Eye of the Storm (The Storm Series) (7 page)

“Hmmm… you’re right. I wonder how he could do that. He did tell Lexi that he had put himself in a self-imposed prison while I was locked up.”

Turning to him she said, “Do you really think he could go that long? I hate to say it, but maybe there are other murders out there we know nothing about.”

Running his hands over his face, he sighed and looked over at Evie. “I hope you’re wrong. I really do.”

“Me, too. Me, too. So what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

She watched as he walked back over to the table and picked up a file. “I thought we could go talk to the ex-husband of the lady that was killed in the next town. He probably won’t be able to tell us anything different than this police report says, but I figure it’s worth a try. Here, you can read this report tonight.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“I’ll come for you about ten in the morning.”

Evie knew she was spending too much time with her grandmother; it was all she could do not to giggle like a school girl at his choice of words. “Great, see you then.” She left him, quickly walking through the garden to the safety of her room, before laying on her bed and looking at the ceiling, giggling until tears started running down her face.

“Are you sure you want to be in on this?” Evie asked Anthony as they drove to Tom Cooper’s home to talk to him about Christina’s murder.

“I’m certainly not leaving it all up to you. Who knows what character you’d get into this time.”

“Fine,” she said while she crossed her arms.

Anthony was starting to get more and more nervous the more time he was apart from Evie. After their kiss the other night, he felt it would be better to take a step back. He didn’t want her in harm’s way, but he wanted her next to him at the same time. They still didn’t have any idea where Jeremy was or if he was watching him right now. He looked in the rearview mirror, a habit he’d developed since getting out of prison and learning about Jeremy. Seeing nothing back there, he pulled into the driveway.

“Let me, at least, start things out. I’m sure he’s seen photos of you and Jeremy, we don’t want him to come out swinging.”

“Fine,” he said while he crossed his arms.

She gave him a little smirk at his imitation of her and walked up to the front door. After a brief discussion, she waved him over.

They sat down in a modest living room. Anthony looked around and saw pictures of two young children. He knew he wasn’t directly responsible, but it still affected him. These children would grow up without a mother because of that sick bastard. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I’ve got to say it’s kind of creepy sitting here looking at you knowing that someone is out there who killed Christina and looks just like you.”

“It’s strange for me, too. Is there anything you can tell us? Anything at all that might help us find him?”

“I’m sorry there really isn’t much to tell. After the divorce, we weren’t that close. I had primary custody of the kids. Christina liked to have a good time. This arrangement suited her. She’d been making some comments about meeting someone online that had a lot of money and was going to take care of her. But she never mentioned anything else.”

“Did she happen to mention a screen name? Or at least which site she was on?” Evie asked. She had dug a notebook and pen out of her purse.

Tom sat there for a moment before he said, “No, no screen name. I think she was on
Finding Love
or something like that. Her typical screen name was
hottest momma
. I don’t know if that will help.”

“Thank you, it’s something for us to look into. We won’t take up any more of your time.” Evie stood and started to walk to the door. She turned back around when Anthony called her name.

“Could you give us a few minutes alone?”

“Sure, I’ll meet you in the car.”

After she closed the door Anthony turned to Tom. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. How are your children handling everything?”

Tom shrugged. “As good as can be expected. While she wasn’t the best mom, hell, she wasn’t around half of the time, she was still their mother. It’s not easy with them hearing everything that happened. Besides there have been some added expenses we weren’t planning on. But we’ll get by, we always do.”

“Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Hopefully, we’ll be able to catch this guy soon.”

“I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve read what he’s done, and I hope he doesn’t make it out alive.”

After the door closed, Anthony pulled out his phone and made a call to his lawyer. He set up a small trust fund for the children to help with their schooling and college. Feeling it was the least he could do to help, he walked back to the car with a little lighter step.

~*~

“Wow, are you reading any of this?” Evie asked Anthony as they sat at the kitchen table with a plate of fruit and cheese between them while working on laptops.

“Not really, just trying to see if we can find Christina.”

“Seriously, you should read some of this. It’s classic.”

“Well, I figure we’re kind of in a time crunch, so maybe it’s more important to not get sidetracked.”

“Party-pooper.”

“Whatever it takes. Have you found anything useful that doesn’t have to do with liking long walks on the beach?”

“Actually yes, it seems that on this site if you are in contact with someone it shows up on the sidebar. I’m hoping if we find Christina we can find Jeremy. She must have lied about her age or something because she’s not coming up in this age bracket.”

“Now, there’s a surprise. Let’s try going down to twenty-nine. Seems women love to say they’re that age.”

“I’ll ignore that comment. I’ve also found that unless you delete your profile it stays up there. I found this woman who hasn’t been active in three years. That’s good news.”

“Unless he deleted her profile after he killed her.”

“Well, aren’t you little Mr. Sunshine?”

“Can we please just continue?”

“Fine.”

They worked in silence for another hour before Evie let out a whoop and stood up shaking her ass around the room.

“I take it you found something?”

“Yep, Sherlock, I sure did. Look here.” She turned her laptop around and moved so that she stood next to him to point out the profile. “There she is. I was nervous, I couldn’t click on it. This could be the break we’re looking for.”

Anthony slowly reached over and clicked it. They both leaned in closer. She was torn between burying her face in his neck and inhaling his intoxicating scent and or moving her head and scanning the screen for something that could help them. Responsibility won out.

“There.” He tapped the screen. “There he is. Let’s see what he has to say.”

They scanned the profile of Jay Ellison. There wasn’t any new information. Except the name.

Anthony turned towards her. “We never thought to do a search on a Jay Ellison. Maybe we can get more information.”

Their faces were inches apart. She slowly blinked, trying to focus on his words and not his mesmerizing blue eyes. When she saw his pupils dilate, she knew he was feeling the same thing. Disappointment flowed through her when he blinked a few times then turned back to the screen.

Standing up she walked to the other side of the room. She went to focus on the maps, hoping something might come to her. Turning back around she said to him, “Maybe we should go interview people who had ties to the other murders.”

Sitting back in the chair he crossed his arms across his chest. “You might have a good idea there.”

“Not might, I
do
have a good idea. Look what we learned today. It’s something, even if they can’t give us much information, every little bit will help. Come on. Since we are on this coast I think we should start with Natalie. I know this will be the hardest for you, so we should get it over with first.”

“You’re right. But
I
will be doing this alone.”

“Alone, what the hell are you talking about? I’m in this one hundred percent.
I
go with you.”

He got up and walked over to her standing right in front of her trying to intimidate her. “No, you don’t.”

“You know I’ll just book my own flight and be right behind you. So your choice is to let me do this on my own, or take me with you. Your pick, but I
am
going. Now move out of my way, I’ve got a flight to book.”

She tried to push past him but he just pinned her to the wall. In a voice which was too calm and soft compared to the fire in his eyes, he said, “No, you’re not going.”

“What are you going to do? Tie me to the bed?” The image flashed through her mind before she could stop it.

“Don’t tempt me. I’m sure your grandmother would be on my side.”

“Actually you’d be wrong buddy, she’s behind me. She might not like it, but she supports me. You might as well give in now. I really don’t want to be up all night fighting.” Her breathing started to increase.

“Then give in and we won’t.”

“I
never
give in.”

“We’ll just have to see about that.” He pressed his body into hers and devoured her mouth. Grabbing her ass, he hoisted her up so she was pinned to the wall.

With his hands occupied, she took the opportunity to dive her hands into his hair, grabbing hard and pulling his head back from her swollen lips. She could see the passion in his hooded eyes. Yanking him back to her lips, they continued their battle of wills with their kisses. She wanted his hands free, wanted to feel them all over her body. She wrapped her legs around his waist. She didn’t have to wait long before she felt his hands on her breasts, squeezing and pinching. Letting out a primal moan, she tightened her legs around him, trying to get closer to the hardness she could feel between them.

Moving away from the wall he spun around and laid her on the table pushing everything out of the way, his lips never leaving hers. Her touches became frantic with the thought of having him inside of her. The blood pumped so fast in her veins, her ears rang.

The ringing wasn’t just in her ears and she whimpered when he pulled his lips from hers and glared over at the phone. With a curse, he left her and answered the call. His eyes burned with passion as he talked to whoever was on the other end of the call.

Hearing the frustration in his voice, she knew it wasn’t going to be a quick phone call. Getting up from the table she grabbed her laptop and started to walk out the door. She continued to leave even when she heard him say “Hold on.”

She was whipped back around and his lips came down hard on hers. “I’m sorry; I’ve got to take this. Book us both a flight for the first available they have.”

Not trusting her voice, she just nodded and walked out into the cool night air.

Evie sighed.
It’s going to be a long day
. She had to take her grandmother to the doctor’s office to see how she was doing. Unfortunately, it was a new doctor, a young doctor, a good looking doctor.

Having spent the good part of the past hour trying to convince her that she didn’t need to take her clothes off for the exam they were finally on their way back home. Evie was pretty sure after how quickly the doctor left the room there was going to be a note on her grandmother’s file that he never wanted to see her again.

When they pulled into the driveway, Evie saw that Anthony’s car was still there. Knowing what was coming next, she took a deep breath and turned to her grandmother. “We’ve got to talk. Let’s sit on the front porch.”

“This can’t be good. If this has anything to do with the pictures, I can explain.”

Closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the headrest Evie said, “What pictures?”

Evelyne tried to look bashful, “Oh, nothing. We don’t need to worry about it.”

Knowing she would probably hate herself later, Evie decided to wait until later to deal with it. Or better yet, let her brother Jackson deal with it. He should be here within the next few hours. They walked towards the porch and sat down.

“Okay, Grams, I’ll let this go.” Seeing her hopeful expression Evie added, “For now.”

“Great. Now what did you want to talk about?”

“Do you want something to drink? Maybe some lemonade would be nice.” Evie started to get up to go inside to get some when Evelyne grabbed her hand and pulled her back down on the seat.

“Spill.”

“When does that ever work with you?”

“Never, but you started this.”

“True. Fine. Anthony and I are going to England. Before you say anything you know we’ve been interviewing people who had contact with Jeremy last year. We did get some more information that wasn’t in the police reports. Most of it not that useful, but one piece was good. He had an online profile using the name Jay Ellison. We are looking into that, but we decided that talking to other people might give us something helpful.”

When her grandmother hadn’t said anything, Evie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. She stared straight ahead.

“Say something.”

Slowly, she turned her head towards Evie. “I don’t like it.” Before Evie could open her mouth to protest, Evelyne continued, “But I can see that it might be a good idea. Are you sure you have to go? Of course you do, who am I talking to? You’ll be careful, right?”

Evie leaned over and hugged her. “I’ll be more careful than usual, how’s that?” At Evelyne’s soft chuckle, Evie closed her eyes and enjoyed being close to her.

“What about your business? Can you take more time off?”

“Yes, I’ve been in daily contact with Jesse, things are running fine without me. Almost too well. I feel like I’m not needed anymore. It’s a little sad, but it’s good to know that I can take the time to do this.”

“I do have another question, what’s going on between you and Anthony?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Is that a good or bad thing? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him, and now traveling. Well, things could happen.”

“Yes they could, but they won’t. I don’t think either one of us wants that kind of distraction right now. Besides, I really don’t want to be in Jeremy’s cross-hairs by having a relationship with Anthony.”