Reconstructing Meredith (Light Switch Book 2)

by Lauren Gallagher

  “I’ll never understand that asshole,” I said. “I just don’t get what kind of person would do that. Any of it. Shoving everything you own into storage, cutting you off from everyone, and taking you to another state, not to mention how he treated you sexually? It blows my mind.”

  “I don’t know.” She paused, her shoulders dropping a little. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, keeping her eyes down, but not focusing on anything that I could see.

  “What?” I asked.

  Taking a breath, she looked at me. “Sometimes I’ve caught myself wondering if I… had it coming.”

  The box cutter in my hand clattered on to the concrete. I stooped to pick it up, all the while staring at her with wide eyes. “Had it coming? What are you talking about?”

  Even in the dim light, the way her cheeks changed color was obvious. “I had this… fantasy…”

  “What kind of fantasy?”

  Swallowing hard, she shifted her weight. “It’s sick.”

  “Try me.”

  She opened a box and concentrated on sorting through its contents while she spoke. “It was about having someone… I mean, it…” She sighed and rested her hands on the sides of the box. “To be perfectly blunt, it involved having someone kidnap me and…” Trailing off, she shook her head again. “It’s messed up, I—”

  “A kidnap and rape fantasy?”

  Meeting my eyes, she nodded.

  “They’re more common than you might think, babe,” I said. “There’s nothing sick about the fantasy, but there is something sick about someone taking it upon himself to force you into that fantasy on his terms.”

  She exhaled and dropped her gaze.

  “I’ve played out rape fantasies with women before,” I said.

  Her head snapped up. “You have?”

  “Yeah. Under their control, with safe words in place, yes.”

  “I guess I just started wondering if I’d somehow brought this on myself. Like the universe was saying ‘okay, this is what you wanted, have fun.’”

  “No, not even close,” I said, almost growling. “Even if you’d told Rich that fantasy, he had no right to force you into that. The whole point of playing out a fantasy like that is to do it under your control with your rules. So it’s safe.”

  She blew out a breath, but didn’t respond.

  I went on. “Even if you did have a fantasy about someone really coming in and kidnapping you, truly hurting you, raping you, whatever, that doesn’t give anyone the right to take it upon themselves to play it out with you.” I swallowed hard, struggling to keep my fury at her ex-husband in check. “And Meredith, even if you had decided you really liked what he was doing, it doesn’t make it any less a crime because he didn’t have your consent in the beginning.”

  Nodding slowly, she ran a hand through her hair. “I know. I guess I just…” She trailed off, then shook her head again. “Fuck, I don’t know. Deep down, I know he had no right, I just can’t help feeling a little—” She gulped. “—guilty.”

  “So do a lot of rape survivors,” I said. “That doesn’t mean you actually did anything wrong or deserved it.”

  “I guess that’s just one more thing that will hopefully get better in time.”

  “It will.” We exchanged smiles.

  I cut open another box. This one was full of framed photos, each separated from the others by a single layer of newspaper. They’d actually been placed into the box fairly carefully, even if they weren’t wrapped in much, so I guessed Meredith had packed them.

  I pulled a few out and carefully unwrapped them to see if they’d survived well enough to save. Family portrait, graduation photo, parents on some trip or another, and—

  My heart skipped.

  Us.

  We stood in front of the lodge at Whistler Mountain, arms around each other and smiling, bundled up with snowboards in hand. It must have been the second day of that three-day trip, since we both already had a little sunburn on our faces and still looked pretty energetic, like we hadn’t worn ourselves out yet that day. In fact, I was pretty sure that was right before the run during which I—while showing off and attempting something well above my own skill level—broke my ankle. Aside from that little mishap, though, the trip was a blast. That was the weekend I’d learned that even a freshly fractured ankle and some painkillers couldn’t keep me from appreciating Meredith’s oral talents.

  I couldn’t help smiling at the memory, but that smile faded when the light caught the jagged edge of the frame’s broken glass. Most of the glass was gone, and what was left was splintered. The picture had a few scratches that vaguely mimicked a spiderweb, and none of the missing pieces of glass were inside the cocoon of newspaper. Whatever happened to it happened before the photo was packed.

  I didn’t ask. I rewrapped it and slid it back into the box. I closed the cardboard flaps, taped them into place, and carried the pictures out to the truck. There, I wedged it between a couple of other boxes. Not enough to crush it, just enough to keep it from being jarred loose while the truck was in motion.

  As I walked back into the storage unit, Meredith pulled a large cobalt vase out of a box and held it up, eyeing it.

  “Wow, I’m surprised this ended up in here,” she said. It was intricate, in one piece and looked very expensive.

  “Looks like it survived, though,” I said.

  “Yep. It did.” She pursed her lips, still eyeing the vase. “Not a single crack or scratch or anything.” After a second, she let it go, not even flinching when it shattered on the concrete. She looked down at the debris, then at me, and shrugged. “Oops.”

  I blinked. “Did you just…”

  “Rich gave it to me.”

  “Oh. Never mind, then.”

  She laughed. “He bought me all kinds of expensive shit when we first started dating.” She kicked a piece of glass and watched it skitter across the floor into the side of a box. “I guess I should sweep this up before one of us gets cut. I’ll be right back.” She stepped around some boxes. A piece of glass crunched beneath her shoe. She looked down, lifting her foot to reveal a large shard that had broken into smaller pieces. She put her foot down again, ground her heel into it, and went out to the truck to get the broom we’d found earlier, leaving a pile of dust and tiny fragments where that piece had been.

  I stared at the shattered blue glass. Grinning to myself, I started going through another box of books. I hoped that vase was even more expensive than it looked.

  After a couple of hours, Meredith twisted a crick out of her back and looked around at the remaining boxes. “This should be enough for now.” She took her gloves off and tossed them on top of a box. “We need to get everything that’s already in the truck up to my apartment before dark. Trust me, we don’t want to be unloading in that neighborhood after dark.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” I took my own gloves off.

  We loaded a few more boxes into the truck. Then I pulled the door down and she put a brand new lock on it, one to which she had the key. After making sure everything in the truck was secure, we closed it and headed back to her apartment.

  Meredith was right about the timing. By the time everything was upstairs, it was just starting to get dark.

  Though we were both exhausted at this point, Meredith looked at everything we’d stacked in her living room and hallway. “I need to get this shit unpacked. Can’t stand having boxes all over the place.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, let me at least get you a beer first,” she said. “In fact, I could use one myself.”

  “Hey, if there’s beer involved, I’ll definitely stick around.”

  She laughed. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  We cracked open a pair of beers, returned to the living room, and got started. Just as we’d done all day long, we took out box cutters, sliced through tape, opened boxes, and pulled out the pieces of her past. Newspa
per, bubble wrap, and cardboard accumulated on the floor. Every surface was quickly covered with knickknacks, dishes, and whatever else had survived. We stacked books beside bookcases and on tables, to be sorted and shelved later.

  At one point, I sat on the couch and pulled books out of a box, stacking them on the coffee table. The covers of two caught my attention as I brought them out. To my surprise, it was a pair of engineering textbooks from my grad school days.

  I held them up. “How the hell did these get in here?”

  She shrugged. “Well, I never knew when I might need a doorstop or a boat anchor.”

  “Don’t blame you.” I flipped through the pages of one. “That’s about all these two are good for.”

  “You’re more than welcome to take them back.”

  “Oh, no, I’ll pass. I haven’t missed them, and I don’t need them.”

  “No, I insist.”

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” I dropped them on to the table. “All yours, darling.”

  “Fucker,” she muttered. “I’m going to leave them at your—” She paused, then laughed. “Oh my God, remember this thing?” She pulled a tiny, ancient television out of a box.

  I chuckled. “Jesus, I thought we got rid of that at a yard sale or something.”

  “Apparently not. I wonder if it even still works. Looks like some moisture got to it.” She gestured at one side, and it definitely looked like water had gotten into it.

  “Might as well chuck it,” I said. “The electronics are probably toast anyway.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not like I need it.” She set it down, shaking her head and laughing to herself. She turned to go through the rest of the box.

  “I don’t think it even worked back then, did—” I stopped when her expression abruptly changed. Looking into the open box, her lips parted and her eyes widened, but I couldn’t tell if it was disbelief, horror, or both. “What’s wrong?”

  “That son of a bitch,” she whispered, but there was no venom behind the words. Just pain. She reached into the box, and my heart beat faster as I rose and stepped toward her.

  “Meredith?”

  When she brought her hands out, my heart sank.

  A few years before he died, her father had made her a music box. He was a master woodworker, and the box was stunning. Dark cherry wood with a lighter wood inlayed on top, spelling out “Meri,” which was his nickname for her. It played “White Christmas,” her favorite Christmas song. I’d never forgotten the day I came home from work to find her crying on the couch with it clutched to her chest. To this day, I still associated that song with her father’s death.

  If there was anything among her possessions that meant the world to her, it was that little box, and it hadn’t fared well. Not in those moist conditions and under the weight of the television. It was mostly intact, but one of the legs had snapped off and the lid sat at an odd angle. Meredith worked the lid until it finally opened enough to see inside, which resulted in one of the bent, corroded hinges snapping off on one side. Inside the box, the velvet lining was stained with mildew, and the little mirror was splintered into dozens of pieces. No music played when the box opened, so it was a safe bet the music box itself was damaged too.

  Sniffing sharply, Meredith unceremoniously shoved it aside. “Guess I should be happy at least some things made it through in one piece.” She reached into the box to see what else was in it. Without looking up, she said, “Could you put that thing in one of the trash bags?”

  I swallowed hard. She wasn’t nearly as stoic about it as she tried to sound. I had no doubt it broke her heart to see that music box destroyed. But what could I say?

  Without a word, I picked it up and took it across the room to the trash bags. I carefully slipped it into a bag that was mostly ripped-up newspaper and pieces of bubble wrap.

  “I’m going to run a few of these down to the dumpster,” I said.

  She looked up and offered a weak smile. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Be right back.” I picked up the bag of newspaper along with two others, and headed downstairs.

  At the dumpster, I threw two of the bags in, but not the third. I set it on the ground and opened it, riffling around in the newspaper and bubble wrap until I found the music box.

  Turning it in my hands, I furrowed my brow and inspected the damage. The music box itself was, as I’d suspected, corroded beyond repair. One leg was cracked, a second missing. There was some damage to the inlay of her name on the lid, and the finish was dulled and scratched. The dovetailing was fine, thank God, but one wall of the box was badly rotted. I’d have to cut that area out and put another in its place.

  All in all, the music box was in bad shape, but it could have been a lot worse.

  I didn’t want to get Meredith’s hopes up that it was salvageable, but with a little TLC, it was possible. Maybe.

  I freed a piece of newspaper, carefully wrapped it around the box, threw the rest in the dumpster, and went to my car. I tucked the music box behind the seat, then shut and locked the car.

  I wasn’t the master woodworker her late father had been, but I could hold my own. Hopefully I could fix this thing, even if I couldn’t restore it to quite what it had been before. It meant the world to her, and Rich had broken it. Both of those things made fixing it worth a try.

  I gave the unassuming ball of newspaper one last look, then turned and headed back upstairs.

  Chapter 13

  The clock on the microwave read a little past seven. Amy would be here soon, and though I was excited to see her, I couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that what I really wanted to do was call her, cancel, and just sleep for a few hours.

  But I didn’t. It was the same feeling I’d had before Kristen showed up one night not long ago, so I reminded myself—repeatedly—that once Amy arrived, my mood would change just like it did with Kristen.

  I closed my eyes and tried to work some stiffness out of my neck and shoulders with my fingers. I hadn’t slept for shit lately, and it was taking its toll. The deeper I got into this situation with Meredith, the more I learned about the two and a half of years she’d spent in hell, the more it gnawed at me. When I’d agreed to this, I hadn’t realized just how much it would consume me. Between worrying about her and simply being haunted by everything I learned about what happened to her, it did just that. When I managed to sleep, I dreamed about it all. Whenever Meredith slept beside me, I expected every sound or movement to be the start of a violent awakening from a nightmare, and more often than not, it was.

  Sighing, I went into the living room and dropped on to the couch, very nearly tripping over Malia when she darted past me. I’d given her some catnip earlier, so she was completely cracked out and losing her mind. She attacked the kitty condo, sprinted around the living room, smacked into shit. She disappeared into the kitchen, and though I could no longer see her, the slide-crash filled me in. A moment later she returned, looking around as nonchalantly as she could before a toy caught her eye. She tore across the carpet, pounced on the hapless toy, missed and somersaulted into the wall.

  And I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh at her antics. Or pick up the laser pointer off the coffee table and tease her with it, which was usually more than enough to lighten my mood. Something told me it was going to take a hell of a lot more to lighten this mood than making my cat chase a red dot up the wall.

  Rubbing my forehead, I exhaled hard. Amy would be here soon. Once she was here, I’d be fine.

  About fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. Malia startled as if someone had crashed a car into the house. Eyes wide, claws out, hackles up, she looked like she was about to jump out of her skin.

  “It’s just Amy, stupid.” I managed a quiet laugh on my way to answer the door. As I reached for the doorknob, Malia took off into another room, and I chuckled to myself. Apparently humans weren’t the only creatures that got paranoid when they were stoned.

  When I opened the door, Amy was there with a devilish grin
and a low-cut blouse, looking for all the world like a woman who had every intention of sending me to sleep with a smile on my face tonight. In the mood for a brutal flogging, knowing her, and ready to be fucked out of her mind.

  As soon as the door was closed behind us, I put my arms around her and kissed her, taking in a long breath of her familiar perfume as I gently parted her lips with my tongue. She dragged her nails down the back of my shirt while I twisted her hair in my hand and pulled her head back so I could kiss her neck.

  And I felt… nothing.

  Nothing but a sinking feeling in my chest.

  Amy broke the kiss and looked up at me. Brushing the pad of her thumb over my cheekbone, she said, “You look exhausted. Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Worrying about your ex?”

  I almost shuddered. “Basically.”

  “How is she doing, anyway?”

  “Getting better by the day.” I forced a smile. Not so sure the same can be said about me.

  “Good to hear.” She furrowed her brow. “You sure you’re okay?”

  There was no point in lying to her. She wasn’t responsible for my mood, and I obviously wasn’t going to get it past her anyway.

  I let out a breath. “Just exhausted.”

  A half-playful, half-cautious smile pulled at her lips. “You’re not in the mood tonight, are you?”

  Avoiding her eyes, I sighed. “Would you be offended if I said I wasn’t?”

  “With everything you’re dealing with right now? Not in the least.”

  I held her close to me again and kissed her gently. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “I know you will. For tonight, do you want me to just rub your back?”

  That woke up some nerves. No one on the planet gave back massages like she did, and my knotted muscles needed some of the magic from her hands. I smiled and played with her hair. “You’re an angel, Amy.”

  In my bedroom, she had me take off my shirt and lie facedown on the bed. I closed my eyes and sighed, resting my head on my arms while she got a bottle of massage oil out of the bedside table. I swore my body had a Pavlovian response to the very suggestion of a massage from her; just the anticipation of her hands eased some of the tension.