by BJ Bourg
“God, this is so good,” Bethany said, her eyes closing in ecstasy. “Who knew pizza would make me forget about my troubles?”
I nodded and wolfed down the rest of my food. After we were done, we settled back on the couch facing each other and began making small talk. Our conversation eventually turned to the case.
“Do you think we’ll ever catch the person doing this?” she asked.
“I know we will. The only problem is catching him before he kills again.”
“It’s scary that someone’s out there picking us off one at a time. Lately, I keep feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I think he’s watching me through his scope…that he’s going to start targeting lieutenants and I’ll be the first to go. I feel like I’m going crazy. It’s so scary.”
Bethany hugged her shoulders and shuddered. “And then there’s the pressure from the sheriff and every other cop in the department to solve the case. Everywhere I go I feel like they’re looking at me wondering why I haven’t solved it yet and questioning whether I’m capable of working the case. Every time someone else dies, I feel like they think it’s my fault.”
A twinge of guilt tugged at me for being one of those who doubted her abilities. I quickly shrugged it off. “It’s not your fault at all. You’re doing the best you can—we all are—and we’ll get this piece of shit eventually.”
“Like earlier today when some of the mounted patrol officers who worked for Captain Abbott were huddled together staring at me and talking. I know they were blaming me for what happened.”
“Who were they? I’ll beat the shit out of them! How dare they give you even an ounce of attitude! You’re working harder than anyone to solve this case.”
Bethany was silent, and I thought I saw her eyes glistening.
“Are you okay?”
She pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this. The case is really starting to get to me. Seeing all those dead cops wearing the same uniform I wear…” She shook her head. Tears were steaming down her face now. “I just don’t know if I can handle it anymore.”
CHAPTER 21
I leaned up and reached out for Bethany’s arms. I pulled them open and drew her to me, wrapping my arms around her. I straightened my legs, and she stretched out on top of me and melted into my chest. I felt her body relax on top of mine, as she allowed the tears to fall freely. I rubbed her back with one hand and caressed her hair with the other.
“It’s okay,” I whispered into her ear. “Let it all out. You’ll feel better afterwards.”
I lost track of time. It could’ve been minutes we lay there wrapped in each other’s arms, or it could’ve been hours. At some point, she lifted up on her elbows and looked down at me. Her eyes were glassy as she stared into my own. Her lips parted just a little and her tongue traced a line across them. Her face tilted and began to lean slowly into mine. I felt a stirring in my loins and my heart rate increased as her mouth moved closer. Just as I felt the sweet moistness of her full lips pressed to mine, I jerked back, shook my head, pushed to a seated position.
Bethany moved in deft unison with me, as though we’d done this countless times, and ended up in my lap with her arms wrapped around my neck. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her bottom lip pouting.
I looked down to avoid her tantalizing eyes, but caught sight of her breasts and observed her excitement pushing through the thin T-shirt she wore—my thin T-shirt. With all the strength I could muster, I turned and looked to the side. “I don’t want it to be like this.”
“Like what?” Her arms were draped over my shoulders, her hands rubbing my ears.
Weak with desire and frustrated, I sighed. “I want you so bad, believe me, but—”
“I know,” she interrupted, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. “I can feel you.”
“But I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“How on earth would you be taking advantage of me?”
“You…you’re an emotional wreck right now. I don’t want you doing something in your current state of mind that you’ll regret later.”
“First off, I’m a big girl. Second, I would never regret it!” She cocked her head to the side. “I don’t know how to read you.”
“Try English,” I mumbled. “It’s the only language I know.”
She gave my shoulder a playful punch. “No, silly…what I’m saying is that I don’t get you. When you’re working, you’re so cold and calloused, but here you are, outside of work, and you’re such a sweetheart.”
I leaned back, frowning. “Why do you say I’m cold and calloused?”
“I’m not saying it in a bad way,” she explained. “It’s just that you’re so good at what you do. I mean, you killed that hostage taker without batting an eye. You handled the murders of men you’ve worked with for years and didn’t even shed a single tear at their funerals. I mean, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house except yours. How can you watch all that heartbreak without breaking down yourself? You were the absolute only person not crying. That’s just bizarre. Even the sheriff was bawling like a newborn. When I saw that I thought you were just a coldhearted ass, but then you’re so sweet to me. I just don’t get you.”
I sighed. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave here. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“No, I’m serious. I’ve never told anyone what I’m about to tell you, and I need your word you’ll never repeat it.”
Bethany cupped my face in both of her hands and looked me in the eyes. “I swear I will take your secret to my grave and beyond.”
My brow furrowed. “Beyond?”
“I won’t even talk about it in my afterlife,” she said.
“Okay, that’ll work.” I smiled, cleared my throat. “I-I can’t cry.”
Bethany looked confused. “Like, you have a medical condition? You don’t produce tears or something?”
I laughed. “No, nothing like that. Sometimes I wish I could cry. There have even been times when I’ve tried to make myself cry, but nothing comes out. I just can’t do it. I can’t get myself to that place where I feel so terrible that I start crying.”
“How is that even possible?”
“It started when I was eight. That was the last time I ever cried.”
Bethany crossed her arms and cocked her head. “You expect me to believe you haven’t cried since you were eight years old? Not a single tear?”
“Well, tears leak out from time to time when I yawn, but no, I haven’t cried since I was eight. That was when my entire family got wiped out in a car crash—my mom, dad, brother and sister.”
Bethany grabbed her chest, gasped. “Oh God, that’s horrible! What happened?”
“I was competing in an amateur boxing match in Texas and I drove up with my coach and some of the other fighters. My dad was following us, and my mom, sister and brother were with him. It was late on a Friday night and we were driving through this little town west of the Louisiana-Texas line when a car ran a red light. It just missed my coach’s car, but it sideswiped them. The car was so messed up. There was blood everywhere.
“They were trapped inside. I tried as hard as I could to get to them, but people kept holding me back. I cried so hard there was a piercing pain in my head. I was punching and kicking at the people who were holding me back—I got one of them right in the jaw—but I couldn’t get to the car. It burst into flames, and I could hear them screaming. It seemed like they screamed in agony for hours, but it was probably only minutes.”
Bethany was bawling again. I pulled her forward, and she rested her head on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll stop.”
“No, no, finish. I want to hear it.”
“I cried all that night and into the next day. It was around five o’clock in the morning when I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t crying for them. I was crying for myself. I was feeling sorry for myself. I felt so selfish an
d ashamed at that moment. They had endured the most agonizing type of death and here I was feeling sorry for myself. My pity turned to hate…a deep, dark hatred that still burns inside my chest to this day.” I sighed. “Anyway, that was the last time I cried.”
After several long moments of silence, Bethany—her lips rubbing my neck as she spoke, causing a chill to reverberate up and down my spine—asked, “Who was your hatred directed at? The driver of the other car?”
I nodded. “Dan Stevens…he was drunk.”
“Oh, no. Did they arrest him?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t do any time for it. Because he had a clean record, the judge gave him home incarceration.”
Bethany jerked her head up from my shoulder. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope. Home incarceration. And he was allowed to leave his house to go to work and church. Of course, no one cared that my family would never get to do any of those things again.”
“I can’t believe you turned out as good as you did, considering. It would’ve been easy for you to just go crazy and rebel, turn into a criminal.”
“You have no clue,” I said. “I spent a lifetime of hours fantasizing about killing that asshole. When I finally got my driver’s license, I’d drive by his house on a regular basis and just watch him, wondering what it would be like to beat him to death.”
“Why didn’t you go after him?”
“It would dishonor the memory of my family. My dad worked hard to make a good name for himself and for us, and I didn’t want to ruin his name for one selfish act. It’s not what he would’ve wanted. So…” I studied her face, wondering how much to tell her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m just wondering how much I can trust you. You are IA, you know.”
“It is so against policy for me to be sitting here in your lap wearing your T-shirt and boxers,” Bethany said, rubbing my face with her hand. “I’m hoping I can trust you—otherwise I’ll be looking for another job tomorrow.”
“Your job’s safe,” I said. “I know how to keep a secret.”
She winked. “So do I.”
After a brief hesitation on my part, I sighed. “Okay…the only reason I became a cop was to find a way to get back at that piece of shit legally, without bringing disgrace on my dad’s name. When I realized it would never work—that the case was over legally—I’d been doing this job for five years. I thought about leaving law enforcement work, but then it dawned on me…”
“What dawned on you?”
“I figured I could start training as a sniper, then I could take him out from far off without anyone ever knowing. That way I could do what I felt I had to do, as a man, and I wouldn’t disgrace my family name. So, I trained religiously. I’d dry-fire my rifle several hundred times every night at my house, and I’d spend hours upon hours at the shooting range. When I felt I was ready, I began planning how I was going to take him out. About three days into my planning, I got a call from a friend of mine who works for the department where that piece of shit lives. Dan Stevens had been killed in another DWI-related crash. Suddenly, just like that, my whole reason for existing was gone. I felt like I had trained for nothing…had lived for nothing.”
Bethany’s eyes widened and her body stiffened.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Was…was the hatred you felt also directed at the criminal justice system?”
I frowned. “I don’t follow you.”
“Did you blame the justice system for him going free?”
“Somewhat, I guess.”
More silence. I could see the wheels inside of her head turning. She was biting her lower lip and looking down at her hands.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head.
Like a punch to the solar plexus, it dawned on me. I burst out laughing. Bethany looked up, confused.
“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Why are you laughing?”
“You think I’m the killer! You think I’m the one killing cops because the system failed me and my family.”
Bethany’s face flushed. She looked embarrassed. “No! That’s absurd. I know better than that. You’re capable of killing if you have to—you’ve already proven that in a big way—but you’re no murderer.”
I squeezed her waist, tickling her. She squirmed, giggled.
“For a second there,” I said, “you really thought I was the killer sniper. I saw it in your face.”
Still giggling, Bethany held up a hand, holding her index finger and thumb about an inch apart. “Maybe this much, but then I dismissed it. I mean, when you said how you trained to do that and then he died and you had nothing left, I just thought…”
“You thought I was a murderer? That I’d kill someone who didn’t deserve killing?”
“Just for a second my mind wandered, you know, because you’re like one of the only people in this area who can make that shot and—”
“You know,” I interrupted. “I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but murder has never been one of them…until now.”
Bethany slugged my shoulder. “I didn’t accuse you of anything.” That mischievous grin returned. “I realized right away it couldn’t be you because you were standing right next to Captain Abbott when he was shot. But even if you were the killer and I’d have to arrest you, I think I’d sleep with you before turning you in.”
“Wait…what did you say?”
My heart began racing as Bethany wrapped the fingers of both hands behind my neck and pulled my mouth to hers. It was a rough kiss—animalistic—and it excited me. I pulled her body firmly to mine. Her full breasts pushed against my chest as our tongues and hands explored each other. Unable to contain myself any longer, I gripped her bottom and stood to my feet, holding her against me. She squeezed her legs around my waist and kissed me wildly. Moving one foot at a time, trying to feel my way as I went, I carried her toward my bedroom, drunk with passion. We continued to kiss and my chest began to ache with desire.
When I reached my bedroom door, I kicked it open and rushed through it. As I stumbled across the room, Bethany tugged at my shirt and ripped it toward my head. I tossed her onto the bed. As she fell backward onto the plush mattress, she took my shirt with her. She tossed it aside and squirmed out of the boxers I’d loaned her. I clutched at the button of my shorts and, as I kicked out of them, she pulled off the T-shirt she was wearing. I fell on top of her and our warm, hungry bodies melded into one.
CHAPTER 22
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The sun beamed through the crack in my bedroom curtains. I squeezed my eyes tighter and rolled over in bed, turning my back to the window. Bethany stirred beside me. I reached for her waist under the sheets, and she instinctively drew her body closer to mine. She snaked up through my arms and found my mouth with hers. I rolled onto my back and pulled her on top of me.
A thunderous boom suddenly sounded from the front door of my house. Bethany lurched in my arms, shooting a panicked look around. “Who’s that?” she hissed.
“I don’t know.” I bolted upright, pulling on my shorts and shirt fast. I snatched my pistol from the nightstand and hurried to answer the knock. Before I opened the door, I glanced through the peephole. Gina Pellegrin. What the—?
I shoved the pistol in the back of my waistband and pulled the door open. Gina’s hands were on her hips, her lips pursed.
“Do you know what time it is?” she asked. “The sheriff’s been looking for you for an hour. You were supposed to be back at the main office for six. We thought you were dead.” She paused, then shot a thumb toward Bethany Riggs’ car. “And what the hell is that doing here?”
I scowled. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you just call?”
“I did call you—a dozen times! Do you even know where your phone is, or were you too busy—”
“Okay, that’s enough. I appreciate your concern. I appreciate you coming here to check on me, but I’m fine. Let the sheriff know I’
ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Tell him yourself.” Gina spun on her heel and stormed off.
I shook my head and swung the door shut. I turned and was surprised to see Bethany standing there. Her eyes were suspicious. “What’s her problem?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come. It was a bad—”
I put my finger to her moist lips and then moved in to kiss her. Afterward, I said, “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
She smiled. “You sure?”
“Positive.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bedroom. “Now let’s get ready for work before we both have to start looking for another job.”
CHAPTER 23
The five remaining captains for the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office, Majors Doucet and Day, Chief Garcia, Sheriff Burke, Detective Lieutenant Corey Chiasson, Detective Gina Pellegrin and three other detectives were seated in the conference room when Bethany and I walked in—and they all looked up.
Sheriff Burke glanced at the wall clock, then back at us. “I’m glad y’all finally decided to join us.”
I nodded my apologies. “I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“It had better not.” Sheriff Burke frowned. “We started thinking one of y’all had been killed. We tried calling both of your phones, but…”
Bethany mumbled an apology—her face a bright shade of crimson—walked to the front of the room and flipped open her notebook. She stared out over the room of commanders. “We asked the sheriff to get you guys together so we could try and figure out why this killer is targeting captains. In order to figure out who the next target will be, we need to find some common denominators among Wainwright, Landry and Abbott, and we need to figure out if any of you share that connection.” She grabbed a dry erase marker and wrote James 516 on the board. “Does this mean anything to any of you?”
I studied the faces of the captains who sat around the conference table. They passed glances amongst each other, shrugged, and shook their heads.