Winter (Four Seasons #1) (17 page)

I give him a
painfully small smile, unsure how to take his comment. “You do,
too. I know she probably hates me because of my dad, but I’m still
glad you’re working stuff out with Casey. You were together for so
long. I suppose it’s natural that you’d want to give things another
go.”

A fleeting
frown flashes across his face. “Casey and I aren’t together,
Beautiful. She was here to pick up some of her things. Oh…”
Realization dawns on his face. “
Oh,
it probably looked really bad that I was all…” He
doesn’t say it, but I think it:
half
naked, hair all over the place, looking sexy as hell.
He rolls his eyes dramatically and laughs. “No, I
got off work early. She said she realized one of her mom’s rings
was missing, wanted to check if she’d left it here when she moved
out. She just let herself into the apartment thinking I’d be gone,
but I was in bed. I nearly smashed her over the head with my
baseball bat. We had a massive fight about her doing whatever the
hell she pleased, and then you showed up. Probably the worst timing
ever.”

For some
reason a knot of tension eases in my stomach. I feel like I’m
floating three feet off the ground. “Yeah, she looked like she was
going to attack me.”

“
She
thought…she asked me if I was seeing you,” Luke says. He focuses on
the countertop, staring firmly at the swirls in the cool, graphite
marble.

“
Ha! Wow, she
must think you’re crazy.”

“
Why d’you say
that?”

“
Well, there’s
the obvious. What did she say? That’s right, “
I see you’re still intrigued by the macabre.”
I’m a walking freak show to people like her. And
then there’s the fact that you’re old.”

Luke
splutters, his eyes going round. “I’m not old!”

“
Sorry, no of
course you’re not. You read Spiderman comics, after all. I meant to
say you’re older than me.”

“
By three and
a half years.” I glance up to find him glaring at me. Another
stormy, intense look I’ve never seen him wear before. “Three and
half years is nothing once you leave high school, beautiful girl.”
For the first time, his nickname makes my skin flush. It’s the tone
of his voice—low and serious and soft.

“
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 I know he
could get into a lot of trouble because of it. 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 a
little and try to pull his hand away. “This is New York, Luke.
There are thousands of cabs out there. I’ll manage to 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.

Fourteen

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 knew I
wouldn’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 because my hands
and feet had gone numb.”

My hands and
feet hadn’t fared 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. 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 goosebumps.
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. Gah! What
the hell is wrong with me?

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 it
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. 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 though 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 asks, inches behind me. I jump so hard I
nearly drop my coffee mug.

“
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 nonchalantly, 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.” I
realize I’m still holding the photo that fell out of the file. What
the hell am I doing stuttering like an idiot when I’m supposed to
be concentrating on the job at hand? I mentally curse myself and
block out Luke’s tattoos and near nakedness. “Do you know who this
girl is?” I ask, trying to force a note of indifference into my
voice. 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 6
^th

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, and I rub my eyes with the backs of my hands. I’ve
considered asking about that but I haven’t had the nerve. I link
the 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?”