Leaning back onto her pillow, she made a heart sign with her index fingers and thumbs.
“You want a Valentine?” Where the hell was he going to find something like that this time of year?
She shook her head and made the sign again.
“I think she’s trying to tell you she loves you,” Ashley said.
Trish nodded, those tired eyes washing over him. She pointed at her chest, then him, then made the sign one more time.
Tripp could have cried, but Gracie interrupted his meltdown by handing Trish a couple tissues. “She’s tired, guys. Let’s let her rest.”
Tripp took a chance and told Trish, “I never stopped loving you, Pooh Bear.”
She’d never liked his nickname for her. Predictably, she flipped him her middle finger. But for the first time in her life, Trish did it with a smile
Epilogue
There were good days. There were bad days. A good day was Trish impatiently wanting out of bed the minute Tripp arrived, then standing on her own two feet and walking a few steps to prove she could. A good day was Andy crying because her baby girl had just signed that she loved her mom and could Andy ever forgive her? Or the morning Trish shot Tripp two hands full of flying fingers, which Gracie translated into, “It’s damned time you learn American Sign Language, so I can talk to you again, Trippster!”
Tripp had once hated her nickname for him almost as much as she’d hated being called Pooh Bear. Yeah. Good times.
A bad day was Tucker Chase calling to inform Tripp of everything he and his team had found in Doug Driscoll’s basement apartment in nearby Arlington. Another body bag and another woman’s lifeless, tortured body. A bloody stainless-steel table. Two damp drains in the concrete floor, both ripe with plenty of forensic evidence. Pulleys bolted to two-by-twelve-foot ceiling joists. A heavy chain attached to those pulleys. Meat hooks dangling at the end of that chain.
Tucker had already reported everything his team had found hidden in Driscoll’s trench coat, the weapons he’d planned to use on Ashley. The sharp knives and rolls of fishing line. The wire, pliers, fishhooks, and duct tape. But the small ballpeen hammer and all those loose six-inch nails were the worst. The creepy bastard was one crazy motherfucker.
Jameson’s profile had been accurate as hell. Not only did Driscoll reside close by and travel Interstate 395 on a daily basis, but he’d suffered a catastrophic injury as a small child, that resulted in him being medically castrated. Compound that glaring shortcoming—no pun intended—with his mother’s bizarre compulsion to tell the world about his lack of manhood, and Driscoll hated women and pretty much all men. But he only vented his insane obsession on women because real men scared him. He was the ultimate voyeur, a photographer whose career field offered graphic stimulation, as well as vivid real-life scenarios to fuel his twisted need to prove he was still powerful…albeit in a pitiful, impotent way.
The altar where Driscoll commemorated his work yielded photos of eleven missing women. Tucker’s team had already identified the four from Pennsylvania and the three from Massachusetts. Identification of the rest pended DNA results from the body bag found at the last crime scene. Counting the two that got away, Ashley and Trish, and the three murders from two years earlier, that made a grand total of sixteen women Driscoll had violated, intended to violate, or murdered. Not a day went by that Tripp didn’t wish he could kill the son of a bitch again.
“Are you ready?” he called out from where he was sitting in Ashley’s living room. Since his apartment had been an uglier crime scene than hers, he’d moved in with Ashley after Director Chase gave them the green light. Tripp had cleaned the mess in his place, then moved most of his stuff to storage. He’d only brought his clothes and his shaving kit with him to Ashley’s.
October and November had been all about Trish’s recovery. She was home now, and Andy was happier than Tripp had seen her in years. Christmas had come and gone. After an unseasonably warm December, January brought ice and snow flurries to the Eastern Seaboard. Despite the wintry weather, movers had packed TEAM HQ while all of the agents were on two-weeks holiday leave. Things were looking up.
And there she was, wearing a clingy sweater dress the same color as her eyes. Ashley no longer wore man-shirts or pants, but this was the prettiest he’d seen her. The dress hugged her curves and accentuated her plump cleavage in all the best ways. The fabric flowed like sapphire blue water over her figure, dipping at her waist, making his heart pump like crazy. The lace of a white camisole peeked above her breasts, framing them like two plump gifts he wanted to put his mouth and hands on.
She’d rigged part of her hair into a bun crisscrossed with golden wires and dotted with sapphire gems. The rest hung down her back in an ebony sheet of silky softness that rippled when she moved. But those matching blue, fuck-me heels… Not only did they make her legs longer, but the thought of them on his shoulders later today made Tripp hard as hell. He jumped to his feet, his throat dry, and reached for her hand.
“Let me look at you,” he said, his voice full of gravel and grit.
“Are you ready?” she asked breathlessly.
“Baby, I am so ready. Oh, you mean to get going?”
She lifted her face to the ceiling and laughed. Seeing the tender expanse of sweet-smelling skin between her chin and chest was invitation enough. Tripp tugged her against his body and buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the luscious scent of her hair. This shy, timid creature had become his reason for living. Ashley had changed his life and all of
