TWO
She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, making it feel as though it was genuinely trying to break free of the confines of her rib cage. He stood there looking at her up and down. It was not in a sexual way, but an observing way, making her feel like some kind of slide underneath a microscope. Like he could see right through her.
He wasn't what she had been expecting. She had heard his name. It was hard not to when you were looking for a private investigator. He was the one. The one you went to when every ex-cop and ex-military P.I. turned you down. When no one else would take your case, when they told you it was stupid or hopeless, that there was no way out. When you finally decided there was no choice but to keep some of the specifics to yourself because you knew it was going to be trouble. Dangerous. Reckless. When you knew you needed someone just as dangerous and reckless to take the case, that was when you went to Xander Rhodes.
And maybe she had been expecting him to be older, bulky, almost fat, but not quite, with thinning hair and an air of menace hanging around him like cigarette smoke.
She definitely hadn't pictured this man, this impossibly good-looking guy. He was six and a half feet of solid muscle, the arms sticking out of his white t-shirt unnecessarily large, his shoulders wider than any football player she had ever seen. His face was stern with strong black eyebrows, a wide, square jaw, and dark brown... almost black eyes. The fierceness of them were only softened by the thick black eyelashes surrounding them that any woman would die for. His hair was black, longish, a strand falling over his forehead into his eyes. He had a long vertical scar running through his upper and lower lips. It was white, long-healed, but wide and scary looking.
He stood there silently, arching a brow at her and he blocked her path. He was making it clear he wasn't the kind of man turned to putty at the sight of a damsel in distress. He needed facts, figures. He needed to know what she needed from him.
When she asked him for help with a pit in the stomach from being so needy, he looked almost taken aback. Surprised, his hand fell from the doorjamb and he moved backward. It was a silent invitation for her to enter.
His office was bare. A brown leather couch was lined underneath the huge front glass window which he had blacked out. The material was ripped in places, worn. A desk was in the center of the room, looking like something that had been put out to trash. There was writing all over it in graffiti-style letters. One leg was shorter than the others, a small wooden door stopper was wedged underneath it to keep it steady. An old desktop computer was on the surface, dusty, on still though he must have already closed up for the day. A black metal folding chair was in front of it. The wall behind was covered in corkboard, a huge assortment of candid pictures, newspaper clippings, and handwritten notes tacked up with brightly colored push pins. A few of the items had strings connecting them. Work pictures, she decided, looking away.
Xander walked past her, moving down a hallway and leaving her alone in the office. She turned back around, walking to the main door and turning the lock. She looked down at her hands, turning them over, feeling a strange sort of detachment from her own body. Maybe it was just the rain, the cold numbing her to the pain. Or maybe it was some kind of shock.
He walked back in a few minutes later, holding a towel and two cups of, what she assumed, was coffee.
"Here," he said, handing her the towel and placing the coffee mugs on the desk. He stood there watching her as she towel dried her hair for a minute before wrapping herself up in the fabric. She was so cold, bone-deep cold. It was the kind of cold that made you think you would never get warm again. "What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked, the endearment falling too easily off his tongue, like he called every woman he crossed paths with sweetheart.
"Ellie," she said, reaching for the coffee and wrapping her hands around the mug, greedy for the warmth.
"Alright, Ellie," he repeated, going around his desk. He pulled a gun out of his pants, unloading it and slipping it inside his desk drawer. He reached for a pad of yellow paper and a pen, coming around his desk to perch on the edge. He waved her toward the folding chair. "What do you need help with?"
"I can't pay you," she blurted out automatically, wishing she could suck the words back in. Way to go, Ellie. Now you're going to get thrown back out on your ass. Brilliant.
"I didn't ask that," he said, his tone almost sounding bored, unconcerned, like he did things out of the goodness of his heart all the time.
Ellie looked at him suspiciously. He didn't seem like the kind of person who had a heart. She shook her head, looking down at her coffee. She sipped it wearily, wincing at the bitterness. Who the hell drank their coffee black?
"Don't make me repeat myself," he said, looking at her with eyes that looked tired.
"Sorry... I..." She took a breath, trying to calm her nerves. She had to do it this way. She had to only give him half of the picture. It was safer. For her. She looked up at him, feeling guilty. Safer for her, not for him. "I'm being... followed. Or... stalked... or something."
Xander felt a knot build in his stomach, gripping his pen so hard he almost snapped it. Another stalker case. He tried to push away the sudden feeling of inadequacy. He failed his last stalker case. Failed miserably. And she could have died. She almost did.
He looked over at Ellie who had a name as sweet sounding as her mouse-quiet voice. He couldn't let that happen again. He couldn't let another woman get hurt on his watch. Not even if she couldn't pay. It wouldn't be the first time he did something just because it was right. Maybe this was his chance to make things right, prove to himself he still had it. Protect the girl.
"Okay," he said, looking at his notepad as he wrote, "how long has this been going on?"
"Well," she said, looking downward, trying to not let her eyes betray her, "since I moved here," she went on. Lies. Lies.
"How long has that been?"
"Four months," she supplied.
"And where were you before this?"
"Portland," she said automatically. Inwardly adding: Seattle. And Philadelphia. And D.C. And, originally, Trenton.
"What made you think you were being stalked?"
"Small things as first," she said, leaving out how familiar she had become at looking over her shoulder, how it had been her life for years, how every shadow made her heart jump into her throat. "Like... thinking I saw someone behind me all the time. Stopping when I stopped somewhere. I brushed it off at first. This is a new city and I..."
"Thought you were being paranoid," he supplied.
"Exactly."
"And it escalated?" he asked, writing, scribbling furiously away. Even though she wasn't saying enough for him to be writing that much.
"I started getting phone calls." True enough. No matter how many burners she went through. There were always calls.
"Unknown numbers?"
"Yeah," she nodded. Nope. Not unknown at all.
"Alright. Did you ever get a good look at him?"
"Yeah," she said, not wanting to meet his eyes. She had gotten plenty of good looks at him.
"His handiwork?" Xander asked, reaching out toward her face. She flinched, pushing backward in her chair, like only someone who had had hands raised to them in anger could. She had been beaten by someone. At some point. And now she had some creep stalking and traumatizing her all the more.
"Yeah," she mumbled, letting the front feet of the chair hit the ground again. "Sorry... I..."
"Don't apologize sweetheart," he said, writing again. "So what happened tonight?"
Ellie took a deep breath, shivering still from the cold. Here goes. At least in this she could be mostly truthful. "I got home from work..."
"When?" he interrupted.
"At twelve," she said, feeling his eyes fall on the top of her head. "I work at a diner. I had a lot of tables tonight," she explained.
"Did you walk home?"
"Yeah," she answered. Like she could afford anything else. All the money had to be put away just in case... in case she needed to disappear again.
"Okay. So, you get back to your apartment?"
"Yeah... and I dunno. Something felt off at first I guess," she admitted. She had become acutely aware of the sensation of the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, of knowing something was wrong before you could see or hear anything that suggested so. "That sounds stupid..."
"Nope," he cut in, his tone clipped, "keep going."
"Okay. Well, I kinda brushed it off and locked all the locks, put my stuff down next to the door. I turned on the light as I walked toward the kitchen... and then I saw him."
At her pause, Xander looked up. "I'll get a description later. Keep going."
"He was standing in my kitchen, leaning against the counter. The kettle was on," she recalled, not realizing that before.
"Maybe that was what was off," Xander said, looking down at her. Her brows were furrowed, like she was confused about something. "Tea kettles make a... humming noise when they're on."
"Yeah, maybe," she shrugged.
"I assume you drink a lot of tea?"
Ellie looked up, almost wanting to smile. Almost. "Tons," she admitted.
"So, this guy knows you pretty well," Xander concluded.
You have no idea. "Yeah, I guess," she said instead.
"So, what happened next? Did you scream? Did he say anything?"
"He said, 'You're home late' and then he sniffed the air and said, 'Diner work doesn't suit you. You smell like stale hashbrowns and hopelessness'."
"That's... odd," Xander said, looking at her. "You wear that to work?" he asked, knowing his tone sounded suspicious and not caring. He needed to know everything.
Ellie looked at him, lowering her brows at his words, feeling insulted that he thought she was lying. Though she knew it was ridiculous. Because she was lying. Just not about the diner. She stood up, putting her mug next to his hip on the desk, and reached for the hem of her sweater. In one quick motion, she pulled it off and discarded it on the floor. Underneath, she wore an awful mustard-colored shirt with black stripes. A golden name tag hung from her collar with her name on it in silly, frilly script. "No," she said, waving at her shirt, "I wear this to work."
He almost wanted to laugh. Almost. Half at her somewhat defiant attitude, and half at how insanely ugly her work shirt was. He coughed, bringing his hand to his lips for a second to hide his smirk, before looking down at his pad. "Okay. Go on," he urged.
She reached for her coffee, her fingers brushing against his legs, sending an unexpected jolt of desire through his body. He shook his head. She was a job, he reminded himself. And she wasn't even remotely his type.
Ellie sat back down, even colder without her sweater, soaked as it was. She was going to skip the next few lines of conversation that actually happened. "Then, ah, I... grabbed an old mug of tea from the morning and hauled it at him."
"Good girl," he said, shocking himself. He hadn't meant to say that out loud.
"And I ran for my bedroom. Past him. I had to run past him. There's a fire escape from my bedroom window," she explained. "But... he was too quick. He grabbed me and we both went down."
"He wanted to hurt you? Or did it just happen because you were struggling?" There were so many kinds of stalkers. He needed to know what he was working with.
"Oh, he wanted to hurt me," she said. He wanted to hurt her more than he could ever imagine. "I scratched at his face, he punched mine," she said, motioning toward her eye. "Then he grabbed my wrists and held them over my head and..."
"And?" Xander asked, trying to keep his tone professional. He had a feeling this was about to go from bad to worse. She squirmed in her chair uncomfortably.
"And he kissed me," she said, looking away from Xander. She could still feel his lips on hers, bruising, punishing. His tongue shoved into her mouth, gagging her. "I bit his tongue," she recalled, remembering his screams as he reared upward, looking down at her, disbelieving. You fucking bitch. You stupid fucking bitch. "And I kneed him in the groin. Then ran for my bedroom. I had just made it onto the fire escape when he grabbed my ankle, sending me falling onto my face," she said, touching her sore lips. "I kicked and scrambled down. He was behind me, but I was a few feet ahead. I had to jump off the landing to grab the ladder and pull it down with me. It didn't reach the ground," she recalled, making a mental note to check that out when... if... she ever needed a new place. "And he... slammed his foot down on my hand so I fell..." she said, remembering the hard ground beneath her hands and knees, the sick fear that maybe she could have broken something. The cuts, the burns.
At her long silence, Xander took a deep breath, trying to keep his mind straight. He needed to not think of how terrified she must have been, about how amazing it was what she kept her wits about her in such a crisis. Most people froze. Most people forgot there was any exit aside from the front door. Most people didn't fight.
"And, um. He jumped down. He knocked me over in the process. We... fought. I got a few punches in," she said, holding out her knuckles. God, it had been such a good feeling for her fists to collide with his skin. She never would have considered herself a violent person before. But, that was... before. Before him. Before... everything. "He got... a lot of punches in," she said, her hand snaking across her stomach and ribs. Which she was sure we bruised, maybe broken. They were painful, making it almost hard to take a deep enough breath. God, how had she run so far like that? "And then someone yelled."
"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.