Marrow

KYRIE

I’ve stood on this street many times before. I’ve watched from its shadows. I’ve driven slowly down the wide, tree-lined road. I’ve seen it in every season, in every color, in the afternoon light and in the dark of night.

But I’ve never dared to walk up to the front door of Jack Sorensen’s house.

I stand unmoving on the sidewalk, the cool autumn breeze flushing my cheeks and lifting my hair from my shoulders. Maybe Jack can see me already. He could be watching as I try to convince myself to call a second Uber and return home. That’s what I should do.

But I already know I won’t.

The magnetic force of his presence pulls me like a tether in my chest, commanding that I place one foot in front of the other until I’m standing at the door.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt such trepidation about a simple block of wood. It takes me a solid thirty seconds before I finally pull my hand from the depths of my pocket and press the doorbell. If Jack has been watching from inside, he has the good grace to give it a moment before opening the door.

I’ve seen Jack Sorensen a thousand times, in a thousand places. But here, standing at the entrance of his home, it’s like seeing him for the first time. His dark hair. His full lips. The perpetual black wardrobe, tailored to his lethal frame. My breath stalls at the intensity of those cutting eyes that catalog every detail of my face with a long sweep of his gaze. I don’t exhale until he glances behind me toward the road.

“I didn’t see Hayes,” I say as Jack reaches forward to lay a hand on my arm and guide me past where he stands on the threshold. An electric hum shakes the blood in my veins at his touch, but I tamp it down beneath a devious smile. “Not to say he won’t come to peep in your windows.”

The black door closes behind me and locks. “If he does, I’ll fucking flay the skin from his face and feed it to him,” Jack says.

“And they claim romance is dead.”

Jack glances at me with a smirk as he turns a second lock. “Don’t even pretend it wouldn’t make your panties soaking wet, lille mejer.”

“I would need panties for that, but a certain professor with a thing for cold rooms and eating pussy in the office stole mine.” A third and final lock slides into place to the rumble of Jack’s chuckle before he steps behind me to take my coat. “Three locks? That seems a bit excessive, Dr. Sorensen. Maybe you should consider getting a guard dog to keep Hayes away. He and Cornetto are certainly not on friendly terms,” I say with a nod toward the door. A breath of his laugh warms my neck as Jack unravels my scarf, letting his fingers trace my skin as he lifts it away.

“If I did, you’d only give it some ridiculous name.”

“I would. I could see you with an Akita named Creamsicle.”

Jack’s quiet grumble is cut short as my jacket slides from my shoulders to reveal the shirt he lent me the day he stitched my hand. It’s been freshly laundered, but I may have sprayed a little extra Angélique Noire perfume on the collar when I put it on. The sleeves are rolled to my elbow, the top buttons undone to allow glimpses of my black lace bra, and beneath is a simple pair of leggings.

“What’s wrong?” I ask with feigned innocence as I turn a slow circle to face Jack, his eyes darkening as they rake across my body. He hangs my coat next to the door and wets his lips as he drags his gaze to mine. “You said I couldn’t shred it. I didn’t have anyone to bury in it, at least not yet. And since you have my panties I think this is a fair trade.”

There’s a slight flare of his nostrils, a deep inhale. I take a step closer and he swallows. One more and he moves back just out of reach.

“Are you running away from me, Dr. Sorensen?”

A conflicted groan sneaks past his lips. “We have something important to discuss. But if I touch you now, I won’t be able to make myself stop,” he admits when I try to inch closer and he takes another pace back. “I don’t have that kind of restraint.”

“Good thing I didn’t wear the purple shirt with the bow in that case,” I say with a grin. “You could have done all manner of terrible things to me with it.”

“Kyrie—”

“I’ve been wondering, Dr. Sorensen, just what would you do with that ligature, exactly? Maybe tie my hands up and fuck my mouth? Or something…darker…perhaps.”

Jack’s hand darts out and captures my throat, the flesh of his palm tight beneath my jaw. He pulls me in close and looks down into my face. “Must you always test my limits, Dr. Roth?”

My smile is as bright as the sun in a desert sky. “Yes,” I whisper around the tightening pressure of Jack’s hand. “Always.”

His silver eyes are the polished steel of a blade. Desire. Fury. I would balance on this knife edge forever if I could.

Jack doesn’t loosen his grip as he draws us closer together, reeling me in until my chest is flush against his. His lips graze my cheek just next to the bridge of my nose. “Spare me, just for a little while. This is important,” he says, and places the whisper of a kiss to my skin, my eyes closing as his breath stirs my lashes. “Please, Kyrie.”

I nod and Jack’s fingers uncurl from my neck one by one. His other hand finds mine and presses against my stitches, warming my wound without hurting it.

“Come in,” Jack says as he pulls my hand forward and lets it go so that I can walk ahead of him, his touch finding the small of my back. “Make yourself at home.”

I’ve probably heard those words a hundred times. But this is the first instance I’ve really felt like my presence has given life to a space lying dormant.

We rise three steps from the entryway, passing the staircase to the second story, the house spreading into a living room on the right where the skylights of the slanted, high ceilings let in the light of the setting sun. A dining room lays adjacent to it at the rear of the house, the polished black surface of the long table decorated with a simple bouquet in a ceramic vase. I recognize the blue flowers as the same species that Jack left in my office. To the left of the house is a kitchen of sleek white cupboards and spotless quartz countertops. Between the kitchen and dining room is an open door that seems to lead to a sunroom, but the entry is too narrow to see what’s in the space beyond. And throughout Jack’s home is the scent of something new. Not paint but plastic, maybe. Perhaps it’s the furniture, much of which looks unused. With its pristine, impersonal details in shades of black and gray, the house could belong to anyone, or no-one at all. There are no family photos. There’s no meaningful art. The music that flows from speakers spread throughout the house is the only thing that gives me any sense of Jack, though it doesn’t really seem like his style. I know it can’t be true, but it’s as though the space has been lying in stasis, waiting for a breath of life. For me.

“You had Shiraz at the club the other night,” Jack says, pulling me out of my assessment of his home, his gaze a heavy weight on my shoulders. When I turn to face him, he gestures to the couch in the living room in a request to sit. “Do you want the same again?”

“Sure, that would be lovely, thanks.”

Jack gives a single nod and I take a seat on the gunmetal gray couch, turning to watch as he strides away to the kitchen. He opens a fresh bottle and pours a glass of red wine into a black metal stemless glass, then tops up his own drink with ice and Scotch before bringing them both over along with a set of papers tucked under his arm. There’s a spread of charcuterie on the coffee table in front of me, laden with Castelvetrano olives and hummus and cheeses and chutneys, cut vegetables and dried fruits and folded meats. When Jack sits next to me I can’t help the wide-eyed, questioning look I shoot between him and the small feast on the table.

“You haven’t had dinner,” he says simply, passing me my wine and then a small plate from next to the board. His gaze darts to my stitches and then my chest in the general vicinity of my scars, then me as a whole. A subtle frown flickers across his face.

My heart scrapes at my bones.

“Thank you,” I say, wanting to claw a small victory from my constant battle with time. I sit motionless with my plate gripped in my hands just to relish the expression on Jack’s face. It’s one of concern. Maybe a bit of confusion. His irascible nature demands that life submit to his plans, and I enjoy denying him. But there’s something guileless about his apparent worry for my nutritional needs that has me softening, laying the plate on my lap to reach forward and pluck olives and cheese from the board. I’m not really watching what I take, quite honestly. I’m watching Jack’s face, the way he tracks the motion of my injured hand, the way he seems to archive what I choose to take, what I avoid. In reality, I don’t even know half of what I grab, I just keep going until there’s a spread of enough food that he seems satisfied. Only then does he fill his own plate, and he waits until I’ve had a few mouthfuls of food and wine before he draws the papers into his lap.

“I was doing some digging today,” Jack starts, passing me a sheet of paper. Hayes’s grainy photo is at the top of the page, though he looks a little younger in the picture than he does now. More hair. Fewer wrinkles. Smaller second chin. A brighter spark in his eyes, obvious despite the poor resolution. Beneath his photo are his details. His full name. His birthdate. Height. Education.

Years of service in the FBI.

And below that, his license approval as a Private Investigator.

A chill sweeps into my arms. I look from the paper to Jack, his lips set in a grim line.

“What is this, Jack?” I ask, though the pieces are already clicking into place. Jack’s reply is to hand me the next sheet of paper.

“Something about him wasn’t sitting right with me. I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Jack replies as I start reading the next page. On the upper left margin of the page is the logo for the FBI.

“Jack…did you…did you hack into the FBI’s records?”

One of his shoulders lifts in a little shrug. He tries to hide a self-satisfied smirk as he chews an olive, but he fails when it lights his eyes.

“You did. You hacked into the fucking FBI. How—”

“The more important issue is probably this,” Jack says as he points to the middle of the paragraph on the sheet, which appears to be a summary of an internal personnel hearing. He’s highlighted a single sentence.

The decision of the Office of Professional Responsibility committee is the termination of Eric Christopher Hayes as active agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I skim the details, my mouth dropping open as the information invades my cells like a vein of ice crystallizing in my flesh. “He was let go five fucking years ago?”

Jack nods, handing me the rest of the papers. “These are the details of the hearing. Essentially, he was reprimanded for the negative impact that his obsession with the Silent Slayer case was having on his work. It seems the case was still an ongoing investigation, but was deprioritized when the Slayer appeared to go dormant. But Hayes didn’t fall in line. His other casework suffered. There were some outbursts, and when he was evaluated he was found to be combative, resistant to authority. Eventually, they let him go. It looks like he took a year off, and then resurfaced when he obtained his PI license. He’s rogue, Kyrie. He’s rogue and he’s centered on you, the key to the case he could never solve.”

My fingertips are cold as I flip through the pages, barely processing the words in the transcripts. My thoughts are spiraling into darker places than pages and ink. They’re descending into revenge. Into blood and rage. Because I know what Jack doesn’t. That it’s not just me that Hayes is centered on. It’s me as a vehicle to the man who is taking shape as his true prize.

Dr. Jack Sorensen.

My grip tightens on the edges of the pages until my knuckles bleach, my heart galloping as I struggle to subdue the urge to rush from Jack’s house and hunt Hayes down myself.

“You should stay here until we can figure out how to get rid of him,” Jack says, knocking me sideways from my thoughts of justice and retribution.

I blink as though that simple motion might bring me back from the alternate universe I seem to have dropped into.

“What?”

“I don’t want you around Hayes.”

“I…you…what the fuck?”

“He’s volatile, Kyrie. Possibly unhinged. You’re safer here.”

I take the time to study Jack’s face. He wears that same expression of worry that he had the other day in his lab when he gave me the Slayer’s hyoid bone, as though something deep and fraught and unfamiliar has crawled to his surface and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

My gaze drops from his and I look at the food on the coffee table. The glass of wine in my hand, which is not glass at all but metal. I listen to the playlist. It’s a song I have on one of mine.

This is all…for me.

“I…um…” I try to swallow the sudden brick that appears in my throat and demands all my pain. The thought rises that it would be safer for Jack, too, if I stayed. If Hayes believes Jack is a killer and I’m not, maybe my presence here can protect him. It could be enough to prompt Hayes to reconsider his theory, and maybe we’ll have enough time to create a false trail for him to follow.

I glance at Jack again before my gaze travels to the safety of the room.

“I have a dog.”

Jack laughs. Actually laughs. I look over in time to catch the way it lights his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, folding his dark lashes together. “I know,” he says. “Apparently, I lose five points in the arbitrary Thunderdome points system every time I forget his name. Which is impossible to forget, by the way, because it’s awful.”

A breathy huff passes my lips as I drop my focus to the papers that have started to warp in my grip. Jack’s hand folds around my wrist, but I struggle to look up as my heart hammers its rhythm into his grip.

My well-being is in your very best interests, my voice says, the creek trickling in the background. When I close my eyes, I see Jack there, standing in the sliver of moonlight, ready to kill me. Maybe he would have, if I hadn’t made that threat.

I’ve never regretted my words more. They might have kept me safe, but they make it impossible to discern fantasy from reality.

“I’m serious, Kyrie,” Jack says, and I swallow hard as I try to gather my diaphanous thoughts. “Hayes is dangerous. He’s been lying about being a federal agent. He’s been walking around campus for days with a fucking fake badge. How much farther do you think he would go to get what he wants?”

I take a long sip of my wine. Then another. I’m going to need something a lot stronger than Shiraz to get me through this evening.

Jack takes a sharp breath to surely launch into his next multi-point argument about why this is a good idea when his phone rings in his pocket. He pulls it out and frowns at the screen.

“I’m sorry. I have to take this,” he says with the slightest squeeze to my wrist before he lets go and rises. With a fleeting look of that subtle concern, he accepts the call with a formal greeting and heads for a dark hallway between the living and dining rooms.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper before downing the rest of my Shiraz. My stitches tug at my wound as they tangle in my hair. The discomfort barely registers.

I cast a glance at my empty glass and set it down. “Fuck the wine.”

Jack’s voice is quiet down the hall and I don’t make out what he’s saying, only the cadence of his occasional statements, the tone conveying his usual pragmatic, if not intimidating, style. I don’t linger, heading instead to the kitchen to retrieve a fresh glass before I hunt through the other cupboards to find the liquor collection on my second try. There’s a half-full bottle of Bowman 25 Year Scotch. Expensive, no surprise. A few bottles of red, including two of the same Rockford Flaxman Shiraz I had at the club. And tucked behind a bottle of Vodka is a black, unopened bottle of Adictivo Extra Anejo Tequila.

“Oh thank God.” I rise on my tiptoes and slide the bottle from the shelf. “You’re such a good host, Dr. Sorensen. Thanks for the shots.”

I head to a row of drawers beneath the microwave, assuming the first one might have a sharp knife to cut the plastic that seals the lid of the bottle. But that’s not what’s inside.

On the right side of the drawer are pens and a pad of blank paper.

On the left side are a few folded letters that Jack has received.

On the top is one from the Canadian government.

My gaze darts toward the corridor where Jack’s voice still faintly reaches me past the thrumming beat of my heart.

I unfold the letter, dated seven days ago.

Dear Jack Victor Sorensen,

This is in reference to your application for permanent residence. A decision has been made regarding your request. We require your passport to finalize processing your application. Your passport must be received by Citizenship and Immigration Canada within 30 days from the date of this letter. Failure to do so could result in the refusal of your application.

I stop reading after that.

A sudden fracture in my heart splits wide open, gripping my throat and glassing my eyes.

My stomach churns. I feel burning hot, the start of a thin film of sweat misting my hairline. Why is it so fucking hot all of a sudden? I have an overwhelming urge to rip off my shirt just to feel the air unobstructed on my skin. My heart riots to break free of its bone cage and for a moment I think I might be slipping into a flashback, so I grip the counter, the sharp edge of the quartz biting into the wound on my palm until the pain kicks in and keeps me anchored to the present.

“Get your shit together,” I hiss at myself as I fold the letter and shut the drawer, trying the next one down where I find a set of small screwdrivers. With a shaking hand, I take the sharpest one and pierce the plastic covering the cap, nearly slicing my other palm in my uncoordinated desperation. The moment the cap is off, the bottle is at my lips and I take the longest swig of Tequila I’ve ever had in my life.

A smoky burn lights up my chest. I blink until I’m reasonably sure the tears have dissipated. A few deep, trembling breaths become steadier ones. I force a mantra upon myself: you promised to make Jack suffer.

I did. I did promise that. I wanted retribution for all the many times he was callous and cruel. And worse…

Exactly. He said he wanted to leave. He said it just the other day, in fact. And soon, West Paine will be yours. He’ll be skulking off defeated and you’ll be the winner. It’s the reckoning you hoped for. Isn’t that what you wanted?

I think so…

I keep telling myself these things as I leave my unused metal glass on the countertop, taking another sip from the bottle as I wander away. My heart seems to crave the outdoors, the fresh air. Something cleansing, away from this scent of newness like a barbed reminder that I’m in a temporary place, a showroom. I’m not really paying attention to where I’m going when I start toward the dining room but detour to the left. But my heart must have known, because it leads me into an enchanted, magical realm.

The conservatory.

There are tiers of white wooden shelves lining the glass walls, each one filled with pots of different shapes and sizes. Some of the shelves hold plants with no blooms. Over others are small grow lights to encourage the buds to flower. Emerald leaves and vibrant blooms cascade from baskets hanging from the peaked ceiling, the clouds beyond the slanted windows painted orange and pink with the last streaks of the setting sun. The herringbone pattern of the red brick floor leads to a small table and wicker chairs near the far end of the sunroom where a wood stove rests unlit.

And everywhere, there is blue.

I don’t know all the flowers, but I know some. There are blue dahlias with conical petals whose ends deepen to indigo and violet. Blue roses, which I’ve never seen before, and I run my fingers across one as I bend to inhale its sweet scent. The fragrance of blue Jasmine and white Stargazer lilies with streaks of cerulean perfume the air. And most abundant of all are those blue flowers that Jack left in my office, grouped in different shades. Some light. Some dark. Some bright. Some pale. Each flower its own unique color, their pots numbered with neatly written labels.

I’m approaching one group of blooms when movement outside at the back of the garden catches my eye. For a breath, I startle. My immediate concern is that it’s Hayes. I lean closer to the glass and see a man, but it’s not the rogue agent. He’s wearing a white jacket with writing on the back that I can’t quite make out, picking something up from the ground next to an open gate in the fence beneath the canopy of spruce boughs. It’s a rolled up carpet, the edge of the cut pile a creamy white. He loads it into the open back of a van. Stamp & Morningstar Carpet Company, the decal says across the doors when he closes them.

“Alcohol theft, Dr. Roth?”

I startle and nearly drop the bottle gripped in my hand, hissing a curse as my other palm lays above my battered heart.

“You said to make myself at home,” I manage, my voice barely more than an unsteady whisper.

Jack pulls the bottle from my grip and reads the label. “I get the sense you’re not onboard with the idea of staying here if your immediate response is to find the strongest alcohol in the house and drink straight from the bottle,” he says. His smirk doesn’t reach his eyes when his gaze meets mine. “I might have more work to do to convince you.”

“Work…” I repeat, losing all my words as I look back toward the gate. It closes and the van departs. I lean closer to the glass. I had to have imagined it, this glimpse of something Jack Sorensen would never do, surely… But the scent in the rest of the house is real. That smell of new furniture… or carpet…? I smelled it just a moment ago…

I turn, nearly bumping into a tray of Jack’s blue flowers. He steadies my arm as he prompts me back a step from the table.

“Careful,” he says. “Those poppies are quite rare. They’ve taken me a few years to perfect.”

I glance once more toward the gate before I meet Jack’s eyes. That brick from earlier has returned to my throat, determined to choke my voice in a vise of pain. Swallowing does nothing but make it worse. “You… changed your carpet today? From… cream?” I ask, trying to control my expressions and force a nonchalant voice.

Jack sets the bottle of Tequila down on a shelf and presses his palms to the edge of a table as he leans forward to look at the gate with a low and thoughtful hmm. “If I say yes, will that result in more alcohol theft, or less?”

He tosses me a brief, faint smile over his shoulder.

Even those who know him well would look at Jack and never notice the many faint traces of emotion beneath his subtle expression. Concern. Desire. Pain. Perhaps even fear. No one else could track them into his lightless depths.

No one but me.

Jack looks from me to the flowers, then back again. There’s a flicker of movement at the corners of his eyes as they narrow, just a hint of motion and then it’s gone before he’s even turned back to the window. But it’s enough of a trail for me to follow.

I stand in the shadow of his thoughts as a sliver of light sneaks in.

And that’s all I need to see inside.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.