Sterling (5 page)

Ten minutes later, Adam reappeared with bags in tote. I couldn’t help but notice the odd way in which he looked around the parking lot as if he were constantly on patrol.

“Here,” he said handing me a smaller bag.

My hands pulled the edges apart to reveal a large chocolate bar in colorful wrapping.

“Oh…you didn’t have to.”

The key slid in the ignition but he paused before turning it. “You don’t like chocolate?”

I loved chocolate—but his thoughtfulness caught me off guard. “Thanks, I promise I’m going to pay you back for everything.”

“The only payment I’ll accept are answers. Let me know when you’re ready to close out that tab.”

I bit my lip and remained quiet for the trip back. I wasn’t ready to give answers and Adam felt that he was owed them. Maybe he was right.

He bought a couple of T-shirts, shorts, tank tops, razors and other odds and ends that I needed. But the price of truth was high. That truth could get me wrapped up in a snug straight jacket.

I claimed the sofa, tossing the bags beside me and crossing my ankles. I felt pitiful, like a lost dog.

Adam eased into his armchair with a bottle of Heineken. “So, what’s your plan?”

He lifted the bottle and took a long sip as my eyes watched the slow movement of his Adam’s apple. The light reflected on the green bottle imitating the hue of my new eye color. When the bottle lowered, Adam’s lips hovered on the mouth of the bottle as he noticed me noticing him. A tongue swept across and licked them, snapping me out of my haze.

“I’ve thought about it and I don’t have a clue what to do.”

His finger tapped on the bottle as he wedged it between his thighs. “Is there anyone you could call, someone you trust who would believe you?”

“I don’t even believe me.”

“You need money. Without access to your apartment or family, what do you think you can do?”

“Why don’t I just strip for a living, I bet I could wrap these legs around one of those poles pretty good. I doubt they ask for my social security number.”

“Is that what you want to do, prostitute yourself?” he snapped. I looked up and there was no humor in his face, but a fire lit behind those eyes.

“Kidding, only kidding. I can’t go back to my life anymore. I can’t risk talking about what happened because they’d lock me up in the funny farm.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” he said. “You have to be funny in order to get in.” He took another swig and I realized that Adam had a funny bone after all.

 “I just wish I could see Max again.”

“Max?” Adam’s thumbnail pressed into the glass bottle as he shifted in his seat. There was an edge in his tone, and a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Nodding at his bottle I asked, “Can I get one of those?”

Perhaps there was none left or he was too tired to get up so he leaned forward and handed me his.

I took a swig hoping to drown some of the depression that was settling in my bones. How do you start from square fucking one? Another swallow sent an army of happy bubbles sailing down my throat and I felt miles better.

Relaxed.

“Zoë?”

“What? Sorry I didn’t hear you.”

Adam rose to his feet, hiking up his jeans a little. I admired his arms as his fingers locked over his head. It wasn’t until they were on display that I could appreciate how beautifully toned they were. And he lived out here alone? It just didn’t make sense. Adam had the kind of body and seductive casualness about him that was extremely attractive. Guys like him I’d met before, and they were always married. I tried to put my finger on what it was—he didn’t have model beauty—but it was charisma. Yeah, that’s the word.

“You want to go to bed?”

I blinked and my heart did a quick ricochet.

Adam chuckled in a deep voice and dropped his arms as if he knew where my mind went. “Christ Zoë, that’s not what I meant. It’s too late for planning; we’ll talk about visiting your apartment another night. Until we have some answers you need to lay low. Tell me Zoë, who is after you?”

I looked away sheepishly because not telling felt very close to lying. I didn’t like to lie.

“I won’t be able to help you until I know the truth of it.”

Adam had no intention of letting me crash here for a couple of days. He wasn’t even inviting me to stay longer…he was planning on it.

I set the beer on the table and curled up on my side, tucking my arms beneath my head.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Adam’s voice boomed.

Being it was the first time I ever heard him raise his voice that way I was startled. He intimidated me in a way that propelled me right to my feet as I ran towards the back door.

“Woah,” he said holding his arms wide and moving in my direction. “Hey now, I didn’t mean to yell, I’m not…shit you know I’m not going to hurt you.”

Still didn’t leave me with warm fuzzies even if I knew I could trust him. He corralled me in against the door and stroked my arms softly. I was shocked by his sudden affection and froze. When I didn’t meet his glance, he lifted my chin with his knuckle.

When he spoke, there was poison on his tongue. “I don’t like men who hurt women.” His fingers weaved through my hair cradling my head. “What I meant was I’m not letting you sleep on the sofa.” Emphasis on ‘sofa’, as if it were a dirty word.

“I don’t care, I’m fine with it.” I gulped, swallowing down that last bit of panic that was doing a crazy dance on my nerves.

He snapped his fingers and pointed towards the bedroom. “You bed, me sofa.” That simple phrase snapped the tension in the room and put me at ease. The smile helped, too.

“Nice to know you’re not entirely a caveman,” I said, staring at his bare feet.

“I’m not that prehistoric.”

“Fred Flintstone called and he wants his car back.”

I meant to be funny but it occurred to me I was being rude. Adam broke the awkward moment when he burst out laughing, and it was a rich, deep, and enjoyable laugh that had me smiling again.

“Don’t encourage me,” I said pushing on his chest. “I know I haven’t gone about this the right way, but thanks—for everything.” My words were weighted and sincere.

Adam scratched the back of his neck looking as if the gratitude embarrassed him.

“Let’s call it a night.”

Chapter 4

Two weeks later.

“I think you’ll want to read that.”

Adam tossed a newspaper on the table as he carried a giant bag of birdseed out the back door.

I held a cup of coffee to my nose and inhaled deeply. Adam brewed the best coffee and he always had a pot ready when I woke up, even if he was out and about. I lived with a man once before, but I was never treated this good with just the simple things. I didn’t have to ask for a drink when he got up to get himself one—he just brought it. Adam was kind, and that kind of thing just can’t be taught.

I took a cautious sip and turned the page. My eyes skimmed over an article on page four.

The blurb read no more than ten sentences stating the police had no leads on a stolen body. Stolen—as if someone would rip through a body bag verses take the whole thing. It sounded to me like they were incompetent law enforcement at its finest since I now officially moved to a cold case file.

Adam was whistling to himself as he came back inside and chucked the bag over by the door. I watched in amusement as he peered out the window to watch the feasting. I think that’s what I liked the most about Adam was how pleased he was watching the end result of his putting out that seed; he liked taking care of things. He never killed bugs in the house either but scooped them up, showed them to me so he could watch me scream, and released them on the porch.

“I think its time we had a talk.” Adam placed his hands impatiently on his waist. I pressed my nose back into the paper, licking my finger and turning a few pages.

Everything stopped when I landed on the last page.

Zoë Winter Merrick, age 29, died September 5. Survived by mother, Abigail, and sister Sunny. Funeral 10am Monday at Morgan funeral Chapel.

It was so brief; no accomplishments, no surviving children, not even a respectable age to have lived to. My fingers were devouring the paper with angry claws.

I felt Adam’s hand on my back, stroking in small circles. He was great on the punch lines but he knew when to give that needed space and quiet. Sometimes I just didn’t want to say anything. He squeezed my neck in two quick pinches…the ‘you’ll be ok’ kind.

“It’s time we go to your apartment and get your things. Time to close out that life.”

By late afternoon, I had slipped my long legs into a pair of knee length grey shorts, black tank top and flip-flops. Sadly, it was becoming my signature ensemble and I normally was a long skirt kind of girl.

I found Adam in the kitchen so I took a lazy posture at the end of the table. Noticing my need to talk, he set down glass in the sink and lifted a chair turning it around so he could straddle it in front of me with his arms crossed over the back.

“What’s on your mind?”

I shrugged.

Adam knew when I was battling a sense of not belonging, an empty feeling I couldn’t explain that never existed before. But there it was, poking at me in quiet moments like a hot branding iron.

“Tell me where you’re from,” he said.

“I came out of thin air.”

Adam squinted as if trying to read me and I chuckled as it was always an inside joke with Sunny. I decided to end the suspense. “I was born on a transatlantic flight somewhere over the ocean. My mom was coming back from Germany and went into premature labor. Flight attendants delivered me during an electrical storm.”

His brown eyes were momentarily suspended on me. Reaching out, he gripped the seat of my chair and dragged it forward so we were even closer. “Go on.”

“We landed in Boston so I’m American, but…I actually have Canadian citizenship.”

Adam laughed shaking his head. “Now that’s a story.”

My mood was already brightening.

“What was your mom doing in Europe?”

“I don’t know, she said she lived there but she never talked about her past. I wish I had asked her more about it.”

Not that I would have gotten answers. When my mom didn’t want to talk about something, that subject was closed and buried. I guessed maybe that part of her life was too painful to remember.

I was a little tickled because it was the first time that we sat down and talked about ourselves. “So what about you, what’s your story?”

“That picture in my room? That’s me and my twin sister.”

I never made the connection. I had looked at it a few times but thought it was a purchased photograph.

“My mother was a career woman who decided to give it all up to become a mother. She met my dad and had us. He was older, didn’t have kids of his own but he was a respectable man. I knew they had a relationship of convenience, but say what you want, that man did right by her.”

“People have married for less,” I agreed. “Where do they live now?”

“He was a smoker—died of lung cancer when we were kids. The medical bills didn’t leave us with much so my mother had to get a job up north, and our bohemian life ended.”

I hadn’t even noticed Adam’s fingers were pinching the edge of my shorts as he was lost in his thoughts.

“We were really tight after that, the three of us. I was the man of the family, even as a kid so I did what I could to help out. I worked all through high school and when our mother died—”

“Your mom died?”

I felt awful. To have lost both parents when you weren’t even out of school was unimaginable.

“It was a reaction to anesthesia. Bell took it hard.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “Annabell, my sister.”

“Did someone take care of you?”

“No, we had no other family. It was senior year when she died so I quit school and we moved into a loft where I worked two jobs to put her through college.”

I felt the need to connect to Adam for his selflessness and touched his hand. “I know she appreciates what you did for her.”

She better have or I’d rightfully kick her ass
. The man quit school and by that time, she was old enough to take care of herself. But there he was, looking out for his sister.

“I’ve moved around a lot since then.”

I crossed my legs and leaned an arm on the table. “And you ended up moving here?”

“Yep,” he grunted as he leaned over my arm and snatched a green toothpick from the holder on the table, rolling it on his tongue.

“Witness protection program?” I sniffed a quiet laugh.

Adam took out the toothpick and held each end between his thumb and index finger. He studied it as if he were looking at the molecular structure of an atom bomb.

Now
who was being evasive?