It hurt.
I physically ached from the closeness.
He was everything I could no longer have.
Chapter 9
Marriage?
What the fuck happened?
I’d asked myself that question a thousand times over the last twenty-four hours. I’d never read a woman so wrong in all my life. I’d convinced myself that Meadow felt the same attraction I did when clearly that was not the case. She couldn’t have fled faster if she grew wings and took flight. The woman didn’t even want to stand close to me.
Damn shame!
I couldn’t shake the feeling, even knowing she didn’t feel the same insane pull I did. The emotion had taken root and the harder I tried to stop thinking about her, the more I did. The way her pretty, green eyes had sparkled with tears, the way she’d searched me out across the room, even the way she pulled her hair over her left shoulder trying to hide the scar on her face was endearing.
I. Couldn’t. Stop. Or maybe I didn’t want to. I’d never had such an instant and strong connection with a woman, especially a woman I barely knew. There was something about Meadow Holiday that checked all the boxes.
“Settle.”
At my command, Sally stopped her overeager puppy bounce and stood at my side. The order in no way stopped her excitement of being at the office. Her tail was wagging with such force her rear-end was moving in sync.
“I’m impressed. A month ago she would’ve completely ignored you and run around the office looking for something to chew,” Mike said.
“How much longer do you have her?” Mandy asked.
“She was supposed to go to Gabe next month, but he has another surgery scheduled. So, it’s up in the air. Alexandra wants him fully healed before he takes her,” I explained.
First Class Petty Officer Gabe Lavine had been matched with Sally by Homefront, an organization that pairs comfort animals with vets. Sally was the fourth dog I’d fostered and trained for the charity. Alexandra was meticulous about pairing the right owner with the right dog. When the shepherd was matched for Gabe, she was given to me to train.
“I’m gonna miss her coming in with you,” Mike said and bent down to give Sally a scratch.
“Me too. It’s gonna suck when she leaves.”
Mandy’s desk phone rang, and she broke away to answer, leaving Mike and me with Sally.
“You’re totally transparent,” he laughed.
“What do you mean?”
“Meadow’s coming in today,” he told me, something I already knew.
“And?” I prompted.
“And? You happened to bring in Sally.”
So, Mike had seen right through my plan. One thing my uncles taught me was to improvise. Sally was a great ice breaker, and I was hoping to use her to draw Meadow out. I admit using a dog to get close to Meadow was a tad underhanded, but all is fair in love and war, right? Not that this was love so much as it was white-hot attraction and interest, but the same rules applied.
It was not beneath me to do whatever it took to get Meadow’s attention.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I smiled at Mike before I turned to Sally and gestured her to come. “Good girl,” I praised when she followed me to my desk and laid on the floor at my feet.
For the next three hours me, Mike, and Joel combed over all the information we had on The Butcher. Fourteen dots on a map marked where the bodies had been found. The killer had remained inside a thirty-mile comfort zone. While that narrowed it down, there were still hundreds of bars in the area. Hundreds of locations the killer could strike.
“Jesus Christ. We’re on the clock with less than a month until we find another body. I hope to God Meadow Holiday can remember something useful,” Mike muttered.
“We narrowed it down to five doctors prescribing both ketamine and maprotiline,” Joel said, adding, “Ben is following up with them to get their patient lists. With HIPAA the way it is, it would’ve been faster for Kristy to get us the information, but Kilby wanted it by the book. Which means time, time we don’t fucking have.”
“I’ve been thinking about the security feeds.” I started, but Mike interrupted me.
“Hold that thought. Meadow’s here.”
I looked out of the conference room window, and there she was. Goddamn, she was beautiful. She looked too small standing next to Mandy. And it had nothing to do with her height. Mandy stood tall and confident, while Meadow folded into herself, trying to disappear. That wouldn’t do! There was no reason for a woman so stunning and sweet to be hiding the way Meadow was.
“Close the blinds,” Joel said, as he stacked the police reports scattered about the table.
Mike closed the blinds, and I turned the whiteboards around so the images of the dead girls faced the wall. Mandy would be bringing Meadow in here, and the last thing she needed to see before being hypnotized was a bunch of women with their faces mutilated and mangled.
Sally continued to sit as the women entered the room, her ears had perked up and her body was vibrating with excitement but she hadn’t otherwise moved.
“Meadow, you remember the guys, right?” Mandy asked.
“Oh my gosh. She’s beautiful. I love shepherds,” Meadow said, ignoring Mandy’s question. I mentally high fived myself and glanced over at Mike just in time to see him roll his eyes. “May I pet her?”
“Sure. Sally, up.” Sally stood, and the butt wagging was so intense her tail was making a swooshing sound. “Gentle.” I gave Sally the all clear, and she took off, her nails scraping the laminate floor as she skidded to a stop in front of Meadow and sat.
“Sally?” Meadow asked, and Sally looked up at her, tongue lolling out and all but drooling. I hoped to God she didn’t jump on Meadow and lick her face. That had been the first habit we broke, but as well trained as she was, she was a puppy. And she was excited to meet a new friend. “Her name is Sally?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure where she was going with the question. But suddenly I felt self-conscious about the dog having a human name. “I didn’t name her, Alexandra did.” I felt the need to explain, but when Meadow’s face fell, I regretted trying.
“Well, if you ladies are ready, we’ll get out of your way.” Mike grabbed the folders off the table and headed for the door, Joel right behind him.
I still hadn’t moved. I was overly concerned with Meadow and her interest in Sally’s name.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. Umm… why?” She was lying.
“Mandy, can you give us a minute?” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to understand why Meadow’s expression had changed, and why she suddenly seemed… sad, but I did, and I was going to find out.
Mandy left the room and clicked the door closed behind her. Meadow continued to rub Sally’s ears and refused to look at me.
“What just happened?” I asked again.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you walked in here smiling, and now you look like someone told you Santa wasn’t real.”
“You and your wife have a beautiful dog. I’ve always wanted a shepherd.”
“My wife?”
What the hell was she talking about?
“Oh, I’m sorry. Your girlfriend.”
“My girlfriend?”
The light was beginning to dawn.
“Alexandra?”
There it was. She thought I had a woman. So, I hadn’t imagined the attraction. I smiled at the realization and thought back to when she turned from looking toward me with something that looked a lot like longing to icy. It was after I said I was going to check on Sally. The girl was confused.
“Alexandra owns an organization called Homefront. They match vets with dogs. I volunteer there, fostering dogs until their permanent home is ready and the dog is trained to meet their needs. Sally belongs to a vet named Gabe,” I explained.
“Oh. Ummm. I thought…” she trailed off, not finishing her thought.
“That I had a woman
,” I finished for her.
“Yeah.”
Her cheeks pinkened, and I wanted to fist bump the air.
“Are you ready for today?” I asked and noticed she hadn’t stopped petting Sally. Good. I’d leave her in here with Meadow when her and Mandy had their session.
“I think so. I barely slept last night. I worried I won’t remember now that I want to. I’ve spent so much time pushing the memories away. It will be my luck I did a good job, and Mandy won’t be able to find them.”
“You’ll do fine. All you need to do is relax. Mandy is great; she’ll stop whenever you need her to. Don’t push it. If it gets to be too much, you can try again, or not.”
“I want to do this. If somewhere locked inside of me is the break you need to find this guy, I want to remember. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
She kept saying man, guy, him. I wondered if those pronouns were an assumption or if she knew it was a man. I still hadn’t asked, that was for Mandy to dig through. I didn’t want to put any ideas in her head.
“So damn brave,” I told her.
“What? I’m not brave. I hide away from everyone.”
She looked so sad and was folding into herself again. That shit had to stop. If I did nothing else, I’d make sure when this was over Meadow Holiday stood tall and proud.
“Red, you don’t give yourself enough credit. Most people, after what you went through, don’t recover. You have. You are brave and sweet, and so damn pretty. You’re breaking my heart standing there hunched over. You don’t have one damn thing to hide. And before you say it, or point it out, the scar on your face doesn’t do a goddamn thing to take away from how beautiful you are.”
It was painful to watch her recoil at my words.
“There’s nothing beautiful about me. Not anymore. Trust me. I’m better off blending in and being a loner. I have nothing to offer anyone.”
I was wrong. Listening to her wasn’t painful, it was pure agony. My gut twisted hearing her say she had nothing to offer. As much as I wanted to correct her and tell her she had everything, she was everything, it wasn’t the right time. She needed to be relaxed and not freaked out when I turned into a caveman and beat my chest until she understood just how lovely she was.
“Red, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Before she could protest, I asked, “Do you want me to leave Sally in here with you while you talk to Mandy? She seems to like you.”
“I think I’d like that if it’s okay.”
“Sure, it is. Mandy knows her commands, and if she starts to misbehave, I’ll come in and get her.”
Suddenly I was unsure about Meadow being hypnotized. What if she did remember and it set her back? Mandy knocked on the door at the same time as she opened it poking her head in.
“You ready?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be.” Meadow tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Hell, it barely pulled the corner of her mouth up.
Fuck. I didn’t like this, but it wasn’t my place to stop her. And truth be told we needed a break, some bit of information that would help us catch this asshole.
“I’ll be right outside.”
Before I could change my mind, I left the conference room and walked right into Joel.
“Damn, boy, you’ve got it bad.” He chuckled.
“What are you talking about?”
On an exhale he shook his head as if he was irritated, but the smile told me he was anything but. “I’m changing your name. You’ve been upgraded from Boy Wonder to Glass. You’re in a room full of men that not only are trained to crawl into your head and extrapolate any and every emotion, but we are men. Dude, we see right through you. You’re not hiding shit. From the moment that woman entered the building, you’ve been hovering. Shit bro, I think we have some bubble wrap in the supply closet if you’d like to wrap her up.”
I thought about lying and telling Joel he was full of shit, but he was right, I was hovering. And I wasn’t doing a damn thing to hide it.
“I can’t explain it. I don’t know why she’s different. And before you say it, it has nothing to do with her being a victim. I don’t have a savior complex. I’ve watched her for years at the coffee house. I was going to try and talk to her, but one day she was there, then she was gone for a long time. When she started going to the shop again, she was a different person. Not one part of her hinted she was approachable. She’d made an effort to avoid everyone. So I left her alone. Big mistake.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you.” He made a low whistling sound. “Hope you’re ready for her.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough. I’ve been married a long time. It took me two years to ask my wife out on our first date.”
“Okay.” That was interesting and all, but I didn’t see what Joel’s courting process with his wife had to do with this or the insane attraction I felt toward Meadow.
“It took me two years to get my shit straight. I knew the minute, the very second, I’d clapped eyes on my Ellie, she was mine. I knew I was going to marry her. So, I waited until I was ready to be the man she needed before I asked her on our first date.” Joel didn’t wait for my response, with a slap to my shoulder he moved to his desk and sat down as if he hadn’t just rocked my world.
Marriage?
No one said anything about marriage. I was infatuated with the woman, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and sure I wanted to know everything about her. Hell, I was still on the fence about asking her out.
Marriage? Crazy old man.
Chapter 10
Assumptions
“You’re doing great.”
Mandy had turned off most of the overhead lights, leaving only a small amount of light, and with the door closed it was surprisingly quiet in the room.
“Have you ever been hypnotized before?” she asked.
“No,” I answered and continued to concentrate on rubbing Sally’s head like she’d told me to do.
“It’s not like what you see on TV. You won’t fall asleep or even be sleepy. Hypnosis is a state of focused relaxation. It’s simply a psychological state, a different kind of awareness, where your brain will be more open to memories. Your focus will change from perceived expectations to the actual event.” Mandy’s voice was soft and soothing as she spoke. “I want you to continue to pet Sally. Relax and only think about how soft her fur is. Good. It’s soft and smooth. Now slow your breathing - deep, slow breaths, good.”
Mandy’s voice gentled as she spoke, and it was becoming difficult to concentrate on her words. The sound alone was calming. Sally’s head had long ago rested on my lap; it was heavy and warm, anchoring me to the chair I was sitting in.
“Keeping your eyes closed, I want you to tell me what you had for dinner last night.”
“Orange chicken and white rice.”
“Meadow, what did you have to drink with your orange chicken and white rice?”
“A Diet Coke out of a can.”
“Tell me what you were drinking at the Blue Bird.”
“Gin and soda.”
“Did you have lime or lemon with your gin?”
I thought back to that night. I had to wait to get the bartender’s attention. When I finally did, I ordered gin and soda. The noise level was so loud I had to yell over the bar for extra lemon.
“Extra lemon.”
“Where were you when you ordered your drink?”
“At the bar.”
“Tell me about that night. You ordered your drink, what happened next?”
“The bar was packed. Wall-to-wall people. I picked up my drink and headed to a table that a waitress was clearing. I sat down and checked my phone. My friend Maya was late, and I hated being there by myself. I sipped on my drink, and after a few more minutes I checked my phone again. I had a missed text message. Maya had a fender bender and was tied up with the accident and had to cancel. There were so many people looking for an open table I felt bad a
nd went back to the bar so someone else could use the table. I finished my drink, and I ordered another. I was talking to someone.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“I don’t know. They’re right there at the bar, but I can’t see.”
“Okay. Skip it. Can you remember what you were talking about?”
“Purses. The bartender had filled a beer glass too full, and some had spilled when he was passing it to a patron, and it got on her purse. It was expensive. She called the bartender a clumsy idiot. I was horribly embarrassed at how rude she was. I wanted to leave, but then she apologized to the man, and I felt better. So, I stayed.”
“What kind of purse was it?”
“It was a four-hundred-dollar Coach Edie Shoulder bag. She told me it was a gift from her boyfriend. I thought it looked like a waste of money.”
“You’re sitting at the bar talking about purses. What happened next?”
“She was telling me the purse was a gift. The only nice thing her boyfriend ever gave her. I was bumped from behind and spilled some of my drink on my shirt. I looked behind me, and someone had fallen. I got up and helped the drunk girl to her feet. Her friends apologized for her bumping into my stool, and I sat back down and finished my drink.”
“What else did you and the woman talk about other than purses.”
“She was flirting with the bartender, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. I couldn’t understand why she was hitting on the man when she had a boyfriend. I wasn’t feeling well. I’d only had two drinks, but I thought I was going to be sick. She helped me up and took me past the line to get into the restroom out the back door, so I could throw up. My head felt fuzzy, and if she wasn’t holding me up, I wouldn’t be able to walk.”
“Where are you?”
“In an alley. We walked out the emergency exit. The door was propped open.”
“Did you throw up?”
“No. I thought I was going to, but the fresh air felt good. I was so hot inside the bar.”
All the Pretty Girls Page 5