by D. B. James
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgements & Shit
About the Author
Rhys
D.B. James
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgements & Shit
About the Author
RHYS
Copyright © 2017 by DB James
Editor: Editing by C. Marie
Formatter: AB Formatting
Cover Design: Mischievous Designs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To Jamie Dornan for bringing a spectacular fictional serial killer like Paul Spector to life. After watching one season of The Fall, you fueled my dreams, sparking the flame that turned into Rhys.
To the dreamers. Always keep dreaming, never give up. You will achieve them someday.
Present Day
As the officer approaches my open front door, he holds his hands out in front of him, like he is trying to calm down a rabid dog.
Are all of these cops here for me?
He begins taking step after step closer to me, the words coming from his mouth only confusing me more. Did I do something? I mean I must have—there are dozens of police outside my living room window, the red and blue flashers lighting up the otherwise black night sky.
Holy shit, is that a sniper on Ms. Walker’s rooftop?
Before I can try to make any more sense of this, the officer inside my door is speaking to me again, more words that have no meaning to me.
“Hey man, as you can see, I’m unarmed. I’m going to need you to drop the knife now. It’s over. Whatever it is…it’s over. If you don’t drop the knife, my fellow officers outside the windows will shoot. They’re in position, I know you’ve spotted them. If you drop the knife and come with me, we’ll get this all sorted out.”
What knife?
I don’t know what the hell this cop is talking about, but I sure as shit see a knife in my hand. The worst part about not knowing how it came to be there is not knowing whose blood is dripping from the jagged blade. There are a million questions running through my brain right now. Someone has to have some answers for me.
Averill.
Her face slams into my mind. I see her smiling up at me with love shining in her golden, whiskey-colored eyes. If this is Averill's blood, what did I do? There’s no way in hell this is Averill’s blood. She left this morning for Ireland—I dropped her off at the airport myself a few hours ago. Why is it her face I see when I’m asking myself whose blood this is?
Panic sets in as I begin to do as the officer asked of me.
Quickly dropping the knife, I hear it clatter to the ground before it bounces back up once then lands with a solid thud.
I place my hands behind my head, fall to my knees, and start to scream.
Eighteen Months Prior
There are three reasons why the ringing of my alarm is pissing me off. One, I didn’t fucking set it. Two, it’s a Saturday. Three, it’s barely ten AM. Maybe I did set it, and forgot to shut it off last night from yesterday morning. It’s a weekend and normally I don’t use an alarm to wake up. Could be as simple as my forgetting to turn it off last night before passing out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it—normal people get up at a decent hour on the weekend.
Not me.
I’m not normal.
Never have been or claimed to be.
I’d like to think my parents are to blame. After all, they’re the ones who named me Rhys. With a name such as mine, can you blame me for not being normal? The first day in my fourth grade elementary school class, my teacher pronounced my name as “Rice”. My mistake lay in correcting her by saying, “It’s Rhys. You know, like Reese’s Pieces.” Trust me, a bunch of eight and nine-year-olds never let you live that down, hence why my school years were less than ideal.
I learned to recognize my own kind of normal. Embracing my newly minted candy-based nickname, I started carrying around mini-sized bags of that peanut-buttery deliciousness with me in my backpack. Literally overnight, I became the sugar source for all my fellow fourth graders. Instant friendship happened to be included with my new nickname.
Twenty years later, and there’s still one person in my life I allow to call me by it. Granted, if I hadn’t met him back in the fourth grade, I probably wouldn’t still let him call me by my old nickname. Unluckily for him, I’ve stopped carrying around the candy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my name; it’s the spelling that makes it weird. If it were spelled Reese, my teacher never would’ve called me Rice. But, since it is, she did, which meant I made those friends and kept Brant as the best damn friend in the world. It’s all gravy. Normal is overrated anyway.
Since I’ve lain here listening to the alarm buzz for nearly ten minutes, I may as well greet this day. It might be before noon on a Saturday, which would normally mean I’d still be asleep, but I’m choosing to receive this day as the gift it’s meant to be.
After stretching for a solid two minutes, I walk into the kitchen, hit power on the Keurig, and continue on into the bathroom. After taking care of business, I hop in the shower, remembering that I have plans later today, so I may as well get bathing out of the way.
Brant has a business proposal he’d like me to look over before he meets with his potential client again on Monday morning. Normally I don’t conduct any business over the weekend, but it’s Brant we’re talking about here and I owe him a solid, to say the least.
Making my way back into the kitchen, I grab my Detroit Tigers coffee mug and a K-cup then proceed over to the Keurig, which I know for a fact I powered up before heading into the bathroom. Despite that fact, the digital screen is flashing Descale. Whatever. It’s the third time this week, so either the machine is broken, or it’s actually dirty. This is the second machine I’ve gone through in as many years, so it has to be a product malfunction�
��otherwise I’m a plain idiot who can’t operate a simple coffee machine.
Swearing to myself, I set my mug on the counter along with the K-cup, grab my truck keys, and head out the door. Looks like Starbucks will be getting my money this morning. Hello six-dollar cup of joe.
One of the best bonuses about living in the city is easy access to instant coffee. It may be expensive, but ’Bucks truly does save my life some mornings.
One of the downfalls of city living? Lack of privacy. Being an army brat, you’d think I’d be used to not having much when it came to a private life, but you’d be wrong. When I left home for basic training, that’s when my real lack of privacy began. You get used to it after a while, and as much as I bitch about it, I swear I’d go insane if I didn’t know all I needed to do to have some company is literally walk out my front door.
Pulling into my nearest ’Bucks, I see the drive-thru line is wrapped around the building. I may as well go inside and order since it’ll take just as long to wait in my truck.
Opening the door, I’m hit with the smell of coffee and am instantly thankful I decided to come inside. I’m even more thankful when I see the redhead sitting in the corner—she’s definitely worth the early alarm and my malfunctioning coffee maker. Without looking like too much of a creeper, I sneak in quick glances at her while the line continues to inch forward. Something about her seems familiar, but I’m not quite able to identify how I know her. Before I can give it much thought, it’s my turn to order.
“Welcome to Starbucks, what can I start for you today?” asks the barista behind the counter, pulling me from my thoughts about where I’ve seen the redhead before. It’s such a unique deep red hue, I feel like I have to know her.
“Triple espresso con panna with two pumps vanilla syrup and a venti Pike Place roast, black.” Since I’m here, may as well order two.
“May I have your name for the order, please?”
“Rhys.”
“Okay, that’ll be $9.73.” Scratch that six-dollar coffee thought I had earlier. Then again, I did order two, and one is a triple shot of espresso. If I’m starting my Saturday early, I may as well start it off with a bang.
After paying, I stand over near the pickup counter, stealing glances to my right every few seconds to see if I can place her. It’s unnerving. Normally I can place names with faces within a few seconds, but for some reason this one doesn’t click for me. Her face hasn’t been fully visible, which doesn’t work in my favor either.
A small female barista who can barely reach over the tall counter calls out that my coffee is ready. “Order for Rhys.”
Smiling, I grab both cups from her and get a couple napkins before sitting down at a table adjacent to the redhead. I pull out my phone and am loading up the CNN app to see what’s happened in the news overnight when the seat in front of me is suddenly filled.
“Reese’s Pieces, is that you?”
Glancing up, I see a charmingly delightful face smiling across from me. Eyes that are equally as striking as all that deep mahogany hair stare back me; they’re the most exquisite shade of whiskey I’ve ever had the pleasure of staring back into. Until the moment my eyes met hers, I thought I’d be leaving here never knowing who the beautiful lady sitting over at the corner table was. It just takes five little words and direct eye contact for me to know exactly who she is: Averill.
“Tiger Lily, what has it been…fifteen years at least?”
Since she called me by my childhood nickname, I figured it was fair game to call her by hers.
“You’re still good with simple math, I see.”
Her quip makes me choke on my espresso. This girl always was a feisty one. Before I can get myself under control, she’s out of her seat and gently patting me on my back.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh—you know, make you choke.”
Once I’m under control and am positive I’ve found my voice, I quickly work on reassuring her that it wasn’t her fault.
“Don’t feel bad, at all. What happened was, I was taking a drink when you made that snarky math comment, which in turn made me want to laugh. Unfortunately for the both of us, it turned into a choke. In essence, what I’m trying to say is, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Reaching for her hand so I can gently squeeze it to let her know it’s no big deal, I continue on. “Do you live here? Just visiting? If you have time, I have time. Fill me in on the last fifteen years, Averill.”
“Ahh, you do remember my real name, not just some silly childhood nickname.”
I’m half tempted to tell her I remember everything about her, but that would be a lie—well, a partial lie. As of three minutes ago, I didn’t know who she was, and if I hadn’t come inside to order, odds are we probably never would’ve run into each other.
Don’t get me wrong, Averill has always been memorable. She moved away when we were thirteen. Our fathers were both military, and trust me, we considered ourselves lucky if we spent more than four school years in most places. For some reason, that fourth grade move that led to my nickname actually stuck, and I was in the same school district for the rest of my normal childhood school years. When my parents eventually moved away, I had already been in the service myself for a couple of years. Until today, Brant was my only link to my old life.
“Well, I remember we called you Tiger Lily because you didn’t like being called Averill too much when you were eight, but you did love your middle name and Peter Pan, thus Averill Lily became Tiger Lily.”
“Gah, was I always such a twat?”
Her question causes me to laugh loudly and a headphone-wearing douchecanoe sitting nearby gives us a cruel look, gets up from his table, and moves to the other side of the store. His reaction makes me clench my left fist tightly under the table, and he’s lucky I don’t react the way I truly want to or he’d be wearing my scalding hot coffee at this moment.
“You’d think this was a library instead of a Starbucks,” I say while nodding to the asshole I’m referring to. “Hipster crotchrocket over there needs to chill out. It was only a laugh. I mean, who wouldn't laugh at a beautiful woman calling her younger self a twat?”
Now it’s her turn to laugh.
“That’s some pretty creative name-calling you have going on. I’ll have to remember crotchrocket—it’s destined to become a personal favorite.”
“When you work in my profession, it’s almost a class you have to master—Creative Name-calling 101. I have a whole mental list, could provide you with names to use for years to come.”
“Ah. You didn’t go into the army like your father, I take it?” she ponders.
“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”
Listen, I know my answer is asshole-ish, but I don’t know Averill now, and you can’t count our knowing each other as kids. Trusting people doesn’t come easy for me, and it sure as fuck doesn’t happen in five short minutes.
My profession isn’t exactly one that tolerates room for questions. Most of the time I can get by with a little white lie, an omission of sorts. If I say I work as a lawyer, most people buy it. If I say I work for a cleaning agency, people ask questions, and in my line of work, that’s a bad thing. My boss’s name is Martinelli. With an Italian surname like his, not much is left to the imagination.
Am I military trained? Yes.
Am I in the army like my father? Fuck no. Not anymore.
Did I attend law school for three long years? Yes.
Technically I can get away with saying I work as a lawyer because I took the state bar exam—passed that shit with flying colors. Saying I’m a lawyer is technically still an omission of the truth, but it’s not an outright lie like saying I work in sales would be. Most of my days are spent going over legal documents. Some days are not. Vague? Sue me. That’s the only answer I can give you at the moment, the only one I know I can give that won’t get me into any messy conversations.
Seeing the look of confusion in her eyes, I attempt to clear the air between us, take her confusion away—as much as I can w
ithout revealing too much.
“I enlisted as soon as I turned eighteen, and was out a few weeks shy of my twenty-second birthday. Unlike my father, I never wanted to be a lifer. When I’d served my four years, I went straight into law school. Right now, I primarily work in law.”
“Sounds interesting…I guess.”
She stops to take another sip of her coffee. She still hasn’t answered my questions, which makes me think she has some secrets of her own. Before I can give it much thought or ask again, she finally answers one of them.
“I only recently moved to the area. Work had an opening for a store manager-slash-partner here in Grand Rapids, and I hopped on the opportunity. It was a much-needed change of scenery. How long have you lived in the area? I’m sorry if I keep staring at you but it’s weird, you know? Seeing someone from my childhood in a place we never lived in—I’m a tad…off kilter.”
“Believe me, I know the feeling. If we stay in contact, it’ll be weirder. My best friend Brant? He lives here as well, and yes, before you ask, he’s still a dickhead.” A chuckle escapes as I call him a dickhead, but that shit is true. He’s never been what you’d call nice. Why he’s my friend, I have no idea. I’ve asked myself the same question at least a million times. He’s a cocky son of a bitch. Aren’t we all?
“That seals it then. We’re doomed. I’m afraid this is our one and only conversation. Sorry, Rhys.”
Wait, is she for real? She doesn’t want anything to do with me because of Brant? You have got to be kidding me. Her face isn’t giving anything away. Apparently she’s serious.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh you heard me,” she answers with a poker-straight face, no look of mirth in her eyes at all. If she’s bluffing, she’d make a killing at the casino.
Now my mouth is gaping open and my head is shaking slightly back and forth. I’m sure the look of shock on my face is pretty comical to see, but she doesn’t break. She has to be serious. All I can do is ask again because, what. The. Fuck?
“No seriously, are you kidding me? You don’t want us to be friends because of Brant? Didn’t you like him back in school? Unless early onset dementia is setting in, I recall y’all being friends same as we were, so I’ll ask again: Are. You. Kidding. Me?”