Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) Read online

  “Are you okay?” I ask. He glances over at me, his eyebrows raised.

  “Of course,” he says. “I’m here with you. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  I shrug. “You’re acting anxious and I’ve never seen you anxious.”

  He pulls his hand out of his pocket and wraps his arm around my shoulders. He kisses my temple.

  “I’m great,” he says. “I just don’t like the crowds. There could be pickpockets and there’s too many people bumping into you.”

  “I think I’ll be fine,” I say. “Nobody ever got hurt from being bumped into.”

  “I’m pretty sure someone has been hurt by it at some point in history.”

  I catch a glimpse of the Christmas tree set up in the center of town. It’s almost as tall as the one-story buildings around it and it’s covered with decorations and bright white lights.

  “Come on,” I say, grabbing Sam’s arm. “Let’s go check it out. People always donate cool ornaments for it and I love checking them all out. I bet they all have unique stories.”

  “Unless they were just bought at the store on a whim,” Sam mutters, but follows me to the pine tree. I stare up at the sparkling lights and admire all of the ornaments. I touch a snowflake carved out of wood with stained glass in the center.

  “Do you think someone made this for a loved one or do you think they bought it?” I ask.

  “Grace…”

  “Ooh, look at this one,” I say, pointing up to a steampunk angel with wings formed out of clock gears. “That is such a good idea. I wonder if I could make that.”

  “Grace,” he repeats. I turn to look at him. He’s on one knee with a diamond ring in a red velvet box held up toward me. The ring has a single larger diamond with two smaller diamonds on both sides of it. The band is platinum. The box shakes as Sam’s hands tremble. “Grace Anna Ellery, will you—”

  “Sam,” I interrupt, covering the box with my hand. “Don’t do this.”

  “What?” he asks. “What do you mean? This is what I’m supposed to do. This is what our relationship has led up to—”

  “Sam,” I say again as people keep turning to look at what’s happening between us. “Stop.”

  He gets back onto his feet, his face burning a bright red.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice stiff. “I thought that…you would want commitment. Apparently, I was wrong.”

  “Sam, it’s not like that,” I say. “I’m just not ready for that level of commitment yet. We’ve only known each other for a few months.”

  “It’s been three and a half months,” he says. “And in that amount of time, I know you’re the one I want to spend my life with. Do you not know if I’m the one you want to marry? Are you not sure if our relationship will work long term?”

  More people are staring now. I lower my voice.

  “Sam, I love you, I just…I haven’t had the time to think about marriage,” I say. “I just need time.”

  “Okay,” he says, but his movements are rigid as he puts the box back in his coat pocket. Oh. That’s why he kept fidgeting inside of his coat. “We should head back to my house. It’s getting cold.”

  “Good idea,” I murmur. He walks away from the crowd, his stride length long and deliberate. I follow him. Even without seeing his face, I can feel his pain over my rejection. It falls down onto me, colder than the snow that is now whipping around us.

  I try to keep up, but the crowd is hard to navigate through and he’s always a step ahead of me

  Chapter Thirteen

  Francis, 2015

  (Friday Morning; The Guardian Inn, Room #403, Murray, Virginia)

  AFTER I DRESS IN JEANS and a white dress shirt, I open up the hotel drawer that holds the Bible. I pick it up and flip it open. I had cut out a square in the center of the pages and slipped Bryce’s teeth into it. I pick the teeth up and set them on top of the dresser. Teeth seem so much smaller when they are outside of someone’s mouth. They’re almost like baby teeth. I wonder if his sister’s teeth are exactly the same.

  I grab my cell phone and check my messages. The last one sent was last night.

  Kayla: I love you.

  Me: Okay

  I type a new message to her.

  Me: How’s school?

  I sit down on the hotel bed as I wait for her to answer. I roll her brother’s teeth in my hand. They feel smooth like pearls. My phone vibrates. I pick it up.

  Kayla: Eh. It sucks. Tim is dating Marie again.

  I have no idea who Tim is, but I can make some assumptions.

  Me: That sucks. Do you want me to beat him up?

  Or slit his throat. Why am I becoming so defensive of this young girl that I don’t even know? Am I becoming soft? Am I letting emotions control me again?

  Kayla: I wish you could.

  I forgot that Bryce probably couldn’t lift fifty pounds. If he had gone to prison, he surely would have been below me on the totem pole. At least that makes one person that would have been.

  Me: I have a friend that could. His name is Francis.

  As I press the send button, tension rolls under my skin. Why did I give her my real name? Why did I mention myself at all? I have zero desire to be caught by the police…at least not until I reach Grace.

  Kayla: :) Maybe you should send him down here then. Is he cute?

  I smile.

  Me: You’re 13. You shouldn’t be thinking about boys my age.

  Kayla: But boys my age suck.

  I shake my head. I’m not a pedophile and I’ve truly come to see her as a younger sister. I wish I knew what her voice sounded like or what she looks like on Christmas Day when she sees presents under the tree. I want to know her as well as a brother would know her.

  My phone vibrates again, surprising me since I haven’t answered her yet.

  Kayla: Have you ever been in love?

  Two images of Grace flash through my mind: one is when she was teaching me at Bishop Alternative High School—formerly known as Bishop High School—and she used to give me this small smile whenever she handed me back a test or rewarded me with chocolate when I answered a question right. I thought it was a secret smile, reserved just for me, but looking back now, I’m certain that she was leading on several other students. The second image is right before I stabbed her—the burst of panic on her face made her look like a small child…or at least it made her look like I did as a small child when my father’s anger came down on me like a hail of bullets.

  Me: Yes, I have.

  Kayla: What was her name?

  Me: Grace

  What is wrong with me? Why am I not lying to this thirteen-year-old girl? Is it trust or apathy?

  Kayla: Did I ever meet her?

  Me: No.

  Kayla: How do you know when you’re in love?

  I stop texting. How do you know when you’re in love? Well, it’s a feeling that you get—like that person completes you—but that doesn’t answer her question very well. I close my eyes, imagining Grace is with me in this hotel room. I can smell her light white floral scent and her skin is so soft that the tip of a blade would scratch it simply by touching it.

  I imagine her undressing in front of me, her clothes pooling at her feet. I would beckon her closer and she would fall onto my lap, straddling my legs. I would kiss each of her scars that I caused on her abdomen and make her arch back as I ran my fingers over her. Then, I would tie her to the bed and become her god.

  Kayla: Bryce?

  I open my eyes and type back to her.

  Me: You know you’re in love when you give someone all of your power and they don’t use it to destroy you.

  Kayla: What happens if they destroy you?

  I remember the lines of disgust and pity in Grace’s face as I confessed my love for her. She completely annihilated me—my hope, my love, my dreams of a future. It was all replaced by hatred. Her attack and Bryce’s death are on her hands. She will never be able to wash the blood off.

  Me: You kill them.

&nb
sp; I turn off my phone before she can ask if I’m joking. I can’t be honest for much longer. I can’t be humane.

  I open the Bible again and put Bryce’s teeth back inside it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—but all I want is a butchered heart for a butchered heart. The only difference will be that Grace’s slaughter will be literal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sam, 2015

  (Friday Late Morning; Murray Hospital, Murray, Virginia)

  JOHN DOE IS USED as a placeholder name for a corpse with an unknown identity. It might seem strange to give someone a generic name, but it’s actually better this way. It allows me to be detached from the body—I can pretend it’s just flesh, bones, blood, and organs. I can pretend they weren’t alive before, that they didn’t have a family, that they didn’t have a future. I can be a scientist instead of a coroner.

  I set the bone shards and slivers from John Doe’s skull on a metal tray. I’m not sure if there’s enough there to reconstruct the face. It seems like some of the bone washed away into the lake, which is unfortunate because it seems like facial reconstruction is the only thing I can do that would help the investigation.

  There’s a small knock on the door before it swings open. Alicia strides in, her hair whipping behind her like a runway model.

  Alicia is, in the generic sense of the word, “flawless.” She has long, flowing chestnut brown hair that belongs in a shampoo commercial and blue eyes that remind me of the Caribbean Sea. She takes her fashion cues from beauty pageant winners (she even drives out of town to have her dental work done by a dentist who has done whitening and straightening for a number of Miss Virginia winners) and posh fashion magazines. If she's not in a chic suit or pantsuit, she's in ultrafashionable workout attire, even though she never works out in public. She's always the sort of person who shows up at Starbucks looking radiant, as if she might have just been running or doing yoga. She does work out daily at her home—or at least she did while we were dating. I think she didn’t want anyone to see her sweating or struggling, but I could never quite figure out how her mind worked.

  She wrinkles her nose, taking a step back toward the doors. “That looks nasty.”

  I cover John Doe with a plastic sheet.

  “It’s pretty bad,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, I just had some ideas for how to sell Grace’s house faster and make a better profit.” She brings me over a pastel pink folder. I flip it open to see pictures cut out of magazines and paint samples. “I thought we could paint some of the rooms some bright colors—that will make buyers feel happier when they walk in and that cream color the walls have now just isn’t that…enticing. It reminds me of a hospital or an old person’s home. Then, for less than two hundred fifty dollars, we could buy some things from the Red Silk store. They have the cutest decorations, including this wooden vase that has flowers carved into it.”

  She gestures to a picture of the vase. It is beautiful.

  “Wouldn’t water soak into a wood vase?” I ask. “How would you keep flowers in it?”

  She lightly slaps my arm. “It’s just decoration, silly. You could fill it with anything. Fake flowers, marbles, cattails, a candle…oh, my gosh, do you remember that time we went to that five-star restaurant that we got reservations for three months beforehand…and we thought we left a candle burning in the living room?”

  “I remember that I had to run back home while you had to stall the waiter,” I say, smiling at the memory. “I don’t think I’ve run so fast in my life…and the candle wasn’t even burning. I don’t think we ever actually lit it that day.”

  “And I had to convince the waiter that you were talking on your cell phone right outside the restaurant the whole time so we didn’t lose our table. We were crazy, weren’t we?” she asks. “Those were good times.”

  “I agree,” I glance back at my John Doe. At least they were simpler times.

  “Are you doing okay?” she asks. I force a smile, turning back to her.

  “Yeah, I’m great.”

  “Really? Because I’ve known you for a long time and I know you’re faking a smile when your eyes don’t have those crow’s feet next to them.”

  “I don’t have crow’s feet,” I say. “I’m not that old yet.”

  “You don’t have them when you’re upset,” she says. She snaps the folder shut. “So, tell me what’s going on. I’m a really good listener. I went to therapy for three years, so I know how to listen like a therapist.”

  She leans forward onto a nearby gurney, rests her chin on her hand, and stares intently at me.

  “Nothing is wrong.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she says. “Do you kiss Grace with those lying lips?”

  I hesitate. She notices, standing straight up. I can’t remember the last time Grace and I kissed. It had to have been a few days ago. Right?

  “What happened?” she asks. “Did she cheat? I can’t see you cheating. You’re too much of a Boy Scout, but Grace…I could see her hooking up with a gym teacher. Or the principal.”

  “She did not cheat,” I say firmly. “It’s…I wanted more commitment from her a few months ago and she…didn’t want to go that far. So, it’s been a bit awkward ever since. I know it’s my fault because I should be able to accept her rejection and I understand she’s had a lot to struggle within the last few years…but it doesn’t change my feelings. I’m hoping everything will straighten itself out eventually.”

  “Look at you, Samuel Meadows, actually sharing his feelings,” she teases. “Grace certainly changed you. But you should know…things generally don’t straighten themselves out. They certainly don’t straighten themselves out after months have passed by. I mean, if the world worked like that, you would have sold the house by now. Maybe that’s a sign. Maybe the gods are telling you both that the house shouldn’t be sold because Grace should still live there.”

  “Grace can’t go back there,” I tell her. “She has issues with the family that lives there.”

  Alicia shrugs. “They could move out.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Sam,” she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You need to think about yourself sometimes. You can’t be superman all of the time. If the relationship isn’t going to work out, you should call it quits.”

  “It’s going to work out,” I say. “I love her.”

  She inhales sharply then exhales as if she were performing a three-second meditation. “Well, why don’t you think about what I said and look through the folder—seriously consider it because the amount of money you spend on paint and decorations will be paid back by selling the house—and I am going to go because that death smell is getting to me. I may not be able to eat for the rest of the day…which wouldn’t be a bad thing because I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”

  She turns on her heel and I watch her walk toward the door. She opens it and the light from the hallway pools inside the morgue.

  “Alicia,” I call out. She glances back at me. “I think you look great. You don’t need to lose weight.”

  She smiles, flashing her perfect, straight teeth. “That’s sweet of you, Sam, but it’s not about how I look on the outside right now.”

  “It’s about how you feel on the inside?” I guess.

  “No, it’s a precaution for future weight gain,” she says. “You have to stay ahead of any possible disasters, Sam. That’s something you always did terrible at.”

  She walks through the doors and they slam closed behind her. I return to my John Doe, sliding the plastic sheet back off him.

  “I think I prepare pretty well,” I mutter to the corpse. “I mean, my job as a cardiologist is to warn people of future illness. Though, my job here has me arriving at the problem too late.”

  I shake my head. I need to stop working at some point and have a social life again or else I’ll start talking to all of my corpses. I need to see Grace and feel the softness of her face in my hands. I look back at the skull fragments on the tr
ay. I run my finger along the space where the corpse’s teeth should be.

  What happened to them? Did the killer take them or would he have thrown them out? Could they still be in the lake?

  This man’s identity was erased by his killer. I wonder if his family is aware that he’s missing or if they care.

  When I’m gone, what will my identity be? Cardiologist? Medical examiner? Son? I won’t be a husband if I die anytime soon. Would my family notice if I disappeared? Whom would I notice if they disappeared?

  Grace. Mom. Dad. My brother, Jake. My best friend, John Seoh.

  I run my tongue along my teeth. At least I still have my teeth, but if I have to get to that level of optimism, I may be too late to fix the mess that my life has become.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Grace, 2015

  (Late Friday Morning; Stoddard High School, Lake Sarabelle, Virginia)

  “THE LAST POEM we’re going to look at today is “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas. This poem is about Thomas’s father and how his father’s old age meant that he was approaching death. Unlike many poems about death that talk about peacefully dying, Thomas encourages his father to fight against death—Thomas says to ‘burn and rave’ and ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ Dylan also uses a plethora of imagery. Did anyone have anything they liked specifically?”

  “I liked ‘blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be…gay,’” Devon Wright says.

  “Yeah, that’s probably because you are gay.” Rick Burrow snickers.

  “Rick,” I snap. “Go to the principal’s office.”

  “WHAT?” he yells. “Because I stated a fact? That’s not fair.”

  “Rick,” I repeat. “Go to the principal’s office. Now.”

  Rick grabs his backpack and storms out of the classroom. It reminds me of when I was teaching at Bishop Alternative High School and Francis had been bullied for his stuttering. Is that why he became violent later in life? Because his classmates teased him and made him feel alienated? Could Devon grow up to be a killer because some kid doesn’t know how deep his jokes can sting?