Grace Street (A Chapter 8 Novel, #1) (20 page)

Thursday was another uneventful day other
than the now constant thoughts of Victor making it impossible to
get anything done. Yes, Victor, not Mr. Black. She never wanted to
think about him again. Except for the way he had fucked her… If
only Mr. Black didn’t exist and it was only Victor… he was
something special. Or had he only manipulated her into believing
that he was?

It pained her heart to think about it and
made her brain hurt recalling everything that had transpired over
the past two weeks. Had it really only been two weeks or had it
been longer? She had no idea. She had lost track of time and the
days mixed together endlessly.

Back home, she sulked all evening. Her phone
rang out as she was showering and she nearly slipped and injured
herself hauling ass to answer it, hoping, yet fearing, it would be
Mr. Black.

Her brother’s name came up and she frowned
with disappointment. She swiftly cut him off as soon as she
answered, not wanting Mr. Black to hear their conversation; if he
was even listening anymore.

Dressed in only a robe, she went to Viv’s and
borrowed her phone to call Nick back. The conversation was brief
but her big brother had done her proud. He provided not only a home
address but several interesting and revealing details about
Victor.

Apparently his mother had died at the fairly
young age of 58 from liver disease. Also, in his younger years,
when he first came into the public’s eye, he had made his rounds on
the dating scene and had quite the reputation of being a ladies’
man. All his dating abruptly halted a few years later, though,
right after a big break in a big murder case.

That was all Nick could find out other than
that Victor had never been married and had no children to speak of.
Elsa felt the weight of a burden lifted off of her. At least he
hadn’t lied about that.

Back in her apartment, she kept glancing out
her window. It had become habit, but instead of seeing Mr. Black’s
glowing cigarette or Victor’s silhouette, only a dark street glared
back at her.
Would this week never end?

***

An unplanned trip to Massachusetts halted
Victor’s plans to plot out his course of action and stalk his
favorite yet mouthy and unpredictable Chapter. The phone call had
come immediately after her abrupt dismissal. Another body was
discovered near Cambridge and everyone involved suspected it was
the same perpetrator that had already taken the lives of three
young women in the area.

During the plane ride, he had no time to go
over the upsetting scene that played out between him and Eight.
Instead of dwelling on the harsh words they threw at each other, he
studied his case file yet again, willing his eyes to see something
he might have missed.

In the spare moments during his endless
meetings and forensic evidence recaps, he jotted notes down on
Eight’s new rules. Of course, the old rules would still be in
effect, but there were several new ones he was adding to the mix.
If he guessed correctly, Elsa was coming undone at not having heard
from him. At least he could hope she was.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye and
he pushed Eight to the back of his mind, though her accusing
statement and inquisitive eyes kept piercing through his thoughts.
Everyone’s eyes were on him as he tried to establish a profile for
the killer and they all hoped he could shed some kind of light on
who they were looking for. It was exasperating. What did they
expect from him? He wasn’t a miracle worker or a mind-reader. He
was merely a man. A man who was not only failing the community, but
who had failed Eight by letting Mr. Black out over an innocent
question.

His mother thought he was a failure,
too.

Who the hell did Elsa think she was to even
speak to him in such a manner? Had he been too lenient or given her
reason to believe he would put up with that sort of behavior and
disrespect?
Let there be blood?
She had no idea what she was
saying. If he weren’t afraid of the end consequences of letting his
demons out, he would’ve taken her up on her offer and bloodied her
mouth for being such a brash little bitch.

No, Eight was no bitch, she was just too
fucking meddlesome for her own good. It was natural for her to want
to know more about him considering the physical interaction they
were engaging in. All the other Chapters were curious, too, though
they already knew who he was and his reputation. Eight was
clueless. And hotheaded. He had dealt with temperamental Chapters
before, but Eight… she was something else. She truly didn’t know
when to keep her mouth shut.

Despite this annoying character trait, he was
growing fond of her, but not more so than the others. At least
that’s what he was trying to convince himself of – that she was
just another Chapter. He wouldn’t allow her to be anything else. He
couldn’t. Not after what happened before.

Yes, he had been too lenient with her. He
knew that, but she was responding so well to gentleness, how could
he deny her? She was blossoming under his tutelage, even if it
wasn’t his usual modus operandi. If not for Mr. Black’s need to
control every damned thing in his environment, he would be content
to continue down this path. But Mr. Black had needs and compassion
and sympathy weren’t encompassed in those requirements. Mr. Black
just needed to learn to control his temper is all and remember that
everyone is allowed a mistake or two.

What the hell was he thinking? He was Mr.
Black. There was no personality split like Elsa was joking about,
though it might seem that way to her with his explosive
behavior.

He had no time to think about this nonsense.
More pressing matters were calling.

***

Seated at the same small
café where Victor had made his now infamous proposition, it was as
if karma had finally shown Elsa favor when she saw his face on the
television over the counter. She asked the cashier to turn up the
volume and listened with shocked interest to find out he was in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, working on a murder case – a case she
remembered hearing about it when she lived in Boston.

Victor was standing behind
several other men during a press conference, looking stoic and
professional as ever in a black business suit.
And damned handsome.
Even on the small monitor it was hard to miss his
spellbinding green eyes.
And that
mouth
… it had been on her only days
before and the delicious memory worked its way down her body and
settled in her lower belly. So he was real and not just a figment
of her imagination.

As the news story ended,
she was hit with a nefarious idea, one that could possibly land her
in jail if she were caught. Or worse – put on her Mr. Black’s
permanent shit list. She reached into her backpack and pulled out
Victor’s home address. She eyed it for several minutes before
deciding to throw caution and common sense to the wind. She rushed
to her car and dug into her hatchback to find an old, black hoodie
that she kept there for cold nights and slipped it on. She was
really doing this. She had to know where Victor called home. She
had to know everything about him.
Absolutely everything.

The drive took her nearly
forty minutes to get to the edge of Richmond. She wasn’t familiar
with the area and she drove around in circles for another twenty
minutes before she finally located his house which was set back in
a thickly wooded area. The home was larger than she had imagined
considering he was single. It was a one-story architectural piece
of beauty. For a man who is so secretive, she found it odd that he
would live in a house where every room could be seen through its
ceiling-to-floor windows. What was the saying about people who live
in glass houses throwing stones?

Parking a quarter-mile up
the street, she decided to walk the distance back to his house to
stay out of view. She scanned her surroundings for any signs of
security cameras and was astonished to see not one single camera.
Then again, maybe they were hidden like they were at 2500 East
Grace Street. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and slipped
the hood over her head. Keeping her head down, she approached the
darkened front entrance when motion sensor lights flicked on,
nearly causing her to piss her pants. She rolled her eyes at
herself. How apropos considering what he had put her
through.

She peered into the glass
front door. On the wall next to the door was a blinking security
box. Now what? She stood there like a moron not knowing what to do
next. What the hell did she expect for a man whose job it was to
catch killers? An open door or a welcoming party? Feeling like a
jackass, she turned to walk away when she noticed several large
rocks and neatly hedged bushes lining the walkway. Could it be that
Victor was a man of habit? She kicked several of the rocks over and
replaced them when nothing was revealed, but then counted the third
bush to her right and bent down. She couldn’t believe what she
found – a spare key tucked neatly under a fake rock just like the
one he had hidden for her at the Grace Street brownstone. With the
heavy, electronic-looking key in her hand, she froze. Once she
stepped foot inside, there was no going back.

Telling her inner voice of
reason to fuck off, she pushed forward and shoved the key into the
lock. She turned it and when she did, the security system chimed
and deactivated, but the loud click startled her and her heart rate
spiked. Every one of her senses became heightened as she turned the
door knob. Her eyes darted around and she craned her neck to look
behind her, positive that Mr. Black was going to assail her at any
moment. Slowly and with the stealth of a cat, she tip-toed into the
house and quietly shut the door behind her.

The entrance was pitch
black and the silence was eerie, but the smell was overwhelming –
Victor. His expensive cologne assaulted her senses and she gulped
loudly.
Damn, she missed his
touch.
The one scent missing:
cigarette. She hadn’t smelled it outside either. Was this nasty yet
sexy little habit strictly confined to the Grace Street
residence?

She reached for a nearby
wall and felt around until she touched a light switch. Flipping it
on, she was greeted to a small foyer that opened up to the one of
the largest and most stark white living rooms she had ever set her
eyes on. Despite the lack of color, it was gorgeous with sparse
contemporary furnishings. The floor was concrete and covered with
colorless area rugs. What was Victor’s fascination with
white?

She stood near the leather
couch looking over everything, trying to figure out what it was
about the place that seemed serene despite the drab surroundings
when it struck her that everything was as white and pure as the
freshly driven snow. Perhaps that’s what his home was to him - a
place where all the ugliness of the world melted away into the
background; a place of pure calmness. She could sympathize with
wanting a place to hide away from everyone and everything. She
often wished she had that kind of place to call her own.

Moving around the living
room and kitchen, she found nothing out of the ordinary and nothing
noteworthy or revealing of the real man behind the mask of Mr.
Black.

When she entered his
bedroom, she touched the bed and brought a pillow to her nose.
Inhaling deeply, her knees weakened.
Victor
. She laid the pillow back
down and felt a rush of blood heat her cheeks. She had reprimanded
Victor for his creepy stalking habits and she was no better by
breaking into his house and smelling his belongings like some kind
of fatal attraction.

Feeling ashamed of herself,
she turned to walk out when she noticed a photo of herself on his
nightstand next to a radio. She picked up the Polaroid picture,
unfamiliar with it. When had it been taken? She probably should’ve
been freaked out by finding this, but she wasn’t. He was keeping
her near to him while he slept and though she hated to admit it,
she found it oddly romantic.

She turned on the radio but
only silence could be heard. She pushed several buttons and the
same dead air came crackling through the speakers. It was a curious
thing, but not one she could figure out.

She laid the photo back
down exactly as she had found it and walked out of the bedroom and
down the hall to his office. She flicked on the light and knew
immediately this was the place his secrets would be found. Unlike
the rest of the house, it looked lived in. There were papers
scattered on the desk with hand-written notes, half-open files, and
the fragrance … it was there just like everywhere else, but more
prevalent. This is where Victor Laurenzo, aka Mr. Black, spent his
time.

She seated herself at his
desk and leaned back into the large, leather chair, wondering what
it felt like to be Master of His Domain and Ruler of His Universe.
What she wouldn’t give to live in his skin for just one day… to
know what went on in that dark mind of his… to feel the
intoxication of dominating another human being
completely…

She spun the chair around
and around until her stomach did a flip-flop and her vision became
blurry. She planted her feet and steadied herself, ready to delve
into Mr. Black’s world. She opened the first drawer to her left and
was taken aback when a handgun came into view. Hesitantly, she
touched the smooth, cold, black metal but didn’t dare pick it up.
She swiftly closed the drawer and moved on to the next. Four
drawers later, she was faced with a large, typed manuscript tied
off with twill.