Chapter 8

8

Jolie

Two weeks later

Ilook up from my sketchbook and see it’s dark outside.

With a gasp, I fumble for my phone and turn the house lights on, breathing through the nerves. Willing them to abate. They do, finally, but I continue to stare at nothing, like I’m half asleep or in a trance.

It has been two weeks since Christopher…Evan disappeared. Poof. Without a trace.

I keep expecting him to show up. To be standing in the kitchen when I come out in the morning. Or to roll over in the middle of the night, straight into his welcoming arms.

But that hasn’t happened.

It hasn’t happened.

I’ve thrown myself into self-defense classes. Therapy, too—after a thorough sweep of the office. I found a microphone taped under the desk. I stared down at it in the palm of my hand, waiting for the outrage to hit. It did, but so briefly I almost missed it. Yes, it was wrong of Evan to intercept my personal thoughts. They are sacred. And mine.

But I can’t help but consider what he did with the information.

I healed thanks to myself. He took the fears I voiced in therapy and found roundabout ways of lessening them. Rearranging furniture in our bedroom and living room so there would be fewer hiding spots. Attaching a whistle and pepper spray to my keys without me asking. Encouraging me to do self-defense classes.

I’m not an expert on psychopaths, but I know a little, after being kidnapped by one. And they don’t care about the needs of others. It’s not in their DNA.

Meaning, Evan can’t be one.

Meaning…there is a strong possibility he might genuinely love me.

In a very twisted way.

Swallowing the lodgment in my throat, I close my sketchbook and stand, looking around the apartment. At the stillness where there used to be laughter. Moaning. Companionable silence. It’s so empty without him. I’m…

No.

I refuse to be empty over the loss of him. He stalked me. Lied to me about his name, his job, where he was going every day. Listened to my most personal thoughts.

He murders people for a living, for god sakes.

A long time passes before I realize I’ve been standing in the middle of the living room, unmoving. With a huffed breath, I start to pace. I need to put Evan behind me. Not to mention, all of the embarrassment that comes from being fooled again into thinking someone was normal. So embarrassed that I couldn’t bring myself to contact the police and tell them I’d been stupid enough to marry a man who was lying about his identity.

I don’t want to admit it to myself, but there’s another reason I didn’t call the cops.

Evan would never hurt me. I know it in my soul.

My eyes burn and I scrub at them with the heel of my hand. I need to continue to focus on my recovery and my self-defense classes. I even sent in an application this afternoon for a ground floor position at a design firm. I’m making strides.

I’m just so…bereft.

I miss him.

There, I admitted it.

I think he really did love me.

It was in every touch, every hug, every action, the vibration of his voice. And I loved him, too. Even in the storage unit, I looked at him, at all of his lies and deceptions and I felt a crazy, untamed, singular kind of love. It teems inside of me now, too, stronger than ever. I ran away from him. I accepted his offer to never see him again. But I would do anything to have him walk into this room and overwhelm me with his affection, his touch, his kiss.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I take my car keys off the peg and drive to the storage unit. I’ve driven by a couple of times over the last two weeks, but never gone inside. Perhaps I should be scared. Perhaps it’s unwise to come here alone after dark, but the urge to be near Evan in some way is so undeniable, I’m walking into the building without a backward glance.

I recall the code he punched into the security pad for the unit because it was my birthday. My throat feels tight at the memory, but I swallow and enter the four digits, wringing my hands as the door trundles open.

Nothing.

It’s empty.

No…wait. There’s a large box pushed into the far back corner, hidden in shadows.

I advance on it quickly, like it might disappear, using the flashlight from my phone to illuminate the surface. There’s nothing distinct about it. Just a plain, cardboard box.

But when I open it, I find hundreds of light bulbs. All sizes and shapes and brands. Filling the box all the way to the brim. And there’s a note on top.

So you’ll always have light.

I go down on my knees in front of the box. The tears that have been threatening to fall for two weeks finally erupt, pouring down my cheeks in heavy torrents of grief.

When I turn the note over, I’m expecting a way to find him. There’s nothing, though. Not an address or phone number. He’s left me no way to reach him. What am I supposed to do? I made a decision after finding out he’d lied and now I have to live with it forever? There are no qualifications or second thoughts? That’s it? He just vanishes and leaves me to reel without him? I just want to see him one more time. Just one more time.

I pull my knees up against my chest, rest my head on my knees and sob.

I’m not sure how long I sit there pressed beside the box of light bulbs, aching for my husband’s arms around me, but I start to hear his voice. It comes to me in snippets of past conversations. I think of the first time we met, the first night we spent in bed together and something pops into my memory. Something I haven’t thought of since he said it.

This is where it begins, angel eyes. Listen to me. It begins here. If you ever feel lost, come right back here to the beginning and find me. I’ll always be right here.

I can feel his body moving inside me as he makes that vow.

What did he mean, though? Or was he just saying words in the heat of the moment.

No.

No, that isn’t like Evan.

He’s purposeful and organized and thoughtful.

He built an entire persona so he could make me his.

He planned. A lot. And executed.

I’m standing before I realize it, running out of the storage facility toward my car. I peel out of the parking spot and break the speed limit to get home. I fumble with my phone to get the house lights on and push through the front door, sprinting to the bedroom. I waste no time flipping over the mattress and…

I stumble backwards.

A map has been drawn on the bottom of my mattress in black marker.

On one end, a house has been drawn. On the other end, connected by a long, squiggly line is water, boats, all set to a backdrop of cliffs.

There’s a lighthouse, too. It’s the only part of the drawing with color—red.

Is Evan telling me this is where I’ll find him?

It has to be.

And it’s not lost on me that he’s chosen a beacon of light to await me, to bring me back to him, because he’s always thinking of me and my needs. In this case, my affinity for light at all times. If I needed any further proof that there is so much good in this complicated man, I’ve just gotten it, and I can’t stay away any longer. I want my husband back.

After a quick internet search, I find the lighthouse. And I go. I just go to him.

* * *

The beacon ison when I arrive at the red lighthouse.

There doesn’t seem to be any technical need for it, because the moon is full in the gray night sky, not a cloud to block its beams. The ocean spreads out at its feet, empty of boats.

Somehow I know he left it on for me.

Somehow I know it has been on every night for two weeks.

Just like the drawing on the bottom of my mattress, there is a house attached to the lighthouse. It’s modest, rustic and beautiful, surrounded by a rambling garden. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs helps soothe the ripped edges inside of me, but not enough. I’ll never be soothed a moment of my life without him.

It’s a truth I accepted on my hour-long drive to the coast.

This love between me and Evan might have dark shades, might have nuances that people wouldn’t understand. It might even be wrong. But it’s right for us.

This man held me up, reminded me I’m strong, showed me love.

I’m not leaving him deserted.

My gaze is drawn to the very top of the lighthouse and I make out the outline of a man’s body. Not just any man’s body, though. It’s my husband. Tall, powerful…forlorn. I can read the anguish in his stooped shoulders as he looks out at the ocean.

A sob rises up in my throat and I move quickly toward the lighthouse, tears blurring my vision. I have to circle the base to find the entrance. When I do, I pull open the door, letting the ocean wind carry it and climb the spiral staircase, my heart starting slamming against my eardrums.

When I’m a few steps from the top, his voice, a mere scratch of sound, reaches me.

“Who’s there?”

I reach the top. There is a circular railing separating us, an opening in the center where the huge, rotating light is positioned. Evan hasn’t even turned around to see who is coming. His big hands are pressed to the glass, his head bowed forward.

“It’s me,” I manage.

It doesn’t occur to me until that moment, when he doesn’t turn around, that maybe I’ve lost him. I called him a psychopath. He poured his heart out to me and I walked away. Maybe I’ve broken him. Or maybe he’s hardened his heart—

Slowly, he pivots, his expression one of disbelief. “Jolie?”

A miserable sound leaves me at seeing him so haggard. His eyes are bloodshot, rimmed in dark circles. He hasn’t shaved in weeks, black whiskers occupying his cheeks, jaw, chin. He’s lost weight, his skin is sallow. He’s lost.

“I found your map.”

He grips the railing, knuckles white. “I can’t believe…you went looking for it.”

I go toward him with measured steps, traveling the curve of the lighthouse. “You found me the biggest light possible,” I murmur. “How could I stay away from a man who loves me that much? A man who loves me so much he’d change his name, his life, spend his days watching and protecting me? Listening to every word out of my mouth so he can please me?”

His eyes burn. “Some might say you should be terrified of a man like that.”

“They’re wrong,” I whisper.

Something inside of Evan snaps and he barrels toward me, catching me up in his arms, sinking down to his knees with me wrapped around him. With us wrapped around each other, inhaling the scents of one another’s skin, clawing to get closer. Closer.

“I’m dying without you,” he rasps into my neck.

“You don’t have to be without me anymore.”

“Jolie…I’ll never be normal when it comes to you. I’ll never be a husband who waves goodbye while you go shopping or out on some girls’ night. It just won’t fucking happen.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I want every part of you.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

That wild light comes on in his eyes. The one I’ve only seen glimpses of before. But this time it’s not fleeting. It doesn’t go away. And I know it’s going to be there permanently. My body responds with a swift surge of lust, my heart expanding, pounding, my existence narrowed down to the man who looks at me like I’m the ultimate treasure.

“Then bring me back to life, angel eyes.” He lays me down. “So I can spend a hundred years keeping you in my sights.”