Fucking Mexico. Ahi vamos.
He tugged a disposable phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Yeah?” rasped the CTS Decon technician.
“Change of plans.” Van had approached the professional cleaner a day earlier and offered a quarter of a million to discreetly and quickly mop up a crime scene. The blood was supposed to have been Mr. E's, the prearrangement to remove Van's DNA from the scene, therefore, eliminating him as a murder suspect. Liv's bullet changed that. Now, she would have to deal with Mr. E on her own while the technician dealt with Van's blood.
He rattled off the address of his location. “Need this done by the end of the hour.”
“On my way.” The technician disconnected.
Now for the grueling part. He gnashed his teeth and dragged his body up the side of the counter, stars invading his vision. After a few long, ragged breaths, he finished the climb and stumbled to the medical kit beneath the sink.
As he collected bandages, he tried not to think about what Liv was doing, if she had killed his father or if he'd killed her. He pulled his shirt over his head, and the damnable pain staggered him sideways.
He gripped the counter-top and panted through the blades of heat ripping up and down his arm. The pain was real, pushing his pulse and inflaming his skin. He was breathing, hurting. Alive.
With Liv and Livana's uncertain future, he had a helluva incentive to live. And to avoid arrest. He draped his upper body over the sink, splashed water over the dime-sized wound, and taped up his shoulder. He needed a bottle of Tequila Herradura and a long nap in the worst fucking way.
Blood smeared the counter, the cabinets, and the linoleum. He had no choice but to trust the expertise and discretion of the technician to erase all evidence of his existence. Hopefully, it would be enough to deceive detectives if they went hunting for DNA.
He dragged his feet to the kitchen table, each step heavier than the last. Two mannequins sat in the chair where he'd left them. When he reached them, he slid his fingers through their silken mahogany hair. Liv's hair. He'd collected it for years, meticulously weaving it through the mesh caps made for the dolls, one large, one small. His perfected replicas of Liv and Livana. No one could fucking take them away.
Liv didn't understand his need for the dolls. Only someone who'd experienced a lifetime of loneliness could comprehend what they meant to him and why he couldn't let them go.
With his arm hanging limp at his side, he gathered them under the other, careful not to overextend their joints, and carried them to the van in the garage.
Liv thought he was dead. And he was certain she would succeed in killing Mr. E, which meant she would be free for the first time in seven years. Would she leave town and try to disappear or would she stay in Austin, near their daughter? Either way, he'd find her. He'd always find her.
One year later...
Simple, mutually-satisfying sex was an acceptable way to alleviate loneliness, even if it was just twenty minutes in the dark with the delivery guy. At least, that's what Amber Rosenfeld told herself as she flicked off the table lamp in her bedroom, perched on the bed, and waited.
It was silly the way she collected those twenty minutes, treasuring them like souvenirs. Her mementos of normalcy. Proof that fear didn't own every minute of her life.
The overhead light flipped on, and her breath caught. She blinked through the unexpected glare, narrowing on Zach's finger where it poised over the wall switch. Oh no. Something was wrong.
She straightened her spine as he regarded her with a heavy slant in his eyebrows. She fidgeted with her hair, arranging the curls to lay in a sensual fall down her chest. Maybe he didn't like blondes. She brushed it behind her shoulders, out of view. Did he desire a prettier girl? If he turned the lights off, he wouldn't have to look at her.
“The lights, Zach.” Her tone held steady despite the pleading drum of her heart.
He fingered the collar of his Saddler's Tool Company work shirt and freed the buttons down the front, revealing a thin, hairless torso. Brown hair hung in strands around his whiskered jawline, his blue eyes watching her with too much scrutiny. “Let's mix it up today.”
A swallow stuck in her throat. The only thing he was mixing up was the neat edge of carpet beneath his boots. He rocked on the molding between the hardwoods and the bedroom, the rubber-soled toes smashing the fibers with each lift of his heels.
Why did he insist on disturbing the carpet? Couldn't he see the uniformity of the vacuum lines, how the threads lifted in one-foot rows of symmetry? Her walk to the bed had followed the outskirt of the small room. She’d hopped the lines easy enough, leaving four tiptoed indentations she would comb after he left.
Fuck, she was doing it again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. The carpet didn't need to be perfect. She wasn't perfect.
He shrugged off the shirt and tossed it on the floor, flattening two rows.
Her stomach clenched, but she forced herself to look at the disorder, to accept it. “It's better without lights.”
“No, it isn't.” He bent to remove his boots, trampling more fibers. “What if I trip in the dark and put an eye out?”
What a joke. The floor had been spotless before he arrived. Besides, “You don't need eyes for this.” She shaped her mouth into a smile, lifting a shoulder. Did he notice the hollowness in her movements? What if he gave her an ultimatum about the lights or said something hateful? Did he have a cruel side?
Fa
t, worthless cunt.
When are you going to do something about your udders and schedule a boob job?
You're a fucking head case. Just like your mother.
She bent her fingers and cracked each knuckle in order. Index, middle, ring, pinkie. Zach wasn't him.
As he watched her knuckle-cracking ritual, lines formed in his brow. He should've been used to it by now, but something was off. He had never put this much focus on her quirks.
Finally, he blinked away, pushed his jeans and briefs to his ankles, and stepped from the unfolded mess. Pale skin smoothed over a narrow thirty-something physique. He scratched his flat stomach, eyes on hers, his partial erection hanging long and lean like the rest of him. He was attractive in a nonthreatening, easy-to-please manner. And he seemed to like her in a way that hardened his cock. A tingling awoke between her legs and fanned heat through her body.
But the light remained on. He touched the switch, staring at it as if he were asking it useless questions.
Her palms grew sticky and hot. For six months, he'd delivered her supplies, brought in her mail, taken her to bed, and left with her shipments. If she had trash, he would kindly drop it at the curb. He didn't make demands, express opinions, or try to complicate the routine. However, their unspoken arrangement had already extended twice as long as the previous delivery guys.
She knew what came next, and her gut twisted. “Just say it, Zach.”
His attention shifted to the hem of her dress where it covered her thighs, roamed over her chest, and rested on her eyes. “I want to see you. Just once with the lights on and your clothes off.”
A cringe jerked her shoulders, and her tongue thickened with all the wrong things to say. He waited for a response, one she knew she'd fuck up. She raised her chin. “I like it dark.” For twenty minutes, every Tuesday and Friday.
His jaw stiffened, and he averted his eyes.
An empty feeling gutted the pit of her stomach. Please, don't leave. He was her only tether to the outside world, but she needed to nip this desperation for his company. Distancing herself kept her safe in her self-made asylum.