“I need you to stay inside your room at the hotel,” he says. “Don’t leave, Halen.”
I pull the door open and slip behind the wheel. “I’m the last person on this planet who is concerned with what you need.”
He glances down at the GPS monitor strapped to his ankle, his features strained.
“Just so you know,” I say, hand gripped to the handle, “I’ve cataloged every square inch of that scene. I’ll know if anything is altered, which could clue me in on a piece of important evidence, so I’m almost hoping you have the audacity to try.”
I slam the car door shut and key the ignition. Putting the car in Reverse, I back out of the parking spot and refrain from glancing in the rearview mirror as I drive away from Kallum.
There’s a monster that feeds off pain, and his beautiful, disarming eyes look right into me, down to the rawest truth of my grief.
The more vulnerable I become, the deeper my daemon slithers. If I can’t escape him, he won’t stop until he consumes all of me.
OceanofPDF.com
5
OceanofPDF.com
IN THE FLICKER
OceanofPDF.com
KALLUM
Gray storm clouds hang over Hollow’s Row like a dark omen, forecasting bad and violent things to come. The cumulus billows of gas are the deceptive calm gathering before the storm, the harbinger of death and doom.
A bit dramatic, I admit—but I enjoy the play on words.
I watch the swollen clouds drift low in the sky as I impatiently wait across a tweed field of tall reed grass. I sink my hands deep into my pockets and lean my shoulder against the gnarled bark of a marsh tree. Agent Hernandez lingers off to the side, texting on his phone.
A dense charge pulses in the air before the lightning strike.
I remove my hands and let them hang at my sides, detecting the energy rolling through the openness as the following rumble of thunder builds into a chorus.
The moment she appears in my line of sight, lightning flickers in the dark clouds. My blood electrifies, a current webbing my veins beneath my flesh to mimic the pulsing clouds.
In that flash, I see what I’ve been searching for my whole life.
Conrad wrote: We live in the flicker. A running blaze on a plain, a flash of lightning in the clouds.
That blink of a moment.
Our existence is that fleeting.
I hold my breath, counting the seconds between, waiting for the thunder to bring her closer. My muse of heartbreak, the sweetest epiphany. If I had an infinite number of lifetimes, it still wouldn’t be enough. She’s all that I want, all that I crave, and I’m desperate to make us last longer than an ephemeral flicker in time.
Halen reaches me before another streak of light cracks the sky. She glances up, her beautiful face highlighted by the flare, then meets my gaze with a kernel of hesitation in those silvery eyes, the hue tinting to match the storm.
“You look striking.” I wink.
I reach out to sweep the shock of white from her eyes, and Halen pulls away. She gathers her long layers of dark brown hair in a low ponytail and wraps it with an elastic band.
“So cruel,” I tease.
“Are we ready?” She directs the question to the agent.
Since locating the missing victims is the highest priority, Halen has taken it upon herself—and me—to scour Leroy Landry’s home for any clues on the main suspect responsible for ritualizing body parts in the marshland.
Hernandez pockets his phone and nods to the black SUV.
As we walk toward the vehicle, I wait for him to climb in, then say, “You won’t find the victims by searching Landry’s house.”
“You’re so sure of that.” She turns her head and looks up to assess me closely. “We could skip all this bullshit right now if you want to tell me where they are, Kallum.”
I release a slow breath, leashing the destructive urge to drag her into the marsh and remind her how much she loves my touch. “Not that I don’t enjoy your scathing retorts—” I palm her waist and bring her close “—but I’m absolutely done with the bullshit. I’m no longer holding back with you, little Halen.”
She digs an elbow into my ribs, but I hold on tighter, dropping my mouth near her ear. “If Alister touches you again, I’ll flay his skin from his tendons and carve my initials in his bones.”
Halen stills at my side, whatever snappy comeback she may have stalled on her tongue as I open the SUV door for her. She hesitates, her wary gaze hung on mine, before she hoists herself up into the seat. I shut the door and seat myself in the backseat behind her.
Here’s the truth of it: I’ll take her hatred and anger, because this is difficult for her, coming to terms with reality after all that she’s suffered. Losing her memory is just more salt rubbed into the open wound of her grief.
If she wants to use me as a punching bag, I’ll take the abuse. Hell, I’ll savor every delicious second of her sweet pain.
However much time she needs to logically sort through her confusion, for her, I can even be patient. I’ve proven as much.
But I’m not her obedient little lapdog.
I won’t let anyone come between us ever again.
Not even her.
The drone of the windshield wipers fills the interior as Hernandez takes the quickest route according to the navigation. Even though it’s been proven that Landry was not the Overman, but rather a pawn likely used by the actual perpetrator, the feds are still looking at him in connection to the victims.
We drive down a gravel road and come up on a massive mansion. The monstrosity is just as the locals described: ancient and creepy. Nearly every facet of the gothic revival home is original architecture. I appreciate the ornate windows with embellished tracery. Yet I doubt the elements have been left untouched on purpose. This home has suffered neglect.
A thick ribbon of crime-scene tape wraps the yard perimeter and extends around a huge porch. Dead potted plants line the entrance as we near the front door.
Halen drapes her bag strap over her neck, then proceeds to glove her hands. She holds out a pair of disposable latex gloves to me, and I take deviant delight in tracing my finger over the chafed rope burn on her wrist.
Too soon, she pulls away and enters the house.
I stand at the entrance, inhaling the lingering scent of her ylang-ylang and clove, whetting my appetite with a hit of her fear.
Then I step over the threshold.
Not only was Landry a recluse—the locals dubbing him the hermit—he was a hoarding recluse. Stacks of old, musty newspapers tower along one wall. Magazines against another. Miscellaneous mail and papers scatter every available section of the hardwood floor that some heap of junk isn’t taking space.
Buried beneath the mounds of garbage are antique furnishings. The sprawling entryway is paneled in deep mahogany, and gothic arches frame the hallways. Moving farther into the interior, the expansive main room opens up to two ascending staircases, where towering stained glass windows reach toward a cathedral ceiling.
I can imagine the pride that once went into this home. The old money, too. Then the unfortunate decay that took root with the newest owner.
A hit of nostalgia creeps into my bones, the structure reminiscent of the home where I was raised. Home is a stretch. It had walls and furniture and old money, too—even the decay.
I lift my foot and kick a tacky leaf of paper from my boot heel, watching a bug skitter beneath another heap.
“Oh, my god,” Halen says. “There’s no way the task force could process all this. It’s impossible.”
They likely only searched long enough to uncover the proof needed to make Landry as the prime suspect. A report which noted the wine-making apparatus in the cellar, and the esoteric tomes along with a wide collection of philosophy in the library.
