She smiled. “I know. So back to that summer… you broke up because of the internship. Then what?”
“Then she came back for the fall semester. She was hell-bound determined to make up with me. We did, and then we had another fight. Then she died.” The wind picked up as he said the last sentence, and Chase raised his face into it, letting it wash over him. “When they found her, they discovered that she was two months pregnant.”
Annie sucked in a sharp breath at the revelation. She laid a hand over his and squeezed. “Oh, my God. Chase, no. I’m so, so sorry.”
He squeezed back and shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t mine.” He felt the surprise that jolted through her body. “Apparently, she hooked back up with her high-school sweetheart over the summer. He was going to marry someone else, and when she told him she was pregnant, he didn’t care. It didn’t stop his plans. She knew her father would marry her off to the first man he could find who was willing to take her, and I guess suddenly I didn’t look like such a bad prospect.” Annie didn’t have any words. She just tightened her grasp on his hand and laid her head against his shoulder.
He continued, “See, Kiely’s family never liked me. I wasn’t one of them, wasn’t from the hills. They knew I’d take her away from them, bring her here, and they didn’t want that. After they found her body, they blamed me, thought I had something to do with her death. So her sister, Amy Lynn, was all too glad to tell me exactly what they thought of me, and what Kiely’s motives were in coming back to me that fall.” He looked down into Annie’s face. “She was going to come back and get me into bed as soon as she could, and then discover the pregnancy soon after. She knew how I felt about family and responsibility, and she knew I’d think the baby was mine. By the time I found out otherwise, it would be too late. They came up with that little scheme when the baby’s father refused to marry her.” A large clap of thunder sounded, seeming to punctuate his words. Annie jumped, and Chase tucked an arm around her as the storm began in earnest. For several minutes, they sat and watched the rain blow around the house.
“When did you find out she was pregnant?” she asked.
Chase put his right ankle on his left knee and scratched at a mosquito bite. “I found out when the investigators asked me about it. Then later, I had an argument with Amy Lynn. That’s when it all came out.” He paused. “What Kiely didn’t count on in her little plan was that I’d started having second thoughts over the summer. I had Mom and Dad as an example of how a couple should work. I’d also been a really geeky, awkward kid, and I didn’t have any confidence in myself. Kiely was my first serious girlfriend.” Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and moved his arm back to his lap. “I wanted our relationship to be about more than sex, and when Kiely came back, there was something different about her. Something harder, edgier. It hadn’t been there before. I guess it set off a warning signal inside me somewhere. It definitely made me uncomfortable. When she started using every trick in the book to get me in bed, it left me cold. I knew she was up to something. I just didn’t know what.”
Annie was quiet for several minutes. “I’m torn,” she finally said. Her voice was very quiet, but he could hear the anger threading through it.
“Torn how?” he asked.
She shook her head and looked away, toward the field and barn beyond. “Because I’ve known women like that. Women who use men. They make me sick. They think the world exists to serve them. And that Kiely did that to you? Your first experience with women was her?” She sighed. “It hurts, Chase. You’re too good of a person for her. I hope this doesn’t upset you too much, but if she were here right now, I’d slap her upside the head.”
Chase didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms around her and held on. Before he pulled back, he kissed the top of her head. “Thank you,” he said. “I needed that. You don’t know how much.”
“Glad to oblige.” Chase could tell she was a little flustered. “So this letter you got today… I guess it’s the real deal, then,” she said. “What does it mean? Are Beth and I really in danger?”
“I can’t tell you how much it hurts me to say this, or how furious I am, but yes. I think there’s a good chance you’re in danger. You should be very concerned.” He exhaled sharply. “Especially since you’re going to be out here on the farm by yourself. I don’t like that, Annie. I wish we had thought of it sooner.” Chase met her gaze in the moonlight that was peeking through the clouds now that the storm had passed. His voice softened as he added, “Come stay with me, at least until Mom and Dad get back from vacation.”
Annie shook her head. “Chase, I can’t do that. You know I can’t. And there’s no way you could have known this would happen.”
“Why can’t you come stay at my place?” he asked. “How else am I going to know you’re safe?”
She smiled. “Where would I sleep? You only have one bed in the condo, and we’ve already been through the whole sleeping on the couch discussion,” she said.
Chase returned the smile, but inside, his heart was pounding. He decided to throw his cards on the table. “I don’t have a problem with sharing the bed.”
Arms crossed over her chest, she stood and walked over to stand next to the porch railing. “Well, maybe I do,” she said. “We’re friends, Chase. Good friends, the kind of friendship that doesn’t come along that often. I don’t want to risk that on—on something that might not happen, or might not work out.” Agitated, she turned to look out over the small yard. Chase almost missed her next words, they were so softly spoken. “You mean too much to me. I can’t lose you.”
“And that’s exactly why I need to know you’re safe,” he insisted. “Because you mean so much to me.” Annie turned and just looked at him, and he sighed. “Okay,” he relented. “Then I can come here for a few weeks. Just until Mom and Dad get home, and you aren’t so isolated. I can stay in the big house.”
Hands on hips, Annie turned to give him an incredulous look. “Aren’t you forgetting something, or someone, as the case may be?”
Chase frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Who am I forgetting?”
“Murphy?” she asked. “Ten pounds of pure love and destructive willfulness? What are you going to do with him for three weeks while you’re out here?”
Still not understanding what the problem was, he shrugged. “I’ll bring him with me.” She shook her head. “What? What’s wrong with that plan?” he asked.
“Chase, have you forgotten how he acts when you take him someplace new and abandon him?” she asked. “He would do just fine until you left for work the first day, and then it would be complete and utter devastation. Your mother’s curtains, her antiques, the carpet, I don’t even want to think about what all he could do in a day. She’d kill you and me both when she got home.”
Chase raked his hands through his hair with a groan. “Danged troublemaker. He would, too, wouldn’t he?”
“Oh, honey. It would be cheaper to hire a bodyguard,” Annie said, completely serious.
“Then what do you suggest we do? Doesn’t it worry you, what this guy said in his letter? It worries the hell out of me.” Chase went over to stand beside her at the railing.
Annie sighed and leaned against one of the support posts. “Of course it worries me but, Chase, I’m twenty-nine years old. I haven’t made it this far on my own without being at least halfway cautious.”
“To my knowledge, you’ve never had a serial killer watching you, either. You do remember that they suspect this guy of several murders, right?” Chase reminded her. It was something Gordon had told him earlier in the year. He braced his hands on the railing in front of him. “Annie, Gordon thinks this guy has killed at least eight women, not counting Kiely. He hasn’t been merciful about it, either. Don’t you understand that I can’t just sit back and wait for him to do that to you?” Their gazes locked and for a long moment, neither spoke.
Annie looked away first, closing her eyes with a groan. “Okay. What do you want me to do about
it?”
Chase thought for a minute before he answered. “Any chance you would consider moving into the big house until Mom and Dad get back?” Annie just looked at him. “Guess not, then. What about if we had a security system installed here, then? And you could get a gun. That would probably be a step in the right direction, too.”
Annie was adamantly opposed to the notion of the gun. “Absolutely not,” she said. “As to the security system, maybe. It depends on what your parents say. I’d pay for it, but how would you explain the need without freaking them out?”
“That’s the easy part,” Chase said. “Everyone knows they’ll be out of town. Not everyone knows yet that you’re going to be here. Mom and Dad know you don’t like guns, so the idea of adding a security system actually makes sense. They have one for the house, and they’ve talked about getting one for this place in the past but haven’t ever gotten around to it, for one reason or another. It shouldn’t be a hard sell at all.”
“I hate to ask, having just moved in and them getting ready to leave tomorrow,” she hedged.
“I’ll stop by and talk to them on my way home, if you’re okay with the idea,” he said. “I can act on their behalf, if that makes you feel better. Okay?”
Throwing up her hands in defeat, she gave in. “Okay. But I’m paying for it.” Chase didn’t argue, deciding to leave that between Annie and his parents. The storm over, literally and figuratively, he felt exhausted. Standing up straight, he stretched his arms up over his head.
“I’d better head out,” he said. “It’s been a long day. A long week, as far as that goes.”
Annie agreed as they went back inside the house. “I’d rather not have to go through anything like this week again, if it’s all the same to God.”
The corner of Chase’s mouth quirked up, and he tried to hide a yawn. “Unfortunately, it isn’t up to us. Oh, by the way, I’m supposed to get everyone together tomorrow at Beth and Ethan’s around seven. You game?”
“Sure,” she said. “I can meet you there.”
He hesitated. “Annie, you know it will take a few days to get the security system installed. What are we going to do in the interim?” he asked as they reached the front door. When Annie rubbed a hand across the back of her neck and rolled her shoulders, Chase was tempted to offer a neck rub. He held off, though, thinking he had probably pushed things far enough for one night.
“Just bring Murphy over tomorrow night after work. Bring his crate, and we can leave him in there while we’re at Beth’s. He should be okay for a couple hours if he gets some extra attention later,” she said. “You guys can stay with me here. But you will pick up after yourself, and you’re sleeping on the couch, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am,” Chase said with a grin.
Annie narrowed her eyes as he walked out onto the porch. “And no sassing me, mister. Oh, and Chase? One more thing.” She waited until Chase turned around to face her. “Murphy can share the bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.” While Chase was still trying to pick his jaw up off the porch, she shut the door. He heard it lock, and the sound snapped him out of his shock.
“I’ll be hanged,” he muttered, a wide grin spreading across his face. “I never thought I’d be jealous of a cat.”
Chapter 6
After Chase left, Annie finished the cleanup in the kitchen and locked up. With one last look around the downstairs, she headed up to the loft bedroom. As she performed her nightly bedroom ritual, she couldn’t stop her mind from going back to the letter again and again. The bitterness and self-loathing she’d seen on Chase’s face as he recounted the details surrounding Kiely’s disappearance kept flashing in front of her, and her heart ached for him. She wanted to cry as she realized how deeply a man like Chase would have been affected by Kiely’s actions.
Chase was something of a dark horse in the Hudson family. Jason and Beth, even Joely, were outgoing. They had sparkling personalities, for lack of a better description. But Chase was different. Quiet and intense, there was a brooding sensitivity to him. Coupled with his looks and the raw, sensual way he had of moving, it was no surprise he was one of Leroy’s most coveted bachelors. Thinking back over what he had said earlier, his comments about Kiely’s motivations, Annie wondered whether Chase realized how appealing he was, or whether he was completely oblivious. In all the months they had been spending time together, Annie had been very careful to hide how strong her attraction to him was. She was afraid to damage their friendship by letting her feelings show. Now, knowing Chase was attracted to her, she wondered how her attitude had come across to him, especially in light of his revelations about Kiely.
“You don’t have anything to offer him other than friendship,” she told her reflection. “You know that.” The mirror over the bathroom sink didn’t respond, not that she had expected it to. She took a step back from the counter and, turning this way and that, examined her body. The panties and bra she wore were serviceable, no frills, more for comfort and support than appearance. The body underneath was curvy, and Annie knew she appealed to men. She’d known that from the time she’d developed breasts in the seventh grade.
Over the years, she had shared her bed with a few men, most of whom she had cared for deeply, but the only one she had ever thought she loved was the one who had left the deepest scars, both physically and emotionally. Rafe Lewis. She’d met him when she was nineteen, and everything had changed. The others, well, she had felt affection, but those relationships had been more about loneliness than any lasting togetherness. As she touched the faded scars on her pelvis, she felt deep inside that if she ever let her friendship with Chase turn into something else, it would unleash a force that could destroy her if it went bad. Like she had told him earlier, his friendship meant too much for her to risk losing. With Chase’s background, Annie knew that his holding political office someday wasn’t out of the question, and was in fact likely. With her own past being what it was, she would be more of a detriment than a helpmate.
With one last look at her image, she stripped off her undergarments and stepped over to the shower to turn on the water. Not waiting for it to get hot, she stepped under the spray. As the water heated, she let her tears fall. There was so much sadness inside her, she couldn’t decide what hurt the most. The shop she had worked so hard to build was gone. The man she cared for deeply was being hurt by ghosts from his past, enduring his own personal hell, and somewhere out there in the darkness, a sick and twisted individual had his sights set on Annie and on her best friend.
She was starting to long for something she knew she had no right to want. The hunger alarmed her, and she didn’t know if she was strong enough to resist its pull. As she turned off the water and reached for a towel, she wondered, not for the first time, if she should even try resisting any longer. Let the chips fall where they may, and just get it over with.
Chapter 7
The following night, Chase and Annie left an unhappy Murphy in his crate at the guesthouse and headed over to Beth and Ethan’s. Their house was only about a mile from Richard and Jackie’s, so the trip was short. Gordon’s car was there, parked alongside Stacy’s.
“Looks like Ethan made some progress on the garage today,” Chase said as he pulled his car up next to the other vehicles. Ethan and Beth had decided to add a garage onto the farmhouse, and the foundation had been poured on Monday.
“Yeah, he was looking forward to getting it done,” Annie said. “Walls going up this weekend?”
They headed up the steps of the front porch. “As long as it doesn’t rain,” Chase said. He knocked on the door. Ethan, standing in the living room, waved them in. As soon as Chase opened the door, the smell of burnt garlic hit them, and Chase made a face.
“Beth’s cooking, huh?” he asked. “Hi, Stacy, Gordon.” When Annie lightly smacked his arm, he flinched. “What?”
“Be nice to your sister,” she said. “Ethan probably burns food, too. Don’t you, Ethan?”
“Hey, Annie.
This should be good.” Stacy patted the seat next to her on the couch. “Come sit and watch them dig themselves deeper.”
“Always a good, fun time,” Annie agreed as she joined Stacy on the couch. Gordon laughed, quickly turning it into a cough when both Ethan and Chase shot him a look.
“As a matter of fact, I do burn food from time to time,” Ethan agreed. “Just not as frequently as my wife does. And not today. Today, it’s all hers.” There was a loud clatter of metal from the kitchen and Ethan winced. “Excuse me.” He hurried toward the other room. “Beth, you’re going to burn yourself!”
“I’m not completely incompetent in the kitchen, thank you very much, Ethan Moore,” they heard her respond. “And this bread? I set the oven to the right temperature. I did exactly what the box said to do. And it still burned!” There was another loud clang. “Explain that to me, please?”
Ethan’s response was muted. Beth groaned. “Of course, they’re here.” She poked her head around the corner and waved at everyone. “Welcome to Bedlam. Ahh, here comes the last lunatic.” She waved at Jason, who had just come up on the porch.
“Do you need some help, Beth?” Annie asked.
“No. I need an oven that isn’t older than dirt. Where did you get that thing, Ethan?” she asked as he came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on a towel.
“It came with the house,” he responded. “I’ve never had any problem with it.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Dratted thing must be a female. It’s going away this weekend. I have a reputation to protect, and it’s determined to sabotage me.”
“Hey, what’s going on, everyone?” Jason asked as he came in. “What’s that smell?”
“Beth’s getting a new oven, apparently,” Annie said. “Do we need to order pizza?”
Hands on hips, Beth shook her finger at Annie. “Oh, et tu, Annie? No dessert tonight for you. Come on, everyone. Most of dinner is ready. We’re having spaghetti and salad. Hope that’s okay,” she said. As they filled their plates, they all chatted, catching up.
Shadows from the Grave Page 7