Page 11 of Beautiful Killer

CHAPTER FOUR

Zeke

I climbed out of the shower, slung a towel around my hips, and headed to my room. My place was a converted warehouse and there weren’t many other residential properties around me, mainly businesses and storage, which is what I liked about it. I’d converted one side into a spacious, open living area. The other side I’d walled off and used as a garage and workout room. My bedroom was a mezzanine at the far end. I wasn’t a fan of the dark, not when I woke up most nights in a panic. If I could see where I was, my head cleared faster. So I’d built up, positioning my bed under the large sky window that had already been there. I got the glow of street lights lighting the place up at night and woke up with the sun.

An image of Sunny in my bed, the sun making her blond hair glow, flashed through my head. Fuck.

I tried to shove the image back out. Thinking about her wasn’t a good idea.

Yeah. Shit. Who was I kidding, I hadn’t stopped thinking about Sunny. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her straddling me. Her bare smooth skin. The way she looked in nothing but that necklace. Fuck, I was positive I could still hear the sound of all those bracelets she wore, clanking together when she moved, the way they felt on my back, the contrast between her hot skin and cool silver.

Then there was all that wild blond hair.

Her vanilla scent.

How sensitive she was, the way she’d arched and tugged on my hair when I put my mouth between her soft thighs.

Honesty, I was having trouble believing it actually happened, that it wasn’t some insanely realistic dream or my fucked-up mind conjuring her when I needed her most. A goddamn angel. She’d pulled me from the edge that night and she didn’t even know it. Sunny had no idea what she’d done for me, how close to self-destruction I’d been before she sat on that stool beside me.

Sunny had been a shooting star through my endlessly starless night. A flash of brilliant light in the darkness.

Perfect, but fleeting.

And now I was a goddamn poet.

I couldn’t have her, still I’d done some snooping. I had to. I had to make sure she was safe, that she was taken care of. What I found just peaked my curiosity more.

Jesus. She’d done okay without me for twenty-seven years. I had to stop thinking about her, wondering if she was okay.

Drying off, I got dressed and headed back down to the living room, which was just a big rug in the middle of the open floor space, a couple leather couches, a flat screen, and a coffee table. Across from that was a galley-style kitchen. I’d put it in myself. It wasn’t huge, but it was all I needed. I was grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge when my phone rang.

As soon as I saw who it was, that ever-present feeling of guilt increased a whole hell of a lot more.

I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Ma.”

“So you are alive then?”

“Yeah.” Only just.

“You don’t answer your phone now? I’ve been worried sick.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about.” The same empty words I said every time we spoke.

She sighed. “I miss you, son. When are you coming home to visit?”

“Soon,” I lied.

Going back to Texas was the last thing I wanted. I hadn’t been home for over year and I wasn’t in any hurry to head back.

“That’s horse shit and you know it,” she said.

My mother was never one to mince words and she had my number. “You and Dad come here. I’ll organize the flights.”

“It’s past time you came home, Zeke. And your father . . . well, I don’t think he’s up to flying.”

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been a little under the weather.”