“I guess.” I feel awkward, pinned by the way he’s looking at me. I pull on my jacket and start backing over to the door. “Thanks for dinner, Luke. And thanks for …” I’m not sure if I’m supposed to thank him for sharing the gruesome pictures and information, but he has taken a risk in showing me. I feel like I should thank him for trusting me. He stalks across the room and puts his hand on the front door, holding it closed.

  “You’re not leaving this apartment, Avery. It’s way too late. You didn’t call a cab.”

  I laugh, trying to pull his hand away. “This is New York, Luke. There are thousands of cabs out there. I’ll flag one down in seconds.”

  His hand doesn’t budge. “This is New York, Avery. There are thousands of psychos out there. You’ll be mugged in seconds, more like.”

  “You have a warped view of the populace. Comes with the job,” I tell him. He really has to, doesn’t he? Working as a cop surely must jade even the most optimistic of people. Luke just crooks me a savagely sexy smile and leans his head against the door, still not letting me out.

  “You can stay here. Sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch again, I really don’t mind.”

  “Luke.”

  “Avery.”

  I know he wants to say Iris and that makes my ears burn hotly. He’s too close. I shuffle back an inch and he turns so his back is pressed against the door. He crosses his arms across his chest, highlighting how corded and muscular they are. I look down at my feet and try to think of something to say that will distract me from the inappropriate thoughts flooding my head.

  “I’ll only stay if you take me to the hospital in the morning.”

  “I can do that,” he whispers.

  So he makes himself up a bed on the sofa, and for the second time I fall asleep in Luke Reid’s bed. This time, however, I’m sober enough to smell him on his sheets. Clear-headed enough to acknowledge he is lying twenty feet away on the other side of a door, and weak enough to admit to my traitorous body-wide ache because of the fact.

  Nineteen

  Easier

  “WHY ARE my sheets on the floor?” Luke hands me a plate of toast. He’s buttered the slices all the way to the edges as if he somehow knows I won’t eat them otherwise. I shrug sheepishly and accept the plate.

  “I was too hot?”

  “You’re crazy. It was freezing last night. I woke up three times ’cause my hands and feet had gone numb.”

  My hands and feet didn’t fare that well either, but I couldn’t deal with having his bedclothes on top of me. It felt like he was on top of me, and I was scared by how that made me feel. I crunch down on a piece of toast and chug the coffee he’s made for me—extra sweet again.

  “I’m gonna grab a quick shower, then I’ll drop you off at the hospital, okay?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “If you want a shower, too, you’re more than welcome to join me,” he says, winking. I choke on my mouthful of coffee, the scalding hot liquid shooting up the back of my nose. Luke bursts out laughing. “That’s what I thought.” He slings a huge white towel over his shoulder and vanishes down the hallway, leaving me struggling for oxygen. That’s what I thought? He expected me to spray my drink everywhere? Did he think I was reacting out of horror or embarrassment? Because, holy hell, my reaction was embarrassing. I wipe the back of my hand over my mouth, still staring after him.

  I don’t get it. Luke seems like the perfect gentleman ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, and then he goes and says something like that. It doesn’t seem like him at all. But then, how well do I really know him? I know the sad, I used to wish your dad was my dad side of him. But there’s more, I know that. He has a steady, quiet confidence to him sometimes. I think an entirely different person might be right there, hiding beneath the deeply thoughtful looks and the pensive silence, waiting to sneak up on me and destroy me. A small part of me wants to storm down the hallway and rip the bathroom door open so I can give him a piece of my mind for teasing me. And another, worryingly large part of me wants to storm down the hallway and rip the bathroom door open so I can strip naked and make him screw me in the shower.

  I hear the water running, and my skin breaks out in goose bumps. Stop thinking about that! Stop thinking about that, dammit! I’ve got to take my mind off Naked Luke, dripping wet, running his hands over his soaped-up, ridiculously toned body. How my body would feel slipping and sliding against his as he pushed inside me again and again, the scorching hot water raining down on our writhing bodies. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I can’t be thinking about that. I just can’t. I inch over to the low sideboard and stroke my fingers across the file that still sits there. The instant I make contact with it, it feels as though I’ve been doused with a bucket of cold water. Well, at least the tactic worked. My heart rate trebles when I find myself opening the file up at random. I’ve opened up in a safe place. Barely legible text, scrawled in blue and red and black biro, marks page after page after page. I flick through them, not focusing on the paper for too long in case I read something I don’t want to see. Stupid, really, considering I want to pick this apart until I find something to clear Dad, and I’m too nervous to even read the reports. I’m about a quarter way through the file when a photo slips out of the papers and floats down to the floor. The face of a pale young girl stares up at me from the polished hardwood flooring, about fifteen years old. Her blonde hair is so colorless it’s almost silver. Other than the bleached whiteness of her skin and the fragile purple tinge to her lips, she doesn’t particularly look dead. Her blue eyes are open, staring; the accusing glare behind them makes me shiver. I suppose she looks a little like me when I was her age. More than a little like me, in fact.

  “Already playing detective?” Luke, only inches behind me, makes me jump so hard I nearly drop my coffee.

  “Geez, are you trying to … kill me?” My brain momentarily shuts down when I see he is only wearing a towel and water is beaded across his naked chest and down his arms. I’m right back to my fantasy from the shower. The tattoos I’ve been catching glimpses of are pretty extensive: tribal black ink that traces across the tops of his shoulders and down his arms a short ways, stark and contrasting against the faint golden tan of his skin. Over his right pec, the letters D.M.F are scrawled in swooping cursive.

  I snap my eyes to his face so I have to stop staring, and Luke gives me a slight smile. He stoops to pick up the photo, displaying that the tattoos continue onto his back, too—arching, tribal wings that sweep across his shoulder blades in broad, powerful black lines. The ink really compliments his body, mirrors the way his muscles shift under his skin when he moves. He straightens, holding the towel around his waist, and hands over the photo.

  “Here.” The smile on his face has grown, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. If he does, he’s apparently not going to oblige my fantasy by losing the towel, flinging me over his shoulder, carrying me to his bedroom, and punishing me really hard.

  “Thanks.” I snatch the photo back and study it intensely. The fierce clenching of my jaw probably counters the hot blush on my face, but still … I’m reacting like a thirteen-year-old who’s never seen a shirtless guy before.

  “What’s the D.M.F stand for?” I ask, pretending to be unfazed. But holy shit, am I fazed.

  “S’the band’s name,” he tells me. “The guys thought it’d be amusing to tease people with initials and never tell them what they stand for.”

  “And what do they stand for?”

  Luke cocks an eyebrow, his smile ruinous now. “I’d literally wash up on the banks of the Hudson with no teeth or fingerprints if I told you that.”

  “Well, damn. That’s rather dramatic.”

  “You’ve never met my bandmates.”

  I need to keep talking. If I stop, I’ll just end up standing here with my mouth hanging open. I hold up the photo that fell out of the file. “Do you know who this girl is?”

  Luke sweeps his wet hair out of his eyes and glances at the blonde girl staring lifelessly out of the picture. “No. Like I said, I was waiting for you before I looked at everything.” He carefully places his hand over mine and turns the image over, leaning closer to read the writing on the back.

  Loreli Whitman August 6th

  Poisoning. Shore of Jackson Lake, Grand Teton National Park.

  Poisoning. That explains why there’s no blood in the picture. No signs of a fight. I step away from Luke and slot the picture back in the file. “Only two girls were poisoned, right? What was it? What did the killer use?”

  “Strychnine. It’s a convulsant. Both girls asphyxiated. These were the two last killings before they stopped altogether. They were also the only ones with the fourth symbol on their palms.” Luke leafs through the file until he finds a picture of the symbols and points out the one the poison victims were branded with. It’s the circular one from the piece of paper Luke sent me the other day—the one with two smaller circles inside.

  “My contact in Wyoming PD says these girls were different to the others. Their deaths weren’t as violent. Well, in comparison, of course. Asphyxiation’s still a horrible way to die.”

  I take a sip of my coffee and sit myself down on the leather sofa, trying not to picture how that would feel. Luke carries on talking. “She said it was almost like they’d been treated reverently. Their hair had been brushed out and their finger and toenails had been painted. They were wearing dresses their parents had never seen before. It was like he’d decided to dress those two up like dolls.”

  “That’s totally sick. But why was it so strange?”

  “Because …” He cups his hand to the back of his neck and grimaces. “The other deaths were so different. Violent and cruel. They weren’t treated with any kindness. They were defiled in most cases. Some worse than others.”

  My chest tightens. Defiled. Such an awful word. Conjures images of a violent sexual abuse that doesn’t even bear thinking about. I rub my eyes with the backs of my hands. I’ve considered asking about that—whether the girls were raped— but I haven’t had the nerve. I keep linking these brutal acts with the allegations being made by Colby Bright—that my dad is behind all of this—and it’s too much to take. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Sorry, Ave. I know this is hard. I shouldn’t have involved you. I’ll do most of the digging myself from here on in. I’ll let you know if I come across anything noteworthy, okay?”

  I try to steel my nerves, try to form words to tell him that it doesn’t matter and I can do it, but I really can’t. Can’t form the words, and can’t face the details, either. Maybe it would be better to let him do the legwork. But my dad … that would feel like I’d failed him. Let him down. “Luke?”

  “Yeah?” He looks at me, eyes filled with an intensity that makes my breathing sharp. I force myself not to look away.

  “Does this not bother you anymore? If I just keep going, will it get easier?”

  Luke’s expression falls flat. “No. It never gets easier.”

  ******

  Noah: Hey, where are you? Turns out Tate’s not been home since the party. The cops are looking for him.

  Noah’s text comes as we’re headed over to Woodhull Hospital. Luke’s eyes flicker to my cell phone. I’d better respond or it will seem weird.

  Me: Shit. On my way to the hospital right now. I’ll have to tell Morgan.

  Noah: Meet you there …

  “That the non-boyfriend boyfriend?” Luke asks.

  “Yeah. He said Tate, the guy Morgan was with at that party, still hasn’t come home. Morgan asked me to find him for her. She’s going to flip out when I tell her that not only have I not found him, but no one else has seen him in two days, either. Do you … do you know anything about him?”

  He shakes his head. “Wasn’t my precinct. I could ask a few questions, though.”

  “Him being missing for so long, that doesn’t sound good, does it?”

  Luke gives me a tight-lipped smile. More of a grimace. “No. No it does not.”

  When we arrive at the hospital, Luke gets out of the car and walks me to the building, but then pauses at the sliding glass doors. The whole world is covered in a layer of frosted glass today, stark and cold, and Luke is the only vibrant thing in it. His cheeks have reddened from the short walk across the lot. His green scarf stands out against the muted blues and variances of white and gray.

  “You want me to come in with you?” he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet to keep warm. I don’t really know what to say. Luke and Noah in the same place? That makes me feel all kinds of wrong. But I do want him to stay. Probably more than I should. I open my mouth to speak but wait a second too long; Luke’s easy smile doesn’t disappear entirely so much as dim. He starts walking backwards, burying his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Because if you’ve got people coming to meet you, that means I can go home and work through that file. If you don’t need me.”

  If you don’t need me. I bite down on the inside of my cheek. “Thanks, Luke. Thanks for running me around and for dinner last night and, well, everything, I guess.”

  He pulls his hood up, still backing away. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  Something impetuous makes me speak before I can stop myself. “Are we? Are we friends, Luke?”

  He pauses, blowing out spirals of smoke on the cold morning air. “Of course we are, Beautiful.” He gives me a small smile and then he is gone.

  Twenty

  Creep

  Luke

  I replay her asking me that question as I drive away. Are we? Are we friends, Luke? Each time I hear her voice in my head, I feel sick. Of course we’re friends; she knows we are. She knows, deep down, we’re more than that, but she’s denying it. I understand why. I get it, I always have. To Avery, I represent so much pain and heartache. But to me, she’s something else. I think I’ve given up hoping that one day she’ll wake up and I won’t be Luke, the cop who worked on my father’s suicide/murder case anymore. I might be Luke, who makes everything feel better, or Luke, the guy I fell in love with despite everything.

  I should never have asked her if that text was from her boyfriend. Every time I think about the guy she was with at O’Flanagan’s, I want to punch a fucking wall. And I’ve been in fights with walls before. I never win.

  It really sucked that she hesitated when I asked if she wanted me to stay with her at the hospital. Like, really sucked. I could see that she’d changed her mind by the time I was walking away, but it was too late then. I’d committed to leaving, and neither one of us needed the situation being made any more awkward. So I’d left. And she’d gone inside to meet that Noah guy—I can’t believe I actually bought them dinner that time. What the hell is wrong with me?—and I never got to check in on Morgan.

  I haven’t seen the girl since the walk-up in Williamsburg, where she clung hold of me like I was the only thing anchoring her to reality. When I get back to the apartment, fully intending to go through Max’s file with a fine-tooth comb, I find Cole sitting on my doorstep, his guitar case propped up against the wall next to him. The guy smirks at my surprised expression, knowing exactly what I’m thinking without me having to say it.

  “If I’d have called,” he says, “you would have told me you were busy.”

  “I am kinda busy,” I tell him. I open the door to the apartment, leaving it open behind me so he can follow me inside. “What’s up, Cole?”

  Dark hair, dark eyes, lots of tatts. The guy works out just as much as I do, as well. When people meet us for the first time, they often mistake us for brothers. And Cole is a brother to me. I love him like he’s my blood. We fight like we’re blood, too. He throws himself down on my couch and busies himself with getting his guitar out of its case. “I came to have a much-needed conversation with you, man. I need you to take a look at what MVP have sent through for us.”

  I can see it now—the stack of papers underneath Cole’s guitar, as thick as a telephone directory.

  “They sent through a contract?”

  “Just something for you to consider.” Cole starts plucking at his guitar—“Highway to Hell” by ACDC. I grin at him, because that was the first song we ever played together, when we ran into each other at an open mic night two years ago.

  “I don’t have time to read through all of that, Cole.”

  “Then how about I paraphrase it for you? They’re offering us a year’s contract. You know what that means?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means you can take a sabbatical from work for twelve months and see how you like this whole rock star thing. And don’t tell me you can’t,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “I researched that shit. You can take a whole year and still go back to your job at the same pay grade, same lowly rank of officer, if you really want to. We put out one album with them and if we hate it, we can all go our separate ways.”

  “Where’s the sense in that? Me wasting a year if I’m only going to go back to the cops?”

  “Because, asshole, MVP will have realized we’re awesome with or without you by then. And you’ll have realized that you can’t live without this shit in your life, as well. So we all win. We can extend our contract and then move onto world domination.”

  “And what if I don’t want to take a year off from work?”

  Cole shoots daggers at me. “They’ve offered us complete retention of our artistic rights. They’ve given us a six-month window at Paramount. Most first timers get a few weeks and if they haven’t created a masterpiece they’re kicked out on their asses. And not only that, but they’ve said we can pick and choose who we want to work with. Our choice of producer. Our choice of guest artists, if we want them. No one else gets this deal, Luke. No one but us. And all you have to do is give us one year of your life. You owe me a year, man. Come on.”

 

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