“There’s more.” She scrolled through her photos and landed on another picture of the girls, this time at the beach. Cait was also in the photo. She sat behind a shabby sandcastle. As cute as the girls were, it was hard to ignore Cait in the background. Her olive skin complimented her black bikini as she held a red plastic shovel in her hand. The soft outline of her abs was covered in grains of sand. And her hair, wet from the ocean, was pulled into a low ponytail. She wasn’t as thin as I had remembered her being, though that was a given. Twenty years and being middle-aged doesn’t always allow for a perfect beach body. But what Cait had hidden under her white button-up and black blazer was just as arousing and gorgeous as the body she had when we were in our twenties.
“How old are they?” I placed my hand under her phone.
“Ten and five,” Cait said. I meant to take the phone from her hand, but she kept hold of it. My fingers now rested on top of hers. Her skin was warm and smooth, and she placed her fingers between mine as we both held her phone. The photos had become just an excuse for us to stay in this position, but neither of us moved. After several seconds of unwavering silence, Cait finally spoke. “I’m not seeing anyone,” she said as she looked up at me.
She pulled the phone from my hand and sat upright. Her mouth was less than a foot from mine as I sat paralyzed. Not from fear of the possibility of kissing her, but from anger at the possibility that she was about to ruin a perfectly innocent evening. We were just old friends catching up. There was no pressure to be more than that—at least not until now.
“Cait….”
“Do you remember the first time we kissed?” she casually asked. She kept her distance as she opened her body more toward me.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“It was the last day of self-defense training. I remember because you gave me a nice-sized bruise on my hip.”
“It’s not my fault you didn’t know how to land,” I cautiously teased.
A singe of heat picked up behind my neck and traveled down my spine as I watched Cait smile. She was incredibly beautiful. And this would have been the perfect moment for her to kiss me.
Except it wasn’t.
As much as I wanted to feel her body against mine—as much as I wanted to feel normal and allow myself to get close to her—I just couldn’t. It was as if that part of me, the part that knew how to connect to another human, had been ripped from my chest and set on fire.
“We were alone, in the elevator,” she continued. “I had wanted to kiss you all during class. Each time you slammed me into the ground or put me in a restraint.” She paused and her cheeks turned a pale pink. “All I could think was, ‘three more hours,’ ‘two more hours.’ I was petrified to make the first move. I didn’t know how you felt about me—”
“Wasn’t it obvious?” I interrupted. It was baffling to me that she didn’t know how infatuated I was with her from the first moment I saw her. It was a different time back then, so it came naturally to hide those kinds of feelings until utmost certainty the feelings were mutual. But I thought it was blatantly obvious how ridiculously and brutally attracted I was to her.
Cait shook her head. “As soon as we were alone, I counted to three, closed my eyes, and hoped for the best.”
“That’s when you kissed me,” I confirmed. I remembered not knowing what was going on until I felt her hand cup the back of my head. I didn’t know a kiss could be so passionate. Maybe that’s why I felt the way I did whenever we were alone in an elevator. Somewhere deep in my subconscious, I remembered that kiss. And maybe, somewhere deep inside of me, I wanted that kiss to happen again.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Cait asked as she scooted closer to me, her knee brushing against my outer thigh. She leaned forward, her mouth less than five inches from mine.
“Cait….” I stood from the bed as I rejected her advances. She stood from the bed too and studied my face as I stared at her. My heart dropped into my stomach, and I could taste her breath against me.
“You are seeing someone.” She eyed me up and down. Leave it to Cait to think that the only reason I wouldn’t want to be with her was because I was with someone else. As if the thought of someone not being into her wasn’t even a possibility.
She stared at me, and I could feel her trying to figure me out, like one of those magic-eye posters. I sensed a hint of jealousy sweeping through her. And I found myself enjoying it.
“It’s not that,” I said. I stopped short before a smirk of victory spilled from my lips. “It’s just that your jealousy tastes better than you ever did.”
With her mouth agape, she slowly sat back down on the bed, as if her ego had been so severely bruised she needed somewhere soft to land. She looked at me, completely speechless and humiliated. I turned away from her and headed toward the door.
The springs in the door handle popped as I pushed it down, and a low rustle came from the bed.
I turned around to look at her one last time. She stood at the brink of the entryway, her eyes locked on me. Her stare lacked the intimidation I expected. Instead, she looked at me as if I had unexpectedly served her divorce papers.
“I can take a cab,” I said. I didn’t want to be near her. I would have rather walked a hundred miles back to the station than be in the same car with her.
Before she could respond, I stepped into the hallway. The dry scent of cheap laundry detergent permeated my nose as the door latched behind me. The grumble of the deadbolt echoed down the hallway, and I walked toward the elevators.
The farther I walked away from Cait, the more I started to regret my rebuff. It’s not that I wanted this to turn into a romantic evening, but my cruel reaction would certainly have an impact on our working relationship.
But that was something to worry about tomorrow.
CHAPTER | TEN
THE LIGHT FROM the floor lamp shone through the large panes of glass and illuminated the window of Cait’s hotel room. I sat in my car with the windows rolled down and stared into the thin air. It was the type of evening perfect for sitting outside, sipping lemonade, and listening to what nature had to offer. But I was too consumed by grief to feel the joys of the outdoors.
Cait wasn’t expecting me, and I hadn’t planned on staying here. The low tick of the idling engine filled my head as I zoned out. Daydreams were the only defense I had against the day. My heart had been shattered before. But it had always healed itself, like hearts are supposed to do. Not this time.
My heart was permanently broken.
The pastel glow of the twilight sky swept over the Westerly Inn as I looked toward the lobby. As if she knew I was here, Cait walked through the automatic sliding doors and stood in the vestibule. Her hair laid flat against her back, with loose strands that curled past her shoulders. She tilted her head in curiosity as she looked at me.
Her lips fell into a frown as she glided through the second set of doors and walked toward my car. She wore her academy shirt from our training days—a gray polo with the West Joseph seal embroidered on the right breast pocket. Her jeans were tight around her legs, and her black shoes vanished in the dark driveway. The last time I saw her in that shirt was twenty years ago.
Heavy clouds formed above us and coated the night sky. The passenger door to my car quietly opened, and Cait sat in the seat—uninvited, but still welcome. The door closed with a quick click, and I rolled up the windows. I wasn’t able to look at her. I couldn’t. It took all my strength just to hold my head up.
“You changed out of your dress,” Cait said. I looked down at my clothes and noticed I was also wearing my academy shirt from fifteen years ago.
I nodded. “I threw it away.” My voice choked as I held back tears. “I don’t ever want to see a black dress again, let alone wear one.”
“It was a beautiful service.”
The horizon that blanketed us seemed only vaguely familiar. But I had been here before. I had heard these words before. This was the conversation I’d had with Cait after her mother�
�s funeral.
I nodded again. The tears, once trapped behind my eyes, were now free. They slid past my cheekbones, down my face, along the curves of my chin and to my neck. Cait adjusted in her seat to face me, and I continued to look out the front windshield in a hypnotic stare.
“I’m sorry about the victims, Lena.” Cait reached over the console and held my hand. Our fingers intertwined, and she hugged my hand with both of hers.
“I failed them,” I muttered. My shattered heart fought to beat.
“No, you didn’t.” Cait squeezed my hand. “How are the families?”
I shook my head. “Not good.”
“Where is he?” Cait looked out the window and scanned the parking lot.
“Gone,” I replied. She didn’t have to say his name. I knew who she was referring to. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Thick raindrops plopped against the roof of the car, covering the windshield in a layer of tears. I could relate to how hard the clouds were crying.
“How do people do it?” I asked. “How do they get past what’s holding them back?”
“You have to get past yourself,” Cait answered. She placed her hand on my cheek and swept her thumb under my eye as she caught my tears. “Why did you come here?”
What did she mean? Didn’t she know that I needed her? Not the “her” she is now, but the “her” she was then. Before Lathan. Before my heart forgot how to love. I needed her to wake the part of me that had been knocked unconscious. I needed her to help me feel again.
“I need you to tell me I’m not always going to feel like this,” I said. “I need to know there will eventually be an end. Because this is unbearable.” My voice echoed behind my sinuses. I winced as my stomach tied itself into a knot, and my lungs ached under the pressure of holding everything in.
“It will stop,” Cait said with a half-smile. “But only if you let it.”
My elbows rested on the hard console between us, and I buried my face in my hands. Cait placed her hands around my jaw line and lifted my head. My vision blurred behind the layers of tears stuck to my eyelids. Cait locked eyes with me. I wrapped my hands around her wrists and looked down as raindrops pelted the car and thunder echoed across the sky.
Was I allowing myself feel? I had smacked away every helping hand that came my way. It was no wonder I felt as if I had to fight this battle alone.
I lifted my head and looked at Cait. My eyes fixated on her mouth, and I leaned in to kiss her. I needed to feel something—anything—besides the numbness in my heart. Long ago, Cait had brought emotions out of me I never knew I could feel, and I needed to feel those now. I didn’t want to feel dead inside.
Her lips softly pressed against mine. I took a deep breath and kissed her harder. Something inside me slowly started to wake. It rose from its slumber as it stretched its cramped limbs. My lips smacked against Cait’s.
After a year of starvation, she presented me with a grand feast. I grabbed at the food in front of me and shoveled it into my mouth. With each handful, the serving dish somehow refilled itself. I was dining from an endless banquet of desire, and Cait invited me to get my fill.
Warm teardrops fell onto my cheeks. I pulled back from Cait and looked at her. She was crying too. We stared at one another, our lips and eyes mere inches apart, and I eagerly resumed our kiss.
I let everything I felt—all the ache, all the hurt, all the emptiness—flow through my body and out of my mouth. Cait had become a blank canvas and I the artist. My kisses had become the paint, and I covered my beautiful canvas with tears of lust, love, and sorrow.
Cait broke from the kiss, and I hung my head low. Her lips skimmed my forehead, and I felt my temperature rise. The passenger door opened, and I looked up at her. She stepped out of the car and opened the back door. My hand instinctively pulled on my door handle, and I followed her into the backseat of my car.
I sat in the middle, and she straddled herself across my lap. She leaned in and kissed me as I smoothed back the wet strands of her hair that stuck to her face. A thin film of fog covered the windows as Cait slid from my lap and leaned against the door. She stretched her arms out and invited me to lie with her. A few cries escaped my mouth as I leaned against her for support.
She raked her fingernails along my scalp as I unabashedly cried into her chest. I sobbed into her cradling embrace as she combed her fingers through my hair, and I fell apart in her arms.
“You’ll get through this,” she finally said. “There’s no magic cure. You just… get through it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. If I had any tears left to cry, they would have fallen. But my eyes felt like sandpaper when I blinked. I lied against Cait, with my head pounding and my neck sticky from the stale air. Her soft bosom slowly went stiff, as if I was cradled by a cement floor instead of a person, and her embrace wrapped tighter around me—tighter and tighter, as if she was trying to squeeze the life out of me.
I lifted my head in protest, and my muscles tensed when I opened my eyes.
I was no longer lying with Cait.
Angela Truman’s matted blond hair flowed over Lathan’s shoulders. Her decaying, oatmeal-gray face masked his. I tried to scream, but no sound carried from my mouth. I gasped for air and swallowed gulps of oxygen, but my lungs refused to expand.
I scrambled back and broke from his embrace. My eyes locked on Lathan as he continued to lean against the car door. I fumbled with the handle and pounded on the back window with my fists as the door remained locked. I was trapped.
I continued to bang on the window as I silently shouted for help. But no one could hear me—no one was coming. I looked at Cait’s hotel. It was gone. Instead, in its place, I saw Cait’s old home in West Joseph, where she’d lived when we were in the academy together. It was less than twenty yards away. If I could break the car window, I could run to her house. I would be safe.
The back windshield absorbed the force of my blows, and I jerked back when fiery flames sprouted from the ground. Fire circled the car and created a blistering barricade. The car shrieked as the flames engulfed its metal frame.
There was no way to escape. At least not alive. If I stayed in the car, Lathan would surely finish me off. If I left the car, I would burn within seconds.
The fire rose over the car. Its scorching heat filled the space between me and safety. I yanked on the door handle. She scorched metal sizzled in my hand, and the door opened. As I prepared to jump from the vehicle, Lathan lunged on top of me, his breath hot against my ear.
As I fought to break free, I saw Cait standing on her front porch, wide-eyed and calling for me to get out of the car. I took a deep breath. Smoke and ash filled my lungs as I slipped from Lathan’s grip and fell to the burning ground.
I pushed myself up. My eyelids broke from their crusted seal as my hands sank into the malleable surface of the mattress. My stomach lay in a pool of sweat that had formed between my chest and the bed. Daylight slipped past the thin opening of the closed curtains. It struck my face and blinded my eyes. I shot up from the bed.
With uneven breaths, I looked around the bedroom. I was alone. My heartbeat pounded through the room. I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand and looked at the time. Across the screen were several notifications of text messages from Flu. He had even called twice.
What time was it?
I cleared out the notifications so that I could see the time on the screen. 9:13 a.m.
I’d overslept by two hours. Why hadn’t my alarm gone off?
Because I hadn’t set my alarm.
With all the mixed emotions of being around Cait last night, along with the disappointment of the stakeout, I had been too focused on sleep to worry about waking up.
I sat on the edge of the bed and called Fluellen’s office. He answered on the second ring. The taste of my metallic breath lingered in my mouth as I spoke.
“It’s Evans. I overslept. I’ll be there in half an hour,” I quickly said. I knew an apology would mean not
hing right now.
“See that you are,” Flu snapped and hung up.
I paused as I sat on the bed. The cool air absorbed into my skin and evaporated the sweat that had trickled down my neck. I felt as if I had just run a marathon. The thick pounding of my heartbeat rose to the back of my head. As desperately as I wanted to lie back down, I couldn’t. I had to start the day.
The cold hardwood floors soaked into my bare feet as I walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. Of all the days to sleep in, it had to be this one. Cait was surely already at the office. Flu didn’t mention whether he had received a video this morning, so maybe it wasn’t a big deal that I was late.
The sun shone through the bathroom and bounced off the white tiles, lighting the room with little effort. I drew back the shower curtain. The plastic hooks clanked together as they slid across the metal bar, and I turned the faucet handle. A gush of water poured from the showerhead and landed on the base of the tub. It sent an echo through the room, like marbles falling onto the floor. As the water hit the tub, I opened the medicine cabinet and reached inside for the toothpaste and my toothbrush. I scrubbed at the morning residue that had coated my teeth and tongue, then slipped out of my tank top and baggy sweatpants and into the shower.
As I let the lukewarm water run down my face, thoughts of last night flashed through my mind. Aside from the stakeout being a waste, I had rather enjoyed the time spent with Cait. Not just on a professional level but also talking to her. It wasn’t only talking about the case that had kept me there so late; it was also being around her. Finally, a human being who didn’t look at me as if I was damaged and in need of being rescued.
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