Scorched (3 page)

I must have found him attractive because I was rattled. He came when I needed someone the most. Yeah, that must be it. Nothing more. I’m not being weird or desperate.

Her stomach was growling, so she decided to help herself to some of the food in the fridge. She made a sandwich and a glass of sweet tea. After eating, she felt so much better. Her nerves wound down, and after what seemed like the longest time, she was able to relax.

She sat on a chair by a window overlooking the empty garden and dozed off. For the moment, all of her troubles seemed far away.

Tristan didn’t return until late in the evening. He brought Chinese take-out and apologized that he’d been held up at work. They ate a belated dinner in the spacious kitchen and occasionally argued like an old couple. Another sense of wonder enveloped Molly. It was the darndest thing ever. She felt like she was finally home, here, sitting and sharing a meal without a shred of animosity toward Tristan.
I must be really desperate for an ally
, she thought ruefully.

“I’ve checked all the motels and inns around town to see if your ex has checked into one of them, but I had no luck. I doubt if he’d reserve a room under his own name. We have an influx of tourists around at this time of the year. I also had someone bag up and send that package to the forensics lab in Mayberry County since we don’t have one here. We should have the results in a few days,” said Tristan, finally touching on the subject after dancing around it during dinner.

“Thank you.” Molly paused. “I don’t think they’ll find anything. David isn’t stupid enough to leave anything that would incriminate him directly.”

“One can only hope. You won’t believe how often even well-educated people do stupid stuff.” Tristan fished a notepad from his pocket. “Why don’t you tell me more about him? I’ll need it to write my report.”

Molly filled him in with the basic info about David Castle.

“How did you meet him? Wait, tell me the whole story from when you moved to California. I want to know everything.”

Everything?

“Well, David is a music producer in L.A. We met through a mutual friend at a party. He liked my singing, and we kind of hit it off immediately.”

“When was this?”

She shrugged uncomfortably. “Ten years ago? I’d been in L.A. for just a few months back then.”

“You met him when you were eighteen?” The tone in his voice sounded disapproving. Tristan flipped through his notes. “He was already in his forties when he met you.”

“Don’t judge me like that.” Irritation crept into her. “Hollywood is a Mecca for pretty girls. To stand out above the rest, I had to have someone to back me up, and David was just the person.”

“Your voice is beautiful enough without you having to resort to that.”

Her heart skipped a beat from his declaration. Was he sincere? Or was he just teasing her? No, she decided. Tristan was serious.
Holy hell.

“Anyway, what happened next?” he asked.

Molly paused for a few long seconds, gathering her thoughts and unwinding the past she didn’t really want to revisit.

She told him a tale that was once her life.

David Castle had charmed her with his influence, power and wealth. He promised her he’d make her a star, and she moved in with him shortly after they met. He hired a vocal tutor to train her voice along with a stylist to reinvent her image from a country girl into a future diva. He introduced her to important people—movers and shakers of the industry. She got to go to upscale places and parties. For a while, she could say she was living a glamorous life.

Some months passed by, and David started to show his true nature. He became obsessed with her, but
not
her talent. He began limiting how many friends she could have, the people she was allowed to see. Everything had to be his way or no way at all. He had a say on what she ate, what she wore. How she behaved. How she talked. More importantly, how she serviced him in bed.

She was a naïve girl back then. She did everything he wanted her to do. She thought if she pleased him, he’d finally produce her debut record. Singing professionally was her longtime dream.

That day never came. David kept telling her that she wasn’t ready for the world. That she had to polish her talent further. During the time they were together, David launched the careers of several artists he signed. She began to doubt that he was ever going to let her have the stage. Some people had told her that she was ready for a debut, but none dared to poach her talent through fear of David’s retaliation. She recorded a professional demo with the studio’s sound engineer, Doug Higginbottom—a genius who could polish the vocalist to sound like an angel—and when Doug brought up the matter to David suggesting on  her behalf, his ex went ballistic and got Doug in trouble. She was angry at first and then began hearing unsavory rumors about David. Some said that David was responsible for the career failures of several well-known artists.

As the years went by, she came to the conclusion that David was never going to launch her career; he was only interested in her as his kept woman. When she tried to break up with him, David became increasingly hostile. He told her that she’d never work in the industry if she dared to leave him. He threatened that she’d have to pay all the money he’d invested in her back if she decided to walk away.

For a while, she was compliant. But then she rebelled in her own way. She binge ate, gained thirty pounds and went to great lengths to make herself unattractive to him. The tension was high between them and ended with her fleeing from his mansion. She went into a women’s shelter and filed a protection order against him. The court order only worked for a while. David began harassing her again. The only option left was to return to her hometown. Even though she was only a mutt, the blood of a dragon still flowed in her veins, and she hoped that being inside the walls of the eldritch community would give her some measure of safety from David.

Tristan listened to her story with a grave expression. When she was finished, she noted that his welled with sadness.

“I had no idea you’ve endured so much,” he said. “If I hadn’t picked on you when we were growing up, you wouldn’t have had to suffer like that in L.A. I’m truly sorry, Molly.”

What?

“Do you think I left Oak Hollow because of you?” Molly forced a weak laugh. “I’d have gone anyway. There’s nothing to live for in this town anyway. At least, not for me. I wanted to be
somebody
. I didn’t want to be like my mom.”

Her mother was the one with the dragon blood—half-blood. Therefore, she couldn’t shift. Molly’s grandfather was a fully-fledged dragon. Her grandmother was a human. They’d both died in a car accident when Molly was five years old.

Her parents got hitched right after high school. Her dad was a human, a longtime Oak Hollow resident and an overall good-for-nothing man. A lousy father too. When Molly was growing up, she couldn’t understand why her mother was content living in this place where her father could come and fuck up their lives anytime he pleased. Why couldn’t her mother leave that man to start anew? Years later, she found herself in the same situation. History had a funny way of repeating itself.

“Did you come home when your mom passed away?” Tristan asked.

Molly shook her head with regret. “David wouldn’t let me. I think that was one of the straws that broke the camel’s back. Mom kept writing me for a while when I was in L.A. I bragged to her that I’d soon become a star. But I stopped writing to her when I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. She stopped contacting me at all soon afterward.” Molly paused. Her heart ached. “Good thing that she didn’t see me like this. A loser.”

“You’re not a loser,” Tristan admonished her. “You’re a survivor.”

“Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“Why? Is that illegal?”

Molly snickered. “You know, it’s weird to see you like this.”

“Me?” His lush eyebrows arched. “Like what?”

“Being nice to me. To be honest, I don’t dislike it.”

“Just say you like it.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“No, but it would be nice if you said you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Tristan. I’m just…
wary
of you. Earlier. Before I found you… okay.”

He gave her a sad look. “Ah. I should see that as an improvement. I’ve graduated from ‘hate’ to ‘wary.’ How many brownie points do I earn?”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Anyway, enough of my sob story. What happened to you after graduation? Did you wake one day and decide to be a cop?”

“No way.” Tristan shook his head. “I was in my most rebellious stage back then. I fought constantly with my old man. To top it off, Mom found him having an affair with the kindergarten teacher, and he got her pregnant.”

“The kindergarten teacher? Wait, is that Miss Haley?”

“Yeah. That really broke our family apart. Mom left him, and just to piss him off, I decided to join the Army. Long story short, he disowned me while I was deployed.”

“Why?”

“Because I pissed him off,” Tristan laughed. “My dad likes to control people around him with money. He thought that if he cut me off from his gravy train, I’d come crawling back to him. I proved him wrong. Big time. I turned out just fine. And besides, he cheated on my mom, and I still can’t forgive him for that.”

“I see. Do you ever see your step-sibling?” As far as she remembered, Tristan was the only son in the Cadreinth family.

“Sometimes. His name’s Rhys. He’s about ten years old now. Good kid.”

“You get along with him?”

“Sure. Actually, he’s the one who sought me out when he heard I was back in town. Rhys told me the old man is sick, and he thought it would be best if I patched things up. Dad never apologized to me or my mom. I have no interest in crawling to him first.”

“So you’re a bit vindictive after all?”

Tristan grimaced. “I guess I hold my grudges a long time.”

“That explains why you live in this house. Didn’t your family live in that mansion in Rose Hill?”

“Just my dad and Rhys. And dad’s new girlfriend.”

“Wait, what happened to Rhys’ mom?”

“My dad married her, but they got divorced two years later. Then my dad went through his middle-age streak like Hugh Hefner. Parties in the house with a bunch of call girls every weekend. That Rose Hill house was nicknamed ‘Playboy Mansion’ for a while. But Dad has quieted down now. Perhaps because he has a health problem.”

“No chance of making peace with your old man then?”

Tristan gave her a withering look. “Don’t you have a bigger problem to worry about?”

She harrumphed. “Okay, what’s going to happen now?”

“Well, once we get forensic evidence that bastard is terrorizing you, we’ll nail him for violating the restraining order. I won’t make it easy for him to slime his way out of this one.”

A small measure of relief washed over her. “Thank you, Tristan.”

He only grinned wide.

“What?” she asked.

“I never thought I’d hear those words from you. It makes me happy.”

Molly rolled her eyes.
Oh brother!

Chapter Four

The sound of explosions jarred Molly from a deep sleep. They were rapid and loud and startled her to the bones. For a moment, she thought she was in a war zone. It was unmistakably the sound of gunfire accompanied by breaking glass. Molly snatched the bathrobe she’d borrowed from Tristan and jumped off the bed, striding out of the guestroom. Tristan halted her in the hallway; a gun was in his hand.

“What was that?” she asked.

“You stay here.”

“No way! I don’t want to be alone.”

“Just for a minute. It seems we took a hit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it was a drive-by shooting.”

Her blood ran cold. Had David gone mad this time? First, he’d sent her a mutilated rabbit as a present. Now he’d gone full gangster on Tristan’s house. He must have been watching them the whole time. He knew where she was and who she was with. An unpleasant knot twisted in her gut. She felt nauseous. How far would he go to terrorize her?

Tristan moved towards the living room, Molly unconsciously shadowing his footsteps.

He turned on the light.

It was a mess.

The picture window was totally shattered. Bullets had penetrated the glass and destroyed the picture frames and sofa. The living room walls were full of holes, like Swiss cheese.

Surprisingly, Tristan took the whole thing very calmly. His face didn’t show any anger or anything; he only had a focused look.

“Wait—” Molly tugged his arm when he was about to step toward the front door. “It’s not safe. What if he’s still out there?”

“I highly doubt it. The perp doesn’t usually stick around in a drive-by shooting.”

Tristan slunk off like a ghost, taking cover behind the bookshelves and assessing the situation before he turned the key and tugged the front door open. Only silence greeted them. His house was situated on an acre of land, secluded from his neighbors. It appeared the commotion hadn’t attracted their attention. Yet.

Tristan closed the door and locked it. He examined one of the bullet holes and pried it with his pinky finger. “Is David a gun collector?”

“I know he owns a gun, but he isn’t a collector.”

“Not a gun enthusiast of any kind?”

“I don’t think so. He had bodyguards, so he doesn’t actually need a gun.”

“How about his bodyguards? Are they former military?”

“I’m not sure. David hires a top notch security company in LA, and his bodyguards change depending on the occasion. Why do you ask?”

“This bullet is from a 7.62mm round from an AK-47. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. It’s very distinct, more so than the M-16 the Army issued.”

“I don’t know anything about weapons.” Molly inspected the damage closely. “What kind of gun is capable of making so many holes so quickly?”

“It’s not a handgun. Bullet holes like this are caused by a rifle used in the military. Soviet made. Kalashnikov. Come with me.” Tristan grabbed her hand and pulled her into the kitchen, making her go into the pantry. “This is the safest place in the house. Bullets can’t reach this wall in case he comes again. You stay here until I get back. I won’t be long.” He gave her his gun. “Shoot anyone that isn’t me. Just aim and pull the trigger. Easy peasy.”