sleep couldn’t have been all that restful if his body was responding in that way.
She put a knee on the bed and leaned over him. “Stephen,” she whispered, and nudged his hair out of his face.
There was a little jut just beneath the bridge of his aristocratic nose. Not a natural bump, but a ridge that created a slight crook at the top.
It’d been broken.
She sighed. “Boxers. I see why your mother was so opposed to it. Why would you do that to your face?”
With him asleep, she could really study it. She’d always found him attractive. That had never changed. But, experience had taught her not to trust men who were too good-looking.
Her mother had told her that when Janette was four. At the time, Janette had no idea what her mother was talking about, but she learned from experience later.
She was tired of saying no to Stephen, though. Tired of not connecting to anyone.
Tracing her fingertip along the outline of his lips, she thought back to all the promises he’d uttered through them. “ I can set your body on fire and make you forget which way is up. I’d make you let down your hair and lose control ,” he’d said during his last trip to the resort. He’d walked away from her counter with a stack of SCUBA excursion brochures, and she’d stood there with clamped teeth, burning cheeks, and pantyhose that had suddenly become damp at the crotch.
She toyed with her curls and sat back. She must have subconsciously taken that let down your hair admonition to heart.
A buzz sounded in the next room. It had to be her phone rattling against the dresser top. She was on a leave of absence from work, and no one ever called her except—
“The investigator.”
She eased off the bed and hurried into the room. She snatched the phone up on the fourth buzz and returned to the door to softly close it before whispering, “Hello?”
“Miss Hinson?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Dell Skinner here. Sorry to call you so late, but you said to give you a call the moment I had any info about what happened to your mother before the accident.”
“No need to apologize. I’m in North Carolina right now, so I’ve gained an hour.”
“Excellent. Well, here’s what I was able to root out. Your mother was a flight attendant, right?”
“Yes, I have a vague recollection of that.”
“A few years before the accident, you moved from Philly to Baltimore, and she changed her airport home base. People move all the time for different reasons, but to me, those are red flags I like to investigate, especially when they’d been otherwise stable. I got a buddy to dig into Philly police reports, and he found not one, but two disturbances reported by your mother. The first one was a break-in. Seemed your apartment got tossed, but nothing of value was taken.”
Janette had a vague recollection of that. She was around three, about to turn four. She and her mother had returned from a day trip, had taken one step into the apartment, and then her mother whisked her right back out. Janette had spent the night with the neighbors while her mother cleaned up.
“The second one,” Dell continued, “was a lot different. You got home and locked up as usual, and got into bed. About an hour after that, a person who’d been hiding in your mother’s closet showed himself. He and your mother had an altercation, and it got so loud the neighbors started beating on your door. The report says that you let them in. They called the cops.”
“I let them in?”
That she didn’t remember. Not at all.
“You did. You didn’t say anything to the police, though. Just sat there all zoned out. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that you don’t remember. That’s something for you to hash out with your therapist, should you happen to have one.”
Maybe she should get one, and soon.
“What happened after that?”
“You and your mother packed up and moved to Baltimore.”
“What happened to the man who broke in? Was he
She put a knee on the bed and leaned over him. “Stephen,” she whispered, and nudged his hair out of his face.
There was a little jut just beneath the bridge of his aristocratic nose. Not a natural bump, but a ridge that created a slight crook at the top.
It’d been broken.
She sighed. “Boxers. I see why your mother was so opposed to it. Why would you do that to your face?”
With him asleep, she could really study it. She’d always found him attractive. That had never changed. But, experience had taught her not to trust men who were too good-looking.
Her mother had told her that when Janette was four. At the time, Janette had no idea what her mother was talking about, but she learned from experience later.
She was tired of saying no to Stephen, though. Tired of not connecting to anyone.
Tracing her fingertip along the outline of his lips, she thought back to all the promises he’d uttered through them. “ I can set your body on fire and make you forget which way is up. I’d make you let down your hair and lose control ,” he’d said during his last trip to the resort. He’d walked away from her counter with a stack of SCUBA excursion brochures, and she’d stood there with clamped teeth, burning cheeks, and pantyhose that had suddenly become damp at the crotch.
She toyed with her curls and sat back. She must have subconsciously taken that let down your hair admonition to heart.
A buzz sounded in the next room. It had to be her phone rattling against the dresser top. She was on a leave of absence from work, and no one ever called her except—
“The investigator.”
She eased off the bed and hurried into the room. She snatched the phone up on the fourth buzz and returned to the door to softly close it before whispering, “Hello?”
“Miss Hinson?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Dell Skinner here. Sorry to call you so late, but you said to give you a call the moment I had any info about what happened to your mother before the accident.”
“No need to apologize. I’m in North Carolina right now, so I’ve gained an hour.”
“Excellent. Well, here’s what I was able to root out. Your mother was a flight attendant, right?”
“Yes, I have a vague recollection of that.”
“A few years before the accident, you moved from Philly to Baltimore, and she changed her airport home base. People move all the time for different reasons, but to me, those are red flags I like to investigate, especially when they’d been otherwise stable. I got a buddy to dig into Philly police reports, and he found not one, but two disturbances reported by your mother. The first one was a break-in. Seemed your apartment got tossed, but nothing of value was taken.”
Janette had a vague recollection of that. She was around three, about to turn four. She and her mother had returned from a day trip, had taken one step into the apartment, and then her mother whisked her right back out. Janette had spent the night with the neighbors while her mother cleaned up.
“The second one,” Dell continued, “was a lot different. You got home and locked up as usual, and got into bed. About an hour after that, a person who’d been hiding in your mother’s closet showed himself. He and your mother had an altercation, and it got so loud the neighbors started beating on your door. The report says that you let them in. They called the cops.”
“I let them in?”
That she didn’t remember. Not at all.
“You did. You didn’t say anything to the police, though. Just sat there all zoned out. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that you don’t remember. That’s something for you to hash out with your therapist, should you happen to have one.”
Maybe she should get one, and soon.
“What happened after that?”
“You and your mother packed up and moved to Baltimore.”
“What happened to the man who broke in? Was he
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