She sat there, huddled in her black hoodie with her nose buried in her wool scarf. Sitting on the porch steps, she shivered as police swarmed through her house. Neighboring lights were flickering on, and she could see curious faces peering through the far away windows to see why three cop cars were parked on her driveway, the red and blue lights blazing as they swirled in circles. Whatever. Fuck them. People clearly had nothing better to do in this boring, dull town than watch her shamble of a life fall further into shambles. She still wasn’t going to show them that she was rattled in any way. Sure, she was more than shaken, but they didn’t need to know that.
In an earth shattering record, she had called on the cops twice in one week. It took a lot to impress her, but damn she’d just impressed herself.
She closed her eyes, trying to soothe the dull headache that was coursing through her forehead. The smell had done a number on her, as if searing the ends of all her nerve endings. A sense of nausea still lingered, and any time she thought back to the package, she felt her stomach instantly clench.
It had been 40 minutes since the cops had arrived but all they’d done so far was tape off the property, and stomp around inside. Forensics had been called, and she knew who else had. Of course they’d call him. He had been a god damn pain in her side since the literal hour she’d been in town.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she missed the buzzing at first. It was only when it got stronger did she realize that her phone was ringing. Looking down, she almost did a double take when she her best friend’s name on caller ID.
Emma picked up immediately, “Sarah?”
“Emma!!” Sarah was squealing on the other end. Emma could almost feel the sunshine, warmth and sweet humidity that her other half was currently surrounded by. “I finally found a shop where they sell calling cards! It’s 37 degrees here today, I’m sort of dying. It must be late over there, isn’t it? It’s only 8 in the morning here, but I had to try! I had to call my dad first obviously, but he told me that you moved!? So I had to call you as soon as I could, not that I wasn’t going to call you right after anyway. But what the heck? You moved? You can’t just move. Who the flipping hell am I going to come home to now? Where in the world are you now? I’m actually in Thailand now – in Phuket, want to just come here? Jesus, I’d have dragged you here if I knew you wanted to move.”
Emma was laughing, and not even knowing it, tears were swimming in her eyes. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“You didn’t answer my question!”
Emma’s voice sounded dull, weighed down by everything that had happened in the past few weeks. “I had to come home. To Harbordale.”
“Ew, why? That place sounds like a shit hole.”
“It kind of is.”
“Why are you there?”
She sighed, sniffing back the tears of frustration. “You know. Debt. Money. Mom dying. Apparently my dad died too and left me a house.”
She took a long sip of something, “Fuck me, that’s morbid.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me.”
“I’m sorry, babe.”
“Me too.”
“You sound depressed.”
Emma sighed, “not depressed. It’s just a lot of bull shit. I don’t really want to talk about it. How many minutes do you have on your calling card?”
“I don’t know. Want me to make a pit stop on my way home?”
“No, man. Enjoy Thailand. Enjoy wherever you are. Have you figured out anything about life yet?”
She laughed, “just as lost as before. I spent three weeks on a farm in Japan that didn’t have any wifi or technology. I did learn that my aim when pissing into a hole in the ground is above average. How cool is that?”
Emma smiled. If there was one thing that she could count on, it was that Sarah would stay Sarah no matter how many miles stretched between them. She was cooky, crazy, and had too much love to give. It was what always and without fail, got her in trouble. “Tell me about Thailand. How are the beaches?”
The line clicked and she heard silence. Emma sighed, pulling her phone back to look at the screen. Disconnected.
Damn it. The calling card must have run out.
She was looking at her phone when she heard a new set of footsteps crunching on the gravel ahead of her. When she glanced up, her spirits fell as she saw Hunter heading straight over, dressed in his normal attire topped with a leather jacket. He was off-hours, but had still come in.
“I heard,” he said before she could get a word in. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she looked away uncomfortably. As if he actually cared. It was hard acting normal right now. She was never good at being ‘suave’ and the fact their last encounter had crossed twenty thousand boundaries, she was being exceptionally not-suave right now. “Do you know who did it?”
“Some sick bastard, that’s for sure,” he gave a heavy-set sigh, his gaze firmly locked on hers. “Did the detective question you yet?”
“No, they were waiting for you. Said you were the prime investigator in my case, or something like that.” She ended it as a question, waiting for him to confirm this. Sheriff’s usually didn’t take personal interest in regular cases. That’s what detectives, and sergeants were for.
But he didn’t comment. If he picked up on her question, he ignored it deftly.
“Let me take a look and I’ll talk to you. Stay here,” he motioned to a cop who was hovering a few feet away. “Christopher, stay here so she’s not alone.”
Hunter disappeared for a good fifteen to twenty minutes and Emma stayed outside, dully watching neighbors as they nefariously tried to walk by to see what was going on. Talking their dog for a walk (yeah, sure), going for a random jog by her house, and her favorite – coming over with a basket of baked goods to welcome her to the neighborhood. The cops managed to stop them before they made it to her doorstop, telling them to mind their own business and go home. The basket of goods got to stay though, and she guiltlessly picked at a cheese scone for Hunter to come back out.
He eventually did, with her duffel bag across her arm.
“What are you doing with that?” She asked immediately. Her vibrator was in that. Her cheeks blushed at the thought of him close to that.
“It’s better you stay someplace safer for the night.”
She planted her feet firmly on the ground. “I told you last time. I’m not going anywhere.”
He suddenly looked very tired, as if the late hour of the night was finally catching up to him. “Emma, don’t be stubborn.”
“I’m not going to let someone scare me away.”
“Trust me. Nobody is going to think you’re being scared off. You’re following the orders of the police, and at this point, I am instructing you to relocate for the night. You just had someone deliver a box of animal organs, and a deer head to your doorstep. I’m asking you politely now, but if you’d like me to formally take you into police custody – I can do that as well.”
Emma swallowed, her legs still locked into place. Was she being too stubborn?
It was as if he read her mind. His tone softened, and for the first time, a sliver of sincerity wormed its way through his voice. “Look, admitting you’re scared and need help isn’t a sign of weakness. Knowing when to give in is a sign of strength. The only person you’re hurting by staying here alone is yourself. Who knows what this person will do next?”
Emma didn’t allow any emotion to flicker across her face and simply stood there, contemplating the situation for a good minute.
He was right. And she hated it.
Without looking at him, she grabbed her duffel bag off his shoulder and swung it around herself. “I don’t need you to carry this for me. I’m perfectly capable.”
Was that a smirk on his face? “Don’t worry, I’m perfectly aware.”
x.x
They went to the police station first. Hunter offered her coffee and she took it, completely black. What they say about cops and donuts was apparently on point, because a pack of 24 krispy kremes were on the front desk, and she took one without anything offering.
She probably looked like crap. It was nearing one in the morning, and she knew her face was drawn and sullen from the shock of the past few hours. What else did she expect? Clearly, she was destined to always be at her worst when Hunter was around.
The fact that she cared bothered her even more.
He took her into the interrogation room, and she sat in the only set there was. He leaned against the desk, and she looked up at him lifelessly. This was almost laughably too similar to what had happened earlier on in the day. Her at his waist level. Had it actually been just hours ago? Felt like years.
Unlike before however, there wasn’t any playfulness in the room.
“Why don’t you start by telling me what happened after you went home after work? As specific as possible.” He turned on a recorder in the room, and she saw a little black camera on the top right hand corner of the room taping the entire conversation.
She hesitated as she thought back to all that she’d done after she’d finished at his house. That incident she wasn’t going to refer to. And seeing how he had so formally referred it to ‘work,’ Hunter didn’t want the police department knowing anything about their little interaction either.
“I went home,” she gave a half-assed shrug, “I read a book until six. I made a grocery list, but it was too late to go grocery shopping so I stayed in. I went for an hour long walk -.”
“Where did you walk?”
“Just around the neighborhood. I went to the lighthouse, but I didn’t have the key so I didn’t go inside. Just scouted the perimeter…” she trailed off, but he encouraged her to keep talking. “I came home, read some more. I moved to the kitchen at around 9 to make dinner -.”
“Where did you read your book?”
“The living room. There’s something wrong with my heating so it’s the only place that gets warm.” She said blankly, to which he gave her a deadpanned stare.
“Continue.”
“I was in the kitchen for about thirty minutes. I ate dinner. And then I just prepared for bed.”
“Did you go upstairs or stay in the living room?”
“I went upstairs… at around ten.”
“When did you realize someone left a package for you?”
“They rang the doorbell at eleven.”
“So you slept for an hour?”
“No, I was awake…” She swallowed. Please don’t ask me any questions about that. She would die before admitting that she was masturbating to him.
“Were your lights on?”
“Everything was off.”
“Why were you awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” her face was burning again. She prayed he didn’t pick up on it.
He didn’t. He was in his element. Interrogating steadily. “Did you notice something during that hour? Any sounds? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“None.” Not that she could recall. Should she have been paying more attention? Being that paranoid constantly would drive her crazy.
He moved on. “Did you see anything when you went to open the doorbell?”
“Nothing…” She was nervously picking at her nail polish. “I went to go ask the police officer on duty, the one who keeps watch but he was asleep.”
Hunter’s face fell, and he raised a frustrated hand to his forehead. “Jesus Christ.”
“Do you have any suspects?” she asked, wondering if cops were even allowed to reveal that information.
He looked at her sympathetically. “A long list of people who your father pissed off.”
“Want to pass me that list so I can keep an eye out?”
He smiled sympathetically, “no can do.”
Hunter went over the details again, asking specific questions so that her entire evening was mapped out. She didn’t pick up on it before, but it was when he began asking about her windows, whether she’d let any open, had closed the curtains etc. that it dawned on her that he was concerned that someone had been watching her… waiting for her to go to bed before making a move. Just like last time.
The thought made her queasy, but he didn’t allow her to linger on it long. Someone called to inform him that they’d identified the organs as regular meat that any butcher shop would have access to. A stomach. A heart. An ankle. All of a goat. And then a deer head. What an oddly Canadian touch.
It was almost three in the morning by the time that things began to wrap up at the police station. Since it was the second incident, it was officially a harassment and stalking case, and there was a genuine concern for her safety. In legal terms at least. A lot of the officers looked bored and tired that they were actively working this late, and had been pulled away from whatever they had been doing before. The coffee was a god-send, and she was two cups in when her presence was officially not needed. She had to wait a little while longer for Hunter, who said he’d drive her to someplace safe but he didn’t take much more than fifteen minutes.
She didn’t ask when she got into Hunter’s car, expecting him to drive her to a hotel or something of the sort to spend the night.
So when she realized they were driving up his driveway, she almost jumped out of her seat. “Are you picking up something from your house?”
“No,” he gave her an inquisitive look, as if inquiring to her sense of sanity.
“Then why are we here?”
“Where else did you think I’d take you?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. Soft dark circles pulled at the edge of his eyes, his face tired and drawn.
“To a hotel?”
“You forgot this is Harbordale.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, a motel then.”
“Police budget. Don’t have money for that.”
“Hunter,” she started but didn’t know how to make a solid argument. “I don’t want to spend the night here.”
His response was unforgiving. “Where else then? You have no friends. No relatives. You have no money. And you can’t go home. Tell me a reasonable place for me to drive you to and I’ll do it.”
She clenched her teeth, not liking the way he’d pointed out all the flaws in her life. Maybe it was because somebody had just hand delivered a severed, bloody and furry deer head to her doorstep, but she was feeling exceptionally sensitive tonight. “I have friends, just not here.”
He sighed, but was having none of it. “Don’t try to pick battles where there are none. You know exactly what I mean. Now tell me, where do you want me to drive you?”
“Forget it,” she snapped, and simply got out of his car, dragging her duffel bag with her. It was only for a few hours. She had to be up by seven-thirty anyway, and it was only for one night. She’d be back home tomorrow.
Her mood worsened when it hit her that they had never told her how long she’d have to stay out of her house. She had assumed it had been one night, but nobody had said those words.
She felt even worse when she realized it was Saturday, and that she didn’t have to wake up at seven-thirty today.
So what was she going to do? Wake up and play house with Hunter?
She almost snorted, from pure mortification alone. This wasn’t something she could deal with right now. She had enough on her plate, and sleep deprivation and anxiety were making her a little nuts at the moment.
Emma reached the front doorstep, but her attempt to stomp away from him failed when she realized that she had to wait for him to open the front door anyway.
He took his time to come over, and the whole entering the house together ordeal felt a whole lot too domestic and relationship-y for Emma’s liking. She turned on the lights before he did, and realized how odd that must’ve looked. She was more familiar with his place than she was with her own, and that was a problem.
She told herself to grow up. It was a shitty situation and now she had to deal with it. She dropped her stuff and looked at him squarely in the eye. “Where do you want me to sleep?”
“I have a guest bedroom upstairs, you’ve seen it.”
Yeah. It was right beside his. With a door that connected the two.
“You sure you don’t want me to just take the couch?”
“Don’t be childish. Take the guest room.”
“I think I’d rather just take the couch,” she decided and began to make herself feel comfortable on the couch. She heard him sigh behind her, but he didn’t argue.
“You know where the blankets are,” was all he said before moving to the kitchen.
She cozied up on the couch, turning off the nearby lights. She knew she’d pass out in seconds but she was all too aware of Hunter’s every footstep in the connecting kitchen.
Despite being exhausted to the core, strung out, and wrung with anxiety, she began to feel the familiar sense of anticipation that came from being around him.
This is why she couldn’t take the guest room beside his.
She heard him fill a glass with water, and the floorboards creaked as he leaned against something to drink. She wondered what he was thinking. If he thought this situation was as absurd as she did. If he was feeling any sort of temptation, any sort of anticipation… anything.
She heard him walking by, straight towards to the staircase.
She may have been imagining it, but he paused. At the foot of the staircase. She held her breath, wondering if he was going to head back this way, or say something.
But the moment passed, and she may just have imagined it. Because seconds later, he was walking up the stairs.