Winter (Four Seasons #1) (4 page)

“
Hey, I’m
sorry, okay? I know I’ve messed up here. Avery? Hey, Avery!” He
grabs hold of my arm and spins me around. I’m grinding my jaw
together to keep from saying anything I’ll regret later. “Listen,
this…I wouldn’t usually do this, but I wanted to talk to you.
There’s something you should know. I wanted to tell you when I went
back to Break in September but you were already gone. It’s
important.”

I stand there
with my jacket still in my hand, contemplating putting it on so I
can stop shivering, but I’m too hyper-aware of him staring at me to
move. I huff out a deep breath and stare at my shoes. Luke’s hand
brushes mine for a second as he takes my jacket and leans forward
so he can put it over my shoulders.

“
It’s
November, Avery,” he whispers. “You’re gonna get
hypothermia.”

I shrug it off
so I can thread my arms into it properly and sigh. “Okay. So you
want to tell me something? You should probably do that so I can get
back to studying. I have those midterms I told you about last
night, remember?”

“
Can we go
grab some food? I came straight over after I finished my shift. I’m
starving.”

I fold my arms
across my chest and glare at him. “How did you even know which was
my apartment?”

A guilty look
flashes across his face and he cups his hand to the back of his
neck, avoiding my eyes. “I uh…I slipped some chick in the hall a
fifty and she told me.”

This would be
another great time for an eye roll. “Great. Now people are gonna
think I have random guys coming up here at all hours.”

“
Avery,
please…” Smoke billows on his breath when he speaks. He shoves his
hands into his pockets again, tensing his shoulders against the
cold. Having just told me off about not wearing my jacket, it is
kind of ironic that he doesn’t have one.

I shake my
head and scowl. “Where’s your car?”

“
In the
ProPark.” He nods his head up the street and starts walking slowly,
making sure I’m following. I ball up my fists in my pockets,
contemplating just turning around and going back inside. But I
can’t. I trail after him, seething the whole way.

******

Luke parks up
outside Rosito’s and jogs around his ’67 Ford Fastback to open my
door before I have a chance to do it for myself. The journey over
to the restaurant was quiet. Too quiet. I don’t know what he wants
to talk to me about but he was on edge and that put
me
on edge. I mean, what
can he possibly think is so important? There are only a few topics
of conversation that we can really share, and all of them lead back
to Breakwater. I don’t even want to have to
talk
about the place, but Luke seems
determined. He always was stubborn. He hasn’t changed much since
high school, really. Sure, he’s perhaps a tiny bit taller and he’s
definitely filled out, but the twenty-three-year-old version of him
looks pretty similar to the eighteen-year-old version.

I step out of
the car, giving him a begrudging smile of thanks as I dodge past
him to jog for the restaurant door. Luke doesn’t hang around
either, and we both sigh a little when I pull open the pasta house
door and a blast of hot air hit us in a wall of heat. At least I
don’t have to add freezing cold to my list of reasons to be
uncomfortable.

A waitress
with orthopedic shoes and a nametag that says,
Welcome! I’m Rosie!
shows us to a
table, grinning in an inane way that says she’s probably been doing
the job for many years and she doesn’t even realize she’s smiling
anymore. Thankfully she supplies us with some menus and a wine list
and leaves us to it.

“
You going to
eat?” Luke asks, flipping open his menu.

“
I guess.” I
scan the menu and pick out a duck and squash ravioli dish that
sounds good and then go about picking my nails nervously under the
table. Luke slides my menu away and places it with his at the edge
of the table to signal that we’ve decided. I peek up at him,
waiting for him to say something. It’s annoying when he doesn’t;
he’s dragged me here, after all. If we have to sit through an
awkward dinner before he gets to the point, my nerves are going to
end up irreparably damaged. We have to talk about something. It’s
all too tempting to just sit here and appreciate how amazingly long
his eyelashes look against his skin as he scans the room. Dark,
like charcoal smudges. I shake my head.

“
So…” I do my
best to make my voice light. “Are you still with Casey?”

Luke’s mouth
twists up at the corner. He drums his fingers against the starched
white tablecloth. “Not for over a year now.”

My eyebrows
shoot up. I told Morgan he had a girlfriend just to get her off my
back, not doubting that he and Casey would still be together.
Theirs was one of those rock solid high school sweetheart type
affairs. Luke and I haven’t ever really talked about relationships
before. If he and Casey broke up over a year ago, that means he was
single the last time we met for coffee.

“
Oh. I’m
sorry.”

He shrugs.
“Don’t be. I’m not. It was mutual.” He picks up the saltshaker and
sets about twisting it around in his hands. “What about you? You
still dating…what was his name?”

“
Justin. And
no. That relationship lasted all of five minutes. He found out
about my dad and, well…you know how it is.”

Luke chews on
his lip. “People are just jerks, Iris. There are good ones out
there, though.”

He doesn’t
seem to realize he’s forgotten my new name. I shift uncomfortably
in my seat, about to remind him, and also about to laugh bitterly
about the possibility of there being a guy in the world willing to
date me after the crazy shit that’s gone down in my family, but
before I can do any of that Rosie returns with a small notepad in
hand. Luke orders Bolognese—why do guys always do that when they
order pasta? Always with the Bolognese—and a beer. I order my
ravioli and smirk when I tack a beer on at the end, too. Luke
doesn’t bat a single one of those long black eyelashes. Neither
does Rosie. She set us up with cutlery and disappears without any
chitchat, which makes her the very best waitress in the
world.

Our beers
arrive and I take a long pull at the bottle before setting it down
and squaring off at Luke. “You get why I’m mad, right?”

He replaces
the saltshaker with his beer, which he rolls between his hands,
fiercely studying the bottle. “Yeah, I’m not entirely oblivious. I
know I’m probably the very last person you want to see. I keep
cropping up in your life. I get that you want to move on. I’ve been
pretty selfish over the past few years, continually rehashing
everything with you, but I’ve been dealing with my own…” he looks
up at the ceiling, blows out a long breath, “bad memories, I guess.
After tonight, I can totally understand if you never want to see me
again. But there’s something you need to know, and the news should
come now and from a friendly face so you have time to
prepare.”

My stomach
twists. None of this sounds good. Luke’s face doesn’t exactly look
friendly, either; it looks crumpled and concerned. I hate it. “Just
tell me.”

“
Don’t you
want to eat first?”

If he waits
one more second to explain what’s going on, the hot ball of pent up
fear and paranoia in my chest is going to explode and all that will
remain of me will be the crater left in the bench where I am
sitting. “Please, jus—” I close my eyes and try to remember who I
am now.
Avery Patterson. Avery Patterson.
I am in control.

“
Have you
heard of the Wyoming Ripper?” Luke asks, trepidation lacing his
voice.

“
No. Should I
have?”

Luke’s brown
eyes stare straight at me, making me twitch nervously. His eyebrows
pull together. “No, I guess not. You were young back then. People
probably tried to keep news like that off your radar.”

I grip hold of
my beer and take another swig, never taking my eyes off him. He’s
building up to something, and I have a really bad feeling about
it.

“
The Wyoming
Ripper was the name the media gave to a serial killer who murdered
a string of teenaged girls in Wyoming about five years ago. They
were,” he flinches, picking at the label on his bottle, “they were
pretty brutal murders, Iris.” He immediately realizes his mistake
this time and clenches his jaw. “Sorry. Avery. I
will
remember, I swear.
Anyway, the murders stopped suddenly. There was never any other
trace of the perpetrator, and a lot of people on the force thought
perhaps he’d died or something.” Luke swallows. “Colby Bright has
written a book claiming that your dad was the Wyoming Ripper. That
the reason there were no more murders back then was because your
dad killed himself. It’s coming out in a couple of months. I
thought you ought to know, because the press…the media, well
they’re gonna dig it all up again.”

The beer
bottle shakes in my hand. I set it down on the table and stare at
the beveled rim of the glass. My mind stops working but my body
seems to kick itself into over drive. I start to tremble, every
part of me vibrating like the very molecules I’m constructed out of
are pulling in opposite directions, wanting to escape.

“
Avery?”

I look up at
Luke and open my mouth to speak. I’m breathing far too quickly. It
feels like the oxygen I’m drawing inside my chest is carrying a
thousand razor blades down my windpipe with it.
“
Colby Bright
?
Adam Bright’s brother?” I whisper, my voice incredulous.

“
Yeah. He’s
running for mayor again. It’s purely a publicity stunt. They’ll
never be able to prove it was your dad who killed all those
girls.”

“
Publicity?”
I’m repeating random words now, but I can’t for the life of me form
a proper thought. I stand up and the room tilts on a drunken angle.
“Excuse me,” I mutter.

Luke gets up
when I leave the table, his hand pressing lightly on the base of my
spine as I hurry toward the ladies room. I shove back the swing
door and rush into a stall before I throw up everywhere, getting
most of it on the bathroom floor. The second time my stomach heaves
I do better, hitting the bowl for the most part. I fall back and
slump against the stall door, staring at the grainy pattern on the
opposite wall. It takes ten minutes for the cold to seep up through
the tiled floor and into my bones. I get to my feet and rinse out
my mouth, doing my best to fix up my mascara where it’s run. When I
leave the bathroom, Luke is waiting for me, leaning up against the
wall. He looks anxious.

“
Do you want
me to take you home?”

I walk numbly
back to our table and sit down. “Yeah, but… I think I just need a
minute. Can we wait a sec?”

“
Sure.” He
sits back down in his seat and starts cracking his knuckles. “I’m
sorry. I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you
but—”

“
Do you think
he did it?”

Luke goes
still. “No. No, of course not. I knew your dad. He was…”

Loving? Kind?
Always smiling? A complete joker?

I bite back
the bile in my throat and snatch up my beer. The bottle’s empty in
three mouthfuls. “I need something stronger.”

“
I don’t know
if that’s such a good idea.”

At this point
Rosie arrives with our food and my stomach clenches. She goes to
set our plates down but Luke sighs and holds up his hand. “Any
chance we can get that to go?”

If Rosie’s
bothered or even cares that we’re being difficult, she does a damn
good job of hiding it. “Not a problem, kids.”

She disappears
with our food and returns a minute later with two plastic
containers. Luke pays and we leave. Outside, he pauses at the
passenger side of his Fastback. “If I take you home right now, what
are you going to do?”

I grip my
hands around my arms, too hollow to shiver or even react to the
bitter weather. There’s an arctic locker inside me, way colder than
anything New York in November has to offer. “I’m going to call
Morgan and she’s going to hook me up with a bottle of Jack,” I tell
him, knowing that she will. She’s my best friend, after all, and
she has a stash of alcohol that would shame a liquor
store.

Luke huffs.
“If I take you to a bar and get you a shot, do you promise you’ll
go home and go to bed?”

I level my
gaze with his and register the worried look on his face.
“No.”

He sags
against the car and rakes his hands through his hair. “Okay. You’re
coming with me.”

“
Luke, no!
I’ll be fine, I—”

“
You’re a
goddamned beautiful girl, Avery. I’m not letting you loose in New
York City where any frat jerk could take advantage of you.” He
opens the car door and ushers me inside, and I comply without a
fuss. I choose to ignore the fact that he just called me beautiful.
I’m far too screwed up to feel weird about that right now. I have
no idea where Luke’s taking me but if it isn’t towards a bottle of
something seriously strong, I’m leaving. Half an hour later, we
pull up outside a three story brick building in Wiltshire. It looks
like it was probably a factory of some sort once upon a time, but
now it’s apartments. Luke let us in and leads me toward an elevator
in the lobby, but I shake my head. I am already having trouble
breathing. The last thing I need is an enclosed space. He seems to
understand and we take the stairs up all three flights. There’s
only one door up here besides the scuffed metal ones giving entry
to the elevator. Luke pulls a set of keys from the pocket of his
jeans and opens the door.