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  PULLED

  BENEATH

  MARNI MANN

  Booktrope Editions

  Seattle, WA 2014

  COPYRIGHT 2014 MARNI MANN

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Inquiries about additional permissions

  should be directed to: [email protected]

  Cover Design by T.M. Frazier

  Edited by Steven Luna

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-219-5

  EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-315-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014903331

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PREVIEW OF PULLED WITHIN

  ALSO BY MARNI MANN

  MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE

  Dad, thank you for sharing your love for Maine.

  Because of you, it will always be my home. I love you.

  PROLOGUE

  MY FINGERS CURLED AROUND THE EDGE of the mattress, squeezing the pillow top with all my strength and using it to slowly drag myself toward the lip of the bed. I knew how late it was, and I didn’t want to wake David. He was sleeping soundly on my other arm, so I carefully pulled it from underneath him. My wrist passed the tip of his nose, and my fingers brushed over his cheek.

  Once freed, I sat up and placed my feet on the floor. I rubbed the small of my back, arching and bowing and pumping back and forth to alleviate the pain. His bed wasn’t the most comfortable I’d ever slept in…but whenever I came to David’s apartment, sleeping wasn’t what I did on that mattress.

  I glanced over my shoulder at his soft brown hair, long enough to cover most of his forehead. It was ordinarily swept to the side so it wouldn’t dangle in his eyes. His hair hadn’t changed at all since high school. Neither had his facial hair; the slightest dusting of scruff decorated his cheeks, which he’d shave off in the morning. His nails were short—no white at the tips since he had just cut them yesterday. He trimmed them every Sunday night before bed…I’d learned this and his other habits our senior year, when we’d dated for nine months. We didn’t last once we went off to different colleges. But after we’d graduated and returned home, we were both single…again. I knew it was the comfort I felt in his fingers, the familiarity of his features, the expectedness of him that had drawn me back to his bed. That was because there had been so much unexpected that had happened with The Ex—the guy I’d dated in college, who I wouldn’t even think of by name anymore—so I really just wanted something light.

  David knew my intentions. Very well, in fact.

  I had spoken them several times, even just a few hours ago before he’d tugged off my shirt and dropped it on his bedroom floor. That didn’t stop him from asking me to hang out every night after work, or from trying to be so attentive, or from trying to be what he thought I wanted. His efforts weren’t enough to make me spend the night.

  I didn’t know what it would take for that to happen. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything that could.

  The sheet was looped around each of his legs and rested horizontally across his butt, leaving his back completely bare. My mouth opened from the sight. My teeth sank into my bottom lip as memories from just an hour ago triggered the reaction. Just because I couldn’t commit to a relationship didn’t mean I wasn’t attracted to him, or that I would ever get tired of admiring his body. I wondered if he was dreaming about the same thing I was thinking about now. Heavy breaths came from him, not quite a snore, with soft whimpers at the tail of each exhale. He had fallen asleep so easily, only minutes after I’d climbed off his slick flesh, our bodies wet with sweat. Our skin was now completely dry, and I wasn’t anywhere closer to getting any sleep.

  There were two windows on the far side of the room. Thin strips of light from the street below shone through the cracked blinds, revealing my jeans and flip-flops in a pile by the door, my bra, panties and tank top at the end of the bed. Once fully dressed, I tiptoed to his side. Since my camera was at home, still in its case after the photo shoot I’d conducted the day before, I reached into my purse and removed my cell phone. I held it several feet from his face and zoomed in on his profile. Bands of light crossed his cheeks and lips, a placid expression warmed his face. I needed to capture all of it…not because I wanted to hold the sight, but because it was beautiful. David’s looks were loud, enhanced by his perfect hair, sculpted muscles from daily tennis matches and flawless skin. He was prettier than I was.

  And he was safe.

  I tapped my camera icon, watching the photo briefly freeze on my screen before it was added to the collection. As I was about to take a second shot, he stirred. In his new position, the light vanished from his face and only touched the very corner of his mouth. The coloring was as soft as a kiss. I knew if that’s what I gave him, pressing my lips to that small section, he would wake with a smile. And then he would ask me to come back to bed, and he would pour me juice in the morning over a breakfast of hardboiled eggs.

  My throat began to tighten; my chest rose and fell with greater speed. I took a step away from the bed, then another. Backing out of his room and down the steps to the first floor, I closed the front door behind me. And as I moved down his sidewalk, my limbs finally relaxed, my breathing returned to normal. The streetlamps that had lit up his room were spaced evenly down the walk, illuminating the path to the visitor parking lot.

  As I drove out of his condominium complex, I thought about the dark circles that would be under my mom’s eyes in the morning. She would hear me open the door when I got home. She always heard, it didn’t matter what time I returned or how quiet I tried to be, and she wouldn’t be able to go back to bed. That was one of the reasons I wanted my own place. In the few weeks that had followed graduation, I had been saving at least half of my paychecks. I still didn’t have enough money.

  �
��You’re not even willing to stay the whole night with him,” my mom would say in the morning when she made a new pot of coffee for me, “so why not just cut things off with him? You’re way too young to settle down, anyway.”

  That conversation would turn into a repeat of the one we’d had a few nights before when I’d returned at the same time. She knew what was happening between David and me. Mom and I had the kind of relationship where I could always be completely honest with her. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like David; she’d thought he was a good guy since high school. She just wanted to make sure that I came first, that my photography and my interests were pursued before I got into something deep. I tried to tell her that within my lens, David really hadn’t come into focus—or anything even close to that. She said the more we hung out, that would change. She believed there were signs to prove it. She had even reminded me of that when she had sent a text message earlier, writing how disappointed she was that I had skipped our meeting to have dinner with him.

  That was another reason I needed my own place. I was also living with my employer.

  During the six o’clock meeting that I had bailed on, my parents and I were supposed to discuss what pictures should be uploaded to their website. I had taken hundreds in the last few weeks and I knew it was going to be more than just discussing each one thoroughly, but how they needed to be manipulated, combined, faded, brightened. The flowers that they grew, planted and designed with were already exquisite. But these photos wouldn’t just showcase their work, they would sell their services and that was a lot of pressure. Dinner with David sounded like more fun at the time.

  I rolled down the window and rested my arm along the ledge, waving my fingers in the open air as the hot breeze blew the hair off my face. The radio played a song that I knew and I sang along. The streets were quiet. The humidity was still thick even at this hour and my windshield fogged from the air conditioning.

  I knew I couldn’t leave David’s at two o’clock every morning and go to work a few hours later. I needed at least a little more sleep than that. Not that I would be getting any with my best friend, Gianna, returning home in a few days. Summer was our favorite season in Sarasota. We had the town, the beaches and the bars to ourselves for the next four months until all the snowbirds came back. And in a couple weeks, Gianna and I would hopefully have our own place.

  I pulled into the entrance of my parents’ subdivision and rounded the first bend. I could smell smoke in the distance. Brush fires were common this time of year, and since the weather affected my parents’ business, I was constantly reminded of how little rain we had received this spring. The current fires were several miles east and largely contained. But a few years before, I’d witnessed how fast they could spread and how much damage they could cause. I had volunteered to help clean-up after one. They were a serious danger. I hoped they wouldn’t be heading our way.

  I took the second turn and noticed red and white lights flickering across the palm trees up ahead. Blue lights followed. I knew those colors came from emergency vehicles, but why were they in my neighborhood in the middle of the night? It couldn’t be the fires…the smell would be stronger, clouds of smoke would be filling the air. Maybe someone got sick? It couldn’t be for any other reason…not where I lived. Nothing ever happened here.

  My fingers gripped the steering wheel even harder as I prepared to take the final corner. The road straightened as our block came into full view, and my foot hammered the brake. A crowd stood in the middle of the road. Faces I recognized. Neighbors…my neighbors. They were huddled together, dressed in their pajamas, their arms wrapped around each other. Their bodies were pointed toward the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  My house.

  A sharp pain began to stab at my stomach when I noticed the yellow tape. It bordered our lot, wrapping around each of the palms and disappearing into the darkness of the backyard. Our front door continuously opened and closed, strangers moving inside and out.

  Strangers dressed in uniforms.

  I knew my mouth was open. I knew my hands were squeezing the steering wheel so tightly that my fingers were cramping. I knew my feet were pushing so hard on the brake that my toenails were threatening to bend. But even as my mind bolted to the house, rushing between the crowds and tearing through the yellow tape, my body was unable to move.

  “Drew,” a woman said. “Thank God you’re okay, honey. We all thought you were inside…with your parents.”

  I turned my head and looked toward the voice.

  “Drew’s here,” the woman yelled. It took a few seconds, but I finally realized it was Carol, a neighbor I’d known since middle school when my family bought this house. She pointed down to me and waved. “Drew’s here,” she repeated, “she’s safe.” She then glanced at me. “Drew…I…”

  I concentrated on her face. She was trying to tell me something.

  It suddenly became so clear…in her stare, in her mouth, in the way her shoulders drooped. In the way she had said my name.

  Yellow tape.

  It was surrounding my house, which everyone was staring at. They knew. But what exactly did they know?

  “What happened?” I asked her. I felt the words come from my mouth, but they had slid through my lips on their own as if someone other than me was forcing them out. I had no control. It had been lost as soon as I’d passed the last turn in our neighborhood…as soon as I’d witnessed the people standing in the road. The same foreign strength that had pushed those words out of my mouth also put my car in park, opened the driver side door and compelled my feet onto the pavement.

  I was moving, rushing, sprinting toward the house.

  To my parents.

  I didn’t feel the shoulders that bumped me as I passed. I didn’t feel my flip-flop fall off. I didn’t feel the rain trickle down my forehead, burning my eyes as it softened my makeup.

  “I can’t let you go in there,” a man said. His face was close to my ear.

  I felt his breath spreading over my cheek, warming skin that felt frozen despite how sweltering it was outside. Then I felt his arms as he wrapped them around me from behind, lifting me off the ground and holding me against him. I couldn’t take another step. He wouldn’t let me.

  “It’s a crime scene,” he said. “Only authorized personnel can go inside.”

  Crime scene.

  Yellow tape…I knew what that stood for. I’d seen it in movies and on the news. But what did that mean for my parents?

  “That’s my house!” I shouted. “My mom and dad are in there.”

  “You’re Drew Stevens?”

  The buttons of his uniform, the firmness of his bulletproof vest, the thickness of his belt all pushed against my back. I squeezed his hands, trying to pull them off my body but he wouldn’t budge. “Yes…I’m Drew.”

  His posture softened; his grip loosened. “The detectives are going to want to ask you a few questions. I’m going to set you down and escort you over to them, okay?”

  “Where are my parents? I need them. I need…”

  My voice wasn’t any louder than a whisper. I didn’t know if he could hear me over all the chaos that surrounded us, but that was all I had. All I had left in me.

  “There were signs…forced entry…a broken window…blood,” he said.

  I couldn’t process any of his sentences, just certain words. Evil words. My head shook; I blocked my ears to keep from hearing him, trying to push the information away, even though I knew. I knew the meaning behind what he was telling me.

  I knew my whole family was dead.

  I should have been here. I should have been with my parents instead of with David. If only I’d stayed for the meeting. If only I’d had dinner with them. If only I’d slept in my own bed. I could have protected them…stopped this…saved them.

  “…sole survivor,” he continued.

  Whatever hope that was left in my body suddenly spiked. And the churning, the screaming, the shaking, all came to a halt. “A survivor? Who
?”

  Because he was still holding me against him, he turned us to the left, facing me toward the parked ambulance. “She’s by the back door.”

  I looked to where he pointed. Sitting on the pavement, hooked to a leash that a paramedic held, mouth open and panting, was Bella, my parents’ four-year-old yellow Lab. They had bought her when I’d gone off to college. Mom said she helped with her empty nest syndrome. Now she was all that was left.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Your neighbors came outside after they were woken up by Bella,” he said. He obviously knew my question extended far beyond our dog, how she’d gotten out of the house and how she’d survived. “She must have escaped through the doggy door and was circling your front yard, barking. When they saw the broken window, they called 9-1-1.”

  Bella’s eyes had found me. She was bucking against the leash, her front paw lifting off the ground and her body wiggling, trying to free herself from the restraint. I was doing the same.

  “Put me down,” I begged.

  “Are you going to try to go inside the house?”

  I dug my fingernails into his hands as they gripped my stomach even tighter, and I pinched his skin as hard as I could. “No! Let go of me! I just…I just want her,” I shouted. I needed to feel her fur against my face, to wrap my arms around her, to be comforted by the one remaining member of my family.

  He placed me on the ground but my feet didn’t hold me. My own weight was even too much. My knees buckled and I collapsed, tiny rocks digging into my palms as my hands landed on the pavement. The hard surface scraped the skin off my shins. When the wail burst through my lips, Bella’s tail stopped wagging. Her cries then pierced the air.

  I slapped the officer’s hands away from me. I didn’t need his help. I needed Bella. I dragged myself closer to her. She kicked and jerked against the leash, her whining getting louder as I moved toward her.

  “This is Drew,” the officer said, following directly behind me, but speaking to the paramedic who was holding Bella. “She’s the daughter.”