A Test of Love: Interracial Erotic Romance (Chasing Love) (12 page)

I opened the door. A cloud of dust whooshed by me. Coughing, I waved my hand, entered the dark room, and closed the door behind me. Someone had covered the windows to make sure no light came through. I flipped on the switch I found within seconds.

What the fuck?

Broken pieces of ceramic and other hard stones were all over the floor.
His maid definitely doesn’t clean this room.
Throughout the room sculptures stood. They were created from some dark stone, maybe onyx, and were erotic in a way. Naked black stone women stared back at me. Colorful stones served as their eyes and covered their breasts and the area between their thighs as the women smiled in seductive ways. Although regal, cracks marred most of their faces as if someone had taken a bat to their skulls. Others missed arms and legs which sat in front of them on the floor in pieces. The room held that artsy fragrance—the scent of paint mingling with other chemicals and dust.

Who did these and why are they hidden?

Footsteps sounded outside of the door. I flipped off the switch. Although it was daylight, I wasn’t sure if people could tell that the light was on or not from looking outside the door. Silence returned after a few minutes.
I wish I had a flashlight.
Turning the light back on, I snapped a bunch of pictures with my phone. There was nothing in here that could help Jazz figure whatever the hell she was searching for, but she would need proof or I’d be right back in here the next day with her.

It’s just a whole bunch of sculptures. This is somebody’s studio like what Viv has at their apartment. Why didn’t people just clean out these rooms and make them something else? What is Chase or whoever holding onto?

The two women rented a three-bedroom apartment where Viv used the extra room for her art. When she’d told me I could stay with them, she’d offered her studio as a place to sleep. I refused, knowing that space was too sacred for her. I couldn’t mess it up with my negative energy and didn’t want her to get my bad luck. Besides, sleeping on the couch gave us both an excuse to hang out at night. It offered the ability for us to gaze at each other in the moments that we thought the other wasn’t paying attention.

Sister, man.

I finished up in there, went to the door, listened for anybody, and then got on out of there with no problem. The next door opened like the one before. Within seconds. Yet when I turned on the light, this room caused my heart to stop and freeze right there in the doorway. It was a little girl’s bedroom, or really the twisted conception of a girl’s bedroom. The sound of women speaking in Italian came off in the distance of the kitchen. I rushed inside and closed the door.

This is creepy.

Pink coated the walls and saturated the carpet. Tons of pink—blushing dusty lampshades, worn fluffy comforters and blankets, tattered rosy curtains. Like the other room, someone had covered up the window to keep the light out. But on the walls hung the most morbid photography I’d ever seen, and having been in jail most of my life, I’d seen a lot of fucked-up shit. In one picture was a naked obese woman filling her mouth with honey. A black wall was behind her. An even darker floor lay under her big body. The frame was made of graying bones.

What little girl would want that on her wall? Back in the day, Jazz used to have those stupid boy bands on her wall and Mike and I would use their faces as spit ball target practice.

I checked the other photos. On the right a rotting dog rested on the grass while maggots ate away at its flesh.

This is some sick shit.

In another, a little girl licked an ice cream cone that was made of tongues and teeth. Bile rose in my throat. I turned away and checked another picture. A clown with bloody fangs and a soiled costume handed a pink balloon to a crying baby. Blood stained the clown’s pants and dried on the tip of his huge yellow shoes. Gray skies moved in the background.

Fear shivered up my body, and I couldn’t point to why, just that the kid who slept in this room had to be a pretty fucked-up-in-the-head adult. And I didn’t know if it was the images bringing down the whole feel of the room, but I could’ve sworn there was a rank, decaying sent that clung to the walls. I almost covered my nose and worried that the odor would stick to my clothes.

Whose room is this, and how the hell do I get this motherfucker away from my sister?

There was no need to check out the other photos. I’d figured out the theme, dark and horrific. Snapping away at the whole room with my phone, I headed for the drawers. Old cobwebs covered most of them. I had to brush them away before opening the drawers. Clothes were still folded inside. Lots of pink outfits. I pulled a few out and held them up in front of me. I had a bunch of nieces. Most of them were in middle school and could probably wear the shirts and pants that I had in my hands.

So the girl of this room was young.

I looked under the bed. Several boxes lay underneath. I wrenched one out, not knowing what to expect, and spotted tattered boxes full of small skeletons. Some were frogs. Other were the decayed little bodies of creepy crawlers—dry shells of bugs and spiders, wilted remnants of garden snake skins.

Did this chick kill these things and leave them under her bed or did they just happen to die under her bed over time?
A kid that couldn’t take care of animals was one thing. A kid that liked to kill small animals was a whole other beast.
Which one are you, sweetheart and how could this deal with Jazz?

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and checked it.

Chase: Security notified me that you’re in some old rooms.

Are you fucking kidding me? Why didn’t I remember that this guy would have cameras everywhere? I’m slipping.

I typed into my phone.

Me: I just got lost.

I knew that his men probably had footage of me breaking into each room and taking pictures. If Chase was going to pretend that he wasn’t hiding things, I wouldn’t be straight with him either.

Chase: Well, let’s try to make sure you don’t get lost again.

Is this motherfucker threatening me or am I just paranoid?

Chapter 12

Jasmine

Chase kept checking his watch. It started once the moon arrived and the sun had gone down. It continued all through dinner. By the end of the night, he stared at me in bed, probably waiting for me to fall asleep. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Troy. All he’d done was send me a bunch of pictures of broken sculptures and some sicko’s fantasy of a girl’s bedroom. Those crazy pictures followed with his jumbled texts, discussing how a man who locked rooms like this had some crazy shit he was hiding. Once again, Troy recommended me to cut Chase. That was my brother’s way. When shit went bad, he would simply say, “Jazz, just cut him.”

Even worse, Chase caught him on camera breaking in and hadn’t even brought it up to me.

“What time are your men going to search for the gun?” I pulled the covers over me.

“Don’t worry about these things or—”

“That’s not an answer. I would like to know a time, Chase. Are they looking for it now?”

“No.”

“Then when?”

“Later.” He slid closer to me in bed. He only wore pajama pants, but I had the feeling it was all a front, that he’d be dressed and out of here as soon as I closed my eyes.

“They’re going to look for it tonight, right?”

He tapped his fingers on the blanket in front of him. “I’m not sure.”

“Bullcrap.”

“I don’t want you involved.”

I displayed my hurt arm. “I’m already involved. Don’t piss me off by shutting me out for my own good. Things like that will only get you cut.”

“Cut?” He smirked.

“Not with a knife, but cut out of my life, yes.”

That smirk left his face. “There won’t be any more of that.”

“How do you figure?”

“I’m done letting you go.”

“You didn’t let me leave.”

“Trust me. I did, and I’ll never do that again. Next time you have a problem with me, I’m taking you on a private island and we’ll just have to figure it out, eventually.”

“And will you be kidnapping me?”

“I won’t answer that for fear of incriminating me in the future.”

I thought about the creepy bedroom images that Troy sent me. “Do you have a sister?”

“What?”

“Do you have a sister or brother?”

“No.”

Then what weird little girl slept in that room?

“Did Lucy and Dawn stay at the house a lot when you came for the summers?” I asked.

“Not really. Thei’r families’ houses are within walking distance from this one. Lucy’s home has been sold and redone. Dawn’s family maintains theirs and allows their family members and friends to use it for vacations.”

“But neither officially stayed here, like with her own room to maybe rest her head and decorate?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know. Did Lucy consider this place a second home?”

“Sure, but she almost never slept here and would’ve never had a room to decorate. I could barely decorate my own room.”

“Why didn’t Lucy sleep here?”

He avoided looking in my eyes. “It’s a long story. The short answer is that her parents didn’t like her away or with other people over night.”

“I want to hear the long story.”

“Not tonight.” He checked his watch.

“Damn it. Why are you doing that? What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

I rolled my eyes, dragged myself out of bed, and stomped toward my slippers.

“Where are you going,
tesoro
?”

I didn’t waste my time answering him when he couldn’t even tell me the things I needed to know. Pulling my thin, silk robe over my body, I stormed out of the room, headed down the stairs, and took even less time moving through the kitchen and outside to the pool. The whole time, Chase silently walked behind me, closing doors when necessary and never really giving me more than a few feet of space. “
Tesoro
?”

“What does that mean?” I huffed.

“Open your legs and I’ll show you.”

I twisted around and pointed at him. “If you think you can hide things from me and then still see that space between my legs, then you’re severely delusional. I don’t do lies.”

“I never lied,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I would watch answering that so quickly. You’ve lied. You had to because you’re sure not telling me the truth.” A cool breeze brushed by and chilled my skin.

I gazed up at the sky. Stars glittered back. The moon glowed full in this golden light. It all would’ve been magical if not for the lies and secrets, swirling around me and the possibility of a demented psycho stalking me.

“Come here.”

“No.” I headed to the pool, unsure of where I was truly going.

The beach wasn’t such a big trek from here. There were these long stairs cut into the cliffs, so useful and enchanting all at the same time. However, I wasn’t sure how to get there and I had no idea if Chase’s men would even be down at the beach. And I had no idea where on the beach they would be digging.
Bullcrap. This is all bullcrap.
I paced back and forth. He watched. Concern etched on his face while his fingers did a dance of tapping on his thighs. He was in a fit of anxiety and looking like he was about to explode at the seams.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he suggested.

“No. If I go to sleep it will be in Vivian’s room. I want a ticket out of here tomorrow. If I’m going to be blind and deaf to what’s going on around me, I would rather do that in my own apartment.”

“I’m sorry but you don’t have that option.”

Anger rose within me so fast I was hot and ready to slap someone. “Come again?”

“Someone is trying to kill you.”

“I’m—”

“No. You don’t get to handle this on your own especially when this is my fault. You want to know details about the investigations? Fine. We’ll do it when whoever is doing this is captured and far away from you. Then we can spend the rest of our lives talking about everything.”

Yeah, right.

“Even what’s in those two locked rooms?”

It took him a while to respond. He combed through his hair with shaking fingers. “Why are you so fascinated with those rooms?”

“Because they’re locked and I’m nosy. Let’s not forget that you have binders of an entire woman’s life story, every woman you’ve been with, so you’re a bit nosy yourself.”

“That’s to protect me.”

“Well, I need to know this stuff to protect me.”

“I protect you.”

I walked off. “Goodnight. I’m going to sleep in Viv’s room.”

“There are other guest rooms.”

I kept on walking. His footsteps sounded behind me and then he seized my arm. “Stay in our room, it has the most cameras and—”

“No.”

He wouldn’t let go. “
Tesoro
.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “Until you tell me what it means, and don’t touch me”—I yanked my arm away—”until you tell me what’s going on.”

He reached for me and I stepped back. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“By letting me walk through this blind?”

“You don’t—”

“I’m smart. I could help and even if I couldn’t, it’s in my best interest to know. It calms me.” My own fingers began to shake. “And I’m scared!”

My bottom lip quivered. This icy chill crawled up my spine. The reality of the situation seeped deep into my bones.
I’m scared to death.
I’d been trying to push that shooting out of my head, just pretend like it didn’t happen, and go on happy about each day. But, I couldn’t, or at least I hadn’t. I’d never been shot before. That alone could freak a person out. Then the fact that some person out there in this world wanted me dead shoved me further over the edge. She was somewhere plotting, wondering how she could end my life.

Chase came to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Don’t be scared. I’m here.”

I knew it would hurt him, understood that it wouldn’t be fair to say it, but I did anyway. “You were with the other women too and now they’re all dead.”