by Tracy Sharp
“I need you,” I breathed against his lips.
He moved his mouth over my jaw, kissing me slowly along my jaw line and over my neck. My legs felt weak.
“Your place?”
“No. Now. Here.”
I fumbled with the button and zipper of his pants, creating enough space to slip my hand into his boxers and enclose my fingers around him. I moved my hand slowly up and down the length of him, and he leaned against me, pushing me against the concrete barrier of the bridge.
“There’s nobody around,” I whispered.
His fingers moved up under my hip length leather jacket and found the button and zipper of my jeans. I helped him, and then pushed my jeans and panties down, stepping out of one leg, the jeans piled around the other. My knee high riding boots were all that covered my otherwise bare legs.
I turned, leaning over the barrier and watching as new snow floated down on the ice of the river. The wind had picked up, so I felt rather than heard Lucas pushing his pants and boxers down just enough to gain entry into me.
Closing my eyes, I waited for him to make me feel better. To chase everything else away. He pressed against me. I just wanted the pain to go away. Even just for a little while. Then there he was, behind me, doing just that. Pleasure swept away the pain all at once. I took a sharp breath in. Ecstasy moved over me, filling me, and I closed my eyes.
His hands gripped my hips and I moved back against him. “Lucas, make me forget.”
I cried out into the wind, feeling like I had no pain at all. Feeling healed.
I screamed out over the river, tears moving over my cheeks, as intensity and fever skipped over me and made me forget everything.
I didn’t hear the police cruiser come up behind us.
* * *
A car door slammed.
“Damn.” Lucas withdrew from me and I heard the sound of his zipper.
I yanked up my panties and jeans, but was still in the processes of buttoning and zipping them up when I turned and saw the police uniform and the cruiser behind the approaching cop.
My mouth went dry. This wasn’t good. Not even a little bit.
He was in his early forties I’d say, looking pissed off and disgusted. “Are you really having sex right out in the open, on a road that cars carrying kids drive over all the time?”
I hadn’t thought of that. The possibility that kids could have seen us in the act.
Nice.
Lucas and I both were silent.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?”
“Where would I even start?” I muttered.
“What?” He stepped around Lucas to get a better look at me. “Wait a minute. Are you Leah Ryan?”
Oh, perfect. I sighed. “Yes. I am.”
“I’ve seen you at the station. Are you coming from the crime scene on the river?” His face grew grim.
“Yes. We were just there. My partner and I were hired by Alexia’s mother to find her.” I paused. A lump rose in my throat. My eyes welled up. “I guess we found her today.”
The officer said nothing as he stared at me, reading me. “Ms. Ryan, we all lose it a little bit now and then, but you’re really skating on thin ice here. You get me?”
“Yes, officer. I do.” I looked down at the dirty snow on the ground. I felt the heat of shame color my face, even in the frozen air.
“Go on. Go do what you have to do for Alexia. But this is the only free pass you’re getting from me for shit like this. You read me?”
“I do,” I said. “Thank you, officer.”
His gaze flickered back to Lucas and he shook his head, turning back to his cruiser.
The snow was coming down hard now and the wind moved it all around, picking it up off the ground and swirling it around us.
We walked back to Lucas’s car in silence.
* * *
Lucas dropped me off at my house.
“Are you okay?” He asked me.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later. We need to discuss the other missing pregnant women. They’re still out there, Leah.”
I watched him for a moment. He was all business. Like we hadn’t just almost been put in the back of a police car and hauled off to the cop shop.
At that moment I was experiencing one hell of a moment of clarity.
What was I doing?
“Right.” I opened the car door and stepped out of the car. I turned back to him before closing the door. “Drive safe.”
“I will. Take care, Leah.”
“You too.”
My body ached. I needed a nap, badly. I let Pango out and stood outside with her, watching her jump up and snap at the snowflakes, then roll around on her back like a puppy, making dog snow angels.
We chased each other around the yard for a long time. Then we went back into the house and I fed her before I fell onto my couch.
I was vaguely aware of Pango as she settled on the thick carpet beside me before the world dropped away and I fell into a dead sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
I couldn’t do it anymore. Too risky. He was too dangerous. Not physically, but emotionally. The intensity of our pairing was stripping me. I had no self-control when I got near him. My sense of judgment went completely south. I was engaging in risky acts which would get me arrested if I didn’t stop.
The thing about my…thing, for lack of a better word, with Lucas, was that it felt so addictive. When we were together, for the brief time we’d meet, it was intense and euphoric. It was like a drug. And I rode that high for days, going back to the act that took me away, gave me that rush, over and over again.
But then we’d be formal and cut each other off in an attempt to thwart any chance of real intimacy. It was what I wanted. Yet, the yawning, gaping hole would open up in the center of me when he cut me off, when he became formal again. All about the job. And I’d fall into a depression so black and helpless that I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Then he’d come around again, and I’d feel so grateful. Worthy of his attention. Powerful that he wanted me. I’d have a handle on him. And he’d kiss me and I’d start flying again and ride that rush, and be completely and utterly swept away. And it would start all over again. The rollercoaster ride.
I’d always had what I needed from Callahan. But I’d been too damaged and fearful to accept his love. I was unworthy and undeserving of it. So I shoved him away and he’d finally left me for good. I knew it in my bones. He wasn’t ever coming back to me, and it was a loss I felt now, so profoundly, that I didn’t know if I’d ever get over it.
I stood outside his closed office door. He was on the phone, saw me through the window, and waved me in.
He was having a conversation with somebody about giving a lecture while looking over his calendar.
I busied myself with looking out the window. The snow wasn’t falling, and the sun was moving away, casting long shadows on the snow that had already fallen. Lucas had a view of decorated pine and spruce trees on the north side of the building, which overlooked a large, park-like area that stretched into a wooded section. The wooded area didn’t go very far before a new cluster of large, overpriced, pretty houses with postage stamp lawns resided. Twinkling, multi-colored lights winked up at me as I tried not to hear his conversation.
“Sorry about that,” he said, remaining seated at his desk.
I turned and looked at him. He was leaning forward on his desk, his fingers laced. He didn’t hold my gaze, but became fidgety and began shuffling through papers.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Oh, I’m already disturbed,” he said, trying to lighten the moment with humor.
“I wanted to touch base with you.”
He nodded, kept his eyes on the papers. “Okay.”
“Lucas,” I said, taking a couple of steps toward the desk.
Something in my tone made him look at me.
I waited for him to tell me something.
Anything. I didn’t know where to go from here.
“How are you doing, Leah? With the case? Are you okay?” His face was turned downward as he gave furtive glances up at me.
I said nothing for a long moment. This whole thing felt too strange. Too…lonely. Finally I spoke. “Not as focused on the case as I should be.”
He nodded slowly. “I know what you mean.” A small grin lifted a corner of his mouth. He was a handsome man. Damn him.
“I’m going to try and get my focus back, Lucas. I need to…to get back to the case. Entirely back to it. No more…escaping.”
He didn’t look at me. “Probably a good idea,” there was no hint in his voice that he wanted me to change my mind. He could take me or leave me. I really didn’t matter. What I did for him was nice, but not really all that important. It never would be.
“Right. Well, I’ll talk to you soon, then, Lucas. Let us know when you know more, and we’ll do the same.”
He finally lifted his face and met my eyes. “Sounds good. Thank you, Leah.”
I turned and walked out of his office, nothing more than just another client.
Which was as it should be.
Then why did it suddenly feel like I was dying?
* * *
I walked away from Lucas’s office, his formality slicing me raw, and made my way to the women’s bathroom, the hallway tilting slightly, the world looking like a fun house, warped and unreal, and frightening.
My trembling hand found the knob and I turned it roughly, pushing against the door, almost falling through it. I found a wall and leaned against it, my arms resting against the cool tile, my forehead against my arm. I took great gasps of air, trying to find my breath, and wept silently against my arm. I closed my eyes against the hot tears.
And I knew rationally that this mini-breakdown, this heavy grief I felt, really had little to do with Lucas and everything to do with my father. He had stopped seeing me after the abduction of my little sister. She had disappeared, and I vanished before my father. I had effectively ceased to exist in his world, other than to be somebody who could take care of my little brother after my mother left us.
I felt an unquestioning certainty that the abrupt loss of his love so many years ago was why I was unable to bear the gnawing, ragged, unmerciful pain that I felt in the center of me. Which right then, was triggered by Lucas’s sudden, cold indifference.
Water seeks its own level. I’ve heard that expression before and I now knew truly what it meant. I didn’t know Lucas all that well. For all of our sexual passion, we didn’t really know each other. But I sensed the same loneliness in him that I felt myself, an absence of something significant and crucial.
The sex was the drug. The numbing agent we turned to when we needed to ease the pain for a while, when it became agony. But the aftermath felt so much worse for me. For him, I didn’t know. He seemed to be doing just fine, which made me feel even worse still.
I vowed that it was the last time. I wouldn’t ride that rollercoaster again. It was too draining, too soul sucking and too dispiriting. It made me feel a whole lot worse than I had before we used each other in a feverish tangle of sweaty need. I’d find a way to dull the cravings when they called. I’d turn away when he looked me in the eye the way he did. When he leaned in close and I could smell his cologne, bringing me back to how it smelled on me during sex. How it lingered on my skin as I drove home, sustaining the euphoria for me.
Alone in that bathroom I realized that I needed to tell somebody. I needed to trust somebody and reach out to them, because if I didn’t, I was going to die. Bit by bit, this addiction would kill me.
I took a deep, ragged breath and straightened up, and thought of the only person in the world I trusted with my life.
Jack.
* * *
“I’m in the abyss, Jack. I don’t know how to get out.” My voice sounded weak, too high to my own ears. The helplessness and desperation I heard from myself made me cringe. I clutched my cell to my ear as I sat in my car, shivering. Tiny beads of sweat popped up around my hairline and I felt the center of my back grow damp.
Withdrawal.
“I’ll pull you out, Kicks. Where are you?” Jack asked me.
I looked around. I didn’t even remember driving there. I didn’t recognize where I was. “Jesus. I don’t know. ”
“Are there any signs? Landmarks?”
I gazed around me. I was sitting in front of a huge office building, covered in mirrored windows. I didn’t recognize the place. “I’m in a parking lot in front of a building. Hang on. Let me drive around a little bit. I’ll find a sign.”
I backed out and drove around the building. Turns out I had been in the back parking lot Of an office building. A huge, dark sign read Warner’s Place. There were buildings all up and down the street.
“I’ve never been here before, Jack. Warner’s Place? Do you know it?”
There was a long pause. “Yeah. I know it. I’ll be there in a few. Sit tight, Leah.”
I sat tight. Looking around me. Something about the place seemed vaguely familiar. Like I’d been here before, it felt like déjà vu. Why did it seem so familiar to me?
My stomach cramped a little and I leaned over, gagging. Jesus Christ. Why didn’t I just shoot heroine?
I rested my forehead on the wheel, closed my eyes and waited for the cramping to subside. My breaths were coming short and ragged, and I heard myself moaning as if from far away.
I heard a car door slam and looked up. Jack walked toward me, his strides long and purposeful. His brow furrowed with concern for me.
I fumbled with the door handle but my sweat slicked fingers slipped.
He opened my door and placed his hands under my arms, helping me out of the truck.
“Come on, Leah. I’ll drive you home.”
“But my truck. . .”
“We’ll come and get it tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
“What if it gets towed?”
“Then we’ll go pick it up wherever we need to pick it up from. Why? You think Callahan’s going to tow your truck away?” He was trying for a joke. It wasn’t working.
“Right. He wouldn’t do that. It would mean he’d have to look at me.”
“You think that would be so bad?”
I felt my throat close up and I had trouble getting the words out. “I don’t think he ever wants to look at me again, Jack.”
“Stop, Leah. He loves you.”
“He left me.”
“He left you because he loves you.”
It was too much to think about right now. I felt tears sliding over my cheeks and I didn’t care.
Jack helped me into his truck. Buckled me in and gently wiped my tears from my cheeks. He leaned in, a mere few inches from my face, and looked into my eyes. “Leah, it’s going to be fine. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
I felt the hole in the center of me, yawning open a little further, and I was crying freely now. Little hitches skipping through each breath I took.
He reached out and cupped my face in both hands. “I’m here and I’m not leaving you. Okay?”
I nodded, unable to talk.
Reluctantly he closed my door and I was only vaguely aware of him climbing into the driver’s side.
I looked around at the office buildings. Cold. Industrial. “Where are we?”
He paused, looking at me for a long moment. He didn’t want to tell me. That was clear.
“What?” I asked him. “Tell me.”
“This is your old street, Leah. That building is where the park used to be. The park you and your sister and Jesse used to play.”
I turned back and looked at the building, shock rippling through me. There used to be a park behind my house.
That meant that the parking lot I had been sitting in, the back parking lot of that building, was where my house used to be.
The house I lived in when Susie was taken from us.
* * *
Jack got me home
and into my house. He opened the door for Pango, who didn’t want to go out and leave me but nature called. So she did her business quickly and trotted back in to sit by the couch and lick my hand as I lay curled up, quivering.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Jack,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m falling apart. I’m losing it. I’m no good at this job anymore.” I swallowed, let out a shaky breath. “I’m no good.”
Jack covered me with a quilt that had been draped over the back of the couch. He crouched down next to me. Pango moved a little further away to make room for Jack, but didn’t go further away than my knees. She rested her head against my legs.
“Stop that shit, Leah. You are good. You’re the best. And you’re a good person. You’re feeling weak right now because you have some unfinished shit to face from your past.” He leaned in close. Took one of my hands in his and kissed the top of it. “It’s just unfinished business, sweetheart. We all have shit from our past we have to face, and you’ve been carrying a heavy load, Leah. It’s amazing you haven’t cracked until now.”
“I’m no good, Jack. Caroline died because I wasn’t at my best. I wasn’t aware enough. She lay bleeding to death in a room right next to mine as I lay sleeping. I shouldn’t have been sleeping, Jack. I should’ve been awake, watching.”
“Now you listen to me.” He pinned me with his green gaze. “You were exhausted. You hadn’t slept in days. Your body shut down. You hear me? It would’ve happened to anyone. That was not your fault.”
“I should’ve stayed in her room with her.”
“But you didn’t. She wanted her privacy and you gave it to her, Leah.” He shook his head slowly. “You might have died too, that night.”
“Maybe I—_”
“Stop it.” His voice was deadly quiet. “Don’t you ever think that, ever. You hear me? You’re not leaving me. You’re all I’ve got in this shitty goddamned world, Leah. Don’t you ever think of leaving it and abandoning me. You got that?” His eyes grew wet.