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“De Souza.” He said my name like I was a naughty child. Jacques pointed to the floor in front of him. “Here. Now.”
“Oooh, I kinda want to see you make me,” I snapped.
Inexplicably, he grinned.
“What have they told you about me?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Paris Keller and her hair-flipping, perfumed horde. They are always clucking about something. I know I’ve come up.”
“Arrogant much? And clucking? Why, because women are chickens?”
“Women are cattle.”
I reeled back and he made a tss sound between his teeth.
“Don’t be offended. Men are cattle too,” he said. “Slow. Stupid. Driven by eating, shitting, and mating, and never considering their value to the world beyond that.”
“Douchebag,” I said clearly. “The hair-flipping horde warned me you were a douche.”
He closed the distance, advancing on the bed, then stepping around and moving to the window. I gathered the blankets tighter, heart thrumming as he closed the blinds.
“People don’t agree with their true designation, of course,” he continued. “You all believe your precious thoughts, opinions, and problems are unique. You, for example, put on a tough act to cover grief, loneliness, insecurity, and a touch of sadism.”
“I’m not sadistic.”
“You planned and carried out burning a man alive, and you enjoyed it. What would you call that?”
I pressed my lips together.
“Exactly. You’re all textbook,” he said. “Literally lines on a page explaining human behavior done to the last mommy issue. You never veer from the case studies. So, what will a blustering clucker do when I jump over this bed and make her face me?” He paused. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question, de Souza. What will you do?”
“Break your nose.”
“I say you’ll do absolutely nothing. If you could truly face up to someone stronger than you, Cavendish’s eyes would’ve crossed staring down your arrow. Instead, you struck from the shadows and shifted the blame on us.”
“Stone, I appreciate that a high IQ left you with a low EQ. Everything you know about people and social interaction, you read in a book,” I said. “Sad, but there’s one thing I can promise you. You don’t understand what happened that night between me and Caven—”
“He challenged you to find and stop him before he killed Jennifer Wilson,” Jacques sliced in. “Don’t look so surprised. We read your suicide note.”
Of course. I guess I did put enough pieces in that they added up to that conclusion.
“If you discovered some random person was plotting to kill an innocent woman, you would’ve reported it to the police, and warned her Scott Cavendish was after her. Neither of those things happened. Instead, Jennifer Wilson was surprised to wake up in a freezer one night, and even more surprised to be rescued.
“You knew she was in danger, but by threat or coercion, could not report it. Aligning with society’s moral code, you could not let her die if there was something you could do to stop it. You killed Cavendish, rescued Jennifer, and laid the trail to someone else.
“My only question is, how did you get involved? Choosing a worthy opponent and taunting them to catch before they kill again is a classic serial killer profile. They get off on staying ahead of the chase just as much as they do the killing. But they usually choose cops, detectives, or journalists. Maximize the chance of their cleverness broadcasted on the media. They don’t go for farm girls. What makes you so special?”
I looked away. Great question. Let me know when you have the answer.
“Did you come in here to tell me this?” I asked.
“I’m here to make something clear to you.” Jacques bore down on me. “The single thing cattle have in their favor is they can be trained. They do something they shouldn’t, you take out the cattle prod, and the message sinks in. Maybe not the first or fifth time, but inevitably—”
Jacques snaked an arm around my waist. He didn’t grab or force. He simply slid me out of bed and dropped me on my feet before him—as ordered.
“Inevitably, they learn.”
I hardly heard him, or the contempt lacing his words.
Up close, Jacques Stone was more coldly beautiful than ten feet away, or one foot from my seat in class. Chin pressed to his chest, I skimmed his cheeks for a trace of a blemish, large pores, or one slight imperfection to tear him down and bring Jacques to earth with the rest of the mortals.
But no. His skin was flawless, and the shadow’s beard darkening his jaw appeared too soft to resist stroking. So, I didn’t.
I traced his jawline—dipping with his cleft chin and continuing my path to his lips. Sense stopped me just short.
I peeked at Jacques. He displayed no reaction to me touching him.
“You live here now,” he said. “You will obey our rules.”
“Rules?”
“You do not go where you’re not wanted. You don’t touch what’s not yours. No talking back. No disrespect. No false bravado unless you want your bluff called—mercilessly.”
