Hold Me Close(86)

“Anyone could be in that house, Effie.” Bill reached for her, but she danced out of his grip. “C’mon. Don’t be like that.”

“Any time a man doesn’t like the way a woman acts, that’s what he says. ‘Don’t be like that.’ Like I don’t have a right to feel this way? I don’t have the right to be upset? Fuck you, Bill.”

“Effie,” he said warningly.

But she knew him. Oh, how she did. Effie got right up in his face, pushing on her tiptoes to do it, their mouths bare inches apart when she spat the words.

“Fuck. You.”

Then his hand was in her hair, yanking her head back, and she cried out but didn’t struggle. She waited for him to kiss her, or maybe to turn her around and bend her over the table. Effie tensed, never looking away from him even as her eyes burned with tears of pain she refused to shed.

Abruptly, Bill let her go. She stumbled back. His mouth twisted and he turned from her, wiping it with his hand. His shoulders slouched.

“It’s too f*cking early for this, Effie. Go home.”

She straightened. She smoothed her hair over her shoulders. “Fine.”

“Don’t be like... Shit. Effie.” Bill faced her. He put his hands on her shoulders, fingers digging in a little to keep her still when she moved to pull away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I promise you. This guy, he’s a blip, he’s a nothing. Yeah, those soccer moms with their sexual predator websites might’ve known about it, but trust me, on the greater scale, Stan Andrews is a nobody.”

“Not to me,” Effie said.

Bill pulled her against him, and she let him, though she didn’t soften into his embrace. This time he caressed her hair instead of yanking it. Effie preferred the pain to his feeble attempt at comfort.

“It’s all going to be okay,” Bill said.

Effie closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of his skin. She turned her face a little, let her mouth press his bare chest, but she didn’t kiss him. After a minute, his hand moved from the back of her head to the small of her back, and she took that moment to step away.

Clear-eyed, she gave him a neutral smile. “Thanks.”

Bill looked as if he was going to say something, but instead he gave a low, long sigh and nodded. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

As if he could prevent the world from turning. Could she be angry with him for breaking a promise she knew was impossible to keep? Irrationally, yes, but she wouldn’t show it. She gave him another faint smile and, at the front door, stopped to blow him a kiss.

“Shit,” Bill said miserably. “Effie.”

She answered him with the closing of the door behind her.

* * *

There it was. Effie had spilled all of it. The entire story of her abduction, the years in the basement, the reason for the clocks in her paintings. The paintings themselves. Her love for Heath, and the reasons for that, too.

Mitchell had listened, frowning at first, then sitting back with a look of stunned disgust he made no attempt at hiding. When she finished and took a long, deep breath, Mitchell didn’t say anything. Effie gulped ice water, glad she’d asked him to meet her here in a public place where she could hope to count on his good manners not to make a scene.

She hadn’t thought he would. Stupidly, Effie had thought good-guy Mitchell would tell her how understanding he was of her problems because he had a sister who was f*cked up, because his brother had died, because... Just because. Now, looking at his curled lip, Effie could clearly see how wrong she’d been.


In a way, it was a relief.

Mitchell was who he was, as Effie was who she was, and here they were. He’d f*cked her once, he’d slept in her house and eaten off her plates and used her toothpaste, and all she could think of was that even though she’d spent almost an hour spilling her guts to him, how much there was still to learn about her that Mitchell did not know.

How weary she was of trying to hide it.

How little she wanted to explain any of it.

“If you want to know more details, you can look them up on the internet,” she said finally. “They’re not hard to find.”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Mitchell said. “Shit. And you say he’s out now?”

Effie nodded. “Yes.”

“Living in the same house? The one where he kept you guys?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“Shit,” Mitchell repeated under his breath. “That is really, really messed up.”

“He made parole. His children had kept the house. I looked it up online.” Maybe she should reach for his hand, Effie thought, but she didn’t move. “I went past the house. I saw a light. He’s living there.”

“You went past the house?” Mitchell frowned. “That’s a little creepy. Damn, Effie, it’s kind of creepy that you live so close to it to begin with.”

“I’ve lived close to it my entire life,” she said in a low voice. “I bought my house because it was close to my mom.”

She could tell her explanation hadn’t made it sound less weird to him.

“I didn’t knock on his door,” Effie said. “I just walked past it.”

He studied her. “Maybe you should.”

“That’s... No.” Effie shook her head. “Wow. No.”