Love & Hate Series Box Set 2 (Love & Hate #3-4)

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  “Micah, the press conference. Clarke wants you to run it,” Rogers says, opening the door slightly.

  “Tell him to go fuck himself. I’m done,” I say.

  He finally steps inside, his eyes spotting me on the floor, probably smelling the odour of vomit.

  “Get it together, kid. They’re all waiting. It’s time,” he rambles on, dragging his hand through his hair. “You’re the star of the show!”

  “Star.” I laugh hysterically, not able to deal with this fucked-up reality. The pain keeps ripping though me.

  “It’s the girl. Fuck, man. I told you not to get too close to her. She still has to go through a hearing and you are the one that has to put everything together,” Rogers says.

  “Get the fuck out, man. I don’t need this shit right now,” I shout. When he doesn’t leave, I get up, barge back to the corridor and then lock myself in my office. I stay there for God knows how long—hours or minutes—I just don’t register the time anymore.

  The haunting thoughts are not going away. I want to go to Tahlia, find out why she never said anything, but I know I’m the last person that she wants to see. How am I going to question her, after all this, after knowing who she is? The suffering, she never lied about that. Half an hour later, I hear the knock and it’s Clarke. I put on a poker face and finally leave that small room, acting like everything is fine.

  Everyone starts clapping when I walk through the station. People are smiling and congratulating me. Someone else pats me on the back, as if Tahlia has already been convicted. Rogers keeps telling me to say something, but my voice is mute. I can’t seem to function again. Clarke talks to me but I’m not listening, and then I’m shoved inside a room filled with reporters. The flashes start going when I take a seat right in front of them. On the table there are at least four microphones. Rogers shows up a minute later and then I spot a statement right in front of me. I lift it and rub my eyes, blocking everything away. I start reading it, like a robot, without any emotion.

  “Today at approximately eight o’clock this morning we arrested Tahlia Sanderson, one of the students, who is the main suspect in the murder case of Suranne Wallace…”

  I pause, looking around the room, wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. Women and men are all staring back at me, waiting, and all I can think is how pathetic they all are. The abused girl, the one that I rescued from the hole can’t be the murderer. She had suffered, but she can’t be the killer.

  The reporters keep taking my picture and I feel Rogers nudging me with his elbow to keep going, but I’m no longer interested in what’s going on around me. My eyes dart around the crowd and then stop at the figure by the door. The black tracksuit with the hoodie. T is in the room, but why? How did he even get in here?

  He is looking at me intensely, pointing at the door. Sweat gathers on my forehead. T is risking his life by showing up here. He is as good as dead if anyone spots him even hanging around the police station. His cover won’t matter anymore. I shove the statement back to Rogers and get up.

  “Finish it. I have something that I have to take care of,” I say to him. T vanishes behind the door and I walk across the room. Everyone is staring at me, but I stop paying attention to them. After a few awkward moments I hear Rogers continue to read the rest of the statement.

  The dull pain around my head increases when I barge through the door. I find T in the corridor downstairs, by the fire exit. He is pacing around; this isn’t a good sign.

  “What are you doing here, T?” I ask.

  “You asked me to come to you if I found out anything about this murder in uni, right?” T asks, taking out a cigarette.

  “I did, but right now isn’t the best time,” I reply.

  “The new guy, the one that replaced Knox. I heard his people talking last night. They were all drunk,” T mumbles.

  “Just tell me what you know,” I say, getting tired of this. My head is not functioning properly anymore. I need to get out of this building.

  “Man, you got the wrong girl. The guys were saying that the new guy, Rudolph—that’s what he calls himself—sent someone to kill his ex-girlfriend. He has been trying to track her for months. People say that they had some unfinished business from the past or something. That skinny dude, Nicolas, climbed up the drainpipe that night, but went to the wrong window. The girl that you arrested couldn’t have killed that other girl.”

  I place my hands on T’s shoulder, trying to catch my fucking breath at the same time.

  “T, slow down. Rudolf is dead. He was shot dead a year ago. Someone must have played you.”

  T is shaking his head, lighting another cigarette. His hands are shaking badly.

  “Bullshit. Rumour has it that he faked his own death to get the police off his back. He’s been moving around the country, trying to find a new place,” T says, not able to stand still for more than a second.

  I don’t want to believe in this. No one can pull something like that, no one. Rudolf couldn’t have tricked the entire police force.

  “How do you even know that your guys were talking about that murder and the girl that I just busted?”

  “I don’t know, man. Apparently Rudolph has been obsessed with that girl, Rose, for years. I heard her name a few times. Rudolph killed Nicolas when he found out that he fucked this up. You helped me, Micah, and I still want out. Rudolph wants us to start moving heavy stuff. He isn’t happy that the girl is still alive. I’m telling you, man. This girl is not a killer. She’s been set up.”

  Then we both hear the door somewhere downstairs and T starts walking away.

  “Please, man, I need to disappear. I just wanted to smoke some green. This shit is not for me,” he adds and then he’s gone.

  I stand there, trying to understand what T just said, focusing only on one thing: that Tahlia is not a murderer, that she has been set up. I grab my head and start rocking back and forth, realising that I have made a mistake, a huge, terrible mistake. Tahlia is innocent. She was the one that was supposed to be dead weeks ago, not Suranne.

  No, no, it’s impossible.

  T is wrong, they are all wrong.

  After she confessed to me that she had fallen in love with me, I let her down. I’m the son of a bitch that should be rotting behind bars, but now it’s too late. After the evidence comes back from the lab, she will be charged with murder.

  I cover my face in my hands and cry; hot tears are streaming down my cheeks. The pain mixed with guilt is far worse than anything I ever experienced, worse than I ever imagined. Tahlia has done nothing wrong. She only tried to survive, and I failed her. For years and years I fought to feel something, anything, and I finally do. The tears won’t change the fact that I have betrayed her in the worst possible way. My grief won’t make any difference.

  I’m dying a thousand deaths right now, staring at my own hands and not believing that I have lost the only girl that I truly loved. My ego and drive for closure and revenge destroyed us and now has destroyed her whole life.

  It’s over and this can’t be fixed.

  Nothing can be.

  End of book 1

  Skimming the Surface

  (Love & Hate #4)

  Chapter One

  Endless pain

  Micah

  I pace around the room, trying really hard not to rip my hair out of my skull, while Clarke, Lee, Rogers and some other guy in an expensive suit are staring at me dismissively. It’s been two days, the longest two days in my entire life. Tahlia is in custody, soon to be charged with a murder she hasn’t committed. And it’s all my fault.

  I failed to see that she was set up. How could I be stupid enough not to take more time to run over the evidence, her motive, the timing? Now I’m trying to convince my boss that I’ve made a mistake, after being the one that gave them all the evidence in the first place. On top of that, the DNA results are back from the lab. It’s hers and the victim’s blood on that T-shirt.

  “He’s alive, sir. I don’t have any proof
yet, but my source has never let me down. I made a mistake bringing Tahlia into custody, rushed things. She was set up from the very beginning,” I insist, repeating the same story over and over. The guy in the suit is shaking his head, pissing me off even more. I clench my fists, trying to keep it together.

  Rogers, my partner on this case, is an honest guy; he doesn’t believe in any bullshit. We had a very intense conversation a couple of days ago about everything that’s happened. At first he thought I was messing with him, with the case, but then he started listening, getting what I was trying to explain to him. His wife heard us arguing. My anger got the better of me and I lost the plot. After it all passed, I wept like a little child, screaming and shouting that I was the biggest scumbag in the entire world.

  Lisa tried to talk to me, tell me that anyone could have made the same mistake, based on the evidence that I had gathered. Eventually she managed to calm me down, but the pain in my chest was spreading through me like a cancer reaching into all the cells in my body and poisoning them. Rogers was right. No one was going to free Tahlia out of this shit storm, especially since she refused to see a solicitor. The first court appearance was set in motion and we had a case, thanks to the strong evidence that I brought to light.

  “Detective Thomson, only a couple of days ago you were convinced that Tahlia Sanderson murdered her roommate in cold blood.” James Clarke, my boss, states, looking sharp and pissed off. “The lab results are conclusive, and on top of that, the girl had a motive. Her roommate somehow found out about that assault and she was ready to expose her, even though her case had been dealt with and swept under the carpet. The note might not make sense, but we have made an arrest. The press will make a mockery out of us if we release her. We need to think about our reputation. Your source, Detective—whatever he or she is—won’t change anything. The hearing is set for tomorrow, and so far our girl hasn’t said anything that can back up your story. You haven’t been much help either. So far, Detective Rogers has been doing all the talking.”

  Clarke looks down at some of his notes. I hate the fact that he cares more about his own arse than someone else’s life.

  My shirt sticks to my skin and I feel a bead of sweat run down my temple. Ever since I arrested her, I haven’t been sleeping at all, trying to figure out how to make this right, how to verify what T said. The problem is that he vanished; his mother hasn’t seen him. This is a bad sign, and without him Tahlia is lost, buried deep in the ground. Burning guilt is ripping me apart and I can’t even think straight. If anything happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself. He came to me, risked everything to tell me that I fucked up. I have no evidence that Knox has been murdered and there is someone new in charge.

  “Superintendent is right. Rudolf is dead. I identified his body myself, his fingerprints and DNA, Detective,” Lee adds, looking at me like I lost my fucking mind.

  “He faked his own death. And I know for a fact that the bastard has people inside the force. Tahlia is his ex-girlfriend, and he’ll know when she gets locked up. She was supposed to die that night, not the Wallace girl. Are any of you even listening to what I’m fucking saying?”

  Clarke rounds on me. “Thomson that’s enough! Obviously you are taking this case way too personally. The girl is going on trial and that’s the end of the story. You, on the other hand, need to see a shrink.”

  “Sir, I’m not fucking crazy,” I shout, wondering why they are all so bloody stupid. My limbs feel heavy and my heart feels like it’s stopped beating. I’ve lost my humanity, my sanity. T has never been wrong, and I know that if Tahlia is that girl that I saved, she never would have harmed her roommate.

  “Enough!” Clarke yells, slamming his fists on the table. “It’s not a request, but an order. Don’t make me put you on a leave of absence, Thomson.”

  I drag my hands over my face, thinking fast, wondering what other options I have. They all leave me alone, and soon I realise that I might never make this right. I have caused so much pain, so much sorrow and now I will just lead him to her. She hates me and she will never forgive me for what I have done to her.

  Tahlia

  I wake up breathing hard, disoriented in the complete darkness, as the smell of sweat permeates the air. Several seconds drag and then I know that I’m in a prison cell, not in my own cozy bed. My chest keeps rising and falling in rapid movements. Images from the unknown dream fade away. I touch my forehead, trying to calm down until my eyes adjust to the darkness that slowly begins to swallow me.

  Micah Thompson threw me in here and then left without a word. It’s because of him my life is worthless.

  The bastard had been lying to me for god knows how long, probably from the moment he showed up to question me about Suranne’s murder. I know that there is not much time left for me. The man that I thought was dead is living and breathing and he wants revenge. Time is against me. I’m simply waiting for someone to finish the job.

  It’s been forty-eight hours and tomorrow I’ll be in court, expected to make a plea. There is no way I’m going to let them lock me up. The rat has people gathered around everywhere and I won’t survive a day in prison. I was so stupid to believe that he was wiped out of this world, that I was finally free of all the pain and sorrow that he caused.

  Everything between Micah and me was fine, until he left me. I knew that it was just a matter of time before he found out about the past, about my real identity. That day I felt unwell, anxious and nervous. When he came back, he wasn’t the same person that I’d fallen for. He was a stranger.

  Love? I was stupid enough to believe that I’d finally fallen for someone, for a man from my dreams, but in the end my heart was shattered. Micah Thomson wasn’t capable of showing any signs of humanity. He’d proven it to me countless times, but I was determined to give him a chance, to find something good in him. The good emotions turned into hatred—and utter disgust—the moment he called me a killer. No one ever understood me, no one empathised with my pain. Not until Tequila took me in and taught me how to function again.

  Several hours later the interrogation began, but I refused to say anything. I couldn’t even look at him, knowing that they would twist my words, and they would make me look guilty. Micah sat in front of me the entire time. He didn’t ask any questions but stared blankly at the wall behind me. I felt sick being in the same room with him, breathing in the same air. I wanted to sweat him out of my body; I wanted to be sick until all my thoughts were gone, until I didn’t have to feel the pain that was flooding my system.

  “We have all the evidence that we need, Miss Sanderson. You have been charged with murder and in two days you will be in front of the judge. Are you going to plead guilty?” the other detective kept asking. I think his name was Rogers.

  I didn’t dare to look at Micah, but I knew that something was wrong with him. He didn’t even try to make eye contact, didn’t say a word when only a couple hours ago he was convinced that I was a murderer. When I didn’t answer, Rogers turned his head and looked at Micah, like he was expecting him to ask questions. The bastard didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge him.

  My stomach dropped. The shock and disappointment kept moving through me like a tornado, but I didn’t want to react. I didn’t want to say anything. Only a couple of days ago we were making love and my heart started beating again for the first time since the rat had touched me.

  The cops on the other side of the room were probably scratching their heads, wondering if these two detectives were going to get anything out of me.

  “Did Suranne Wallace discover that you assaulted Julie Powell?”

  Silence.

  “Did you kill her because you were afraid that she would expose you?”

  Silence.

  I didn’t answer any of his questions. My future looked bleak and I still didn’t have that phone call that they promised. I told Micah that I had no friends, no family, so they didn’t expect me to call anyone. Tequila was the only person that could get me out. She had money and r
esources. It was just a matter of time before the rat would send someone to finish what he started. I had no intention of dying in prison.

  “You killed an innocent student. Justice will be served, Miss Sanderson, either way. If you confess you might even get a deal. Who knows, you still might have a chance for a decent life once you serve your sentence,” Rogers continued then.

  Confusion mixed with anger was boiling my insides. I was waiting for the perfect Micah to ask me a question, to have the decency to fucking look at me after what he did, but I guess I didn’t even deserve that. I know now that he lied, that he acted the whole time he was with me just to solve the damn case. We were never a real couple.

  In the end, after about an hour, the old-school detective gave up and told me that he was trying to give me a chance, but I chose not to help him. My breath caught and I felt like my heart was being ripped apart when Micah finally spoke. For the first time since we entered that room his voice rang out clear, emotionless and void of the love I thought we shared.

  “I’ll take her back to her cell,” he muttered, still not looking at me but at his pathetic partner. Rogers seemed baffled for a good few seconds. I didn’t want to go anywhere near him. The thought of him touching me made me want to crawl out of my own rotten skin. I felt a tiny wave of regret, noting my attraction to him was still there, but I quickly dismissed it. I was foolish enough to let myself believe that the past mattered.

  “Micah, I don’t—”

  “I said I’m taking her back,” he repeated more forcefully. Suddenly I knew that this was my chance to slap him.

  Rogers shook his head and then left the room. The coward.

  “Come on, Tahlia, let’s go,” Micah said and then grabbed my elbow gently, like he was afraid to make a forceful contact, to make me move.

  The moment his skin touched mine, the fire blazed over my spine. My knees felt like paper. I wanted to faint, knowing that this man that I hated with every bit of my soul had made love to me countless times. I willingly gave him my heart. This was sick and twisted.