Vigilante

by Jessica Gadziala

  I was starting to think he wasn't there, an idea that made my heart flutter at the possible repercussions of that, when I finally heard his voice from inside.

  Telling me to keep my panties on. Then take them off.

  Which, well, as you can imagine thanks to the kiss to end all kisses the night before, maybe sent a wild surge of desire through my system.

  He looked like hell.

  Sure, he seemed showered and changed. Though, how I knew he was changed when he was just in another pair of jeans and a seemingly fresh black hoodie with white hood pulls, was beyond me. But aside from that, he looked even more pale than usual, almost ghostly. His eyes were stained with red, and swollen. There was even a bit of scruff on his face which was sexy as all hell for some reason.

  He clearly hadn't slept.

  Weird, considering he had been through a lot.

  "What do you mean you don't know?" I pretty much, well, shrieked. "If you don't know, then you can't possibly know that someone even is trying to kill me."

  His lips tipped up slightly. "Don't know who would want you dead, Evan, but I know someone does."

  "How?"

  "There's no denying the symptoms."

  "There are no symptoms," I insisted.

  His smile went wicked then, making his dark eyes dance. "Stripped down and checked yourself out, did you?"

  Oh, God.

  Okay.

  My lady bits didn't get the memo that I wasn't supposed to be into him. I had tried to reason with them just a moment ago about the panties comment, but let's just say, the message never quite made it to the target.

  I had to press my thighs together to stem the chaos there.

  "There is nothing off."

  "No?" he asked, head ducking to the side.

  "No," I insisted, rolling my eyes. He didn't know my body better than I knew my body for goodness sakes.

  "Then what's this?" he asked, arm raising, reaching outward toward me, making his sleeve slide upward, exposing the smooth skin of his inner arm. Well, on a normal person, there was smooth skin. On Luce, there were dozens of scars.

  But there was hardly a second to consider that because the next second, his fingers closed around the collar of my shirt, the tips of them brushing my skin, causing a small, involuntary shiver to course through me. His eyes moved from my neck to my face, watching me intensely, trying to bank the spark of desire there, but failing completely. Just as I was sure I was as well.

  "What is what?" I forced out, pretending to ignore how my voice sounded more airy, more breathless than it usually did.

  Judging by the way his eyes hooded all the more, he definitely noticed the change as well. But then his fingers yanked so hard at the material that there was the distinct ripping sound of the tight collar stitches pulling as he made the neck go wide. "This," he explained, then made the whole pretending-I-wasn't-turned-on thing go out the window when his fingers brushed across my chest.

  "It's a rash," I explained, swallowing hard.

  "Yeah, it is."

  "I get them when I am stressed out," I explained. I'd been having that issue since I was a little girl. I got this obnoxious red rash across my chest, neck, sometimes even my face if the stress was strong enough for too long. Learning that your father was, I thought, murdered, then finding he had actually killed himself and was nothing like the man I thought? Yeah, that qualified as a lot of damn stress.

  "Maybe," he agreed, eyes moving up from my chest to my face again. "But not like this."

  "How would you know what my stress rash looks like?" I shot back, standing up straighter.

  "Then there is this," he said, his hand moving downward, igniting a spark across my palm when his hand slid under it, and slowly started lifting my arm upward.

  "This what?" I asked, looking at my hand. Again, I saw nothing amiss.

  "You would think Alejandro, with all his years of experience with poisons, would never let you wear nail polish," he said oddly, making my brows draw together.

  What the hell was he talking about?

  "Why would he care about my nail polish?"

  "Because it makes you miss this," he said, turning my hand, then holding my thumb between his and his forefinger. Stomach tightening, my gaze moved downward to the finger in question. "Your polish chipped off when you went upstairs. I noticed it when you came back down. See these white lines in your nail bed?" he asked. And, oh, I saw them alright. I saw them, and because I saw them, I felt a wave a nausea work through me again. I was, among a rash and Mees' lines on my nails, developing a bit of a weak stomach. Of course I was. Because that fit too. "These thick white lines..."

  "Mees' lines," I choked out, heart tripping into overdrive, making me almost instantly lightheaded.

  He nodded at that. "Arsenic poisoning."

  God.

  God.

  How the hell could I have missed it?

  It took prolonged exposure to said arsenic to cause Mees' lines to show up on nails. Where the hell had my head been that I had been so careless to miss my own goddamn poisoning?

  "Don't pass out on me," Luce's voice demanded, sounding almost far away, like from the end of a tunnel, making me realize I was definitely too dizzy, that passing out was an actual possibility. "Evan..." he called again, sounding further away still. "Shit," he snapped, reaching for me just as I seemed to do the absolute most lame thing any person could do.

  I freaking fainted.

  "I have got to stop leaving my invisible spinning wheels right outside my front door. You must have pricked your finger."

  That was what I woke up to.

  And, even dazed, I couldn't seem to stop the laugh that came from somewhere deep. "Nice reference. What man knows Little Briar Rose?"

  "Don't know what backward fucking world you were raised in, doll, but in the US, we call that story Sleeping Beauty, and it is a Disney classic."

  "Disney. With the mouse," I recalled, finally opening my eyes.

  "With the mouse," he repeated, sounding almost vaguely... offended?

  "Yeah, you know... with the steamboat and the whistling. Mick."

  "Mickey," he corrected, eyes big, mouth catching flies. "How the fuck do you not know the name of Mickey Mouse?"

  "I grew up in rainforests and deserts," I defended immediately. Was he really insinuating that my childhood was lacking just because I didn't know the name of some fictional rodent?

  "You've seriously never seen a Disney movie?"

  "I've really only seen a handful of movies ever. And all of them were Spanish."

  "You can't be serious," he said again, looking downright mystified at the very idea.

  "I read a lot," I defended, shrugging. Books were easier to carry around traveling than a portable DVD player and a set of DVDs. We had to travel as light as possible.

  "Okay, we are going to lay those cinema sins of yours aside for another time," he said, shaking his head like he couldn't get rid of some niggling thought.

  "How magnanimous of you."

  "Magnanimous. Now that thur is that'a book learning talkin,'" he drawled in a thick accent. "Gettin' all kinds of thoughts in that thur head, making ya' think yer good for anything more than cookin' and stuffin.'"

  Okay.

  So Luce had a sense of humor.

  And I maybe found it hilarious because I had totally encountered a man while moving through the south that spoke exactly like that.

  "There you go," he said, a small smile spreading, making his eyes brighten. "That put a little color in your face." He reached out then, touching my forehead. "No fever. Probably just from the hike and the surprise." He paused, lips twitching. "Or maybe you were just overcome with how fucking good looking I am."

  "Yeah, that must be it," I laughed, though maybe more than a small part of me was in complete agreement about his attractiveness. But all humor aside, I had passed out. From shock? My lip curled. "I can't believe I fainted."

  "Evan, you've had a fuck of a couple of days. Judging by ho
w pale you are, you haven't been sleeping. Or eating. Then you trek up this hill, and realize you've been dosed with arsenic. It's frankly pretty astonishing that you haven't taken to your bed in dramatics over all this shit."

  Well, that made me feel marginally better.

  "Neck is hot though," he said, the cold brush of the backs of his fingers touching the skin of my neck and upper chest, making a shudder course through me.

  "It's just hot out," I allowed.

  "Yeah," he said, trying to hold back a smirk, likely seeing it for what it was - desire - but letting it drop. "That must be it. Alright. Stay put. I'm getting you some electrolytes and something to eat."

  With that, he was gone, his absence seeming to allow whatever pressure was on my chest to ease, and for me to take my first deep breath in several minutes.

  And it was also the first chance I got to look around his place.

  And, well, it sort of solidified the idea of the loner old man I had thought earlier. So much so that I was pretty sure next to nothing inside actually belonged to Luce. It probably all came with the cabin. From the olive-colored and too-firm couch I was laying on, to the scuffed and wide coffee table, to the dusty-looking window treatments, built-in cabinets, and the framed wall art of what seemed to be military pictures, but it was hard to tell from far away.

  The only things that seemed likely to be his were the huge flatscreen TV and a giant collection of DVDs.

  So Luce was a cinephile.

  No wonder he seemed to almost take an affront to my lack of exposure to movies. Window treatments aside, and likely because I couldn't think of a single straight man who would think to vacuum or wash those like a woman would, the place was clean. Spotless almost. Hell, the coffee table, while scuffed, was super shiny like someone had recently taken Pledge to it. As if to prove that fact, even with the sun casting across it, I couldn't make out a single fingerprint.

  Which was strange.

  Who didn't touch their own stuff?

  There was a slamming sound from behind me as I pushed myself slowly upward, careful to make sure that I pushed the lightheadedness aside because I wasn't some southern bell for whom fainting was sweet and delicate.

  I was not sweet and delicate.

  I had seen men gunned down in the streets of Colombia.

  I had seen monks flagellating themselves in the Philippines.

  I had seen babies be stillborn to mothers who died soon after in huts in Africa.

  I was not some shrinking violet.

  I took another deep breath, swiveling my head to where the noise Luce was making was coming from. I could see a partial doorway and a window showing me some of the woods out back, but that was it.

  It was another full five minutes before Luce reappeared, two bottles tucked under an arm, and plates in his hands.

  "I can't make some bomb ass burrito," he said, shrugging. "But I make a pretty mediocre sandwich. Which you are gonna fucking eat. I don't care if my tastebuds are mistaken about it being palatable, and it actually tastes like sawdust. You need to eat." With that, he dropped the plate none-too-ceremoniously onto my lap, revealing a sandwich that could have easily fed me for two meals, a cut up apple, and a handful of chips. Apple aside, it was total man-food. And it was utterly charming to be perfectly honest.

  "Where'd you get your medical degree, doctor?" I asked, watching as he put an energy drink on the table. The last thing it seemed like he needed was caffeine. He needed sleep. But then again, so did I, so I had no place to talk I guess. Then he did the damnedest thing. He put what I assumed was my bottle of light blue Gatorade on his knee... and opened the cap for me.

  It was such a little thing.

  And maybe I even should have been offended that he thought my little girly hands couldn't open a bottle.

  But I wasn't.

  I was completely, almost foolishly charmed by the action.

  "What?" he asked, making me realize his hand was extended to me, and I was just staring at him like an idiot.

  "You opened the cap," I explained, not knowing what else to say.

  "Yeah, you a germaphobe or something?" he asked, completely in the dark.

  "No," I said, smiling a little.

  "Then what's the problem?"

  Nothing.

  There was absolutely no problem whatsoever.

  Except maybe I was beginning to really find him interesting. It was likely not smart or healthy, but it was just how it was. He was a fascinating character, case closed.

  "No problem," I insisted as I took the drink with a hand that was, admittedly, a bit weaker than was usual, and brought it up to take a sip.

  "You eat. I'll load up Sleeping Beauty," he informed me, reaching for a remote to turn the TV screen from black to some weird app screen instead. "Then after you eat, we have some shit to discuss."

  "Right," I agreed, reaching for the both soft and crunchy sandwich bread, noticing he had taken the time to slice lettuce and tomato onto it, not just slapped on meat and cheese and called it a sandwich. "Like who is poisoning me, and why."

  "Well, that," he agreed, not looking at me as he scrolled through a page of movies so fast that it was nauseating. "But more so the fact that I did some research last night."

  "On?" I asked bringing the sandwich up to my mouth, and taking a healthy bite.

  I should have waited until he answered.

  I realized this when I almost choked on my mouthful when he spoke again.

  "Think I have a lead on when Alejandro picked you up and claimed you as his own."

  "What?" My shout was muffled by the aforementioned mouthful, making him turn to see my assuredly bulging cheeks as I frantically tried to chew.

  "Yeah. But right now, we're eating, and watching a Disney classic. Please hold all your questions until after the feature," he added in a very cinematic voice, making me smile.

  I choked back my questions, varied and desperate as they were, acknowledging that I did, in fact, need to eat. If small shocks were enough to make me faint, then I definitely needed to make sure my blood sugar levels were evened out before I received any more news that I needed to mull over.

  Besides, I was actually maybe a little excited about the idea of watching a movie. I had been too busy traveling most of my life to really sit and enjoy one. And since I had been back in the states, I had been doing nothing but grieving the loss of my father, looking for leads on what might have happened to him, burying an empty casket, and then finally finding Luce, and tracking him down, building the cell in the basement, working out all the kinks.

  It simply never seemed like a priority.

  And maybe I was a little old for Disney fairytales, but as the opening scene started, I couldn't seem to bring myself to look away.

  Sometime during the movie, I had brought my legs up on the couch, crossing them, absentmindedly eating the sandwich that was not 'mediocre' in any way. In fact, instead of a bottled condiment, I was pretty sure he swiped fresh pesto onto the roll.

  "So?" Luce asked as the credits rolled.

  "It's... cute."

  "That is lacking enthusiasm."

  "Does Disney ever, I don't know, make movies that aren't so insta-lovey? I mean, she's in a coma, gets kissed, and then it's love? Get real."

  He chuckled at that, tossing his chips onto my plate. "Modern Disney sometimes doesn't make the chick have a love interest at all. They're smashing that patriarchy, man. I bet you'd love a little Merida, Moana, or Elsa."

  "Oh!" I said, excited. "I've heard of Elsa."

  "Of course you have," he said, reaching for his energy drink, and popping the top. "I think you could be in a cave ten miles away from civilization, and that goddamn soundtrack would still come creeping through the walls somehow." He raised his hand, taking a long swig of his toxic-looking bright green drink. "So have I made a movie lover out of you?"

  "I could maybe consider watching something non-animated sometime."

  "Feeling less fainty?"

  "I'm pretty
sure 'fainty' isn't a word."

  "Sure it is; I just said it. If they can add the word 'cray' to the Oxford Dictionary, then I can fucking say fainty all I want."

  "Can't fault that logic, though I have no idea what 'cray' is. Is it an abbreviation for crayfish?"

  That, apparently, was hilarious to Luce.

  I knew this because one minute, he seemed mildly amused by me. The next, he was throwing his head back like a little boy, letting out a sexy rumbling laugh that seemed to somehow slip inside my skin, swarm around my insides, and turn my belly to mush.

  "It means crazy," he told me recovering. "Christ, you really have been sheltered from the modern world, huh?"

  "Tell me one good thing I have truly been 'missing out' about in the modern world."

  "Aside from movies?" he asked, and waited for my nod even though it seemed rhetorical. "The internet. Online shopping. Never having to leave the house if you don't want to."

  "Why would you not want to leave the house?" I countered, genuinely curious.

  "Have you met people? They suck. Most of them anyway," he said, knocking his knee into mine in a way that implied that present company was excluded.

  "I think you spend too much time holed up in your old man cabin, Luce."

  "My old-man cabin?" he repeated, brow quirked.

  "An old man definitely lived here," I shot back, sure of it.

  "Died here too," Luce agreed, nodding.

  "Not on this couch, right?"

  He chuckled at that. "No. Downstairs. Watched it happen."

  "Wait... what? Oh," I said, remembering again who he was, what he did. "Did you kill him?"

  "You know, doll, I don't fucking kill everyone I come in contact with. No, I didn't kill him. He was this survivalist doomsday nut job who had this vlog on the dark web full of asinine conspiracy theories anyone with brain cells would know are complete crap. Anyway, he was raging out one day, getting all red, then dropped dead of a heart attack right there in his cellar."

  "So... you ended up here because..."

  "Because I saw an opportunity. My job might be for the greater good, but the payout, especially at the beginning, wasn't great. So I dragged my ass to Navesink Bank, I climbed up that hill, and I broke in. I filled out a fake will, forged his signature, and left it in an easy-to-find drawer. Took me for-fucking-ever to figure out the secret door to downstairs to find him though. And I don't think I need to tell you how rank a week-old body is. Set him up in his kitchen. Left. Called the cops saying I was concerned because I was used to seeing him around, and knew he lived alone. They found him and dealt with the body. The public administrator came in to investigate for wills or heirs, found the fake one, voila, I have a home, and land, a sinful amount of MREs, and a small nest egg to use to invest in lye."