“Then what will people think? Jaz may hate me forever for not telling her.” I sighed heavily at the thought.
“I doubt that. I didn’t hate you at all when I found out. It made things make a lot more sense,” Tad assured me as he put the car in park. “I liked this house the second I saw it. It just looks like home.”
“It’s nice inside too.”
“Yes, I remember…but it’s not home?”
“Right now nowhere is home,” I confirmed with another heavy sigh.
He nodded his head, and it was obvious he was in some deep thought.
“Happy Birthday!”I yelled as Kirsten swung the door open and hugged me.
“It’s so good to see you Tad! It feels like forever, Bill will be glad to see you and of course,” Kirsten said as her daughter ran around her legs and jumped into Tad’s arms, “Meg will be.”
“Tad! We missed you; you must, must, play princess and the frog with me!” Meg cried out with her little arms around Tad’s neck. “You can be the prince!” She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the cheek.
“Tad will play princess and the frog with you some other time. Don’t forget that you have Maggie over right now,” Kirsten reminded her daughter as she nodded over her shoulder into the play room where a blonde girl was sitting with her face in her hands in disgust.
“Oh, Tad, you must promise to come over again? Pretty please?” Meg begged with her little eyes wide.
“Of course,” Tad answered, putting her down.
She ran off and to play with Maggie, who lit up the second she came back into the room. I watched Meg whispering to her friend, and they both looked at Tad and giggled.
“Little girls, teenagers and women swoon at the sight of you,” I observed, “but you’re my prince.”
“I’m glad you’re back together,” Kirsten remarked, walking us into the kitchen where Bill was cooking with his apron on.
When he turned I couldn’t help but laugh. The ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron was too much.
“What? Can’t you read?” he asked, holding his arms out wide. I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Much better…Tad? Eh, yeah—that’s a little too much.”
“Nice to see you too,” Tad greeted my godfather with an awkward laugh.
“Even married men swoon,” Kirsten teased, laughing with me.
“See your family can get me, but my family can get you too!” I burst out.
“Thanks Vera,” Tad grumbled with a pout.
“Anytime,” I replied, hugging him.
“You better stay for dinner,” Bill ordered, turning and stirring whatever delicious thing he was cooking.
“We ate a bit ago,” Tad began, taking a sniff at the air before answering, “but I’m sure we still have some room left.”
“Good, there’s plenty to go around,” Bill replied, spoon up.
Just then Tad’s phone beeped.
“Text message?” I asked as my brow furrowed. “Your dad?”
“Ha, he has no idea how to text,” Tad responded touching the screen to view the message. “It’s from Paul, the chemistry teacher.”
“What does it say?”
He handed the phone to me.
TEXT FROM PAUL
Jennings is done. She had her meeting on Saturday with the board. They said she can finish up the year if she keeps her mouth shut. Hooray, no more crazy lady.
“So other teachers think she’s nuts too?” I asked as I finished reading.
“Oh, yeah. The only ones that like her are the single ones and some married ones who are lacking brain cells. At least I won’t have to deal with her next year,” Tad said as he tapped his response on the screen.
“This is true. I hope she doesn’t take it out on Mike, he’s in my World Civ class.”
“I doubt she would, and if she did she’d get kicked to the curb fast. The administration has a zero tolerance policy for that kind of behavior,” Tad assured me with a squeeze of my hip.
“What kind of behavior?” Kirsten interrupted, raising an eyebrow.
“You know that teacher I don’t like?” I began to explain.
“The one that hits on Tad?”
“Yeah, that one,” I answered.
“Good, jealousy doesn’t fit you well,” Kirsten observed with a wink.
“Your family gets you too,” Tad teased.
“You all suck,” I said, a smile spreading across my face. It was true that Kirsten and Bill were not my parents and they could never replace them nor try to, but I was thankful to still have them. Without them and Tad I had no idea where I would be. In a world where I felt lost, they all grounded me, and I felt no matter what they would hold me here just as my parents had wanted them too. I was beginning to see I wasn’t alone at all.
Chapter 44
“You’re not going to believe this—Knightley just got hot on the badass scale.” Jaz attacked me the second she saw me standing at my locker on Monday morning.
I shook off her clinging hands. “Huh?”
She jumped up and down before answering, “Knightley got a tattoo!”
“He did what?” I yelped, far too enthusiastically.
Jaz raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I know, right? So hot!”
“Do you have proof?”
“God, I wish.” Jaz giggled.
When we went into his class he was smirking at me. He had definitely done something that he knew would get to me. He started class immediately, but when he lifted his arm to write on the whiteboard his white button-up stretched over the muscle of his inner, upper arm and there it was—black scroll still obscured by his shirt. I couldn’t see what it said and that drove me nuts. Jaz practically jumped out of her seat as she turned and looked at me with wide eyes.
“See?” she mouthed and her face was as red as I imagined mine was.
The feelings were mixed, it was sexy, yet annoying—why hadn’t he told me, and what the hell did it say? When the class ended I had intended on accosting him about it, but Jaz was already dragging me out the door. I looked over my shoulder at him, exasperated, and he didn’t contain his smile this time.
“Seriously? It’s right on one of his gorgeous, shirt busting muscles??? Why, oh, why couldn’t he be a teacher somewhere else—then one of us could call dibs.
I choked. “Dibs?”
Jaz obviously wasn’t expecting my reaction and burst out laughing. “If only, right?”
I nodded my head and brought out my cell phone. I text him:
You have some explaining to do.
“Who are you texting?” Jaz asked, peaking over, but I had already shut my phone.
She shrugged and started talking about how tattoos were sexy in small quantities, especially on scholarly types. I wasn’t really paying attention; I was looking over her shoulder into Tad’s class where he was looking at his iPhone. He looked up at me and winked. I had to hold back from stomping in there and pinning him down with a kiss. He was so frustrating!
~~~
When I got home that day I flopped down on the coach and attempted to do my homework, but there was just no way I could do it after the day I had had. I couldn’t believe that Tad would get a tattoo without telling me and what bugged me more was that I had no clue what the thing said. He had always talked about getting a tattoo, but he wanted it to be something meaningful, and he didn’t have anything he could think of. I sat pondering it and looking at my phone, waiting for it to ring for at least an hour before I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up to the door bell ringing, the apartment was pitch black, and my phone showed it was already eight.
“Coming,” I yelled as I shook my hair free from the elastic band that it was barely clinging to.
“Hey, there,” Tad said, leaning against the door frame. He was still in that tight button up, but it was no longer tucked into his pants and he was missing his tie.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed as I pulled him inside.
He smirked at me. “You said I had some explaini
ng to do. I figured I would do it now.”
“This is risky,” I whispered, and he laughed.
“No one can hear us in here, and what in life is risky that isn’t completely worth it?” he teased.
“When did you get it?” I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know.
“About a week ago,” he replied with a shrug as he we went to sit on the couch.
“How come no one knew it was there until now?” I asked, looking over at him as he stretched his arm across the couch and pulled me into his lap.
“Well, you have to keep it under gauze for a bit…so then no one could see it, and I wore dark shirts because I wasn’t sure how you would react. I don’t want you to be mad at me,” he explained, and his blue eyes practically melted me with their worry of my disapproval.
I sighed. “You said you didn’t have anything important enough to tattoo on yourself?”
He cocked his head and brushed a hair out of my eye. “Well, now I do,” he whispered.
My breath caught in my throat. I knew he wasn’t stupid enough to get my name tattooed on him, so what could it be?
“Show me?” I asked, and my voice was barely audible. I moved so that he could stand.
He took a deep breath as he began to unbutton his shirt, and with each inch of skin that was revealed I felt my insides twisting. Anxiety and lust made an intoxicating mix. When he had finished unbuttoning the shirt he lifted the tattooed arm out and I stood. His eyes searched mine as they traveled up his bare abdominal and up to his arm. He held it out to me, and I let my hands trace the words.
I am threatened by the resolve that you are my soul. You are my being, you are every breath I take, you are my home, you are my sweet sin.
My whole body was on fire with an overwhelming tingling sensation, and I had to swallow against the tears. It was the answer to my poem. I closed my eyes and let the tears fall down my cheeks.
“Please,” he whispered, wiping away my tears as he cupped my face in his hands. “Don’t cry.”
I opened my eyes and leaned down to kiss the tattoo. As my breath washed over his skin he let out a sigh.
“I love you so much,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
I kissed his neck and my fingers drifted over the skin of his shoulder, sliding his shirt completely off. When my lips reached his ears I whispered, “The sweetest sin.”
His lips found mine, hungrier than I had ever felt them; he pulled me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Somehow with our eyes closed we still found our way onto my bed, and I pulled his body weight over me. All the risk was forgotten. None of it mattered. When the doorbell rang we ignored it.
“Vera! I know you’re in there—your car is here!” Jaz yelled at the door, and Tad jumped off of me in an instant.
“Shit!” he exclaimed in a harsh whisper.
“Closet! Get in the closet!” I yelped, my brain working too quickly for me to comprehend what was going on.
“Coming!” I yelled. “I was in the bathroom!”
I looked over my shoulder as Tad closed the closet door, and his eyes met mine filled with fear. This was bad. Very bad.
“Well, hurry up, it’s cold out here!” she yelled as I reached the door.
“Hello,” I greeted with a smile. “What are you doing here?”
Jaz nudged her way in past me and headed for the couch. I rushed in front of her as I saw Tad’s shirt lying on the floor.
“Silly me, leaving dirty laundry everywhere,” I explained as I rolled it into a ball so that it wasn’t identifiable as a man’s shirt.
“Eh, I have no problem with that. I mean seriously, look how clean this place is.” Jaz plopped on the couch with her backpack.
“So, uh…not to be rude—but, how did you know I live here?”
“Driver’s License, oh, course. You showed it to me when I got mine, remember?” she explained, kicking her feet up on the coffee table.
“Right…so, what’s up?”
“Well, if you aren’t opposed, I was thinking tonight was a perfect girl’s night. I got the gossip on Knightley’s tattoo…”she winked at me.
“And?”
“Well, I don’t know what it says, but it’s something about his girlfriend,” she gushed, her face red. “He’s so sweet!”
She had no idea how sweet, and right now he was hiding in my closet, and my heart was beating out of my chest. He might have to sleep in there at this point.
Jaz sat up and looked around before her eyes landed on the open bathroom door. “I need to use the ladies’ room?”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Oh, yeah, totally, help yourself.”
She shook her head at me and went in.
I rushed into the bedroom. “Go!” I ordered as I swung the door open to the closet.
Tad rushed past me and opened the front door.
“Jaz,” I yelled. “I have to go get something from my car.”
“Okay,” she replied, and I rushed out the door with Tad.
We ran down the stairs hand in hand, and when we reached the bottom I pushed him under the overhang into the darkness. We both burst out in relieved laughter.
“Holy crap, that was close,” I whispered through giggles as I handed him his shirt.
He slid his arms back into it and started buttoning it up. “Thank God, she needed to use the bathroom.”
I nodded my head and everything went silent as our eyes met. “I wish she hadn’t come,” I whispered, reaching my hand out and sticking it under his shirt, over his heart.
He closed his eyes and put his hand over mine before using his other hand to pull my waist to his own. He opened them and smiled sadly. “It’s probably good that she did.”
I sighed as I pressed my forehead to his. “Yeah, I know.”
He kissed me again, and the heat took over again.
“Yeah, I’d say it was,” I whispered as I pulled away from him.
He brushed a hair out of my eyes. “You’re not ever going to be alone again—you know that, right?”
I let my hand drop to his tattoo. “I know.”
He kissed me one more time before slipping out from under the stairs and running to his car.
Chapter 45
“I was thinking about going to the mall tonight, you want to go?” Jaz suggested as I closed my locker to look at her.
“I have work until eight tonight, sorry,” I replied as Brad walked up and wrapped his arms around Jaz’s waist with a sigh.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I took in the pallor of his face.
“Mike’s mom just called me. She said that she hasn’t seen Mike since yesterday morning. He said he was going to be meeting someone and that he would be home around five. She figured he was with me,” Brad explained, stepping back and sticking his hands in his pockets as he rocked nervously back on his heels.
“And?” Jaz asked, locking her arm in mine as if to brace me. I could tell from her face that we were both thinking the same thing.
“I haven’t heard from him since Saturday,” he replied, his voice husky.
Jaz dropped my arm. “What? Did you try to call him?”
“Yeah, and so did his mom. I asked around and no one else has heard from him either.” Brad blinked at Jaz twice as if he was trying to keep his thoughts from where ours were.
I could feel the world around me getting fuzzy.
“No, no, no,” I cried, falling back against my locker as my body became numb. “Someone has to call the police.”
“Vera!” Tad rushed forward out of his classroom. “What’s going on?”
“Mike is missing,” Brad replied, his hand shaking as he dialed his phone.
“Vera, are you okay?” Jaz asked.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” I swallowed against the darkness at the edge of my vision. Bad didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling. There wasn’t even a word for the amount of dread that was coursing through me.
“Mrs. Crowley, maybe y
ou should call the police?” Brad said into his phone. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”
“Vera, do you want to come into my classroom?” Tad insisted, holding out his hand.
“Yeah, I’m not feeling very well. Jaz can pick me up at work tonight? Then we can hang out at your house instead of the mall?” I asked, and when Jaz nodded her head Tad led me into his classroom.
“You don’t think that—?” Tad began as I sat down.
I put my head on the desk as the emptiness began to fill me to the breaking point.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it a little soon to jump to conclusions?” Tad hoped as he sat down in front of me.
I looked up. “I had this feeling when I woke up the morning I found out my parents were dead.”
“That mustn’t be a good feeling.”
“I know everything about this, and I can’t protect anyone. It’s like it follows me around—like wherever I go people die,” I croaked, tearing at my hair.
“You can’t say that…I mean there’s no real pattern to who gets killed,” Tad replied, coming towards me and running his hand across my face.
“What if there is a pattern, but it’s not logical?” I whispered as the thoughts I had always had tumbled to the forefront of my mind.
“What are you saying?” he asked, letting his hand drop.
“What if it’s one person that is running the whole thing…a cult? A person who gets a power rush from killing, but has no one to kill, so they find a person who wants someone killed. Then there is no rhyme or reason to the killing, no logical explanation, but both get what they want. It makes it difficult to link the murders,” I explained, feeling my body beginning to shake with the memory of the first time the thought had occurred to me. I had felt it the second I had watched the news and saw the second victim’s face.
“That’s sick,” Tad murmured with his hands in his hair, “but sounds right.”
“Who has a motive to kill Mike though?” I asked.
Our eyes met, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. He stood and walked to the white board before turning to look at me.
“No, that’s too extreme,” he finally whispered, shaking his head.
Walking in the Shadows Page 14