Deceived

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  Voices filled the library and a pack of boys with wet hair and enormous gym bags sauntered over to my table. Most stayed wrapped in their conversations, paying me little attention. Davis leaned over the table, eyes bright.

  “You ready?”

  I didn’t fight the slow smile spreading over my face. I suddenly had a new appreciation for his straightforward personality. No games. His ready smile was real. No lies hid behind it. With Davis, what I saw was what I got. Plus, walking home with a pack of lacrosse players sounded worlds better than walking alone.

  “Yeah. Where we going?” I released a cleansing breath and closed my laptop.

  “Coffee?”

  “Perfect.” I needed a bucketful. Sleep was most definitely off my night’s agenda.

  Before I could push in my chair, Davis slung my backpack over his already-burdened shoulder. He winked. I took a step forward and he extended an elbow my way. A dozen eyes waited for my response under wet hair and a cloud of generic locker-room soap. Without another thought, I slipped my arm through his. A gesture of friendship older than the school.

  The walk to the coffee shop passed quickly. Davis talked about practice and his little sister’s enthusiasm over visiting for the fall festival. He knew his dad would embarrass him, his mom would love me, and his sister would never want to leave. The chill in the air was unmistakable autumn. A brief shower had sprinkled everything with tiny crystalized droplets. Davis guided me around masses of damp leaves and puddles formed in sidewalk crevices. His teammates hooted and barked behind us about video games and public-school girls. Only a sliver of my mind wondered who had stood in the trees and what it meant. I hoped it was another Marshal, but I doubted that was true.

  Davis was comfortable walking arm in arm with me, and it put me at ease. It reminded me of Pixie when she called me an anchor. My life had been a series of moves for so long, it felt good to have people tying me to this place. Anchoring me to them. I had people. A big smile split my face. Davis was the boy next door from every sitcom ever made. And he was my friend.

  “Well, well, well.” Pixie and Michael stepped out of the coffee shop when Davis pulled the door open for me.

  “What’s up?” Michael looked at Davis and the team behind us.

  “Hi.” I looked at the ground before checking Davis’s expression for reassurance. The smile on his face suggested they’d won a big game instead of finished a regularly scheduled practice.

  “So,” Pixie drew out the o. “What’s this?” She motioned to our joined arms and I slid mine free. The carefree feeling vanished. Self-consciousness shoved its way in.

  “Davis and I are getting coffee. Can you stay?” My face burned from the spotlight I imagined was trained on it. My words seemed to relax Davis, who had stiffened a bit when I untangled our arms.

  She mulled it over for a minute while Michael stood there looking like I felt. “Nah. See you later?”

  “Sure.”

  “Scoop me.”

  I nodded and she flitted down the stairs, pulling Michael behind her. For the first time in my life, I had a real date. My mood soured at the thought of my fake date with Nicholas. It was easy to surmise that it had been a work-related obligation, reconnaissance maybe after I’d told him about the guy at the gas station. Not real. Not like the guy across from me who didn’t need me for some ulterior agenda. I shoved the bitterness aside. Brian was doing his job. He had never asked me to fall for him. That was on me. We sat at the shop until the owner turned the sign around and gave us a sympathetic look. I hated to leave. I had too many fake and ugly things to process when I got home. As long as I stayed in the booth smiling with Davis, I was safe. Snuggled in denial.

  “Can I walk you home?” He retrieved our coats from where we’d tossed them on the bench beside him and passed mine to me over the table.

  “I’d like that.” More truth. Telling him things came easy. Could a girl have two best friends? Pixie and I had a great thing going and I loved her, but the more time I spent with Davis, the more connected I felt to him, too. Neither of them felt like anchors as much as balloons pulling me up, opening up possibilities, giving me courage. Was this what having a family felt like?

  In the past couple of hours I’d told him about my mom’s death and dad’s travel and our moves. I didn’t dig deep, but I opened up and laid the groundwork for him to know more. His lips set when I mentioned Mom’s death. He loved his family. I thought he wanted to reach for me across the table, but he pulled his hands into his lap instead, which I appreciated. I hated people feeling sorry for me. Nicholas didn’t even seem surprised when I told him my mother had died. Probably he didn’t care or wasn’t listening. It had nothing to do with the school.

  We walked measurably slower from the shop to my building. At the base of the stairs, Davis softened his voice. In the dim, flickering streetlights, it seemed his cheeks darkened.

  “Can I meet you for coffee in the morning?”

  I pulled my lips in over my teeth. Meeting for coffee was the Francine Frances equivalent to a press conference. I doubted the lacrosse team thought twice about our coffee date, but the hoard of caffeinated girls in the morning would text the news schoolwide before the first bell.

  “Okay.” I might as well face it sooner rather than later. I’d made a real friend. I refused to alienate him to avoid trivial gossip.

  As if my acceptance had formed another invitation altogether, Davis leaned toward me. His hands moved to my shoulders and he took the final step between us. I had to make a fast decision. I couldn’t hurt his feelings. No one had ever opened up to me like he did. I wanted to keep him, but my heartstrings pulled tight against my arms, anchoring them to my sides. Like a rider steering a horse away from danger, my heart refused to accept his advance. I stepped away a baby step.

  He didn’t seem to notice.

  Betrayed again by my stupid heart. I had fallen for Nicholas before I knew he lied. My heart didn’t seem to care about the lies. Those heartstrings were irrevocably and irrationally tied to a liar. I had serious issues to deal with.

  I jumped when a car revved to life nearby. A squealing belt sent me flying into Davis’s arms. I buried my head in his chest and he wrapped his arms around me.

  “Was that the car?”

  I nodded against his shirt, thankful to have confessed my irritation to him over coffee. I hadn’t even told Pixie yet.

  “I’m going to go.” My eyes were blurred with tears of emotional overload.

  Davis ran his hand down my shoulder to my hand and squeezed before I started up the steps to my door. I ran to the top and swallowed my heart. There was a still-glowing ember on our doormat. Had someone been there while I stood a few feet away with Davis? What if I’d come home alone?

  I jumped inside, locked the door, and called Pixie.

  “Elle!” she squealed. “Come hang?”

  “Not tonight. Can you do me a favor? Have Michael walk you to the door?”

  Of course he would. They normally spent thirty minutes saying goodbye. Satisfied, I hit the treadmill to think and burn off some nerves. For five miles, the only thing I thought of was how everything fit together. Only one person could answer my questions and I doubted he would. I showered and changed into my favorite jeans and a stretchy cotton tank top. Lots of girls had stopped wearing the ultra-low-rise style, but I’d worn one pair to perfection. The strip of exposed skin above them almost managed to look tan next to the stark white tank.

  On my bed, I turned on the local news and watched as the anchor covered reports of a serial killer in the area. Oh no. My nerves frayed. It was all true. On a stomach filled with coffee and nothing else, that equaled sick. I had zero chance of sleep again. Ever.

  My senses heightened. Something made noise in the kitchen. I silenced the news and scooted to the edge of my bed. The sound came again. On instinct, I grabbed my bag and dug for the tiny scrap of paper. Another creak of floorboards, this time in the hallway outside my door. My thumbs danced over the keypad
texting “Someone here 911” to the number on the paper. I brought up the dial pad and dialed 9-1-1, ready for the worst. Before I pressed send and brought the cavalry, I found my voice.

  “The Marshals know you’re here.” I slipped off my bed and dropped to the floor on the side farthest from the door. My voice surprised me. Despite the tremor in my hands, I sounded confident and assured.

  The footfalls stopped outside my room. I braced myself to run, even tackle him if necessary, but I would not die. Dragging a pencil from my bag as my only weapon option, I hovered my thumb over the green button.

  “I called nine-one-one. You want me bad enough to risk it?” Please don’t. I scooted along the floor to the corner and pressed my back to the wall, hoping to find leverage for an attack.

  Tears stung my eyes. My knuckles turned white around the pencil.

  One deep breath later, my phone vibrated in my palm. I answered but couldn’t speak. I didn’t have to.

  “Elle, what’s wrong?” In the background, a car door shut and footfalls thundered.

  I would die alone in my room. Nicholas would never get here in time. I swallowed hard, thinking of my dad.

  “Hello? Elle?” Nicholas barked into my ear. “Answer me, dammit!”

  “I think the killer’s outside my bedroom door.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Elle?”

  “Nicholas?”

  Joy rushed over me when he pushed open the door to my room. I hated the way my heart skipped when I saw him.

  Relief washed over his features. He lifted a finger to his lips and left. Through the open door, I watched him check every room before he returned.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  “Your front door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t open, but it wasn’t locked. Do you remember locking it when you came home?” Bright green eyes pierced mine, begging me to think carefully.

  I nodded. For a minute, we stared silently at one another. His eyes fell to the tank I had pulled on after my shower, the strip of bare tummy above my favorite jeans and then my bare feet. “Uh … ”

  A zing of anticipation sent shockwaves through me. “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I was close.” He looked everywhere but at me. Sliding down to meet me on the floor, he pulled me into his side and leaned his head to mine. “You’re safe now. I didn’t see any signs of forced entry. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you.” The fury in his voice told me he meant it. “When you’re ready, will you take a look around? See if anything’s missing, new, or out of place.”

  “Okay.” I sat nestled against him until I trusted my legs to hold me and then pushed myself off the floor. I inhaled deeply to steady my breathing. I needed time to put myself back together, or at least find shoes and a sweater.

  “New?”

  “Sometimes they leave things.”

  Bile rose in my throat. I didn’t ask any follow-ups. My imagination filled in the blanks.

  Nothing was different in the apartment. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Someone was here.” I stomped my foot with indignation. “They were. I swear it.” I swiped away the falling drops with the pads of my thumbs. My voice choked and cracked with effort.

  “I’ll wait outside.” He swallowed and looked around again.

  “Are you afraid to be seen here?” I crossed my arms over the ribbon of skin I knew he’d seen and didn’t want to see anymore. Instant loathing began. How could I be so wrapped up in a guy who couldn’t care less?

  Nicholas moved through the apartment to the door. “Do you want to go back to the cottage? When will Pixie be home?”

  I followed. “Whatever.” At least I could try to get some information out of him, and if he was a Marshal, maybe he could use my experiences and/or paranoia as a lead. I hated the truth in that. I didn’t want to be crazy even more than I didn’t want to be stalked. I walked down the hall to my room and yanked a brush through my hair with shaking hands. I opened the drawer that held my caffeine pills and cringed. This wasn’t the time to be addicted. This was the time to be strong. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and slammed the drawer closed.

  Maybe the person who had been in my apartment was only a regular stalker like the guy Dad had mentioned. Stalkers followed people and what else? Were they pervy like in movies, collecting used napkins when we left restaurants? With any luck, they didn’t flash, because that was not how I wanted to be first exposed to the male form. I whimpered. My hands flew to my mouth. What kind of state was I in to hope I had a stalker?

  The place where my alternative was a serial killer.

  “Elle. You okay in there?”

  I marched back to Nicholas, who stood a complete and total two inches away from the door.

  I pulled on red-and-white-striped knee socks under my jeans and shoved my feet into well-worn Chucks.

  In the Jeep, my fingers worked on a thread hanging from the hem of my shirt. On the main road outside campus, we passed a group of girls I recognized and two guys I didn’t. Each guy took deep drags on a cigarette. My cheeks flamed as I pictured the same scenario happening every night. The girls walked them as far as the stairs in front of our door and said their goodbyes. I was such an idiot.

  “Okay,” Nicholas said, as the night flew past on the windy country roads. “Tell me every detail you remember. Leave nothing out.”

  In my periphery, he turned to me again and again, but I had no words, no time to decide what I wanted to say and what I could never say.

  “Elle, you’re safe. Okay?” His voice was confident, thick with assurance. He believed the words. Why wouldn’t he?

  I turned. “I’m not so sure.” Obviously, he had no idea I was going insane. Instead of college, I’d end up in a psychiatric ward next fall, if not sooner. All the military training in the world couldn’t save me from myself.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I have serious issues.” I laughed a little at the truth of the statement.

  “No doubt.”

  Hurt from his behavior inside my apartment resurfaced. I sighed. Dense. Stupid. He was clearly embarrassed. In keeping with his cover, he flirted with a kid. That must’ve been how it seemed to him anyway. Though, I wasn’t a kid. Far from it. I’d celebrate my eighteenth birthday in six weeks. Chronologically and physically, I wasn’t a child. Intellectually, I was already at college level, and emotionally—forget about it. I’d been through so much that I’d aged inappropriately beyond my years. Of course, he had no way of knowing any of that.

  Nicholas looked young. I kept trying to make him fit the role he played, but I couldn’t. He’d been through a lot, too. A tour overseas was enough to age anyone, plus his new routine as a Marshal and our protector.

  “I was pretty mad at you earlier.”

  He slid his eyes my way and slowed to make the turn into his drive. “And now?”

  He shifted the Jeep into park and cut the engine. Sounds of the river played against the glass as it steamed around the edges from our breath.

  “I’m a little more understanding.” I took a minute to give him an accusatory stare. “I went to the library after you left.”

  “With Davis.” A new edge bit into his words.

  “Before he got there, I had a lot of questions. Questions you wouldn’t answer. I hate being lied to.” My teeth gritted tight.

  “You Googled my name.” A statement of fact. A fact I hated to admit. It seemed too personal, like I’d hijacked his phone while he wasn’t looking.

  “First, you told me your name was Brian. Everyone calls you Brian. Then you said Nicholas was your name. You said to call you Nicholas. I mean, what the hell? What’s that about? Are you lying to me or to five hundred students and faculty?”

  He groaned a long, deep growl and jumped out the driver’s-side door. He opened mine a second later and reached for my elbow. I didn’t have time to complain before he hoisted me out and moved to his front door, scanning the night as we walked. He flipped on the ligh
ts and motioned to the table. I sat.

  “Go on.”

  Rude.

  “When I searched for Nicholas Austin, your picture came up. I realized you … ” I didn’t want to give away the fact that I’d spent nights trying to know him, or let on he’d become my own mystery man, “ … weren’t really a student.”

  “Not a student. This is where you want to leave it?” Skepticism dripped over the words.

  “Do you? I mean, I don’t know what’s classified.” I squinted.

  He rubbed his faced roughly, then his hair, then the back of his neck. “What else?”

  His expression frightened me a little. I’d never seen him less than composed. Knowing all I knew and seeing the wild look in his eyes only emphasized his size. I had no doubt he could cause some serious damage if provoked.

  “That’s why you called me when you thought there was an intruder. Do you want coffee?”

  I didn’t like the edge to his voice, or the way he said thought.

  “No.” My hands shook. I couldn’t hold a cup steady.

  “Oh.” He flopped back against his chair, exasperated. “Am I scaring you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He tilted forward and rested his forehead in his hands for two seconds. “I’m at Francine Frances on assignment. I’m not supposed to frighten you.” He raised his face to mine.