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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ELLIOT

“ H oly fucking shit, Amelia,” I say, awe and no small amount of disbelief in my voice as I glance around her home office.

Spread over the entire top floor of her townhouse, it’s a huge space with high ceilings, a massive desk set up with at least six monitors on one wall, purple-painted, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along another packed with what looks like hundreds of romance and true crime novels and assorted knickknacks.

There’s a big squashy chair, a basket on the floor piled with soft-looking blankets, a small, retro-looking fridge, a decorative iron shelf with snacks, candy, and an assortment of mugs, and a floor lamp shaped like a woman’s leg, complete with fishnets, high heels, and a shade shaped like a miniskirt.

“You like?” She grins at me and fuck, she looks edible. She’s leaning against the doorframe watching me in her space. Wearing my button down that hits her mid-thigh, her face bare and her hair damp from the shower we shared, she looks both cozy and sexy, a wildly appealing combination.

“I love it. I mean, your whole house is amazing, but up here? This looks exactly like you.” And it does. Tech, romance, and whimsy. All the different sides of this fascinating woman will never stop amazing me.

She walks towards me and winds her arms around my waist, smiling up at me when I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her closer.

“It’s my favorite place. A few years ago, when I told Gabe I was transferring to the Boston GenTech office so I could take the chief software engineer position, he had a little trouble adjusting.

I lived on campus when I was at Berkeley, but I was still close to home.

My leaving for Boston coincided with Liv leaving for college in D.C.

, and Gabe spent, like, three months carrying on about his empty nest. Then he went all papa bear on me and suddenly decided that what he needed was an investment property in Beacon Hill and was all, oh Amelia, you might as well live in the townhouse since it’s just sitting there .

” She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, and I laugh, bending to kiss her forehead.

“As if I couldn’t see straight through him.

Beacon Hill is a little…high society for my taste, but it made him happy. ”

I glance around the space again. “I think it’s worth it for this office alone.”

Her gaze follows mine. “I know, right? Gabe didn’t care what I did with the place, and I definitely didn’t need six bedrooms, so I knocked out all the walls up here to do this.

It’s no Back Bay brownstone full of brothers, but it works for me.

” Her voice is a little wistful and I have to staunch the little kernel of hope that a Back Bay brownstone full of brothers is exactly where she would like to end up. “Come see what I figured out.”

She takes my hand and leads me to the far wall behind her desk, and the second I see what she has here, I suck in a breath, my eyes widening. I was too busy focusing on everything else to pay attention to this, but now that I’m standing in front of it, I can’t tear my gaze away.

The entire wall is covered in enlarged images of Henry’s postcards with certain words highlighted and circled.

There are maps, typewritten lists, and pictures taped up in an organized sort of chaos.

And interspersed among everything else are sheets of lined paper covered in Amelia’s neat handwriting, each page written in a different color of what looks like marker.

“Okay, so before you say anything, I think I should probably explain why my wall looks like I’m a crazy, red string conspiracy theorist.”

I turn to her, chuckling. “I figured it was the true crime lover in you. I don’t think you’re a crazy anything. This is fucking amazing, but yeah, I think an explanation would be helpful.”

She nods, walking towards the wall and spinning back around to face me.

“Okay, a little background on me. My freshman year of college, I took an international relations class. It didn’t have anything to do with my major, but it looked interesting, so even though it was an upper-level class, I gave it a go.

Turns out that was a little bit of a mistake, but I didn’t know it until after the add/drop deadline.

By the time I realized it was actually hard as fuck and I was in way over my head, I was stuck. ”

I laugh at the disgruntled expression on her face. “If I had a dollar for every student who has come to me to plead their case for dropping one of my classes without ramifications one day after the add/drop deadline.”

She grins and flops back into her desk chair, crossing her legs in a way that gives me a flash of lacy underwear and then spinning around in a circle.

Jesus, I adore her. I more than adore her.

I’m ass over tits in love with her. “I forgot I was talking to a professor. Well, my own pride wouldn’t let me go plead with a professor for anything, so I decided nothing would do but that I ace the class.

My regular study methods weren’t working though, and I was kind of desperate, so late one night during midterms, I decided to rewrite all my notes from class using one color for each country we were studying.

I taped them all to my dorm room wall so I could see the connections between the countries, and for some reason, that worked. And you know what?”

“You aced the class.”

This time her grin is smug and satisfied. “You’re damn right I did, and the study habit stuck. Ever since then, every time I need to figure out something complex, it goes up on the wall. Something about seeing it all laid out in front of me helps me make the connections.”

“Jesus, I’m obsessed with you,” I murmur, glancing from the wall to her.

The flash of uncertainty in her eyes has me scowling, dropping to my knees in front of her. I run my hands up and down her thighs and wait until her gaze meets mine. “What’s that look?”

“What look?” she asks, in a way that makes me sure she knows exactly what look I’m talking about.

I raise an eyebrow at her. “The look that makes me think you doubt that I am absolutely, utterly obsessed with every damn thing about you.”

She shrugs, looking up at her wall and then back at me. “I mean, it’s not that I doubt it, exactly, but more that no one ever really has before. I’m kind of the weird girl.”

I take her hands, pressing a kiss to each palm.

“Ames, my hobby is bringing dead plants back to life and I have a five-pound dog my zany grandmother sometimes carries around in a tote bag. I code apps for fun, and seven months ago, I met a girl on a plane and knew she was mine before I even knew her name. I think your weird matches mine perfectly. Your weird was meant for me.”

She studies me, a smile playing over her lips as she laces her fingers together behind my neck. “You think so?”

I press up on my knees and kiss her, my hands cupping her face and my thumbs sweeping back and forth over her cheeks. “I know so. And if I didn’t before, this weirdo true crime conspiracy wall would have done it. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen, and I need you to explain it to me immediately.”

She leans in and kisses me again. “I think I’m obsessed with you right back.”

I smile against her lips. “Mystery Girl, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

She pushes to stand, turning to study her wall, her hands on her hips. “I think I’m about to top it.”

I turn so we’re standing shoulder to shoulder. “Hit me with it.”

“Okay, so we’ve kind of been spinning our wheels, right?

Like, we’ve found all kinds of records, but combing through it takes forever, and while we could definitely keep plugging away, I couldn’t help but think that there must be an easier way.

So, one night last week, I was re-reading some of the postcards, and it hit me.

” She walks to the wall, pointing out the postcard images she has taped in a row.

“We’ve been reading them as a whole. Proof that Henry loved Clara.

And they are that, but they’re also filled with clues we didn’t see because we’re too close to it.

Little things we’ve overlooked that, when taken together instead of read as separate entities, reveal so much more than we realized. ”

“The highlights,” I murmur, scanning each one of them, seeing them through fresh eyes.

She nods. “I started reading them again, one by one, seeing past the pretty words and highlighting the important parts. Places, dates, tiny details of his daily life. There are so many of them, El.” Her voice takes on an excited note, her entire face lit up.

“Just look at them all.” She points to one of the images and I step up behind her, reading the highlighted sections.

I’m writing this from my parents’ house in Mayfair. The lilacs are blooming outside the windows, and the color reminds me of you. Of the dress you wore when we walked the beach in Blackpool, hand-in-hand as the sun shone down on us.

The Allen men do not a romantic bone possess. I may carry their name, but that is where the similarities end. Every bone I possess is filled with romance I save for you and you alone, Clara my love.

My small apartment with a view of the Thames.

British Army, Second Infantry Brigade

And on and on they go. I feel my own excitement rise as I turn to Amelia.

“We can find him.” I didn’t realize until this minute that I haven’t been at all sure that’s the case.

But standing here, looking at all the work Amelia has done on this, I know with a bone-deep certainty that we can.

That we will. And she knows it too; I can see it.

“Bet your tight, gorgeous ass we can,” she says, a sly grin spreading over her face as she drops her hand and squeezes my ass.

I turn to face her and wrap my arms around her waist, yanking her to me. I lean down and press my lips to her neck, grinding my rapidly hardening cock into her. “I think maybe we need to take a break. I need my hands on you again.”

Amelia turns her head and licks my ear, letting out a low laugh at the way my cock jerks between us. “Keep it in your pants, El,” she whispers. “I haven’t even told you the best part yet.”

I groan into her neck. “There’s a better part than what you already told me?”

“Fuck yes there is, and if you let me tell you like a good boy, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me afterwards.”

“Shit,” I mutter, reaching down between us to adjust myself.

She grins at me. “The good boy thing?”

I nod. “Yeah, you bet.”

“Well, I’ll be keeping that one in my pocket for later.”

I kiss her, long and deep, our lips melting together, until we’re both panting. “You are my favorite human, and later tonight, I’m going to do very, very bad things to you for many, many hours.”

Her eyes light up. “You’ll stay?”

I brush her hair away from her face and run my knuckles down her cheek. “Of course I’ll stay. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than hold onto you all night long and wake up with you in the morning.”

Amelia leans up and kisses my jaw. “I thought maybe you would have to get back to Killer.”

I press a kiss to her forehead. “I already texted Cece to go get her. I was never planning on leaving. Now, tell me the best part. Give me all of your brilliance.”

She grins up at me and bounces a little on the toes of her purple fluffy slippers. “El, prepare to be amazed.”