The Last Innocent

by Rebekah Strong

  No one ever came to the broom closet and that suited him just fine. He preferred to be left alone. Especially now that Greg bumped shoulders with him every chance he got. Not to mention Thad’s rapidly souring attitude. Not that Luke blamed him.

  Luke leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his neck and listened to the sound of the AC over the voices down the hall. It was a much nicer sound, but he was starting to wonder if the whoosh wasn’t actually the sound of this case sucking the life out of him.

  Twomey didn’t kill himself. There was no denying it now. But the only evidence he had was on a dead man. The questions kept piling up with no answers. How far up this went was anyone's guess. If this broke, it would make the last administration’s scandals would look like an ice cream social.

  With the woman he loved caught in the middle.

  Maybe with a little maneuvering, he could still close the case quietly and protect her from the worst of it. Right now, the truth was his exclusive turf, and it was what he said it was. Besides, he would probably never have enough evidence to do more than implicate Easton and cast doubt on the other players. Cade was up to his eyeballs in this mess, and more players were surfacing. The more shoulders to bear the blame, the softer the blow. In theory anyway.

  Luke took out his phone and pulled up the photo of the receipt from Easton’s pocket. He zoomed in on the date and spent the next few minutes staring at it, in deep thought about something else.

  The door flew open and Thad breezed in taking off his jacket. When he saw Luke, he started. These days he almost always beat Luke into work. “Oh hey, boss. You’re here early.”

  Luke sat his phone on the desk.

  “Hey, have you talked to Susie?”

  “No. I haven’t even been out for coffee...” Luke was interrupted by the loud ringing and buzzing of his cell phone. Before he could reach out to flip it over, Thad’s eyes flicked to the glowing screen. It read ‘Tully’.

  Thad froze. “What the hell?”

  Luke mashed the silent button.

  “Tell me that wasn’t who I think it was.”

  Luke set his mouth and found himself avoiding Thad’s gaze. Now it was Thad that started pacing the broom closet. Luke sat still looking at the phone cradled in his hands. Time to face the music.

  “Dude, what are you doing? Please tell me you haven’t been spending all this time with her.”

  “She’s sorry about trying to break your nose. She feels bad actually.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about. We pulled a search warrant on her partner, and you’re sleeping with her? Were you sleeping with her then?”

  Luke said nothing.

  “Oh my god,” said Thad. He threw himself into his chair, stunned.

  “We don’t have anything we can move on,” hedged Luke. He knew it sounded pathetic.

  “You’re the one that said we follow every lead, boss, no matter how weak. Not that the receipt in his pocket is exactly weak.” Thad snapped out of his stupor. Now he was angry. “Or do the rules not apply to your love life?”

  At Thad’s challenge, Luke glared. “Leave her out of this. She’s not involved,” he growled.

  “That’s not what I asked you.” Thad calmed down, but he didn’t back away from Luke’s menacing glare. Instead, he pointed at him. “They were close. Very close. How can you be sure she didn’t know about this?”

  “We can’t assume that.” Luke was suddenly defensive. That question occurred to him a million times, but hearing Thad say it out loud grated his conscience.

  “Really? Cuz we’ve been assuming an awful lot in this investigation. What are you gonna do if her dead hero partner turns out to be a political assassin? What are you gonna do if she knew about it?” Thad jabbed a finger in Luke’s direction again. “If it comes down to choosing between blondie and the cold hard bitch truth, which one you gonna pick?”

  Luke’s lip curled when Thad called Tully ‘blondie’.

  “Never mind. Stupid question.” Thad sat back sounding defeated.

  “I’m sorry,” growled Luke.

  “You heard me.” Thad whirled in his chair to look at the morning sun streaming through the window, leaving Luke glaring at air. “Since when does a woman do this to you?”

  When Luke said nothing, Thad plowed on undeterred. “Christmas came early last year when Steve told me I was working with you. But two months ago, a different Luke Marshall walked through that door. I don’t know what happened.”

  Luke didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know either. He ran his hands over his face then through his hair. Thad was right. What was he doing? Tully probably wanted to know if he was coming over after work. He should walk away. Delete her from his phone and never speak to her again. Even as the thought slammed into his mind, he knew he would be knocking on her door at five. Earlier, if he could help it. Thad wouldn’t understand, but she wasn’t just some woman.

  Thad sighed. “And now Cade’s spooked.”

  Luke straightened. “What?”

  “Susie said he came in about thirty minutes before me. He asked for you, but Greg pulled him into his office. She said Cade bolted three minutes later.”

  Luke snatched up his phone and punched in Cade’s number from memory. It rang once and went to voicemail. He dialed again. Straight to voicemail.

  “John, it’s Luke Marshall. You came to see me an hour ago. I assume you want to talk, and you can talk to me directly. Call me back on this number. I’ll meet you somewhere neutral. I promise I’ll work with you as much as I possibly can. We can come to an arrangement. Call me back. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  “And now he won’t pick up the phone, great. Luke? Where are you going? Luke.”

  Luke didn’t hear Thad as he threw the door open and started down the hall. Standing by the file cabinet in his office, Greg didn’t seem surprised to see Luke when he turned around.

  He looked pleased at the fury on Luke’s face. “Your suspects are as skittish as you are. How you ever earned your little nickname is a mystery to me. All you do is tiptoe around trying to keep from offending the local fuzz.”

  Luke stood rooted in the doorway, his ears buzzing.

  “I know what you came here to say. But you’re going to mishandle this one too, Marshall, and you don’t need my help to do it. But you can take comfort in the fact that it will be your last failure at the Bureau. We need real agents, Marshall, not washed up PTSD patients that can’t handle their shit.”

  Luke didn’t mean to do it. But a moment later he heard Susie scream behind him and saw Greg Lawrence looking up at him from the floor. Blood gushed from Greg’s broken nose onto his blue shirt. A bruise was already darkening his left eye socket.

  Luke spun and stalked past a cowering Susie out the front door. Halfway down the block Thad caught up to him.

  “What was that? You punched him?”

  Luke kept walking.

  “Where are you going? Stop walking and talk to me,” Thad yelled at him, making people turn and look.

  Luke pulled up and faced him. “I’m going to find Cade. Make him talk. This ends now.”

  “And do what with it? Are you gonna charge anyone? Who can you charge? Do you even know what you’re doing anymore? What we’re doing?”

  Luke didn’t answer immediately, and Thad threw his hands up.

  “Keep your phone on you,” said Luke as he turned and started to the car. “And stay out of the office. I’m going to find Cade and find out what’s going on. This ends today, one way or another.”

  Thad jerked his head upward once then turned and walked down the street heading for a pub. “Oh,” he said under his breath, “I seriously doubt that.”

  Luke could tell Thad was pissed, but he didn’t really care right now. As fast as he could without running, Luke walked to the parking lot and pulled the Impala keys out of his pocket. His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out of his pocket expecting to see Cade’s number flashing.

  It w
as Tully again. He saw he had missed two calls from her while he was punishing Greg for his transgressions. Something was wrong. She preferred text to calling. Now she’d called three times in a row. Luke mashed the answer button. “Hey,” he said in a low voice.

  Silence greeted him from the other end.

  “Tully?”

  He could hear breathing, and then a sniff, maybe? But no one spoke.

  “Tully, what’s wrong?”

  Luke forgot about Cade. “I’ll be right there,” he said into the phone. He got no answer.

  THIRTY

  Luke rapped on Tully’s door and turned to look at the courtyard. The morning sun found a path through the canopy and sparkled on the stagnant water in the forgotten fountain. It even made the overgrown garden beds look cheerful. A beautiful forgotten place.

  Tully’s gray-haired neighbor was out, as always, obsessively tending her small garden. The only one that received any care. Even in oppressive heat, she was outside stooped over flowers that never reciprocated the love they received. The courtyard was far too shady for them to thrive, still she tended them faithfully. She looked up when Luke entered the courtyard but turned back to her sparse rose bushes without acknowledging him. Her tiny oasis in a world gone mad.

  Luke envied her. She knew that tomorrow would be much like today. Stable, predictable. Meanwhile, his personal rabbit hole kept getting deeper. What he wouldn’t give to curl up on the couch with Tully and watch TV, with none of this mess weighing him down. A mundane activity that he no longer hated the thought of. Now he ached for it.

  As Luke stood contemplating the old woman, he realized Tully still hadn’t answered the door.

  He knocked again. What if she changed her mind? She’d been moody since their weekend at the river house, but she’d had sullen periods as long as he’d known her. He was getting used to them. It always translated to rough sex, not ghosting him. Something felt wrong.

  Luke tried the door handle. It turned. Making a mental note to yell at her for leaving the door unlocked, he pushed it open. When he stepped inside the thick smell of ethyl alcohol hit his nose. His senses heightened instantly.

  “Tully?”

  In the kitchen, he skidded to a stop. Not much of a cook, Tully’s kitchen was usually spotless. Now it was an unholy mess. Broken whiskey bottles lay in the sink. Shards of glass were strewn over the counter, their former contents dripping onto the floor.

  She wasn’t there. Luke drew his gun and held it at low ready.

  “Tully? Tully?” He yelled her name as he ran across the room, glass crunching under his shoes. Pushing through the door into the bedroom, lit by the morning sun. His eyes flew around looking for any sign of her. Nothing.

  The bathroom door was ajar, and the light was on. He crossed to it. Peeking through he could make out the neck of a glass bottle and the hand clutching it. Gently he pushed the door open.

  The bathroom was also in shambles. The shower curtain and rod lay across the tub and towels were thrown everywhere. In the middle of the chaos, Tully sat on the floor leaning against the wall. Her phone lay on the floor next to her. The bottle in her hand was empty, and she didn’t move when he came in. She kept looking straight ahead.

  Luke holstered his gun. At the click, she flinched but still didn’t look up. He knelt down trying to process the dueling relief and worry. She was safe, but she was not okay.

  He expected her to be drunk. She usually was. But when he got closer, he saw her eyes were clear and bright, and her breath was sweet. She hadn’t had a single drink.

  No tears threatened, but the look on her face ripped to his soul. Luke guessed she had sat on the floor all night long.

  Everything he could think to say sounded stupid and clumsy, so he sat down beside her. They didn’t say anything for a long time.

  After a while, she turned her head away from him. “It’s my fault he’s dead,” she whispered. She clutched and released the bottle like a security blanket. Like she needed to feel it in her hand. It chinked on the tile as she rocked it around. “He was trying to help me. He was just trying to help me. All he ever did was try to get me clean. This is my fault.”

  Without thinking he turned and cupped her cheek in his hand. She didn’t fight him as he pulled her face around, but she squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him.

  “Maybe he did,” said Luke.

  Her eyes opened and searched the tile. Since they got back from the river house, she had made a valiant effort to open up. She even spoke briefly about her father. Maybe it was why she had been so moody.

  Little by little she had exposed her wounds to him, still raw behind the cocky disguise. But now he saw the other side of Tully Meara in all its ugliness, peeking out from behind the beautiful one. He was sure he wasn’t meant to see this much, but he had and now he couldn't go back.

  He pulled her onto his lap. Her rigid body relaxed, and she let go of the bottle. It rolled to a stop next to the tub.

  Tully buried her face in his neck as he stroked her hair. Between ragged breaths, her mouth moved like she wanted to speak but thought better of it.

  Luke’s arms tightened around her as a sharp memory hit him. The memory of a young boy peeking through a crack in the door as Joe Marshall gently picked up his wife from the bedroom floor and laid her on the bed. Her demons had bested her too.

  For twenty years, Luke struggled to understand how his father loved a woman that had betrayed him. Betrayed them. As he sat on the floor with Tully, it made more sense. Love strips away logic and replaces it with recklessness.

  A tear reached through his shirt and jerked him back to the present. The woman in his arms was disintegrating. Everyone she’d ever cared about was gone. He should be gone too, but there he was on the bathroom floor, in desperate love with her.

  Enough.

  Pete was dead and damned if he would let Tully follow her partner down that path. They could start over and do it right this time.

  Tully stirred and sharp pain in his back reminded him they had been on the floor for a long time. He stood up and lifted her in his arms. She reached for his neck and pulled herself closer as he carried her into the bedroom.

  Sweeping one hand out, he knocked the throw pillows to the floor and laid her on the bed. She burrowed into his chest and soon her breathing evened out. An hour later eyelashes stopped batting against his neck.

  Luke couldn't fall asleep so easily, but the struggle was over. He would sacrifice a thousand reputations if it meant saving her. She wouldn’t be the one to pay. Not while he had the power to stop it.

  The next thing he knew, Luke woke up. He’d fallen asleep. From the light, he judged it was late afternoon. He sat up and looked at the clock. It was six o'clock. Work flitted through his mind. He had skipped an entire day of work, after punching out his boss. But he had more pressing concerns. Tully was gone.

  He jumped out of bed and peered into the great room. She sat at the table wearing a white tank and her favorite ratty sweats, arms wrapped around her knees. The kitchen was once again spotless, and every vestige of her meltdown had vanished. Even the smell of liquor was gone. He walked to the island and leaned against it.

  “I’m sorry.” She avoided his gaze.

  “ No apology is necessary, but an explanation would be nice.”

  “You don’t want that, trust me.”

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I don’t…I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “I gathered as much.” Luke grabbed the throw from the back of the couch. Wrapping it around her hunched shoulders, he kissed her hair.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and finally looked at him. “I don’t want to drink anymore. I can do that. The rest of it won’t be so easy.” She looked out the picture window.

  Luke thought of the pill bottles he’d found in her medicine cabinet. Yeah, that part would be a little harder. Sensing she might need a minute, he walked to the kitch
en and made a scene of looking for the coffee. He rifled through the pantry with no success.

  “It’s in the freezer.”

  He gave her a sheepish smile then reached in the freezer and grabbed it. Behind him, he heard her speak softly.

  “It’s time. Time to move on. There are some things, and people, I need to leave in the past. Where they belong.”

  Luke turned around. She was looking off into the distance, her eyes bright and clear like the sky scrubbed clean after a storm. He put the coffee can on the counter and forgot it. “You breaking up with me?” He kept his voice light, but he didn’t know what the answer would be.

  She looked confused. “What? No.”

  He walked over to her and fell to his knees beside her chair. The blanket had fallen off her hunched shoulders. He settled it back into place.

  “Why would I do that? You’re the one thing in my life that isn’t physically killing me or breaking my heart. That’s why I have to change; so I can keep you.”

  Luke reached up and kissed her forehead but let her continue.

  “I’m just…I don’t…really know…how to do this. I’m sorry.” Flustered, she shielded her face with her hands. “It’s just that…how am I supposed to undo my mistakes and become a different person?”

  He wrapped his hands around hers. “I don’t think people really change. I think they screw up the courage to tell the past to go fuck itself, or they don’t.”

  She relaxed a little and sighed with pleasure as his warm hand covered her icy ones and returned his smile. “I dumped a lot of baggage on you all at once, and there's more. If you ran for the hills, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Yeah, that was awesome of you.” He broke into a grin relieved to know she still wanted him. He reached up and brushed the hair back from her face.

  “Some people are harder to love than others,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. I thought you were pretty easy.”