Deceived

by Julie Anne Lindsey

“That’s my mother.” He looked at the frame I held in my hands. “As if it’s not obvious.”

  He was right. They looked alike. I looked nothing like my dad.

  “Are you worried about your father?”

  “Yeah.”

  No, I was thinking about how much I missed my mother, though I didn’t remember her. Change the subject. “So, you always wanted to be a Marshal?”

  “No. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a long time. I knew it would be something like this because of my legacy.”

  He had a legacy? I didn’t know any of my relatives, other than Dad. I didn’t really know him either. In a way, being in witness protection would be an easy transition for me. I already had nothing to leave behind.

  “When I turned eighteen, I followed the path of every other Austin man and went into the military. Unfortunately for me, it was war time.”

  “When you got out, you became a Marshal?”

  “Yeah. Being a veteran helped a lot. Plus, it’s always good to know people.”

  “Your family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about you, Elle. What do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to go to law school.” It was my standard answer. Truthfully, I’d like to be a mother. If I couldn’t have one, I thought I’d appreciate being a mom more than most women did.

  “Have you always wanted to be a lawyer?”

  “No.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears fell anyway. How many times had he seen me cry this week? Ugh.

  “Hey, listen, it’s okay to be afraid. That’s normal. This is all new to you. It’s scary. I get that, but it will be okay.”

  I blinked away a few tears.

  “This guy is elusive, but he’s not unattainable.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s been fourteen years. That has to count for something.”

  “It’s made him overconfident. He’s bound to trip up.” Something was off in his expression. He continued a little too quickly. “He began fourteen years ago, but from the best we can tell, he hasn’t murdered anyone in a decade, so he’s out of practice, too.”

  “Or he’s really improved. What was he doing all those years?”

  Nicholas walked back to the kitchen for a refill, but I’d hardly seen him take two sips from his mug. He appeared to be hiding something.

  “Nicholas? Do you know what he was doing?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned at the waist. His eyes avoided mine. He was hiding something. My pulse picked up speed. I followed after him. I laid a hand on his arm.

  “Stalking.” His voice came in a hoarse whisper. His breath reached my face and my knees went weak.

  I closed the small distance between us and stretched up onto my tiptoes. Nicholas leaned into the counter. I faced all six-and-a-half feet of him. Timidly, I trailed my hands up his chest, over his soft tee, and beyond his shoulders. I wasn’t positive what I expected to happen next. Boldness and I weren’t close. What I wanted and what I expected rarely lined up. More than anything, I wanted to be safe. Nicholas was safety. If he held me, nothing could hurt me. I stretched further.

  “Who?” I let the warmth of my breath coat his skin.

  He lifted his chin high, looking over the top of my head. Defeat fell into the pit of my stomach. He rejected me, until all at once, he didn’t. His face turned downward without warning, and our lips connected like two magnets drawn together. Whatever held us apart before had snapped without warning. Nicholas had let go.

  I felt small in his arms. He towered over me, his shoulders twice as wide as mine. The contrast of us sent chills down my back, and the smallest sound I ever heard escaped my lips. He tightened his hold on me in response, pulling me closer still, kissing me with a passion I’d never imagined. I’d seen a thousand kisses, in life, on television, but they hadn’t prepared me. Blood boiled and raced beneath my skin. I was fevered and frenzied. His hands moved over my back, into my hair and clutched softly. I did the same in response. I held on for fear he’d disappear.

  As my fingers wound tightly in his soft brown hair, he pulled his lips away, kissing me softly once on the cheek and then resting his head against the top of mine. His scent enveloped me—soap, musky cologne, minty breath. A deep sigh blew free from his chest. His heart beat hard beneath my ear. His hands splayed over my lower back and they covered the width of me. All the tiptoeing had pulled my sweater away from my jeans enough for his fingers to land on bare skin.

  With caution, I raised my face, seeking his. I had to know his reaction. How had he responded to the kiss that overshadowed every single experience I’d ever had?

  “I’m sorry.” His eyes were closed.

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m supposed to protect you. I can’t seem to get that right. I’m failing at this assignment, and your life depends on me.” He tightened his hold of me.

  “I’m making this harder.” What began as an attraction to his incredible face had morphed entirely. I wanted to be with him, near him. He was suddenly my best friend, my confidant, and my makeshift family.

  I loved that he had a family he appreciated. I loved the respect he showed them, me, and everyone I’d ever seen him come in contact with. He was a guardian, my protector. His kindness contrasted strangely with his military training and the gun wedged in his waistband.

  “Yes, infinitely, yes.”

  I frowned.

  When his eyes opened, they sparkled. “Ugh, Elle. I’m losing it. You can’t imagine the struggle I’m having, the struggle I’ve been having.” His eyes looked wild, like Pixie’s when she got really amped up about something.

  “I need to turn this case over to someone who’s not in … ” he trailed off for a moment, “ … volved with the subject, but I can’t. I can’t trust your safety to anyone else because I need to know you’re safe, every minute, and I need to be with you for that. It’s wrong to stay, but I can’t leave.” He stroked my hair behind my ear. “I won’t leave you, Elle.”

  “There are a number of reasons why I need to keep my hands to myself.” He used his business voice. “It’s unprofessional, extremely distracting, and illegal. Would you forgive me if I kept a distance until we capture the bad guy? I have to try to focus.” His lopsided smile sent a shiver over my arms.

  “I make no promises.” That was the best I could do. “Living here will make things more complicated.” I liked the way it played out in my head.

  “Slightly.” He raised his hands from me. I took one baby step away. He rubbed his face, and I smiled.

  “I won’t leave you, Elle, and it’ll be okay.”

  “You can’t know that.” I hoped somehow he could.

  “I believe it.” He snapped back up beside me.

  “How?” My heart spiked. Life was not a fairy tale. I found it hard to believe in happy endings.

  Nicholas looked adorably mischievous. His deep green eyes sparkled. His enthusiasm was contagious. He made everything seem easier.

  “I need to keep my head straight and you’ll be safe.” Then he nodded and winked.

  I blushed.

  He rubbed his face some more.

  I reached for his hand. With all the bravery I could muster, I let my fingertips trace the lines of Indian ink peeking from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. He lifted the sleeve with his free hand and hooked it over his shoulder, allowing me to explore one of his secrets.

  “An armband of barbed wire.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the number mean?” The lines coiled and twisted over one another, most ending in sharp points, while a few morphed carefully into dangerous-looking numbers.

  “My men.” He pulled me to him and told me things I longed to hear. He wanted me to know him.

  “How do you do this?”

  “What?”

  “How do you date? How can you get close to anyone when you’re always moving, changing names, keeping secrets?”

  “How do you?” He posed the question
back to me, though it only partially applied.

  I still got it. “I don’t.”

  “Same here.”

  “I’ve never met anyone I wanted to be with, though.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “Come on. You can tell me. It ends in a train wreck, right?” No way the man standing in front of me had never been in a relationship. Women must throw themselves at him. I was pretty sure that was what I was doing.

  He leaned back against the counter and looked at the ceiling. “Let’s see. I attended an all-boys military academy, followed by the Marines, where I was in a war zone … ”

  “There are women in the Marines. You’ve had enough time to be involved with someone.”

  He ran one huge hand up my arm and back. The sight of the sinewy muscles in his forearm gave me goose bumps.

  “I’m not saying I’ve dated as little as you,” he looked at me strangely, “but I am saying nothing ever went anywhere. I never met anyone who could distract me from my focus. Girls were the side note to my life. Work was my life.”

  “I dated.”

  “I know.” He appeased me.

  “I did. I dated.”

  “No one worth documenting.”

  That was true enough, although it was an odd expression.

  “Do you have any other questions before I turn in for the night?”

  “You’re going to bed already?”

  “Elle, it’s late. We have school in the morning.”

  I guffawed. School seemed a relatively stupid thing to bother with. I couldn’t see the point.

  “We have a façade to maintain. Brian.” He flattened his hand against his chest. He nodded to me. “You’ll need to play along with the story about the fire and stay in crowds. We’ll meet at the wall after school, and we’ll ride together. You’re not going to have any privacy. Not for a while.” He posed it carefully, as a warning. It sounded good to me.

  “What about the fire? The Reaper knows there wasn’t a fire.”

  He laughed. “Oh, there was a fire. You’ll read all about it in the morning paper.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reluctantly, I made my way to my new bedroom. Nicholas needed rest, and he wouldn’t sleep if I stayed in the living room. It took me about three minutes of tossing and turning before I gave up and opened my laptop. I needed to know everything about the Reaper. I needed to know how much danger Nicholas was in and what he’d be facing every time he went out because his phone buzzed.

  From what I could gather, the Reaper was barely human. Profilers assumed he’d probably had a normal upbringing with a sudden trauma that caused him to snap. I didn’t buy it. I’d had a childhood trauma and I didn’t murder people. Though, I suppose, I did snap. I didn’t sleep. I had a nightmare come to life and haunt my days. The Reaper didn’t internalize it like I did. He brimmed and overflowed with hate. His murders were too brutal to be fueled by anything else. Something triggered them, too.

  Investigators didn’t see the murders as random, though the girls had no connection to one another. There was a common theme. The girls were all like me. They were like everyone at the academy.

  In some ways, the girls were likened to Holocaust victims because in addition to denying them food, he removed their identities. Their heads were always shaved. Their clothes were replaced with gunnysacks that he crudely cut arm and neck holes into. The media speculated but couldn’t confirm allegations of other abuse. When the girl was barely recognizable, he removed her fingerprints by burning them off. He strangled them with surgical glove–covered hands. Then he dumped her body somewhere. I shuddered thinking of the tiny orange glow. I could almost hear the sounds of the cigarettes against their fingers, one by one. The screams of terrified girls. My stomach flipped, and I held it down with one hand while I scrolled on with the other.

  The process from abduction to death took some time. When a girl fitting his preference went missing, investigators knew they had about ten days to find her. They never found her, not in time. I couldn’t imagine what those girls went through. I thought of all those mothers at their homes, mourning their daughters. My chest literally ached from the pain.

  I rubbed my shoulders, my throat, my head, to hold myself together. Sobs welled up. I began to shake violently. Panic fed the fire as my mind demanded that my body settle down. My room was only twenty feet from Nicholas. I couldn’t have a mental breakdown. I buried my face in my pillow and wept.

  I might have passed out from lack of oxygen, or maybe my body shut down to stop the attack. Either way, I woke six hours later to the smell of coffee. My hands trembled more than usual. It’d been hours since I’d had any coffee. Hours. I hadn’t slept that long, ever.

  Everything had changed.

  It didn’t take me any time to remember where I was and what was happening. That used to happen after a move. I’d wake up in a new bedroom and feel completely disoriented. I’d grown accustomed to new rooms over time.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my fingers through my hair. My hands trembled. I rubbed them heavily against my thighs. It didn’t help. Hopefully the addiction could be eradicated if I started sleeping again.

  I stood and shook my wrists at my sides before heading toward the kitchen. The bedroom door creaked. Scents of deliciousness drifted down the little hallway. Plates and cups clanked in the kitchen.

  “I didn’t know what you ate.” He looked uncomfortable.

  The island was covered in food: fruits, scrambled eggs, and giant muffins. I walked past them to the coffee. I had to stop trembling before he noticed.

  “Elle, are you okay? Did something upset you?” He was beside me in an instant, easily reaching the mug I stretched toward. Nicholas took my hands in his and looked at them. He rubbed them vigorously between his, folded them, and pulled them to his chest. The look on his face disarmed me. He was afraid of something.

  “I’m fine.” I pulled my hands free and turned to hide my embarrassment.

  “Your hands.” He popped back into view, waiting.

  “I have a caffeine addiction. You know that.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I sipped the coffee and took a seat at the island.

  “Caffeine?”

  “I told you,” my voice was soft, “I don’t sleep well. I haven’t for … I don’t know. Forever. I consume way too much caffeine to stay awake all day. That has its own consequences. At home, I had pills to help, and a treadmill.” I slid off the stool and headed away from him. I was mad that I had to have this conversation. He was perfect and I was a freak. He might as well know up front.

  “Where’re you going?” He spun on his heels and moved behind me.

  “To change. I’m going to run before I get ready for school. Running helps.” I shut the door in his face and pressed my back against it. Then I dressed quickly and sucked the rest of the coffee down, burning my throat as it went. I stopped in the bathroom to brush my teeth and pull my hair into a ponytail. I pressed a cold rag against my eyes to help with the puffiness. This was my new start. No more playing the victim. Time to take control of my life.

  Back in my room, I grabbed my phone and set up my playlist. Then I walked straight out the front door without a word. I was sure he was watching, wherever he was.

  Around back, I crossed the yard under the pergola and stopped to stretch on the riverbank. I locked my fingers under the toes of my shoes and felt the burn in my legs and back. I moved from side to side, recreating the stretch for each leg. Then, from a topsy-turvy vantage, I saw him appear.

  Nicholas was dressed similar to myself, standing near the fire pit, waiting. I stopped mid-stretch. His body looked even more athletic in running pants and an oversized Marines hoodie. He had a black knit cap pulled over both ears and his nose was red.

  The blood pooled in my forehead. Remembering I wasn’t in a very favorable position, I stood upright too quickly. The movement caused me to falter backwards and land against the grassy hill behind me.

  “Whoa!�
�� He closed the distance in three long strides. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” My ego was fatally wounded. First, I had spent an eternity with my bottom in the air staring at him. Then I fell down. I was nothing but sexy. Ugh.

  He pulled me up by my elbow. He smiled.

  I grimaced. “Why’s your face red?”

  “You said you were going running.” He looked confused.

  “So?”

  “I ran ahead about a half mile to check things out. It’s fine. You’re good.”

  “You ran a mile while I changed clothes?”

  Jeez.

  He smiled that smile that knocked the wind out of me.

  “Shut up.”

  He’d heard the awe in my voice and gloated. I calculated his time. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.

  I ran along the riverbank until he stopped me. I’d been focused on the music, trying to ignore the articles about the Reaper I’d read the night before. Trying not to think about him jogging along behind me. At the half-mile point, he insisted I head back. My run was abbreviated, but my blood pumped hard. I turned like he asked, rejuvenated, ready to face the day.

  The morning air beat cool and crisp off the river. Fall in Ohio was like being stuck inside a painting. The leaves left hanging in the trees were every shade from gold to purple. The fallen ones crunched under my shoes as I ran. The smell of autumn in the air made me smile. Fall had always been my favorite. I had a hard time accepting danger in such a beautiful world. My immediate surroundings resembled a storybook. With a monster lurking nearby, maybe I was Little Red Riding Hood.

  Two bottles of water waited on the pergola. I grabbed one and pulled out my earbuds, ready to talk. It looked as if he’d been waiting for that.

  “You slept last night. Did you dream?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He looked relieved. “Good. I thought I’d have to hide your laptop.”

  A giggle burst from my lips.

  His face was stern.

  “I wanted to know who was after her. Do you blame me? Anyway, the research didn’t give me nightmares.” I sipped the cool water. The contrast caused a new burn in my throat. It took a few minutes to get my body temperature back to normal after the run.