From Yesterday (15 page)

I'm starting to feel like I'm in an episode of CSI. "Sure, do whatever you need to. You don't need to ask me. I really appreciate your help and especially your discretion. That is very important to me."

He nods. "Everyone has a right to their privacy as long as they aren't doing anything illegal, I've always believed."

Victor takes some pictures of the floor and then asks me for a plastic sandwich bag or something that he can take part of the broken glass in. I get him one.

He scoops some particles in the bag, making sure they are pieces that have the blood-like substance. "Now, if this is not really blood, and from what I can tell it is fake, then I should be able to use some of my brother's resources to tell me that. If it is blood, then there's not much I can do. I don't have access to a government lab; not to mention that DNA testing would require authorization I don't have and raise many red flags. Plus, it takes weeks, sometimes months to get those results."

Brady, who is wearing athletic shoes, goes to stand next to Victor. "Hey, this is damn nice of you. Paige needs help and she was never going to ask for it so anything that you do is more than we had before. If there is any way to figure out who is messing with her and get them to stop; well, that's the only important thing."

Victor finishes with the broken vase. "Let's get this cleaned up and talk a bit more about what's been going on, Paige. If you get me a broom, I'll take care of this."

"Oh, no. Please, you're the guest. I'll clean that up."

I get the men settled at the breakfast bar while I go put shoes on and grab a broom and dust pan. It is easy to get the glass off of the hardwood floors, but I have to work harder to get everything out of the carpeting. I'm sure I missed some tiny pieces and won't be able to walk through the living room barefoot for a while.

I toss the bag down the trash chute, and when I walk back inside the apartment, Brady and Victor have already moved into the living room. Victor is on the couch and I sit next to Brady on the love seat.

Victor begins. "I'm going to ask you some questions and some of them may be rather personal, okay? It will help me out if you are as honest as possible."

I brace myself for this. I know he'll ask questions that I can't answer and that bothers me, but I can't talk about that night. I won't.

"Okay, well tell me when this all started."

I tell him what I know. I tell him about the red lipstick. He asks me who Nicole is and I tell him what I told Brady: that she was my sister and she killed herself. Victor isn't stupid; the look in his eyes says he knows there is more to the story than what I am telling him. He asks to see all the other items the stalker has left for me.

While I'm in my bedroom gathering items, I can hear low murmered voices from the other room. Obviously Brady and Victor don't want me to hear their conversation.

Back in the living room, I set everything down on the coffee table and sit back down next to Brady. Immediately, he stands up.

"Paige, I think it would be better if I went back to my place for an hour. You might feel more comfortable talking to Victor without me invading your privacy."

If it was Brady's idea or Victor's, I'm not sure. Either way, I'm grateful. The last thing I was going to do was ask Brady to leave, but with him here I held back too much.

"You're not invading my privacy, Brady. But, that is not a bad idea."

Brady smiles at me, kisses my forehead, and shakes Victor's hand.

"I'll be back soon, Paige. Victor, Saturday at one?"

Victor gives him a thumbs up. "I'll be there. Try to give an old man a break this time. The rest of you guys are all in your twenties."

Brady laughs evilly as he walks out of the apartment.

After he's gone, Victor drops all pretense of going easy on me.

"Here's the thing, Paige. All this, the notes and the lipstick and breaking into your apartment? It's personal. This person knows every detail of whatever happened to you and your sister several years ago. You can be sure of that. Which is why it is almost a certainty that you know this person as well. If you tell me the truth then I may be able to help you figure out who is connected to you or your sister that would be capable of doing this."

So, I tell him. I leave out some things; I don't tell him any of the details of what happened in the barn, but I give him enough of the story so that he will be able to explore any options he thinks may be relevant. I also neglect to mention that I changed my name to get away from my parents, and if that hinders his inquiry in any way, so be it.

"And this Turner guy that was the one who kidnapped you and your sister, is dead?"

"Yes. He died that night. I -- I shot him."

Victor looks morose. "You did what you had to do to save your life and the life of your sister. There is no shame in that. It is unfair that you were put in that position, Paige. That must have been very tough for you to deal with."

I look down at my hands. It's been a long time since I've thought of the way Turner looked t me incredulously as his life bled out from the hole in his chest. "I could have done a better job of dealing with it, believe me."

"I'm sure you did the best you could."

"No, I didn't. And it was worse after Nicole killed herself three months later. Then I had no one. And my parents? They couldn't even look at me. The one person who understood what I was going through went into my parents' home office when she was home alone, stole the key to the gun chest, and shot herself in the head."

A long stretch of silence then. No one can follow that declaration with anything meaningful.

Victor stands up. "I think I have everything that I need for the moment. I've certainly put you through enough. Digging into the past is almost always painful."

I walk him to the door. "Thank you again, Victor. If you need anything else just let me know."

"Paige, you take care of yourself. Get some new locks installed on this door and be extra careful when you are alone."

"I will."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

After Victor leaves, I take a few moments to collect myself and make sense of all the emotions I have churning up inside my head. It has been a colorful few days. There is the lust that I feel when Brady is around, the fear that someone might want to kill me, and the sorrow that comes with remembering. At least I can add a sense of relief to that list because of Victor and the fact that my vase is no longer spread across the floor.

Throwing myself down on the couch, I grab my phone and scroll through my contacts. It is definitely a limited list; just my parents, Dr. Sullivan, Brady, Elyse, and now Victor. I type a text to Brady letting him know that Victor is gone and he can come back if he wants to, but I erase the message before I send it. He could probably use his space just as much as I can.

I call Elyse instead. I honestly have no idea why. I guess I'm feeling unsettled still and it wouldn't hurt to hear a friendly voice.

"Hi, Paige!"

I am always a little surprised by how exuberant she is.

"Hey, Elyse. How's it going?"

"Very well, just making dinner. How are you?"

We chat for a few more minutes about mundane things. She's cooking Garrett's favorite meal, lasagna, because he's leaving on another business trip tomorrow night. I ask her if she's like to fo see a movie or something this weekend, since she'll be all alone. Eventually we run out of things to talk about and we get off of the phone. I resume staring at the ceiling.

When I was a kid, I used to have those glow in the dark star stickers in my room. Malvina found a book with the constellations and we spent two days arranging the stickers as best we could. I think I was nine or ten.

Nicole made fun of us; she thought the star stickers were childish. She had just become a teenager around then so pretty much everything became childish to her. But when a few months had gone by and the stickers stopped glowing at night, it was Nicole who bought me a new package with her saved up allowance money.

Nicole always did things like that. She could ridicule whatever she chose to, but if she loved you then she'd still support the very thing it was she'd laugh at.

I miss her. I hate that the last memory I have of her is a lifeless body with hollow eyes; a hole in her head from which blood and tissue was leaking out.

I shake that image out of my head as I hear someone knock on the door. I get up to answer it and I realize that it is already dark outside. Time must have gotten away from me while I was daydreaming. It has been several hours since Victor left, but I could almost swear it wasn't more than a half an hour ago.

Brady stands in the doorway holding my messenger bag, a pizza box, and a case of beer.

"You left your book bag upstairs yesterday and this is the pizza we never ate. It's cold."

He follows me inside, sets the pizza on the kitchen counter, and puts the beer in the refrigerator.

"Thank you, I didn't even realize my books were not here. What's with the beer?"

He flashes me an impish grin. "It was just sitting in my fridge. I thought it might help you take the edge off and it's never a bad idea to get a hot girl drunk."

"Real nice."

"A for effort? Are you hungry?"

I pull two plates out of the cabinets. "Yes, actually. I just realize that I haven't eaten anything other than coffee today. I'm surprised that I haven't passed out yet."

Brady puts two slices on each plate. "Yeah, coffee doesn't count for having eaten anything."

I nod my head. "Coffee is an essential food group. Look at the pyramid. I love cold pizza, but I can heat yours up for you."

He points to himself. "College guy. I've eaten a cold pizza once or twice."

"Good point. Do you want eat this here or over on the couch?"

"Definitely the couch. Ho do you feel about Thursday Night Football?"

I carry our plates towards the living room while Brady grabs two bottles of water and two cans of the beer.

"I love football, especially if the Browns are playing. Is the game on ESPN?"

We set our plates and drinks down on the coffee table and I pass Brady the remote. "No, it's on the NFL Network. Which the association is kind enough to include in the cable package that we pay for with th ridiculous maintenance fees. Want a beer?"

I think about it for a moment. "I don't think I should. I have two classes in the morning."

"It's just a beer. One won't kill you."

I accept the can he is trying to pass me and I take a sip. "Peer pressure? Okay, fine. I'll only have one, though."

"Hey, only drink what you want to. I was kidding about getting you drunk."

I have pizza in my mouth, so it takes me a minute to respond. "I mean, it's not like you would need to get me drunk anyway."

I wink at him.

"Oh, is that so? I'll remember that later, Paige."

The rest of the evening is easy and pleasant in that same manner. We watch the Colts get stomped on by the Patriots, much to Brady's delight. I finish my beer, but I stick to my one drink limit because I'm not a fan of being hung over and stuck in a three hour lecture course. Those classes are tough enough already.

I really enjoy Brady's company and it is great to know that even though the dynamic has been altered from just friendship to something more, we can still sit and hang out like two normal people and there is no weirdness between us. Although, especially after his third beer, I do find it odd that he hasn't asked me to take my clothes off even once since before we started watching the game. Okay, odd isn't the right word because I know he's trying to not overwhelm me. Perhaps it is that I am secretly a bit disappointed.

Which is probably why when the game is over and we've cleaned up from dinner, I take my t-shirt off and throw it at him. My sweat pants I simply shimmy out of and leave laying on the floor of the kitchen in a pool of heather gray material, leaving me in nothing but a pair of dark gray boy shorts.

Brady watches this whole scenario with a surprised, yet pleased look on his face. My clothing stays where it is; I'd lose the effect if I tried to clean it up after stripping for him, and I start to head down the hall to my bedroom. I can't resist taunting him a bit more, playful mood that I'm in. "Are you waiting for a written invitation?"

He laughs and finally gets himself moving because less than a minute later I feel his hands turning me around to face him. He has my back up against the wall and he places an arm on either side of me, caging me in. I think he'll kiss m or touch me now, but he just looks at me for a few moments. "You're quite the contradiction, aren't you, Paige?"

I play innocent. "What do you mean, Brady?"

"I mean that you're unpredictable. Completely. You keep me at arm's length, and yet you still manage to keep me on the hook. You start to let me in while pushing me even further away. You are very closed off, yet you have more sexual confidence than most of the women your age and it's damn sexy. I cannot figure out who you'll be at any given moment."

I touch my hand to his chest and trail one finger down until I'm hooked onto the waistband of his jeans. "Is this a problem for you, Brady? Do you need to be with someone more stable?"

Looking down, I can literally see the answer to my question as his cock grows erect in his pants.

"No," he says. "Stability is overrated. I'll take moody over boring any day of the week."

And then his mouth is crushing mine and I'm kissing him back fervently. He cups one of my breasts and teases the nipple simultaneously. I make an involuntary noise from the back of my throat. "Oh, you like that do you?"

I lean forward and press my body against his so that I put pressure right where he needs it most. He closes his eyes for a second and I know I've won. Although I'm not sure what we are competing for.

"Yes," I answer him. "I really like that."

I move from his waistband to where his cock is confined by his jeans and I cup him in my hand. It spurs him into action and before I know it, he has me up off of the floor with my legs wrapped around his waist. My clit is rubbing against his erection and I am this close to shoving my fingers between my legs and getting myself off. Not that I think he'd mind very much. But we've done that already. Tonight I want nothing more than to come with him inside of me.