“What does he do?”
My mouth watered excessively, the saliva filling up and keeping me from speaking. An odd, physical reaction, but still. “He’s a forensic medical examiner.”
Cooper’s brows shot up. “Does he work out of the basement?”
“Well, no.” I shrugged. “I mean, yes. But paperwork. Images on his computer. Files he has to go over to present evidence for.”
No dead bodies ever laid in this basement. At least none that I knew of. Goosebumps rippled across my flesh, and the guilt returned tenfold. I was stupid to think another woman had come between us. That he was having an affair. He was off in California, handling whatever case they needed him for. That’s exactly what Erik was doing, and here I was, invading his work space like an insecure idiot.
“We’ve proved that there’s nothing down here except his workspace.” I walked toward the stairs.
Cooper walked toward the computer. “We’ve proved that he has a place to cut up bodies in the basement. That’s not nothing.”
I frowned. “That’s insane. First you think Erik is hurting me, and now you think he’s a murderer?”
He hit a few keys and frowned. “Damn. It’s locked.”
I walked over, determined to drag him upstairs and out of the house. But the picture of a woman on the other side of the monitor stopped me. I hadn’t seen it from where I’d been standing. The monitor blocked it from view. But now I saw it. Saw her, with long blond hair and startling blue eyes. A bright smile on her face, and Erik... holding her from behind, much the same way he held me in the photo upstairs.
“Do you have any idea...” He stopped, seeing my face, and then followed my gaze. “Oh.”
Even with proof right in front of my face, I didn’t want to believe it. The bones in my knees weakened, feeling more like cartilage as I gripped the back of the computer chair. Cooper grabbed my elbow, keeping me from falling as the chair rolled.
“Easy,” he whispered in my ear. “It will be okay. Whatever the truth is, we’ll figure it out.”
All the desire to defend Erik rushed out of me. My face went hot, my vision blurred with tears. My heart shredded even as it beat rapidly in my chest. As much betrayal and guilt as I’d felt with Cooper, I hadn’t actually done anything. But the proof of Erik’s infidelity sat in front of me. Trying to rationalize it wouldn’t do any good. The love in his eyes for her, well it was beyond anything he’d ever looked at me with.
“Lenore?”
Words. They rode on the air, but I had no comprehension of them. If Erik lied about this, what else had he lied about? What else was he keeping from me? If he loved her, who was I to him, and why couldn’t I remember who I was before him.
What had he done to me?
The heat from my face coursed through the rest of my body, my chest heaving as I pulled away from Cooper. Grabbing the picture, I slammed it on the floor. Falling to my knees, I pounded my fists into the frame, glass shards pricking the skin on the side of my palms. My screams echoed off the walls as I poured my rage and anger into the picture.
Cooper’s strong arms wrapped around me and he lifted me up, away from it. “Hey. Easy. Easy, Lenore. Shh.”
Sobs escaped me. Thick tears slipped down my face. My heart ached, physically ached, thinking about Erik with another woman. How could he do that to me? Everything inside me felt like it was falling apart. Like I couldn’t stay whole without him.
Cooper sat me down in the desk chair and knelt down. “Easy, okay? Hurting yourself isn’t going to help anything.”
He took my hand. Blood dripped from the side of my palm. It splattered onto my jeans, onto the floor. A speckled trail from me to the broken shards of class that littered the face of a woman my husband clearly loved.
“This is deep. It’ll need stitches.” He searched the desk, pulling drawers open, sliding paperwork around.
“There’s no bandages.” He ran his hands through his hair and frowned. “Wait, this will work.”
He pulled his t-shirt off and ripped it into long strips of fabric. It left him in a gray tank top and jeans. The ripples of his abs outlined beneath the thin fabric. Despite the coolness, he didn’t seem to mind, too focused on shredding his shirt.
A good-hearted man. Literally taking the shirt off his back to help someone else. I’d been beating myself up so hard, thinking I was betraying Erik. But really, he had betrayed me all along.
As Cooper wrapped his shirt around my palm, it turned a purplish color from the crimson mixing with the blue fabric.
“We need to learn the truth,” I said in a distant voice.
The world felt far away. Like I was floating just above the chair instead of sitting on it. The only thing that kept me anchored was Cooper’s gentle touch as he tended to the wound.
He tucked the end of the fabric underneath the wrapped pieces. “Do you have any idea what his password might be?”
My chest tightened, and I shook my head. It dawned on me how little I actually knew about Erik. How much he’d been hiding from me. What else didn’t I know?
Cooper walked over to the computer and poked at the keys. “Maybe there are retrieval questions. If you know the answers to those...”
But I still focused on the photo. Not just in anger and pain, but now in curiosity. Something about the woman seemed familiar. I’d never seen her before, I was certain, but it was almost a sense of déjà vu.
Getting up, I walked over to the picture and knelt. I brushed aside the shards and picked the photo up in my bandaged hand.
“Who are you?” I asked no one.
I flipped the photo over. The names Ellie and Erik, along with the month and year were scrawled across the back in Erik’s handwriting. It had only been taken nine months ago. Three months before the supposed accident that took my memories.
Nausea brewed and bubbled in my stomach. I swallowed the bile down. “Try Ellie.”
The keys stopped clicking for a moment. Then they started up again.
“We’re in.”
9
Cooper tapped on the keyboard, going through file after file. I paced the room, wondering who that woman was. Why her name was the password. It seemed strange that she mattered more than finding out the truth of my past, but here I was. Bandaged, bloodied hand still aching from the glass, and still tempted to tear up the photo. But I didn’t. I planned on showing it to Erik and confronting him about the woman, no matter what else we found out down here. He owed me an explanation.
Even as I thought about him, the familiar ache started in my chest. Despite everything, I missed him. And it hurt to be without him. The anger faded, and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand any of this. Erik never gave me any reason to doubt.
Until now.
Cooper paused in his typing.
The silence interrupted my thoughts, and I stopped pacing.
He leaned back, covering his mouth with his hand, shock etched into the profile of his face.
“What?” I stepped toward him. “What is it?”
“It can’t be.” He shook his head, dropped his hand, and looked at me. “If this is true, I mean. This is some insane stuff.”
His fingers moved over the keyboard again, tapping slowly. The pace made me want to look for myself, but something kept me frozen in place.
“This has to be wrong,” he said. “Some hobby, maybe. It can’t be real.”
Anxiety ping-ponged in my chest. Front to back with someone slapping paddles so hard it kept knocking the wind from me. Whatever Cooper read on that computer, the shock and horror shone out of his eyes like headlights. And I was the deer stuck in front of them.
“Cooper, what?!”
He stood up and turned the chair toward me. “Sit.”
I did without hesitation. “You’re scaring me.”
He swiveled the chair toward the computer screen. The glare of it hurt my eyes for a second before the words came into focus. The moment I started reading, it was like I got sucked into one
of the thriller novels I loved to read.
Only this wasn’t fiction. But it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be, because each word was another piece of a horror story that built my life. An impossible thing. Nothing I’d ever even heard of.
“What the fuck? This has to be a joke.”
“I don’t think it is,” he said. “Your husband is Doctor Erik Franks. The Doctor Erik Franks.”
“Erik is a medical examiner with a PHD. So what?”
Cooper paused then, something passing over his face that was almost imperceptible. “Jesus, Lenore, you really don’t know, do you?”
I raised my brows. “That you’re being cryptic? Yes, I know that.”
“He’s not exactly an anonymous man.” Cooper crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the desk. “He was all over the news about six months ago. Talking about bringing people back from the dead. How with modern technology combined with old ways we could do it.”
“Old ways?”
He gestured toward the computer. “What you see there.”
What I saw there were notes on necromancy from a book that seemed to come right out of a horror movie.
“How is that possible? I looked up Erik on the phone too. Nothing like this came up.”
“Maybe he knew you were snooping. He could have set it so the search results filtered out specific words.”
Maybe I hadn’t been as sneaky as I thought. The notes and files on the computer only got worse, more surreal. Pictures of the corpses filled the screen. One woman after the next. Erik had outlined which parts of each woman he used. Putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle—until he made me.
“No.” I stood up so abruptly the chair flew back, slamming against the metal table.
The cold, steel metal table. If Erik’s notes were true—he created me on that table. Flexing my hands—were they my hands? Did they belong to me?
Necromancy. He had brought me to life with necromancy.
“This can’t be true.”
My knees gave way. Cooper rushed to me, catching me with muscular arms.
“Okay," he said. "Come on. This isn’t the first time you’ve nearly collapsed. You need to get out of this basement and rest."
I ground my teeth but nodded. Every time we found out some new bit of information, my body had a physical reaction. Like I wasn’t supposed to know. My brain swam with so many thoughts and uncertainties about who and what I was.
With an arm around my waist, Cooper guided me back up the stairs and toward the master bedroom.
"It's going to be okay."
I didn’t believe him. How could I believe him? I was some sort of abomination—pieces of dead things sewn together. Alive because of what? Words in an old book.
He guided me toward the edge of the bed. I sat and blood dripped from my hand, speckling the wood floor.
“Am I even alive?”
“Hey.” Cooper pulled back and cupped my cheeks with his hands. He stared into my eyes, nothing but compassion lingering there. “You are alive. You’re a living, breathing human being. No matter how that came to be.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “How can you be so calm about this?”
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. That lopsided smile made my knees weak. “Because, no matter how bad it is, it could be worse.”
I shook my head, trying to pull away. He took my hand, put it on his chest. Then he put his hand over mine. The steady thrum of our hearts beat. Mine more rapid than his. He took deep, slow breaths, and somehow, my heart matched his, along with my breathing. Cooper soothed me without even trying.
At that moment, I needed to feel alive. I needed to feel more than alive. I needed to feel the rush of energy coursing through my veins. To be connected, truly connected to someone in the most primal way possible. Now that I knew the truth about how I’d come to be, it revealed something else.
I’d never been with Erik. Not really. He orchestrated everything. From my construction, to my life, to our lovemaking. He built me—and never gave me a will of my own.
Now, though, I knew. Now, I had a choice.
My chest ached even as I thought about it, but I didn’t care. It could hurt me, and it could hurt Erik. For the first time in my very short life, I would do something that I wanted to do.
Standing on my toes, I kissed Cooper. His lips felt warm and soft. They were slightly chapped and still tasted lightly of the coffee from earlier. I gripped his tank top, holding onto him, clinging to him as if I might be lost if I let him go. As if I might not be real.
“Lenore.” He pulled back, our lips just slightly apart. “This is... we can’t do this.”
“Please.” I pressed my forehead against his. “Please, Cooper. Nothing in my existence is real. Not Erik’s love for me, not even me. I’m a made-up monster.”
“You’re not.”
Tears slipped through my closed lids. They strolled down my cheek.
Could dead things cry?
I kissed him again, not wanting to think about what I was or wasn’t. Just needed to feel. I leaned against him. His erection pressed against my belly. He wanted me just as much as I needed him.
Without hesitation, I kissed him again. “Please.” And again. “Please, Cooper.”
“You’re married.”
“No, I’m a prisoner.” I pressed my forehead against his, my hands kneaded into the powerful muscles of his back. “Let me have this choice. Please.”
“Lenore.” Relinquishing any resistance, he grabbed me under the ass, and lifted. I wrapped my legs around his hips.
He pushed me up against the wall, pressing our bodies together. It stole my breath, more than his kisses. His hands worked on my buttons, as I frantically tried to pull my shirt over my head. It became a tangle of limbs and clothes, and fingers, and fervent kisses on skin.
Then we were on the bed. In one powerful thrust, Cooper was inside of me. I cried out into his kiss, my hands gripping his shoulders as he filled me. He paused for a moment as I adjusted, but I didn’t want him to hesitate or wait. I needed more. Without restraint. Without worry that he might hurt me. And I could feel him holding back. As if he weren’t sure.
I hooked my feet around his hips and dug my heels into his muscular ass, driving him even deeper.
“Make me feel alive,” I whispered against his lips.
He all but growled against me as he pushed up on his knees and slammed back into me with enough force to move the bed. The feet screeched against the wood floor. Cooper thrust again, pounding against me. Our bodies joined at the most intimate place possible. I was so wet for him. The smell of our combined bodies flourished through the room. Sweat glistened on our skin as the sound of our bodies coming together echoed throughout the room.
Feeling a surge of confidence, I forced us to roll with him still inside me. Now I was on top. Now I was in control. His hands slid over my thighs.
For a moment, I hesitated then. Only because Erik never let me be on top. I always wanted to try, but he always had to be in control. My chest had that all familiar ache again.
“Are you okay?” Cooper asked. He slid his hands to my hips and held my gaze.
I smiled and moved. I rode him and he groaned. Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back. His fingers dug into my flesh, helping me move up and down. The look of pure ecstasy on his face drove me closer to peak. The flourish of pleasure rippled under my skin, intensifying with every moment.
Cooper sat up and captured my lips. I gripped his shoulder as his hand slid up my skin. He gripped the back of my neck, slamming up into me. His thrusts became desperate without rhythm, and I drank it up, losing myself along with him. The pleasure rushed to my core, and I screamed, coming undone with an intensity I had never felt.
His cock swelled inside of me, and he thrust deeply into me. Holding himself there as his warm seed bathed my insides. It enhanced the pleasure, and I let it wash over me. We collapsed in a tangle of limbs on the bed. Both sweaty and breathless, s
ated from an intensely wild orgasm.
He kissed me. I smiled against his lips.
In the living room, I heard the phone vibrate. But for that moment, I was free.
10
I laid in Cooper’s arm. He held me close. The warmth from his skin pressed against mine, and it felt different from Erik. Not better or worse. Just different. The sex though, well, Cooper did not dominate me the way Erik did. And now I wondered why Erik did those things. Why he enjoyed holding me down. Why he needed to claim me the first second I came home, or right before I left for the store. My heart ached for him—for the love we had. Have? I didn’t even know.
The bedroom door burst open. Before I could react two bullets fired from a gun. I ducked my head and screamed. Cooper’s arms tightened around me. I expected to be dead or at the very least, dying. But the pain didn’t come. I lifted my head and looked at Cooper. He looked at the ceiling, eyes blank and glassy as blood turned the blue sheets purple, matching the bandage still wrapped around my hand.
The shooter grabbed me by the arm. He jerked me out of bed. He wore a ski mask and smelled like expensive cologne. His eyes caught mine as he held me close. Those stark, terrifying green eyes. The same eyes that had been so accusing in the supermarket.
“You’re dead,” he said.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, you’re mistaken. I’m not who you think I am.”
He shook me. Fear zipped through my chest. I wore the face of a dead woman. Maybe I had been her. But not anymore. I couldn’t remember her death. I didn’t know if it was mine. At that moment, I did not want to die, whether it was the first time, or again.
I was naked. Nothing but skin shielded my body from whatever he had planned. He looked me up and down with lust-filled eyes. A cold shiver rushed down my spine.
“You’re right. Because I remember what I did. I remember when your breath stopped.” He tore the ski mask off his face.
Jake Saunders had a hard look. The muscles of his jaw bulged. “Now, I’m going to kill you again. This time, it will stick.”
As he raised the gun, I raised my knee and slammed it between his legs.
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