Dark Mysteries (3 page)

“Someone
else? Not you or him?”

“Yeah,
someone else. Some... kids, I think? Like... teenagers? Guys. They
were yelling.”

“At
you?”

“At
him,” she clarified, almost wanting to cry at the memory. Her
sweet little saviors. “Telling him to get off me.”

“Good
kids,” he said, making a mental note to try to track them down
when he checked out her neighborhood.

“Yeah,”
she agreed. “He didn't stop though. I don't even think he heard
them. So, they came running over. One of them threw something. A
bottle. Like a big glass liquor bottle maybe,” she tried to
remember, things getting almost foggy in her head. She wanted to hold
onto that memory. She wanted to hold onto the good guys. There were
so few. She had known so many who just... watched. Who said nothing.
Who did nothing. She needed to remember the good ones. “And
then I guess one pulled him or kicked him because he was off of me
suddenly. And then one of them was grabbing me...”

“The
kids?” he asked.

“Yeah.
He had a giant afro. With a pick in it,” she recalled, wanting
to smile.

Xander
chuckled, and she smiled back. “So, he grabbed you...”

“Yeah,
he grabbed me, pulled me onto my feet. I was... I dunno. I must have
been spaced out because he was talking to me, but I couldn't make out
what he was saying.”

“Normal,”
Xander said, still taking notes.

“And
then he shook me once. And then I heard him. He told me to run. Run
as fast as I could. He said they would hold him off for a few
minutes.”

“Did
they?”

“Yeah.
I mean, by the time I was down the block, I could hear him screaming
for me. But I was so far away. He couldn't have caught up. I kinda...
zig-zagged up and down a few streets before I made my way down this
way.”

“To
this neighborhood?” he asked, looking at her, his black eyes
piercing into her. “Why the hell would you come here?”

“I
came across your name when I was researching private investigators.
Before... well, before all this happened.”

“Okay,”
Xander said, reaching for a sticky pad on his desk. He handed it to
her with a pen. “I am going to need your address,” he
told her, watching as she wrote on the paper. She wrote something
once before scribbling it out and writing something else. Like she
wasn't sure of her address. Weird. He took the pad back, pulling off
the note and attaching it to his pages of notes. “Alright.
Well. I suggest not going back to your apartment,” he said,
standing. Moving toward the door. Like he was going to walk her out.
“Stay with a friend. A coworker. At a hotel,” he
suggested. He looked down at her, waiting for her to grab her wet
sweater and walk toward him. “If that is all...” he said.

“No,”
she said, looking down at her hands. God.

“No
what?”

“No
that's not all,” she said. “I don't have any friends
here. All my Ids and cards are at my apartment. I have nowhere to
go.”

Xander
looked at her, her lower lip tucked slightly in like she was used to
biting it but couldn't because it hurt. What was she getting at?

Then
she looked up with her big, sad, scared eyes. “Can I stay
here?” she asked.

Three

What?
Xander's head shot up and over to her. Stay with him? What the hell?
Who asked to stay at their private investigator's office? He watched
her, her face focused on her hands. Her thumb on her left hand was
worriedly poking at the cuticle on her other hand. She was still
drenched, still trembling slightly at the cold.

She
was so small. And so scared. Could he really be the kind of beast to
throw her out on the street when she asked for sanctuary? Especially
knowing her stalker was of the violent variety. He wasn't going to
stop. And it wasn't like he seemed to have some twisted stalker
notion that they should be together and live happily ever after; he
seemed like he wanted to hurt her. Which was a little odd. But his
unpredictability truly meant danger for Ellie.

And
if he turned her out with no place safe to go, what option did that
leave her but to go back to her apartment? And probably be beaten or
killed. He couldn't let that happen.

“I
can sleep right there,” she said, squirming in her chair,
pointing to the worn leather sofa. Was he actually going to tell her
no? Was she going to be thrown out on the street? He looked
conflicted, leaning against the wall, a big hand running over his
jaw.

The
silence drug on and she felt her hope fizzle away. It had been a long
shot. She knew that. But that didn't stop the disappointment from
rising from her belly, up her throat, making her feel like she was
choking on it. What other choices did she have? It was too soon to go
back to her apartment and find her stash of money, her pre-packed
'get out of dodge' suitcase with a few changes of clothes, basic
necessities, a new burner phone, and a few books. That was what she
had been living on for years.

She
could move again. She had done it plenty before. She could try to
talk her landlord into bringing her up there under the pretense of a
busted pipe, grab her stuff, and get out. Grab the first train out of
the city. Run.

Run.
Run. Run. That was all her life was about. Running. And she was tired
of it. She wanted to be able to stay put. Even if that meant staying
put on the couch of one dangerous looking man in one hellhole of a
neighborhood.

Xander
sighed, watching her face. Hope was quickly replaced with
disappointment, a quick flash of fear, and finally... resignation?
Determination? Was she making a back-up plan? Whatever it was, he
couldn't imagine it being a good alternative to staying with him. At
least with him, no one would dare mess with her.

“The
couch in the apartment is more comfortable,” he heard himself
saying as if from far away.

Ellie's
face shot to his, her eyes wide, skeptical. Like maybe she thought
she misheard him. “I'm sorry... what?”

Xander
turned to lock the front door, but found the lock already turned. Had
she went and locked the door when he wasn't looking? He shrugged off
the thought that was an unusually diligent behavior for someone who
should be in shock, and walked back to grab his coffee cup. “My
apartment,” he said, moving toward the hallway and waving a
hand out, “is through that door. It isn't much,” he said,
feeling almost self-conscious. What the hell was that? He had never
given his living space much thought before. And he had brought plenty
of women back there before without hesitation, “but the couch
is more comfortable than that leather one. And you'll be behind
another locked door.”

He
was asking her to stay in his home? With him? She looked up from
under her lashes, suspicious. Why? Why not just make her stay on the
couch in the office? Why would he want her in his personal space?
Because if he had any ideas about them... hooking up or anything...
he could squash that right now. She was not interested in that. No
matter how sexy the man was. If there was one thing she had learned
in her life, it was men were trouble.

“Relax,
sweetheart,” he said, smiling at her discomfort, “you're
not my type. I was just thinking of your comfort. Take the office
couch,” he said, moving toward the door in the hallway.

Ellie
jumped up out of her seat, grabbing her sweater and her coffee.
Watching him walk away, she realized how much safer she would
actually feel with him close by. He was a giant, hulking,
intimidating figure who apparently owned at least one gun. Judging by
the ease at which he handled it, she imagined he knew how to use it.
Or any other weapon that crossed his path.

“No,
wait, please,” she said, coming up behind him. “I'm
sorry. I'm just... not myself tonight.”

“Normal,”
he said shrugging and opening the door to his apartment.

Ellie
walked in behind him, looking around. Looking for escape. Because
that was where her mind was trained to go. Find the exits. Know the
floor plan. Know the layout of furniture. Close your eyes and count
the steps. So that even in the dark, you can find your way around. So
no matter where you are, you have the home field advantage.

“Are
those windows solid?” she asked, feeling anxiety bubble up.
They didn't open. She couldn't slink through. Wasn't that like...
illegal? Didn't you need two exits from every building?

“Yeah,”
Xander said, watching the near-hysteria on her face. Weird. Very
weird. He walked over to one of the windows, tapping on it. “But
it's real glass. Not that plastic glass shit they use now. You need
to get out, you throw something at it and you're out.”

Ellie
nodded, looking over at the kitchen, the makeshift dining table. His
bed. Where he would be sleeping. Just a few feet away from her. The
red couch looked worn, but plush and soft. And she wasn't about to
complain. She had done more than her share of sleeping upright on
trains. In train stations. On buses. An old couch was certainly
better than that.

“Here,”
Xander said, walking over and pulling the sweater out of her hand.
“I'll take this and hang it up.”

“Thanks,”
Ellie mumbled, not wanting to sit down and get everything wet. She
sipped at her coffee, watching Xander walk around, finding a hanger
and hanging the sopping wet material on the curtain rod next to the
kitchen. He walked slowly, but deliberately. With what she could only
describe as a swagger. Like cowboys in old west movies walked.

She
moved over toward the dining table, picking up one of the many
newspapers he had sitting there. The page was opened to an article on
New Jersey heroin. She glanced it over, knowing the story. Until she
found a picture, her stomach twisting in an awful grip. Of course
they suspected him. Because it was him. The picture was a
surveillance picture of him walking out of a restaurant, his ear
pressed to his cellphone, one of his henchmen at his side. Looking
cool, collected, intimidating. Commanding.

“You
look like you've seen a ghost,” Xander commented, coming toward
her holding a blanket and pillow.

Ellie
jumped back slightly at his words, dropping the paper like it had
burned her. “Oh. No. It's this... overdose story,” she
covered, “they were so young.”

“Drugs,”
he shrugged, walking over and placing the bedding on the couch. “A
bad economy in which even grads can't get a job breeds an air of
hopelessness. Kids turn to anything that makes them feel anything
else. It's not a problem that is going anywhere anytime soon.”

“You
sound like an expert in the field,” she said, watching his back
as he spread the blanket on the couch, draping it up on the back
cushion so she could just pull it down on herself when she laid down.

“You
live in this neighborhood,” he said, straightening and turning,
finding her watching him, “you get to know a lot about drugs.”
He walked toward a closet next to his bed, reaching in and quickly
closing the door. Like he was hiding something. “Here,”
he said, holding out an big blue sweatshirt and a pair of men's blue
and white plaid pajama pants. “These are going to swim on you,
but they're dry.”

Ellie
walked closer, taking the clothes between her hands, holding them
away from her wet body. “Thank you,” she said, genuinely
meaning it, “is there somewhere I can...”

“Oh,”
Xander said, shaking his head as if trying to clear his train of
thought. “Yeah. Right outside this door,” he said,
opening the door to the hall and pointing to another door, “is
the bathroom. There are towels in the cabinet if you want to take a
shower.”

Ellie
opened the door, feeling around for the light switch. “Thanks,”
she offered him a weak smile, slipping behind the door and closing
it. No lock. What was wrong with people and not having locks on their
bathrooms? The bathroom, like everything in the building, was dated.
The bathtub, sink, and toilet were all identical shades of
blue-green. The floor was tiled in inch-wide white tile, faded with
time, some of the tiles broken. The walls were covered in larger
white tiles, interrupted by the occasional square of four blue-green
tiles. It was awful, Ellie decided, shaking her head. What did he
have against a little updating?

She
reached in the shower and turned the water on hot, quickly stripping
out of her clothes, and moving the curtain out of the way to step in.
She sunk into the heat for a long time, closing her eyes, and trying
to go over the events of the night.

Trying
to find what she did wrong. She messed up somewhere along the line.
Not because he found her. He always found her. But he had caught her
off-guard. She hadn't been prepared enough. There hadn't been
anything but her cup of tea to throw at him. And that just so
happened to be carelessly left there that morning. There should have
been a vase, a bat, a frying pan. Something everywhere to grab. She
should have been carrying mace, homemade pepper spray... something
that she could assault him with from a distance so she could run.

She
was getting sloppy. And it was going to get her killed.

She
dried and stepped out of the bathroom, looking around for a second,
trying to figure out what felt wrong. Something was out of place.
Then she looked down at the floor, a puddle where he clothes should
have been. But weren't.