CHAPTER EIGHT
Madison
We were both wrung out and emotionally spent by the time we got to Oliver's house. There was a spare bedroom – the one he'd offered me before. This time though, he insisted on me sleeping in the same room as him so he could keep an eye on me. After sharing a bed once, it was nothing to do it again, right?
He carried my bags into the master bedroom and dropped them into a chair near the window. Turning to look at me, he gave me a smile I could tell was forced. He was doing his best to project an air of confidence and self-assuredness. But, I could read people well enough that I could see the uncertainty and even the current of fear and concern that lurked just behind his eyes.
“You'll be staying here with me,” he said. “Bathroom is over there. Feel free to make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa, Madison.”
“Not that I don't appreciate it,” I said, “But for how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
His house was nice – a two bedroom, two bath townhome that was outfitted with a top-shelf security system that eased both of our minds. At least, a little bit. His place was a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It was a typical bachelor pad as far as furniture went, but it was clean. Tidy. I just found it odd that he – a single man – would have a two bedroom, two bath home all to himself.
“Why such a big place?” I asked him as we climbed into bed.
“I wanted a family one day,” he said matter-of-factly, as he pulled the soft down comforter over us. “Figured it would be a good starter home. Bought it when—”
His voice trailed off and he didn't finish his statement. I saw the shadowed, haunted, and pained look in his eyes as he started to close down on me. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know exactly where his mind was going.
“No, talk to me,” I said. “Don't shut down.”
I rested my head on my arm and looked out at the sullen, attractive man lying next to me.
“I don't want to keep babbling about my ex,” he said. “It feels wrong.”
“It's only wrong if you're not comfortable,” I said, stroking his cheek. “I won't pressure you to talk about it if you don't want to. Just know, you can always talk to me. I'll always listen.”
His smile was a little rueful, but the sullen mask that he'd put on was wiped away. At least for now. Oliver kissed my forehead, his lips soft upon my skin.
“Maybe another time,” he said. “We need to get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow, after all.”
“Oh yeah? Big day, huh?” I asked. “What do you have planned?”
“Trying to help you remember,” he said. “So, we can hopefully get your life back to normal.”
“It would be nice if people stopped trying to kill me,” I said. “But normal? Ha. My life has never been normal, Ollie.”
As much as I hated being stalked and hunted, part of me wondered what that would mean for Oliver and I. Or, at least, what it meant for us once this was all over.
While I hardly knew the man he'd grown up to be, I found that I connected with him just as easily as I had back then. Although a lot of years had passed, the ease and comfort we'd always had between us still remained. It was buried under years of rust and disuse, of course, but that had been easy enough to wipe away.
The attraction between us had always been there, intense and burning hot. Which was why I'd had to keep away from him back then. Why I'd forced myself to stop seeing him.
But that was then and this was now. Times had changed, we'd both grown up, and it made me wonder where this – thing – between us was headed.
If it was headed anywhere at all, or if it was just wishful thinking on my part.
~ooo000ooo~
I rolled over, savoring the feeling of the down comforter enveloping my body. I'd wrapped myself in the soft, warm comforter tight like a burrito, leaving no blanket for anyone else. As shafts of the sun slanted in through the blinds, I yawned and rolled over, finding Oliver's side of the bed empty. My eyes grew wide and my heart fluttered in my chest when I woke to find myself alone in his bed.
A moment later though, a familiar aroma caught my attention and made me smile, banishing all the fear and dark thoughts that had been injecting themselves into my brain.
The scent of bacon filled the air.
I glanced at the clock. It was just after seven in the morning. Still early, especially given how late we'd been up the night before. Oliver was already moving around downstairs though, and I worried I might have frozen him out of bed by being a blanket hog.
I reluctantly slipped from the warm, cozy bed and made my way downstairs, rubbing my eyes and yawning as I entered the kitchen. He looked up from the stove and smiled at me, the sight of it filling me with more warmth than even the down comforter had. I looked at the spread he was putting together and was impressed. Not only was there bacon fresh and ready to be eaten, there were biscuits and gravy too.
Even better, there was a strong aroma of a rich, dark brew coffee saturating the air. Yeah, a girl could get used to starting a day just like that.
“Morning, blanket hog,” Oliver said, a chuckle in his voice.
I cringed. “I'm sorry if I—”
He waved my concerns off. “It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway,” he said. “Figured I might as well get a start on the day. Sit, have some coffee. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I never knew you were a morning person, Ollie,” I said. “Or a gourmet chef. Color me very pleasantly surprised.
He swiped his fork at my hand, a grin on his face, as I stole a piece a bacon and nibbled on it as I took a seat at his kitchen table.
“I'm not technically, but my schedule is all fucked up thanks to my job,” he said. “And I wouldn't call biscuits from a can, gravy from a pouch, and bacon from a package exactly gourmet.”
“It all smells heavenly to me,” I said.
He shrugged. “It'll fill the void and give us some pep,” he said, “because today, we have some work to do.”
I popped the last bit of bacon into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “You really think you can jog my memory?”
He shrugged. “It's worth a shot, isn't it?”
“Sure,” I said. “I mean, I guess so.”
He carried two large, heaped plates of food to the table and set one down in front of me, before taking a seat across from me and settling down with his plate. My stomach growled in response to the feast sitting before me. I was hungry, but I knew there was no way in hell I'd be able to finish all that food. Maybe three of me could eat it all, but even then, it wouldn't be easy. Oliver dove right in though, scooping in giant forkfuls of food into his mouth.
Lift. Insert. Chew. Lift. Insert Chew. Oliver was like a machine as he ate, and it was strangely hypnotic to watch.
It was also the difference between a man and a woman, I thought to myself with a laugh. I took a forkful of biscuit into my mouth and mumbled in appreciation. Coming from a can and a pouch or not, it still tasted pretty damned good. It would most definitely fill the void. Very nicely, actually.
“So, what are we going to do?” I asked, and then nibbled on another piece of bacon.
“I thought we'd start by staging a re-enactment of that night,” he said flatly. “I've seen shows where they take a person back to the place where they'd endured their greatest trauma. For you, that's, obviously, the warehouse. My hope is that having you sort of walk through it again may help loosen up some of those memories that are hiding in that big brain of yours.”
The idea of stepping foot near the warehouse – the place I'd almost been murdered – made me drop my fork. It hit the plate with a loud clatter and I looked down, my appetite vanishing as suddenly as a puff of smoke on the wind. My stomach felt as heavy as a brick and the mere idea of eating anymore made my insides turn.
“I can't go back there—”
“I'll be with you, Madison,” he said, reaching across and squeezing my hand. “It'll be okay. You have nothing to worry about. I promise you that.”
“I don't know, Ollie,” I say, my voice trembling. “I may not be ready for this.”
“If we get there and you're not up for it, we'll leave. Simple as that,” he said. “But nothing will happen to you, I swear. I just feel like putting you in that place again is going to jog some memories loose inside of you.”
His smile was warm and his face incredibly trustworthy. Despite the misgivings I so rightly had, I still found myself feeling better as I looked into his eyes. He was right. He'd be there. I wouldn't be alone. It would be okay.
“Okay,” I said after a few minutes. “As long as you'll be there. Let's do it.”
“That's my girl,” he said and returned to shoveling food into his mouth.
My girl, I thought to myself. It was an odd and interesting choice of words. Was there more meaning behind them in his mind? Was he actually staking a claim to me? Maybe subtly voicing his desire for this thing between us to grow once this crisis was in our rearview mirror? Or, was I simply projecting my own desires? Hoping that was the case?
I didn't know and didn't have time to explore all my thoughts and feelings on the matter at that moment in time. Because Oliver was right about one thing – we had a lot of work to do.
~ooo000ooo~
The first stop on our way out to the warehouse was my place. Which, in and of itself wasn't so scary. Not unless you were afraid of the enormous dust bunnies lurking in the corners and the mountains of laundry that needed doing.
No, my place wasn't scary on its own. But knowing these assholes were stalking me and could possibly be waiting in there, ready to pop out at me like some goddamn jack-in-the-box from hell, made me more than a little nervous.
But, I sucked it up. I had to. There was no other choice. I could either do this and confront whoever it was trying to kill me, take them head on, and put them down. Or, I could live in fear the rest of my life. Spend my days looking over my shoulder, watching and waiting for that other shoe to drop. Spend the rest of my life wondering when I was going to wake up in another burning building – and this time, with no Oliver there to save me.
No, I was sick of this bullshit and needed to put a stop to it. Needed to reclaim my life. I wasn't the sort of girl who hid from her troubles or liked to be intimidated. I was the sort of woman who took life by the horns and beat it into submission. Bent it to my will. This was going to be no goddamn different if I had anything to say about it.
We walked through my home, and Oliver asked me questions like, “Do you remember doing this before you left? Do you remember doing that before you left? Do you recall any sounds or smells that are unusual to your place?”
“Wow, you really watch those crime documentaries pretty closely,” I said and smirked at him.
“I also listen to a pretty good podcast on the subject,” he replied, flashing me a smile. “So, do you? Do you remember anything at all?”
I tried. I really tried to remember, but all I got back was nothingness. I reached into the darkness in the back of my mind, searching for the memories I knew were in there somewhere, but came up completely empty. My memories remained elusive, sitting just beyond my grasp. I could brush them with my fingertips, but couldn't grab hold of them and bring them back to the light.
“It's like the memories are there,” I said, “but they're just out of reach. Barely. I can sense them and can almost see them, but I can't quite bring them into focus. This is so goddamn frustrating.”
Oliver took my hand. “It's okay,” he said. “You're doing great. Just don't give up.”
We walked into my bedroom and I collapsed on my bed, lying on my back, and stared up at the ceiling. My familiar purple bedspread beneath me, soft, warm, and inviting. I rolled over and patted the bed next to me, encouraging Oliver to join me. He smiled, then plopped down beside me. I nestled my head on his chest, and he played with my hair.
It all felt so normal and comfortable to me. It felt so much like we were just a normal couple, like the countless millions out there, enjoying a quiet and intimate moment together, that I was almost able to forget about all of the madness and chaos that was upending my life right now. Almost.
I closed my eyes, a wave of exhaustion washing over me, and I felt like I could go back to sleep. I hadn't slept but a few hours the night before, and I was home. In my bed. With Ollie. That feeling of warmth, familiarity, and comfort radiating between our two bodies. Part of me wanted nothing more than to curl my body around his and sleep for the next three days.
But then his phone dinged, sounding the alarm that a new text message was coming in, and ruined the moment. But then, my eyes flew open as something wormed its way into my head. It carried a sense of something familiar – and yet, something entirely dark and foreboding. Something terrifying. Something that sent a wave of cold from my toes, all the way up to my nose.
I jumped up from the bed, my heart thundering in my chest, and my pulse racing off the charts. I looked around wildly, trying to find out what that noise had been and where it had come from. Intellectually, I knew it was Ollie's phone. It was a text message. I got a hundred of them a day.
Yet, on another level, it was something darker. More sinister. A sound that set off a primal, fight or flight response inside of me.
“Sorry, it's just Jimmy,” he said, putting his phone away. “He's ragging on me for taking my vacation time—”
He looked up at me, his words dying on his lips as he stared at me. I was staring at the wall. The sound. A text message. That was it. It was a text message. I scrambled from the bed and walked toward the door.
“Madison?” he asked, a note of worry in his voice. “What is it?”
“I remember now,” I said. “It wasn't night when I left the house. It was daytime. I was given an address to meet someone. Someone who said he had some information for me about the arson cases.”
“Who?”
“I didn't get a name,” I said. “But I made sure we met in a public place. A Starbucks down the street.”
“Let's go,” he said, grabbing my hand.
Before we made it out of my bedroom and into the living room though, the smell of gasoline hit me like a ton of bricks. The acrid stench of it was overwhelming. A wave of fear rolled through me upon smelling the gas, but it was nothing like the tsunami of terror that stole over me when I saw the smoke billowing out from the other room.
Oliver stepped in front of me, blocking my exit. At first, I wasn't sure why. Although, on some level, I knew what was happening, I was having trouble making the connections in my mind. The fear had gripped me so hard that it was distorting my sense of reality.
But then, I was able to cut through it, to focus on what was happening. And when I managed to get control of myself again, it dawned on me.
My living room was on fire.