A Mended Man (The Men of Halfway House Book 4) (33 page)

This is not real. This house is not made of stone and mud.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. He could do this. He could filter out the visual noise he was all too familiar with, knowing exactly which elements were there to taunt him.

Focus. You can fucking do this.

The image flickered again then dissolved, leaving him only with a piano sonata playing in his ear and the now sharp, high-definition scene before him. He took a few more calming breaths and slowly approached the narrow wooden table for a closer inspection.

He zeroed in on the objects—knives in various shapes and sizes. He took a step closer as if pulled to the table by an invisible rope and saw the kukri blade and the blood-smeared tanto knife. His attention sharply focused on the last, oddly shaped man-made weapon. "Fuck," he whispered on an exhale as the mental pieces connected, linking this case to another.

The flash of the forensics camera momentarily blinded him, weakening his guard against the flashback tugging at his consciousness. His lungs froze with a sharp inhale. Another flash. A large shadow cast against the wall of the detective holding the blindfold up in the air hurled him into another memory.

The blindfold was yanked from around his eyes. He quickly turned to look over his shoulder, and through the blindness of the bright sun, an outlined silhouette of a man haloed by the light, hovered over him like an angel of death holding a braided object, raised in the air ready to strike. The figure yelled a single word, before the object crashed down on his back.

The man's yell faded behind the piano sonata in his ear.

He swallowed heavily, fisting his hands and steeling himself.
This isn't real.

The haloed figure from the flickering image vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Focus.

He took a deep breath and straightened. Sunny entered the room from the side door and visually circled the scene before walking over to him. He casually pulled the earbuds out and returned them to the inside pocket of his sport coat.

She crossed her arms and rubbed her biceps. "There's a weird vibe in here. It's creepy as hell."

Aidan couldn't have agreed more.

"This isn't like the Miller case," she whispered.

"No, it's not. But look at the table. What do you see?" He glanced around the room, trying to keep their conversation from prying ears. Sunny hated it when he spoon-fed her information she could deduce on her own.

"What am I supposed to see?"

He waited. Sunny's detective skills were spot on. Her focus was intense and he could imagine her processing each item with careful detail.
C'mon. It's right there
.

He had always had an uncanny ability to disconnect from the traditional frame of thinking and connect pieces of a puzzle together. He never suffered from that out-of-place sense of disconnect people experienced from seeing the checkout person from the local grocery store in a different state and out of uniform, where it was easy to recognize the face, but placing
the where
was sometimes a little tricky. Aidan had a gift of remembering details and fluidly making connections from different places and times. It was seamless, effortless. He had an infinite stream of details, faces, places, and events. He had a memory bank of pieces he could easily assemble into coherent elements of a single puzzle. It was the only way he could explain how quickly he read between the lines or saw things others missed. And it was that same damn mental gift that caused his flashbacks to be so exhaustingly vivid at times.

"I don't see it." Sunny scowled and crossed her arms, not shifting her focus from the table.

"Look at the knives. And stop trying to frame your conclusions based on the Miller case."

Her scowl deepened as if she could focus her thoughts more intensely with her eyes. Moments later, the scowl slid off her face and her gaze snapped back to him.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"The last blade. It has the same odd curve shape of the Butterfly Killer's victims."

"Yes." He hated that fucking nickname and cursed the day he spotted the small inked insect as the case link.

A slow, wicked grin spread across Sunny's face. "Reyes is going to be super pissed he wasn't here."

"Yes," he said, fighting the smile that tugged at his lips.

Sunny's eyes rounded. "You know what this means."

Aidan nodded. "It means we finally have a lead if she's got that butterfly tattoo. We need to secure her at the hospital before the son of a bitch figures out she's escaped from this hell."

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and started pressing keys. "I'm texting Wall to meet us there. Now, let's get the hell out of this place. It's totally creeping me out."

His sentiments exactly.

* * * *

Aidan walked through the doorway and locked the door behind him, quieting the buzz of the alarm system. He closed his eyes and inhaled the delicious scent of dinner wafting in the air.

"Hey there!" Jessie called out from the kitchen.

He needed this, needed Jessie and this bubble of safety that surrounded them here. He wanted to surrender, to rewind time and forget everything that happened in the last few hours, to give in and take Jessie in his arms, carry him away and make love to him the entire night. Hell, the entire weekend. Maybe the whole fucking week if he could manage to wipe his mind of all the damn memories that stopped him. But he couldn't. His heart and body wanted one thing, but his mind stopped him every time.

And today, his mind had taken extra effort to remind him exactly why he couldn't take that next step.

He set the alarm system and dropped his keys and wallet on the table. He screwed his eyes shut and roughly rubbed his forehead, finally raking his fingers through his hair. He needed to wrap the day up with some semblance of his sanity still intact. He needed a shower. And sleep. No, maybe not sleep. He didn't want to risk crashing so hard a nightmare would sneak up on him. Not today. He couldn't handle it after the day from hell. The crime scene had hinted at what to expect, but nothing could have prepared him for the interview with the victim that nearly broke him. It had taken every ounce of energy in his now zapped body to stand steady and strong with his fellow task force members in the room. Maybe the weekend off would give him enough time to rebuild his armor before starting over on Monday.

"I made…" Jessie trailed off once he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, barefoot and shirtless, wearing his dark blue jeans. He immediately walked over to Aidan and reached out, placing his hand against Aidan's cheek.

Aidan released a shaky breath with the contact. Jessie's magical touch always settled the storm brewing within. He leaned into the caress, letting Jessie stroke his cheek, needing the tether of strength he always offered.

Jessie waited, a never-ending fountain of patience with him. "Dinner should be ready in a few minutes," he softly said, still stroking Aidan's cheek. "You have time for a quick shower." He reached up on his tiptoes and brushed his lips against Aidan's.

Aidan nodded and reluctantly pulled away from the touch. He willed his boots to move, one step, then the other. He managed to remove his jacket along the way and shed the rest of his clothes. How? He had no clue. He robotically switched on the water in the shower and stepped in when the steam began to rise. He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the hot spray and let the water sluice down his body, hoping the remnants of the day would wash away and escape down the drain.

Snippets of the victim's interview from the hospital circled his mind. Her retelling of how he'd used the knives and everything he had done to her.

How he'd beat her.

Like me.

How he'd tied her up and blindfolded her.

Like me.

How he'd tied her to the hooks in the wall as he'd beat her, cut her, and found other ways to torture her.

Like me.

The memories, too vivid and her retelling much too similar for him to mentally block. Seeing her on the bed, bandaged, bruised, and swollen.

A reminder of Jessie after the attack.

A reminder of himself after another torture session.

All his effort and strength had gone to steeling himself, to ensure he appeared unaffected to his team. He had stood like a stone figure in the corner of the room without moving a single inch during the two-hour interview, performing an award-winning impersonation of Wall. He couldn't risk crumbling in front of his team.

No way would he show any form of weakness.

The interview had awakened far too many visions and taken too much strength to sustain his guard. He had barely escaped the hospital room before he began to crumble, unable to fight the demons in his head who sought vengeance, lashing out at him with repeated memories in quick succession. The yelling loud and the pictures vivid. He grabbed the lemon soap and lathered up the washcloth. He shoved his nose into the now lemon-scented material, hoping to replace the lingering smell of copper from a memory filling his senses. He rested his forearm against the shower tile wall, scarcely able to keep himself upright. The yelling voices echoed in his mind, all six of his captors screaming in unison. He barely had a chance to catch his breath when a phantom strike made contact with his back, throwing off his balance, forcing him to plant his palms against the tile to avoid falling to the floor. One strike, then another, and another. He gnashed his teeth, holding back the pain, his mind warring with the present and the past. The memory vivid, the smell in the air dank as if he were in that same room from years ago and the pain as sharp and as piercing now as it had been back then.

Is this real?

His body arched with another memory. This one more haunting than the others. He screwed his eyes shut and clawed at the tile wall, fighting the soreness of the rare, but most memorable torture they dispensed in the end when he tried to escape. He held back a growl of protest, tensing at the unbearable agony and searing burn of the phantom plunge of the truncheon-like object into his unprepared body. He shook his head vehemently as each breath sawed in and out of his lungs, trying and failing to fight the fire inside his body.

It's not real. It's not…

Or was it? He fought the memory but didn't have the energy to distinguish the now blurred line between reality and memory of a darker time. He focused his vision at the tile wall staring him down.

No. It's not real.

He was in a shower.
His
shower. Not out in the sun and mud under the spray of the ice cold water. He wasn't bound or gagged. He snarled at the tile wall, gritting his teeth and willing himself to straighten.

No. This isn't real. They can't break me.

With his remaining strength, he desperately scanned the shower for the fallen washcloth, snatching it up from the tile floor and feverishly rubbing his legs and body to wash away the lingering phantom blood and mud.

"Aidan?"

He spun quickly, almost losing his balance. A figure stood on the other side on the steam-covered glass.
Jess
. So close, yet so far away. He wanted to reach out. He needed his tether to ground him and support him and recharge his strength to battle the inescapable memories.

Aidan slowly straightened when Jessie approached. He inhaled sharply as Jessie opened the shower door and stepped in, not caring that he still wore his jeans. He reached out and grabbed Aidan by the shoulders, gently guiding him to turn his back toward the shower head, never breaking eye contact. He couldn't tear his focus away from every move Jessie made and how his lean muscles flexed with each controlled, careful shift in position.

Aidan closed his eyes when Jessie cupped his face, unable to control the strangled whimper that escaped, craving the closeness and strength his mind and body desperately needed. He reached out and snaked his arm around Jessie's waist, pulling him closer, reveling in the warmth and safety of the embrace, not caring about the harsh denim rubbing against his bare skin.

He exhaled a shaky breath, feeling a small ripple of peace begin to spread throughout his body as if a pebble had been pitched into the dark, still water of his soul. One pebble, then another, and another. Fingers stroked through his wet hair, calming his inner storm and tossing another pebble and another. He wrapped his other arm around Jessie's shoulders and held him close as Jessie placed tentative kisses along his neck, and pitched more imaginary pebbles his way, finally enough to stop the overflowing well of flashbacks.

"Dinner's going to burn," Aidan mumbled into Jessie's now wet hair.

"It'll keep. You're more important."

Aidan took a deep breath and tightened his hold on the body in his arms until the water ran cold, thankful for the endless supply of strength and peace Jessie always seemed to offer.

* * * *

All these damn flashbacks sneaking up on him were forcing Aidan to bump up his timetable to speed along his progress. For the last two weeks, he made it a point of trying harder during his therapy sessions, well, at least he thought so. He had to do something, anything to lessen all these damn memories that had suddenly awakened and messed with him. But he couldn't lock them away again. He'd been there and done that, and wouldn't go down that road again.

He hadn't been here in a while, but when the good doctor issued his first homework assignment, he figured this was a good place to start. He exited his SUV and rolled up his shirt sleeves as he worked his way along the familiar path. Another hot day but he figured he might as well do this now before he had a chance to talk himself out of it. He had sneaked away at lunchtime to be here. He had a goal and a deadline. Two things he could manage. Now he just needed to figure out all the details in between.

He ducked under an overgrown tree as he thought about his last few sessions.

"The increased frequency of your flashbacks is your mind's way of letting you know it's ready to heal," his doctor had said. Well, apparently his brain hadn't gotten the memo that a simple
I'm-ready-let's-work-on-this
would have sufficed. But in his typical style, he never did anything the easy way. "You need to talk," his doctor had said.
No shit
, he remembered thinking. "Say something to someone about something you're keeping to yourself. That will let you know it's okay to open up, to put yourself in a situation where you feel vulnerable. Pick someone. I don't care who, but it has to be someone you're close to. Someone whose opinion matters to you. Then share something you've kept closely guarded."