Eye of the Storm (The Storm Series) (4 page)

“Hello, Evie,” he said while he leaned up against the tree at her feet.

She jumped and almost spilled her wine. “Jesus, wear a fucking bell next time.” She tried to be sly about checking out his arm but when he simply moved his arm so she could get a better look she knew she’d have to get better about checking out if it was him or Jeremy.

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “I have to know it’s you and not him.”

He shoved off of the tree and started pacing. “Do you know what it is like for me? Every time I look in the mirror I know that women looked at this face before they were killed by that bastard. I have people looking at me all the time wondering who it is standing there in front of them. He took people I cared for from me. He took five years of my life from me.”

She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him; especially knowing Jeremy was out there somewhere waiting to strike. She wanted to comfort him, but had no idea how. “What are you going to do?”

He spun towards her stalking until he was inches from her. “What do you think I’m going to do? Anything and everything I can to end his life. Make him pay for everything he’s taken from me.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “And what? Damn everyone who gets in your way?”

“Precisely.”

“What if you had someone to help you?”

“I don’t need help.”

“Yes, you do. You’re too close to this.”

“And you’re not?”

“Only in the fact this happened to my best friend. I didn’t lose everything you did. I wasn’t attacked two times. I might see something you would miss. You both deserve the peace that comes with knowing this piece of shit is locked up.”

“No.” He turned and started to walk away.

Standing there with her mouth open at the audacity of him she dropped her wine glass in the grass and ended up having to run to catch up with him. She moved to block his way placing a hand on his chest. “Listen, buster, either you let me help you or I will do it on my own, and not share my information with you. You had your chance when I e-mailed you a month ago. I’ve heard nothing since then.”

“What information could you have that I don’t already have?”

“Keep acting like a stubborn mule and you’ll never know what I’ve got. You forget, I have access to all of Noah’s information, and his team has dug up a lot.” She stood there holding her ground hoping he wouldn’t call her bluff. As of right now, she hadn’t exactly seen anything from Noah’s men, but she was hoping he’d let her see everything, especially if Anthony agreed to let her help.

“Why did you come up and talk to me just now? You could have just turned around and I would have never known. You’re seeking me out for some reason. What is it you want?” Evie demanded.

He picked her up and moved her out of the way. She stood there watching him stride towards the cottage never looking back.

Bastard. I’ll show him.
She stalked back and picked up the wine glass.
Shit. That was my favorite Callaway Sauvignon Blanc wine, too
. Picking up the phone in her room, she started making calls.

Anthony spent most of night going over everything he’d found regarding Jeremy Ellison. He hated to admit to himself, but maybe there was other information out there that he hadn’t been able to find.

Maybe Evie would have something that would help. He opened up the e-mail she’d sent him. She had reached out to him hoping that they could work together to find Jeremy. He’d decided to show up on her doorstep to keep her off balance and maybe have the upper hand.

Not wanting to dwell on the fact that he was charmed by Evie, he shifted gears and thought about how this whole investigation might affect her. Even though she didn’t fit the profile that Jeremy liked to kill, that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t go after her if he thought she was too close to Anthony.

Knowing that she would go off on her own he decided it would be better if they did team up. At least that way, he’d be able to keep an eye on her.

He found her sitting on a lonely stretch of beach not too far from her grandmother’s house staring at the waves crashing on the sand the next morning. He came up and sat down beside her. She didn’t turn to look at him. This was going to be more difficult than he first thought. Clearing his throat to get her attention, he began. “Can I start by saying that I’m sorry for how I acted last night?”

She turned to look at him briefly before looking back at the ocean.

“Okay, I was completely out of line. You’re just trying to help and I threw it back in your face.” He waited for her to say something, when she didn’t, he knew he was in trouble and it pissed him off. “You can sit there and sulk like a child or we can start going over what we each have, to find out where he might be hiding or what he’s going to do next.”

“
Sulking like a child?
Is this how you apologize and ask for my help? You need to work on your approach because it seriously sucks ass.” She stood up and started to walk away from him.

“Shit.” He stood and stalked towards her grabbing her arm and swung her back around to face him. “Do I need to point out that running away is also acting like a child?”

He could see her face flush with anger and her eyes become lasers boring into him. He could feel the heat coming off of her in waves.

“Do
I
need to point out that you did the exact same thing last night?”

“Touché. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can we talk about what we should do next?” It had been so long since he’d been with a woman and this one was making him crazy even in the short amount of time they had known each other.

“We both want the same thing, so why are you making this so difficult? I would think you’d want as much help as possible.”

“I do. I spent a lot of time thinking last night and you are right.”

She held up a hand. “Wait, can you repeat that?” She grinned at him.

He playfully knocked her shoulder back, “No. Anyway, it would be stupid not to pool our resources and see if we can figure things out.” He held his hand out to her. “So, partners?”

Grinning she ignored his hand and jumped into his arms. He took a step back trying to keep them both from tumbling back into the sand. The little he knew about her was that she was impulsive, but even her jumping into his arms shocked him. Add the fact that she felt so good in his arms he was more than just physically off-balance.

“Let’s do this!” She jumped down out of his arms and pulled on his hand dragging him back to the cottage. “Come on, let’s get started. We are so going to catch this bastard. I can feel it.”

He couldn’t believe how good she felt in his arms, however brief it was, and it left him wanting more. In the past, he’d always dated women that he knew where they were coming from. With Evie, it could change from one second to the next. He had no idea where this journey was going to take them but he was willing to bet it would be one hell of a ride.

~*~

Evie dashed into her grandmother’s house to make sure she was fine and didn’t need anything before she ran up to her room to grab the information on both Anthony and Jeremy which Noah’s man, Bruno, had sent over last night. Lucky for her, she’d charmed Bruno when Lexi was recovering; he sent her everything without questioning it. He’d just made her promise she wasn’t going to do anything stupid. Since she didn’t plan on it, she should be keeping that promise.

On her way back out to Anthony’s, she grabbed a large thermos and filled it with coffee. Having spent most of the night awake going over all the paperwork, she was tired. She was going to need to be on the top of her game if Anthony was going to allow her to continue to help.

“Do you need a condom?”

Evie stopped in her tracks and spun around to face her grandmother. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I’ve gotten to this age and not know what happens between an attractive man and woman when they start to spend a lot of time together?

“Especially when one of them goes running out after the other one spent all morning looking for her and the other one comes back grinning like the Cheshire cat?” Evelyne crossed her arms over her chest.

“Grams, it’s not like that. We are going to work together to find Jeremy. The last thing I need is a man in my life right now.”

“That’s exactly when it happens. Now as much as I want to be a great-grandmother, I would appreciate it if you did it in the correct order.”

Rolling her eyes towards the ceiling she hoped for strength. “I’ll take that under advisement. Now, we’ve got a lot of papers to go through.” She started walking towards the door.

“So you don’t find him attractive at all?”

Sighing she turned back around to face her grandmother. “Yes, of course, I’d have to be dead to not think he was attractive. I’ve learned my appreciation for men from you. But that’s all it will be. Happy?”

“No, not at all, but you’ll do what you want. You’ve always done that. But here.” Evelyne tossed a strip of condoms to Evie. “You’ll want these.”

Catching them easily she shook her head and turned around and shoved them in the closest drawer. “Later, Grams.” She ran out the door before her grandmother could force them back on her.

~*~

They spent the first couple of hours reading the information the other had. Evie sighed and threw the papers down next to her on the couch.

Anthony looked up at her. He got up and went to the fridge where he pulled out a bottle of white wine and poured her a glass.

“How did you know I needed a drink?” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the first crisp taste of it.

“Just a lucky guess. Find anything interesting?”

“Not really. It seems like we have about the same information. I was hoping something would jump out at me, but so far nothing.”

“Same here. As far as we can tell, and from what Jeremy said, Tiffani was the first.” He walked over to a map he’d just hung on the wall. There were pins in about a half a dozen cities and pointed to Seattle. “He said that there were others between her and Lexi. There were some reports of women matching the description gone missing or being found dead around the same I time I was there.”

Evie got up from the couch and stood beside him tapping England. “Here, this was next. This was an ex-girlfriend of yours right?”

“Yes. Natalie. Natalie Sutton. We dated in school. Really nothing serious. We’d known each other for a long time; we ended up more like best friends than anything else. After Tiffani, she was there for me. We’d just spend time together. It was good, familiar, a friend that was there for me.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, feeling the pain he’d gone through, admiring his strength at fighting to find the answers no matter what.

“Her parents had a country house; we spent a lot of time out there. We’d sit under this one tree and talk for hours or read. She was like family to me. They found her up in that tree. Well, parts of her. He cut her up into pieces and placed them on different branches. I will never forget the sight or what the bark on the tree looked like with the blood seeping into it.”

Shivering at the thought of it, she rubbed his back. “I’m so sorry, Anthony.” She could feel him turn his head to look down at her.

“It’s not your fault.”

Lifting her head off of his shoulder, she looked at him. “I know, but still, no one should go through that.”

She could feel a change in the air, as if everything pulled away and it was just the two of them. No other sounds came through but their breathing.

She was drowning in the beauty of his shocking, bright, blue eyes. It was such a contrast to his tanned skin and dark hair. Slowly, she reached up and laid her hand gently on the side of his face. His arm slid around her waist and pulled her closer to him. She breathed in the scent of his cologne, intoxicating her.

He dipped his head, bringing his lips closer, never taking his eyes off of hers. His other hand came up, slid around to the back of her neck and his fingers wove into her hair.

She reached up, running her hand over his arm, feeling his muscles move and play responding to her touch. Without hesitation, she moved towards him closing the gap between their lips. Just as they touched the sound of a door banging close by made them jump apart.

They stood staring at each other, their chests rising and falling, trying to catch their breaths. Evie couldn’t believe she almost kissed him. Serious, curl your toes kind of kiss. Her body felt heavy with want. Needing distance, she stepped away and went over to the table where there were photos laid out. “Ok, well, where were we?”

It was something she didn’t want to look at, but felt that she had to. They were crime scene photos. She picked up a photo that showed a tree. Setting it aside, she picked up the next one. This one showed a woman that had been twisted and broken in ways that weren’t natural. She was skewered through metal sculpture at an art gallery.

Anthony walked over to see what see was looking at. “That was Monique Diaz. She was a model and full of life. I was only in Paris for a short period of time; we went to that art opening together. They found her like that a couple of days later. There was an emergency at the London house so I’d left earlier than originally scheduled. I was never questioned since it was documented I was already out of the country. This was one of the ones that I didn’t know about until after Jeremy told Lexi there had been others.”

“Who was next?” Evie didn’t want to look at any more pictures, but she knew she had to. She also knew that she was going to be having nightmares tonight.

“Chelle Michaels. She was in L.A. for a teacher’s conference, originally from Pittsburg. We were staying at the same hotel. There was a mix-up and they ended up booking us in the same suite. She was very understanding about it, she was supposed to be in a regular room, the hotel didn’t have any available. Since it was a two bedroom suite, we ended up sharing it for a night. I checked out early and let her have it. They found her two days later in the room. It seems that her whole family is in law enforcement, they made sure that all of the photos and reports were sealed. I don’t have much on her. At the time of death, I was in a meeting surrounded by other people, so nothing came of it.”