I let them have their moment of reunion while I shucked off my jacket and unlaced my boots. By the time I reached them, Fred was purring loud enough to wake the dead, eyes closed in bliss while he made biscuits in Aly’s shoulder.

I ruffled the fur between his ears, grinning when he rewarded me with a little chirrup of welcome. “He’s probably just clingy after all the upheaval of the past few days.”

Aly hugged him closer. “Poor baby.”

“I’ll go start the shower,” I said, leaning in to kiss her temple. “We need to get cleaned up and warm.”

She turned to me, pupils dilating, cheeks flushing, and I knew she was thinking about the last time we’d been in a shower together.

I nearly groaned. More than anything, I wanted to be inside her again. I’d spent half the night terrified we were about to get caught and I’d have to watch my girlfriend get put into handcuffs. I needed the reassurance that she was safe, that she was okay, and nothing could give me that like having her wrapped in my arms, moaning my name.

“Don’t take too long,” I said before striding away from her.

I put my phone on the bathroom counter before starting the shower. I’d turned the device’s volume as high as it went because I was paranoid after Brad’s break-in and wanted to hear if any of the freshly tuned alarms I’d set for the doors went off. I didn’t love that Aly’s family had the keys to her place. They seemed as bad with boundaries as I was, and I didn’t trust their intentions. Maybe I could convince Aly to change the locks if she wasn’t already set on doing it. From the wary looks she’d given Junior on the ride back to the warehouse, she trusted him even less than I did.

I left the door cracked as I pulled off my damp clothes and set them on the tile floor. A glance in the mirror stopped me in my tracks. Deep purple was starting to bloom along my right side. I knew enough about first aid to realize it wasn’t a great sign, so I dragged in a deep breath to see how bad it was. My ribs pinched with discomfort, but the pain wasn’t as intense as the time Dad kicked me in the side with his steel-toe boots, so I didn’t think any were cracked.

I lifted my gaze and nearly flinched. I’d been so obsessed with Aly recently that I’d skipped my last haircut, and between how long it had gotten and the dark circles beneath my eyes from exhaustion, the resemblance to the monster who fathered me was uncanny.

Unable to look at myself any longer, I jerked my gaze away and got into the shower.

Fuck, what a night. I had no idea how I’d kept it cool inside Brad’s place for as long as I had. If not for my need to wipe Aly from Brad’s hard drive, I doubted I would have even made it to that computer.

The sickly-sweet smell of decomposition had plunged me into one of my most haunting childhood memories, and I’d spent the whole time in Brad’s house breathing through my mouth to avoid it. I swore I could still detect a hint of decay clinging to my skin, and, needing to be clean, I grabbed a nearby soap bar and started scrubbing it off.

I was still scrubbing when Aly slipped into the shower with me, and as much as I wanted her in my arms, I couldn’t make myself stop.

“Josh?” she said, placing her hand over my wrist.

“I smell it on me,” I blurted.

From the way her face crumpled, she knew without having to ask what I was talking about. She took the soap from me and stepped close, putting her nose into my chest. “You smell clean.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.

She rose on her tiptoes and sniffed my neck. Next, she lifted each of my arms and gave them the same treatment. “Nothing but lemon verbena.”

I tipped my head toward the yellow bar in her grip. “Is that what that is?”

She nodded and set it on the soap tray, taking my hands as she turned back to me. “I’m guessing you recognized the smell of bodies because of something to do with your father?”

I squeezed her fingers, grounding myself in her touch. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I lifted my head, looking past her, and the words started pouring out of me before I could stop them. “It happened the summer I turned eleven. Dad took me with him into town for some reason. His car stank to high heaven, so bad that even riding with all the windows open, I was gagging when he finally parked. I asked him what it was, and he said he’d hit a raccoon the night before, and some of it must have stuck to the undercarriage and was rotting because of the heat wave. Back then, I did whatever I could to stay in his good graces, so I went to the trunk to find something to clean it off with. Before I could get it open, Dad pushed me away so hard that I fell onto the pavement.”

I lifted my right arm, bending it to show Aly my elbow. “That’s where this scar came from.”

She leaned in and kissed it, her expression full of sympathy. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

I nodded and let my arm fall back to my side. “At the time, I was used to his anger, but that day, he looked scared, helping me up when people stopped to watch, telling them it was an accident, and apologizing to me like he never had before. Instead of going into the store, he told me to get back in the car so he could drive me home and clean my scrapes. Instead, he dropped me in the driveway and then took off for two days. I’m not sure where he went after that, but when he came back, the car was so clean it looked new, and it didn’t smell anymore.”

Aly stepped in close and wrapped her arms around my waist, careful to avoid my ribs, her breasts flattening against my stomach.

Had she been naked this whole time?

Wait, of course, she had. We were in the shower. Jesus, I hated the way memories of Dad still put me in such a chokehold, blinding me to my surroundings.

“You think one of his victims was inside the trunk?” Aly asked.

I hugged her close and rested my chin on her head. “Yeah. Dad was pretty active that summer. I just wish I knew the exact date it happened.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there are still several missing women he’s suspected of killing who have never been found. If the date lined up with one of their disappearances, it might give the family some sort of closure or help the cops find her. I even tried hypnosis once to draw the details out, but it didn’t work. I feel like a fucking asshole for not being able to remember.”

Aly pulled back, frowning. “You know it’s not your fault, right? That you shouldn’t feel any guilt over it? You were a child, and your mind probably suppressed as much as it could afterward to protect you.”

I nodded and tugged her back in. “I know that, but it still doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I understand,” she said. “It’s the same thing with me and the car accident. Not the memory part, but the guilt part. As much as I know it’s not my fault, I can’t shake the feeling of responsibility.”

“We’ve got some baggage between us, huh?”

Aly choked back a laugh. “Sorry. It’s really not funny.”

I took her by the shoulders and leaned back enough to look at her. “What?”

She scrunched her nose. “I just had a flashback to the other night and the literal baggage between us.”

I grinned. “I get it. It’s not ha-ha funny; it’s fucked up funny.”

The humor faded from her eyes almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I was so afraid for you tonight.”

Her words speared straight into my heart. “I was afraid for you, too.”

She shook her head, water droplets sliding down her face. “No, I mean it, Josh. I could not leave you behind. Not just because I couldn’t stand the thought of you trapped in that house alone with Brad’s poor victims, but because I didn’t trust Junior to keep his word about picking you up after.”

Ah, so she had similar fears about me making a great fall guy or, at the very least, being conveniently expendable. That wasn’t ominous at all.