His Frozen Heart (19 page)

There was nothing out of place in the
entire apartment. Remotes were perfectly lined up on the small
table beside the recliner. No photographs of any kind were
displayed, other than the framed posters of cars – but nothing
personal. I didn’t really even like my sisters, but I had several
of their pictures framed in my bedroom and a couple scattered in
the house. Where were Dave’s pictures?

Looking into the tiny sink, not one
dirty dish waited. Did he really live here? The water shut off in
the bathroom. I came back to my senses and took a seat on the sofa
before he could catch me snooping around his apartment. When the
door opened, steam billowed out from the tiny room. My jaw
tightened as he emerged. Dave wore a fluffy tan towel around his
waist and a second one hanging over his shoulders which obscured
his chest and partially covered his abdomen. Peeking out from under
the towel over his shoulders, Dave’s chest glistened from tiny
droplets of water that clung to him. His chest was completely bare,
not a single hair protruding from the towel hanging around his
neck. I knew my mouth gaped, but I couldn’t make my jaw
close.

Opening the cabinet I had just
inspected, he stood with his back to me, pulled the towel off of
his shoulder and slid a burgundy t-shirt over his head. The t-shirt
complained as his arms wedged themselves through the sleeves. If he
knew I were transfixed on him, he gave no indication that my
leering bothered him. Dave reached in and pulled a pair of nylon
shorts off the top shelf, slid them under his towel and didn’t let
it drop to the floor until they were secured at his
waist.

My pulse had steadily been climbing as
I watched him. I hadn’t noticed the hammering in my chest until he
turned toward me and asked, “Care if I work out?”

“
Not at. . . it’s your. .
.you can.” I sounded like the village idiot. My mouth didn’t work
as all the blood rushed to my eyes capturing every contour of his
body. His t-shirt was too tight on his chest while it hung loose at
his waist. Dave returned to the bathroom to hang up a towel. His
legs were as massive as his upper body, every muscle defined as he
walked barefoot over to the awaiting Bo-flex.

I turned my back toward him,
preferring to look at the dark television instead of the
sex-on-a-stick that had just reduced me to a pile of goo.
Humiliated at my school-girl reaction to him, I took a deep breath,
and then a second, then a third. I could still hear blood hammering
though my body as I willed my pulse to slow down.

The kiss on the front lawn couldn’t
have been more than a means to keep me from screaming like a
banshee. It had worked, but afterwards I hadn’t screamed or kissed
him back. What kind of signal had I sent him by lying there in
stunned silence? What sort of signal was he sending me coming out
of the bathroom in a towel?

“
Like what you see?” My
back arched at his conceited question. My eyes were still reeling
and wanted a good reason to turn my body around to get another
look, but based on my reaction a second ago, I was frightened my
legs might walk over and sit on his lap. “Hello, earth to Candy,
the remote’s right there on the table. Just hit the green power
button on the top right.”

The television, right. He was making
fun of me for staring at a powered off television. I turned it on
and absently scrolled through channels until I found TMZ. I was
beginning to get my senses back under control before I made a
complete ass out of myself when it hit me: his forehead wasn’t
bleeding.

My head whipped around and caught him
doing presses. I couldn’t even see the cut on his forehead. “What
are you, a vampire?”

He had been flat on his back, using a
bar attached to the pulleys as a bench press. He was breathing out
when a throaty laugh escaped him and the bar flung up out of
control, “Not that I know of, why?”

“
Where’s your
cut?”

Dave reached back up and took the
unruly bar in his hand again. “I glued it.”

“
You what?”

“
Glue. It’s the same stuff
they use at hospitals. I get nicked on metal a couple times a week
downstairs and got sick of paying doctors hundreds of dollars to
glue my cuts shut. I told you I had a first aid kit.”

I stood up from the couch and walked
toward him. I saw the thin glossy line holding his skin together.
“Are you sure you don’t need stitches?”

He smiled through his measured
breaths, “Not unless you prefer I look like Frankenstein. The
glue’ll hold; it heals faster this way, too.”

After we had pulled my car into the
garage, I was sure he needed an ambulance. I looked at his massive
bicep and saw a similar glossy finish just below his shoulder. He
had been shot earlier today and this was all there was?

Dave saw me staring and answered
timidly, “It just grazed me. See, that glue,” pointing to his arm,
“cost me at least two hundred bucks. That glue,” pointing to the
closed gash on his forehead, “cost me less than ten.”

“
So you’re
cheap?”

He gently let the bar slide back up to
the top as he grabbed a towel and dabbed perspiration from his brow
then sat up. “I prefer ‘thrifty.’”

I stood a few feet away, acutely aware
of the body veiled in flimsy fabric in front of me. As stealthily
as possible, I wiped my palms on my hips. He stood up and eased
past me toward the kitchenette, grabbing a pitcher of water out of
the refrigerator and pouring himself an enormous glass. As he slid
the pitcher back onto the shelf, “I’m sorry. I’m not used to
company. Do you want anything to drink?” He leaned down into the
small refrigerator and began calling out options. “I’ve got Coke,
beer, there might even be a wine cooler in here
somewhere.”

My eyes roved to where he was bent
over, looking in the refrigerator for drinks. “Um, no. I’m fine,” I
stammered.

“
Chips?”

“
No, thanks.” The apartment
was so small that it barely qualified as a studio apartment. It
looked like it had been a storage area at some point. It did not
run the length of the garage below it. Or maybe the room/apartment
wasn’t too small, maybe Dave was just too massive for the tiny
space. I was warm, really warm, and not because the apartment was
balmy. This was a horrifically bad idea.

What the heck was I doing here? I
tried to reason with myself: he was worried about my safety.
Whoever had broken into my house had proved he could get in and out
without any problems. After what happened this morning, my house
was locked down from not one but two crime scenes. My best friend
was in the hospital. The place where I worked had been robbed, and
I had, by far, the scariest stalker in the world. What the hell was
I thinking checking out Dave like he was an exotic
dancer?

Ashamed of my hormones, I turned away
from the kitchen. I should have insisted on going to Mrs. Bavcock’s
house. It was after seven. After everything that had happened, she
was probably worried.

I reached into my backpack and pulled
out my phone. “I need to make a phone call.”

“
Sure. You want me to give
you some privacy?”

“
Um, no. I mean, I just
need to call my neighbor, to let her know I’m okay.”

“
No problem. I need to
check messages downstairs. I closed up this morning and missed a
couple appointments. I’m sure I have some ticked off customers to
go suck up to.” Dave took the towel he had used by the bench, wiped
the bench down, hung the towel up, washed, dried and put away his
empty water glass, and went downstairs. It was a little creepy, as
if he were on autopilot and nothing could be out of place. Maybe he
was just trying to make a good impression. After leering at him in
his towel, he could have kept caged chickens in his apartment and I
probably wouldn’t have noticed.

I dialed Mrs. Bavcock, and she picked
up on the third ring. Her voice seemed a little shriller than
normal, “Hello?”

“
Mrs. Bavcock, it’s Candy.
I’m going to stay at a friend’s place tonight, and I didn’t want
you to worry.”

There was a short pause. I began to
think the call had dropped when her voice answered back shakily,
“Where are you staying, in case the police come looking for
you?”

“
They have my number if
they need me. Thanks so much for offering to let me stay in your
guest room, but I’ll be okay for tonight. Keep your doors
locked.”

She didn’t answer right away. I sort
of expected her to argue with me. I heard a cat hiss in the
background then a low angry cat growl. Funning, I asked, “It sounds
like Henrietta made it home. Did she bring a tom cat back with
her?”

The shakiness was still there, “Roland
is being difficult. You know how testy he gets when he’s cooped up
inside all day.”

Something was wrong. Really wrong.
Roland had been the only cat she owned that I liked. He used to
come over to my front porch and bask in the sunshine. That cat had
had a real affinity for Doritos and could smell a bag through two
walls – it was still hard to eat a chip without thinking of him.
Roland may have slept at her house, but he had been as much my cat
as hers. When he was hit by a car two years ago, I had been
heartbroken.

Something wasn’t right. Playing along
with her I added, “Roland must want to go hang out on my
porch.”

“
He did. But I told him you
were spending the night tonight and he would be able to see you.
There would be no need for him to leave and go looking for
you.”

Someone was in her house. She was
trying to tell me a man was in her house with her. “You know what?
Tell Roland I’ll be right there. With all the action going on in
the neighborhood the last few days, he’s probably a nervous
wreck.”

Her voice was less shaky. She knew her
message had been delivered loud and clear. “Okay dear, I’ll tell
him.”

She hung up the phone and I screamed,
“Dave!! Dave!!” I sped toward his stairs, launching myself directly
into him as he flew back up the steps to where I stood.

Dave’s eyes were wide as he wrapped
his enormous arms around me, “What happened? You’re shaking. What’s
wrong?”

Chapter 13

“
That guy – the shooter,
he’s in Mrs. Bavcock’s house. He’s there right now. We have to help
her.” I used every bit of inertia in my body to move toward the
stairs, but Dave held me in place.

“
Settle down.” His voice
was calm as his earnest eyes tried to make sense of my frenzied
answer. Dave’s arms pulled me back to him, refusing to let me push
him away, “Tell me what happened.”

Tears clouded my eyes. She had saved
my life this morning. She wouldn’t let me go inside, and now she
was in danger because of it. Her warning was like she was saving me
all over again. “Roland’s dead. He couldn’t have been the one
hissing. But the shooter wouldn’t know that. He wouldn’t know that
she told me he was there.”

Dave eased me away from his chest as
his eyes lay helplessly on mine. “Candy, slow down. What are you
talking about? Who’s Roland?”

Ignoring his question, I whimpered,
“We have to go there. He doesn’t know that she told me. If we go
there now, he might not hurt her.” I pushed hard against his weight
still cementing me in place. His grip loosened, but he didn’t let
me go. Dave didn’t move so much as an inch toward the door. I
couldn’t understand why he held me in place. I demanded, “Let me
go!”

His answer was tender, calm as a lake
at sunrise, “Listen to me. You aren’t making any sense. Tell me
what’s going on.”

I exhaled deeply, frustrated by his
stubborn unwillingness to move. I collected my thoughts and
explained, “I called Mrs. Bavcock to tell her I wouldn’t be staying
at her house tonight. While I was talking to her, a cat hissed then
growled in the background, and she told me it was Roland. Roland’s
dead. None of her cats would hiss at her. There had to be someone
else in the house with her that one of the cats was hissing at. By
her telling me it was Roland, that was her way of letting me know
that something else was going on. Please, can we go
now?”

Dave was dialing before it even
registered that a phone was in his hand. “I’d like to report a home
invasion at…” He cupped his hand over the phone and whispered,
“what’s her address?”

“
421 Elm.”

“
At 421 Elm Drive. It’s an
elderly woman, and I believe the man inside has a gun. I believe
there may be a policeman stationed in the area because of an
earlier disturbance.” Dave hung up before the dispatcher could ask
him for any additional information. His hands guided me to sit on
the step halfway between his first and second floor. He knelt on
the step in front of me so we were eye to eye, “We’re not going
there.”

I jerked, “I have to go! She needs
me!”

His head shook ever so slightly. “No,
what she needs is the police. They don’t need you in the
way.”

“
You don’t understand:
she’s an old lady. She’s probably scared shitless right
now.”

Evenly, Dave’s sweet voice refused to
waver, “She’s smart. She got the message to you. I called the
police. She’s going to be fine. You told me a patrolman was posted
on your street. The dispatcher will radio him; she’ll be fine.” His
hand reached to my wrist as his fingers gently caressed my forearm.
He probably meant it to be a reassuring gesture, and if any other
scenario were going on right now, it would have been, but his touch
was so light it felt like a spider crawling on my skin and I
swatted his hand away.