He told a few jokes, to which she’d laughed. It had been fun. He would never have guessed what was to come afterward, or at least a few months after.
Stepping into her home, he was a little taken aback. He never got to see it when he was younger. She didn’t invite him in, and it wasn’t like he was a regular visitor at Ava’s.
Closing the door behind him, he pocketed the keys, and breathed it in.
It smelled like her.
Fresh.
Open.
Warm.
He refused to think of her as warm. She was a first-class bitch. The only difference was, she chose to hide it whereas other women were more than happy to show their true colors.
He checked out the dining room, seeing the pictures on the wall of Ava and her family. She never had any brothers or sisters to keep an eye on her. She was an only child, like him.
Running his fingers across the dining room table, he saw some old cup stains, letting him know the table hadn’t been changed.
Ava wouldn’t have changed a thing. This was probably a shrine to her parents. Every last cup and step. She wouldn’t have made changes, and it was knowing this that he had to wonder why she would do the shit she had done to him, to his friends.
Running a hand down his face to clear the fog from his mind, he looked at each image. They weren’t fake.
Ava had come from a very happy family.
Logan had watched them enough times. Her mother would pick her up from school when she could, take them out for pizza. Her parents always showed up for parent-teacher nights, and never missed anything important for their daughter.
His own family hadn’t been the same. They couldn’t give a shit unless it was to win some kind of trophy for them to put on the wall, or some medal. They only liked what he could provide them with, or at least that was what he’d thought until he was arrested. His parents did care. It was just when it came to his schooling, they’d gotten reports on him as their lives were too busy to wait around to talk to his teachers. In their way, they cared.
If they saw him now, they’d be happy, but like her family, his were dead as well. He’d stood by their graves without shedding a single tear whereas Ava had sobbed. He knew because he had people watching her at all times.
She’d been his intended prey for a long time now.
Tapping his fingers on his side, he stared around him, getting a sense of the loneliness she’d felt.
Good.
He’d wanted her to be alone. Whenever a guy tried to get too close, he made sure his men diverted him. He always planned to come back to make her pay, and well now, he didn’t have to go far to find her.
She’d stayed in Crow Valley. It was the only real disappointment he’d felt. She hadn’t made chasing her too hard.
After checking out her kitchen, living room, and the small room that looked like a laundry room, he headed upstairs. Sure enough, the main room was a shrine to her parents. The bed was still made. Pictures left untouched.
If anything, it looked like she cleaned and dusted the room but tried to keep everything in place. Opening the closet, he saw the clothes were still there, neatly pressed.
The girl had some serious fucking moving on issues.
He wouldn’t let her dwell in the past too long.
Closing the door behind him, he went to her room. There he saw the twin bed against the wall, a small vanity table, and the closet door, which was open.
Nothing of any real value.
Again, more pictures but this room he didn’t have a problem with doing a bit of digging.
Going to her vanity table, he opened up drawers, looking for something, anything. She rarely wore makeup, but she had a couple of lipsticks, some mascara, and a few other items.
The vanity table housed her underwear, which had seen better days. Clearly the library didn’t pay all that well, or she had guilt over buying herself some pretty things. No problem. When he was ready to have her dressed, she’d be in the best clothes money could buy.
He went to the closet, clicking on the light and looking inside. In her rush to get away from him, she’d knocked over a couple of boxes.
Lifting one out, he tipped the contents over her bed, seeing lots of pictures spilling out of some of the shoeboxes and books.
He glanced through them. They were random photos. Some were of scenery, the beach, her parents. A couple were of school, and he paused when he caught sight of a couple of himself. Then of the group he’d been in.
Luke, Riley, and Marvin. They’d been inseparable growing up. Each of them had been strong in their own unique way. He did notice one thing odd about all the pictures, Luke’s face had been cut out or scribbled out, which he found interesting. He didn’t know when these were taken, but either way, he was going to find out.