by Zee Monodee
He grinned. “I tried to, anyway.”
She unfurled her hand on his cheek and went up on her feet to drop a light kiss on his mouth. “Thank you.”
“What for?” he asked when she broke away.
She bit her lip. Could she say this? Should she?
“For ... everything.”
“Anytime,” he whispered. “You had dinner?”
She nodded. “There was a shawarma shop near the crime scene. Someone got us all pitas.”
“You want to go see Emma?”
Margo shook her head. “No need.” She then took a deep breath. “I know you took good care of her tonight.”
He smiled. “Then let’s head up.”
As she rubbed the pad of her thumb onto his cheekbone, she gulped.
No, she wasn’t getting in too deep.
She deserved this. Him.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s.”
Chapter Eleven
“Where’s Jamie?” Emma asked as she bounded down the stairs and flopped onto a chair at the kitchen table.
“He leave early; I give him breakfast at six. Had to go in London,” Polina replied.
Margo caught the words as she trudged in on Emma’s heels and sagged onto a chair, too. She glanced at her watch. Half past seven. She’d slept for less than three consecutive hours the past night, after leaving another gruesome murder scene.
Polina slid a plate, stacked with pancakes doused in syrup, and a cup of steaming coffee in front of her.
“Bless you.” She craved a sugar and caffeine high. Who cared if her blood sugar would crash in a couple of hours? She needed the fix.
She also needed Jamie, but unfortunately, he would be out. She had grown used to seeing him first thing in the morning. He’d breakfasted with them every day, since their first night together, four weeks earlier. She spent her free nights in his arms, and slipped away from his bed in the wee hours of the morning. It had become a lovely routine. She smiled at the thought.
“I’ll have a glass of water, please,” Emma said.
“You growing girl. Need food.”
“Do you know how many empty calories there are in pancakes and syrup? If I don’t want to end up like a fat cow at twenty, I should start a diet immediately.”
Margo reared her head up, and her smile evaporated. Her lethargy fled at the mention of the word ‘diet.’ Food and body image issues, already? Please, no.
She opened her mouth to tell her daughter that, at twelve and close to a bag of bones, Emma didn’t need to go on a diet. Then she bit her tongue when she remembered all those parenting articles that stated children did exactly what their parents told them not to do. Oppositional behaviour, they’d called it. Bollocks, she called it.
What did she say, then? She craved Jamie’s presence, because he’d know what to tell the girl to defuse that weight issue bomb. In the past weeks, they had settled into a comfortable relationship, all four of them, Polina included, and they tackled problems like a unit.
Like a family.
She hitched in a breath. When Emma had dropped into her life, she’d craved balance. Lately, she’d found equilibrium—it had come on the coattails of relationships, in the security of assigned roles, like ‘mother,’ ‘friend,’ ‘lover.’
‘Wife,’ too?
She shook her head. Not the time to think of that. She wasn’t cut out for marriage, and she wouldn’t tempt Fate by thinking about the future. They’d found their balance, and they better leave the status quo untouched.
Still, she could use Jamie’s help right then.
He isn’t here. I am, and Emma is my daughter.
How did she handle the delicate situation and empower Emma in the process? What would Jamie say?
That’s when she had her answer. Margo smiled.
“You have a big game this weekend, right?” she asked.
Emma nodded.
“Practise today on the school’s football pitch?”
“Yes. And every afternoon during the week.”
“No food means you won’t have stamina on the field. Think the coach will include you in the game’s line-up if you don’t shine at practise?”
Emma’s eyes grew wide, before she grabbed her spoon and wolfed down the stack of pancakes.
“Slow, or you choke,” Polina said.
Margo watched her daughter with fondness. Jamie will be proud of me.
The buoyant pride stayed with her as she got into her car and headed to the lab. The radio came on when she started the engine, and she frowned at hearing the drone of the newscaster’s voice. Not in the mood for news, she fiddled with the controls until ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ by Take That filtered out of the loudspeakers.
She grinned. Take That and Boyzone songs—her teenage era. She didn’t admit it to anyone these days, but she’d been a boy band-crazy fan who’d fallen hard for Gary Barlow and Ronan Keating. Until she’d watched Four Weddings and A Funeral, then no other celebrity could come close to Hugh Grant.
Who did Jamie crush on as a teen? Mel C, the Liverpool F.C. fan from the Spice Girls, or someone from the next generation of girl bands like Atomic Kitten and Sugababes? Or, even worse, Little Mix? Did she and Jamie even have the same pop culture references?
By then, she had reached the forensics centre. After leaving the car in her designated parking space, she headed to her office. She didn’t meet a soul on the way in, which struck her as strange, since the place teemed with people usually.
Margo sat down at her desk and booted up her laptop. A knock came at her opened door, and she glanced up to find William in the doorway.
He grinned like a loon. “They caught him.”
“Who?”
“The killer. Didn’t you hear? It’s on the news since seven a.m.”
She stood, unable to take in the information sitting down. “Thank goodness.”
Her shoulders sagged, as if the strings that had held them up had snapped.
“We can say thanks to you.” William came in and touched her shoulder. “You being so thorough on that last victim. The minutiae in your observations helped draw his profile, and that’s how they nabbed him.”
The girl who’d looked like Emma. Margo had felt it her duty to see that justice be done for her. If it had been her daughter in that situation— No, she wouldn’t think of that. Her sole wish had focused on easing the suffering in the heart of that girl’s mother, and the mothers of the other victims; to ascertain that no other child and parent would have to grieve at the hands of that sadistic monster.
“You can count on me in court,” she said.
He nodded. “I know.”
Every person in the lab stopped by her office that day to congratulate her. She smiled and let their elation and pride in a job well done carry her through the hours. True—there’d been four victims. Four too many. But, that was life, and the people who worked in professions where the Grim Reaper made his appearance too often knew no one could block death, especially not in violent circumstances and with twisted minds involved.
In the afternoon, she received a call stating a visitor waited for her. As she reached the lobby, her steps staggered when she found who stood there.
Dressed in a grey, light wool suit, and an open-necked white shirt, he painted a picture of class and elegance. His sharp-cut features appeared freshly shaved, unruly dark hair combed away from his forehead. He held his spine straight and proud, making him appear taller. Calm conqueror, subtle in his control. He gave the impression nothing unsettled him as he commanded the space around him with the projection of his masculine authority.
Damn! Dr. Jamie Gillespie cleaned up nicely. She’d never seen him so well attired. Not in the months since she’d met him, not in the past four weeks they’d been together. For a second, his appearance threw her off. Who could that man be, really?
In one long-fingered hand, he held a white gift bag with no name or logo on the glossy paper. He’d gone shopping?
She caught si
ght of two women in the office across the corridor ogling him, giggling like schoolgirls while they exchanged hushed words.
He glanced in her direction. A smile—the smile—appeared on his face. She swallowed hard as her heart soared and threatened to break out of her ribcage. Physically impossible; she knew that.
Get a grip, Nolan.
She caught herself and forced one foot in front of the other to enter the visitors’ lounge.
“What are you doing here?”
“Happy to see you, too.” He raised an eyebrow.
She quelled a giggle. Damn it—what was she? A silly schoolgirl, walking on air when her gorgeous boyfriend managed to get into the all-girl school and make the other students green with jealousy? Get over yourself.
“You know what I mean. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I heard the news. Wanted to come say congratulations.”
“You could’ve phoned.” She cursed herself, because the reply sounded so curt. “That’s not what I meant. I mean—”
“Phoning is not the same, Margo.”
Little things made the difference—he’d explained that to her one night, after they’d made love.
“I’ve got something for you.” He handed her the shopping bag.
Her pulse increased when her fingers closed on the white satin ribbons that made up the bag’s handle. Jamie released his grip once the strap lay settled in her grasp. The slightly rough skin of his hand brushed all over hers when he pulled it back.
Panty liner—did I wear one today?
“Wha ... what is it?”
He grinned, a slow, wicked curve of his ever-so-kissable mouth. “A surprise.”
She exhaled a puff, and glanced down at the bag.
“Not now,” he said. “Open it when you’re in your office.”
“Okay.”
“Good job, Margo.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you tonight?”
She nodded. “Emma’s spending the night at Melissa’s. Polina has the evening off.”
“Good.”
He left, and Margo had no idea how she got to her office again. Maybe she’d floated on air?
Once at her desk, she placed the bag on the surface and pulled out the wide, flat box inside. After lifting the lid, she brushed the tissue paper aside, and gasped.
A pale coral pink, silk negligée, with its matching robe, lay amid the profusion of white, wispy sheets. Picking it up by the delicate straps, she ran the pads of her thumbs against the criss-crossing fine lace on the bodice.
“Holy cow, Marco! Do you know how much that stuff costs?”
She snapped her gaze up to encounter the lean, lab-coat-clad Bryce who’d swooped into her office like a vulture intent on a carcass.
How could she have forgotten to close the door? Damn.
“Dang, babe. Your bloke’s a goner. The day I buy that for the missus ...” He shook his head and whistled.
“Bugger off, will you?” She shuffled the ensemble into the box and snapped the lid back on.
“Yo, the bloke in the lounge just minutes ago. That’s your man, eh? Done good, girl. If I were gay, I’d go after him. Perfect toy boy material.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m off, Miss My-Business-Is-All-Mine-Own.” He snorted. “People are your friends here, ya know?”
Right. Such nosy, busybody friends, she could do without.
One thing he’d said stuck in her mind.
Toy boy.
That term implied a younger man, kept by an older woman.
Not the case for her and Jamie. Yet, he was younger than her. Men in their forties would not appear so fresh and juvenile.
Margo bit her lip—she didn’t know his age. Some part of her had kept her from peeking in at the background check file she had on him. Denial, most likely, because then, she’d have to face the truth of his age. It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t.
Right?
The question plagued her throughout the afternoon. Jamie was younger than her. So? She might’ve known a man too young and too fickle before, a man named Harry Milburn, who’d promised her the stars and the moon and who’d killed himself at the tender age of thirty ... They said women matured faster than men did—how much truth lay in that statement? Could it be why she’d always felt out of tune with Harry, despite them being the same age on paper?
Don’t think about him!
When evening came, she pushed the connecting door open between their houses, her step weighed down with dread as she trudged into Jamie’s bedroom.
He lay sprawled on the bed, browsing a copy of Top Gear.
“Blimey, I thought Melissa’s mum would never get here.” His forehead creased in a frown when his gaze landed on her. “You’re not wearing the clothes I got you.”
He sounded hurt more than angry.
“Sorry.”
Striding to the bed, she reached the edge and sat down.
He pulled himself up, tossed the magazine on the side table. “What’s the matter?”
She took a deep breath. “Jamie, how old are you?”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “I beg your pardon?”
“Just answer me, please.”
He drew his long legs forward, to come sit next to her. “I’m perfectly legal, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“Jamie.” His name came out like a plea. “I’m not joking here.”
He tensed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Won’t you tell me?”
“Margo ...”
“Please.” Her voice almost cracked on the word.
He must’ve heard. He brought one large hand up and settled it against her cheek.
“Look at me,” he said softly, and tipped her head up. “What’s the matter?”
She bit her lip. “I’m forty-two, Jamie.”
“So what?”
“You’re not even close to that number, are you?”
“Margo—”
“Just tell me.”
Her voice had thrummed barely above a whisper. Over the rapid beating of her heart, she couldn’t be sure if the sound had come out of her lips or not.
“I’m thirty.”
Younger. The same age as Harry when— Harry, who’d shown her how younger men could never have enough maturity.
What was she in for here? If women matured three times faster than men, then a twelve-year-gap amounted to what? Thirty-six years on the growing up spectrum? That would make her twice his age, and more, too …
“Margo?”
“Why are you with me, Jamie?”
He laughed, the sound devoid of any mirth. “Where are we going with this?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“I’m talking about this argument,” he stated.
“We’re not having an argument.”
“Right.” He removed his hand.
With his warmth gone, a chill seeped into her bones. Swift and all encompassing, the cold grabbed every fibre of her and froze them, all while her brain functioned at super-speed.
“What’s the problem, Margo? I’m younger than you are. So?”
Her throat ran dry. “It’s not a problem.”
“Isn’t it?”
He stood, and the mattress gave under his sudden movement. Margo lost her balance. When she snaked a hand out to brace herself, she twisted her wrist in the too-soft bedding. Pain sparked along her hand and arm, yet the hurt didn’t touch her deep inside. Her attention didn’t focus on the injury, but on his face, on the anger that sparkled in the whiskey-gold flecks in his eyes.
He ran a hand in his hair. “Is that why there’s always a breach between us, why you won’t let me get any closer to you?”
“What?”
Confusion assailed her, making her lose the little bearing she still had.
“Age is nothing but a number on paper, Margo.”
She remained silent.
/> “It shouldn’t matter,” he said.
When she failed to reply again, at a loss for words—for how could she begin to tell him all that swirled inside her?—he pinpointed those intense eyes on her.
“What does it matter, Margo? All this time, we’ve been who we are, age and all. What’s changed?”
“Nothing.”
“Really?” His thick eyebrows rose. “Are you ashamed of being seen with me?”
“No!” Of course not!
“Is this because I showed up at your workplace today?”
She jumped to her feet. “How can you think that?”
“Just answer me.”
“It has nothing to do with today!”
Where would he take that argument next? Everything was spinning out of her grasp, out of control, too fast. The discussion didn’t centre on their age difference. It all came back to Harry, and what had happened between them. Because he’d been too young; because Margo had failed him; because she hadn’t been able to love him back ... With older, mature David, there hadn’t been any issue. How to tell Jamie all this, when she herself had a hard time wading through that muck?
Jamie’s jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed.
She thought she saw pain flickering in those dark depths.
“Why do I have trouble believing that?” he asked in a flat, defeated tone.
“Jamie.”
He shouldn’t look that way. His shoulders weren’t meant to carry a ton of bricks, as they seemed to do at that moment. His beautiful gaze shouldn’t be haunted with agony, his mouth a flat line of bitterness.
She brought a hand up, gingerly stroked his cheek.
He flinched from her touch, and she pulled her fingers away as if burned.
“You don’t trust me, Margo.”
“That’s not true.”
Bollocks.
Did she direct that word at him, or at her?
He shook his head. “You don’t, or it would never have crossed your mind to ask what I am doing with you.”
“I’ve never thought that.”
The words sounded weak even to her ears.
“If you need to know, it’s because I love you.”
The cold that had invaded her turned to ice. That’s what Harry had said, too. After years of emotional limbo, during which he hadn’t grown up one bit, an indeterminate time that had made him do irreversible things that had hurt everyone ...