When he stepped away and handed her the towel, she knotted it around her and stared at his outstretched hand. Don't let your guard down. With a steady breath, she gripped his fingers and followed him out of the bathroom to the kitchen.
The drapes on all the ground-level windows kept her breathing at an even tempo, but the layers of dust on the furniture, the crusty dishes on the counter and in the sink, and black smudges on the tiles ratcheted her pulse to ear-ringing anxiety. She pulled away from his hand and sprinted to the sink, the tremors in her legs numbing her feet.
Where to start? Oh God, she would never get this place clean enough. She ducked her head, searching for the soap, the scrub brushes, the dishwasher... Where were the damned—?
His hand wrapped around her throat and yanked her back. Deep grooves formed in his forehead, his eyes narrowed and steely. “Sit the fuck down.” He shoved her by her neck until her ass hit a chair at the table, seating her.
Utensils and canisters cluttered the counters in no logical order. Streaks of grime coated the cabinet doors. God only knew what she'd find if she opened them. Her lungs tightened, her inhales shallowing, coming faster.
His fingers returned to her throat, forcing her chin up. Frustration hardened his eyes, but it didn't channel to the soft rumble of his voice. “There's no way a room full of shallow fuckwads turned you into this. When did it start?”
Nothing was that simple with her. “I have—” She choked around his grip, and he dropped his hand to her lap, squatting before her. She coughed, glaring at him. “I have a genetic connection to agoraphobia, OCD, and substance abuse.” Don't look at the burnt splashes of food on the stove. Don't look at it. “My mother predisposed me to some nasty traits.” And she was seconds away from having a full-on freak-out amidst his nuclear level of disgusting clutter. She leaned into his face, her chest pumping with heavy breaths. “You should probably return me. I'm no good.”
His jaw set. “If you lose your shit, I'm tossing you on the porch.” He stabbed a finger at the front door.
In that moment, she despised him. Her eyes and chest ached, and she wanted nothing more than to stick it to him by stepping over that porch and running to safety. But there was no safety out there. Her safe place was unreachable, and once the mortgage foreclosed, it would be gone.
He stood. “You're going to sit there and tell me about the anxiety while I fix dinner.”
When his back turned, she closed her eyes, shielding herself from the cluster-fuck-chaos of his kitchen, and drew a ragged breath. “Eighty percent of patients with my conditions have first degree relatives who suffer from panic attacks. My mother is a doozy of mental illnesses and was committed to Austin State Hospital when I was twenty-two. Tawny was twelve when I took her in.”
The glide of his feet over tiles drifted toward the fridge. “Does your sister have these conditions?”
“She has her own obsessions, but nothing like my mom and me.” Strange how she could talk about this with a man who would hit her as readily as kiss her. It took twelve phone calls with Dr. Michaels before she'd opened up. Probably because she wasn't trying to impress Van. He'd brought her crazy into his home, so he could suffer the ugly details or fuck off.
“Where's your dad?” he asked.
“He left when Tawny was a baby. He couldn't handle it.” She didn't blame him for leaving her mother, but leaving her and Tawny? That was unforgivable.
She rested her closed eyes on her hands, elbows propped on the table. “I used to manage the anxiety with medication until I became addicted to the pills. With the help of one of my therapists, I learned how to focus it outward. Pageantry and modeling was a distraction.” Though not a healthy one.
Dishes and silverware clattered behind her. Then the microwave beeped four times, grounding her.
“After the night in the ballroom, I held myself together for three months. Brent and Tawny had been my only potential support network, and when I lost them, I had no one. Still, I bought that house, applied for competitions, and taught myself leather-crafting to keep busy.” To keep herself sane. She crossed and uncrossed her legs beneath the table. “Then the panic attacks started. The first one happened in a clothing boutique where I ran into a group of models who had been there that night. When they saw me, they laughed and whispered. But they made sure I heard what they were saying.”
The panic attack had left her crippled and sobbing on the floor for hours. The manager had to drive her home. “I never returned to that store or any other boutique again. One by one, the attacks surfaced in different places. I'd see someone leer at me at the gym, smell something in a store that reminded me of that night, and an attack would drop me to my knees. I couldn't go back to those places, and my world grew smaller and smaller. Eventually, I stopped going anywhere.”
The chair beside her screeched across the floor, and the scent of chopped onion, peppers, and cilantro tickled her nose. She opened her eyes to find a platter of folded shells resembling enchiladas.
“Enfrijoladas.” He cut into a corner with a fork and held it to her mouth. “Corn tortillas dipped in bean sauce. Open.”
“You just made this?” He could cook?
“Last night. For you.”
A shiver licked down her spine, a reminder that he'd been stalking her, planning her capture. “I'm not hungry.” How many calories were in the shavings of white cheese alone? Two days worth, at least.
“This” —he wiggled the fork— “or the door.”
She slammed her teeth together. She was a captor's dream. No steel bars needed here. Just threaten her with an open door, and she would fall at his feet. Well, she wouldn't make it that easy for him. “Four bites.”
He smirked and pushed a glass of water across the table so she could reach it. “Three.”
Tension vibrated her shoulders. Three was fewer calories, but it wasn't four. His smirk meant he knew how much she depended on that number. So much for being difficult. She opened her mouth, too tired to dwell on numbers or the fact that he was creeping her out by feeding her.
He slid the fork between her lips, and a zest of full-bodied seasonings mingled over her tongue. Spicy but not too hot, the taste of Mexico melted in her mouth. He watched her with an expectant expression as she chewed.
His last name was Quiso. His pale gray eyes looked European, but with his dark hair and tanned skin, he could easily have a little Mexican in his woodpile.
After he fed her two more bites, she asked, “Did your mother teach you how to cook?”
He laughed, but there was no humor in the clipped tumble of huffs. “If Isadora couldn't smoke it or inject it, she didn't bake it.”
Oh. He'd said she was dead. She gripped the towel covering her lap, curiosity scrabbling at her tongue. “Your father—”
The fork clanked against the plate. He stared at the table, eyes shuttering as his silence tightened around her. She tensed for the impact of his fist. But what he hit her with was far more jarring.
“He was a human trafficker like me.” His empty voice coiled the tension in the room. “Brought me into the business when I was twenty-five.” He looked up. “When Austin appointed him Chief of Police.”
She stopped breathing, her head spinning with the biggest news story to come out of Austin. Police Chief linked to the kidnapping and rape of two missing persons.
“Eli Eary,” she whispered.
“Good ol' Dad. Quality role model for Austin's youth.” Disgust and sarcasm layered his tone, but it also held an edge of sadness.
His father trafficked slaves. His mother was a drug addict. She looked at him, really looked into his insidious silver eyes. What must they have seen in his thirty-something years? Had he spent his entire life in a dark light, dragging the sins of his parents behind him? How could he not be anything but fucked up?
Don't make excuses for him, Amber.
He dug into the food and spoke while he chewed. “You followed the news story?”
“Some. He kidnapped
that girl and held her for years. And the football player from Baylor.” Enslaved them in a suburban house doing unimaginable things to them. “They shot him.”
“Yep.” He leaned back in the chair and leveled her with his luminescent gaze. “Don't remember their names, do you?”
She shook her head, dread creeping into her bones.
He chewed, swallowed. “Liv Reed and Joshua Carter.”
Liv and Joshua got away. They all got away.
The trembling started in her chest and rippled to her arms and legs. They lived right next door all this time? The reason he was on her porch?
She could guess why he'd returned for them, and it slammed her heart into a laborious frenzy. Even if she could return home and save her mortgage, would she feel safe living beside Liv and Joshua? Van would come back for them. For her.
“You should really get out more.” He raised a glass of water to his lips, grinning.
She choked, wanting to argue this unbelievable story. “The news reports said he worked alone.” Her voice strangled, rising in pitch. “There wasn't any mention of a son.”
He drained the glass, set it down, and leaned in to stroke her jaw. “Because I don't exist.”