by Hamel, B. B.
Easton was clearly worried. He wouldn’t leave a gun with me unless he thought I was in danger. I knew he’d felt that before, but now it was just so clear.
I didn’t know how long I just sat there, staring mindlessly at Facebook. It had to have been at least an hour.
But suddenly I heard the sound.
The sound I had been dreading and imagining all night long. A scratching at the door, and the jiggle of the knob.
I got to my feet, fear spiking through me, and walked into the main office. The handle was moving, and someone was clearly about to come inside.
I grabbed the gun without thinking. It was heavy, substantial. It was exactly what I thought it would be, and way more terrifying.
The door swung open.
“Hey, sis.” Easton looked at me, a small grin on his face.
“Easton.” I slowly lowered the gun.
“You can relax. It’s just me.”
“Okay.” I put the gun back down on the desk, relief washing over me.
He shut the door behind him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Why didn’t you knock?”
He just shrugged and walked past me.
“We’re heading out,” he said from the back room. “Come grab your laptop.”
I followed him and closed the lid, picking it up. He was packing another bag full of stuff.
“Two murders in two days,” I said softly. “It’s crazy.”
He looked at me seriously. “We’re closing the office.”
The words hit me like a hammer. “No way!”
“Sorry, sis. We have to.”
“No. We can’t close this office. We’re helping people!”
He gave me a wry smile. “We’re taking pictures of perverts and cheaters.”
“We’re saving marriages and getting people out of bad ones.” I paused. “And what about Mrs. Suarez? We helped her.”
His face clouded over at the mention of Mrs. Suarez. “We can’t help anyone anymore,” he said softly, and he went back to packing.
What was he talking about? We couldn’t just give up. We hadn’t even started investigating the murders.
“Easton,” I said, walking over to him. “Stop.” I put my hand on his arm.
He looked at me sadly. “We’re going to do more harm than good if we keep seeing clients, Laney.”
“What happened?”
I could see the pain in his face. But more than that, I could see the anger. Brutal anger, fierce and intense.
“The girl was Mrs. Suarez’s daughter. She was only sixteen.”
My mouth dropped open and my hand fell away. “What?”
“Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”
He continued packing and I stood there, completely numb.
Mrs. Suarez’s daughter had been murdered? Easton clearly thought that we had something to do with it. Because we were helping people, they were getting killed.
I shook my head. That couldn’t be true. What we were doing was good. Sure, it wasn’t the most important or vital thing in the world, and mostly it was catching cheating husband, but still. We brought peace into people’s lives. We did things for people that they couldn’t do for themselves. We found the truth.
I didn’t want to give that up, not when I had finally found it.
Easton stopped in front of me. “Laney,” he said, snapping me out of my trance. “We’re leaving.”
“No,” I said, but he was already walking into the front office. I followed him out there. “No, Easton. Wait.”
“Listen to me,” he said, wheeling around and staring at me. “This young girl is fucking dead because of me. Do you understand that?”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, barely a whisper.
“Her fingers were cut off. She was strangled to death. All because her mother asked for my help.” He shook his head, practically vibrating with rage. “We have to close the office until this piece of shit is dead or caught.”
I nodded slowly, stupidly, unable to say anything more. How could I argue with that?
He slung his heavy bag over his shoulder and grabbed the pistol from the desk, slipping it into his pants. He gave one more look around the office and then nodded.
“Come on,” he said.
I followed him out. He locked the door behind us.
I felt like my world was suddenly shifting again. The last two days had been an insane rollercoaster. I had gone from being annoyed that he had moved into the room next door to suddenly afraid and nervous when he wasn’t around.
And the bodies were beginning to pile up.
I followed him silently out to the car, nervous about where this left us, or if that even mattered anymore.
Chapter Sixteen: Easton
I couldn’t believe I was so fucking stupid.
As we drove back to Laney’s house in silence, I kept going over and over in my mind all of the idiotic mistakes I kept making, over and over again.
Mistakes that distracted me. Mistakes that kept me from hunting down this murdering fuck and bringing him to justice.
Sure, I wasn’t in the FBI anymore. I wasn’t in law enforcement. But whoever was doing this was clearly somehow targeting me, somehow sending me a message. In a lot of ways, it was all my fault that these women were getting killed. Plus, I was closest to the case, knew the most about it. The sheriff had even directly asked for my help, which only proved that they were out of their league. I was the reason, the catalyst for everything, and people were being yanked into something they never wanted to be a part of because of me.
Especially Luisa Suarez.
While the poor girl was getting strangled to death, I was probably too busy fucking my distracting stepsister in my car. I was thinking with my cock and not with my head, and someone had lost their life because of it.
Would I have caught the guy before Luisa had died? Probably not. But maybe I could have been better informed, more engaged, and maybe I could have changed something. Maybe Mrs. Suarez would have reached out to me sooner if I were more interested in her. Maybe I could stop the next killing, at least.
But I needed to get my head out of my ass. Actually, I needed to get my mind off Laney’s fucking pussy.
Because her cunt was distracting. Hell, her lips and teeth and eyes were distracting. The way she smiled at me uncertainly as I made some dirty comment was distracting. The tilt of her head, the wave in her hair, the way she dressed and spoke. Everything about her made me want to fall deep into the black hole that was her body and never fucking come back out. I wanted to hear her speak and moan and the soft slap of my skin against hers.
I needed to give her up.
As much as it hurt to think about, I needed to concentrate entirely on the case, to give myself up fully to it again. Otherwise nothing was going to happen, and this sick bastard was going to keep on killing over and over.
We pulled up outside the house and I parked. I killed the engine and sat there, stewing in my thoughts.
“Easton?” Laney said softly. “Are you okay?”
I glanced at her. “Fine.” I opened the door and climbed out.
She followed. “Did you tell our parents that you’re staying here?”
I nodded. “They know.”
“Okay.” She bit her lip. “It’s going to work out, you know. We’ll figure it out.”
I whirled on her. I felt so much anger bubbling inside me, and even though I knew none of it was her fault, I couldn’t help but let my own self-loathing rise up to the surface.
“There’s no ‘we’ here, Laney,” I said. “The office is closed. We’re just stepsiblings now.” I paused, letting that sink in. “And it’s already not okay.”
Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, and the hurt I saw there mirrored my own hurt. I only hated myself even more for saying it, but it was for the best. She needed to put distance between the two of us or else risk getting sucked into my whirlpool of fucked up shit.
“I can still help you,”
she said. “I know we’re not really working together anymore.”
“No,” I said, grabbing my duffel. “It’s over. Go back to doing whatever it is you did before you met me.”
The hurt in her face quickly shifted to anger. “I don’t get it. You said you wanted my help.”
“You don’t need to get it, Laney.”
“Fine. If you want to be a prick, be a prick.” She held out the Seed case file. “Take your precious file.”
I took it, looking at her grimly. “Just forget about everything. You’ll be better off.”
“You don’t know as much as you think you do, Easton.”
“Maybe not.”
I turned and walked off into the house without another word.
I didn’t look back. I knew that if I did, she’d see the pain in my eyes, see how badly it hurt me to walk away from her, to try to push her away.
And she’d also see the rage. The killer rage, the desire to tear apart the world.
I wasn’t sure which was more terrifying.
Chapter Seventeen: Laney
I woke up early the next day, Easton’s words ringing in my ears.
I wasn’t surprised that he was being a dick. Honestly, I half expected it. He was normally such a cocky person that I was wondering when he’d decide to lash out or something like that.
It wasn’t so much his words that bothered me. Rather, it was the look in his eyes, like he was haunted, haggard, angry, and above all, afraid.
He wanted to handle everything himself. He didn’t want help because he thought he could make everything happen completely alone. And maybe that was true. Easton was an incredible person, both inside and out. He had a sharp mind and was about as physically fit as a person could be.
But I got the feeling that he was too wrapped up in his case. I wanted to help, wanted to be a part of it, but I was afraid he was going to push me away.
I rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom, brushing my teeth and doing my usual morning routine.
I hated that he said we were finished, that we were just stepsiblings again. I thought we were something more than just coworkers and stepsiblings, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I had misread him. Maybe in the end, all he cared about were his cases and himself.
Frustrated, I went downstairs and into the kitchen. Susan was sitting at the table, which surprised me. She was rarely at home, always so busy with her job and her city council seat.
“Good morning, Laney,” she said.
“Morning.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. “You’re not normally home around now.”
She smiled. “I’ve been working too hard. Decided to take the morning off.”
“Lucky you.” I paused, sipping my coffee. “You know Easton is staying here now, right?”
“I sure do. I suggested it, actually.”
I cocked my head at her. “Why?”
“Well, you’ve heard about what’s happening.”
“Sure. The murders.”
“Sheriff Sloan thinks Easton can help. And I want to offer as much support to him as possible. I figure he can get more work done here than he can in that little office of his.”
“Maybe,” I muttered. “Or maybe he’s better off alone there.”
Susan laughed. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You seem a little annoyed.”
I sighed, sitting down across from her. “Your son is a real asshole, that’s all.”
My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe I had just said that, but Susan only laughed harder.
“He is a stubborn boy, that’s for sure. What happened?”
“He closed the office and is finished working with me.”
“Really?” She seemed mildly surprised. “He had said you’ve been a huge asset to him.”
I nodded. “I thought so. We were going over the case together one second, and the next he’s telling me we’re done working together and to just forget it.”
Susan made a small sound and nodded her head thoughtfully. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“You can’t? I sure was.”
“You know,” she said slowly, “when Easton was a little boy, he had this friend named Michael. Mike came from a bad home—parents were drunks, he moved around a lot. For whatever reason, Easton figured all this out.”
“How old was he?”
“Nine or ten.”
“That’s really young to see something like that.”
“I know. He’s always had an incredible read on people, even well beyond his years when he was young.”
“So what did he do?”
“Well,” she said, continuing, “one day he came home and begged me to let Michael sleep over. I said okay, sure. The next night Easton came to me and begged me to let Michael stay over again. I said okay one more time since it wasn’t unusual for kids to stay over twice in a row.”
“I can see where this is going,” I said softly.
Susan smiled. “I knew something was up when he asked the third time. I sat him down and said, ‘Easton, why are you trying to get Michael to stay over so much?’ I’ll never forget what he said.”
I sipped my coffee. “What?”
“He said, ‘Because, Mom, Mike’s house is awful and he doesn’t want to live there anymore. Maybe he won’t say so, but he’s happier here. I thought maybe he could live with us.’”
“Wow.” I was genuinely surprised.
She nodded, smiling fondly at the memory. “I asked him, ‘Where is Mike going to stay?’ He said, ‘My room.’ I asked, ‘What will he eat?’ He said, ‘My food.’ I was completely astounded.”
“So what happened?”
“Mike went home that night, and his mom ended up beating him severely for not telling her where he was. After that, his mom got arrested and his dad got sober.”
I let that story sink in for a second. It did seem like Easton, to some degree. He had been very willing to help Mrs. Suarez, and although he put on a show of being a jaded private eye most of the time, I did get glimpses of someone more generous underneath that exterior.
“Wow,” I said softly. “That must have been hard for a kid to take.”
“It really was. I remember him finally understanding what had happened to Mike, and although he never said it out loud, I could tell that he blamed himself.”
“That wasn’t his fault. He even tried, as best a little kid could at least.”
She smiled sadly. “I know. But you have to understand something about Easton.” She sipped her coffee and looked out across the kitchen. “He wants to help save everyone, and every failure is personal. At a certain point, he learned that it was easier to make very few connections than it was to constantly fail to fix absolutely everything.”
“But how could he make everyone perfect?”
She looked back at me, smiling. “He can’t. He’s stubborn as hell, though. That all has a lot to do with why he and I don’t get along.”
“Why is that?”
She shook her head. “A long, stupid story. We’re both as stubborn as the other one in the end.”
“I understand,” I said, although I wished she would go on.
“Anyway,” she said, sipping her coffee again and stretching, “I think that’s enough about him.”
I wanted to press her. What did that whole story have to do with me and him? Did she think that he was trying to protect me by not letting me get involved with his investigation? I wanted to know so much more, to get her perspective on him when he was a little kid, but I knew more questions would seem suspicious.
After all, he and I were just stepsiblings.
“Thanks for telling me that,” I said. “Makes me feel a little better, I think.”
“Don’t worry, hun. He’ll come around eventually.” She paused and laughed softly. “Or he won’t. You never know.”
I sipped my coffee. “I think I’m going to head upstairs and get myself together
.”
“Sounds good.”
I smiled and left the kitchen. I needed to get out of there before my curiosity got the best of me.
Maybe her story had raised more questions than answers, but I was totally sure about one thing: Easton was trying to push me away because he thought it was best for me. But he wasn’t allowed to choose what was best for me.
I stopped outside his door. It was open a bit, so I softly nudged it open.
The room was empty.
I walked inside quickly, not overthinking it. I did a quick scan of the room and spotted what I was looking for: the case file. I grabbed it from the side table and quickly brought it into my room.
Once inside, I sat down on my floor and spread the file out in front of me.
There was so much stuff. Police reports, crime scene photos, handwritten notes, and more. It all stretched far back in time, back to the original murder that had opened the file. Easton’s contributions were significant, but they were only a small part of what was in there.
I didn’t know what Easton was thinking or what he wanted. Part of me didn’t care. If he wanted to be stubborn, then fine. But he couldn’t control my actions, and I was going to help him catch this murderer.
He wasn’t the only person that had met Mrs. Suarez. I had been inside her house; I knew her. I felt as responsible for Luisa as he did.
I took another big sip of coffee and dove in head first, starting from the beginning. I had a long morning ahead of me.
Chapter Eighteen: Easton
I was covered in sweat as I started the second set. I stripped off my sopping shirt and tossed it aside, dropping down to my knees to start. I pushed, my arms bulging, working my body hard, past the point of exhaustion.
I’d been neglecting my workouts. Fortunately, Susan’s basement was finished and quiet, and so I was able to escape down there early to get my workout in. There was only a treadmill and some simple weights, but that was fine.
I put the television on the local news and pushed myself. It honed my mind, made me concentrate better. I’d been too busy medicating myself with alcohol to really push it, but it felt good to finally get off my ass.