by Nicole Snow
“If you say so.” He holds his hands up. “Jesus, I’m not starting a new fight with you when we’re still not done with the old one. Can't change what happened years ago, anyway.”
“Maybe we're not done with the fight, but I think I’m done talking to you right now.”
He sighs, shoulders sagging. “Yeah. Sure. Just...”
“Just what?”
But Steve only shakes his head mournfully. “I’ll talk to you later, Kenna. Maybe when we’re both ready to forgive each other for being jackasses.”
I don’t say anything. I feel too messy right now, and he’s right.
We're both being jackasses. Both too spiky, too defensive, just now.
But I have to look away, because I can’t stand to watch my brother walk away the same way Landon did.
For the longest time, I stay there. Curled up on the barstool, propping my feet against the edge and hugging my legs to my chest.
I can't shake the last bit of our conversation.
Digging through my memories feels like trying to remember the plot of a book I read years ago.
I know what I saw, don't I? My memory’s pretty good, and I can still see it.
The strained, urgent look on Micah’s face. The grim men in suits around him, many of them in sunglasses that turned them all nearly identical, so that in my memory they’re all just copies of the same man.
Except one. I remember a scar on the back of his hand, that hand curled just a little too tight against Micah Strauss’ shoulder, guiding him into the back of a large black Escalade.
And Landon. Standing in the door helplessly, this darkness and confusion hovering over his brow, the first shadow of that dark seed waiting to take root. His father yelled something back at him. It had to be something like “stay!”
I hadn’t realized it then, but I was looking into the future then. Head-on at the man Landon would become.
I don’t feel right.
Something sticks with me, and it's making me sick. Just like something else, the story about the fire at the beach house doesn’t add up.
This mysterious pile of brush that shouldn’t have been there...but it’s somehow just an accidental fire.
The men who were with Micah Strauss, but who mysteriously were never mentioned anywhere.
Something vile chews away inside me, and I'm trying to find just the right place to click the edges together and make this little logic puzzle make sense.
I’m not sure what I’m thinking, but it’s ugly. Scary. Suspicious.
And I’m not sure what drives me outside into the fading sunlight, but I want to have another look at the beach house.
Obviously, I’m no forensics investigator. I don’t even write crime fiction.
But I’m learning to trust my instincts, and my instincts say we missed something about that fire.
My heart drums too loudly in my chest as I cross the grass to the beach house. My palms are tingling and sweaty. I think some part of me expects another shadowy figure to come crashing out of the trees, and this time there’ll be no Dallas here to sweep out of nowhere and save me.
My entire body hums, adrenaline drunk, on high alert.
The beach house is the same, with large tarps strung over the burned-out areas of the roof. I circle the house slowly, taking in the scorch marks up the sides, the bubbled and blistered paint. Where the worst of the damage is, an entire black-edged section of the house has been chewed away.
There’s a pile of ash near the wall, the remnants of a few twigs in it. Obviously poked and raked through by the firefighters.
It looks almost like the remnants of a bonfire, almost too perfectly placed.
Like it was set intentionally.
I can’t breathe. Every time I try, it kind of bounces off my lungs. My chest is tight, my pulse frantic, and I rub at my chest as I lift my head, looking around, wide-eyed and throwing sharp looks everywhere.
The beach house is almost fully surrounded by open space. So, how could someone get up here to set a fire without being seen? There’s only a small wall of bushes leading out into the trees and –
Wait. The bushes.
The bushes with their branches broken out in one place, as if someone had forced through them on a path from the trees to the house.
Don’t go back there, a voice screams in the back of my head.
This isn’t a horror novel. I already tempted fate by being That Heroine once, and got a face full of Milah Holly’s crotch for my troubles. I won’t be so 'lucky' a second time.
I push forward into the bushes.
Don’t. Go. Back. There.
Branches scratch at my arms. Cool, waxy leaves slide against my skin.
I squeeze through the bushes. The shadows of the trees fall over me. When I break out of the hedge, my feet sink into soft, squelching mud. I freeze, looking down.
The earth under the shade of the trees looks damp and muddy, without the sun to dry away the dew and occasional light summer shower. I’m in up to the soles of my feet, the flats of my sandals disappearing into the mud, cold slickness clinging to my skin. It feels just like the dread-film clinging to my heart.
Because my footprints aren’t the only ones here.
Clear prints mark a path through the mud, leading across a clearing half encircled by trees, the rest by the hedge, except for a break that leads across a little slope of scrub brush down to the service road near the house.
Even as I stare, wide-eyed and frozen, a truck goes trundling along the dusty road, its low engine whine reaching up to me. It’s only maybe a hundred feet down the slope from the break in the trees to the road.
And there’s a cigarette stub stuck in the mud, half-crushed in one of those footsteps.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
My brain’s on panic overdrive, stumbling over itself wildly.
I finally see it.
I can see it in my mind’s eye, a car parked on the edge of the unlit service road, probably black to blend into the shadows. There’d be no one to notice so late at night.
It's almost too easy. Just creep up the slope, gathering scrub and twigs along the way, dry sere grass and fallen branches perfect to start a fire in this heat. Slip through the hedges. Light the blaze.
Then vanish, no one the wiser.
It’s so clear it’s almost real.
Gasping, I stumble forward, slogging through the mud, then breaking free onto the grass, ducking through the trees, tumbling down the slope. I don’t know what I’m thinking I’m going to find. Tire tracks, maybe, peeling out at high speed and leaving a stain of black rubber. A dropped wallet, like it would be that easy.
What I find, instead, is a discarded gas can, tossed to one side behind the guard rail on the road.
I stop, staring down at it. It’s new. Not dusty or faded or old, so it can’t have been out here for long. A little battered, but that’s it.
I nudge it carefully with my toe, not wanting to contaminate evidence with my fingerprints, and something sloshes inside. A few last drops of gasoline.
Oh. My. God.
Landon was right. Someone’s out to get him. Someone tried to.
Maybe someone who knows he’s looking for his father’s killer. Maybe someone tied into all the bad things Micah Strauss was tangled up in from the past.
Maybe someone who wants to take Landon out next.
I don’t know what to do. Call the police?
No. They’ll just ignore me because it’s not my house, and think I’m just some weirdo making up conspiracies. I’ve got to tell Landon.
And Landon won’t pick up his fucking phone.
Even as I stumble back through the brush toward the main house, snapping photos on my phone the whole way, I’m dialing his number between shots, calling again and again and getting his voicemail over and over. Fuck my life.
I can't believe he’s being a stubborn asshole. Even if he’s planning to ignore me, he can’t ignore this.
“Landon, pick up,”
I snap to his voicemail. “This is important. Not about us. It’s about the fire.”
Then I hang up and stop outside the house, breathing hard.
Dammit. I left my car at Steve’s place. But there’s another car in the garage, a big black SUV, a lot like the one I saw Micah Strauss getting into. Despite being a newer model, it gives me an awful sense of foreboding.
I don’t care. I don't have the time.
I guess I’m stealing Landon’s backup. I find the keys on the hook, scrape the mud off my shoes, and only take a moment to leave food and water for the cats, lock up the house, and grab my wallet before I’m scrambling behind the wheel of a vehicle that’s much too big for me.
I go lurching out of the garage. Don’t know why I can’t wait for Landon to get home. But I can’t. It's too important.
Call it a woman’s built-in intuition, instinct, or a sign from above, but I just know I’ve got to go to him.
Even if he won’t talk to me, I'll make him listen.
Because a sick, scared feeling in the pit of my stomach tells me that fire was just the beginning.
16
Ever Shifting Ground (Landon)
I don’t think I’ve ever hated my life as much as I do this exact moment.
I’ve walked away from Kenna.
Forcibly shoved her away from me, to the point where I’ve been refusing to pick up her calls all night. Ruined my relationship with the last friend who ever had any faith in me. Plus, I’m stuck working with fucking Dallas on the worst job of my career.
And the poison cherry on top is that I currently have a very naked, very insistent, probably extremely high Milah Holly pressed against me, backing me against the wall of her private backstage dressing room.
Even if my dick wasn’t still leashed to that maddening little kitten I left behind, I wouldn’t have touched Milah with a ten-foot pole. She’s my anti-type.
She’s snotty. She’s entitled. She’s a professional liability. And she apparently missed the “no means no” sexual harassment seminar in high school, because the only thing keeping her from unzipping my pants and hopping on my dick is my hands around her wrists, pushing her away to arm’s reach.
My phone’s ringing in my back pocket for the fiftieth time tonight, vibrating against my ass, but I’m too busy right now to go for it.
“Cut it the fuck out,” I snarl. “I'm not playing, Miss Holly. I’m here to do my job, the one you hired me for. That’s it. Don’t make this hard for both of us.”
She smirks in this weird, sloppy way. If she’s not high, she’s definitely drunk. “I bet it’s already hard, Landy. C'mon, why're you still pretending you don't like me?”
“Not pretending,” I grunt firmly. “I'm your employee. Not your fuck toy.”
She tries to sway closer, angling between the tangle of our arms, but I persistently push back out of her reach, keeping a tight but careful grip on her wrists.
Like fuck I’m going to accidentally mark her up just to defend myself, if she thinks she’s touching me, I swear to Christ...
She lets out a soft little whine, jiggling her body purposefully as she strains against my grasp, like she thinks this is some kind of cute little game.
I just wait, refusing to let her closer, until she gives up and relaxes after a last frenzied minute of straining pulls and slumps.
“C'mon, Landon. This isn’t cute.”
“I’m not trying to be cute. I’m trying to keep you off me.”
She sucks in a soft, offended breath, then gives me a flutter-lashed, sulky look. “You really don’t want me?”
“No.”
For a split second she actually looks hurt. I hate to be cruel, but I’m hoping it’s finally sinking in. Even if there’s part of me screaming in the back of my mind – so you can give a shit for Milah’s feelings, but you’re gonna hurt Kenna?
Sure. Milah signs my paychecks.
Kenna needs to stay away from me for her own good.
She’s so wrong.
I’m not just a monster, I’m a shitty person.
Milah grimaces at me. This time her sulking is real, her look wounded but oddly vulnerable. “Shit. You’re serious, aren’t you? You’re, like, serious about that plain little girl pretending to be your girlfriend. You actually love someone like her.”
The fact that I bristle at the implied insult to Kenna before I bristle at that fucking question tells me an answer I don’t want to face.
It hits like a slug to the gut, and I can’t speak. I won’t.
I’m not going to bare myself to this wretched little brat when I can’t even face those things myself. But it says a lot that even with a naked woman millions would give their left nut to fuck trying to rub herself against me, all I can think about is Kenna.
So much that I’m imagining her voice.
“Landon?”
Not my imagination.
Kenna’s actually here.
Why the fuck is Kenna here?
My head whips up, heart booming like a cannon, just in time to see her stumbling through the door with one of the guards reaching for her arm. She’s a mess – her arms and legs scratched, her sandals caked in mud, her feet filthy. She’s sweaty, disheveled, her hair a tangled mess falling half out of its tail.
She’s never looked more beautiful.
And I’ve never looked like a bigger ass than I do with a naked Milah practically in my arms.
Kenna staggers to a halt, staring between us, her eyes wide and wounded, like shattered green glass threatening to let her hurt seep through the cracks.
Fuck! I know exactly how this looks.
I open my mouth to protest, but my boy, James, leans around the door, reaching for her arm again.
“Miss –”
“Let her go,” I snarl, then follow my own advice and drop Milah’s wrists like I’ve been burned. Kenna snaps that recriminating gaze to me, her mouth trembling, but before I can say anything else Milah lets out a huffy, annoyed sound.
“Don’t even start,” Milah snaps. She stands there brazenly naked, cocking her weight on one hip, and folds her arms over her burgeoning plastic chest. “Look, the last thing I need to deal with is a tantrum from the C-cup he just ditched me for.”
Kenna trains her glare at Milah. “Excuse the fuck out of you?”
“I mean get over it, Plain Jane.” Milah scowls. “God, you're dense. He doesn’t want me. So don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit. You’re lucky, okay? Really fuckin' lucky! The only thing he’s been thinking about is you, you, and – oh yeah – you. He turned me down. For you. Can you believe it? Because I still can't.”
Kenna just stands there, a sort of dumbstruck, blank expression on her face.
I know just how she feels. Hell, I’m frozen, too, my tongue swollen thick in my mouth, my gut in knots and my hands itching to reach for her, shake her, hold her, touch her, shove her away. All my conflicted feelings rammed together simultaneously.
Meanwhile, here's Milah Holly, baring my goddamned soul for me like it’s hers to give.
Milah gives us both almost pitying looks.
There’s something weird in her expression. Her eyes are wet, her face crestfallen, and suddenly instead of the little-girl act there’s just a little girl someone broke a long time ago, who’s been trying to find someone to tell her she’s worth something ever since.
Suddenly, I can see Milah for who she really is, and deep down I’m glad I made the choice to protect her even if she’s still an ungrateful little shit.
Fuck. These thoughts aren’t like me.
I blame Kenna. For showing up and turning my world upside down.
But we’re both just standing there, wordless, and Milah lets out an exasperated sigh, a watery smile trembling her lips. “You’re both so stupid,” she says, then reaches out and pokes Kenna in the forehead. “Don’t let him go, okay? This stuff, with him...it’s special, C-cup. Fucking annoying, but special. You can't buy real these days.”
Kenna stan
ds frozen a moment longer, eyes crossing on Milah’s manicured finger, before a grit-toothed smile crosses her lips. She snaps her hand around Milah’s wrist and pries her back.
“Touch me again,” Kenna says through her teeth, “and I end you.”
Then she lets go of Milah’s wrist, her fixed expression gentling. “But thanks, lady.”
It’s Milah’s turn to blink, disbelieving, before she goes red through her makeup and looks away with a flustered “Hmph. Whatever, Plain Jane.”
She turns in a toss of her hair, blonde tail nearly lashing Kenna in the face, and saunters off to snag a robe and pull it on, finally covering her naked body.
“Work your shit out,” she tosses over her shoulder, settling at her vanity. “You can thank me later.”
“Even when she’s being sweet, she’s cocky,” Kenna grumbles under her breath, finally snapping the confused spell of silence.
“Part of her charm,” I growl, then shake my head. “What are you doing here, Reb?”
I can’t even be angry. I'm too confused. This doesn't make a lick of sense.
I should be shouting at her, chasing her off again, but I still can’t shake the trembling feeling when that question of do I love her hits me right in the face like an uppercut.
My feet are unsteady. My vision blurred. Like my emotions are about to burst out of me and betray me before I can push her away again for her own good.
But all thoughts of how I feel about her vanish when she fixes me with a grave look, considering, then says, “I found something at the beach house. Related to the fire. Also remembered something you may want to know about the day Micah died.”
I feel like all the blood’s drained from my body. I’m pure ice, granite, a block of cold, rigid stone.
“What? What're you talking about?”
She glances over her shoulder at Milah, then steps closer to me, lowering her voice. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Alone?”
I want to tell her that Milah doesn’t give a damn about my personal life, but I can’t find words. My lips are numb. I just nod slowly, touch her arm, then jerk back when the contact sparks between us like static. With a grunt, I jerk my head toward the door and lead her outside, then growl at James.