He was the cat. I was the mouse. He had all the power here—the size, the killer instincts, the claws. Best I could hope to do was outrun him. He seemed to sense my thoughts, stepping between me and the door. I felt a bead of sweat form on my nape, sticking to my hair.
“Never,” I told him, shooting him another quick, but shaky smile. “Jim was an asshole, sure. But he never...”
Tom frowned. “Huh.” Then he cocked his head. “So where do you think you get it from, then? The whole sex thing. Y’know, with Gunner?”
He shocked me so bad that instead of gently lifting the phone cover, I snapped it open. That click might as well have been a gunshot. I saw his eyes dart to my hand.
Clumsily, I tried to cover it with a, “What...?”
But Tom was on me with an open-hand slap, one that got me right in the cheekbone and made me see stars.
You ever been hit like that before? It spins your fuckin’ head. Boggles the mind. Takes you off guard. Off balance. My vision was blurry and at the same time, way too sharp. Colors were too bright. My neck hurt from the way my head twisted at the impact, a warm pain that bloomed all the way up into my skull.
“Fuck—”
I tried to pull away, tried to jam Gunner’s number into my phone, but Tom grabbed my arm and slammed my wrist into the table. A new arc of pain sizzled through my bones. I held tight to the phone, curling my fingers around it.
“No!”
He struck me again, but when my grasp didn’t break, he brought my hand to his mouth and bit. Hard. Right on my knuckles. I screamed when he broke the skin, dropped the phone, and came at him with my right hand, the one with the bandages on it. I was operating on animal instincts. I didn’t think about the consequences. When I slapped him, it only hurt me worse, and that moment of hesitation when the pain took me over gave Tom enough time to grab my hand and twist it, bringing it to my knees.
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody, help—”
And then he slugged me—a good one, right to my jaw. He might as well have hit me with a Mack truck.
There’s a nerve there, in your jaw. One that keeps the lights on upstairs—or shuts ‘em off, if you’re not very lucky. One good hit and it’ll knock you right the fuck out.
As I hit the floor right at the feet of the man who was gonna kill me, I couldn’t help but feel like the unluckiest girl in the world.
Chapter 19
Gunner
Chelsea lived in a rundown apartment complex on the east side of town, which Simon was able to discover due to a domestic violence report she’d filed three months before. From the restaurant the two of us headed straight across town, where I was hoping to get a few answers.
“Do you think she’s home? I mean, she might be at work,” Simon said as we climbed out of my car.
“Well, let’s hope she’s here. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
That’d be a change of pace...
The two of us entered the dilapidated entryway, with its shabby wallpaper and crusty carpets. Simon and I walked past the unmanned front desk—something that would have meant the pinnacle of class back in the day. From what I could tell, this place hadn’t had anything resembling a receptionist in years.
“No accounting for taste,” Simon muttered as he pulled his coat a little tighter around him. I shook my head and pushed him a little to signal that he needed to pick up the pace.
We mounted the stairs, heading all the way up to the fourth floor. Something about that place gave me the creeps, almost like something was in the air, making everything seem oppressive and claustrophobic. The fuckin’ walls were closing in, and I hated every minute of it.
Near the end of the hallway lay Chelsea’s apartment, 410. The dingy brass letters could hardly even muster the faintest glimmer underneath the fluorescent lighting. Everything about this place seemed to exude hopelessness. In a way, it reminded me of the hospital.
“You want to knock, or—?”
I pushed Simon aside as gently as possible, rapping my knuckles against the peeling red paint on the door. Everything grew a little quieter, as though the entire floor were holding its breath as Simon and I waited for someone—anyone—to answer.
“Who’s there?” came a clear, feminine voice from the other side of the door. “If this is Mr. Caputo, I don’t need to give you rent for another week.”
“It’s not your landlord,” Simon said. “You know Tanya?”
The scratching of a deadbolt being undone reached our ears just before the door jerked open. The door groaned, the wood swollen so much that it had almost sealed shut.
“What’s wrong with Tanya?” The woman on the other side asked. She blinked those big baby blues at me and wrinkled her nose. “Is this about the—”
“Tanya’s fine,” I said, moving in front of Simon. “My name is Gunner. I’m Tanya’s brother.”
“Holy fuck,” she said, her doe eyes going even wider. “She never told me you were hot!”
Simon let out a caw of laughter from behind me, while all I could must was an eye roll. This was my baby sister’s best friend?
And why the fuck hadn’t she told her I was hot?
“Can we come in? We need to ask you a few questions.”
“This is about the guy right? The one from the club—with the mask?”
“The same,” Simon said.
“Gimme a second.”
The door slammed shut for a moment, at which point the scraping continued as Chelsea undid the chain from the top of the door and—with another groan of protest—it swung it wide to let us by.
“I almost didn’t believe her when she’d told me about it. I mean, who fuckin’ does something like that, y’know? That’s some Law & Order-grade shit right there.”
Simon and I gave one another a quick look before turning back to Chelsea as she closed the door behind us, putting all of her locks back in place.
The inside of her apartment was, surprisingly, very nice. The walls were freshly painted, the floors were tiled, and the smell that had bothered me so much out in the hallway was conspicuously absent.
“Are all the apartments this nice?” I asked, looking around.
“Nah,” she said, grinning, “But the landlord is a regular, so he let me get away with a little renovating in exchange for a few private shows.”
“Right,” I said, doing my best to leave my judgement at the door. To Simon, I added, “She’s a stripper. Not a hooker. Put your damn wallet away.” And then to Chelsea again, “You work with Tanya?”
“Yup, for a long time now. We even moved clubs together.”
“So, you two are around one another a lot?” Simon asked.
“Sure, we go out all the time when we’re not workin’. Blow off a little steam at the clubs, and whatnot.”
“What about your brother?” Simon pressed. “Does he know Tanya, too?”
At the mention of her brother Chelsea froze. She almost looked like she’d been physically stuck as she considered the question. Her face went ashen, but her cheeks turned rose red. She was embarrassed and terrified all at the same time.
“How do you know about my brother?”
“He’s got quite a record,” I said, my eyebrows raised. “Restraining orders, arson charges? I mean, he sounds like a pretty troubled guy.”
She folded her arms and drew away from me. “I thought you were a firefighter? What, do you moonlight as a cop or something?”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “I just want to find out who’s trying to hurt my stepsister, Chelsea.”
Too late. She was already on the defensive.
“Connor’s just a little different. He was always a weird kid—he didn’t get along with everyone when he was growing up. Y’know, he was one of those ‘outsider’ types.”
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose in frustration. She was trying to protect him, which wasn’t helping me get any answers.
“Chelsea,” Simon cut in, answering my prayers, “you filed more than one of
these restraining orders. I know that he’s your brother, but I think deep down you know that he’s a little more than just ‘troubled.’_”
She turned, walking into the kitchen and out of sight of the two of us for a few moments. A few seconds later we heard the clattering of a cutlery drawer before she came back into view, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in her hand as she plopped down at her dining room table.
Simon and I looked at one another for a moment before making our way over to her as she opened took her first spoonful of Phish Food.
“Connor’s just...” she began, taking another moment to compose her words while she mulled over the ice cream in her mouth. “He ain’t normal.”
“What do you mean?” Simons asked, sitting down across from her at the table. “Normal’s a pretty broad generalization. Not everybody fits normal.”