House of Steel (33 page)

“Not yet, but I think it’s the first step,”
she said as she stared forward at the door of the empty garage. She
blinked, trying to remove the memory of Theron’s bloody jacket
clumped in the middle of the concrete. The logs that started the
crackle of the fire inside the living room. Her fingers reached
absently to graze the metal hanging from the chain on her neck. She
traced the outline of the engraving on the ring, soothing her as
she turned to look at Mark.

“And all the other steps?” he asked, leaning
in to hug her. She exhaled, feeling the comfort of his closeness.
Another advantage of moving in with Mark
.
I won’t be
alone.

Prior to December, moving in with Mark
wasn’t even a consideration, but Holston Parker had changed that.
He had changed her whole world. Delaney was under his watchful eye,
playing to his whims without even knowing why he cared. She would
stay at Leighton like he had demanded, and Mark would stay employed
with him, although Mark had no idea what had happened. His
employer, for all he knew, was a wealthy philanthropist giving back
to the community while still building his empire. She, on the other
hand, had vowed to find out why he cared so much about her and her
family. She craved to break the tie between them, whatever that
was.

“I don’t know yet,” she started, feeling the
memory of Holston’s steel eyes creep along her skin. “I guess I’ll
have to figure that out.”

“Looks like you’ve got a visitor.” Mark
nodded his head toward the rearview mirror. Delaney turned to see a
man walking up the driveway, his hair tucked in a baseball cap with
LU splashed across the chest of his hooded sweatshirt. His stride,
a casual and familiar one that had once sent excitement through her
body, now coursed dread and guilt through her veins.
Theron.

“I’ll catch you in a bit back at your house,
if you don’t mind. Just leave my stuff in the truck so I can help
you unload it when I get back,” she said as she walked away to
leave Mark sitting with the door gaping open, her gaze concentrated
on Theron. She heard the door shut behind her and the roar of his
engine as she crossed behind it. Mark waved to the back of
Delaney’s head. She had never turned around; instead she’d kept her
eyes focused on Theron as his steps drew him closer.

“Theron.” His name caught in her throat.

“Ms. Jones,” he replied. His eyes, set deep
beneath the shadow of his hat, met hers. Her eyes led down to his
chest, where he had been slashed.

“It’s all healed. Although I have one bad
ass scar,” he mused.

“Theron. I’m sorry -” she started as her
legs fidgeted beneath her.

“You don’t have to apologize, Ms.
Jones.”

“Delaney,” she corrected, feeling the
uneasiness of the power dichotomy between them.

“Delaney. You don’t have to apologize for
not returning my calls. I didn’t return your text that day after I
realized that sleeping with my professor wasn’t probably the best
idea I’ve had. I saw the For Sale sign, and I wanted to stop in,”
he said, pointing to the sign. “I saw it just a few days ago.”

“Theron, I’m sorry for what happened to you.
The whole ordeal must have been terrifying. I just can’t imagine,”
she said as she stumbled through the apology. “I just didn’t have
the … courage to answer… I guess.”
For fear of the man that
ultimately did this to you. “
But I’m glad you stopped by.”

“I get it, a lot was going on.”

“How’s spring training going?” she jumped
in, trying to rescue them both from the awkwardness of the
conversation. She couldn’t stand to rehash the events that led up
to that night, but as the words left her mouth, she realized the
topic couldn’t possibly alleviate the clumsiness between them.
Nothing can be normal between us.
The feeling of being
watched wasn’t settling well with her, either; although she hadn’t
seen or heard from Holston in the last three months.

“Good. The scar has healed for the most
part, so I’m just getting back into things,” he replied. “It really
hasn’t been that bad.”

“That’s good, Theron,” she encouraged,
studying his face. His strength and forwardness had dulled. This
version of Theron was much different than the first day of class.
“Your tags, did you get your father’s tags back?”

“They’re in evidence right now, but I’ll get
them back when the trial is over.” He paused before continuing, “I
wanted to come by in case you were leaving. I wanted to tell you
something before you left.”

“Oh, I’m not leaving Leighton, Theron. Just
selling the house and moving in with my brother,” she replied.
I
wish I could leave Appleton. Leighton. Leave this all
behind.

“Oh, okay. Well, I still wanted to tell you
something that’s been sticking with me since I was… kidnapped,” he
said, looking up into her eyes as he let out a half-laugh. “It
still sounds weird, kidnapped. How does an adult male get
kidnapped?”

“I don’t know,” she said, letting out a
nervous laugh. “It’s pretty strange.”

“Yeah, it is. Anyway. I don’t remember much
from that whole ordeal between having a bag over my head and being
drugged, according to the doctors,” said Theron. Delaney’s stomach
dropped, remembering the feeling of the cloth rubbing against her
own skin. The feeling of the warmth of her breath permeating to the
rest of her face stung.

“But the one thing that I remembered, I
think anyway, is a woman helping me. She came in to ‘save’ me - or
at least I thought - from the man who had taken me and cut me,” he
continued as his eyes began to glass over. “Anyway, I don’t
remember much of her. Just that she was a small woman who I trusted
right away, but she took care of me somewhere else before leaving
me in the alley, without telling anyone. Why would anyone do that?
I just can’t seem to fit the pieces together. No one ever found
her; she never came forward,” he said, his words running from his
mouth. Evie sprinting down the alley, flashed through Delaney’s
mind, but Delaney knew that she hadn’t left him there. It had been
one of Holston’s men. Maybe Ethan. She hadn’t quite figured out the
details.

“But there was something that made me trust
her. It was her voice and her eyes that made me trust her. They
were familiar to me. I spent weeks trying to figure out who she was
and even though I don’t know who she is or anything else about her,
I finally realized what it was that made her so familiar to me.” He
paused looking closer at Delaney. She felt her cheeks warm, waiting
for him to finish
.
How do you know Evie?
What is
it?

“I can still see her eyes, like flashes
burned in my mind,” he said, adjusting the cap on his head. The
tufts of his brown hair stuck out over his ears.

“And?” Delaney breathed.

“The blue eyes. They were so clear. Unlike
any other eyes that I’ve seen before, except for one other person,”
he added, stepping closer to her. “And that person’s you.” Delaney
swallowed hard, feeling tightness in her chest. The thought had
never occurred to her as she began to draw Evie’s face in her mind.
She had brown hair and blue eyes, just like a million other woman
she had seen before.

“A lot of women have blue eyes, Theron.” Her
voice dropped as his words began to sink in, but the night she had
seen Evie had been a blur. She had only seen her in the dark. The
pub. The barn. She was passed out in the back of Ethan’s car.
Were her eyes like mine?

“I know it sounds crazy and weird.” His face
flushed. “But I felt like I just had to tell you. I was so drugged
out of my mind. I guess I could have just imagined that it was
you,” he backtracked, trying to make sense of something so
undeniably painful. Delaney stood quiet, unable to overcome the
guilt that plagued her.

“But they arrested the guy they think was
responsible,” he said, filling the silence.

“They think?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m not entirely convinced, but I
guess all the evidence adds up. Along with the fact that he
admitted to it,” he said. “I’m not supposed to talk about it,
though, until the trial is over. Jesus, here I am, in your
driveway, just spilling everything out. It’s kind of
embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. Apparently, I have
trusting eyes, remember?” she joked, trying to relieve Theron of
his worries.

Her mind tried to connect the pieces of the
puzzle, attempting to figure out how Holston Parker had pinned the
kidnapping on someone else and how he had gotten rid of Joe’s body.
The local news had reported it as a barn fire started by a drug
deal gone wrong, the three men convicted felons. Holston had played
it perfectly, a shocked businessman with an old, abandoned property
full of antiquated machinery.

He was more than cooperative with police
officials, donating close to half a million dollars to enhance the
drug unit on the force and to placate the frenzied citizens of the
blue ribbon town. Although there wouldn’t be any remnants of
Delaney’s DNA in the barn that had burned to the ground, she was
sure she had left a bloody trail from the shed. There was never any
mention of unidentified blood, no body found in the shed, and no
mention of Evie’s car, either. Evie, who had allegedly taken a
sabbatical across seas. Holston had made it all disappear.

“Yeah,” he laughed, shifting his legs.

“But what do you mean when you say that
you’re not convinced?” she asked before she realized that she
didn’t want to know. The man ultimately responsible was Holston
Parker, but Theron could never know that. No one could ever know
that. Gunnar was the one that took Theron.
What had Holston
concocted?

“Well, from what I can remember, I thought I
heard a thick accent from the guy that put the hood over my head.
He seemed like he was from Holland or some Norwegian country. I
sound crazy, right?” he laughed.

“I don’t know, Theron. Did you talk to
anyone about this?”

“I did. The investigators, but they don’t
believe me,” he said. Holston’s words rang through her mind about
his influence. His connections.
Who does he have ties with in
the police department? Sanchez?
His reach was far beyond what
she could imagine. “They told me it was all part of the drugging
process - that I don’t remember much because of the drugs used, and
maybe I don’t. All I know is that it just doesn’t seem to add
up.”

The sound of an engine pulled her eyes up –
taillights of a gray sedan.
I will never feel normal
again.

“Well,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you
that. For whatever it’s worth.”

“Thanks, Theron. It was good to see you,”
she said as she put her hands on her hips, glancing at her Civic
parked and fully packed behind her. “I should get going.”

“Of course,” he said. Delaney felt a surge
of pain rush over her as she longed to tell Theron everything that
happened. That Gunnar had taken him and that Evie had saved him in
her twisted sort of way, but she knew she never could. She knew she
could never take back that night with Theron. With all her heart,
she wanted nothing more than Theron to move on and never look back.
She had a feeling he would.

“Take care, Theron,” she said before adding,
“And be careful.”

“You too, Ms. Jones.” He smiled as he turned
to walk back down the driveway, his hat disappearing down the
sidewalk. She blinked, trying to keep the tears welling in her eyes
from falling, as she thought of his head bobbing down the sidewalk
the morning that she had kicked him out of her house.

38

Two Days Later ~ March 15

Delaney watched as Ann Jones stood in front
of the kitchen sink wearing the apron she hadn’t worn for more than
a year. Her hands moved with fierce efficiency in the scalding
water while Delaney sat at the counter on the same wooden stool
that had been part of the kitchen since she was seven-years-old, in
awe of the woman turning another year older. Ann was just as strong
as the years before she had been diagnosed, still denying anyone’s
help with dishes. She had gained weight, looking like a healthy and
vibrant sixty-three-year-old. Her wig, still intact and quite
beautiful, covered the sprouts of new hair growth.

“Where’s Mark?” Ben asked from the table,
Meghan next to him. The newlyweds of three months were undeniably
attached at the hip, a feeling Delaney never imagined for
herself.

“Right here,” he said, striding into the
kitchen.

“What is with people walking into this house
without us knowing? Michael, we’re going to need a bell on that
door.” Delaney’s eyes shifted down as the clang of Atlas Pub’s door
rang through her head. She closed her eyes as her mind begged her
to cover her ears to escape from the clanging. She watched as her
family moved around, speaking to each other and hugging in slow
motion. Their mouths moved, but the words were silent as Delaney
blinked, trying to focus her attention back on them.

“Delaney,” Mark said again, louder, as he
moved toward her. She felt his hand grip her arm before she finally
turned to him to respond.

“Yeah?” Her voice came out louder than she
anticipated. All five faces of her family stared at her.

“Someone is here to see you,” Mark said as
he nodded toward the opening of the dining room. Delaney turned her
body, still seated on the stool, to see a man standing with his
hands stuffed inside his pockets. His lips curled up in a
half-smile before he lifted his hand from his pocket to give the
familiar wave.
James.

“James!” Michael welcomed, putting his hand
out to shake James’s hand.

“So good to see you,” Ann said as she walked
past Delaney, giving her a side smile before she embraced James
like a long lost friend. Delaney turned toward Mark who shrugged
his shoulders and shot her a smile before retreating to dig in the
refrigerator. Her eyes shifted back to James.