Further To Fall

by Catherine Cowles

  “He is not a terror. He’s perfect.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” Austin paused at the door to the garage. “Remember, no getting mad.”

  “No promises.” If this was a permanent security detail or worse, a gun, I was going to be pissed.

  Austin shook his head and pushed open the door, flicking on the lights. There, in the garage, was a brand new Mercedes SUV. It was a gorgeous silver color with gray interior. I knew nothing about cars, but even I could appreciate this one. I turned my head to Austin. “Why would I be mad that you bought yourself a new car? It’s your money, you can do whatever you want with it.”

  A grin stretched across Austin’s face. “I’m glad you see it that way because I bought it for you.”

  My jaw slackened. “You, what?”

  “I bought it for you.”

  My head swiveled from Austin to the car and back to Austin again. “Y-y-ou can’t,” I stuttered. “It’s way too much.”

  He stepped forward and grabbed my hands in his. “Baby, this is one of the safest cars on the market. I love you, and I want you safe and in one piece. Please, for the love of all that is holy, accept this car. Even if it’s just for my peace of mind.”

  I bit my bottom lip as Austin stared at me with imploring eyes. I sighed, releasing my lip. “I will, on two conditions.”

  Austin’s face brightened, but he was still cautious. “Name your terms, Miss McCarthy.”

  “One is that you let me donate the proceeds of selling my Prius to the youth program.” Austin’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Two, I get to drive to my house.”

  He laughed. “You drive a hard bargain, but I accept.”

  I threaded my arms around his neck. “Thank you. You are incredibly kind and generous. A little crazy, but mostly kind and generous.”

  He brushed his lips against mine in a touch that sent a shiver down my spine. “Get your purse, and we can get on the road. I’ll grab the keys.”

  I shot him a devilish smile and darted for the door, excited to take my new wheels for a spin. When I reached the kitchen, I paused. “Austin, what is Blue chewing on?”

  Austin had stopped at my back and was now staring at Blue. “Motherfucker! That’s my heavyweight belt!” At Austin’s bellow, Blue’s head shot up. He dropped the belt and ran for the living room.

  While Austin dashed to the belt, I stayed frozen, hands covering my mouth. “Austin, I am so, so sorry,” I said through my fingers.

  He stood, belt in hand. “It’s okay,” he ground out. “He only got the end, it’s an easy fix.” Then he brought his eyes to mine, and they narrowed slightly. “Why doesn’t he ever destroy your stuff?”

  I shot him my most angelic smile. “Maybe because you wanted to send him to guard dog school and tried to make him sleep on the cold, hard ground.”

  “I bought him a three-hundred-dollar dog bed, and this is Southern California, not the arctic circle!”

  “You sure you still want us to move in with you?”

  Austin grabbed my wrist and hauled me against him. “Yes, even if you do come with a devil dog.”

  I kissed him softly. “We should really think about getting him a sister. I’ve heard it can help if the dog has someone to play with.” Austin just groaned.

  41

  Carter

  My new car drove like a dream. It was like driving a cloud. Seriously, it felt like I was floating along Mulholland. I could handle LA traffic in a Zen-like state as long as I was driving this car. As I unlocked the front door to my home for the last three years, I knew that Austin was gloating. He knew I loved the fancy-schmancy SUV and all its bells and whistles.

  As soon as the lock clicked, Austin gently ushered me aside and pushed the door open. His eyes quickly traveled around the entry, living room, and kitchen. Apparently, overprotective Austin wasn’t taking a vacation anytime soon. I sighed and hefted up a handful of the boxes we’d stopped to get at an office supply store. “I got these, baby.”

  Taking the boxes from my hands, he headed towards my bedroom. He paused at the door, taking in the carnage that had yet to be cleaned up. Cut-up clothes and other random items still littered the floor, and the red spray paint continued to cry out those awful words on the walls.

  Blue whined at my side, and I shuddered at the memories assailing me. I knew that if I asked, Austin would handle all of this for me. I’d never have to see a torn scrap of clothing or angry red letter. But I refused to let myself cower in a corner. Joe was locked up. There was nothing to be scared of anymore.

  I straightened my shoulders. “I need to find someone to repaint these walls and replace the mirror in the bathroom before Taylor gets back.” We’d spoken on the car ride over to the house via the high-tech speaker system in my new SUV that made it sound like she was sitting right next to me.

  I could tell she was worn out from taking care of her mom, but she was overjoyed by the news that they had caught the stalker and that Austin had asked me to move in with him. Since he was in the car with me, she also took the time to threaten him with bodily harm if he ever hurt me. I loved my bestie and was flying to Texas to see her and provide a little TLC as soon as school was out. But first, I had to fix her house. I was not leaving whore scrawled across the wall as a welcome-home present.

  Austin turned to face me and squeezed my shoulder. “I don’t want to leave you with all this. Why don’t you let me deal with it? Or I can hire a crew to do it. You won’t have to lift a finger.”

  This man was so very sweet. I leaned forward and touched my lips to his. Staying close, I said, “I can do this.” I wanted Austin to see me as a strong woman who could stand on her own two feet.

  He pulled me even closer. “You’re not on your own, you know? You have me, and you always will.”

  That hit me right between the breasts, my heart doing a little clench. “I know I do, and I’m so grateful for that. But there’s nothing for me to be scared of anymore. Plus, I’ll have Blue with me so I won’t be alone.”

  Austin closed his eyes briefly like what he was about to say almost caused him physical pain. “Okay, but keep your phone close by. And promise that you’ll call if you change your mind or just get bored or hungry or…anything at all.”

  A smile touched my lips, and I reached up on my tiptoes to give him another kiss, this one longer and hotter. “Thank you. I love you, A.”

  “Love you too, Firecracker.” I followed him to the door, where he instructed, “Lock this behind me.”

  “Will do. Now, get out of here.” I closed the door behind Austin and flipped the lock. Turning to Blue, I said, “Well, let’s get started.” I synced my phone with the Bluetooth speaker that had miraculously escaped being destroyed and blasted the country tunes Austin hated.

  For the next hour, I filled trash bag after trash bag with torn clothing, ripped pictures, and shattered knickknacks. Some of the broken items were irreplaceable. I shed a couple of tears as I knelt to pick up the pieces of a shattered ceramic apple my dad had gotten me when I was twelve when I told him I wanted to become a teacher. Drying my eyes, I reminded myself that these were just things and stuff could be replaced.

  My head snapped up at the sound of Blue’s low growl. “What’s wrong, baby?” I asked but froze when I felt the cold steel of a blade at my throat.

  “Hello, Carter.” I knew the voice so well, but there was a deadness in it that I had never heard before.

  My brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around what was happening, it was like my synapses weren’t firing quite right. “Kyle? What…?” My words trailed off because I didn’t know what I was going to ask. “What are you doing?” or “Why?” seemed ridiculous given the circumstances.

  The blade bit into my skin. “I want you to stand up nice and slow.” Blue growled again and inched toward us. “Call off that mangy mutt, or I’ll slit your throat and then gut him like a fish.”

  Hot tears, a mix of anger, fear, and grief, flowed down my cheeks as I shakily got to my f
eet. “It’s okay, Blue, everything’s okay. Stay.” Blue whined but stopped his forward movement.

  Kyle jerked me back against him with one hand and used the other to throw my speaker against the wall, shattering it and leaving us in silence. “That’s right, everything’s just dandy. I’m just going to have a little fun with your mom here. She never did let me between those thighs.”

  Bile rose up my throat as Kyle trailed the knife down between my breasts. My breath came in short, staccato bursts as my vision went a little hazy. How could it be Kyle? Images of him sprawled out in my living room as we ate ice cream and watched cheesy horror movies danced in my head. I remembered our first date when he was all bumbling nerves and polite gentlemanliness. This wasn’t the same person I’d known for the past two years.

  Choking back the acid in my throat, I asked, “It’s been you all along?”

  Kyle chuckled, it was ugly and menacing. “You always did underestimate me, Carter.”

  “But you had an alibi for the pictures in my classroom.” My voice shook, and my hands trembled as I searched for a way out. Any way out.

  The edge of the knife began to tear at my top. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. “Do you know how easy it is to drug someone, Carter? All it takes is a couple of ground-up sleeping pills in a friend’s beer and, suddenly, they’re feeling the need to crash on your couch for the night. But the couch is right outside your bedroom, so when the police question him, he says there’s no way you could’ve left without him hearing something. Plus, I had told him what a conniving little bitch and cock tease you were so he wouldn’t have been eager to help anyway.”

  My phone started to ring, but Kyle pressed the blade against my skin. “Uh, uh, uh. No phones for you.” He located the cell on the floor where I had been kneeling and kicked it away.

  I wanted to weep as my one hope of contacting the outside world disappeared under my bed. My stomach pitched as I asked, “And you were the one who shot at us last night?”

  “Yes. I must admit, that one was fun, seeing you and those dimwits hit the deck. I could have killed you all then, so much power in my hands. But now that it’s just the two of us, I thought the knife was a little more personal. Don’t you agree?”

  I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out as the blade bit into my skin. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why? Why?!” Kyle grabbed my shoulder in a punishing grip and spun me around to face him, pushing me back into the wall. Blue growled again, but I held out a hand to tell him to stay back. Kyle continued on his tear. “How about because you were supposed to be mine? I gave you all of these chances to figure that out. I forgave you again and again, but you just had to go back to that ape. You never let me touch you like I wanted to, but then you just gave yourself to that heathen like a little slut.”

  The knife dug in deeper. “You’re crazy.” It came out in a hoarse whisper but clearly reached Kyle’s ears because his face filled with rage. Suddenly, a hand cracked across my face, sending me crashing to the ground.

  42

  Austin

  “Hey, man, thanks for getting back to me,” I said into my phone.

  “They caught the guy?” Liam asked.

  “They think they have him. It’s the father of one of Carter’s students, the same one that attacked her.”

  “Fuck, what is wrong with that guy?”

  “He’s clearly got a screw loose, that’s for sure,” I said as I twirled a pen between my fingers.

  “You don’t sound relieved.”

  Before Liam called, I had been sitting at my desk reading the same paperwork over and over, unable to focus on the words because my mind kept drifting to Carter. I was worried about her. I got that she wanted to prove to herself that everything was fine now, that she had nothing to worry about anymore, but something wasn’t sitting right with me.

  I continued rolling everything around in my mind, trying to figure out what didn’t feel right. I kept coming back to the note on my car and the words used on Carter’s walls. Those felt personal and sexual, not like a man pissed because he had been sent to jail after assaulting someone. “Something doesn’t feel right,” I admitted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just that all the incidents have seemed way too personal for this to be retribution for reporting a case of child abuse.”

  Liam made a humming noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know, a lot of people would take getting sent to jail pretty damn personal.”

  I tapped the pen against my desk, my nerves still not settling. “I guess you’re right. But it seemed like there was a sexual element to it, too. That doesn’t make sense with this Joe guy.”

  “I hate to break it to you, A, but Carter’s a gorgeous girl. It wouldn’t be surprising if a creep fixated on her started to take things in that direction.”

  My fingers clenched around the pen, and the plastic began to crack. “This guy needs to go away for a long time, preferably forever.”

  “I feel you. Where is Carter?”

  My hand relaxed. “She’s at her old house. Packing.”

  “Packing?”

  “Yeah,” I said, grinning to the empty room around me. “I asked her to move in permanently.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m happy for you, man. Both of you,” Liam said, a smile sounding in his words.

  “Thanks, Li. You and Ford can help me move the fifty million boxes I’m sure Carter’s filling with her shit right now.”

  Liam chuckled. “You got it. I’ve gotta jump, but I really am thrilled for you guys. So happy you finally pulled your head out of your ass.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Later.” I tapped the end button on my screen and scrolled to John’s number. I didn’t care if I was being paranoid, I was going to get him to sit in his car outside Carter’s place until I got there. Just as I was about to hit his name, the phone buzzed with an incoming call.

  It was Detective Massey. When the words, “we have a problem,” came over the line, my stomach dropped.

  “What is it?” I asked as my hand clenched around the phone.

  “Joe Harker isn’t our guy.”

  “I thought you traced the hang-up calls to him.” My grip tightened even further.

  “We did. It turns out he was calling to make amends, but he said he kept getting nervous when he called, so he would hang up. He got sober in lockup and apparently found religion. He has ironclad alibis for at least two of the incidents. One is an AA meeting his priest leads, and the other, he’s on surveillance at his job. He was in interrogation, weeping about how he’d done wrong, but that he would never hurt no one now that he’s sober.”

  I was already up and moving, grabbing my wallet and keys and heading out the door. “Massey, I’m at the gym right now, but Carter’s by her fucking self at her old place.”

  Massey’s voice was suddenly alert and full of concern. “Austin, I called you because she didn’t answer her phone.”

  My heart was raging against my ribs like it was doing battle to get free and get to Carter. Never again would I not listen to my gut when it told me something was wrong. Never would I leave Carter when something told me to stay. Fuck, once I knew she was okay, I was never letting her out of my sight again. “Get the cops there. Now. I’m already on my way.”

  43

  Carter

  Rough fibers pressed into the side of my face as I slowly became aware of my surroundings. I was lying on the floor of my bedroom. What had happened? My cheek was throbbing, my lip burned where it was clearly split, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

  The ground vibrated with pacing footsteps. “I’m not crazy. Not fucking crazy. She’s crazy. Crazy and a slut.” The sound of Kyle’s voice brought it all crashing back. Blood roared in my ears, and I desperately tried to keep my breathing even, not wanting to alert Kyle that I was awake.

  Blue growled a low war
ning as Kyle’s footsteps grew closer. “Shut up, you filthy mutt. I’m only keeping you alive so Carter will behave.” Well, that was good to know. I needed to think. I needed a plan. How could I think up a strategy when I couldn’t risk opening my eyes to see what I might have within reach?

  My heart raced, and I fought to keep each breath uniform. I painted Austin’s face in my mind, hoping it would calm me, the deep blue of his eyes, the sharp cut of his jaw, the feel of his buzzed head tickling my palm as I ran a hand over his scalp. I wanted to run my hands over his beautiful body every day for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t going to let this asshole steal that from me.

  I cracked open one of my eyes a sliver. “YOU LYING SLUT!” A boot slammed into my gut, forcing all the air from my lungs and sending pain radiating through my body. “You’re a liar, just like the rest of them!”

  I wheezed and rolled onto my back, clutching my stomach and trying to ease the pain. “Get up, you stupid whore.” I couldn’t have done it even if I wanted to. My breaths were shallow, and air didn’t seem to be able to get to my lungs. “I said, get up!” Kyle jabbed the knife in Blue’s direction. “Get up, or the mutt gets it.”

  Tears tracked down my cheeks as I stared at Blue, whose teeth were bared at Kyle in a snarl. I wrapped an arm around my ribs and slowly pushed myself up. “I should have known you were just like the rest of them, just like all the other sluts in this city. I thought you were different, but you’re not! YOU’RE NOT!” He screamed the last words. Kyle was clearly devolving. “Get on the bed.”

  My stomach roiled, and I knew I needed to make a move now if I was going to make it out of this alive. “No,” I said with all the calmness and firmness I didn’t feel.

  “Get. On. The. Fucking. Bed.” Kyle punctuated each word with a point of his knife toward my torso.

  I took a deep breath, calling up every ounce of courage and every hope for a beautiful future with Austin. I screamed, “BLUE!” as I struck out with a palm strike to Kyle’s nose. There was a pinch in my side at the same time I felt a crunch of bone beneath my palm.