Every time he says my name, I feel … shook. Like I was just swept up by a wave and tossed around in the sea, swallowing a mouthful of salt water just for good measure.
I shake my head by way of an answer. My mouth isn’t working right this second.
He grins. “Me either. We’ll just call it coincidence then.”
“I don’t believe in that either.”
His eyes move over my face before settling back on my eyes. “No?”
“Nope. Rarely is anything a coincidence.”
“Rarely?” he queries.
He’s so damn sharp. Picks up on everything.
“Never,” I correct.
“Okay. So, what is your theory as to why we keep running into each other?”
“Because you’re following me?” It comes out more like a question than a statement.
And laughter bursts from him.
He has a great laugh.
Deep and throaty. It makes him even better-looking, and until this moment, I didn’t think that was possible.
His blue eyes are alight with pure humor. “So, I’m stalking you?” he says, still laughing.
I shrug. “I don’t know. You tell me.” Surprisingly, I’m smiling when I say this, and stalking is definitely no laughing matter to me.
“No. I’m not stalking or following you.” He’s still smiling. His full lips tipped up at one corner.
I want to bite those lips.
And where the hell did that thought come from?
“I could say the same about you. That you’re following me.” His brow lifts.
And it’s my turn to laugh. “I’m really not.”
“No? Why should I believe you?” He throws back at me with a smile in his eyes.
“Ditto.”
“This could go on a while, huh?”
“Yep.” I stubbornly jut my chin out.
Another smile, this one actually on his lips. “Okay. So, why don’t we agree that neither of us is following the other? And I know that you don’t believe in fate or coincidence, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. So, we’ll settle on that. What do you say?”
I lift a shoulder. “I can … do that.”
“Good.” His voice is softer now, and his eyes linger on mine, longer than acceptable for two people who are barely even acquaintances.
I can feel things starting to heat and tighten inside of me. Things that have been dormant for a long, long time.
Things that have no business coming to life.
Still, I can’t seem to stop them or shut them down. And the longer I stand here with him, staring into his eyes, the harder it is to remember why I’m not supposed to feel anything.
“Go out with me? For dinner or even just a coffee. I still owe you one, remember?”
The words out of his mouth … the softly spoken words, said in that rough-sounding voice of his, are like being hit with hot and cold water at the same time.
They wake me up from whatever spell I was letting my hormones lure me under.
“No. I can’t.” I take a big step back from him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Shit.” He rubs a hand over his face. “It’s my fault. I misread things.”
The expression on his face. He looks … uncomfortable, awkward.
He’s probably not used to being turned down. A guy with a face like his … I can’t imagine it ever happening.
No woman in her right mind would ever say no to a coffee date with Jack.
But I’m not a normal woman.
I hate that I can’t have those things that I once took for granted. I hate that my life is this way. But it is. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change it.
I wish I could tell him that he hadn’t misread anything. I do. I would love to go out for dinner with him. When I was the old Audrey, I would have taken him on that dinner and more. But now … I can’t.
I won’t.
“I should go.” I start to leave, but he says my name.
And that has me turning back.
“Friends?” He gives me a tentative smile.
I briefly close my eyes, wishing I could do at least that.
I stare past him. I can’t bring myself to look him in the face. This guy has an effect on me. I have never been so affected by a man before. And why I am now with him, I’m not sure.
That is something for me to figure out later—when I’m back at my apartment, alone.
“I don’t … have friends.”
His brows pull together. “You don’t have friends?” he echoes my words back to me.
I shake my head. “It’s just …” I push a hand through my hair, releasing a sigh. “I’m not someone you want to be around.”
And with that, I pivot on my heel and walk away from him.
He doesn’t call me back this time.
And I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed.
Murdered Female Found
The body of twenty-five-year-old bar worker Natalie Jenkins was found in her apartment late last night. Sources say she was stabbed to death.
After not coming in to work for her shift and not being able to get ahold of her, concerned staff had called the police.
Police are not saying if Natalie’s case is linked to the murder of twenty-six-year-old veterinarian nurse Molly Hall, who was found dead in her apartment three months ago, her throat slit and her body mutilated.
We’ll update as we learn more on the story.
I stare at the words on my laptop screen, them screaming and jumping out at me in the silence of my apartment.
An icy chill slithers down my spine.
That is the second woman who has gone missing since I moved here six months ago. Both found murdered.
I had been here three months when Molly Hall disappeared. I followed the story in the beginning because it unnerved me—for obvious reasons due to my past experience with Tobias.
Aside from the fact that Molly looked similar to me, it was the way she had been killed.
Tobias liked knives. It was his weapon of choice.
Throat slit. Body mutilated.
That is exactly how Tobias killed all the women back in Chicago.
He would break into their apartments and wait for them to come home. Then, he would attack.
I get the bitter taste of bile in my mouth, feeling nauseous, just like I do every time I think of anything related to what Tobias put those women through—his sick, twisted way of getting my attention or whatever the hell he was doing.
I never understood any of it. I still don’t.
But I guess no one can understand the mind of a psychopath, except the man himself.
Not that Tobias has ever admitted to any of his gruesome crimes. He maintains his innocence to this day. He currently has his lawyers working on an appeal to try and get him out of prison.
Jesus, I can’t even think about what I would do if he ever managed to get out of jail …
I press my hand to the upper part of my stomach, feeling the familiar scars he left there.
It won’t happen. He won’t get out of jail.
I’m safe.
And there is zero evidence to say that Natalie Jenkins’s murder has any link to Molly’s. Just because those two women were murdered, stabbed to death, does not mean that another serial killer is on the loose or that those women’s deaths are at all connected to the crimes that Tobias committed.