by Jenna Mills
Maybe I should have followed him, like I'd been doing the whole afternoon, but curiosity pulled me in the opposite direction, to the falling down remains of an old shotgun house, where three steps led to a rotting porch and—
The doll stopped me cold. She lay discarded at the base of the rail, old and battered—naked.
In a pile of ashes.
I moved without thinking, going down on a knee and lifting my camera—
"What are you doing?"
My heart kicked hard. There was an odd edge to Aidan's voice, an edge far more jagged than before. Crouched there in a wash of cold, I twisted around and found his voice was not the only difference. The way he stood there, his feet shoulder-width apart, his big black-clad body dominating the rundown top step of the porch. His face, his jaw clenched so tight. But, aviators clenched in his hand, it was his eyes that got me, the dark glittering blue that had me pushing to my feet.
"Aidan. I didn't hear you."
"I'll ask you again. What are you doing?"
Gone. All the casualness from moments before. All the rapport I'd been building. Instead he glowered at me as if I'd broken a cardinal rule.
"You were doing your thing," I said, doing my best not to sound defensive. "I thought I'd keep looking around—"
"Don't." Before I could even breathe, he was across the decaying porch, every molecule of space between us gone. "Don't try to do this without me."
"You were right there—"
"I looked up and you were gone," he said, his voice still so, so quiet. And his eyes, they were little more than dangerous slits. "I had no idea where you were."
Scared. The realization shocked me. That faint whitening around the corners of his mouth, the lines—it was fear.
I'd scared him.
The master of suspense.
By wandering out of sight.
"Aidan, I didn't mean—"
"You have no idea where we are or what could happen here, who else might be here, watching us—you." And with those words, his gaze swept from me to the darkness gaping from the smashed out windows of the old house, to the naked doll discarded in the ash. "I do. I know."
I realized it then, what I should have realized all along: just because I saw no one else, didn't mean we were alone.
I returned my attention to the pile. "What is this stuff?"
His breath was as rough as his voice. "Maybe nothing."
But he didn't think so. "Or maybe....?" I dangled.
The hard look in his eyes gave me my answer: some kind of ritual or offering, there was nothing innocent about the doll on the porch.
"A lot of things go on where nobody is watching," he said vaguely.
"Which is why you keep coming back here for your books," I realized, looking from him to the empty windows. "Shouldn't they have torn this place down? Wouldn't it be safer?"
His laugh was as quiet as it was dark. "Safer in what way? Safer for whom?"
"If the house is gone—"
"You think that'll stop bad from happening?"
He made it sound naive.
"Bad lives," he said, looking from me to the sweep of emptiness beyond. "Evil finds a way."
Four words. That's all they were. Four words from a master at choosing his words, manipulating them. But the rush of cold was immediate. The slow, insidious bleed of unease.
Just like he no doubt intended.
Aidan Cross wrote thrillers. His books probed the darkest corners of the human condition. But somehow, I hadn't been prepared for him to go there.
For him to take me there with him.
Even though I'd told him that's what I wanted.
"Other questions about this place before we move on?" he asked, and the change was so abrupt it was as if the moments before never happened, because now he was stepping back from me, all the threatening body language replaced by the languidness of before. Even his eyes.
He was so trying to change the subject. And while part of me welcomed the lighter tone, another part wasn't ready to move on.
"How far do you go?" I asked, looking from him to the ritual remains on the porch. "When you're putting together a scene, how far do you take your research?"
He slid back on the mirrored sunglasses. "Depends on the scene."
Awareness shifted through me—his books were thrillers, but not every scene involved terror.
Detective Jonas Marchant also experienced...pleasure.
"What's the craziest thing you've ever done," I asked, "in the name of research?"
For a long moment he watched me, just watched me, before finally stepping toward one of the windows. "Had a friend tie my hands behind my back...then jumped into the Mississippi—"
I laughed. "Guess you survived."
"Wasn't my favorite—" He stepped toward me, his eyes darkening. "We need to go."
"What—" I started, but then he was taking my hand and tugging me away from the doll.
"Now," he said, and the urgency in his voice fired through me. I tried to twist back, but he dragged me down the stairs and away from the house.
"Aidan—"
"Not now—just go!"
Everything slowed, dragged, like those horrible paralyzing moments of a nightmare when you try to run, move, scream, but your body works against you. The overgrown weeds pulled at me. The wind pushed. The sun beat. My ankle twisted. My thoughts blurred. We were in the middle of nowhere—but we weren't alone. The house. The pile of ash. The mutilated doll—
I never saw the remains of the old table, not until I staggered forward. I tried to catch myself, but it was too late. The ground rushed up to greet me, my hands and knees slamming hard against the sun-baked earth. But there was no time to recover, think, because he was there, too, tackling me from behind and rolling me over—
Aidan.
Holding my wrists in his hands, stretched out over my head.
The blinding glare of his aviators.
I tried to breathe, couldn't.
To process—couldn't.
"What are you doing?" I tried to ask, but the question came out more of a gasp than words. "What's going on?"
His smile was slow, razor-sharp, and it sliced through the icy haze. "Research."
I lay there, consumed by overgrown weeds, his body pinning me to the ground. Aidan. Aidan Cross's body pinning me down.
"What's the matter?" he drawled. "This isn't what you had in mind when your uncle offered you a cushy assignment?"
I felt my eyes narrow. "Cushy was hardly what came to mind."
"Then what was?"
Exciting.
Evocative.
Dangerous.
But I bit those words back. "Eye-opening."
He laughed. "Look around, Kendall," he invited. "Tell me what you see."
There was something dark and unfamiliar racing through me. Research. "I see a twisted, psychotic jerk—"
"What else?"
Complete control. It radiated from him like a cage locked tight. "I see someone who better get off me—"
He shifted, but didn't release me. "You want to know what I see?"
No, I didn't. I didn't want to know what he saw. Because he was Aidan Cross, master of detail. And he was on top of me. And for a moment...I'd been terrified.
"Your chest," he said in that way of his, quiet and slow and rhythmic, drugging almost. Hypnotic. "It's rising and falling, jerky."
Frowning, I looked down and saw what he'd described, what he was watching, my breasts pressing against the black of my tank top.
I made the movement stop.
"And your mouth," he added, and then he was looking there, too, at my mouth. "It's slightly open, like you want to say something, but the words won't come."
Something inside me kicked. "They'll come—"
He pressed a single finger to my lips. "Sh-h-h."
I glared up at him.
He gave no reaction. "And this," he said, sliding his hand to the hair tangling around my face. "Grass and leaves and..." Th
e pad of his thumb slid to my cheek. "Mud."
"Lovely," I muttered.
"You have no idea," he said, quieter now, and when he smiled, it was all I could do not to smile back.
"Your pupils," he went on, leaning closer, bringing his face inches from mine. And then I was doing it, too, studying in much the way he was. "They're so dark," he described. "Watchful. As if you have no idea what I'm going to do next. What I'm capable of..."
He was right.
And in that moment, I hated him for that.
I had no idea what he was going to do next.
Of what he was capable.
"You're wondering if you're safe," he murmured. "If you can trust me."
That's not what I was wondering. I already knew the answer to that. No. I could not trust him. Not when he manipulated every moment like putty in his hands. Part of me wanted to be angry with him. Part of me was. That part demanded that I shove him away and make it clear that I wasn't here to play games with him.
But only part of me.
The rest of me... I didn't know. There was the whisper of fascination and the dangerous hum of thrill, both locking me there, right there in that revealing moment, on the ground in the weeds, beneath Aidan.
He had my wrists in his hands, pulled over my head.
After only one day.
A day that came after fifteen years.
"What if I told you you're wrong?" I said, refusing to play into his hand. "That's not at all what I'm thinking?"
"No?"
Just making a point, I told myself.
He was just making a point.
That the strings were in his hands.
And yet....
And yet.
There was something else, something more.
"I'm thinking about lines," I said tightly, "between what's real and what's not—and I'm wondering if you can still see them."
Many, I knew, said that he could not.
"You want to know what else I see?" I asked.
Rigid. Every line of his body was so rigid.
"A man who likes to be in control," I said, and if my chest pressed upward with my breath, I didn't care. "A man who'll do anything to make sure he stays in control, even if it means tackling someone he barely knows and pinning them to the ground." His eyes. God, I couldn't see his eyes anymore, not with the sunglasses, and I wanted to. I wanted to see if they flashed or glittered, if they enjoyed or condemned, if the blue was flat or hard or cutting.
"Does the thought of losing control really scare you that badly?" I wanted to know.
He answered quietly, his voice so low I had to concentrate to hear. "Is that a question from your list?"
The urge to twist from beneath him was strong—but so was the desire to stay right where I was. "No."
His mouth curved. The lines of his face released. And I knew, somehow I knew that his eyes neither flashed nor glittered, but burned. "Good girl," he said. "Thinking on your feet."
Or off of them.
I burned, too. "I'm not a girl anymore."
"No," he said. "You're not."
"And for the record, I could get away if I wanted to."
"Are you saying you don't want to?"
Game, I reminded myself. This was all a game.
His game.
"Is that what you want me to do?" I tossed back. "Fight? Escape? Is that what this is all about? Research. What you want your character to do?"
A single corner of his mouth lifted. "Maybe I'm still trying to decide."
Unexpected Ghosts
The house didn't belong.
Brightly colored and garishly cheerful, the shotgun structure rose up from the overgrown weeds and dying trees, perfectly centered in a small, perfectly manicured oasis. Bright blue siding matched the color of the sky, the vivid white of the shutters mirrored the lazy drift of clouds. The yellow door—yeah. That was the sun. The windows were thrown open. Fork, spoon, and shell chimes tinkled in the breeze. Flowers exploded in a collision of yellow and red and pink, creating a colorful carpet on both sides of the walkway. To the side, white blouses flapped from a clothes line. Somewhere unseen, children laughed.
Slowing, I reached for my camera—
"No pictures."
The two words stopped me cold. "Not for the article," I said, lining up my shot. "For me." I had no idea how, or if, the house factored into my story, but the hum inside me warned me to pay attention. And remember.
"It's like an island of life in a sea of death," I said.
My poetic turn of words didn't phase Aidan. He put a hand to my wrist and tugged my arm down. "It's also private property—I didn't bring you here for pictures."
I started to protest, but the creak of a screen door killed my words. I looked up, toward the house, where a woman was rushing toward us.
"Nicky!" she said in a deep, melodic voice, and then he was moving, too, and within seconds, he had her wrapped in his arms—or maybe it was she who had him wrapped in her arms. I wasn't sure, couldn't tell, only knew that they held each other tight.
Nicky. He said he didn't remember that boy, that life. But this woman did. This woman did, even though the name was virtually erased now. Internet searches on Aidan Cross did not turn up Nicholas Ramirez. Which meant she was not someone random.
I watched them, watched the way he bent toward her and hugged her, tightly and tenderly at the same time. And I watched her, with her colorful turban and eyes closed, her luminous cocoa complexion so ageless she could be anywhere between thirty-five and seventy. A loose-fitting, also colorful, mumu hung easily from her shoulders.
Abruptly she pulled back, taking his sunglasses with her. "You are not sleeping."
It was an accusation not a question, and from where I stood, I saw the corners of his eyes crinkle with what looked like a little boy's guilt. "When I need to."
"We all need to," she said with a hint of a lyrical accent, Jamaican maybe, but I wasn't sure. Caribbean. "Sometimes even you have to close your eyes, Nicholas."
I would have sworn he stiffened.
"When I need to," he said again, then changed the subject by gesturing to me. "Mama, this is Kendall."
Mama?
The woman turned toward me, exposing me to the full force of her eyes, wide and dark and as timeless as her complexion, brimming with gentleness and wisdom and something else, something that had my breath catching, even as I stepped forward and held out my hand.
She didn't take it. Instead she stepped toward me, and took me into her arms. Full and hard, exactly as she'd hugged Aidan.
The blast of warmth was immediate, like being wrapped in a heavy, thick wool blanket on a hot summer day.
Not sure what else to do, I lifted my arms and hugged her back.
There was more to her than I realized, a large, soft body hidden beneath her flowing gown.
"Glad to know you, Kendall," she said, pulling back after what seemed like forever.
I tried not to sag, but wasn't sure I succeeded.
"I am Dauphine."
I smiled—it wasn't hard to do. She exuded warmth and easiness, a perpetually open door among boarded-up windows and ruins.
There was some small talk, the three of us standing in a circle beneath the sun for several minutes before Dauphine invited us inside.
"Actually, I need to take care of something," Aidan said. "I was hoping Kendall could stay with you for a few minutes."
Dauphine's eyes met his. Something silent and gentle passed between them. "Of course."
And then he was gone, and Dauphine was leading me into the cheerful house.
Except it wasn't.
The bright colors, the blue and white and yellow, that was only on the outside. Inside, shadows took over, light giving way to the flicker of an endless army of votives. An earthy aroma filled the room. Soft, chant-like music drifted from unseen speakers.
I tried not to stare. I knew better than to. I also knew there was no point reaching for my camera. The only pictures I'd be
able to leave with were those I recorded with my eyes. The soft white candles. The beads strung everywhere. The little vials.
The dolls.
Dolls very much like the one in the pile of ash.
Except these dolls were dressed. Elaborately.
Dauphine was watching me. I could feel her off to my side, instinctively knew that she knew what I was doing.
Then she laughed. "He didn't tell you, did he?"
I made myself look away from the sea of wide, unseeing eyes. "Tell me what?"
"Anything, I'm guessing," she said as she lit two more candles, then reached toward a gorgeous old armoire, with intricate carving and a wood so dark it looked black, and picked up a small glass bottle. "Some things never change."
Questions came at me from all directions—what was this place and who was this woman?—but before I could voice them, she turned and swept through a curtained-arch into an adjacent room. Without thinking I followed, and saw the women. Two of them, they both sat not even pretending not to watch, both wearing dark red smocks, one with her hair in curlers beneath a drying lamp, while the second reclined in a chair adjacent to a large white washing sink.
"I hope you do not mind," Dauphine was saying as she strolled over to the woman obviously waiting to have her hair shampooed. "Nicky did not tell me he was coming."
I stood there, taking it all in, a ceremonial room adjacent to an in-home beauty salon.
In the middle of nowhere.
That was once...everywhere.
"Please," I said as she began washing the woman's hair. "Don't let me interrupt."
I just wanted to watch. And observe. Take it all in.
And figure out how this woman linked to Aidan.
Except she had questions of her own.
"So tell me," she said, squirting shampoo into her palm. "I have not seen my Nicky with another in many months. Why did he bring you here?" she asked. "Why are you with him?"
I watched her, her big hands massaging the gel into the younger woman's hair, the way Dauphine stood there with her eyes closed and her lips moving as she worked, moving rhythmically even though no sound came forth. Chanting almost, but silently. Soundlessly.
But all the while, listening. Listening as I told her who I was and why I was with Aidan.