Harkham's Case (Harkam's #1) (21 page)

Move that fat ass, move that fat ass, move it!
she brainwashed herself with each pounding beat. She dwelled instead on what it would take to never become her father.

When her thirty minutes were up, she hit the treadmill so she could run for twenty more and repeat that same mantra to herself again. She looked over, and her unofficial workout buddy, Jorge, was at her right.

“How’s it goin’?” he asked with a grin.

“Great. I lost another five pounds this last month.” She hadn’t seen him in a while. They liked to keep each other on track. “How about you?”

“Eight . . . Six-pack abs, here I come!” He smacked his abs, powered the treadmill on and took off at a quick walk.

She went straight into a run. Her muscles were already warmed up. Besides, in a few minutes he’d be running full-out, and she’d have to battle feelings of inner turmoil over how she’d never be able to keep up with him. That’s when she was stuffing her earbuds back in to distract herself from her petty thoughts.

“Hi,” a chipper tenor rang out on her left.

Her eyes flew open wide, and she turned to her left. “Adam—what are you doing here?”

“I missed you,” he said really loud.

“I missed you too, but you can’t just show up here. How did you even know where I was?” She gripped the bar on the treadmill.

“Sam told me you were texting her earlier to find out if I was okay and if I got in trouble from leaving to find you in Flagstaff.”

“I’m glad you didn’t get busted,” she said.

“Me too. She told me you were busy today, though—had to go to the Y. We figured that meant you’d be here, and we were right.” He wore a huge grin—one of a man that had accomplished something fabulous.

Her heart pounded so hard it was hard to breathe. “Are you here alone?”

“No. Zach’s here.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. Zach was sitting over on a bench by the free weights, talking on his cell.

She whispered, “Did they find out about the donuts I gave you?”

“No,” he whispered back and giggled. “And they won’t. I did what you said, and it was all fine! I played my music real loud, the numbers stayed away while I drove, and you kept me from getting a speeding ticket.” He started up his treadmill.

Looked like she was going to have a new workout buddy today.

“This should be fun. I only ever exercise with Zach, and he gets mean sometimes. He makes me lift more weights than I want to.” Adam walked like he was dancing—his hips moving more than necessary and his head too.

She looked his body up and down. God, she should shoot Zach, because Adam was absolutely a sculptured piece of art. If she wanted him anymore than she already did, she might implode and be sucked up by her vagina. It would at least be a little satisfying to have some attention. She grunted, since she had so many lurid thoughts floating in her head right now she absolutely couldn’t share. All of them involved him being stripped bare and her . . .
Stop thinking like that. You like that he’s innocent!

She shoved her earbuds back in, turned the music down a notch in case he tried to say something to her, and she got the treadmill going at her usual speed.

“This a friend of yours?” Jorge asked her.

She almost lost her balance and had to grip the handles. It took a second to remove her earbud closest to him. “Yeah—this is Adam.” She looked at Adam next. “Adam, this is Jorge.”

Jorge leaned forward and waved. Adam scowled but waved back.

“I want her to be my girlfriend,” Adam told him so loud most of the room probably heard.

“Get in line,” Jorge teased.

Adam turned up the speed on his treadmill and stopped looking in Mari and Jorge’s direction.

Her heart clenched. She should’ve introduced Adam as her boyfriend so that conversation wouldn’t have happened. He was probably seeing numbers now. Was that safe while being on a treadmill?

Nobody was talking. Everybody was huffing as they ran, so she let it go. Adam at some point pulled out his phone and plugged in his own earbuds so he could listen to some music.

Mari was sandwiched between two gorgeous guys, almost battling for the most prowess evidenced by their speed. She was dumb enough to try to keep up.

Her legs ached, her lungs were about to explode, but she matched them stride for stride even though they were both much taller than she was.

After a half hour of absolute insanity, she hit the free weights and machines.

Adam hovered around her and was real jumpy. His energy was like nothing she’d seen before.

He zinged from equipment to equipment and lifted large amounts of weights like they were nothing. But what really had her aching—with not only stabs of sharp jealousy, but more so with a desire so thick and hot it ate at her veins—was when he climbed up the middle of the corner nautilus machine. He placed a strap on the center, had one foot anchored in it, grabbed the pull-up bar at the top, and did some kind of inverted, slanted, pull-up. It was the exact opposite of a push-up. His whole body was in a tight, slanted plank, and he managed to move his body up and down, performing about fifteen of them.

Her jaw hung open and she had to step away, far back, because when he got down, she was ready to take all of his innocence—every last bit.

Adam approached her. Zach did, too. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna go take the rest of this call in the car.” Zach waved and left. He hadn’t worked out at all, and by the looks of the way he was walking, it was a woman he was talking to.

Adam pulled his earbuds out and put them in his pocket.

“What else do you like to do when you work out?” Adam asked, exuberant as ever.

“Well, I . . . I sometimes go do the stair-stepper?”

“I’ll join you!” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

They got on, and she was cursing herself. What was she thinking? She was already wiped out.

But Adam was as ready to move that perfect body of his as when he first arrived.

They worked out side-by-side, listening to their own music.

After about twenty minutes, she stopped the machine, jumped off and excused herself.

She bolted down the hall and barreled her way into the ladies’ locker room.

Her stomach barely let her make it to the toilet in time.

“Stupid! So stupid!” she berated herself as she began to vomit profusely. She could feel it coming. Her ab workout was more extreme—everything was done in a harsher way because he was here, and she wanted to at least feel like she could keep up with him in some way. She’d never really be pretty, but she could force her body to be thin.

Tears gushed out. “Anything but this! No!
No
, goddammit!” She pounded a fist into the ground as she braced herself with her other hand on the stall’s wall. Her stomach contracted violently and another round came. She blinked but saw nothing in front of her anymore. Her head stung and pounded as horrifying images of dead people covered with vomit consumed her mind.

When she finished emptying out her stomach, the vision slowly dissipated. She slumped on the ground, cried harder than ever and slammed her palms on the floor. Her head had been a blanket of nasty images. Each worse than the next—all involving her horrific past. Some moments morphed into what could’ve been.

Vomiting always triggered these episodes—she knew this. And she also knew if she worked out way too hard, this could happen.

Dammit, she had to be more careful!

She heaved in as many deep lungfuls as she could.

There was a tap at the locker room door. “Mari, are you in here?” Adam’s sweet voice rang through the crack.

“Yeah—using the restroom. Be right out,” she managed to sputter through bile covering her mouth.

She pushed herself up to sitting, wiped her mouth off with some toilet paper, cleaned herself up and the rim of the seat, then flushed it down.

Thankfully she was alone when she left the stall. Most likely people heard and smelled someone throwing up and vacated as quick as they could.

Or maybe they fled when a man’s voice echoed in here. He was definitely brave, this guy, to try and check on her like this.

She gargled some water, washed her hands, spit and dried all up.

“Stop this! He’s out there waiting,” she told herself, refusing to look at her reflection. “You can do this.”

She stumbled a little as she dragged herself back out into the hallway.

Adam hugged her the second she was near him. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” she said, her arms stiff as she patted his back.

“Are we done working out?”

“Yeah.” She pulled away, kept her gaze down and retrieved her bag from one of the lockers. He probably smelled the residual puke on her.

You disgust him . . .

He kept at her side.

“What music did you listen to?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s a weird mix I made,” she said, sniffing back the tears. Would she ever get over how wonderful he was?

“I like to make remixes, too. Zach asks me to make some for him because he likes them so much.” He hopped next to her and turned it into a slight skip for a moment.

“Oh, um . . . Mine aren’t remixes. Just a random selection of music I chose to put on a playlist,” she clarified.

They stepped out into the parking lot, and in an instant, her stomach buckled again.

This time, there were few places to release it. She dashed over to a section of gravel between some spaced-apart bushes, and the second she was doubled over, vomiting, she was screaming, crying and rocking back and forth.

Not now . . . Not when Adam’s here!

It was too late. Those flashes of death and putrid smells were back. This time, she only saw the one person—the very real one—she didn’t want to see. It made her stomach clamp down worse.

There were two male voices behind her. Somebody patted her back, but she was too far gone.

Right there—in the crib. She never saw it, but she heard how awful it was. That little sweet angel Mari destroyed.

Tears poured out of her eyes, and a high-pitched, whiny sound came rushing out of her chest. She clutched at her heart—it was so filled with needles and pain.

Make it stop! Make it go away!

Every filthy word she always tried unsuccessfully to keep tucked inside when Adam was around her spewed out of her mouth between her indecipherable wails and her vomiting. Her vile words were thicker and hotter than the grotesque contents exiting her body.

When it stopped, she stayed where she was. It would never go away. She would always be stuck, imagining what that dead child looked like because of what she did. Her hands clawed at the dirt. She grabbed handfuls of slime-covered rocks and chucked them as she screamed herself hoarse. The louder she was, the easier it was to forget she was uglier and more pathetic than her bile on the ground.

Somebody scooped her up.

“No, I’m gonna carry her. Only
I
can touch her!” Adam barked at somebody.

“Adam . . . ?” she whimpered.

“The numbers can’t have you—you’re with me,” he said.

Her clouded eyesight cleared, and he smiled at her as he carried her over to her Jeep.

“She looks pretty awful. Maybe she’s badly dehydrated?” Zach said.

“Take me home,” she mewled.

“I’ll drive,” Zach said.

“I can handle it. Go home.” Adam’s arms tightened around her.

“I’ll follow you. Otherwise you won’t have a way to get home,” Zach replied.

Mari was placed in her Jeep on the passenger’s side.

“Take her phone. I want to make her happy, so I’m gonna give her some of my remixes.” Adam patted her hair.

“That always makes my day,” Zach said, gave Adam a hug and turned to get in his own car.

“I’ll make it all better. You’ll see,” Adam told Mari and shut the door.

Somehow, she believed him.

Chapter 11

Adam glanced over every few seconds at Mari as he drove her Jeep to her home.

She was shaking. Maybe it was shivers from being cold? A few times after working out, if the fans were directed on him, he’d tremble after.

“You’re shaking. Are you cold?” he asked her.

She shook her head, but barely.

“I’m gonna stay with you, okay?”

“You c-can’t. You’ll get in trouble,” she said, her teeth chattering a little.

“Are you seeing numbers?” he asked, ignoring her last statement. Zach could make something up for him—find a way to explain his absence at dinner.

“Really bad ones. Dead eyes, baby eyes,” she mumbled.

“You’re having nightmares while you’re awake?”

She curled into a tight ball on the seat and tucked her head against her knees.

He put on some soothing music for her.

When they got to her home, he rummaged through her bag and found her keys. He jumped out of the Jeep, unlocked her front door and left it open. His heart hammered as he raced back to get her.