Going to California?

Chapter 12 – Evidence and Decisions

The next morning, for the first time since we'd started our…whatever we had, John did not show up to lie with me on the couch in my office before Gina arrived. That set off a throb of anxiety in my chest. I didn't understand what was going on. Had it been a mistake to tell him I loved him? Had he felt pressured into saying the same thing to me, when he didn't actually feel that way? Maybe I'd been right in what I originally suspected, that this had all been a ploy to convince me to stay at Vought and get rid of Adam as a threat. And now I'd promised him that I'd tell Adam I didn't want the job, so he didn't need to maintain the façade anymore. I stared at the computer screen in front of me, seeing nothing, and tried to suppress my worry.

Regardless of whether the entire situation with John—Homelander—had been a tactic to get me to rid myself of Adam, I figured he'd want to continue with the sex. I was convenient and he already knew that he could make me come. Or maybe he would drop the entire thing, go back to the way he'd been before we started this. I wasn't beautiful like Maeve or Stormfront or Madelyn, so maybe he'd been willing to lower himself to fuck a normal-looking woman as a means to an end. I hated where this line of thought had led me, but I did have to admit it fit everything I knew about Homelander. Hell, it rang with reality.

Plus, he knew about what I'd done with Master now. He had to be completely disgusted with me for what I'd allowed him to do. I was disgusted with me for that. But, still, I couldn't bring myself to regret telling him. Master was a boil that I'd needed to lance, and no matter what Homelander thought of me for it, letting go of the secret had been the best thing for me. I could see myself healing from it now, if he didn't take it into his head to spread this all over Vought to shame me, humiliate me. But he'd only do that if I made him angry and he saw some benefit in it for himself. I didn't see any benefit to him at the moment.

By the time Gina arrived, along with my first appointment of the day, I'd resolved to stop worrying about what he thought, what he would do. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, so it was counterproductive. The fact that my schedule today was wall-to-wall, since I was only working a half-day before the flight to Los Angeles, helped with that resolve.

Just before lunch I noticed Adam had texted me. What are you in the mood for re dinner?

Hadn't he said he'd have something delivered from Nobu since my flight was getting in too late for us to go out? But I didn't want sushi now; Nobu reminded me of my last trip to the Coast, Homelander flirting with me by text and me flirting back, lying in my temporary bed. Italian, I texted back, even though I didn't really care for Italian food.

Great! I'll have my secretary order something from La Dolce Vita. You'll love it.

I doubted it but sent back a smiley-face emoji. Dinner would be the best time to break the bad news to him if I wanted to avoid an outburst. But would he get upset, though? He'd ghosted me easily enough after our first fling, so why should this one be any different? It will be you doing the leaving, I thought before putting aside the little niggle of unease it spawned.

Dr. Winterbourne wouldn't be back until Monday, so I'd cancelled my appointment for today to get work done before going to California. I'd kept my usual Wednesday appointment in place so I could discuss what was happening with John and Adam. An outsider's POV might be useful. I didn't look forward to admitting I'd had scenes with John, but I couldn't hold back information from my psychiatrist and expect her to help me to the fullest extent. I'd just have to bite that bullet.

Roman called just after lunch. "Are you and Homelander free this weekend? I'm working on some new paintings and thought you might like to get a preview of them."

It was new, him calling to get together with me, and something in my chest warmed at it. "Not this weekend. I'm flying to California to see Adam. I'm…breaking up with him." Even if it was just a ploy of Homelander's, ending things with Adam did seem to be for the best. With my suspicions of his cheating when I was last there and my actual activities with John, our relationship was foundering. Best to end things while we were still friendly. That would mitigate any discomfort at premieres that we both had to attend.

"That's good. I haven't seen you and the director together, but you have something with Homelander. He's obviously crazy about you, and, if I'm not mistaken, you feel the same way about him."

Exchanging confidences with my father wasn't on my bingo card for today, but I bit back a response about it being late in life to play daddy. "I—have feelings for him. I don't know how he feels about me. I think it's probably just a passing thing."

"I think you're wrong there, Ashtree, but it's for the two of you to work out. How are you planning to do it?"

"Do what?"

"Break up with the director. Are you going to go to a restaurant and then catch a flight back?"

"Uh—I'm taking a flight that gets in later than usual, so we won't be able to eat out. He's having his secretary order something to be delivered to his home." Roman made a disapproving noise. "What?"

He sighed. "I'm worried he might get…unpleasant. You never can tell how a man's going to react when a woman tells him she's done with him."

"I don't think there's anything to worry about. Adam isn't someone who's going to react badly. He's not that attached to me." And ghosting me after our first little fling proved it.

"I'd still feel better if you were out in public when you did this."

"Fine. We're probably going out to eat on Saturday night, so I'll let it ride Friday and do it then. Sound good?"

"Yes. I worry about you, no matter what you think."

I tried for a conciliatory note. "I appreciate it, Roman. I'll call you when I get back from California."

"Check with Homelander to see if he wants to come over and look at my paintings. I probably have a couple more he could buy, if that so appeals to him."

That made me laugh. "I'll ask him. How's your fiancée?"

Now he sounded a little uncomfortable. "Fine. Everything's progressing."

"It wasn't nice of you to spring it on me that way, Roman. What would have been wrong with that restaurant scenario you proposed for Adam?"

He took a while to respond. "I just wasn't sure of how you'd take it. Because I never married your mother."

"But this one's a boy, and that makes all the difference. I get it."

"What are you talking about?"

The surprise in his voice sounded genuine. "There's no need to hide anything from me. Mom let me know multiple times that you would have married her if I'd been a boy. I know all about it."

"That's—" Roman seemed at a loss for words. "That's not true, Ashtree. I'd decided after the first few months we were together that I wasn't going to marry Kathryn, far before you came along."

I scoffed. "Why was that? Because you knew she wasn't going to leave you no matter what you did? That she'd still handle your business issues?"

"No. I wasn't going to marry her because she had a vicious temper and I can't handle people who fly off the handle that unpredictably. I can't even tell you how many times she took a swing at me for nothing in particular. Once I'd smiled at a girl while we were entering a theater. I didn't know the girl and wasn't even aware I'd done it. After the show I got a three-hour harangue about how I must be fucking that random girl and she wasn't going to put up with it and she'd make sure I never saw you again if I didn't break things off. Then I got a black eye when I tried telling her I'd never even met that girl and she didn't let me see you for months."

Mom had been about my size and Roman was taller than Homelander. "And you took that?"

"What else was I supposed to do? If I hit back, tried to get her off me, I'd be the bad guy, the abuser, and it would be all over the news. Maybe it was cowardly of me, but I didn't want the bad publicity. And I didn't have the ability to take care of a child at that point in my life if I sued for custody of you. I just hoped that she was being motherly to you. I didn't know she was pouring poison into your ear."

I felt oddly reluctant to accept what Roman was telling me, despite what I knew about my mother's temperament. Why? It made sense that this behavior wouldn't have been restricted to me. "Well, it's all over with now. No reason to bring it back up."

Roman continued as though I hadn't spoken. "I never want you to believe that you don't mean as much to me as the baby I'm having with Casey because you aren't my son. You're my only daughter. I love you very much."

I had to swallow before I replied. "Thank you, Roman. I appreciate you telling me this. I'll ask Homelander about coming over to your loft."

He was quiet for a moment. "Thank you, Ashtree. I'll look forward to it."

I didn't have time to do much thinking about the conversation we'd had after I disconnected the call because Gina announced my last appointment of the day. The idea that Mom had lied to me, told me it was my fault that Roman hadn't married her when it was something inside her that was at fault, crouched in the back of my mind as I approved the ad campaign for Vought scuba gear and set up a personal appearance for the Deep. It was something to discuss with Dr. Winterbourne at our Wednesday session. Maybe that would help resolve some of the unsettled feelings about my mother and father.

After the meeting, I grabbed my weekend bag and started to head out. But I'd promised Roman I'd ask Homelander whether he wanted to see the works in progress, so I asked Gina. "Do you know where Homelander is?"

"In the conference room, I think."

"I'm leaving for the airport now. If there are any emergencies, just text or call. I'll do what I can." As I headed down the corridor, my anxiety made a comeback as I envisioned his reaction to the invitation. Would he laugh? Would he sneer? Why was I even worrying about this? He still had a brain, so since I hadn't pulled the trigger on my relationship with Adam yet, he'd say yes because he hadn't gotten what he wanted. Whether he'd flake on it once I returned from the West Coast was something else.

When I opened the conference room door, it was empty. Maybe Homelander had gone to his apartment to get something. Maybe Gina had been wrong about where he was. Maybe I should just text him from the airport about Roman's invitation. But then I noticed the opened manila folders on the conference table and moved over to take a look.

At first I couldn't understand what I was looking at. There were at least half a dozen manila folders on the table, but only two of them were opened. A chair had been shoved back, so I had to imagine that Homelander had been looking at these files before being interrupted and leaving. Police files, if the tags for "Metro Police DC" and "Savannah Police Department" were any indication. I saw official reports, dull black type against white office paper, but it was the photographs that caught my eye, made it impossible to concentrate on anything else.

In lurid color, they recorded the placement of the dead body that belonged to one of the subjects of the investigation, all women. For Washington DC it was an olive-skinned woman with a lot of facial damage. For Savannah it was a freckled woman with matching injuries. Both women were built lean, with small breasts, but that wasn't what stood out. Both women's heads were denuded of hair, except maybe a strand or two, their scalps red and swollen and bloody. The words "hair pulled out antemortem" swam at me from one of the reports. "Not recovered at scene. Possible sexual assault."

The breath rasped shallow between my lips. Fear made every cell of my body tingle. Homelander had been to Washington DC not long ago, the day I'd had to take care of Ryan and fielded a bunch of questions about our relationship. The day of Joe's Shanghai and my realization about the possibility that Homelander wasn't alone in his head. Had he killed this woman? I knew what he was like, the unpredictable rages, the loss of control. And he knew that I'd pulled my own hair until I was all but bald. Was it possible that Homelander—not John, Homelander—was killing women as a means of stress relief, a way of taking out his annoyance at me in a way that wouldn't cause him any inconvenience? I assumed he already knew that killing me would mean a protracted search for a new SVP of Hero Management that he didn't want to undertake. But he wanted his victims—oh Christ—to look more like me, so he pulled their hair out before he did the rest? Both of the women in the crime scene photos had the same build as I did, too. I wouldn't put it past him to start killing, or at least killing outside his duties for Vought. He had such contempt for humans, seeing us as insects, that I doubted the act of killing one meant more to him than crushing an ant underfoot.

Let's not get hasty here, a frightened part of my mind insisted. These files don't necessarily mean Homelander's turned into a sexually motivated serial killer. They could be part of an investigation that he's doing. He could be helping out the police.

A good argument, except that I hadn't assigned him anything involving serial killing. The Seven didn't get cases like that because Stan Edgar didn't consider them cinematic enough, too cerebral to suit him. Throwing purse snatchers at moving vehicles was camera-ready and got the blood pumping in the veins of the general public in a way that pure deduction did not. I often suspected that was the reason why no member of the Seven had mental powers like Mindstorm had. For my money he'd been more frightening than Homelander in his ordinariness. No one would ever notice him, and all he had to do to trap you in your own nightmares until you died was lock eyes with you, no muss no fuss. Being lasered, or ripped apart, was merciful compared to that. Plus, all assignments for the Seven came through me. Mr. Edgar would never bypass me and go straight to them; it was beneath him, and it would undercut me with them, if that were possible. So what was Homelander doing with these files? The unwelcome thought occurred to me: serial killers take trophies. Maybe he'd stolen the files from the police to peruse at his leisure, enjoy the memories of his bloody work? Relive their murders? He was certainly capable of it.

I moved in closer, lifting the photographs to see more angles, close-ups, of the victims, and picked those up to look at the reports beneath. Metro DC's detective was named Kandinsky and Savannah's detective was named Wilder, and I had just enough time to begin running my gaze over the page before I heard the conference room door open and close. I turned, already knowing as my heart sank who would be there.

Homelander leaned against the door, looking at me. Definitely Homelander, no John to be found, as his frozen blue eyes regarded me without a drop of humanity in them. "So, what are you looking at?"

The photographs slipped out of my numb fingers to flutter to rest on top of the files. "I didn't…I wasn't..."

"Oh, you did and you were. Being a bit nosy for my taste today, Ashley." He straightened up from the door and walked toward me. Everything in me wanted to run, dodge past him, open the door and flee down the corridor, but I knew I had no chance of success.

"I didn't mean to be nosy, sir. I just came in and saw the files and—"

"And couldn't help but take a gander?"

My throat went dry and I had to swallow. "I'm sorry, sir. I—"

"So what do you make of them? The files, I mean." He smiled, but it was the shark smile he used most of the time that I'd learned to fear.

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know?" His smile got broader and his voice took on a mocking edge. "That's the first true thing you've said since I walked in here. You don't have a scrap of knowledge in your empty little head and never have."

Anger flared in my chest but I tamped it down. It had never benefited me in any exchange with him to get mad. "It's none of my business, sir."

"That's right, Ashley, and you should remember that. The last thing you need to do is get ideas above your station."

"Yes, sir." I tried to sweep past him, but his hand locked onto my upper arm. "Could you let go? I have somewhere to be."

"Not just yet. I want to make sure you're going to keep quiet about this without ripping the tongue out of your head. Do you think you can manage not to babble like a magpie?"

"Yes, sir." I couldn't keep the loathing out of my voice and his grip tightened just before he slammed me against the wall. The impact knocked the breath out of me and left me gasping. How could we have been close enough to the wall for him to do that? We'd been standing in the middle of the room and, other than when I'd tried to walk past him, neither of us had moved. Had he moved both of us without me perceiving it? Did he have speed too, like A-Train?

"What did I see in your eyes just then, Ashley? Do you want to tell me?" All I could do was shake my head no, still trying to drag air into my lungs. "It looked like you didn't like what I said very much. It looked like you didn't like me very much. Am I correct there?"

I couldn't answer—if I tried to lie, he'd know it, and I couldn't say truthfully that he was wrong. So I settled for keeping my eyes down, staring at the place where his neck met the shirt of his costume, and remaining silent.

"I can't hear you, Ashley!" he sang. I tried to move and his hand released my arm to encircle my throat. Panic electrified my body, but there was no escape from him. The leather chafed against my skin, but my mind was too busy trying to find a way out to notice that the pressure wasn't unbearable and I could even breathe comfortably.

"You don't have to rip my tongue out, sir. I won't tell anyone about this." My gaze tried to return to the pictures of the dead women who may have died instead of me. Would this incident doom another woman? Please don't let him kill another woman because of me.

His voice softened. "That's a good girl, so obedient. Tell me what you saw on the table."

"Nothing, sir. I didn't see anything."

Homelander snapped a fist into the wall near my head. Chips of wood and plaster nicked my cheek and I cried out. "That's right, Ashley. You didn't see anything and you won't say anything. And I know you're telling the truth, so I don't have to deal with you the way I dealt with Madelyn."

The floor seemed to fall out from under me. "Ms. Stillwell?"

His teeth flashed at me. "Don't tell me you believed the official story. Oh, that's right!" He snapped the fingers of the hand he'd just punched a hole in the wall with. "You weren't working for Vought anymore, so you had no way of knowing anything other than that."

"Billy Butcher…" My voice trailed off.

"Oh, I admit he strapped the explosives to her. That was all him. He thought he could threaten her and use that to control me, force me to do what he wanted, and in the past it might even have worked. But I'd found out she lied to me, Ashley, lied about something after she'd promised me that she'd never lie to me again. I forgave her once, but not a second time. Just to show him, so he would understand, I killed her myself. I burned the eyes straight out of her head, incinerated her brain inside her skull, and let her fall out of my hands like a dead bird. No one forces me to do anything. I do whatever the fuck I want, and if what I want includes looking at police case files of dead women, then I'll do that. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." I realized I was hyperventilating, gasping for breath even though he wasn't exerting enough force to cut off my oxygen.

"And just in case you think that weak little cuck John can save you from me, you should wipe that idea out of your head. Oh yes, I know that you know about him. He's helpless before me. If he tries to grow a set of balls and interfere, I'll destroy him. Or I'll trap him in our very own subconscious. I haven't decided which of those would be most satisfying for me. What will John do to help you?"

"Nothing, sir." If I'd thought the panic was bad before, it slalomed through my blood now like a drunken skier on an ice trail. John wasn't safe. Homelander could hurt John, kill John. And now I couldn't count on his ignorance to keep both of us safe from harm. "I won't do anything to make you hurt him. I won't make you do anything."

"I'm still not sure you understand me. Tell me what will happen if you try to keep me from doing what I want. What will happen if you don't do what I want."

"You'll kill me, sir. You'll kill John." I put up a hand and grasped his wrist, but I didn't have enough strength to do anything but that. Black spots danced in my vision. "You'll rip my tongue out."

"Excellent, Ashley!" Homelander beamed at me. "You're teacher's pet today. But maybe I should give you something to remember this by. I'm not sure how good your memory is. Maybe a little second-degree burn on your arm, where you can see it? What do you think?" But I couldn't answer him as I was too busy letting myself fall into darkness.

When I came back to consciousness I found myself lying with my cheek pressed against the conference room floor, my limbs in an untidy sprawl. How much time had passed? Maybe five minutes max? What happened? An anxiety attack? I couldn't feel any damage and I was still alive, so Homelander couldn't have attacked me. Oh God, Homelander. He knew everything, he knew what I knew, and John…he'd said he would hurt John, kill John. I didn't even understand if such a thing were possible, but if it were he would do it. Fear turned my blood into molasses. I'd always thought John wouldn't be able to protect me if his other side made an appearance, decided to hurt me, and I had just been proved right. There was no safety, no protection, no matter how much he might love me. Not from Homelander.

When I levered myself up on one arm and looked toward the table, the files and photos were gone. But I'd seen them, seen the evidence of what he'd done. Their hair pulled out, oh Christ—was it true, had he been killing me over and over by proxy, not hurting the original because I was too useful to him alive, where I was? Could I count on that continuing now that I knew what he'd done? And Madelyn. She'd been a bad boss and a bad person, but she hadn't deserved what he did to her. And he'd done that to a woman he loved, the first woman he ever loved. Should I tell Stan Edgar what he'd said? I knew the CEO would believe me over Homelander ten times out of ten, but whether he'd do anything about it, whether he could do anything about it, that was the question. Could anyone make the supe do what he didn't want to do? And what about John? A possibility occurred to me. Maybe Homelander wouldn't hurt him if…

I reached into the pocket of my blazer for my cell phone and stabbed myself on a pen I didn't remember leaving in it. All I could do was look at the injury, the tiny ruby of blood welling up from the side of my hand, with the detachment of deep shock before I unlocked the screen and found the most recent text Adam had sent me. Italian food. La Dolce Vita. The sweet life. I couldn't call him, hear his voice. I didn't trust my voice, and I didn't trust Homelander's ears. My fingers jittered, nerveless with shock, and I had to wait until the adrenalin had subsided before I touched the keyboard on the screen.

I'll take the job.