by Liz Bradford
“Yeah. He was around quite a bit. Amelia had talked about putting together a timeline of when he was sighted at the station, but I’m not sure how far she got on that before we decided we needed to look elsewhere before we spent too much time on him. We did have at least ten eyewitnesses.”
“Any other possibilities?”
“Nothing promising.”
Ella leaned further into him, and he tightened his arm around her. Maybe they shouldn’t talk about it in front of her, but if they didn’t, she’d ask him anyway.
“You guys will get him,” she said with confidence.
“I hope so.” He kissed her forehead.
Shortly after Adam left, Ella came out of the bathroom and put her things back in her temporary room. She was so grateful for the place to stay with friends that were trained to keep her safe, but she missed having a little autonomy. She was an independent woman, more because that’s what life had dealt her than anything. She had adored being part of Amelia’s family, but they still weren’t her family. Maybe one day she would have a family. It wasn’t something she ever really considered a possibility since she was a kid, but maybe she could imagine it with Adam. She fanned her warm cheeks with her hand.
She picked up her Bible and went back out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She was ready for bed, but not ready to sleep. Maybe if Becca was up she would see if she had any of her infamous tea. She rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps and headed towards the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Becca in the kitchen. Becca slammed the tea kettle she had been filling on the stove and slammed a cabinet when she pulled out a mug.
Ella didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to invade Becca’s privacy, but would she be able to sneak back up the stairs? Becca turned and leaned against the counter. Ella then noticed the tears streaming down Becca’s face. Becca looked up, saw Ella, and wiped her face. “Come in, Ella. Don’t mind me.”
“Are you sure? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m just a hot mess today.”
“Adam said it was a rough one.” Ella walked the rest of the way into the kitchen.
“Yeah, it was. This case is just hitting too close. I have a hard time not letting cases get to me, especially when people we love are in harm’s way. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
Ella’s face warmed.
“We can’t let anything happened to the woman that managed to tame Adam’s wild side.”
“I can’t take credit for that. God gets all that.”
“Indeed, He does, but I think He’s used you.”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Don’t be so modest. I’ve been praying for Adam and talking to him about God for a long time, but nothing broke through until you came into his life.”
“Again, all God. His timing in everything is perfect. God used everything that’s happened in Adam’s life lately to draw him to Himself.”
“So true. I’m still so grateful you are in his life. He’s like a kid brother to me, and I’ve hated to see his life spiral out of control. But watching God work in it is amazing. And seeing how much he loves you…” Becca smiled wider. “It’s just wonderful.”
“Loves me?”
“Oh, yes, honey. That man loves you without a doubt.”
“I still can’t get over that he would want to be with me. I’m nothing like the girls he’s dated over the years, am I?”
“No, I suppose not. But he was never really interested in any of those women. I honestly think he went out with them to maintain the persona he had built up.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither, but I don’t think he’s ever been in a relationship for longer than a few months. None of the girls he dated were more than a physical relationship. I’ve never seen him look at a woman like he looks at you. And when he put his hat on your head when you guys left the pub that night, I knew he loved you.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah, he never lets anyone even touch that hat. Plus, you’re wearing his favorite sweatshirt.”
Ella fanned her face again.
The tea kettle whistled, and Becca pulled it off the burner. “Would you like some too?”
“Yes, please.”
Becca pulled out another mug and plopped a tea bag in each one. She filled the mugs with water. “Shall we sit on the couch?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The ladies went and sat and continued to chat. The wall Ella had felt when it came to getting to know Becca dissolved into nothing, and Ella found herself with a new friend.
After nearly an hour of talking, Ella said, “I’m sorry, Becca.”
Becca tilted her head and scrunched her eyes. “For what?”
“I totally misjudged you. I never thought we could connect. You always seem so put together and sophisticated, and I’m, well, I’m the opposite.”
Becca laughed. “Oh, Ella. But now you’ve seen the real me: a hot mess, crying and slamming cabinet doors.”
Ella laughed, too. “And a good friend.”
Ella climbed up on the step stool outside her classroom to hang some new artwork on the bulletin board Tuesday after school. She was surprised Adam wasn’t there yet. The kids had only left a few minutes ago, but yesterday he had been there right away. A piece of her stomach felt uneasy, but he would probably be there soon. She’d give him five minutes, just long enough to hang the kids’ pictures, then she’d allow herself to worry enough to call him.
“Hey, Ella.”
She looked down and saw Lesley Peters one of the school’s fourth grade teachers. “Hi, Lesley, how’d your day go?” She and Lesley weren’t really friends, just acquaintances. They didn’t really have much in common other than school.
“Not too bad. Kids were a bit squirrelly, but that’s not unusual. How ‘bout yours?”
“It was good.” Why is this so awkward?
“So, I saw you’ve been hanging out with Adam Jamison. What’s going on there? Because that surprises me. No offense, but you don’t really seem like his type?”
Ella’s throat constricted. “Um… well, we were friends as kids and have been reconnecting.”
“Oh yeah? I didn’t suspect he would be the type of guy you would hang out with either.”
“What do you mean?” She knew what it meant but was curious to hear what Lesley would come up with.
“Well, just you’re so uptight and he’s so… such a player. I mean he’s good, so I can’t blame ya, but I thought you were a bit of a prude, so I didn’t think you’d be getting it on.”
Ella stared at Lesley. “Wait, what?”
Lesley’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, you’re not sleeping with him? I just assumed, seeing the way you two act and knowing the way Adam is.”
“The way Adam is?”
“Yeah, don’t you know? Adam is quite the ladies’ man. He’s gotten around.” Lesley smiled.
“You?”
“Yeah, we had a little thing for a while. He’s a great guy, but don’t expect commitment, that’s not his thing.”
This conversation was getting to be too much for Ella. She stapled the final picture to the bulletin board. She needed an out but didn’t want to be rude. She stepped off the ladder and looked down the hall. Adam was here. She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed the lump in her throat.
His smile did little to settle her queasiness. He had been intimate with this other teacher. How many other women would she run into in her hometown that had slept with her Adam? Why had he been so flippant with something so sacred?
“Hey, Ella!” His upbeat tone gave evidence that he had gotten a good night sleep last night and had a smooth day at work. “Hi, Lesley.”
“Hi, Adam.” Lesley smiled at him. “You’re looking well.”
“I am. You?”
“No complaints. Good to see you. I’ve got papers to grade. You two kids have a good night.”
“Thanks.” Adam looked at Ella.<
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She couldn’t do or say anything. She was frozen, afraid she would say something she would regret. The heat grew in her face, part embarrassment, part anger. She didn’t have a right to be angry, but she was. She hadn’t been mad when she heard about his one-night stand, but something was really happening between them now.
She kept her mouth shut and simply walked past Adam and into her classroom. She busied herself with papers on her desk. Adam came in the room and shut the door. He didn’t typically do that, but he had probably figured something was bothering her. He was a detective after all.
“Ella?”
She pursed her lips. What was she going to say?
His hand on her back made her jump, but he didn’t remove it. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
She was trying to bite her tongue, but she was going to have to say something. He was going to keep pressing her. “Nothing. I’m fine. How was your day?” The flatness of her voice surprised her.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He took her shoulders and spun her to face him. “Don’t shut me out.”
She sighed, but the anger didn’t dissipate. “Have you seriously slept with every woman in this town?” She wished she could suck the words back in. The harshness of her words pushed him back.
His hands dropped from her, and he stepped away. His smile was gone. His eyes dropped to the floor. “Lesley.” It was a statement not a question.
“Yeah. Made a point to say that you’ve gotten around.”
His eyes closed.
“She also assumed that if you were hanging out with me that we must be sleeping together.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice softened. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“But I do.” He looked back up at her and reached for her hands. “I know we haven’t talked about what’s going on here between us. We’ve talked about everything but that. But I hope something will come of it, and so I do need to apologize to you. I never in a million years expected to have you in my life again, but if I had known I would never… never have been with so many women.”
“So many? How many, Adam?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”
“You know the answer?”
“I could figure it out.”
She let go of his hands. “Figure it out?! You have to calculate? Holy cow, Adam!”
His shoulders dropped further. “I’m sorry.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t know what to do with this information.
“Have you never had sex, Ella?”
She looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “Well, obviously I have. How else would I have a case file at the police station?”
“That’s not sex. What that guy did to you is not sex!”
“What do you call it then?”
“Rape. A crime. A sick perversion of something good.”
She turned back to her desk and tossed a few things in her bag. He let her quietly gather her things. She just wanted to get out of the classroom. They walked out to his car in quietness. He opened the car door for her like he always did. He was a gentleman. How many times had that helped him get a woman in bed? She needed to stop. Why was this bothering her so much?
“I’m sorry, Adam.”
He slid into the seat next to her. “Don’t be. I’m the one that should have kept my pants on.”
“I guess we’re both damaged goods coming into… whatever this is we have going on.”
He let go of the key that he had put in the ignition without starting the car and turned towards her. “Damaged goods? Me? Yes, but not you.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m not a virgin, Adam. That was taken from me.”
“That doesn’t make you damaged goods. You survived a horrible attack. You are NOT damaged goods, and for all intents and purposes you are a virgin. Who made you think you weren’t?”
She looked out of the car and off into the distance. She took in a deep long breath and let it out slowly before answering. “I dated, well, we didn’t call it dating, we courted, this one guy, Miles, when I was in college. We were getting pretty serious, talking about marriage and all, so he started trying to be more affectionate, holding my hand and such. But I, as you can imagine, struggled with any physical affection—”
“Wait, you were talking marriage but hadn’t been holding hands? Kissing?”
“Oh, no, he wanted to wait until the altar before kissing, and you were only supposed to hold hands if you were really serious. But anyway, one day he put his arm around me, and I had a flashback. Not a bad one, but still… he asked me about it and confronted me about being cold towards him. So, I thought it was time to tell him what happened, we were thinking we would get married after all. Well, I told him, and he freaked. Broke off our relationship. Said he wouldn’t marry someone who wasn’t a virgin.”
“What a jack—”
“Adam!”
“Sorry, but it’s true. What kind of low life breaks up with a girl because she was raped? That… that’s just not right!” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
Her lips curled up.
He scooted across the bench seat of the old Chevy. One arm behind her across the seat and the other tucked her hair behind her ear and cupped the side of her face. “Ella, you are precious. In my sight and I know in God’s. There is nothing damaged about you. What happened to you was awful, but it doesn’t define who you are sexually, or any way. And if God wills it, I’ll help you one day see that God has other ideas about sex. I’ve got a road to face figuring that out myself, but I know that God made it to be good. I realize that I’ve abused what He designed, and I confess that to you and Him. Please forgive me.”
“I do, Adam.” Tears welled up in her eyes. She fanned her face. “You wanna have sex with me?”
“Uh, yeah. But I realize that will only happen if we get married.”
“You think you’d wanna marry me?”
“Since I was seven years old. That never changed, and the more I get to know who you are now, the more I know it’s still as true today.”
She smiled and leaned her face into his hand.
“Ella?”
She opened her eyes and met his deep gray eyes that reached into her being and comforted her heart. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I know.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He stroked her back and her hair.
“Wait a minute.” He pulled her back to arm length.
Her heart stopped. Did he feel gypped that she didn’t say I love you back. She just wasn’t sure she was ready and didn’t want to just say it as a response.
“If you didn’t kiss that one guy, did you kiss anyone else? Any other boyfriends?”
Her heart thumped again. “He was the only one other than you that I ever dated.”
“So, am I the only one you’ve ever kissed?”
Her cheeks turned to fire. “Yep.”
He leaned up against the kitchen counter and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. This was perfect. He would finally have Ella Perkins. Earlier today he had heard Adam tell the Sergeant that he would take Ella home after picking her up this afternoon. And since he finally knew where she was staying, he would get her tonight.
No one was home and the lock and alarm had been easy to bypass, so he had slipped into the house without being noticed. The stint he did with a security firm installing that exact model of alarms had made that task simple. Now he would wait in a quiet corner, and they wouldn’t see him coming. She would not get the upper hand again. And he didn’t care who got in the way. If he had to put a bullet in Adam’s chest, so be it. He never liked that punk anyway. In fact, he anticipated having to kill him. He never left Ella’s side. He would grab Ella, shoot Adam, and take Ella somewhere they could be alone since he would have to get Ella out of the cop’s house.
He
had watched Adam and Ella get in Adam’s car at the school and left before they did. It was just a matter of minutes before they arrived. He could taste the victory before him.
Ella would be his final kill in Hazel Hill. Then he could move on to the next place he had lived. It was time to finish what he started with the five women that lived in that New Mexico town.
He pushed off the counter and made his way up the stairs to scope out the best place to wait for Ella. Maybe the closet would work. If she didn’t come up right away, he could wait until she went to bed. He didn’t like having to play it by ear so much. He’d rather have a plan in place. He had; she was supposed to be his third in this spree, but they had foiled it. That wouldn’t happen this time. He was ready to play the deck, regardless of how it was dealt. He would have Ella. He checked in the first bedroom. Yes, this had to be the one she was staying in. He pulled open the bi-fold doors and slipped inside. He could wait.
Chapter 23
Adam held his hand out for Ella as she walked around the front of the car. He had actually told her he loved her. She slipped her hand into his and his heart soared. He loved her so much. They walked to the door, hand in hand.
“I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening. I just wish I didn’t have any papers to grade.”
“I wish you didn’t either.” He winked at her. Her cheeks turned a couple shades pinker.
She pulled her hand away and dug out the keys. She unlocked and opened the door. They entered the quiet house, and Adam punched in the alarm code. He kicked the door closed and pulled Ella into his arms. She squeezed him tight. She smiled up at him, and he kissed her forehead.
“I’m going to run up and change into something more comfortable. I don’t know why I wore these pants today; I really don’t like them.”
He smiled at her. “Okay. They look good on you though.”
She blushed again. “I get the impression that you would think I look good in a brown paper bag.”
“Yeah, you could pull it off.” He raised his eyebrows at her.
She shook her head and turned and ran up the stairs. He stood there appreciating the view as she went up. Thank you, God, for bringing Ella and me together. Help me to do right by her.