Chapter Nine
Their cell phones ringing in tandem interrupted them. Reese answered first and was told by Tidwell that Mr. Bottle Blonde was dead. She repeated this fact aloud looking at Charlie the whole time.
"I didn't do it," he objected, "I was here with you," he whispered. She stopped his with her hand across his mouth. A few more salient facts from Tidwell ended the call.
"He shot himself," she repeated dully, "they think it's the same gun that killed his wife and her lover."
"Hmm," he hummed across her shoulder as stood behind her and dipped to kiss her neck. "I thought he might do that," he explained.
"Why?" she wondered turning in his arms to face him.
"When you find the right one – no one can ever replace them," he told her. "When faced with the fact his "one" was gone, he couldn't continue. Imagine living the rest of your life knowing that one special someone was gone and you could never get her back. You couldn't wait, you couldn't be patient, you couldn't forgive – that she was lost to you forever. Life wouldn't be worth living."
"Guess you were lucky then," she disconnected.
"How so?" he was truly perplexed.
"To be in prison when yours left," she explained. "Gave you some time to get used to her being gone," she clearly thought Jennifer was who he referring to.
"Jennifer's not that for me," he stood his ground and watched her nervously clean up the clutter. "Dani, stop that," he ordered in a low tone. "She's not my one," he waited till she glanced up and stopped her cold with the look in his eyes, "you are."
Reese stared at him a long moment, then she left the room and him in a hurry. By the time he followed he could hear the engine of her car start. He was standing in his driveway wearing nothing but a towel when she sped off.
She watched him getting smaller in the rearview mirror, a pale man, beaten and bloodied but not bowed in a towel standing in front of an impossibly large house with no furniture. He was a lunatic, a stark raving madman – and yet, she was pretty sure she loved him.
It scared her worse than anything had in a long time: worse than the drugs, worse than being chained in that basement with Roman's men and his dogs, worse than losing her lover in a pool of blood, worse than disappointing her father. Charlie Crews, the man she trusted more than anyone now made her afraid – not of him, but of herself. So she ran….