by W. J. May
Liam shook his head. “Blood and I sort of have this love-hate relationship. What about you? You’re a bright girl, why are you getting into journalism instead of being a doctor?”
“Guts and gore and I sort of have this love-hate relationship.” She smirked, happy to reuse his remark against him. An odd thought crossed her mind. “Why did you agree to let me interview you?”
The detective stared down at his hands, probably trying to come up with some fake reason to avoid answering. His head came up sharply, his steel blue eyes captured hers. “You’re the Matheson, right?”
She swallowed, her mouth weirdly dry. “The Matheson? I’m not sure what you mean, or what it has –”
“The bad car accident a couple years back,” he said, cutting her off. “You were involved.”
Now Kallie’s eyes slipped down to the notebook laying in her lap. She knew she needed to steer away from this conversation. “I saw on the Internet you don’t even answer the biggest paper in the country’s request for an interview. Your avoidance of the media is causing quite a stir. It’s obviously not because you are shy. What’re you trying to hide?”
He straightened, a little too fast. “I’ve got no secr—there’s nothing to hide.” He cocked his head to the side. “What’re you trying to cover up?” He stared at her with those piercing blue eyes, as if trying to read her mind. Then he shrugged and his face softened. “I don’t like the news. Never have, never will.”
“Why is that? Did some newspaper misspell your name in tee ball when you were a kid? Now you can’t let it go?” She tried to keep a straight face, but had to press her lips tight when she could feel their corners trying to turn up. She didn’t want him to press her on personal questions, so teasing was usually her way out of awkward situations.
The surprised look on his face was kind of cute.
“You’re a funny-bunny.” He rolled his eyes. “And it was soccer, not tee ball.” He winked at her.
She wrote it down as a joke.
His hand covered her writing. “That’s off the record, right?”
She stared at his long fingers and resisted the urge to cover his hand with hers just to feel his skin against hers. She cleared her throat.
He moved his hand.
Kallie made an exaggerated effort to scribble out what she had written. Her bangs fell into her eyes when she glanced up at the detective. “What do you want me to write? I mean, you agreed to let me interview you, but you don’t like the media.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “There’s something you want the news to know, right? Why else am I here?”
The detective leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms over his muscular chest. “You’re funny. Direct also. I can appreciate that.” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be a journalist. You’ve got way too much potential.”
She didn’t appreciate him knocking her career choice. “We talk for ten minutes and you know all about my potential now? What’d you do; run a police check on me and subpoena my report cards?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “That’s not what I meant. I... you... it’s...” He blew a breath out, his cheeks puffing as he forced the air out. “Look. I like you. I don’t like journalists. They twist the truth.”
“And cops don’t? You believe every cop is clean?”
“That’s a bit of a drastic comparison.”
“Is it?” She crossed her legs and saw his eyes dart down to her exposed calf before slowly returning to her face. “You seem to have no problem sitting on the judgement throne. Tossing assumptions and accusations from your high seat.” She stood, ready to toss the interview. Screw him.
Except she couldn’t walk away. She needed the interview for a good mark. Her entire journalism class depended on this conversation. So could see her future job in broadcasting if she really thought about it.
She sighed and sat back down, dramatically turning her notebook to a fresh page. “Can we just start over? I’ll ask you questions and you can answer them or if you don’t want to, just say ‘no comment’. Will that work?”
“How about for every question you ask, I get to ask you one?”
Really? What was interesting about her? She had been in a car accident two years ago, but it wasn’t a big deal. No one really remembered it except her family. A silly thought crossed her mind, but she pushed it away. There was no way he would be remotely interested in her. He was mister-hot-cop. He didn’t have time for dating. Just because she might be physically attracted to him, it didn’t mean he felt the same way. “Fine. I’ll ask you and if you don’t respond, I don’t have to answer yours. Deal?”
He grinned. “Deal.”
She couldn’t help but smile back at him. He thought he had one on her, and she figured she was the one ahead of the game.
His eyebrows rose. “Aren’t you going to ask me a question?”
“Oh! Yeah, right!” She stared down at the blank page in front of her. She wrote the number one down. “What made you want to be a cop?”
“I like catching the bad guys.” He sat on top of his desk and leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “What made you want to interview me?”
“I need to get a good grade, so I figured a hard score would do it.”
“I’m a hard score?” He smiled, his white teeth showing bright against his red lips.
She ignored his comment, or tried to; the heat growing on her cheeks proved otherwise. “On the record, if you don’t like the media why did you agree to let me interview you?” She felt like a broken record asking the same question again, but he was avoiding answering it.
He stared at her without saying anything to the point where she needed to look away from his unique, intense blue eyes. He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. His bicep muscles curved perfectly, showing his strength. “I don’t have a problem with the media. I just don’t like the attention. I find it unnecessary. I come to work, do my job, and go home. I’m not trying to be a superhero or anything.”
Kallie made a quick note in her notepad. “Basically you like keeping your head down.” She understood what he meant. She had been doing the same thing since the accident.
“Yeah.” Liam looked relieved when she didn’t write anything more down. “My turn. Are you living on campus or off?”
Weird question. “I’m off. I live at home and commute.”
He nodded. “Good. It’s safer.”
Maybe there was something going on at campus he knew about and didn’t want to say. “Can you tell me what you’re working on right now?” She didn’t know if he could even say something about a current case. Probably not. “Or about your latest closed case?”
“The last case involved a ring of murders.”
“A ring?” She wrote that down in her notepad. “Do you mean a serial killer?” She tried to remember reading about it in the papers and couldn’t recall.
Liam shook his head. “Not killer, but killers. We referred to it as a ring because it, sadly, was well organized. There were a group of individuals hunting down certain individuals.” The intense stare he had given her before returned, as if he was trying to read her mind or watch for some sort of reaction from her.
“Did you catch – sorry, did you apprehend the killers?”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “We stopped them.”
“All of them?” She wrote it down in her notebook. “If it was an organized ring, how did you catch them all?”
“We tracked them down.” He inhaled sharply. “With evidence, of course.” He went on to explain a few things about the case.
“When will they go to trial?” It would make a great addition to her report if she attended some of the trial and followed up on what happened.
“Isn’t it my turn to ask you a question?” He tapped his foot, apparently trying to think of something to ask her. “What happened after the accident? I saw the car. How did you make it out of there without even a scratch?”
She pursed her lips together.
She didn’t like talking about the accident. “I didn’t make it out of there scratch free.” She thought about the scars inside and on her skin.
“You didn’t break anything? Like a leg or shoulder, or even a rib?” The disbelief was clear on his face.
“I don’t know how it happened. I blacked out when the car crashed into the tree and I’m kind of foggy on what transpired before that.”
“It was a pretty crazy night.”
“What do you mean?”
He straightened. “The weather. It was horrendous that night. The storm came out of nowhere.”
“It was a freak storm.” He had night shifts. He probably had to work the same evening as the storm and remembered it. She inhaled and let out a long breath, relieved he didn’t seem to want to press her with more questions. “Were those killers hunting down specific people? Like some kind of noc list?”
He let out a low laugh that was entirely pleasant to listen to. “No noc list. No secret service or anything like that. It was more of a sick game.”
She asked him several more questions about the case and wrote a few more things down. When the detective started to shift and check his watch, she decided it was time to wrap it up. She had enough information to make a good story. She leaned down and switched her recorder off. “I’m pretty much finished. I think I have enough to work with.” She began putting her things back into her bag wishing she could find an excuse to stay longer. She liked talking to the cute detective.
His phone started ringing as if on cue. “Thanks for coming by, Kallie.” Liam reached for the phone on his desk but didn’t pick it up.
“Looks like duty calls.” She smiled as she walked toward the door that led back out to the hallway. “Thanks again.” She waved and stepped out, closing the door behind her. She leaned against the cold wall, letting it cool her skin. She didn’t remember growing warm.
* * *
Chapter 4
Kallie found herself outside, the sky now dark. Why she had decided to walk to the interview instead of drive seemed stupid now. She could always call her dad, he’d be here in a jiffy. She paused at the top of the concrete stairs and straightened her shoulders. I’ll be fine.
It was going to be a full moon tonight. The day of the month weighing heavy on her.
She hurried down the stairs and set her backpack onto both of her shoulders instead of just the one. She walked a couple blocks and as she was waiting for a light to change, she grasped for her iPod still inside her backpack.
“Miss Matheson.”
Kallie jumped at her name being called. Her iPod slipped from her hand. A hand reached out and caught it just before it hit the concrete.
Detective Liam stood beside her, his arm outstretched as he handed her the little silver device. “Do you always take to walking downtown at night? I would have gladly offered you a ride home.”
“In a cruiser?” she teased, trying to hide her accelerated heart rate by covering it with a joke. “I can just imagine what the neighbors would say.”
His face remained serious. “It’s a long walk to your house.”
How does he know where I live? She pushed the question aside. The guy was a detective. He probably ran a full background check on her before he agreed to the interview.
“I’m not bothered. I like to walk. I find it relaxing.”
He nodded and pointed to the light change. “I do as well. I don’t do it enough.”
She began walking across the street and didn’t comment when he walked with her. “You look like someone who prefers running.” She flushed when she realized she had said the comment out loud.
“It does get you there a lot quicker.” He chuckled. “Would you mind if I walk with you? I’d feel better knowing you made it safely back.”
She didn’t mind at all and caught herself from saying it too quickly back. She shrugged. “If it makes you feel better.”
They continued in silence for the next block. Kallie racked her brain for something intelligent to say. Liam walked beside her, his hands inside the back pockets of his jeans. “What do you remember about the accident that killed—sorry, almost killed your dad, and you?”
So that was why he wanted to walk her home. “Why do you want to know?” She tried to hide her annoyance. Why couldn’t he just want to walk her back and ask her out to dinner or something?
“I’m just fascinated. I’ve seen the file and I’m curious what happened. What you remember. Was it your dad’s fault?”
Kallie stopped in her tracks. “What do you think? My dad tried to kill me?” Was that why he was digging for information? Another detective who didn’t like to leave a case unsolved?
“Maybe. Or maybe not your dad. Or not intentionally. I’m just trying—”
“Why do you care?” The sudden urge to protect her dad made Kallie straighten. “There was no criminal investigation, no cops even showed up.” She tapped her chest. “It was my fault. And Nature’s. My dad didn’t do anything. He didn’t create the storm. I hadn’t had my license long. I was the one behind the wheel who lost control.” What made her want to tell him things she could barely admit to herself? She shook her head. She was not going to share the family secret.
“How did you and your dad walk away unharmed? The car was totalled. Your dad—”
“Maybe my fairy godmother flew down and saved us,” Kallie said sarcastically, cutting him off. “We got lucky. That’s it. It’s not a memory I try to think about. I tend to concentrate on being thankful we weren’t hurt and leave it at that.”
“Everything changed that night, didn’t it?”
Kallie shook her head. The guy did not give up. Except he was right, everything had changed that night and would never be the same. How many times had she wished they could rewind that night, they should have just waited out the storm before driving home in it?
“What changed?” Liam took his hands out of his pockets and began motioning with them as he talked. “What happened to your dad? Do you remember how he got out of the car? Were you guys alone?”
Kallie scoffed. “What do you think? Half the neighborhood was up at that hour, taking a nice stroll in a massive lightning storm, in the torrential downpour?” She shook her head and forced herself to calm down. “No one was there. One minute I was driving, the next in my bed. I woke up thinking I had just had a nightmare.”
“So... you remember driving, but not the accident? What do you remember? Are there bits and pieces? Like hazy parts?”
Kallie threw her hands up in the air and began walking. “It doesn’t matter! Nothing’s going to change him back.” Her mouth dropped and a sound of surprise escaped through it. She quickly pressed it shut. She’d almost gone too far. “The accident changed him. It changed me. No one would walk away from something like that and be the same.”
“You’re talking about your dad?”
“No! You keep pressing me.” She rubbed the heel of her hand up and down against her forehead. “Now I’m getting all confused. Can we just leave it?”
Liam tilted his head and bent over closely so he could see her face. “I’m sorry. I’m just curious what happened. Maybe we could ask your dad—?”
“No!” Never. Over her dead body would she let a cop ask her dad about that night. The thought terrified her. “What’s your deal?” Kallie straightened and forced air through her nose. Whatever fear she had felt just a moment ago turned into irritation. “Why the interest in my dad?” Even if Liam was cute, he was still a cop and she had no interest in sharing her family. It was none of his business. Hands in fists, she pressed them against her hips. Suddenly she’d had enough.
Liam pointed to her right foot. “You’re about to tap that foot into a pile of dog crap.”
She shot a glance down and moved away from the small bomb. She ended up closer to him.
He moved nearer to her as well. His blue eyes reflected bright against the street light above them and the darkness around them. “Tell me the truth. Tell me what you kno
w.”
Instinctively Kallie swallowed and then wet her lips. She had the strangest feeling Liam wanted to kiss her – or some kind of intimate touch. The trembling deep in her belly told her she wanted him to. She forced herself to blink and break his gaze. Answers. Get the answers. Protect your dad. Reason broke the moment of insanity. Had he planned to distract her? “Can we not talk about the accident?” She met his intense gaze again, this time with her own determination. “What do you even care? No laws were broken. That’s why they’re called accidents.”
Whatever moment had been there a second ago was now gone.
Liam stepped back, his eyebrows crushed together. He quickly hid the confusion on his face. “I-I apologize. It isn’t my place to pry.” He scratched the back of his head. “How about I keep my mouth shut and just walk you home? I won’t say a word.”
She stared at him, trying to figure him out. Part of her thought he was flirting, the other thought he was just playing detective. She couldn’t make heads or tails of him. “It’s—”
“Unless you ask me a question. Then I’ll answer it because it’s rude to ignore someone.”
She laughed. “Why do I get the feeling you are a persistent little bugger?”
He grinned at her, a sexy kind-of-embarrassed grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called a bugger, but the persistent thing... I can’t deny.”
The tension in the air dissipated. They began walking again and Kallie quickened her pace to try and keep up with Liam. She was nearly jogging when she finally stopped racing. “Do you mind if we slow down a bit?” she huffed.
Liam glanced back in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”
She dropped her head to the side and forced her breath to slow her racing heart. “You’re not even winded.”
Liam shrugged. “It must be the running thing.” He carefully set his pace equal to hers.
An odd thought crossed her mind but she tried to push it aside because it didn’t make sense. He couldn’t be like her father. His eyes were different.