Black Sheep

I wake before Eli and leave a little note on the pillow. Downstairs at the pool. When I’ve meditated and had a swim, I replace that note with another one. In the shower. When I’ve dried my hair and gotten dressed, I change notes again. In the kitchen. I make omelets and keep them warm in the oven, then decide it’s probably best to wake Eli before Amy arrives and they both experience a bit of a shock.

Eli doesn’t stir as I climb onto the mattress, but as soon as I lay my weight onto his body, his arms fold across my back and he traps me in a strong embrace.

“What time is it?” he asks, his voice still thick with sleepiness.

“Seven-fifty. Amy will be here any minute.”

“Mmmm.”

“I made breakfast. Also coffee.”

“Hmmm.”

“Those aren’t really words, Professor,” I say into his chest. He tightens his grip when I try to push away, but the driveway alarm beeps before I can sink further into him.

“What the hell is that,” Eli says as I squirm away to check the tablet on the wall.

“Amy. She comes to clean once a week.”

Eli sits up, running his hand through his hair as he watches me disarm the front door for Amy. “Pretty state-of-the-art system.”

“Yeah, Samuel is big on security.”

“Have you had break-ins? Should I be concerned?”

I laugh, warmed by his earnest response. “No. But you should be worried about Amy finding you in bed. She’s already going to have a thousand questions.”

Eli stands in all his naked glory and my blood instantly heats. He gathers his clothes then wraps an arm around my back, pressing his lips to mine before letting go to head for the ensuite. “Can’t wait for the introduction, Pancake,” he says with a wink over his shoulder. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The bathroom door closes just as the front door opens. I straighten out the rumpled sheets before heading out to meet Amy at the entrance. Her expression betrays her every thought. Surprise. Excitement. Intense curiosity.

“There’s a man here,” I blurt out before she can even say hello. “He’s in the shower.”

Amy’s smile widens as she sets her supplies down by the door. “I figured there might be a guest given the unfamiliar car in the drive.”

“He spent the night.”

“Okay…that’s—”

“I like him.”

What the hell is wrong with me? It’s not like Amy is a friend, but she’s been coming here since before I was in my undergrad, when the house still belonged to Samuel. She’s never seen me here with anyone other than him.Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

“I figured,” Amy says, swallowing a giggle. She picks up Kane as he winds through her legs and gives me a long, assessing look. “Was he with you at the hospital yesterday? How’s Samuel?”

“Yes, he was. I haven’t heard any updates yet but I’ll head there soon.”

Kane’s purr fills the silence between us as Amy watches me. “I’m glad, Bria. You should have someone with you. You don’t deserve to go through that alone. No one does.”

I’m not so sure about that. If she knew all the things I’ve done, she’d think differently. I’m the last person who deserves someone like Eli. Most serial killers would probably believe otherwise, because to them, they’re always owed things they never earned. If they want something, they take it. But I’m not like them. At least, not completely.

I already know I’m not worthy of this.

How can I try to let Eli love me when his words from the other night still play in my head? I don’t really know anything about love, but I understand the logic of what he said, that sometimes love is having the courage to let someone go when you know you can’t be what they deserve. As natural as this feels to be with him, and as much as he seems to be happy, I haven’t earned it, and I know I never will.

“Hey, you okay?” Amy asks. She lays her hand on my arm.

“Yeah… I…”

“She just needs coffee and sugarless food,” Eli says.

I turn to watch him approach from the hall, his hair damp, that dimple still visible in his unshaven cheek, his eyes bright with his smile. He’s gorgeous and charming and kind and thoughtful and no, I definitely don’t deserve him. But when he stops next to me and presses a kiss to my cheek, I want to pretend that I do.

Eli extends his hand before I have a chance to make the introduction. “You must be Amy. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Eli, Bria’s boyfriend,” he announces as I nearly choke on my saliva. “Thanks for stopping in for Kane yesterday.”

“Of course. Anything for my first and favorite client,” she says with a grin. “I owe her a thousand times over. Feeding Kane is nothing.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” I say, but Amy just waves me off.

“Bria’s the one who convinced me to start my own business. I used to work part-time at Berkshire University in Custodial Services, but I couldn’t get the full-time hours.”

Amy leaves out the part about her shitty abusive husband, Ronald, who refused to let her take full-time hours. He experienced a “totally unsuspicious, completely accidental” death that Samuel and I had nothing to do with… As far as Amy is aware, Ronald drank too much, slipped on the ice, and cracked his head open on the walkway to their house.

“It’s been seven years now,” Amy says as she turns away to pick up her supplies. “Samuel built me my website that first year. I started in this very house and now I have five employees and I’m fully booked, looking to hire more.”

“That’s impressive growth,” Eli says.

“I work hard,” Amy says with a shrug. “I just needed a little nudge.” She turns to me with a smile. “If you’re stuck at the hospital or…whatever…and you need me to feed Kane, just let me know. I can swing by any time.”

“Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it.”

She pats my arm and starts down the hall as Eli heads toward the kitchen, already looking like he belongs here in my home. Amy turns around on her way and catches my eye, fanning herself as she mouths the words “hot as fuck” before she winks and continues down the corridor with Kane trotting after her.

“What’d she say when my back was turned?” Eli whispers as he finds the cupboard with the mugs and pours two coffees.

“Hot as fuck.”

“I like her.”

“I’m sure.”

Eli grins and I gesture for him to have a seat as I bring over the food and sit at the head of the table next to him. “Any word from the hospital?” he asks as he makes a start with his omelet, humming with satisfaction.

“Not yet. Visiting hours start at ten, so I’ll head over there soon.”

“Okay. I just have to take Duke out for a walk and I can come back to pick you up. Is there anything else I can take care of? Anything I can bring?”

I shake my head, losing interest in my food as I stare down at it. “You’ve already done so much, Eli. You don’t have to waste another day over there.”

“Hey,” he says, laying his hand on mine. He squeezes and I meet his eyes. “I’m not leaving you there on your own.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will. But you’ll be more fine if you have some moral support. Unless you need to be alone?”

Do I need to be alone? I should say yes, but I can’t bring myself to. Everything feels easier with Eli around. He was right, that this process of getting to know one another wouldn’t be hard forever. Now it’s the thought of letting go that seems impossible, even though I know that the longer I leave it, the harder it will be.

“No, I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper. I don’t know if Eli takes my words for what they really are, that I don’t just mean today. He leans close to rest a kiss on my cheekbone and I squeeze his hand.

“It’s settled then.”

We eat in silence, our hands joined together. I don’t feel the need to fill space with forced words. For once, I’m not plagued by the nagging worry that I’m missing something, or that I should be playing a part I don’t feel like playing. Eli makes everything seem so easy.

When breakfast is over, Eli leaves for his house and I set up my laptop on the dining table. I go through my inbox before logging into the secure server I share with Samuel to retrieve the files on Cynthia’s calendar for the upcoming week.

But what I find is a treasure trove.

Folders and folders of information from Praetorian. Contracts. Calendars. Accounts payable records. Client backgrounds.

And a message from Samuel, the timestamp from 6:57 a.m. yesterday morning. It must have been right before his stroke.

See folder Montana Compound. 

I find the folder and open it.

A blueprint of the compound. Photos of the layout. Exits, the placement of cameras, stairways, common spaces.

And photos of the people who live there.

I scroll through face after face, all young women in their early to midtwenties, all pretty, all serene, no light in their empty expressions. There seems to be a haunted quality about them, but maybe I just see what I want to believe, that deep down they’re ready to leave, but feel powerless to do so. I look through every photo and it’s not until I’m near the end of an archive folder that I see it.

A man, reflected in a mirror behind a woman, the name on her file Abigail Ramos. She looks exhausted, her eyes hooded and dull. A butterfly rash spans across her cheeks. The man’s face hovers over her shoulder like an angel.

I zoom in on the photo.

My blood chills. Goosebumps flash up the backs of my arms. He’s watchful, like a shepherd. It’s almost as though he’s looking right through the photo, staring at the wolf that hunts him.

I know it’s Caron Berger. I know it.

But I also know that face. I’ve seen it before.

I close my eyes. Deep breaths. Count to five. Try to slow the thunder of my heart.

I walk down the road toward my memory palace, passing the missing person flyers that flutter on the fence,showing Cynthia’s schedule beneath her smiling face, just as it looked at the nail salon. Entering the wrought iron gates, I turn left rather than enter the palace, heading along a path that leads to a new element I constructed last week. An aviary.

Tropical birds of every size and color greet me with songs as I enter the glass dome. A macaw guards a list of everything Eli and I said to one another in the library. In a group of dahlias is a box where I keep the memory of our disastrous first meeting, which has lost its sting in recent days. A flock of finches bounce through a flowering cherry tree on my right, its branches sheltering a small table with a record player. “I love you, Bria Brooks,” it plays as I pass by.

I walk further along the path, stopping at a group of photos that hang from the roof on thin wires. The picture in my hands is the one of Caron Berger. I raise it up, holding it next to the photo from Eli’s desk, the one of his family.

It’s not Eli’s face I linger on, but his brother, Gabriel’s. That angelic, serious, beautiful face.

I stare at him. I stare and stare, trying to believe I could be wrong. But there is no doubt.

Gabriel Kaplan is Caron Berger.

My eyes shoot open as a hundred thoughts hit my skull at once. I’ve been after Caron for almost two years. Two years of tracking a phantom. But I can’t kill him knowing who he is. Eli has no idea. He believes his brother is dead, and I won’t be the one to take him away again. I won’t let anyone hurt Eli. Especially not me.

That doesn’t mean the hunt has to end.

I might not be able to kill him, but I can catch him. I can catch Caron and bring him home. Eli will have the peace and closure he deserves. And if I do so, maybe I’ll have earned the love I’ve been given. At least a little bit.

I trawl through every folder as quickly as I can, trying to find Caron in the information present and everything in between. There’s no record of his calendar, no details on his location. There’s no obvious coded language. His data must be kept separately.

There’s one person who knows how to find him. One person who could draw him out.

It’s time to reel in Cynthia Nordstrom.