house, checking on Mercer and driving us both crazy. I wasn’t used to having company. The one time Sonnie had stayed over, she’d almost died. To say I wasn’t a great host would be an understatement.
Lauren wanted the best for Mercer. She loved him. Everyone knew it. Mercer wasn’t willing to take her caring for him, though. It was a constant battle. A constant battle that I had to hear. My house was never quiet anymore.
I sighed and rolled over in bed. Used to be that morning brought some relief from the stress of the night. The nightmares would be over, night would be the longest away it was ever going to be, the silence would go back to being peaceful instead of oppressing. Not anymore, though. Either Lauren was around, fussing at Mercer, or I was at work.
Saying work in regards to what I did was a joke, though. A vast overstatement. I just stood at the front door of Charlotte Crier’s house and looked like one of those fucking British guards. That was when she wasn’t complaining about me and fighting with her manager to get me out of there.
I’d read up on her and people thought she was a sweetheart. She was Arkansas royalty; that much was for sure. She was supposedly talented, sweet, funny, and just about perfect. I hadn’t seen any of that. I’d just seen the bossy woman who threw a fit damn near daily about having to have me sitting my happy ass outside her front door.
I also had to be in the city more than I liked to be. Charlotte’s house was in the suburbs. It was a copy of all the rest of the houses in her cul-de-sac and I didn’t know how anyone looking to harm her would even know which house she was in. They all looked the same. Down to the cookie-cutter wreath on the front door. It creeped me out.
Her neighbors stopped by all the time to drop off new recipes and just say hi to their smiling idol. I’d heard more than one of them talking about how perfect she was and how amazing her house was. It probably had something to do with the makeup team and the maid that slipped in through the back door every morning.
When I left the SEALs and we all agreed to start a security business, I hadn’t really known what I was getting into. I had buddies who did it in DC and they spent their days guarding senators and diplomats. I was guarding a rude Martha Stewart. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but we’d had cases before that were more exciting. Plus, we were just getting started, in a small town. I couldn’t expect anything too crazy.
Most of the time I was fine with that. I wanted it, even. We’d all left the SEALs to settle down into our lives, to stop getting shot at and shit. Boring jobs like Charlotte Crier were going to be our bread and butter. I just wanted my bread and butter to be less awful.
As it was, I was in bed, in the middle of the night, listening to Mercer scream and dreading going to work that morning. I sighed and rolled over again.
Like my sigh had parted the Red Sea of sound in my house, the screaming stopped. The silence didn’t last long before I heard Mercer moving around. A few seconds later, I heard ice being dropped into a cup and then the squeak of my one barstool as he sat down at the kitchen island.
I got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pajama pants before joining him in the kitchen. He looked like hell, with his head hanging low and a bottle of whiskey next to him. I poured myself a glass of water and leaned against the counter opposite him.
“You snore.”
I stared at him, unwilling to throw his screaming in his face. We both knew it was happening. There was no need to point it out.
“You didn’t use to snore.” He drained his glass and poured in more whiskey. “Everything’s fucking different.”
“I’ve always snored. I just didn’t sleep on missions. You never had to hear it.” I pulled myself up onto the countertop and rested my head against the cabinet behind me. “What’s got you feeling reflective tonight?”
He sat back and groaned, his left arm immediately curling protectively into his body. “Fucking seasons. Every time they change, my body throbs. The joys of getting old, I guess.”
I noticed he hadn’t answered my question, but I didn’t push it. One thing about Mercer was that he didn’t do well with being pushed. He got around to things in his own time or not at all. “The joys of getting blown up, you mean. I don’t think normal men under forty are as beaten-up as us. Lauren gave me this shit to try. It tastes like mint chocolate and I guess it helps.”
He shook his head. “Don’t even say her name. She’s driving me fucking crazy.”
I smiled, but hid it behind my glass. “That bad, huh?”
“She’s always pushing something on me. That shit you’re talking about, yoga, swimming, fucking hiking. What business does a guy with one leg have doing on a goddamn mountain?”
I snorted. “Maybe she’s trying to kill you off. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but sending you hiking can only be a murder attempt.”
He scowled. “I’m going to fire her.”
“No, you’re not.”
He downed his whiskey and shook his head some more. “She’s driving me crazy.”
“You said that.”
“She’s always coming around and suggesti
ng shit. Do this, do that. I’m fed up with it. She’s always trying to fix me.”
He didn’t seem to need me for the conversation so I just drank my water and waited.
“She tried to get me to go to counseling. Like there’s something wrong with me. She made an appointment and everything.”
I sat up. “Did you go?”
He glared at me. “Fuck, no. Don’t tell me you’re on the crazy train, too. Shit, Bran. If I need counseling, so do you.”
“I won’t argue with you there. We could all probably use some.”
“I don’t see you making your appointment.”
He had a point. I shrugged. “I never claimed to be smart.”
“She called me a coward. Just today. When she came over to bring me soup. Like I’m five years old and sick. She called me a coward for not coming over to her house. What the hell do I have to be afraid of? Besides her mothering me to death. When I told her to explain herself, she just stormed off.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t want to talk about her.”
“Fuck you.” Mercer stood up, a noticeable limp to his gait, and flipped me off. “I’m going back to bed. You’re just as annoying as she is.”
I just smiled. “Love you, too.”
He took his glass and the whiskey bottle with him when he left. I stood up and put my glass in the sink before going back to bed. I lay on top of the covers and rested my arm over my eyes. I just wanted to go back to sleep and get some peace.
Sleep was a tease that night, though. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that haunted look on Mercer’s face and the limp as he walked away. I was worried about him. I knew he wouldn’t survive in jail and if, by some fucked-up glitch in the system, he ended up getting arrested for murdering Jessica, I knew he’d lose it.
I was no better than Lauren, worrying and making myself sick thinking of the worst possible outcome, but I couldn’t help it. Things weren’t going well. The worst possible outcome didn’t seem like some imaginary thing that would never happen. It felt way more real than it ever should have.
I stared at the ceiling, wondering if things would ever feel normal again, like before the bomb, when I heard screaming. It wasn’t Mercer. It was a woman. I jerked upright and realized I’d fallen asleep and had started dreaming immediately.
Breathing heavily, I ran my hands down my face and blew out a rough breath. That counseling was looking better and better.
Chapter 5
Elizabeth
Mr. Caldwell stood at the edge of my desk and grinned down at me. “Well, Lizzy, it’s hump day again.”
“Elizabeth, Mr. Caldwell. You know that.” I shook my head at him, doing my best to look playful. “I’ve been here almost a year. If I haven’t let the whole Lizzy thing happen by now, you should wave the white flag and give it up.”
He laughed his big belly laugh and stuck his thumb in the strap of his suspenders. Yep, suspenders. He was basically Colonel Sanders, minus the undercurrent of racism and chicken. “One day, it’ll happen. Just like one day you’ll marry me and make me the happiest man in all of the land.”
I looked up from the stack of paper I was organizing and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do I have to call your wife again?”
He held up his hands and pretended to shake. “Don’t do anything crazy.”
“Then keep your marriage talk to yourself.” I handed him a stack of the papers. “Here are your emails, printed out like you like, killing another four trees.”
“I’ve got that call to Mark in a little bit. I’ll open the door when I’m done and then you can come in and we’ll do the emails together.” He patted my shoulder. “You keep me honest, Lizzy.”
“Elizabeth, Mr. Caldwell.”
He sauntered into his office and shut the door behind him. His weekly calls with Mark were the only time he shut his door, usually. Mark Stelton, Helena’s older brother, owned a marketing firm across town. Both businesses had been run by Mr. Stelton until he’d passed. Better, I was sure. While Mr. Stelton had been a nice man who ran his businesses with a firm but gentle hand, his kids lacked the warmth that he’d possessed.
As soon as that door shut, I slumped in my seat. The paperwork I’d been flipping through was forgotten and every ounce of professionalism melted away. I rested my elbows on my desk and my head in my hands. I had a headache that radiated all around the top of my head and behind my eyes. I was sure it was a tension headache, brought on by the stress of walking around for a week thinking your boss had killed one of your coworkers.
It was crazy. I knew it was crazy. Insane. Absolutely ridiculous. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kept replaying that night over and over again. What I’d seen, though drunk, had been shocking, but was there more?
I’d done everything I could to try to get a definite answer from what was in my head. I’d thought about it every which way I could; I’d written the entire encounter down; I’d even tried meditating over it. From the thud I’d heard, to the last cry I’d heard from Paul, it was all cemented into my memory for the rest of my life. I wanted to come to the conclusion that I was crazy. Instead, the longer I thought about it, the surer I was that something bad had happened to Paul in Brenda’s office that night.
There’d been candle wax on the floor. Dark-red candle wax. Or what my drunk mind had told me was candle wax. I remember seeing it on the floor as clear as I remembered my own name. I’d noticed it because it was pooled next to Paul’s knees. The tail sticking out of his backside had swished and swayed over it, pointing to it like a furry arrow. Only, what if it hadn’t been candle wax?
My stomach had been in knots since I’d found out that Paul was dead. Not just dead. Murdered. Sammie had texted me a few days earlier, telling me that she’d heard Paul had been murdered. She’d heard that he’d been strangled to death.
My head told me the sound I’d heard had been Paul’s last breath. That leather strap in Helena’s hands had been attached to Paul’s throat. He’d been found hours later, strangled to death. There were a lot of things that I could ignore. My cable bill until it got cut off. My cuticles when I hadn’t been to a nail salon in three months and couldn’t afford to go back. Phone calls from my family. Paul Porter being found strangled to death after I saw Helena gripping a leather strap that was around his neck wasn’t one of them.
Every time I saw the woman, my skin pimpled in goosebumps and I felt a chill walk down my spine. My grandmother always claimed it was someone walking across her grave when she’d felt it. And didn’t that just fit my thoughts?
My head was swarming relentlessly with fears of murder and evil bosses. I had no appetite. I took the stairs constantly to avoid Helena in the elevator and my thighs were so sore. I was a mess. I didn’t normally hold stuff in, but I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t actually say the words to anyone that I thought Helena had murdered Paul. Not even to Sammie and Devon. Even they would think I’d lost it.
Knowing Mr. Caldwell was going to be locked in his office for a solid hour or so, I slipped my feet back into my favorite black heels and headed to the stairwell.
I’d skipped lunch to avoid having to talk to anyone, but I needed something. Nothing sounded good, but I knew I had to eat. I needed energy to be able to handle my constantly churning brain. I stepped into the cafeteria on the second floor and immediately spotted Sammie walking towards me.
Her eyes widened and she grinned. “Elizabeth! Where the hell have you been?”
I forced a smile. “I’ve just been feeling awful.”
“You look like you saw a ghost. Devon and I will come over after work and make you some soup and bring you the latest gossip from downstairs.”
I wanted to hang out with my best friends, but I had this huge secret I was keeping from them and I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep it if we were sitting around, gossiping. “You don’t have to do that. I’m more tired than anything. I should probably just get some rest.”
Sammie narrowed her eyes and shook her hea
d. “No. Something’s going on and you don’t get to close us out. We’ll be at your house tonight.”
Before I could even argue, she was striding away. I groaned and hurried to grab a yogurt and get back up to my desk. I’d been doing everything I could to avoid Helena, short of hiding under my desk. Being out in the open made me nervous.
I got back to my desk and had my yogurt without any interruptions. I was just throwing the carton away when I heard a throat being cleared from the doorway. I sat up and went rigid. I should’ve hid under my desk. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Stelton?”
“Brenda will be out Monday. I’ll need you to cover her desk in the morning. Try to be on time.” Her coldness filled the room and threatened to turn the condensation on my iced coffee to actual ice. “I’m sure you can handle anything Mr. Caldwell has for you to do, as well.”
I made the muscles in my face move into what felt like a polite smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
I melted into my seat as soon as she walked away. My brain screamed that the woman was a cold-blooded killer. My fight or flight was telling me to fucking run. I didn’t want to sit at that desk the next morning and pretend that I wasn’t pooping myself, and horribly grossed out.
My nerves were shot the rest of the day. I did the best I could to make it to five and then I booked it out of there. I was out of the building in less than three minutes and already jogging down the street in heels and a tight pencil skirt. I pushed through the congestion of rush hour on the sidewalks and all but elbowed old ladies and babies out of my way.
My apartment was my haven. Even with the family next door screaming at each other all day and night and the guy next door, who I was also convinced was a killer, creeping around the hallway, it was so much better than being out in public with Helena. I let myself in and slammed the door closed behind me.
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