Blood and Bone (Blood and Bone Series Book 1), page 4
Ronald Armstrong is dead, and I don’t know how I feel about it all. I feel detached, yet like I should be feeling something for the man I never knew.
Angie and the woman come to the counter, carrying a dress and a wrap. Her eyes dart to the newspaper, lighting up like she’s heard the tale or recognized the story. “Grisly, isn’t it? The news said he was found down in Denny Blaine Park. He was on the beach, stabbed a hundred times or something.”
My stomach drops. “That’s terrible.” I walk to the far side of the room, pretending to sleeve the clothes so they look tidy. But inside I am panicking.
I don’t even know why.
I didn’t know the man.
The woman leaves, smiling and happy about her purchase, as Angie opens the door for the deliveryman bringing the boxes of new inventory for us to hang and display.
She and the driver of the delivery truck get on like old friends. But I ignore them, desperately trying to sort the emotions I don’t understand or completely feel.
There is something buried beneath the layers of things I cannot find in my head and heart that bothers me dearly about the random death of a perfect stranger.
“Oh, look at this one, Jane. It’s so you. Have a go with it.” She holds up a dark-red dress made of a satin-like fabric. It’s deep and intense. I don’t fight her on it but walk mindlessly to the dress she’s holding up and take it, sliding the soft fabric between my fingertips.
I carry it to the changing room like a zombie, peeling off my sweater and slacks. In the mirror there is a flash of something beyond my pale-pink underwear and bra. Something of a history is there, beyond the scars and the red lines. It’s a road map I suddenly need—crave.
I run my hands down the scar on my ribs, savoring the knobby feel of the ropey scar. The stitch marks on the sides are faint, but when I touch them I see something, a face. It’s a man I don’t know, not at all. He’s shaking his dark hair, touching the scars with his thick fingers, but I don’t shy away from the touch. The image might as well be a movie I’ve seen once. It’s hazy and lost in a mist I won’t ever wade through, not completely.
I drag the dress on, robotically. Angie was right—it’s perfect for me. My long dark hair shines in contrast to the deep crimson of the dress. My small breasts are pert and perky, giving me the respectable amount of cleavage a proper lady wears. The creamy pallor of my skin is the exact color needed to wear a dress like this one. Too tanned or dark and you would bring out the orange in the red. But I am ghostly white, so the red stands strong. My oddly colored blue eyes and long lashes seem black under the bright lights, as if my pupils are the only things in my eyes.
I would look pretty, beautiful actually, if I could get past the frightened expression on my face. But it’s fixed there, stunned and stuck.
“Let us have a look. Ya can’t go putting it on and not show.”
A small grin cracks my face, lighting up my looks a bit. I step out from the changing room, spinning for Angie to see. She clasps her hands to her ruddy face. “Oh, now. Och. Ya look like that actress Julie Roberts in Pretty Woman. Ya recall the hooker movie? Ya have to know that one.”
“Julia Roberts,” I mutter, correcting her but not recalling the movie even if somehow the actress’s name slips from my lips.
“That’s right—Julia, of course it is. Such a pretty girl. Where’s she got to these days? Ya never see her anymore in films. Must be aging something fierce and hiding away.”
I chuckle. “I don’t know.” I don’t even know how I got her name out of the mud that is my mind. I can’t even recall her face or if she looks like me.
“Well, we will have to put that in the window, what with the Christmas parties starting soon. Ya should get this one for Derek’s.”
I nod blankly. “It’s nearly Christmas party time again?”
“Don’t get me started on how fast the days are going. I’m nearly single again and almost forty. It’s depressing.” She turns and stalks back to the front of the store, leaving me to wallow in the puddle of my emotions.
The remainder of the day involves high-pitch squealing from Angie as she unpacks the inventory as though she has never seen it before, regardless of the fact she went to the shows and picked all the dresses, and me pretending to work.
When I get home I Google Samantha Barnes, Ronald Armstrong, and Berkeley, almost desperate to come across a photo of them together. There are many of him but none of her. The images of him are tags from Facebook and other social media. Samantha has none. Her name tags several other people with the same name.
It drives me to Google the thing I have avoided since I got home. The death. The murder is all over the news.
The pictures show a white van, several police, a scene taped off near some bushes, and a body bag.
The sight of it makes me ill just as Derek comes in the door with food. He puts it down on the stove, grinning at me. “I got Indian.”
I close the laptop and walk into the kitchen, trying desperately not to let the death of someone I didn’t know make me crazy.
He pauses, seeing the look on my face, which he reads like a book regularly. “What?”
“The man who called me Samantha Barnes was murdered in a park.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “What?”
“Ronald Armstrong—he was killed in the park. He’s the murder victim on the news.”
Derek leans on the counter, running his hands through his dark-blond hair. “Jane, what are you talking about?” His eyes fill with worry. I hate it when he looks at me that way.
“Remember, I told you how there was a case of mistaken identity with Samantha Barnes? The dead man is the one who mistook me for her. And now he’s dead.”
His eyes narrow. “Baby, he’s dead, but it doesn’t have a single thing to do with you. The correlation is probably between him and being at the park at night. Maybe he was into drugs. It was Denny Blaine Park, wasn’t it? That’s a dark park at night.”
“I know. I didn’t mean I caused it.” I don’t know why I said it that way. I don’t know why Ronald has affected me the way he has.
Derek smiles wide. I can see mocking thoughts roaming his head just by the grin on his face. But he doesn’t entertain them. He abandons the bags, walks to me, and scoops me up. My legs wrap around his waist as his hands cup my ass cheeks. When our lips meet, my eyes close and everything else is blocked out. I run my hands up his neck into his hair, gripping it.
Something comes over me.
He tries to carry me to the bed to pay homage at the temple, but I grab the door frame, swinging him toward the couch. I struggle from his arms, pushing him onto the couch when I touch the carpet. I lift my shirt off, yank my pants down and kick them across the room, and climb onto his lap. He looks confused but I ignore it.
My fingers savagely pull his shirt off, forcing him to work with me, and position his head to kiss along my neck. Abruptly, I sit up, admiring him. His perfection is overwhelming. He’s sculpted and hard in every place a man ought to be. I slide my hands over him as I rain kisses down his chest and abs. When I go to kneel between his legs, my knees dropping to the carpet, his lips part. A devilish amount of power surges through me as I undo his jeans and drag them down. He inhales sharply, still confused, maybe.
When I take him in my mouth there is a familiarity to this that’s frightening. I know I don’t remember ever doing this in three years. He leads the way. He controls the tempo. He runs the dance floor.
But there is a strange sensation inside me that resembles a memory, and it’s positive I have done this before.
I slide my hand up his shaft as I work my mouth down, massaging with my tongue. His hands grip the couch, desperate and disoriented in the pleasure and unexpectedness of his loss of control. I can tell when he’s lost in the sucking and touching because he starts moving with me, grinding the way I do when he plays with me. Knowing I’m about to rock his world in another way, I suck one last time before sitting back.
He looks up, flashing an expression I have never seen. His beauty has become tragic and pained. He looks uncomfortable and angry, and all of it turns me on more.
I climb up his body, sitting back on his rigid cock. I’m soaked from sucking him off and being in charge, so while the entry is rushed it’s still perfect. Even I gasp, tilting my head back as I slide down his shaft.
The frenzy of bliss and powerlessness hits him, bringing him to life in a frightening way. He leans forward, gripping my hips with vigor, and forcing me to ride him the way he wants.
I let him go for a few moments, enjoying the feel of his punishing thrusts, matched with my rotating hips.
Then I push him back, shaking my head. There’s a look on my face that I don’t know if I have ever made. The flame in my stare is lighting my whole body on fire. I continue to ride him the way my body wants, circling my hips and sliding up and down at the pace that’s perfect for me. He fills me in a way I don’t think he ever has. It’s too much if I sit the wrong way, but the pain of it becomes pleasure somehow.
Everything builds quickly, becoming part of the too much as an orgasm rips through me. The room blurs as the waves of pleasure shake me to the core. A bead of sweat trickles down my cheek as I stop, realizing we have both finished.
The room is silent, apart from our ragged breaths.
The air is heady with the spent frustrations and lusty rage.
The confusion is thick in us both.
He looks wounded or angry still but in a satiated sort of way. I can see that the anger is empty of power. I have sucked every last drop of that from him. He doesn’t say a thing, just stands, lifting me with him. His cock slips from me as he walks to the bathroom, carrying me to the shower.
He wraps around me as the water comes down, cold at first. I barely feel it as he takes the brunt of it but then opens us both up to the water when it’s hotter. He strokes me and holds me, like we have made love his way. But the depth of his emotion over the event feels deeper than normal.
He feels different.
He holds me tightly, as if trying to trap me there in that sensuality. But he can’t. I’ve done something different, and I liked it.
I can feel the difference in me from it.
We fall asleep that night without talking about it. I don’t know what to do about that.
In the night I stir, unsure of the date or the time or even my name. When I wake, my memory is always a little worse, as if being asleep is akin to the coma I once lingered in.
When I do wake fully, I realize a smell has found its way into my dream, disturbing my sleep. The rusty and grimy filth of the smell picks at me, poking until my eyes are open. I blink for several seconds to let the memories of the evening wash back in.
It’s still dark in the room, and he’s gone. His inhales and exhales aren’t part of the sounds in the room. His warmth is missing from the bed.
The smell becomes more important than his being gone. It’s not bleach and it’s not urine, but it’s sharp like both those smells.
I sit up, feeling glueyness on my hands and noticing the way they stick to the sheets. It takes a second for me to remember washing up after we had sex. So it can’t be from that. I wrinkle my nose and climb from the bed.
When I switch on the bathroom light it takes a moment before I see it.
The scent of the rust, the sharpness of it that cuts into my sense of smell, is nothing compared to the sight of it covering me in the stark bathroom lights.
Panicking at the sight of blood covering my hands and face, I run the taps, certain I must have had a nosebleed in the night. I wash everything, pulling off my pajamas and washing my abdomen where the blood has made its way.
I saunter into the bedroom, muttering about nosebleeds, barefoot and naked, to strip the bed. When I switch on my light I notice blood at the door, on the floor.
Like Hansel and Gretel, I follow it into the hallway, dragging on Derek’s huge robe as I go. There are several more drops and even a handprint on the wall. “Derek?” My hands are shaking when I reach the front door to our town house, but the trepidation and fear tickling around inside me are nothing compared to what I feel when I open the door to outside.
The handle on the other side is covered in blood. The front steps have several droplets that lead toward the grass, but I lose them there.
I was outside?
I was outside covered in blood?
Or was Derek hurt?
My feet won’t move and my mouth is dry, but my heart isn’t even racing. I think it might have stopped completely. I don’t feel scared anymore. I feel something else. Something I don’t recognize, so I can’t catalogue it with my other emotions.
It had to be that Derek was hurt and he tried to wake me but I was so asleep that I didn’t stir?
Did he go to the hospital?
What the hell is happening?
I grab the cleaner from under the sink and spray Lysol everywhere—the handle, the blood spots on the deck, the stairs, and even on the concrete.
My body reacts with such fervor and command I almost don’t recognize myself. The response I have to the sight of the blood is not the one I would have expected. The mess is cleaned within minutes, and the cloth is in the sink. Something comes over me. It’s an odd thing to do. I grab the lighter fluid from the junk drawer, rags from the cupboard, and the matches from under the sink. I douse the rags in lighter fluid before placing them in the barbeque and tossing a match.
There’s a pile of billowing black smoke when I realize what I have done.
But I don’t stop there. I bleach the sink and grab my clothes and bedsheets, still on autopilot, and drag them to the metal garbage can. I pull the garbage bags out and dump the clothes and sheets into the metal can. Swiftly, I get the bleach and dump it on the clothes and sheets, soaking them in the entire gallon jug of bleach. My eyes burn and my nose waters, but I don’t stop. I stir the garbage can full of bleaching linens with my broom handle and then drag the can out into the street. I pour it down the sewer drain, pushing the linens back as the bleach drains into the sewage.
I know it’s wrong but I don’t stop myself. It’s like I can’t.
I drag the can back to the house and dump the bleached laundry into the washing machine and start the load on hot.
I finally have a grip on myself when I’m spraying the can and dumping it on the driveway.
I don’t know what it means, or why I did it, but I have to assume being that efficient at getting rid of bloodstains has to be a bad sign.
First the aggressive sex and now this.
How odd.
I send several texts as I sit at the kitchen table awaiting Derek’s arrival home. He doesn’t answer me for an hour. It is the longest hour in my life. Well, in three years, anyway.
I can’t imagine where he is or why, until he messages me that he got called in, and he’s in the doorway a moment later. “Jane?” he calls out in the hallway.
“In here.”
He comes in, still in his scrubs. “You okay?”
I shake my head, swallowing hard. I don’t really know where to begin, so I start with a question. “Did you get injured and try to come and wake me up?”
“No. Why?”
My eyes don’t leave the square pattern in the tiles on the floor when my lips part again. “I woke covered in blood, and it was everywhere.”
“What?” He drops to his knees, looking me over. “Are you hurt? Was it a nosebleed?”
“I’m not hurt. That’s the weird part. The blood trail led me outside, where my bloody handprint was on the knob. So it seems I came into the house and got into bed covered in blood.”
He tilts my chin. His eyes are filled with something very bad, but I can’t discern what it is. I know it’s bad, I can see it, but he has never made this face before. Not in the three years I recall, anyway. “You don’t remember anything?”
I shake my head.
“I don’t see any blood.”
“I cleaned it up, like forensically cleaned it up.”
His eyes close and his brow knits. He is devastated. “I think it’s best if we go away for a while, Jane.”
I shiver with fear and the harshly suspenseful words. “What?”
“I have something to tell you. It’s not going to be easy, and I know you’re going to be very angry with me, but I need you to hear it all before you react.” Derek opens his eyes and swallows, bracing himself, maybe.
“I don’t want to know, whatever it is.”
He chuckles like he’s exhausted. “You always say that.”
“What?”
He trails a finger along my arm, tickling. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been in the situation we are now. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken covered in blood or worse.”
There is nothing I can say or want to say. I sit frozen and scared as he struggles with something until finally whatever it is wins or loses and he blurts out, “Your real name is Samantha Barnes.”
My stomach drops into my bowels.
He winces. “We met seven years ago. You were beautiful and fun and sexy and crazy. You were an amazing girl, and I loved you from the moment we met. But after a few months I started to notice things—weird things.” He gets up and pours a glass of water, leaving me with those sentences.
“You lied to me?”
He nods, drinking the entire glass in one go.
“Why?”
He turns, looking worse than before. “Because the weird things were you waking up covered in blood. It was a small town that you lived in, so when bodies started popping up, coinciding with your night walks, I knew you were the one doing it.”
Hot tears drip down my cheeks as the words refuse to make sense in my addled brain. I shake my head, but I can see the tears in his eyes.
“I faked our death. We were dating. I was doing my practicum in a town about fifty miles away, so no one knew me. I burned us up, burning the car so hot it would seem like our bodies were incinerated, apart from a few bones of course.”
“Who did you burn?” The question frightens me and I suspect the answer will more but I need it.
