Chapter 18

Simone

I wake up with Van’s mouth between my legs. I sigh in pleasure as my fingers slide into his hair. “This is a nice way to start my morning.”

Van lifts his head, and I have to raise mine from the pillow to look down at him. His lips are wet and he grins at me. “You took forever to wake up. I think you actually had one orgasm in your sleep.”

“Really?” I ask with a pout. I didn’t know I could do that.

“I think so. Had two fingers in you and your pussy clamped down hard on them.”

“Wow,” I say in amazement. “But that kind of sucks I don’t remember it.”

“Didn’t suck for me,” he says, bending slightly to touch his tongue to my clit. My hips shoot up off the bed, but slam right back down as his hands go to my stomach to pin me in place. “Stay still. I want to make you come again.”

“Then you can fuck me,” I murmur.

His eyes crinkle. “That’s a given.”

“You may proceed then,” I say regally.

Van’s mouth presses down onto me and then I’m lost to everything but him.

After I come—brilliantly—and he fucks me—stupendously—Van passes on my offer for breakfast, stating he’d rather get his workout done for the day. He doesn’t add, “So we can spend the rest of the day together,” but I’m choosing for that to be the implication. He’s not the best with words, so I sometimes have to read into his actions.

After he leaves, I take a quick shower. I don’t bother to dry my hair or put makeup on. Van once told me he hated that shit. That didn’t stop me from wearing it, though. It wasn’t until one night when he was moving inside of me that his eyes left mine to drop down to my nose. He bent his head and kissed it, not missing a stroke, and said, “I think your freckles might be the most beautiful thing about you.”

Since then, I rarely bothered with makeup if it was just Van and me. I was giving him 100 percent access to my freckles.

I throw on a pair of loose shorts and a tank top, intent on cleaning the house a bit. It was obviously messier when Lucas was here, and I’ve been able to stay on top of it better once he was gone, but the carpet needs a good vacuuming. I’d taken it upon myself to do all the cleaning, feeling it was the least I could do since I was staying here practically rent free.

I lug out the vacuum cleaner from the linen closet and start in the living room. I hum to myself, my mind often drifting to think about Van. About the ways he’s opened up over the last few weeks, and I can’t help but be a little hopeful that I could have something more with him.

It’s so much more than sex to me now. My stupid heart is involved, but it’s also a patient heart. I think he’s probably worth waiting for.

It doesn’t take me much effort to do Lucas’s room. He’d of course told me I could move in there, as he intended to stay at Stephanie’s until he could find a place to buy, but there had been no need. I’d been in Van’s bed every night since then, even when he was at the away game in Jersey. It was a way to stay close to him, and besides, he really, really liked knowing I was in his bed that morning before the game when I called him for my promised phone sex.

Before I vacuum Van’s room, I take a few minutes to pick up some of his clothes from the floor. Not sure what it is about men, but why they can’t take the extra few steps to put their dirty socks in the hamper is beyond me. I then turn on the vacuum, letting the noise relax me. I move it back and forth across the carpet, and when I reach the bed, I take advantage of the fact this model extends flat to reach under furniture.

I’m three strokes in under the bed when I can feel that I’ve hit something. It’s lightweight, and the forward movement pushed it out to the other side. I don’t bother looking, though, taking my time to move around his bed. When I get to the other side, I see it’s an old shoe box and I’d knocked the top off.

Shutting the vacuum off, I bend over and grab the top, intent on replacing it and shoving it back under the bed. But there’s a document on top, and the official seal from the Virginia Department of Corrections catches my eye.

My hand is reaching for it before I can even have an attack of conscience, so curious about why Van would have correspondence from a prison.

I unfold the letter and my eyes skim down it. I take in certain words that don’t make sense, so I slow down…start from the beginning and read it slowly.

Grant VanBuskirk? In care of Etta Turner?

I take in details that a prisoner is dying, but there’s not much else.

Weird.

My eyes go back to the box, and the next thing I see is an old photograph. It’s in color, and slightly faded. I couldn’t possibly date the clothing, but it’s clearly before I was born.

A man, a woman, and a little boy of about five years old, all smiling at the camera. The father has one arm around the mother, and another holding the little boy’s shoulder with clear affection.

Sweet.

Next in the box looks like stacks and stacks of newspaper articles. I’m past the point of feeling guilty about snooping, so I pull them out and sit down on my butt beside the bed.

The first article is dated from twenty years ago from the Washington Times. The headline says, CAPITAL CITY KILLER ARRESTED.

I read the article about a man named Arco VanBuskirk—the prisoner referenced in the letter—who had been arrested and charged with the rapes and murders of five women. The details were sparse, as the investigation was still pending.

The next article is from two days later. It has a bit more details about the grisly murders and the fact that they had gone unsolved for years.

I flip through article after article, chronicling the investigation all the way up through the trial of the man. One news article has a picture of the courtroom, and I notice with astonishment the woman and kid from the first photo I’d looked at are in the front row.

Quickly pulling the news articles I’d already read back onto my lap, I flip through and look at the pictures of Arco VanBuskirk, and holy shit…it’s the man in that first photograph.

But why would Van have this stuff?

I pull the picture back out, and my eyes narrow on the little boy. It’s hard to tell, but I think—

“What are you doing?” I hear Van’s voice behind me and jump with a little yelp.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I say with my hand held to my heart, still clutching the photo. Van stalks into the room, rounds the bed, and squats. He grabs the photo out of my hand, looking at the news articles in my lap and the half-empty box because I didn’t get a chance to read everything.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, my face actually flaming hot that I’ve been caught snooping.

“Christ,” he mutters with frustration as he stands, scrubbing one hand through his hair. It’s slightly damp from a shower he must have taken at the gym.

“Are you—” I start to say, but then Van is walking out of the bedroom holding that photo. I scramble up and follow him out. When I find him in the living room, just staring at the couch, I ask him again, “Are you the little boy in that photo?”

He spins on me, his face a mask of pure rage, and it’s so frightening I move back. “Why the fuck were you snooping in my room?”

“I wasn’t,” I say as he takes a step toward me and I take one back. “I was vacuuming and I accidently pushed that box out with the vacuum. It knocked the top off, and I saw the letter from the prison—”

“Fucking snooping,” he growls. “Fucking goddamn snooping in my personal shit, and you know, Simone…you know there’s supposed to be this separation. But you just won’t fucking stay the fuck back.”

“Van,” I say soothingly…cautiously. “Talk to me. What is this stuff?”

“Fuck,” he yells louder than I’ve ever heard a human yell before, and it’s full of pain and rage, and it scares the shit out of me. He turns away from me with fists clenched. My first instinct is to run, then just to wrap my arms around him. I don’t know what to do. His eyes cut back to me. “You shouldn’t have seen that stuff, but now that you have…it’s over, Simone.”

“What?” I exclaim with a cry. “No. Van…please, just tell me what this is. Whatever it is, I don’t care.”

“Fuck,” he yells again, his face contorted with fury, but he also looks so damn lost.

“Why would you push me away without giving me an explain—”

“Because my father is a goddamned sociopathic serial killer,” he screams at me, and even though I had slightly suspected that because of the photo, his words cause me to stumble back a bit.

“Yeah, see,” he sneers at me. “Not so attractive anymore, am I, Simone? That look on your face says it all.”

That rattles me and I shake my head, taking a step toward him. “No, Van…you just caught me by surprise.”

He takes two big steps back from me, holding his hands out, the one clutching the photograph so hard it’s crumpled into a ball. “Just stay the fuck away from me.”

My instinct takes over—my true instinct—and instead of running away, I’m flying at him. I slam my body into his, wrapping my arms tight around him. Pressing my face into his chest, I squeeze him as hard as I can.

He just stands there, his breathing harsh and labored, his arms hanging loose and not holding me back.

I turn my head, lay my cheek over his heart. “Van…I don’t give a fuck what your father is. It’s you I care about.”

“You shouldn’t,” he mumbles, and I tip my head back to look at him. He’s staring at me, his eyes flat and dull. “You shouldn’t care about someone like me. I told you I don’t have anything to give.”

“Bullshit,” I snap at him. “You have everything to give. Why would you think that?”

Van pulls away from me, but his hands go to my shoulders. He peers down at me. “Do you know what it’s like for a kid to watch their father arrested, and then tried for horribly gruesome crimes? And for your mom to insist he’s innocent, but deep in your heart…you just know he’s evil. And yet how confusing it is to love that man? By loving him, did that mean I condoned what he did?”

“Absolutely not,” I say adamantly, but he doesn’t hear me.

“Or what about the fact I looked up to him? Admired him? Smiled with pride when he called me a chip off the old block? Maybe I am like him. Maybe I’ve got…” He pauses a moment, bangs his fist to his chest, and his voice is absolutely tortured. “Maybe I’ve got the same sickness in me?”

“God, no,” I say with a sympathetic whine. “Absolutely not. I know you, Van, and you—”

“You don’t know shit about me,” he growls.

“I fucking know everything about you,” I yell at him, and he blinks in surprise. I take a step to him, put my hand on his chest…right over his heart. “If I didn’t know it ten minutes ago, I sure as fuck know it now. You are a man tortured by your father’s sins, and the mere fact you’re so tortured tells me all I need to know about you.”

Van’s eyes seem to flicker, die, and then pop back to life. Maybe with hope? I don’t know, but I’m not stopping.

I step into him, my arms once again going back around his waist. He doesn’t reciprocate so I snarl at him, “You better hold me, you motherfucker.”

His arms immediately come up and around me. He squeezes tight and I snuggle hard into him. With relief, I hear him let out a sigh of capitulation, possibly relief, and then we just stand there holding each other.

“I know you, Van Turner,” I whisper to him. “And I think you’re mighty fine.”