Letting myself into the room, I pass through the elegantlyappointed sitting room without even bothering to turn on the light, heading straight for the set of open double doors that lead to the suite’s bedroom. Tossing the room key on the nightstand, I head for the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes and shoes behind me.
Within minutes, I’m in the shower, the hot spray stinging the abraded skin on my back. Reminding me of where I was an hour ago. What I was doing. Who I was with. The things he said.
I was never with her…I was never fucking with her, Mills… I was always with you…in my head, I was always with you.
Closing my eyes, I lean my forehead against the tile in front of me. Letting the relentlessly brutal pressure of the shower head drill into my back, I give in. Finally let myself do the thing I’ve been fighting against since the moment I saw him.
I let myself fall apart.
Big, gulping sobs that wrack my entire body. Hard and deep enough to make me feel like I’m breaking apart inside my own skin. A flood of tears that threatens to fill up my lungs and drown me, I cry until the stinging fades. Until I’m numb. Finally hallow and empty enough to sleep.
I wake with a start.
The room is dark. So dark, all I can see are the faint shapes of things. The shadow of the dresser across the room. The impression of the lamp on the nightstand next to me.
The outline of a man, sitting in a chair in the corner, a few feet away.
Seeing him should scare me but it doesn’t. I should be terrified but I’m not. Because I know who it is.
Sitting up, I clutch the sheets to my chest while I stare intothe dark. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe there’s no one there. Maybe I’m so sad and desperate for him that I’ve finally lost my mind and started hallucinating him. Maybe, but I say his name anyway. “Dean?”
For a few moments, nothing. Just a long stretch of silence that nearly convinces me that Iamgoing crazy. And then?—
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Dean.”
“What are you doing?” I want to turn on the lamp but I don’t because what if I really am talking to myself. What if?—
“Welp…”A short bark of laughter erupts from the corner I’m talking to. “I’m sitting here, trying to decide if I wanna turn on the lamp or not.” He tells me. “On the one hand, if I do and you’re not real, I’ll have to face the fact that I’ve finally lost my goddamned mind. On the other, if youarehere, there’s a good chance you’re not alone and if I turn on the light and see that motherfucker in bed next to you, I’m probably gonna do some scary shit that you’ll have to testify to in my murder trial.”
“Oh…” Even though listening to Dean Mercer casually talk about murder should firmly push this interaction into the hallucination category, I put his fears to rest. “I’m alone. Curt’s not here. I don’t even know where he is.” When I say Curt’s name, Dean makes that low, rumbling sound in his chest. The one that tells me he’s struggling to keep himself in check. Heart taking off at a gallop, I realize I’m not. I’m not alone.
But I should be.
“How’d you get in here?”
“You mean how’d I get in your room in the middle of the night?” Even though it’s Dean’s voice, there’s something off about his tone. The way he’s forming his words. The bunch and stretch of them is all wrong, making his cadence almost unrecognizable. “That’s a good question.”
“Are you drunk?”
The shadow in the corner moves. I hear the quiet glug ofliquid before he answers me. “Don’t try to change the subject Miller Time—we’re trying to figure out how you got in my room, remember?”
“Your room?” Finally leaning over, I reach for the bedside lamp and click it on, the soft amber glow of the bulb stabbing into my eyes. Squinting them, I aim my gaze in the direction of the shadow I’ve been talking to. Half expecting to find the chair in the corner empty, I’m both relieved and anxious to find it occupied. “What are you talking about? This is?—”
“I have a theory.” Dark blue gaze raking over me, Dean lifts a half empty bottle to his mouth. Taking another long pull, he drains it by half before he lowers it. “And it involves my fairy godmother.”
“I don’t understand.” Feeling a little slow and stupid, I shake my head because this is the second time tonight that he’s mentioned a fairy godmother.
He gives me another one of those off-kilter chuckles. “You would if you knew my fairy godmother,” he says. Bottle dangling from his grip, he reaches into the breast pocket of his suit. Pulling out a plastic keycard, he flips it in my direction.
Watching it sail through the air to land in the sheets next to me, I reach for it. Lifting it, I can see the Hawthorne’s crest on one side. Turning it over, I see the room number printed on the other.
1217.
“Wait—” Looking at the nightstand, I see my own keycard sitting on top of it, next to my phone, exactly where I left it. “Conner Gilroy?—”
“Ohhh…” Dean gives me an unstable head nod while he lifts his bottle again, drinking the rest of whatever’s in it. Dropping it, empty, on the floor, he stands. “So youdoknow him. That’s it—” Shrugging out of his jacket, he drops it next to his bottle. “mystery solved. We’ve been parent trapped by ameddlesome psychopath with a ridiculously inflated ego and too much time on his hands.” Dean starts to undo his cufflinks, one by one, before tossing them onto the chair behind him. “Guy seriously needs a hobby.”
Dumbstruck, I watch while he opens the front closure of his pants. “YouknowConner Gilroy?”
