Obsession a thriller rom.., p.4
Obsession : A Thriller Romance, page 4
I tasted sick in my mouth. The kitten squirmed beneath Mom’s grip when she gripped its small head and secured it to the table.
Desperate, it tried to wriggle out from beneath her tight hold, but fighting was pointless. I knew it.
The twisted softness in Mom’s cruel eyes took on a dangerous edge, darkening as she gripped my chin hard. “Do. It.”
Before I could respond, she screamed in my face, “DO IT, YOU LITTLE SHIT.”
The knife came down, cutting through fur and flesh.
“Again.” Mom’s eyes sparkled with evil.
The knife came down again and again, eviscerating something fragile inside me.
I couldn’t let myself see the damage I’d caused, and I couldn’t look away from Mom, who began to laugh maniacally. It was all a sick game to her.
“Pathetic little shit.” She took the knife from my sweaty, trembling hand and held it up in front of my face, forcing me to see the fresh blood. The scent of copper assaulted my nostrils, tangy and sickly.
“You’re only alive because I allow it. You hear me? You breathe because I allow it. Don’t for a second believe you’re worth something.”
As she walked away, I let my gaze fall upon the dead kitten on the table, where it lay in a thick pool of blood.
That sensation of numbness inside me cemented into something so solid, yet so empty, that not even Mrs. Ashton’s smile could reach through again. Nothing could.
“Here, eat this.” Mom placed a buttered slice of stale bread before me.
I stared down at the circular plate surrounded by blood, and my stomach growled on cue.
6
SAVANNAH
Abeat of silence passes while I let his words settle. The insistent ticking of the clock on the wall and the guard’s sudden cough steal my attention for a moment. My mind reels as images of Robbie as a ten-year-old boy flood my mind.
It dawns on me that Elliot was right. I am out of my depths. The coldhearted killer in front of me has just told me in a detached voice about how his mother forced him to slaughter a kitten. What am I supposed to say to that?
I shouldn’t be here. I’m not cut out for this job.
My eyes flick down to the recorder.
“Have you got any other questions for me today, ma’am?”
Swallowing, I try to gather myself. “Is that why you think you are the way you are?” Motioning with my hand, I continue, “A serial killer.”
“Do I think I have been sentenced for the murder of fourteen women because my mother made me kill a kitten?” He keeps watching me intently, and I want to unzip my skin and run for the door. The question feels juvenile.
“I think anyone can be made into a killer given the right circumstances.”
“You were only a child—”
“But I was an adult man when I kidnapped those women.”
Chewing on my cheek, I sigh and look out the window at the darkening clouds. “You wouldn’t have killed those women if it weren’t for how your mother treated you.”
He hums, drawing my attention back to him. The way his gaze warms my face has heat rising to my cheeks. “Are you trying to justify my actions, ma’am? Find a reason behind them?” The chair creaks beneath his weight as he leans his upper body closer. “I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t in revenge.”
I lean in too, ensuring he sees the intensity in my gaze. “I beg to differ. You may not be aware of your actions. But you take back the power and control you lacked back then when you kill. You do the things that ten-year-old boy wished he could.”
“Do you enjoy psychoanalyzing me, Savannah?” he purrs in a heated tone I feel down to my toes. His breath mingles with mine; that’s how little space is between our mouths, yet the guard says nothing.
I flick my eyes between Robbie’s, noticing the flecks of hazel in the blue. “I could ask the same of you. What have you noticed about me since we sat down?”
“Are you brave enough to find out the answer, Savannah?”
Fuck…
I should draw back and create space between us, but his magnetism is impossible to escape. I want his tattooed hands on me. I want to feel the pleasure he can bring with those calloused fingers. I even want the pain he could inflict if he let his monster out to play.
I want to taste death at his fingertips.
“You’re a people pleaser, Savannah. You have tried to live up to other people’s expectations of you all your life. For reasons, unbeknownst to me, you never feel good enough.” With a shrug of his broad shoulders, he says, “My guess is that it has something to do with your vegetative father.”
Sitting upright, I gasp. “How do you know about my father?”
While my heart never beats in a normal, healthy rhythm around this lethal man, it’s now smashing the bars of my ribcage, like the other condemned prisoners in this building.
Those sinful lips reveal a hint of a smile, but there’s nothing sweet about it. “I know a lot of things about you.”
Officially in over my head, I rise to my feet and grab the recorder and my bag. I need to get out of here. I need air. I need to figure out what the hell Robbie knows about me, and why he sought me out. Why he lured me here with the promise of exclusive interviews.
I’m shouldering the bag when Robbie rises to his feet too, unfurling like a lazy cat in the sun, reminding me again of how tall and imposing he is, lined with lean muscle and tattoos.
He’s watching me while the guard shackles his wrists, the chains rattling ominously. “I’ll see you next week, Savannah.”
The promise in his drawled statement sends my heart skittering to unhealthy levels.
I don’t respond.
Before I can let the panic take over, I hustle it out of there, rattled by the knowing look in his eyes.
The drive home is a blur.
Charlotte talks to me, but I struggle to focus. She puts it down to tiredness and fusses over me like a mother hen.
When she finally leaves, I sag on the worn couch in the living room. My father is asleep, his stubbly chin touching his collarbone, saliva pooling at the corner of his chapped lips. I don’t wipe it off.
Instead, I reach for my laptop in my bag and fire it up.
My fingers fly over the keyboard as I bring up article after article on Robbie, trying to learn as much as I can of the man who sees through me as though I’m a clear windowpane.
There’s very little information about his childhood. Robbie had no friends, and he was relentlessly bullied at school. Few teachers remember him, and it’s sad to think that a young child could slip through the system. Maybe things would have turned out differently had someone made the effort to take Mr. Jones’s concerns seriously. He raised concerns about Robbie back then, but it seems it was never followed up.
No one cared.
I know that feeling too well.
Glancing over at my father, I clench my jaw, listening to his steady breathing and soft snores.
The door creaks open, a slow glide across the laminate floor before it catches on the corner of the rug like it always does. With it, comes a beam of light, which grows longer, traveling across the floorboards, making a direct path for my bed.
Whimpering, I clutch my teddy to my chest.
It’s poker night. Daddy always stumbles into my bedroom when the rowdy laughter dies down. The others have passed out on the couches in the living room, their loud snoring filtering through the thin walls.
“Baby girl,” he croons, hiccupping. “Make room for Daddy.”
The bed dips, and I bite my lip hard when his body curls up behind me.
He grips my hip and pulls me closer to the hard length inside his jeans. “Daddy missed you, sweet girl.”
Wrenching my teddy away, he reaches for the hem of my nightdress. This is it. I have to lock every emotion down.
If I let myself feel, I’ll sink below the waves and drown.
I’ve tried countless times at bath time to end it all, floating below the surface until my lungs burn, encased in complete silence except for the hard thudding of my heart. But sooner or later, I always breach the surface, dragging in gasping breaths.
And I hate myself for it.
I startle awake with a gasp, my neck aching from falling asleep on the couch.
Dad is mumbling incoherently, his T-shirt soaked with drool. I know what he wants. The new medication makes him thirsty. But for once in my life, I pick up my laptop and walk out of the room, leaving him behind to whine. And the satisfaction I get from his garbled cries for water has a cold smile playing on my lips.
7
SAVANNAH
Reaching for my cup of coffee on the littered computer desk, I curse when I put it to my lips.
It’s empty. I’m wired, having drunk more coffee than what can be considered healthy. I’ve typed out one thousand words in the last hour, then deleted them all because I wasn’t happy with how they turned out. How can I possibly begin to make sense of Robbie Hammond? I glance down at the recorder lying on top of a folded newspaper beside my laptop. For a small device, it sure has a weird effect on my heart every time I glance at it.
Which I do a lot.
With a quick peek around me to ensure no one is peering into my cubicle, I place my headphones in my ears and press play.
The smoky notes of Robbie’s voice caress my mind. I relax back in my chair, staring mindlessly at nothing while imagining Robbie’s blue eyes, the way they watch me from across the small square table. His strong hands, covered in tattoos and a smatter of hairs at the knuckles, drum the surface in rhythm with my erratic breathing, as if to summon every inhale.
It’s difficult to listen to him talk about his mother. His detached voice is at odds with the intensity in his eyes when he looks at me.
It’s as if his mouth speaks one language and his eyes another, and I can barely focus on one while deciphering the other.
His breathy chuckle sends a rush of heat between my thighs, and my hands fly up to my headphones as I sit straighter in my seat. It’s wrong to rock on my chair to ease the ache building between my thighs.
It’s also wrong to suck my lip between my teeth and close my eyes.
But I do.
The pressure on my clit feels fucking divine and, combined with the deep drawl of Robbie’s voice when he asks me if I like to psychoanalyze him, it does wicked things to my body that would cause a nun to do the sign of the cross.
Before I can stop myself, I visualize my body tied to his bed, helpless and scared, my clothes torn, while he hovers over me, covered in streaks of blood splattered across the stubble on his cheeks.
“Such a dirty little girl,” he whispers, dragging the sharp blade in his hand down my chest, over the valley of my heaving tits. The knife slips beneath the torn fabric, and he slides it away from my breast, exposing my lace bra. “Dirty girls like you deserve to be punished.”
A hand lands on my shoulder, startling me. I let out a sudden scream and whirl around, coming face to face with a shocked Elliot. His eyes skate to the recorder on the desk when I rip out my earbuds.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that.” My voice is breathy, betraying the lust pulsing between my legs despite my thrashing heart.
“James wants a word with you in his office.”
“James?”
“Our boss,” he replies with a raised brow.
“Oh, right…” I stand up and try to move past him, but he won’t budge.
I should be used to this song and dance by now, but I’m not. It irks me that I have to crane my neck to look him in the eye.
“Getting a little attached, are we?”
Reaching for the recorder with a trembling hand, I refuse to look away from the knowing glint in his eyes. He enjoys watching me squirm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” he drawls, reaching for me, but I jerk my face away from his touch. He’s too close, and his fingers soon stroke across my cheek. I should report his behavior to James, but I know it won’t do me any favors. James won’t believe me, for starters. The last thing I need is to be considered a troublemaker at work. Not now, when I have a project that could catalyze my career.
If I do a good job, I can be out of here by next year, snapped up by a much bigger newspaper.
“Is that what you’re into, sweetheart? Dangerous men who would cut you into pieces and enjoy it?”
“Fuck you,” I hiss through clenched teeth, glaring at him.
“You should be careful what you wish for.”
I bare my teeth, causing him to chuckle as he steps away, watching me stride out of the cubicle.
Fuck him and his god complex.
James looks up from the paperwork before him when I close his door with a little too much force. Anger heats the blood in my veins, but I suppress it by digging my nails into my palms, allowing the sharp bite of pain to calm my nerves.
“Why don’t you sit down?” James says, motioning for the seat across from his mahogany desk. Framed news articles and certificates line the cream wall behind him, and a photograph of his wife on their wedding day sits neatly on his desk. It’s not a secret that James cheats on the regular. I’m grateful he hasn’t tried his luck with me yet.
“How are your interviews going so far?”
His beady eyes sparkle with interest, and something about the greedy curiosity sets me on edge. While I understand the world will salivate over Robbie’s story and, ultimately, his execution, it feels wrong to share his childhood.
There’s nothing I can do about the sinking stone in my stomach. No matter how intrusive it feels, I have to tell a dying man’s story.
He requested the interviews. No one is forcing him.
“They’re going well,” I answer, trying not to fidget. “I have three hours of recordings so far, but the weekly interviews will carry on until the month before his execution. I can’t rush this.”
He hums, twisting his mouth to the side. “You could write about Robbie Hammond in your weekly column. We could drip feed the audience little tidbits.”
“Tidbits?”
“Juicy snippets. Keep them coming back for more. Build up interest in the final product.”
His ruddy face watches me closely, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s hunting for weaknesses, wondering, like Elliot, why Robbie would request me.
Why not one of the other women at the office? A more experienced reporter. Why me?
“If that’s what you want,” I answer to appease him. “I have to check that Robbie is okay with it first.”
He ignores me, gesturing me away with a flippant wave of his meaty hand, and reaches for the paperwork. “That’s all. You can see yourself out.”
My annoyance soon transforms into relief as I step out into the main hall. I can’t wait until I’m out of here, away from James’s beady eyes and Elliot’s sickening remarks.
I come to a halt at the entrance to my cubicle. Elliot is rooting through the drawers.
He straightens when I clear my throat and place a hand on my cocked hip.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
With a simple shrug and zero remorse, he looks around my cubicle as though the place is beneath him. “Just curious, is all.”
“Curious about what? Or are you hoping to steal my research?”
Scoffing, he stalks up to me and puts his hands on the doorframe. I’m not stupid; he’s doing it to make me feel small. “If I wanted to take over this case, I could do so in a heartbeat, sweetheart.” His irksome smirk is back, causing me to stiffen. “There’s something intriguing about a plain woman like you, who somehow manages to catch the interest of a notorious serial killer behind bars. What is it about you?”
“I hate to break it to you,” I reply in a bored tone, arms crossed. “He didn’t know about me when he requested the interviews. He most likely saw photographs of us all in a newspaper and picked randomly.”
“On the contrary…” He lets his hands drop and inches closer, erasing the small space between us, and my skin prickles. “I’d bet my yearly salary he knew about you long before he agreed to interviews. And it makes me wonder who has the real story to tell.”
As he walks away, I watch his retreating back, unable to deny the truth behind his words. At least the part about Robbie. There’s every chance he knows more about me than he lets on.
But how?
“My guess is that it has something to do with your vegetative father.”
8
ROBBIE, AGE 12
Mom slept soundly in her bed, her greasy hair spread out over the pillow like a halo.
We both knew she was nothing but a monster.
But the bigger monster was me.
The abomination of a son she was molding me into.
Was that why I was standing by her bedside in the middle of the night with my baseball bat in my hand, gripping the handle tightly enough to hurt the joints in my fingers? Bruises lined my arm from when she beat me with the frying pan this morning, the ache a constant reminder of how her torture would never end. She’d even caught me in the back when I threw myself down on the sectional in the kitchen to protect my head. Three more blows followed, but I was numb to the pain.
I didn’t know when I’d learned to block it out.
If you lived in the shadows long enough, you soon called them your home. As wrong as it was, Mom’s abuse had become my comfort zone. I knew what to expect beneath her foul words and blows. I knew how to not feel.
As I hovered by her bed, imagining beating her pale, gaunt face to a pulp, my head grew dizzy with the possibilities of how I could end this nightmare once and for all.
But I made no move to hurt her. The bat remained clasped tightly in my hand, my fingers curled around the wood. I couldn’t bring myself to kill her.
Not that night.
Instead, I tossed the bat beside her on the bed and walked out, knowing far well she’d punish me in the morning.
A part of me welcomed it, hoping it would be the last time. Maybe she would take it too far and finally kill me. Death would be a sweet deliverance. But of course, Mom didn’t know mercy.
