The memory I have of my grandmother calling me Rosemary doesn’t contradict what Eli said today, but the other memories might. Were they real, like when I remembered stitching up the knife wound in his back? Did that happen when we ran from Gary? What about that bloody body and the gun in my hand?
Are we using fake names? I think we must be, but he didn’t answer when I asked. That was before he started explaining, which reminds me of something.
I sit up, turn off the water, and get out. There’s a towel but I yank on the soft, terry bathrobe instead of drying off and stalk out of the bathroom. My skin feels damp all over but I don’t want to wait on this.
When I reach the living room, I see that the new gas fireplace Eli put into the living room is up and running. Or burning, I should say. The tree is already standing in the corner. We must have had a stand in the storage shed, or he bought one when he planned this. Eli does seem to plan and prepare for everything. But where is he?
The door flings open and Eli steps inside with a big Tupperware box. He knocks the door shut behind himself with his foot, but stops when he sees me.
“Earlier today you said I had to stop. Why?”
He looks flabbergasted.
“Don’t play dumb with me.” I cross my arms. “Is that man still looking for us? You are worried he caused my accident.”
I have to stop him—Gary?
Eli walks to the tree and sets the box down on the floor. It drives me nuts how he always procrastinates in answering!
“Aren’t we done with that for today?”
“No. You said you’d answer my questions.”
“I honestly don’t know, Meg. It’s been almost seven months since we disappeared. If he tracked us here, which I believe would be impossible, then why did he stop after the accident? Nothing happened in the hospital. Nothing has happened here, before or after that. It was only that one freak incident.” He takes a sip from a tumbler holding a golden liquid and ice cubes. So far he’s been a jeans-wearing and beer-drinking kind of guy, who is wearing a hunting shirt today, so the Scotch seems a little out of place. There is still so much I don’t know about this man.
“So why do I have to stop prying into things? If we’re perfectly safe, why are you even worried?”
“As a precaution.” He stands with one hand resting on his hip, the other holding the glass, watching me, and there’s something sexy about it. I’m irritated with him, too, so it gives me that squirmy feeling you get when sitting through a boring speech.
I pull in a deep, shaky breath, feeling too emotional again.
“I believe we’re perfectly safe,” Eli ads, “but why tempt fate? What if something you do while digging into things somehow alerts him?”
I don’t see how it could, but I understand Eli’s fear. I think of all my unanswered questions and start to ask one—if these are fake names, but he speaks first.
“I poured you a glass of eggnog,” he says, motioning to the kitchen counter. He’s switched gears on me.
“Spiked, I’m guessing.”
“Why not?” He grins, which makes me angry. I’m trying to put my life story back in order and he’s pulling out the alcohol and Christmas ornaments
And then he turns on Christmas music; an old carol plays from the corner radio.
“It’s an oldies station,” he tells me happily, “and they’re playing Christmas music twenty-four seven until New Years.”
“Oh, good lord.” I pick up the eggnog and gulp—whoa, it’s strong. Eli opens the box and motions for me to come over. Do I really want to decorate the tree? In my bathrobe, no less?
That’s when I realize how skimpy this thing is. It’s short for a bathrobe, coming down to my mid thigh, and it’s held closed with one fuzzy tie around my waist.
“Maybe I should go dress first.” I also left the bath mostly full of water.
“But I like that outfit.” Eli’s gaze slowly slides down my body, pausing on the sash loosely holding the robe on, and rolling down my bare legs. His look soaks into me an aphrodisiac. Damnit, how does he do that to me?
I drink my eggnog and look into the box. “Are those our ornaments?” Heat rushes over me—from the rum or excitement, or both—and I slink down next to the box to riffle through the smaller boxes and cookie tins. I’m searching for something special, like a “First Christmas” ornament.
Eli reaches in with me and digs to the bottom, pulling out an old chocolate cherry box that’s faded on the corners. He opens it and pulls out a delicate hand-painted dancing couple figurine carved out of wood. The man wears a tux and has dark hair like Eli while the woman matches my blond hair. She wears a Marilyn Monroe dress that flares out like that famous picture, but this one is red.
“You saw this in a flea market in July, our first summer together, and you said you wanted to hang it on our first Christmas tree.”
“Why that one?” I ask as he puts it in my hand.
“Hang this one first,” he says instead of answering me. “It’s our tradition.”
We have traditions?
“Before the lights even?”
“Before the lights. You never wanted to wait before.”
I rise and look for a good spot, front and center. After I hang it and step back, Eli wraps himself around me, nuzzling his nose into my neck. I can’t help myself and tilt my head back beside his neck, as his breath tickles my neck. The tickle wiggles all the way down my back and to more intimate places.
Rocking Around the Christmas Tree is playing, a fast, waltzy song. Eli begins swaying to the music. He pulls me around to face him, taking one of my hands in his and holding my waist with the other.
“You wanted that ornament because we love to dance.” He sways his hips back and forth, old style ballroom dancing. We must look silly; he’s still wearing that camo shirt and jeans, and I’m in a bath robe. I laugh and follow along, my body knowing what to do as we prance around the room.
The song fades and I’ll Be Home for Christmas comes on.
“You are home now, Meg. Home for Christmas and always.” He leans in so we’re body to body, cheek to cheek, still holding my hand. “You can trust me to take care of you. You know that, don’t you?”
His words are soft, spoken by my ear. It doesn’t sound like he expects an answer, and I’m not sure what I would say. I close my eyes and he hums along to the music, his voice like a tonic to me.
I need him and want him, but I don’t want him to know how weak I’ve grown. Conflicted, I pull away and reach for the box.
“Let’s put the lights up.”
We stand on opposite sides of the tree and pass the untwining strand of lights back and forth, slowly wrapping our way down. I’m ready to hang ornaments but Eli plugs in the tree.
“Oh.” We both pause to appreciate it. As I gaze at the twinkling red, green, and white lights, he turns out the other lights in the house.
The house is toasty and the rum is hitting me. Eli comes back and we swing and twirl to Elvis singing about a white Christmas, ending up by the new sofa. He kisses my neck and I think, just a little bit, I can enjoy this.
I kiss him back, on the base of his neck and then his mouth. As soon as my lips touch his, he growls and lifts me off the ground. I’m up in the air and then landing softly on the sofa, my legs around Eli. The terry cloth tie is no match for him. My robe is open in one second flat, making him suck in a quick breath as he takes in my naked body, and then he’s running his mouth down my bare skin, making me shiver in pleasure. My body isn’t listening to me at all. I’m lifting up, pushing into him. I can’t think properly with his hands and mouth all over me.
Eli straightens to rip his shirt over his head. I pull him back to me. The sight of his bare shoulder does me in, the way his muscle bulges and meets his collarbone. His hands skim every curve and rise of my body like a sculptor with wet clay, running down my waist, over my hips, up under my lower back, back down to my ass.
Part of me says, no, do
n’t touch him back, but my hands have a mind of their own. I want to touch the planes of his chest and stomach the way he’s touching me. And it’s amazing, his rock hard build, his taut muscles.
I hear the zipper on his jeans releasing and use my feet to push his jeans down his legs. I reach for him and it’s all over. His mouth comes down on my lips and his body into mine.
“Ah!” My body clenches around him as pure pleasure shoots through me; it’s an ache and desire and satisfaction all rolled up into a wave of passion. He rocks against me and I wonder if I could pass out, it feels so good.
The Christmas lights rotate colors, throwing different patterns across the room and onto Eli as I watch him. His body is a work of art. He’s watching me too before he leans down close over my body.
“Did you know what you were doing to me in this skimpy bathrobe?” He pushes it off one shoulder and lays a kiss there. I gasp, pushing into him even more, gripping his shoulders, slipping toward release. He feels it coming and quickens his pace until I cry out again, arching off the sofa. A growl busts from his throat as he climaxes, pulling me clear off the sofa and up into his arms.
We fall back together, panting, his arms around me. His skin is damp and his scent mixing with mine. The room spins pleasantly as I slip down into sleep.
“Round two in the bedroom?”
“Hmm, hmm,” I murmur, eyes closed. He stands, taking me with him, and carries me down the hall.
Chapter Twenty-Five
My body is mid-stretch before my mind catches up with everything. We made love on the sofa…and here in the bed. What did I do? I should have known better.
“Meg?”
I can’t breathe and move to get out of bed to pace, but I’m naked. I slide back into the covers, pulling them up to my chin. Eli’s up on one elbow, a hand stretched across me over the comforter.
“Last night was beautiful. Please don’t get upset over it.”
All the reasons I ignored last night are screaming at me now. Overwhelmed, I start with the logistics. “We didn’t use protection.”
“We’re married, Meg.”
“But we’re not in a place to procreate. Not even close.”
He shrinks. A second later he sighs. “You had that long term shot. I think it’s still effective.”
I really should find my own doctor here. But first things first.
“You can relax. I get it. You don’t trust me yet. That’s fine,” he says in a hard voice. He’s more exasperated than I’ve seen him—I might have actually hurt him. “We don’t have to rewrite all the kingdom’s boundaries over this.”
I stare at him, slack faced. He’s confused by my response and starts to sit up in bed.
“You said that to me in Roberto’s mansion,” I say softly.
Now he’s on full alert. Attack mode. “What?”
It’s gone. Whatever was there, it’s completely void again. I shake my head, so angry I could rip the blanket in two.
“Megan, what did you say?”
“It was right there! My life was right there in my brain! Now it’s as blank as before.”
“You don’t remember what you said? Or what it was about?” he asks, pinning me down with his gaze.
What had I said? I shake my head. “That was so strange. It was like I had my memory back for a second, but it’s gone. I don’t know what I said.”
Worry creases his forehead but he doesn’t say anything more. I roll over and nestle my back into him, hating the free-falling feeling of not having a memory.
Eli senses how emotional I am and holds me, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me even closer against him. His lips nuzzle through my hair to find my neck, and we lay like that, his breath on my ear and his warmth surrounding me.
What if my memory is coming back?
***
That morning, I shoo Eli out of the kitchen so I can cook breakfast. I need to do something, and I need him to stop watching me so closely. I need to stop thinking so hard about everything.
It’s nothing fancy, scrambled eggs and toast, but it feels good to lose myself in the simple task of mixing eggs and stirring them in the fry pan. I’m still processing what Eli told me, and now what happened between us, and trying to pull that memory back up. There’d been a name this time, and Eli recognized it.
An image flashes through my mind, but it’s not anything helpful at all. It’s Eli’s expression as he looked at me last night. My body clenches, needing him again. I close my eyes for a second as I let my need roll through me. It’s a good kind of pain, a kind I haven’t felt in awhile.
Last night is running through my head but suddenly Eli looks different. I see him somewhere else.
He was at the mansion, the one I remembered. Roberto’s mansion… But who is Roberto, and why were Eli and I there? It’s something so different from this life that I can’t put the pieces together.
What does that mean? I try to bring the memory into focus but I hear Eli in the hallway. He walks into the room looking and smelling fresh from his shower. His face is smooth, his hair damp. He watches me with warmth in his eyes before pulling me close and kissing me. As I kiss him back, my body stirs, but I want distance even while I want him.
I don’t know what to make of all this.
“Breakfast is ready,” I say and get plates out of the cupboard. We sit down to eat and I try not to look at him.
“These are good.”
“Thanks.” I manage a smile before I say, “I was hoping you’d show me the feed from the cameras today.”
“What?” Worry enters his eyes before he looks down and takes another bite to cover.
“I just want to see where the cameras have been watching. You said you’d take them down, the ones in the house.”
“I did. Well, I turned off the screens already, and I’ll take the cameras down later, okay?” He takes another bite. I gave myself a smaller portion and finish my last bite of toast. “Want to see the screens?”
He hasn’t volunteered any information before. It takes me a second to realize that he’s offering now. “Yes.”
I follow him through the new living room, the plastic, and past the area he’s working on. There’s an unfinished wall of two by fours with one section covered with wood. He reaches behind the first two-by-four to unlatch something. The wood panel pops open to reveal a big gray metal panel, like the front of a breaker box, only bigger. Much bigger. It has a keypad on it.
Why all the security? I’ve never heard of anyone locking up the screens to their cameras. Normally they’re somewhere more convenient for checking.
Eli enters a code—5197—and opens it. He hit the buttons so quickly I have no idea how I was able to watch and catch the numbers. I repeat them in my head until I’m sure I have them memorized. Inside, there’s a wall of small screens on low brightness so they don’t blind us.
Six screens show different outside scenes, all angled away from the house. Three screens are off.
“What were those recording?”
He points to the top, right dark screen. “That was the bedroom. It recorded over itself every twenty-four hours, and I watched it on fast forward a few times.” He points to the one under it. “That showed the dining area and new living room we finished, and part of the kitchen. This last one is located on the other side of the dining area, looking into the unfinished part of the house. I turned it off because it’s inside, and I said I would, but I’d like to turn it back on, now that you know about it.”
So that’s how he knew I hit my head, and the camera in the bedroom showed me writing in the journal. I’m relieved there aren’t any in the bathroom. I nod to his question, giving the vaguest answer I can.
“I need these outside ones.” He points to several and talks about security issues…while I notice there’s an empty space down below, like a cubby hole. I make sure not to look directly at it. Still, I’m pretty sure I see something, a handle on the top of a bag maybe. It?
??s a loop of some sort. I make note of it but turn slightly toward Eli to listen.
I cross my arms and watch each screen for a few seconds. They cover the perimeter—no one would be able to reach the house without getting recorded.
Eli wraps his arm around my shoulders. “I didn’t set this up to spy on you. It’s all to keep you safe.”
“A precaution?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral. I break away and head back toward the finished rooms. “You’ll show me the cameras and take them down now?”
“Let me grab a ladder.”
I wait on the sofa—where we made love—trying to put my thoughts in order. How on earth did he pay for this kind of equipment, on top of buying this riverfront property, the vehicles, and my medical expenses? He made it sound like we came here with money but this is a lot of money.
What if his story about Gary is true and he kept some of the illegal money? Maybe he didn’t go to the police like he said. We simply stole all the funds we could and ran. Maybe I’m a criminal on the FBI’s most wanted list, and that’s why he has all this surveillance and needs me to quit looking into things.
The other possibility is that Eli is Gary—he would still need all this security.
My head clears all the way for the first time since this started. Both possibilities are logical, sensible explanations that don’t point to me being completely paranoid. Either way, Eli is hiding from authorities and lying to me. And if we’re running from the law, how dangerous is Eli?
Chapter Twenty-Six
*
Eli
I show Megan the tiny cameras before I take them down, and I can see the sight of the devices raise her hackles. It’s not an ordinary security camera by any standards. In fact, hardly anyone has ever seen one of these.
It’s the size of a quarter and shaped like a small dome, so it looks like the rounded screw caps you see on furniture or machinery. People see the real caps so often that these don’t stand out.