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Itell them the truth.
Well, mostly.
“The escaped convict . . . he . . . he was hiding in my truck,” I stammer through smoke-streaked sobs after the fire hoses stop pumping and the police clear the area and the forensics team emerges from my wet smoldering shell of a cookie-store with Patrick’s unrecognizably charred body on a steel gurney. His head and face are completely burned, body charred black as coal, skeleton-jaw wide open and toothless because Xavier knocked most of his teeth out in that savagely possessive attack. “I didn’t know until I got back to my store. He . . . he must have changed out of his jumpsuit in my truck when he found that box of my branded gear. Then . . . then he attacked me inside the store. I think . . . I think he wanted to . . . I don’t know, he had stripped naked, he was locked up for years, so I guess he wanted to do things to me. I was so scared that I think I blacked out. I barely remember fighting, but I think I managed to hit him in the head and push his face into the oven or something. I . . . I can’t remember exactly, Officer. It’s all a blur.”
“Relax, Miss O’Connor,” says the older female police officer, smiling reassuringly as I cough, then sniffle and swallow. “The convict is dead now. You fought him off, and he got what was coming to him. We found some sticky residue on his jumpsuit. It appears he masturbated while hiding in your truck. Obviously the man was a deranged pervert. He was also a convicted murderer. You did the right thing. You defended yourself, and you got a bad man off the streets. What’s important is that you’reall right. Are you sure you didn’t get injured when you backed your truck into that wall? You shouldn’t have tried to drive in this state.”
“I know. It was dumb. I’m shaken up, but I’m all right.” I sigh, casting a glum look at my truck that’s all the way at the end of the alley in a haphazard position, backed up against a jutting brick wall. Xavier positioned it so it looked like I tried to reverse my way out of the alley in a panic and crashed it into the wall—which would explain the damage to the rear end, explain why the airbags went off. Xavier wiped his blood off the broken windscreen, opened up my truck’s toolbox and scattered a few tools around the carpeted floor to make it look like a flying wrench or hammer broke the windscreen.
Then Xavier got into Patrick’s car and drove it away before the fire trucks and police got here.
“Patrick is so badly burned that they aren’t going to be able to either confirm or deny that it was me,” Xavier assured me before driving away with Patrick’s car. “My dental records aren’t on file, and even if they do find all his teeth, they won’t be able to reconstruct his broken burned jaw well enough to made any kind of positive identification. The circumstantial evidence combined with your story might be enough. Especially since the prison Warden will be in a hurry to confirm that the dead body is Xavier so he can close the case.”
“Why?” I’d asked with a frown.
Xavier had chuckled darkly as he started Patrick’s car and put it into gear. “Because a crooked prison guard unlocked my cell to let another inmate enter to kill me. The unlocked cell is how I got out and found the old ventilator shafts. The Warden doesn’t want an in-depth investigation into how I escaped. In fact, I’ll bet the news of my escape wasn’t even released to the press this morning. The Warden would have wanted to keep it quiet until he was certain I actually made it out of the prisongrounds. It’s not good for a Warden’s career to have a convicted murderer escape into civilized society. Yeah, he’s going to be fucking thrilled that Xavier conveniently died before the whole thing blew up in his face. U.S. Marshals probably haven’t been mobilized yet, and if the Warden can wrap this up today, he won’t need to call them in. The evidence is good enough to wrap this up nice and tight. Cops will find my prison jumpsuit in the van. Your statement will pretty much confirm the ID. They’ll close the case before the sun sets on Valentine’s Day, baby. Trust me. I know how the system works. Hell, I’ve spent my entire life in the system.” He’d grinned up at me as the sirens wailed closer. “And now I’m going to spend my entire life with you, sweetheart. Right here.”
“Really?” I’d whispered as a trembling thrill rolled through my body, Xavier’s vision of how it could work lighting a path through my foggy brain, bringing a hopeful smile to my soot-stained cheeks. “Oh, Xavier, I . . . I love you.”
“I love you too, Connie,” he’d said through that smile, reaching out his hand and pulling me close for a warm kiss. “Now get that smile off your face and get ready to lie to the cops and the fire chief and the prison Warden.”
And now the smile comes back when I see the policewoman write down my lies and nod with sympathy, assuring me that the fire-chief’s report will pretty much guarantee that insurance will pay out in full, cover all my losses and probably then some. The prison Warden’s already talked to me, and I dab my eyes and sneak a glance at him speaking in hushed tones with the fire chief and the police chief and a couple of forensics guys and a medical examiner, all of whom are shaking their heads and shrugging, like they can’t confirm or deny anything, are just waiting for the prison Warden and the police chief to make the call.
Then the police chief nods and the prison Warden grins and they shake hands, and the forensics guys gather their kits and the medical examiner sighs and they all turn to leave.
And suddenly I’m overwhelmed with waves of exhausted relief. Nothing’s for certain yet, but it sure looks like Xavier called it right, that he knows how the system works, understands the incentives that make people do things.
The exhaustion digs deeper as I get into the backseat of a police cruiser that’s been assigned to drop me home to my apartment. By the time I make it to my bathroom and get under the warm sprinkle of my shower, I can barely stand. And when I finally collapse into bed and realize Valentine’s Day is over and I haven’t sold a single cookie and my store is a smoldering mess and I’m going to bed alone, a terrifying sadness grips me deep inside.
Because Xavier’s a free man now.
So why would he ever come back?
The paranoia is stupid, I tell myself. You’re just exhausted and it’s making you feel insecure again. This is Mama talking, not you.
But don’t be angry at her, I scold myself through that childish rage which sparks briefly and then subsides because I’m just so darned tired. No, don’t hate on Mama for that. She loved you and she wanted to make sure you didn’t repeat her mistakes, didn’t get knocked up by a man who wasn’t going to stay, wasn’t going to provide, wasn’t going to protect.
“But my man wants to do all of those things, most of all possess and protect,” I whisper into my soft pillow as I snuggle up beneath the covers and feel my nightshirt ride up over my butt, think of Xavier’s hands on my ass, his face buried in my pussy—my pussy which Xavier refused to claim because he said I was special and he wanted to treat me special. “Besides, he only got a taste of the milk. So he’ll be back for the rest, right, Mama?”
The thought makes me giggle, relaxing me just enough to ignore that recurring despair that’s just habit for me now, a groove worn so deep that it’s tugging at the back of my brain, whispering that Xavier’s going to have too much time to think about it as he waits to be sure that it’s safe for him to come back.
Too much time to think about never coming back.
10
THREE WEEKS LATER.
XAVIER
Ican’t go back.
The past three weeks have been pure agony, pain far worse than my broken neck and cracked skull. Well, the neck turned out to be just a wicked sprain and the skull didn’t crack because it’s thicker than concrete. Thick enough that I’m able to ignore the whisper from my brain that says Connie’s had all this time to think about it, that she might not want me to come back, might be secretly hoping I just keep running, take my freedom and go so she can heal from the trauma, rebuild her store, restart her life.
A life that I so desperately want to be a part of.
But a life that I’m so scared is just a dream, a fantasy, wishful thinking brought on by the wildness of that one day we spent together, those frenzied moments we shared, those insane hours that burned hot with the fuel of sex and violence.
Has that fire cooled for Connie now?
