by LS Sygnet
"Enough to walk away if that's what you want me to do."
My heart slammed into my ribs so hard it hurt. "You don't mean that. You can't mean it. You barely know me –"
"Helen, I'm not going to beg you to believe me. Either you do, or you don't. Maybe if you'd stop pushing me away for five seconds you'd…no. You don't want this."
"So I'm supposed to believe that it was love at first sight?"
The barest hint of a smile crept into the corners of his mouth. "And you don't believe in it? No, you wouldn't of course. It's illogical."
"I don't, so explain to me how you managed to fall so madly in love with a complete stranger."
This time, his face split in a grin. "I never said I was madly in love, Helen. I said I was falling in love. And I only offered that first sight nonsense because you're so damned stubborn that you can't see the truth."
My arms folded over my chest. "And what truth is that?"
"The one that has shown me little bits of who you are every time you talk to me, that it's possible for a man to be physically attracted to a woman before he realizes how fascinating what's in here is," Johnny tapped one finger to my temple. "And maybe when he finally gets that even rarer glimpse behind the impenetrable wall, he knows this is more than anything he's ever felt before. But you're not ready to hear the truth. So, I'm glad you're feeling better now. I'll let myself out."
One word fell from my lips before he was half a step away from me. "Please."
Johnny turned around. "Please what, Helen?"
I licked my lips. "I…I want you to stay with me, Johnny."
The urgency in his other kisses melted into something completely tender, yet more possessive than anything Johnny had said or done in the past. Without breaking the kiss, one arm slipped under my knees and lifted me to his chest. Johnny carried me back to the bed and stretched out above me.
"You sure?"
I nodded.
"Because I won't be able to stop if you change your mind, Helen. We'll get to a point where nothing could make me leave you. I'm not talking about sex. You get that, right?"
"I get it, but you can't possibly know –"
One tapered finger pressed to my lips. "I know." The intensity in Johnny's eyes convinced me that he believed it, whether I did or not. "Funny," he murmured, "but my dad always told me that it would be like this someday, when I met the woman who was like Mom was for him."
"Are you trying to scare me into changing my mind? Because I'm never getting married again, Orion. I'm not shackin' up. I'm not."
"I meant someone who made everything and everyone else fade into the background. I haven't noticed another woman since I met you."
"This will dull my allure, I'm sure."
Johnny tugged the tank top over my head. One finger traced a light line from the hollow of my throat down to my navel. "Not a chance, Helen."
When his body sank down over mine, I felt exactly what he meant and wondered how a few short hours would ever be long enough to gorge on the delicious sensations promised only in another kiss.
My disguise and all the tools required to achieve it were packed in the bag I carried into Downey Division at seven sharp that morning. Briscoe and Conall were already at their desks when I hit the squad room. The early morning hours with Johnny left me feeling mellow, a deep happiness and contentment lingering. I'd never felt this way before in my life.
"Yo, Eriksson," Briscoe waved me over to their desks. "Lou wants a word with you before we delve too deep into this undercover job. I think she's worried about liability issues and the dreaded admissibility thing."
"Right. Which way to her office?"
He pointed at a closed door. "She knew you'd be here at seven."
"Dr. Eriksson," she greeted me. "Please come in."
"Only if you call me Helen. Tony says you've got some concerns."
"I wouldn't say concern is the right word. It's not unusual for the department to utilize someone with your expertise in forensic psychology to consult on our cases, Helen, but putting you out on the street?"
"What do I need to sign?" Had a few hours with Johnny made me this willing to commit to police work again? Part of me resisted the notion completely, namely, my murderous urge. It whispered, this isn’t part of the plan.
She smiled, and not in a warm way. "I'd prefer that we formalize things beyond this case, Helen. I know that Tony and Crevan told you of my interest in using you in an official capacity several months ago. I'd be a fool not to try to weasel some kind of more permanent arrangement out of you now."
"I'm not interested in a permanent position."
"And I can't let a civilian perform undercover work. I can't let you ride along with Tony and Crevan while they investigate. I can't let you talk to suspects. All I can let you do is see the evidence and the notes my detectives have and formulate a profile based on that information. It was already a serious mistake for Tony and Crevan to take you with them to Detective Cox's house Sunday."
"I see. I'm sorry it's come to this, Lieutenant Finkelstein."
"Shelly. I insist."
The plan thrummed through my veins. Don’t get sucked in. This isn’t my problem. "I won't be manipulated into a contract with the Darkwater Bay police department. Am I particularly invested in seeing the man who killed a police officer and at least five other men brought to justice? Naturally, I am. But I'm also not willing to make a commitment to this department in order to see justice served. I've seen Briscoe and Conall in action. They'll close this case with or without my help." I started to rise. My recently tenderized heart wanted to grab whatever she offered and sign, sign, sign.
"You wouldn't be in the regular rotation. Essentially, you'd have your pick of investigations, Helen. It wouldn't be full time by any stretch of the imagination. I'm only asking for a year."
"A year. From now, or from when I got to Darkwater Bay?"
"That's only eight months away."
I shrugged. "Do you want my help or not?"
"I'd want it in writing that should you decide to stay longer than eight months, that you give me four weeks notice before vacating the position."
"That's reasonable. However, if I'm done at the end of the contract, you won't try to weasel another commitment out of me." I paused, "and it's going to be left to my discretion if other divisions in the city need my help, that I'm available to help them."
"I'll have the contract drawn up for your review by the end of the day."
"We're really postponing this investigation while you have a contract drawn up?"
Shelly grinned and slid a sheet of paper across the desk. "This is an intent to sign. It lets me give you a gun and a badge and put you on our insurance. If you're out on the street, we need to know we're not getting sued for medical if something should happen to you."
I scratched my signature on the designated line. "We will close this case, Shelly. Not just for the cop, but for the homeless men too. Nobody deserves to die and be discarded like garbage."
The irony of my words pitted against my actions stung what remained of my conscience. I pushed the guilt deep down in my belly where it festered with a lifetime of lies.
"If I had one speck of doubt, I wouldn't be offering a contract," Shelly said. "Have the guys keep me posted about what you learn today. Good luck out there, Detective Eriksson."
Briscoe and Conall were absorbed in something so deeply that they didn't notice my departure from Shelly's office. I slipped away to change clothes, my newest incarnation of badge clipped to my waist. I stopped at the sergeant's desk and asked where I could get a holster for the weapon.
Half an hour later, I was back in the detective's squad room fully in character. The new disguise had garnered more than a few stares, and had I not kept the badge in plain sight, I know I would've been detained and questioned about what I was doing wandering around the guts of Downey's police division.
The jeans were spattered with paint, tattered with holes at the knees and frayed str
ings that dragged around my ancient tennis shoes. Instead of wearing a belt, I used an old trick I'd seen nurses employ on psych units where belts weren't allowed (safety issue for patients who might be suicidal). I had taken a short length of silk tape and made a disposable belt, long enough to cinch the waist between two belt loops. It looked ridiculous, but sufficiently poor and also lent the notion that the owner of these jeans had either dropped a significant amount of weight or was too poor to buy jeans that actually fit.
A threadbare flannel shirt covered the long sleeve cable knit sweater that had seen better days, evidenced by yarn I’d strategically unraveled in places, one that let a bony prominence of my collar bone peek through the dark wool.
My hair was pulled back with a plain rubber band, with plenty of teased strands framing my still quite hung-over face. I found an old bottle of gray hair paint with the Halloween costumes rescued from the attic in D.C., and appropriated its use in the bathroom before teasing knots into the now gray-streaked hair.
The trick with the eyeliner accented the tired and gaunt appearance under the eyes. I was pretty sure I understood another meaning for Dad's hard liquor makes for hard women comment. My skin seemed five years older, dry and leathery after the woeful binge the night before. The resulting dehydration gave my usually puffy lips a decidedly wrinkled, chaffed appearance.
Briscoe and I had lifted an older picture of Cox from his home. I had folded it carefully to add wear and age. It was stuffed into the breast pocket of the flannel shirt. Before I went strolling the streets of Downey, I'd put the badge and gun away, but for now, keeping them in plain sight helped identify me as merely a pretender to the homeless population.
When I marched into the squad room, all eyes followed, especially those of Conall, Briscoe and the new member of the party, Johnny Orion.
Chapter 13
While Crevan and Tony marveled over an even more dramatic transformation than they'd seen Sunday at my house, Johnny focused on two things alone: the badge and the gun-filled holster hanging over my shoulder.
"Shelly gave you a gun and a badge?"
"We'll talk about it later, Johnny."
"Like hell we will. What's going on? Is this another temporary thing like the one at central?"
I couldn't figure out why he sounded so pissed off until Shelly Finkelstein joined the pack. Her coup was written smugly all over her face. "I told you I'd sign her first, Orion."
"The hell you will."
"It's a done deal. For the next eight months, Helen belongs to Downey."
His eyes impaled me with a how could you expression. How was I supposed to know that wasn't what I was supposed to do? "I feel like I'm missing a punch line here."
Briscoe leaned close and murmured, "I think they been fightin' over who would get you to commit first, Darkwater and one of her many divisions, or OSI."
"Is that a fact?"
Orion stepped backward and kept moving. "This is not what you think, Doc. One had absolutely nothing to do with the other."
"Right. Just business, eh, Orion?"
"Helen, we can talk about this later –"
"Oh, but you just said we would talk about it now. I'm thinking that now sounds like a much better plan." My hand curled into a fist and slugged with a sharp jab to his chest. "You son of a bitch. Is that why you thought you'd win your little bet with Finkelstein? That's all this has ever been about, isn't it? OSI, your special little police force, and getting another feather in the cap of the governor."
He grabbed my fist before it could connect again. "Careful there," he murmured. "You're assaulting the state's highest law enforcement officer in front of witnesses."
"You slept with me," I hissed, "and you did it so you could manipulate me into becoming your employee! That's the lowest, most despicable –"
"I would rather love you than be your boss," his voice dipped so low, I could barely hear it. "Would I rather work side by side with you on every case? Hell yes I would, but it would've complicated everything else. After this morning, it was a complication I wasn't sure I could endure."
Doubt leeched through me, out every pore in my body.
Orion's thumb caressed my lower lip. "You don't look homeless this morning. You look like a woman who made love for hours."
"Why are you here?" I twisted my arms into a defensive posture over my chest and resisted the call to melt into his arms. "You promised you'd stay out of this investigation, Johnny. Or was that a lie too?"
"You didn't have time for breakfast."
I rolled my eyes, still a little painful from their occupation of Hangover Land. "So much for how well you know me. I never eat breakfast."
"I brought you a triple shot skinny cinny and a croissant."
Triple shot, non-fat, cinnamon latte, my favorite.
"They sent a little cup of raspberry jam for the croissant."
Some of my anger melted away. Orion was nothing if not an observant little shit, right down to noticing exactly how I ate my cheesecake Saturday night, using the white chocolate wedge to scrape off the raspberry topping to eat it first.
"What am I gonna do with you?"
His head dipped, "I suppose I'm hoping that you won't be pissed at me, for starters."
"Why didn't you tell me the truth, Johnny?"
"When was I supposed to do that, on the multiple times that you wanted to see me or talk to me over the past four months? Or how about Saturday night when you were itching to get rid of me? Oh I could've tried last night, when you were too drunk to have the common sense to come in out of the cold. Forgive me for letting my feelings for you come before the job, Helen."
"If you really wanted me at OSI, last night…this morning should've never happened."
His gaze melted into an odd hybrid of panic and remorse. "Don't say that. Don't tell me you regret –"
"I said, if you really wanted me at OSI."
"Oh."
"We'll discuss this later."
"Will we?"
"I have work to do. Remember? It wasn't all that long ago that you taunted me about those who work for a living as opposed to people like me, lazing about enjoying life." If he really knew me, he’d know that enjoying life for me lately amounted to little more than the premeditation of a very specific murder.
"When will I see you later?"
"I'll call you when I get home tonight."
Johnny's hands spanned my hips and pulled me closer. "Does that mean I get to talk to you or I get to see you?"
"We shouldn't be doing this here."
"Why not? There's no reason to hide anything, Doc. You're a cop. I'm a private security guy. Even if people knew the truth about what I do, as you so astutely pointed out, the bad idea of a relationship with one of my employees is a non-issue now, isn't it? I should be thanking Shelly for snatching you up first."
No reason at all, except that I was supposed to be a grieving widow. Maybe not a widow per se, but a woman still conflicted by what the ex-husband had done. That part was actually true.
"Helen, you are not having second thoughts about this. I won't let you."
"I'll call you tonight." I twisted way from his grasp and started to return to Conall, Finkelstein and Briscoe who weren't even feigning disinterest in my little conversation with Johnny.
His fingers tangled with mine and reeled me back into his arms. Johnny swooped in for a lingering kiss before he let me go. "See you later, sweetheart. Be careful out there. And don't forget to eat your breakfast."
"I told you I hate that alpha male bullshit."
Johnny grinned unrepentantly. "Feel free to go alpha female on me any time."
"Not one word," I warned Briscoe and Conall when I rejoined them. "Let's get to work."
Despite the fact that I'd been in Darkwater Bay for months, there were parts of the city as alien to me as another planet. Where most of the John Doe victims and Detective Cox were found was one such neighborhood.
Part of Downey's charm was that it was such an old neig
hborhood, recently undergoing revitalization by newly affluent younger people. The city spent piles of money restoring old cobblestone streets, and private families had dumped equal amounts of effort into sprucing up the old Victorian homes. Business owners had followed suit, and many modern façades had been removed in favor of restoration of the original and historic appeal of the old architecture. As a result, Downey blossomed into the charming city it once was, prior to being devoured by poverty and subsequent decades of economic decay.
Not all of Downey got bit by the same bug. Nestled throughout the charming neighborhoods that harkened to their historical roots, some areas still looked like bombed and burned out slums in Beirut. The contrasts were so stark, the effects became jarring as Briscoe drove today, through winding streets that eventually delivered us to the business area in question in the matter of the deaths of our multiple John Doe victims and Detective Cox.
"Has anyone plotted the locations of the dumpsters on a map of this area?"
"Yep," Briscoe said. "We already know that the Downey vics were all placed within a one mile radius of Northeastern Street."
I glanced at the rusted poles with barely legible street signs. "This is Northeastern."
"Uh-huh," Briscoe said. "Lovely, ain't she?"
Through the potholes in the asphalt, I could see the older cobblestone street decaying. Weeds lined the vacant lots and grew between gaping cracks in the sidewalks. Dilapidated liquor stores peppered the blocks, shaded by trees that were mostly dead; only a few of the hardiest branches survived years of neglect.
Numerous windows were shattered, covered by plywood that had graffiti spray painted on the gray, weathered surfaces. Other windows were broken, with the cracks taped with wide swaths of duct tape. The buildings not constructed with cinder block had few chips of remaining paint clinging to the wooden siding.
Everything appeared bleak and sad, a once thriving community that now sputtered and choked on its last breath.
"Let me guess. Even the businesses using the dumpsters saw nothing, know nothing, and aren't interested in talking to the police."
"You're quick, Eriksson."