A Beauty Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 1) (4 page)

“Emmy!” Linda exclaimed, clapping her hands together as a brilliant smile lit up her face.  Emmy still couldn’t decipher if the smile was genuine or not.  “It really is you!  My, it’s been so long!
 
To
o
long!”

“Uh, yeah,” Emmy murmured as she braced herself for Linda’s trademark hug.  She pressed her lips into a tight line and awkwardly returned her former classmate’s hug.  When Linda finally released her vice-like grip on Emmy, she took a step back and flattened the wrinkles of her shirt.  “What are you doing here, Linda?” Emmy asked uneasily.  “I thought Berkley started a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh, I already graduated,” Linda said, flicking her wrist as though it wasn’t that big of a deal.  “I wanted to get out of college as fast as I possibly could.  You knew that.  But anyway, I came up here because my father has some work he has to finish up, and I decided to tag along.  I’ve never been to Tahoe before, and I heard it was gorgeous, which it is, but it’s also really dirty.”  She then took a step toward Emmy and leaned forward, as if the two were going to share a secret much like old times.  “I mean, look at this store, Emmy.  Where’s a Ralph’s when you need one?  And there are no malls up here whatsoever.”  Emmy was going to re-ask her question with more emphasis, especially since Linda obviously did not like it here, but Linda tossed her hair over her shoulder (today it was straight).  Emmy knew Linda well enough to know that she was not finished speaking.  “Anyway, I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and it was only recently that the locals started talking to me.  But after finding out that you and I went to school together, they said something about you going to work for the psycho killer Jason Belmont.”  She looked at Emmy pointedly, tilting her chin down and placing her hand on her hip, expecting Emmy to confess.

It took Emmy a couple of minutes to finally reply due to the fact that sometimes, Linda spoke faster than most people could comprehend.  “Yeah, actually, I am,” she said, nodding her head.  “I mean, you know my grandpa, so-“

“Who cares, Emmy?” Linda said, pushing her brows together.  “There’s nothing in the world that would make me go live with that creep.  You couldn’
t
pa
y
me to.”

Emmy furrowed her brow, and her eyes flashed in anger, something that went completely over Linda’s head.  “Yes, well, we can’t be as lucky as you, can we Linda?” Emmy asked.  “I don’t have four credit cards to pay his bills with, and if I did, I would owe even more than what we do now.  This is the only option, and to me, it’s worth the risk knowing my grandfather won’t have to worry about his bills.”

Linda glanced to the side of her as her mouth contorted into a dismissal form.  “Well, I just wanted to tell you that all the locals are talking about you,” she said.  “So don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  And with that, Linda spun on the heel of her boot and disappeared down the aisle.

Emmy blinked once and then grabbed her basket and headed to the check-out.  A couple of the clerks watched her walk up, and she timidly coiled a strand of hair behind her ear.  Emmy avoided any and all eyes that seemed to be watching her.  She hated this kind of blatant, shameless attention, especially when she really didn’t do anything.  She took this job to help with her grandfather’s medical bills, not because she liked the guy or thought he was innocent.  Emmy wasn’t trying to play rebel; she jus
t
neede
d
the money.  Maybe they thought that she was betraying them in some way.  Maybe they thought that she was aligning herself with him instead of them.

Before she could dwell on such thoughts, she realized the line before her had cleared, and the clerk was waiting for Emmy to take the items out of the basket so she could begin to scan them.  An impatient cough only provided evidence for this hypothesis, and Emmy nearly dumped the contents on the conveyor belt.  She cleared her throat and her eyes began to scan the headlines of the gossip magazines, despite the obvious stare from the cashier.

“So,” the cashier began, once Emmy indicated that she preferred paper over plastic bags for her items.  “I hear you’re working for that Jason Belmont.”

Emmy looked at the middle-aged woman’s somewhat tired expression, and she pushed the edge of her lips up in what she hoped was a friendly smile.  “Uh, yes,” she replied, nodding once.  “Yes, I am.”

“So, how’s he treating you, dear?” the cashier asked, her brown eyes trying to find any sort of proof of injury on the young woman before her.  “He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”  She began to type with one hand on the register once she finished scanning all of Emmy’s items.  “Hasn’t threatened you?”  Her thin brow perked up, and she paused for a beat, before dully reading the total.  “Thirty-six fifty-seven.”

Emmy reached into her wallet and handed the cashier the two twenties Jason had left her to use.  “Actually,” Emmy said, surprised she was actually going to say what she was about to say, “he’s been really nice.”  She smiled politely and waited for the woman to type in the amount she had given her, and hand Emmy her change.  Customers and other cashiers had begun to give her more attention, as though they each heard her response to the cashier’s biased question.

But the cashier just stared at her with obvious doubt and annoyance etched in her face.  “You had better be careful now, missy,” she said finally, her acrylic nails pecking at the buttons on her register.  “That Mr. Belmont may be appealing to the eye, and I’m sure he has some charm in him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do you-know-what.”  She handed Emmy the necessary change and stared pointedly in Emmy’s eyes.  “You had better be careful,” she finally repeated, “or else you may be next.”  With that, the cashier plastered a smile on her face and whipped her head in the direction of her next customer.

Emmy frowned, and grabbed the paper bags and headed outside.  Much to her dismay, they were a bit heavier than originally expected, and she had to shift them around a couple of times before she got to the trolley stop.  Luckily, it came rather quick, and once she was situated on the red and gold piece of transportation, she let her body relax.  She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt; the cashier, as well as the majority of occupants living in Tahoe, obviously believed that Jason committed the heinous act, and Emmy had initially believed that too.  While she still did believe such a thing, she had begun to grow defensive of her employer during her conversation with Linda and the cashier, which she couldn’t quite understand.  Nevertheless, what she had said was true; he had been hospitable to her.

When the trolley got to her stop, she grabbed the bags, and with a determined heave, lifted them up and headed off the car.  Surprisingly enough, Jason Belmont was waiting for her.  Her heart clenched and she felt her fingers tighten around the bags, but he offered her a humble smile.  His hair was still as unruly as she remembered it, maybe even more so, and his glasses occupied the tip of his nose, but he was not wearing his robe, and he had changed clothes.  Instead, he wore a simple grey T-shirt and a new pair of black sweatpants along with flip-flops on his feet. 

As Emmy stopped and gave him a questioning stare, Jason simultaneously scratched the back of his head and pushed up his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  “Well, you see, I figured you would come back with your hands full,” he explained in his soft-spoken voice.  “I should have let you take the car, but it must have slipped my mind, so I decided to help you carry them back to the house.”

“Did you bring the car?” Emmy questioned, raising a brow.

Jason was about to reply, but cut himself off.  Emmy carefully placed the bags down and watched him as his deep blue eyes trailed along the surrounding trees.  It would seem that he was searching for an answer in the wilderness, but he couldn’t find the one he wanted.  “Well, no,” he said, shaking his head.  He began to chuckle softly and shook his head.  “That would have been a better idea, wouldn’t it?”  He looked at Emmy, who had let a very tiny, amused smile slip onto her face.  He smiled at that.  “Here,” he said, walking over to her, and grabbing the heavier paper grocery bags.  “Let me help you.”

“Thank you,” Emmy said in a voice above a whisper.  She watched him turn around and begin to head back towards the house for a moment.  She wasn’t exactly sure what to make of him.  Everybody believed that he was going to hurt her in some way, and yet, to be honest, he seemed timid.  She couldn’t exactly picture this guy killing a fly, let alone two human beings.

That doesn’t mean I trust hi
m
, Emmy reassured herself, and then picked up the remaining bags and followed him deep into the forest, on the way back to his home.     

Oddly enough, the way back to Jason’s home was faster than the way to the trolley station.  It was quiet for the most part.  Emmy preferred to watch the man walking ahead of her instead of conversing with him.  She always figured that the way somebody acts says much more than words ever could.  However, as she watched him, she wasn’t exactly sure what to make of him.  He walked normally enough, even with his long fingers coiled around the paper handles of the heavy bags, but there were times when he would pause, stop walking altogether, and glance around as though the whispers of the trees called out to him in a voice only he could hear.  Sometimes he would glance over his shoulder at Emmy, to make sure she was still walking behind him, and each time he saw her, his eyes would widen slightly, as though he was surprised that she was still behind him, then smile in relief, turn back around and continue to walk.

When they reached the house, Jason put the bags down and reached into his pocket for the keys.  Emmy briefly wondered why he would even lock his house; people were afraid of him and wouldn’t dare set foot inside his residence, but she made no comment on her observation and followed him inside.  They walked into the kitchen, where the two both placed their bags on the counters.  Emmy began to take the items out of the bags and put them away.  She didn’t know for sure if she had placed them in their correct spots, but she had put away groceries enough times to know that while she might not have been completely correct, she wasn’t completely wrong.

“Is there anything you prefer for breakfast?” Emmy asked softly, avoiding eye contact with him as she put the syrup away.  “I picked up some pancake ingredients at the store…”

As Emmy turned around, she watched as one of the most breath-taking smiles that she had ever seen eclipsed his heart-shaped face.  It was sort of shy and very boyish, but his deep blue eyes seemed to sparkle along with it, and it revealed straight, white teeth.  Even his nose seemed to want to bask in his smile’s light; the wings that represented his nostrils seemed to flare slightly.  Emmy immediately looked away, down to the wooden floor beneath her as her face flared up.

“
I
lov
e
pancakes!” he exclaimed enthusiastically.  “I remember when I was a kid, my mother made the best pancakes ever.  Each Saturday morning, if we woke up at the same time as we did for school, she would make us pancakes.”

“’We?’” Emmy asked before she could stop herself.

“Oh,” he said, almost nervously, as though he wasn’t quite used to talking to people about his family.  Maybe nobody even asked him about them.  “I have three younger sisters.”

Emmy smiled but said nothing, and she began to grab a skillet, a bowl to mix the ingredients in, and measuring cups, preparing to cook pancakes.

“What about you?” Jason asked after a moment, his eyes watching Emmy intricately from behind his thick-rimmed glasses.  “Uh… do you have any brothers and sisters?”  It sounded as though he was even more uncomfortable asking about people than someone asking him.

Emmy remained silent for a long moment, cracking a couple of eggs in the Bisquick.  She pressed her lips together as she poured the milk into the mix, and grabbed a fork to stir it up.  Despite advances in technology, Emmy preferred to manually stir any concoctions that needed such stirring because it gave her something to do. 

“No,” she said and glanced up at the man standing behind the counter, looking at her with an interested expression on his face.  “No, I don’t have any brothers and sisters.”

Jason opened his mouth to say something, but upon a second thought, decided against it, and closed it.  He took a seat at the dining table and pulled out a crinkled sheet of paper.  He tried to smooth it out against the table, but he failed miserably.  Finally, he stood up and grabbed one of the numerous pens that seemed to be lying around different places in the house.  Once the pen was between his fingers, he plopped back down and began writing whatever was in that head of his.  While Emmy flipped the pancakes on the skillet, she glanced at him.  He seemed so intently focused, and though she tried to make out his writing, it was too sloppy and too small to decipher anything.