by Ranae Rose
Sasha slowed the car and turned into the cemetery grounds as she mulled that over.
“I was glad to have you,” her mother continued. “And although it wasn’t easy to see you hurt so badly, it just went to prove what a good father he’d been. In a way, I think it would’ve pained me more if you hadn’t been so affected.”
“Of course he was a good dad,” Sasha agreed. “The best.”
“When things were at their worst, you were my reason to keep going. Even though he was gone, I still had you – don’t ever think I wasn’t grateful for that.”
Sasha’s heart lightened just a little. “Still. I just wish I’d been mature enough to make it easier for you.”
“It’s never easy losing someone you love. Once you give someone a piece of your heart, that’s it – you don’t get it back, and when they go, it goes with them. The most you can hope for is having someone else to share what’s left of it with.”
“Mom, that’s…” Sasha searched for the right word. Her mother and father had always been close, and she didn’t want to downplay the strength of their bond or the potency of her mother’s grief, even after fourteen long years. In a way, what she’d said was touching. But it was also unnerving.
“I don’t mean to scare you Sasha,” her mother continued, “but if you ever fall in love, you’ll know it’s true.”
Maybe. But just the thought of finding out what it felt like to fall in love and then lose that person made her throat feel tight – almost too tight to breathe. The pain of losing her dad was still clear in her memory and fresh in her heart. Would falling in love mean having to relive that agony, someday?
“It’s okay, mom – you can tell me how you feel. I’m an adult now.” She flashed her mother what was hopefully a reassuring smile, even though she didn’t feel it inside.
Inside, she kept thinking back to that morning, and the night before. She kept thinking of Henry, and what it would feel like to love and lose him. The possibility already felt unnervingly real, and although she’d been trying to keep her heart in check, she couldn’t escape the feeling that if anything happened to him, he’d take a piece of it with him.
One she wouldn’t get back.
* * * * *
“No Sasha, we can’t have sex. You can’t touch me like that, either. As long as Randy Levinson is out there, I need to keep a clear head.”
Henry leaned back against the truck seat with a groan. No matter how many times he practiced saying it, it wasn’t going to be easy to carry out.
For fuck’s sake, he’d just finished a shift at work and he was just as hard driving home as he’d been on the way there. The only relief he experienced was when he was actually at work. Even then, his balls ached. And as soon as he stepped foot out of Riley, his dick sprang back to full attention.
If Randy Levinson didn’t kill him, celibacy just might.
“I can’t protect you if I’m inside you,” he murmured, mired in the depths of a fantasy that involved being back in his bed with Sasha, this time with her on top of him. Thinking about saying no had conjured up thoughts of exactly what he’d have to say no to.
Lack of sex was turning him into a complete idiot. If he didn’t know any better, he’d resolve to pull her into bed as soon as he saw her and get it out of his system.
Realistically, he knew there was no getting Sasha out of his system.
No matter how many times they did it, no matter how loudly she screamed. He was doomed to a lifetime of blue-balled idiocy, at least until Levinson was caught and he could afford to let his guard down a little, take time to enjoy Sasha.
For now, he’d just have to suffer.
As thoughts of her luscious body chased themselves through his head, he passed the warden’s place. There was no body hanging from a tree this time, just some crime scene tape that sectioned off the place where it’d happened. He could still see the scene clearly inside his head, though.
His mind seemed to be a breeding ground for stuff like that: blood and loss and things he just couldn’t let go.
Things that kept him up at night, and affected every little thing he did, from triple-locking his doors to the way he laid in bed, listening for strange noises instead of counting sheep. The ugly things he’d seen were a part of him, had altered the way he lived daily. All the little things that collectively formed what Grey liked to call his ‘paranoia’ were the legacy his dead friends had left him.
Now, the warden was part of that too, would live on for as long as Henry walked the earth, locking every door behind himself. He’d probably live longer because of it – because of those deaths. Maybe that was twisted, but so was the world. He’d seen that proven time and time again.
The worst part was that he couldn’t do anything about what’d happened to the warden. The police had investigated the scene of his death, but Riley’s PERT officers hadn’t been called out for any type of search. Apparently there hadn’t been any conclusive forensic evidence left at the scene of the crime. No fingerprints. No hairs with roots conveniently attached. No blood, besides the warden’s.
Unlike many murders, the victim hadn’t had a chance to put up a fight. He’d been shot in the back, then his throat had been cut. Afterward, the killer had apparently taken pains not to leave any incriminating physical evidence behind.
So Henry had been forced to stay inside the prison all day, dealing with the criminals who were behind bars, where they belonged. It’d been an epic pain in the ass, especially in light of the ongoing lockdown.
Of course, the inmates were taking it about as well as cats took to water. Furious over the temporary ban on their usual recreational privileges, many of them went out of their way to make their displeasure known. Another officer on Henry’s shift had had piss thrown on his uniform.
Piss and angry felons aside, it’d been torture to stay within prison walls knowing that Randy Levinson was on the outside, along with every innocent person in Riley County. He’d felt just as trapped as the prisoners.
Now, he was finally done with work for the day and was free to do what he wanted.
Of course, what he really wanted to be doing was suiting up in his PERT gear and starting the search for Randy Levinson’s sorry ass. He tried not to be too bitter as he pulled into his driveway. He did want to be there for Sasha when she arrived back in Riley County after her daytrip to visit her mother. He’d managed to convince her to drive straight to his place instead of heading home.
And he’d pulled that off by promising her a date – dinner at his place – which reminded him that he needed to get moving if he was going to deliver on that promise.
Unlike her, he was no chef, but he could pull something halfway decent together. As soon as he got inside, he spared a greeting for Wolf, pulled a package of chicken breasts out of the fridge and headed to the back yard, where he kept a small grill.
Wolf followed him, as usual, but something wasn’t right. Instead of plunking down by the grill to watch Henry’s every movement as he handled the meat, he trotted across the yard and started sniffing at a spot by the fence.
The hair on the back of Henry’s neck stood up. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t question it, either. He called Wolf to him, told him to stay by the back door and then approached the fence alone.
There was something in the grass, by the chain link. He grabbed the grill tongs and used them to pick up what looked like a wet, green sandwich. As he examined it, a sickly, familiar smell filled his lungs.
Antifreeze. The old kind they’d been making up until recently, without added bittering agents. The sandwich – or whatever it was – was dripping with it.
CHAPTER 11
A cold, clenching feeling struck Henry in the gut. How long had the deadly temptation been there?
He rose and carried it inside, telling Wolf to follow.
He quadruple-bagged the poisoned food in Ziploc bags before throwing it in the trash and emptying the can, taking the bag out to the bin by the curb, where Wolf wou
ldn’t be exposed to it. By the time he returned to the house, his jaw ached and he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples like a war drum.
Five years ago, he’d brought Wolf home as a pup. His training had started that day, and Henry had thrown himself into it, teaching the dog the right way to act, the right way to do everything, from his first lessons walking on a leash to bite work.
It was the closest thing to therapy he’d ever embraced, after the obligatory sessions he’d been put through while still in the Marine Corps. Giving Wolf a carefully-constructed set of rules and expectations had helped him forget that without the Marine Corps, he hadn’t known how to live his own life.
One of the first things he’d taught Wolf, per the instructions in the guard dog training book he’d bought on the day he’d brought him home, had been not to eat or pick up strange objects. Not even discarded food or trash.
Now, Wolf sat on his haunches, staring at Henry.
“Good boy,” Henry said, reaching out and rubbing the soft fur on top of his head. The velvet-soft edges of Wolf’s ears slipped against his fingers, and the dog’s heavy tail thumped against the floor with rhythmic force. Henry couldn’t imagine the house they both called home without that sound.
After a few moments he retrieved the chicken he’d left in the back yard, his gaze drilling the tree line behind his house so hard it gave him a headache. Every muscle in his body was tense, primed to tear apart whoever had tried to kill his dog.
There was no one in sight though, and he had things to do before Sasha arrived. He changed out of his uniform and into jeans and a t-shirt, then climbed back into his truck, taking Wolf with him. There was a local hardware place where the owner wouldn’t mind Wolf coming inside. Besides, Henry only needed a few things in order to seal the dog door shut.
Wolf wouldn’t like not being able to come and go at his leisure while Henry was at work, but it’d be for his own good. Henry would make the alteration as soon as he got back to the house. He still needed to throw something together for dinner, but grilling was out now that he knew someone had been prowling his back yard.
He’d come up with something. Food was the least of his worries now. Anger and doubt plagued him – had he made a mistake by inviting Sasha to his home?
The thought gave him a chill that had nothing to do with the way he’d cranked up the truck’s air conditioning, and for a second he considered calling her and cancelling the whole evening.
He couldn’t do it, though. Not after the way she’d come to the door the other day. Alone in her apartment, she was at risk. And if someone had been watching him, they might already have seen her with him and identified her.
If someone had targeted his dog, they might very well target a person he cared about. Maybe the soggy sandwich had been the action of a cruel, unsupervised brat of a kid. Or maybe it had been something much worse. For now, there was no way to know.
Henry couldn’t shake the feeling that Sasha would be better off with him and Wolf for company, for protection.
He glanced at his rearview mirror, searching for any signs that he was being followed.
Everything seemed normal, though a familiar sense of wariness – a sixth sense, really – told him that was an illusion.
* * * * *
It was dark. Sasha couldn’t say exactly when night had fallen; it had just happened at some point, slipping over the highway and the surrounding landscape like a thick blanket, glittering dully with stars that were dimmed by a haze of gauzy clouds.
She felt the silence of the night pressing down on the earth, despite the fact that the radio was on. With Raleigh hours behind her, she was deep into rural territory and there were few lights to illuminate the darkness. It occurred to her that the night her father had died had been like this one.
He’d been driving home from a night class at the college, the American Literature course he’d started teaching for the first time that summer semester. He’d probably never seen the truck coming into his lane until the last second, had probably been traveling toward home with thoughts of a late dinner on his mind, headlights cutting through a hot Carolina night, illuminating familiar scenery.
Much like Sasha was doing now. She was even thinking of dinner, but not because she was particularly hungry. No, she and her mother had had a big lunch, and it was the thought of seeing Henry that made her long for home.
An hour or so ago, he’d called and told her that she was welcome to spend the night. He’d said something about her being tired after so much driving, about not wanting her to have to worry about getting home after what was going to be a very late meal.
She’d agreed. She did have a spare change of clothing in her overnight bag, after all. And she couldn’t help but think that maybe he regretted holding out the night before and wanted to make up for lost time. The thought made her heart skip a beat.
What he’d done for her the night before had been good, but there was no such thing as an adequate substitute for having him inside her, for running her hands over his body and feeling every muscle tense and tighten as he drove himself deep into her. She relished the thought of experiencing that again, but most of all, she longed just to see him.
A day devoted to remembering her father had gone much as she’d expected it to. She’d cherished the memories they had, regretting at the same time that there hadn’t been more. Finite and precious, she held onto all the good times they’d shared like treasured possessions. Of course, she valued them more now than she had before she’d lost him.
It was a sad truth, but wasn’t that always how it went?
The thought inspired a deep heartache. She was lucky to have people she cared about, and knew death would eventually separate her from all of them. With an old sense of loss rekindled by the anniversary of her father’s death, she was desperate not to make the same mistake again. She’d only have a certain number of moments with each person in her life, and she wanted to make the most of them. Who knew which one would be the last?
She was afraid of losing the people she loved, but most of all, she was afraid of not loving them enough while she still had them.
The thought applied to everyone she cared about: her mother and her best friends, Kerry and Alicia. And Henry. He stood out particularly clearly in her mind – no surprise, considering that she was on her way to see him.
Bold emotion gripped her, and she knew with certainty that what she felt for him was something worth holding onto, something worth cultivating. She couldn’t try to hide it any longer. He was someone she could love. He was someone she wanted to love.
There was no way she could be content with just a summer fling.
* * * * *
All the air was inexplicably knocked out of Henry’s lungs when Sasha pulled up in his driveway. He’d been expecting her – watching for her.
Meanwhile, he’d thrown together a modest dinner while listening to his police scanner. No news on the warden’s murderer, no mention of Randy Levinson. With a crescent moon hanging thin and dull in the sky, the outskirts of Cypress were dark and it was easy to imagine a fresh crime scene cropping up.
He escorted her into the house quickly, carrying her overnight bag, letting his fingers rest on the small of her back. It was a relief when they were inside and the door was locked behind them.
“How was your trip?” he asked, his mind still crackling with the sound of radio static. How was it that the police still hadn’t acted on the obvious: the fact that Randy Levinson was back?
“Good,” she said, and that was all. Uncharacteristic, for her.
“Was it a special occasion?”
She nodded. “It’s the anniversary of my dad’s death. We always spend it together, and lay flowers on his grave.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.”
Her full mouth turned down a little at the corners, going a shade beyond her usual sexy pout, leaving her looking sad.
“Has he been gone long?”<
br />
Henry asked because that’s what he would’ve wanted. Some people might’ve steered away from the subject, but he knew treating any mention of the dead as taboo only made the pain of losing them worse. Thinking about someone you couldn’t talk about was isolating, and it wore you down over time. It’d taken him a while to accept that, but it was true.
He’d know. He had good and bad memories of those he’d lost. In the privacy of his own mind, the bad ones usually won out. He couldn’t talk about those though, and the good ones were different. After years of resistance, he could now relive those out loud, if he had the chance. And that shed a little light into the dark corners where the bad ones lurked.
“He died when I was sixteen, in a car accident.” Sasha sighed. “Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago, and other times it feels like it was just the other day. I guess it really has been too long for me to be making a big deal out of it now, though.”
“Don’t say that. He was your father – that is a big deal.”
Self-consciousness had flickered in her eyes before she’d cut herself short, and he didn’t want her to feel like she had to mask her true feelings just because a certain number of years had gone by. There was no magic number that dissolved the bonds of grief. When you lost someone, that changed you forever.
“You’re right. I guess I just didn’t expect you to see it that way. When my dad died, we lived in a small town and it seemed like everyone came to his funeral. My mom and I were practically buried alive in casseroles … for the first week. By the time I graduated from high school two years later though, it felt like everyone had forgotten except me and my mom. Everyone else seemed to be over it.”
“People are like that,” Henry said. “They don’t remember what they don’t feel themselves. It’s human nature – they were over it from the second it happened, and their sympathy was exhausted shortly thereafter.”