Never Say Never

by Taylor Holloway

  Slowly, so slowly that it was almost excruciating, he increased the thrusts of his hips to meet my eager need. I felt my climax building inside me, crystalizing slowly with every stroke. I gripped the ground in front of me and pushed harder, pushed faster. Little noises were coming from my mouth, but I had no control over them. Behind me, I felt and heard Charlie becoming overwhelmed as well.

  When I shattered into orgasm a moment later he was not far behind, filling me with the heat of his release. He pulled me down to sit in his lap a moment later, stroking my sweaty hair back from my forehead and kissing me. He looked at me like I was beautiful and I sighed happily back up at him. I felt cherished, wanted, and loved in that moment. No matter what was going on outside, I was safe in his arms.

  25

  Charlie

  Murray and Flint, the new pair of detectives assigned to investigate the body discovered yesterday would be easy to deal with. After all, their friendliness was guaranteed through Richard’s regular patronage. Unfortunately, I knew from prior experience that they were only about a quarter as clever. Both were bushy-mustachioed guys with potbellies, gone soft in anticipation of retirement pensions in just a few years. I’d be willing to put money on the proposition that they also had functional alcoholism, alimony payments, overdue child support, or some other issue or combination of issues that made them particularly susceptible to the temptation of Richard’s financial inducements.

  I’d slept in Eva’s room the night before and then got up at five to run home to shower, change clothes, feed Wallace, and go check on my mom. By the time I made it into my office to take the meeting with Murray and Flint, it was nine a.m. and I already missed Eva. Dylan cornered me in the hallway with a wild look in his eyes. It was still much too early for fighting with him.

  “I’m not going to punch you yet,” he announced in lieu of a more traditional greeting. A passing paralegal did a double take at us, but then just rolled her eyes and moved on. We were clearly not worth the drama for her. Smart lady.

  “Um, thanks?” I replied. Dylan’s eyes were blue, just like Eva’s, but unlike hers, his were darker and made even more shadowy by his thick glasses. At the moment, they were also disgusted and exhausted looking.

  “Don’t thank me. I said I’m not going to punch you yet, but I might still punch you. You have one chance to avoid the aforementioned punching. Tell me you’re going to help convince Eva she needs to quit working for the Durants. I saw that shit on the news last night about the dead nurse at the mansion. Very nice job at the press conference by the way.”

  Dylan’s statement required so much unpacking it took me a few moments to formulate some type of reply.

  “Ok, yeah,” I told him. “You’ve got a deal. I’ll help you. I think she should quit too. But listen, I already tried to convince her, and she doesn’t want to.”

  Dylan growled. An actual growl. Like a bear.

  “One time our dad called Eva a quitter because she hated playing softball. She cried for a solid month and now for the rest of her life she’s terrified of quitting anything.” He shook his head in irritation. “I’m not even joking, it’s almost a pathological aversion for her. She falls hard into the sunk cost fallacy. She took piano lessons for ten years because she was afraid of quitting. She dated a guy once with an overbite that extended into Canada for like three months because she was afraid of quitting. Oh sure, she said he had a good personality, but he had a weird fascination with insects and smelled like formaldehyde. I’m pretty sure he was an actual serial killer.”

  “Dude, when was the last time you got some rest? You’re rambling way worse than usual,” I told him. Dylan’s eyes had dark circles underneath, he was clutching a cup of coffee like it was ambrosia from the gods, his hair was a mess, and his suit was a bit rumpled. He had all the obvious signs of having pulled an all-nighter.

  “Fuck you, I’m functioning,” he snapped, and then instantly softened and sighed. He was probably too tired for actual irritation. “I’m barely functioning, I know it. I took a powernap last night for about forty-five minutes. This merger I’m working on is hellish. I’ve never hated anything as much as I hate the federal tax code.”

  He didn’t mention the fact that Eva and I were causing him stress by sleeping together, but he also didn’t have to. It was all over his face.

  “You need more than a little powernap,” I told him. “Go home. You’re running on fumes.”

  “I’m on my way out now,” he conceded. “I just wanted to make sure you were on board with project ‘Make Eva Quit’.”

  “I’m on board.”

  “Good. Because I won’t let you put Eva in the situation of making another Sophie’s choice.

  “A Sophie’s choice? What are you talking about? Isn’t that a holocaust movie from the eighties?”

  “Yeah. The heroine has to pick between two bad alternatives.”

  “You’re going to need to be a lot less confusing.” I was seriously not following his logic.

  Dylan sighed in frustration.

  “You work for the Durant family because it’s your chosen career but mostly because they funded your moms fancy cancer treatment, right?”

  “Basically.” I still had no idea where this was going.

  “That’s your ‘Sophie’s choice’. Either you quit working for Richard and risk your mom’s cancer returning or keep working for him and risk your sanity and integrity forever.”

  I nodded. He was right, those two choices were accurate to my reality and equally terrible. I don’t know that I’d describe it as a ‘Sophie’s choice’ since I seem to remember she had to pick a kid to get murdered, but whatever. I understood his logic.

  Dylan smiled humorlessly. “Ok, so when I say I don’t want Eva stuck making a Sophie’s choice this is what I mean: don’t make her choose between feeling like she has to stay in a job that’s dangerous or risk losing you.”

  “I’d never do that to her. She’s been really helpful, but I want her to quit.”

  “Ok. That’s good. But you’ve already given her one Sophie’s choice so I feel like I had to ask.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you just being with her. Right now, absent anything else, she has to choose between being with someone who’s professional situation is so complicated and awful that it has you trapped and unable to give her enough energy or time or future—“

  “Are we still talking about me?” I asked incredulously. We could as easily be talking about him. He looked down his nose at me and frowned.

  “Yeah. We are. As long as you work for them you’ll never be able to give Eva the relationship she deserves.”

  That hurt. He might be right. However, it wasn’t quite that simple.

  “If she’s unhappy, she could dump me. I’m doing the best I can,” I protested.

  Dylan shook his head.

  “Not really. That’s why it’s a Sophie’s choice. If she left you she’d be making herself sad. Plus, she’d feel guilty. I know Eva better than you. I’ve known her longer than you and I know this next part is true. She’d feel guilty for leaving someone who is only emotionally unavailable because he’s caring for his ill mother. You’ve given someone so empathetic an impossible choice. Either way, she loses.”

  I didn’t know what to say to Dylan. I’d need to think about what he said, but not right now. I couldn’t handle it right now.

  “Dylan, go home and sleep now.”

  “Ok.” He wandered off down the hallway with plodding, exhausted steps. He narrowly avoided crashing into the wall when he turned the corner, and I heard a muffled apology from beyond my line of sight.

  Poor Dylan. He’d wanted to work in entertainment law and now he was doing principal company tax restructures for companies looking to merge. It was highly paid, but deeply boring work. Then again, I didn’t go through law school to talk to a couple of lazy-ass corrupt cops, but they were right on the other side of the conference room door. I plaster
ed a smile on my face and went inside.

  “Morning gentlemen,” I said pleasantly. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  Murray, the more dominant of the two and also the mouthpiece, smiled through the croissant he was going to chow-town on. “Hey Charlie! No worries. We’re always happy to drop by and talk shop.” Crumbs fell out of his mouth and down his front. Flint nodded at me and then stared blankly ahead like he had brain damage.

  “Your independent consulting is highly appreciated,” I managed to say. These two were like walking clichés.

  “What can we do you for?” Murray asked once he’d completed his croissant.

  “Like I’m sure Richard mentioned, I’m looking for the status of the Stephen case. I understand you two recently got reassigned to it.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Murray replied. He slapped a large, brown file on the table. “It’s all yours. Enjoy.”

  I knew much better than to assume they would actually be able to articulate the details of the case.

  “Do you need this back?” I asked, picking up the file and frowning at its lack of heft. There wasn’t much in there. Apparently, the investigation was still very much in its infancy. I was not looking forward to the task of supervising these two through the entire thing.

  “Not at all,” Murray said in answer to my question. “Flint here’s caught the eye of Delilah, the file girl who works downstairs in the basement where they set up the new files. She likes him, so she made an extra file.” Flint grinned proudly with coffee stained teeth. I stifled my disgust. More likely, poor Delilah was just trying to avoid the inevitable sexual harassment that radiated off this pair almost as strongly as their bloviating egos. Or the scent of stale fast food and cheap cologne.

  “Fantastic,” I said. “Then this is all I need.” I rose and prepared to leave the two Detectives to their favorite pastime: exploring the Clark and Jeffries breakfast pastries.

  “Before you go, there’s one other thing,” Murray told me.

  “What’s that?” I asked, fully expecting a request for additional coffee creamer.

  “The coroner’s opinion on the body’s recent history? It’s not included in the file or the official report per Mr. Durant’s instruction. But I can tell you what it is.” He fished around in his breast pocket and produced a loose piece of paper from which he read aloud: “Although nighttime ambient outdoor temperatures have remained at or close to freezing for the past six weeks and the daytime highs have not been sufficient to permit the quotidian proliferation of insect or microbial growth which would allow a reliable estimate on time of death, based on the lack of remodeling on a perimortem distal fibula break and marked lividity on the forearms inconsistent with livor mortis in the interstitial tissues, it is this physicians opinion that death occurred at non-freezing temperatures and prone, whereas the body was found supine.”

  Murray finished his recital with a little flourish of his hand. If he was expecting applause for proving he was literate, he was in for disappointment.

  “Can I have the paper?” I asked him, referring to the paper. “There’s no way I’m going to remember that whole thing.”

  He shrugged and handed it over. “Yeah I don’t see why not. It’s a mouthful. I practiced it the car on the ride over. Might as well be in Latin, too, except for the last bit.”

  I could already tell I was going to need Eva’s help to translate another autopsy report, although I was ahead of Murray somewhat. Stephen had died and was later moved—presumably hidden—under the leaf pile.

  “This is being treated as a homicide?” I asked the detectives.

  “Right now, it’s a suspicious death,” Murray replied. “We don’t know how he died yet, so we can’t say it’s a homicide. The toxicology report should be back this afternoon and may provide cause of death.” He shrugged. “It sure looks like a murder to me though. Otherwise why’d he be under all those leaves? The guy was otherwise perfectly healthy. The only injury on him was the broken ankle. Now he might’ve flipped over due to fluid shift or gas build up or some shit. You’d be amazed what weird shit the body does after death sometimes, I’ve got stories for days, but I’ll spare you. Or even the raking could’ve flipped him. Still, I don’t know about you, but slithering up under some half-frozen leaves would not be my first response to breaking my ankle. Unless I was hiding. Or maybe dragged by a killer.”

  As Murray spoke, I realized I’d underestimated him. Murray understood a fair bit more than he let on. In fact, it was even possible to see some shadow of the competent, honest homicide detective he once was. Then he had to go and ruin it. He yawned.

  “Well, like I said, I appreciate your assistance.” The words coming out of my mouth were polite, even if my thoughts were not. “You’ll text me when the toxicology report arrives?”

  Murray shook his head. “We’ll call you. Don’t want to create a paper trail, you know?” He winked.

  “Of course.”

  “Say where’s Lou?” Flint asked, speaking up for the first time. “Is he on vacation or something?”

  I shook my head. “He fell out of favor.”

  Murray and Flint frowned.

  “I suppose that’s a risk we each need to keep in mind, huh?” Murray remarked. “We’re all only as valuable as our last big mistake.”

  His words echoed with me for the rest of the afternoon. I was starting to wonder what mistake Stephen could have made.

  26

  Eva

  “A convertible? Really?” Dylan look unimpressed when I pointed to the silver mustang hopefully. “It’s nice, but how about something a bit more practical?” He pointed out a drab, brown sedan that looked so totally generic that I couldn’t even tell what type it was. It looked like every car ever.

  “That’s too practical.”

  “What about a crossover? Something bigger than a car and smaller than a full-size SUV?” He suggested. I made a sour face at him.

  “I’m not a soccer mom. I like the idea of having a fun car.” The more I looked at the silver mustang, the more I liked it. I could easily see myself behind the wheel, wearing a scarf and a big pair of black sunglasses while driving through Beverly Hills, Malibu, or somewhere equally glamorous where it never snowed.

  “Do you like the idea of having a car payment?” Dylan asked. His voice was dripping with brotherly sarcasm. “Because that one is twice your budget.”

  He was right, although my pride stung a bit when I looked at the shiny mustang one last time. The whole point of buying a used car in the first place was for me to avoid having a payment. I’d been saving up for this since college and wasn’t about to add to my debt when I was only now actually making a dent in my student loans.

  “Ok, let’s look at the crossovers. Maybe we can find one that’s at least a hatchback.”

  “We might be able to make that happen.”

  Two hours, three dealerships, six car salesman, and one very patient brother later and I was the proud new owner of a gently used, marine blue, Volkswagen Tiguan. It was actually pretty cute, and even had nifty heated pleather seats. Was I going to look like a movie star driving around in it? Probably not. But it got good mileage, was safe and reliable, and didn’t require me to take out a loan.

  Throughout the car buying process, Dylan and I had somehow managed to avoid talking about the fact that I was living inside what was now a full-blown murder investigation. Over the past week, two homicide investigators named Murray and Flint had been all over the Durant mansion. It was hard to ignore their presence when I was working and impossible to ignore them when I wasn’t. I’d been interviewed four times. All the while, Charlie, and to some extent Richard and Alexander Jr., supervised from afar. I knew Dylan’s curiosity could only be suppressed for so long.

  “Have you given any thought to my suggestion?” Dylan asked as we enjoyed a pair of victory milkshakes in honor of my car purchase.

  “About getting snow tires?” I asked, pretending he was not referring to the drama
at the Durant mansion and hoping he got the hint. “I think I’ll wait until I see how bad the winters are and how much I’ll be driving before making the purchase.”

  Dylan shook his head. “No. About moving in with me temporarily. At least until all the craziness dies down.”

  He’d finally given up on getting me to quit my job outright and was now trying to win by attrition by apparently making my commute unbearable.

  “Even if I was allowed to do that, I don’t want to do that drive every day. You know I work twelve-hour shifts.”

  “What about getting an apartment in the Waterloo area then?”

  “I’m a live-in nurse. I’m supposed to, you know, live-in.”

  “But given the circumstances…”

  “Given the circumstances, it’s more important than ever that I be accessible to my patient. Having weird people crawling around the mansion all day is disorienting to Alexander. The day we found the body he was terrified by all the commotion and the noise. It’s important to keep things as normal as possible for him.”

  “And what about you? You’re just supposed to endure the stress of living in a crime scene? For all you know, the murderer lives there with you.”

  Obviously, I’d already considered that possibility on my own, but even Charlie and I had avoided discussing it in detail. In general, we tried our best to avoid talking about the murder investigation over the last week. When we even saw one another. Charlie shared what he knew with me when he could—it wasn’t much—but it seemed like the Philadelphia PD was no closer to understanding what befell Stephen now than they were a week ago. Things were beginning to drag on.

  Instead of focusing on Stephen, I’d been working on figuring out what happened to Edith, to only slightly better results. Charlie and I were both convinced there had to be a connection between the two deaths. Dylan, however, didn’t need to know anything about that.