AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before Frost could reply, I blinked away the tears and wiped my wet cheeks on his shirt. “They caught him leaving the hospital. He asked what they wanted with him and when they told him the charges, he immediately asked for a lawyer. He’d done it before, like he said, even been into court before, but they’d never been able to get him for the other girls. He was a psychopath. Smart and careful. He didn’t say a single word to anyone but that damn lawyer until the trial. They brought him in to court, mostly because he was there so late at night, had a history, and didn’t explain himself. It implicated him, but it still wasn’t proof. I couldn’t testify. Right before he left me the second time, he told me that if I ever tried to tell, he’d come after me again, but next time it’d be so much worse. He told me he’d make me beg him to kill me. My jaw was still broken and I was so badly hurt I couldn’t even stand, but the detectives said just picking him out of a line-up would be enough with his history. It was too early…I hadn’t come remotely close to recovering. I couldn’t even pick him out of a line-up I was so scared. I was hoping they had some evidence that they could charge him with that would be enough without me, but they didn’t.”
“How could they not?” Frost asked, teeth clenched in cold rage.
“He wore gloves and a condom. No prints on weapons. No DNA. They got some prints of his in the house, but he’d been to the Aarons’ house before. Nothing in my hospital room. Not a single witness. That sick piece of shit was smart like you wouldn’t believe. There was absolutely nothing without my testimony.”
I met Frost’s eyes briefly, the shame and self-disgust churning inside me, making me want to throw up. Before I could decide what emotion he was staring down at me with, I looked away again. “And I couldn’t give it!” I cried. “There was nothing to charge him with. Now it’s too late, it’d be double-jeopardy if they reopened the case. He was expelled from school, but that was the end of it. As he walked out of the courtroom, he smiled and winked at me. That wink alone set me back from recovery so far that the depression nearly killed me. All because I couldn’t point my damn finger! I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret what I should have done but didn’t do. If I had even the slightest chance, I’d do it over again. If I ever saw him again, I swear to God, I’d kill him! For what he did to me, for what he did to those other girls…I’d KILL HIM!” I wept freely now. The entire story was out and I was left to my self-hate, disgust and fear. I said no more.
“Shh,” Frost whispered soothingly. “Shh, it’s okay, Poe. It’s over, sweetheart. No one will ever, ever hurt you like that again. I’ll make sure of that. And I don’t blame you for not giving the testimony. I believe every word you said, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you for telling me. Don’t worry. If anyone, anything, ever hurts you again, it’ll be over my dead body.” There was something in his voice that I didn’t entirely recognize. There was pain and sadness. Conviction. But there was something more to it that I had never heard before.
After he said that, I just lied there in his arms and cried for what seemed like eternity. And slowly, ever so slowly, the pain started to dull to an ache. And then it began to fade.
I lied there in Frost’s arms and cried, not in sorrow or hate anymore, but in thankfulness that it was finally over. In the past seven years, I had never said a word to anyone about Lex. Not even Mrs. Aaron. But now it was all out and while it had hurt like hell to actually say those words, it felt better now. It felt like a massive weight had been taken off my shoulders. I felt…clean. And I felt like the bloody, gaping hole where my heart had been ripped out was starting to heal. My distrust, my coldness…it felt like it was fading. I was still unsure, but I actually felt safe in Frost’s arms. I actually…trusted him. The physical part of me that had been broken had been fixed years ago, but now the emotional part was beginning to heal too. And then, as I realized that something inside my head and heart was healing, I realized something else.
The pain had faded away.
TWENTY-ONE
The next morning, I began reading all the letters and rifling through the trunks. Frost helped me. He still had not been given permission to return to his post at the precinct and I wondered for just how much time he had been put on leave. Knowing the psychological battles he was fighting, I imagined it would be several months. He was seeing Dr. Grey on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. With seeing him so frequently, I imagined it was more of a checkup than anything else. He could not have much new information to share with the psychiatrist when he was sitting around all day reading old letters with me.
The next few days were very quiet. Frost and I spoke little. We slept together each night, but nothing physical occurred between us. He held me during the night, though, and that was my reassurance that he wasn’t repulsed or afraid to touch me. He wasn’t running from me. He was shattered.
I was hesitant to return to my job as a waitress for several reasons. Most obviously, I was not completely healed from the burns on my legs and the knife Mr. Aaron had put in my side. Also, I was worried about the consequences of leaving Frost alone that long at night. I was afraid for his mental stability and knew that the nights were the worst when it came to the emotional damage he had garnered.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t possible for me to return in the next few months. I was not comfortable with being dependent on Frost, but I could not leave him alone and he had millions of dollars in insurance money that he did not want coming to him anyway. I could picture him paying my rent without my permission no matter where I lived just to spend it. It would be easier to move in with him and forego work for a while. My pride would have to be moved to the back burner.
I left Frost immersed in a Victor Hugo novel, having assured him that I would be back within the hour, and began the walk to the restaurant around eight. I had been planning to go much earlier, when the restaurant and Janie would be less busy, but Frost hadn’t seemed quite right until after dinner and after he had been buried in his book for almost an hour. His eyes were haunted, something dark playing on the inside of his forehead for his mind to relive over and over. I hoped to God it was not one of the awful things he had learned about me that was tormenting him.
As I walked down the frigid Baltimore street, the lights of the city dancing around me, something sick and cruel twisted in my stomach. Something wrong. I wanted to turn around and go right back to the apartment, to Frost. Something inside me screamed that there was something dark lurking in the shadows, that something awful was going to happen that night.
But I would only be gone an hour. I’d quit my job, grab my last paycheck, and be home before nine.
The restaurant was buzzing with activity when I arrived. Customers filled the place nearly wall-to-wall, as was common for New Year’s Eve. The bustle of customers and waitresses running from table to table made my head spin and by the time I at last found Janie and she found a minute to talk to me, my brain had been turned to Jell-O. It took longer than it should have to explain to her that I had to quit my job and by the time the right words did eventually come out, my stomach was knotting and unknotting itself in stress. I left with Janie’s condolences and an unnatural, unnecessary panic racing through my neurons.
I had just made it back to Frost’s building when I realized that I had been so preoccupied with quitting my job that I had not picked up my last check. It would have been cut weeks prior and left to sit with my punch card ever since. Groaning, I turned around and began walking back the way I had come.
By the time I had returned to the restaurant, it was nearly nine-thirty. When I entered, Nancy, the hostess, looked up. She grinned at me and called above the din of the waiting area, “Forget something, Poe?”
“Maybe.”
I went into the back room where they kept the punch clock and found the folder with all the time stubs and pay envelopes in it. Flipping through the names, I finally found mine, pulled it out, and replaced the folder where I had found it.
I waved good-bye to Nancy and was just stepping out the door when I heard my name. “Poe?”
Stopping, I turned to the figure beside me in the doorway. I would have recognized that poisonous voice anywhere. Sure enough, Nina Faucett smiled sheepishly at me, joining me on the doorstep. “Hey Poe, can we talk for a minute?”
Every bone in my body told me to say ‘no’ and start running. My blood boiled with distrust and fear. “I don’t think so, Nina.”
“I…” Nina hesitated and looked around, her massive eyes the same eerie green I remembered, as if afraid someone would overhear us. “Please, can we talk? I know I did horrible things to you, and I would never be here if it weren’t so important.”
I shook my head firmly, my jaw as hard as stone. “What you did to me was monstrous. There are few actions more evil than what you did to me. I will never trust you farther than I can throw you.”
She grimaced and looked around again, then leaned far too close for comfort to mutter under her breath, “I know who killed my mother, Poe. And I think the same person killed the Frosts.”
I took a step back from her, remaining on the doorstep of the restaurant, ready to open the door and scream if the need arose. “Is that person you, by chance?”
Nina chuckled once harshly and shook her head disparagingly. “Are you kidding? I hated my mother, but I’m not stupid enough to kill her two days after I violate parole.”
Shifting anxiously to my right leg, I raised an eyebrow. “Actually, that sounds like a really good reason to violate parole. And I know how you felt about the Frosts. I believe you killed Anastasia Frost and maybe the rest of them too.”
