Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) (7 page)

(
L
ate Friday Night
; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania)

I PARK THE BALLENTINE’S VAN
on a back road. Mrs. Ballentine lies on top of Mr. Ballentine’s body on the floor between the front and back seats. I pick up a small water bottle filled with gasoline, which I’d poured from a gas can in the Ballentine’s garage, and a long rag from the middle console. I switch the car to
drive
and jump out. The van lazily moves forward until it dips into the ditch on the side of the road.

I hope the cops that come to investigate this are as stupid as they are in Murray.

I immerse the tip of the rag into the gas. I unscrew the cap of the van’s gas tank and stuff the dry end of the rag inside it. I take a lighter out of my pocket and flick the spark wheel until a flame appears. I place the flame under the gas-soaked tip of the rag. As soon as I see the rag catch fire, I run.

In all probability, it will take a few minutes for the fuse to hit the gas inside the tank, but I’m not taking any risks. I slip into the woods to avoid being seen running from an exploding car. I run and run and run, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not getting any farther away from the danger. The danger is inside me and I am surely seconds away from immolation.

(
F
riday Night
; Sam’s House, Murray, Virginia)

AFTER ALL DAY
in the morgue, all I want to do is fall into my bed and never wake up. But I need to know when Grace returns home, so I know she’s safe. I spread out the notes of my John Doe on the dining room table. It’s mostly grotesque photographs and a some notes about the health condition of his body. He died about three weeks ago. He has no notable birthmarks, scars, or tattoos. He didn’t have any notable diseases. The only thing that really set him apart from any other body (besides the fact that the killer destroyed his face) is that he had written something on his hand. It had mostly faded, but the ink had sunk deep enough in the epidermis that the water hadn’t dissolved all of it. It says,
call Kayla
which is incredibly unhelpful. Kayla could be a girlfriend, a friend, a sister, some random girl he found while traveling.

The front door swings open, causing some of the papers to blow off the table, and Grace walks in. She fumbles with her bag as she takes it off and begins searching through it without acknowledging me. I stand up and grab the pieces of paper off the floor.

“How was work?” I ask.

“Oh, it was…you know,
work
.”

“I do know,” I say. “I was with a corpse all day.”

“Oh, right,” she says, glancing up at me. “Did you figure out anything new? You already know the cause of death, right?”

“Yeah, his neck was sliced open. The killer went straight for the carotid artery. He knows what he was doing.”

“Oh,” she says and starts to search through her bag again before finding lip balm. She rubs it against her lips. “So, do you have any clues to who the killer is?”

I shake my head. “There’s no evidence left. It’s not like when someone is shot and a bullet is left in the body. This guy used a knife—a small one, but I couldn’t say exactly what kind since it was used to slice the throat…if it was used to stab the guy, I could have figured out the exact size and shape of it. But no. I have nothing to go on. I was looking through my notes to try and figure out if I missed anything, but I’m not seeing anything.”

“Could I look?” she asks.

“I’m not sure you would want to. They’re gruesome and…it involves knives.”

“I can deal with it,” she says. She walks around me to the table. Her step falters for a second as she sees the photographs. “Wow. That’s…the killer really tried to destroy this person’s humanity.”

“And identity,” I say. “We still don’t know who he is. None of the missing kids that fit the age range are a close enough match to this guy for me to even consider them to be him. For some reason, his friends and family just don’t care that he hasn’t contacted them in a month.”

“That’s sad to think about,” she says. “I would hope my mom would at least contact the police if she couldn’t get ahold of me after a couple of weeks without hearing from me.”

“I would track you down myself.”

She laughs. At first, it stings because I think she’s making fun of my comment. But then, she kisses my cheek.

“Thank you,” she says. She kisses my lips. I had forgotten how her lips feel—warm, soft, smooth—like satin. Had it really been that long since we kissed? Or was this simply the first time in a long time that I had noticed the way it felt again?

I put my hands on her waist. We continue to kiss, two dysfunctional people trying to make sense of a dysfunctional world. She moves her hands under my shirt, her fingertips tracing the muscles underneath it. She begins to unbutton the shirt, her small fingers undoing each clear button with precise care.

I place my hand over hers, stopping her.

“I have to work,” I tell her. She frowns, folding her arms over her chest.

“Are we doing okay?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Is our relationship doing okay? Is there a problem that we need to talk about?”

“What would we need to talk about?”

She sighs, shaking her head. I do know what she’s talking about. Her rejection of my proposal. But I can’t help my resentment. I try to be a better person, but sometimes that doesn’t work.

“I need to sleep,” she says. “It felt like today would never end. How much longer are you going to be working?”

“Just an hour, maybe an hour and a half,” I tell her. She nods before retreating into the bedroom. I sit back down at the table, reorganizing all of the papers and photographs. I stare at the images of John Doe’s destroyed face. Nobody could do that much damage to someone if they had known them well. There has to be another reason that the killer would go through such efforts to hide the man’s identity.

(
V
alentine’s Day
; Sam’s House, Murray, Virginia)

I’VE NEVER BEEN GOOD
at Valentine’s Day. It involves romance, expressed feelings, and the simple act of remembering the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day. So, of course, I forget until it’s nearly five o’clock. Luckily, Grace needed to be at the university until six, so I stopped by the dollar store and bought every object with a heart on it and some red and white roses.

By the time Grace gets home, I’ve put baked macaroni and cheese—the only recipe I know how to make—into the oven, place the roses in a vase, and set them onto the table. She smiles as she sees the roses and kisses me on the cheek. She hands me a tiny box, wrapped in shiny red paper.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she whispers in my ear, her breath tickling my skin.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I murmur back. She wraps her arms around my waist and her lips touch the nape of my neck. I turn around to face her, putting my hands on her hips and pulling her close to me. I kiss her, tasting the cherry flavor of her lip balm. She steps back and hands me the box.

“I hope you like it,” she says. “I found it a few months ago.”

My phone vibrates, but I ignore it.

“I…”

“—don’t have anything,” she finishes, but I’m relieved to see that she’s smiling. “I know you, Samuel Meadows. It’s fine. You’re letting me stay at your home. That’s more than I could ever ask for.”

“We’ve been together for almost five months,” I say. “I think by now you might have been moved in…”

“I might have,” she says. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s still generous that you let me stay here. Thank you.”

I know she means everything she says as a compliment, but I can’t help but hear the insinuation that our relationship wouldn’t have developed this far if she hadn’t been forced to live with me because of the Schneiders’ bad attitudes.

The oven beeps as the timer goes off. I set down her present, slide on some oven mitts, and take out the baked macaroni and cheese.

“Are you going to open it?” she asks.

“Maybe. I just need some time to think about it,” I say, sarcasm rippling under my voice. She stares at me and folds her arms over her chest.

“Why don’t you just come out and say what you want to say?” she asks. “You’re mad because I said I wanted to wait to get married. You’re mad because you had expectations that I didn’t meet.”

“I’m not mad because you said you wanted to wait to get married. I’m mad because you rejected my proposal. If you had said yes, but wanted to wait to do the wedding, I would have been happy with that. But the fact that you outright rejected my proposal means that you don’t really see a future between us.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” she demands.

“You have nowhere else to go!” I shout.

Her whole face reddens.

“There are other places I could go,” she says, her voice low. “Don’t you dare think that I’m here because there is nowhere else to go. I could have stayed in my brother’s house. I could have gone to Kevin’s.”

I shake my head. “Forget I said that. Let’s just eat.”

“No, Sam,” she says. “We need to talk about this. You can’t just ignore a problem and hope it goes away. Problems like these don’t just disappear.”

“You’re the problem.”

The words rolls off my tongue like cherry bombs that explode as soon as they are out of my mouth. I immediately cover my mouth.

“I didn’t mean that,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “No, you meant it. I
am
the problem.”

“Grace—”

“No,” she repeats. “You’re right. I’ve caused you pain, and then I stuck around. I should go.”

“Grace,” I say. “Come on. You can’t be serious.”

She ignores me, walking into our bedroom. By the time I walk in, her suitcase is already open and she’s throwing all of her clothes into it.

“You can’t leave on Valentine’s Day.”

“So, what? I should wait until midnight and leave then?” she asks. “It won’t be Valentine’s Day anymore.”

“I can make this up to you,” I say. “You know how I suck at communicating. I didn’t mean that in the way that I said it.”

She shuts the suitcase and zips it up. “I’ll come back for my school stuff tomorrow morning. I’ll leave my key on the kitchen counter.”

“Grace, you can’t just leave! You’re the one who said that we need to talk about this.”

She pivots on her heel to look directly at me. “Then talk. Tell me exactly how you feel.”

I open my mouth, but my mind goes blank. I don’t know how I feel. I love her—maybe to the point that it makes me stupid and reckless—but the pain of her rejection lingers as if it were burned into my palms and I feel it every time I touch her.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, before turning around again and walking out of the room. I watch every step she takes. She stops in the dining room to grab her bag and coat, and then keeps going toward the door. She opens the door and walks out. The door closes.

I watch it all, not moving, not protesting, not telling her that I know how I feel now.

I know that without her, my heart is suffering from transient apical ballooning syndrome. Transient apical ballooning syndrome, or takotsubo, is when the myocardium is suddenly and temporarily weakened. It can cause acute heart failure, arrhythmias, and ventricular ruptures. It’s also known as broken-heart syndrome.

I walk into the kitchen, my feet dragging with every step. I stop near the stove and pick up the present that Grace gave me. I contemplate giving it back to her unopened since I have no right to have it anymore, but curiosity gets the best of me.

I carefully peel off the tape until the paper falls away and all that is left is a watch. It’s a silver-tone, stainless steel band, but the most noticeable part is that under the glass, within the numbers, there’s a heart organ etched into it.

I put it on to remind myself what it’s like to have a heart.

(
V
alentine’s Day
; Waycroft Elementary School, Murray, Virginia)

I HAVE QUIT SMOKING
so many times and failed in each attempt. I suppose it’s a metaphor. When times get rough, I put something known to cause cancer in my mouth, so I can die slowly and it will be my own damn fault.

The playground at Waycroft Elementary School is different at night. The laughter of children is gone and the recreational equipment—the slide, the swings, the seesaw, the merry-go-round, the monkey bars, the jungle gym, the chin-up bars—all seem ominous instead of fun.

I sit on the merry-go-round, continuing to smoke. Sam found me here last time on the swing set after he told the police about how Francis attacked me. He knew me so well back then, but now it seems like we have drifted so far apart that nothing could repair us.

“Grace?”

My head shoots up. It’s not Sam. It’s John Seoh, his best friend.

“Did Sam send you?” I ask as he approaches me. His nose crinkles.

“Why would Sam send me?” he asks. “Why aren’t you with Sam? I thought that’s what couples did on Valentine’s Day…spend the night together.”

John is a Korean American who was born and raised in Fairfax County, but moved out to Murray three years ago to open his own practice as a general practitioner. His wife, Kimi, refused to move with him. While they are still married, she continues to live in Fairfax County, within walking distance of his and her parents, while he stoically (and self-deprecatingly) carries the mortgage on two houses. His daughter, Lexi, works as one of Sam’s receptionists. I learned a few months ago that Sam and John met while playing a trivia game at a local bar. They won the game. It may be the nerdiest meeting story I’ve ever heard, and since I’m also a nerd, I’ve heard enough stories to judge them on it.

“Oh, you know…” I drop my cigarette to the ground and crush it with my shoe. I make sure it’s completely destroyed. I don’t need to read parents’ complaints in the local newspaper about how cigarette butts are ruining their children’s playtime. “Boy meets girl by saving her life. Boy and girl begin to fall in love. Girl kills serial killer. Girl rejects boy’s proposal. Boy never gets over it. Boy and girl break up.”

“Ah,” John says, sitting down beside me. “The rejection proposal. Of course.”

“You know?” I groan. “Did he tell everyone?”

“I think I’m the only one,” he says. “But I know it frustrated him, so I could be wrong.”

“He knows I love him, so I don’t know why he’s freaking out so much about this proposal thing. I’m sure at some point I will say yes. It just wasn’t the right time in December.”

“Do you know what Sam’s childhood was like?” John asks, leaning against the bars on the merry-go-round.

“Vaguely,” I say. “He and his father didn’t get along well, and his mother wasn’t very loving.”

“Wow. That is pretty vague.”

“You really shouldn’t be bragging about how you know him better than me right now.” I scoff, but give him a quick smile after.

“Well, Grace, there’s something called the Ferber Method, which was invented by a guy named Dr. Richard Ferber. I personally don’t think the method is effective and Dr. Ferber changed his mind on some of his ideas, but other doctors might tell you different. The main point of the method is to not touch the baby when they’re crying in the hope that they will learn how to calm themselves. Well, that is essentially how Sam was raised his whole life. Anytime he had a concern, a problem, or even good news, his parents mostly ignored it. As he explained it, his family essentially led individual lives in the same house. That creates a certain personality type. Sam is a private person. He doesn’t know how to comfort other people. He’s not good at communicating his feelings, concerns, problems, or…even good news. He’s a good man, but his upbringing causes him to be the kind of person who runs out of the room when he sees someone crying.”

I nod. “He is definitely that type.”

“He’s always had trouble with dating,” John Seoh says. “Dating creates a very intimate space and I am amazed that you two have lived together for this long. I would have thought one of you would have exploded by now. But…I’m telling you all of this because you need to make a decision. If you can’t handle the way that he is…you need to move on. He is not going to change. He loves you more than he has ever loved anyone, but his personality is too deeply engrained to change into something else. If you can handle it…if you can love him with all of his imperfections and asocial behavior…then hold on tight because he’s worth it. He’s a good friend when I need him to be a good friend, and I’m certain that he’s the same as a boyfriend.”

“He is,” I admit. I rub my hands together, the chill finally getting to them. “I just don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me for the proposal thing.”

“I’m sure he has by now,” John says.

“What makes you so sure?”

“If there is anything that makes Sam see what has worth in his life…it’s the sudden possibility of losing that thing.” John stands up. “That’s why he got back into contact with his father after years of not talking to him. That’s what made him realize he was in love with you after the whole Deacon-almost-murdering-you experience. He’s a bit oblivious at times, but he has epiphanies when there are risks involved.”

I stand up, too, and wrap my arms around John. He’s tense for a second, surprised by my reaction, before patting me on the back.

“Thank you, John, you’re a good friend.”

“I better be at the wedding,” he mutters.

“Someday.” John smiles as I promise him.

“You better go see Sam,” he says. “I’m sure that boy is about to tear out all of his hair and drink every kind of alcohol in his house. If he knows how to do anything, it’s diagnosing heart disease and self-destruction.”