Hold You Close (Seattle Sound Series Book 3)

by Alexa Padgett

  “Past tense.” Noelle would point that out. Alpie dipped her head up and down over and over like she was agreeing with Noelle’s words. “And you have a funny way to show your ‘caring’—flaunting all those women. You’re known as the wild one in the band.”

  “Never said I was a saint. Or even much of a decent bloke.” I hesitated but the changes in Mila’s demeanor were startling. “You knew her before. She’s not Mila.”

  “She’s not,” Noelle said, her voice low. “You have to understand. She moved here as soon as she could, got a job so she could pay her bills and have health insurance, but she never does more than work, go to therapy, and go home. Alone.”

  “She has a bird.” Nope. Still couldn’t wrap my head around that choice. A cat, maybe. A dog would be fine as long as it wasn’t some miniature version that existed only to make women coo. A ferret or hamster, even a fish would be better than a screechy feathered heathen.

  “She hated coming home to her empty house,” Noelle said, voice low. “Mila’s not meant to be alone.”

  That sinking feeling in my guts stormed back through me. No. Mila was meant for a house full of kids and their friends. She thrived in a nurturing, take-charge role.

  “But . . . a bird?”

  “You don’t get it,” Noelle’s words were clipped with impatience. “Every time she checked her laptop, she’d be so sad. I didn’t understand why because I didn’t know her Murphy was you—Murphy Etsam. I know she can’t sleep without her pills because I flat-out asked her about them when she stayed here before she bought her house. Hell, some days, she barely functions with them. So if Alpie makes her life even a tiny bit easier, lay off.”

  “What’s she on? Why? Are they hard to ween off?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Oh, I think it is. You said she’s taking stuff to sleep. Does she take other stuff? Is that why she hasn’t dated? Do men make her anxious?”

  “She knows every one of your exploits and conquests. Each one cut her a little more and that’s on top of the depression from the miscarriage. So why are you pushing this?”

  “You think I lived this perfect and glamorous life, but I hated it, and I was angry I hated it. I get you think I’m to blame for her pill problem. So, that’s one more reason I owe it to Mila—and to myself—to make it right now.”

  “Talk about a half-assed apology,” Noelle huffed.

  “Jordan attacked her after he’d threatened my family. He held my mum at knife point. This doesn’t get any more personal.”

  Once again, Noelle pondered her words long enough for me to worry she’d hung up. “You could, you know, talk to her about that. See what Mila wants.”

  “How bad?” I had to know. “How bad did he hurt her?”

  Noelle’s exasperation blasted through the phone. “What do you think happened, Murphy? This isn’t a freaking Disney movie.”

  Bloody . . . I slammed my fist into the side of Mila’s bookcase, causing the avian monster to screech loud enough to nearly burst my ear drums. . . I didn’t want anything bad happening to Mila. Didn’t want to even think about it.

  “She needs a new therapist—she hasn’t dealt with whatever Jordan did to her.” Noelle let that sink in. Someone called her name and she sighed. “I have to go. I’m working.”

  “Did he rape her?” My stomach ached and I wanted to hit something. Hard. Over and over again.

  “I don’t know. The only detail I know—because I was there when the doctor told her—is she’ll never have another child.”

  11

  Mila

  I sat on the edge of my bed, shivers turning into big body-wracking shudders. Jordan’s attack on Noelle shocked me, but seeing Murphy, having him here in my house . . . Everything was wrong.

  If I hadn’t met Murphy, then my life wouldn’t be so convoluted.

  Drifting from one flat to another, I’d spent more time at the uni’s computer lab and library than my supposed home. Jordan’s demands of my time increased while I was at home, he’d made it clear he expected me to be there and to spend time with him.

  I hadn’t wanted to do either. Especially after Murphy Etsam had walked through the door. Stopping in the shadow next to the bar, my heart thumped out an oh yeah, oh yeah beat.

  Tall, his build then tended toward rangy. He’d worn old, soft jeans and a gray tee. The dark metal in his lip ring gleamed dully in the neon lights. He’d turned his head to speak to the person behind him, who’d laughed. When he turned back, he smiled, those grayish eyes gleaming with sardonic humor.

  That’s when I’d noticed the guitar case in his hand. Right. The musicians. My boss, and the bar’s owner, branched out into live music, trying to find something to draw the college-aged students from the nearby University of Sydney.

  I’d stepped forward, clearing my throat. “You’re the band?”

  “That we are, sweetheart,” he’d said. And, oh, what that voice did to my insides. It was deep, a little cocky, perfect to croon love words late at night.

  I cleared my throat again, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. “Howard’s stepped out but I can get you settled. My name’s Mila.”

  His brows pulled low. “The owner left you alone?” He’d sized me up, not in the way I wanted but as if ticking off all my faults: my lack of stature, my small hands and delicate features, tight ripped jeans, red halter top. My long dark hair swished against my bare back. “You’re a mite. What if some drunk harassed you?”

  “We just opened for the night,” I’d said, keeping my voice light even though he’d just stated my greatest fear. No need to tell him about the mace in my back pocket and the other bottles I kept behind the bar. “Normally Minskee’s here. That’s our bartender, but he’s down with the flu.”

  “Right,” he’d said, his brows still pulled low as he took in the place. “Oh. I’m Murphy Etsam and this is my brother Jake.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “Rest of our mates should be here in a mo’. Jakey and I, we wanted to get a feel for the place before we set up.”

  “You can put your instruments in the break room in the back and I’ll pour you a pint.” I’d motioned toward the door tucked off to the left.

  He hadn’t known me. There was no reason for him to show an interest in me, especially when his brother settled into a booth, surrounded by no less than a dozen women. More had peered Murphy’s way, and why wouldn’t they? He glowed with that sheen of glamour. Not like Hollywood fake, but the natural beauty so few are blessed with. That straight nose, those thick brown slash-mark brows, the masculine perfection of his lips. Even the deep dimples in his cheeks only served to highlight his chiseled cheekbones and flashing gray-blue eyes.

  As I’d worked my way deeper into his gaze, catching a glimpse of his disappointments and old hurts, I’d wanted to tell him of my own. I wanted to pour out my whole life story to Murphy Etsam, the sexiest musician I’d ever seen. So I had—to a point. I might not have been willing to date but, like every other female in here, I desired to connect, to feel wanted by a gorgeous male.

  He’d stayed for the end of my shift, even helping to stack the chairs with me. I let him drive me back to the flat I shared with three other girls at the time. The nicest one I’d ever stayed in, that flat just a block from Bondi Beach. But I’d planned to move out of the room I shared with Kari in another few weeks. I couldn’t ever settle down for too long. Jordan would find me if I did.

  Ten more performances and Murphy had worn me down enough to say yes to his date request. We’d held a steady, happy course while Jordan searched for me, one of the more than four million city residents.

  I blinked my eyes open, shocked I’d fallen asleep. I rubbed my hands over my eyes, trying to focus my mind. Turning my head, I glanced out the window. Straight into Jordan’s eyes. I scrambled, falling off the bed, eliciting a startled yelp from my dry throat.

  “Mila?” Murphy’s voice sounded close, just on the other side of the door. He’d probably been there the who
le time I slept. The sweetness of the gesture collapsed under the burgeoning terror. Murphy brushed his knuckle over the door, a whisper of a sound. “You okay?”

  Jordan brought the large bush knife up and made a slashing motion across his throat. When he smiled, I finally found my voice.

  The first scream was breathy, the second was full-lunged and hysterical.

  My door crashed open in an explosion of sound and splinters. “What is it?” Murphy asked, eyes darting around. “Are you hurt?”

  I lifted my finger and pointed at the window where Jordan stood. “He . . .” Jordan darted down my side yard toward my back garden. I swallowed, my throat too dry for more sound. “Jordan. There.”

  Murphy charged toward the window and I watched, numb and slow, as he slid up the sash. “No!” I managed. I stood, stumbled over and gripped his wrist. “No! Don’t leave me.” Panic surged and my nails dug deep into Murphy’s skin. “He has a knife.” Nausea pressed up into my throat. I hated that knife. Hated how it felt pressed to my cheek, my throat, my breasts.

  Murphy leaned further out the window. I yanked harder, trying to get him inside. Safe. When tugging didn’t work, I threw myself against him, grappling my way closer to the window. He pulled his head back through the window, his eyes dark, his mouth flat. I slammed the sash closed, my breathing ragged. Murphy locked the double clasps before he turned, his arms sliding around my waist.

  “I won’t leave. Hush now. Hush, love.”

  “He had a knife.”

  “So you said.”

  “He swiped at his throat with the knife. Like he meant to . . .” I shuddered, pressing even tighter into his chest. Alpie flew in and landed on my arm, sidestepping upward and shoving at Murphy at the same time. Murphy fell back, his face a mix of shock and fear. I wrapped my arms around my waist as Alpie shushed, rubbing her beak up and down my cheek.

  “He’s going to hurt me, Murphy,” I said. My voice broke. “He told me before, in Perth, if I saw you again. That he’d kill me and you if you touched me.”

  12

  Murphy

  A powerful motivator, fear. I’d used it to my advantage when I feared my mum would lose the house after she kicked my father out. I used it again, pushing myself creatively, playing scales, songs, harder songs, everything I could, to prove to myself no fan would laugh at me when I went up on stage. Fear was what could happen, not what was happening. And many times, thanks to preparation, fears never came to fruition.

  But this moment of fear wasn’t healthy. I drew Mila back to my chest and wrapped my arms tight around her, ignoring the bloody bird. But her heart raced and her fingers clenched too tight against my skin. As her fear escalated, I couldn’t force down my own, couldn’t focus on her warm body snuggled up tight to mine.

  I glanced back at the window where Jordan had stood. He planned to hurt her again. And again. Until he stopped.

  Bollocks, I was in so much trouble with this woman. Jake would nod his head if I told him all my acting out had been to try to stem the hurt caused by her betrayal. Only I hadn’t been smart enough to see that or to come find her and ask her to explain her reasons.

  “Noelle said Jordan lived with you whilst you went to uni.”

  My fingers found her lower back even as she stiffened; her back felt like steel coated in flesh. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I read the police report. I know I shouldn’t have but I charmed the secretary at the station into e-mailing me a copy.”

  She turned away, stroking the bird’s shoulder. “Then you already know what he did to me.”

  “Yeah, but I think it’d be better if you said. Spilled the poison.”

  Alpie pressed tighter into her neck, her beak opening enough for me to see her beige tongue. Not normal, that. I suppressed a shudder.

  “I said I don’t want to talk about that. Not with my therapist. Not with Noelle. Definitely not with you.”

  Fine then. She didn’t trust me. Probably best because I’d lied to her. There was no secretary. No one gave me the documents but I had managed to talk some of the details out of the detective. Bollocks! The police.

  I hustled toward the front door when a hard pounding filled the room. I checked the peephole, thankful to see Officer Reim’s face instead of Jordan’s. The bastard was arrogant enough to stand outside Mila’s window; I reckoned he’d be the type of bloke to waltz up to her door and force his way in.

  “We didn’t get him,” Officer Reims said as soon as I opened the door. He strode in and locked the door behind him. “Can’t be too cautious. Especially right now. I called in backup.” Sirens blared, seeming to come from all sides. “Jessup and I hoofed it as far as we could after the car, called in the description and partial license plate. Hopefully, now we can do more with our APB.” He let out a shuddering breath, wiped the sweat from his brow. “Wanted to get back and let you know the deets now that patrol cars are pouring in.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t get him?” I asked.

  “He disappeared. We think into a car at the intersection.”

  “So he has an accomplice?” I asked.

  “Or he just freaked the hell out of someone by jumping in their car.”

  “He’s carrying a knife. A bush knife,” Mila said. The bird stopped shushing but continued to sit on her shoulder.

  Officer Reims pulled out his notebook, pen poised over the page. “And that would be?”

  “A big-bladed knife, mate,” I said. “Like your switchblade but it doesn’t fold in.”

  “He carries the Ka-Bar Becker,” Mila said. “It’s got the longest blade.”

  “And you know this how?” Officer Reims asked.

  “He told me. Probably to scare me.”

  “When?”

  She shrank back smaller into the couch and Alpie hopped up on the cushion next to her head, lifting one talon then the other in a pseudo-dance. I hated how small and unhappy she appeared. “When he parked out front of Susan Etsam’s house and threatened her, Murphy, and Jake if I continued to see them.”

  “You never told me that,” I said.

  “That’s because I broke up with you right after that.”

  “Erm, folks. I don’t need to hear more about your disagreements, but I will say that the media’s gotten wind of this. They have video from Jordan’s attack last night at the Tractor Tavern—from one of the attendee’s phones, no doubt—and they learned you both were at the station today, as well as Jordan’s subsequent attack on Ms. Markham. The journalists will be knocking down the door here soon. And since Jordan Jones knows where you are, Ms. Trask, it might not be such a bad thing to consider relocating.”

  Mila’s eyes widened and she clutched her fingers into her silk blouse. “Where?”

  He shrugged. “A hotel. Someplace with good security. We don’t have the means to do more than offer support and run the investigation.”

  “I can do that,” I said, considering. “My personal security and manager are sending over more bodyguards to be Mila’s security team. I hoped they could be stationed here, but if you think it’s better to move again, I can make that happen.”

  “Has he made any demands? Do we know what he wants?” she asked.

  I gripped her hand as I sat next to her on the soft couch. Mila liked homey things. Perhaps because she never owned them. While our shabby furniture had embarrassed me, Mila had delighted in the well-wornness of my mum’s house. Mila would make an amazing mum, reveling in the dirty footprints on her pristine floors and gooey handprints on the fridge.

  She’d already have that if I hadn’t screwed up. Noelle said she couldn’t have kids, which wasn’t right. Instead, she had a bloody bird. Jake told me once parrots could live sixty years or more. The shudder at the base of my spine rippled over me. I didn’t like birds much, not since the one dive-bombed my head in elementary school. Mila knew this, which was probably why she ended up with one.

  “He wants you, Mila.” The words sounded harsh.

  �
��Yeah, that’s the demand,” Officer Reims said. “Came through your friend this morning.”

  “He won’t go away.” She didn’t ask. The words were flat, a statement.

  “Did he ever hit you?” My voice turned gentle like you’d talk to a scared pup. I figured it was as close as I could get to outright asking about Jordan’s actions now that Mila said she wouldn’t discuss them.

  “He liked to grab me, force me to sit with him. Touch me in ways I wasn’t comfortable with.” Her cheeks fluctuated between milk-white and rose, but her voice held steady. She didn’t turn toward me, kept her focus singularly on the officer. Alpie fluttered down and settled in her lap. “My mum said he’d scared off all my potential boyfriends. She chuckled about my protective uncle. I didn’t ask more questions then.”

  “Men who are physically abusive are more likely to stalk, and the longer they stalk their victims the more likely they are to sexually assault them.” Officer Reims directed his comment to me.

  Mila sat up straight, hands clamped together in her lap. “He didn’t rape me. I mean, he wanted to . . .” Her cheeks flamed, and she pressed her lips together into a thin line.

  Some of the tension faded from my shoulders at her words. I’d worried—no—I’d been sure that’s what happened when Jordan attacked her.

  “He told the Perth PD he couldn’t stop the car,” Officer Reims said.

  She dropped her gaze, her jaw tense. “That’s how I lost the baby. Well, sort of. More the shock from all the broken bones. And blood loss.”

  “You never pressed formal charges, said it was an accident,” Officer Reims said.

  Mila’s jaw tensed. “That’s not true. I never said it was an accident.” She hesitated, her eyes flitting to mine. “But I didn’t follow up with the officer. Didn’t see much point since Jordan kept getting away with hurting people. I just . . . I just wanted to get away. From all of it.”

  I shot off the couch. I didn’t know how to deal with that. What was I supposed to say? How could I comfort her? “We’re going to a hotel. Should have earlier.”