Black Heart

by R. L. Mathewson

  As one they shook their heads.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Chapter 15

  “Are you coming in?” Hank asked as he threw the cruiser in park.

  Marty held up a finger to let him know that she’d be in there in a minute. In the meantime she was on hold with her cell phone provider. Thanks to Tristan’s little antics yesterday, she was forced to change her phone number or continue to deal with phone calls every other minute from people that she didn't know asking questions about her and Tristan or guys that wanted a chance at getting between her legs.

  So, now she was forced to pay forty dollars to change her number. Forty bucks she was determined to make Tristan pay. This was his fault after all. If she’d known this was how he was going to treat her after all those years of friendship, she would have stuck with ignoring him. That orgasm was so not worth this bullshit or those damn dreams that she’d been having since Friday. Well, maybe a little of it. She closed her eyes and groaned.

  She needed to get her act together and get over the jerk. One would think that after all these years she’d be over him, but no of course not. If anything she loved the bastard more now. Love just plain sucked and was so not worth it. She’d just stick with Bob and chocolate from now on.

  Ten minutes later and forty bucks poorer, she walked into Betty Lou’s Coffee and Pastry shop and stepped in line. Her father was already seated at one of the small booths on the other side of the large coffee shop and was talking with the “boys”. Hopefully he was still unaware of her weekend activities.

  She was not looking forward to his temper when he found out about her involvement in Tristan’s internet debut. It had been stupid and childish, but something in her had snapped after Tristan had toyed with her. After years of being ignored only to be used and treated like crap when he finally deigned to acknowledge her existence had set her off. She'd finally had enough and did something she’d regretted almost immediately, but it was either follow through with her rash decision or take a chance on a man that would probably shove her away once he was done with her.

  She forced herself to calm down and focus on buying an apple fritter and a hot chocolate. That would make her morning better. She just needed her apple fritter and cocoa and everything would be okay. A few minutes later she was waiting for a rather chatty woman to grab her coffee and get the hell out of her way. There was only one fritter left and it was hers!

  Just as she was opening her mouth to ask the woman in front of her to move aside so that she could place her order, a large man wearing a dark suit stepped in front of her.

  What the hell?

  “Hey, there’s a line, buddy!” she snapped, not even caring enough to be polite about it. She needed her delicious fritter or she was pretty sure that she would kill someone.

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist, sweetheart,” a familiar voice said. It didn’t take her long to figure out who the bastard that had cut in front of her was.

  “Tristan Black,” she bit out through clenched teeth, “move your ass!”

  He looked over his shoulder and snorted, but didn’t say anything else as he returned his attention back to the cashier.

  “I’ll take a hot chocolate and a coffee roll-“

  “It’s our last one, Detective. I know that you usually get two,” the woman said in a flirty tone that had Marty’s teeth grinding together.

  “Okay, then I’ll also take the last apple fritter, Jen,” Tristan said, earning a gasp from Marty.

  “Don’t. You. Dare,” Marty bit out.

  Tristan turned around and crossed his arms over his chest while he leaned back against the counter. “I’m sorry, did you want that?” he asked with mock innocence.

  She narrowed her eyes on him. The bastard knew that anything with apples was her weakness.

  “Yes,” she practically hissed.

  He nodded, looking thoughtful before he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Too. Bad.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek before pulling away, leaving her shocked and ready to kick his ass.

  “Thanks, Jen,” Tristan said as he dropped a five dollar bill on the counter. He grabbed the two small bags and large hot chocolate and headed for the door.

  She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She would not go after him and kick his ass. She would not go out there and jump on his back and take him down with a chokehold. She would not go out there and kick him in the balls and take his fritter and run off laughing. She would not-

  “Can I help you?”

  Marty’s eyes flew open in time to catch the nervous expression on the cashier’s face. She took a cleansing breath and then another.

  “Yes, can I have a hot chocolate and do you have any fritters left in back?” she asked, sounding pathetically hopeful.

  “Sorry, the only thing we have left are bran muffins and I think we just ran out of hot cocoa.”

  Marty sighed miserably. “Of course you did.”

  *-*-*-*

  “Ye really shouldn’t have done that, lad,” Shayne said as Tristan finished off the last bite of that unbelievably delicious apple fritter. Something about Marty wanting it made it ten times more delicious. He took a healthy sip of his cocoa as he looked over the notes he’d made over the weekend.

  “She had it coming,” he simply said.

  “Tristan, ye need to either stop being an ass and man up and be with the lass or leave her the hell alone. Stop torturing her. It’s not fair.”

  His eyes snapped up at that. “It’s not fair, is it?” he bit out coldly. “It’s not fair? What the fuck do you know about fair?” he demanded as he stood up, sending his chair slamming back into the wall. “This isn’t my ideal situation. Do you think this is easy on me? I’m the one that can’t be with her. I’m-“

  “No one said that ye couldn’t be with her, lad. Ye made that foolish decision on yer own years ago,” Shayne said softly.

  Tristan glared at Shayne as he said, “Foolish?”

  “Aye, foolish! Ye love that lass!” Shayne yelled, which was surprising, because Shayne never raised his voice to him. He’d always handled Tristan with a patient smile and a calm tone. “Yer a fucking fool to turn yer back on her! All ye care about is her rejecting yer dumb ass when she discovers what ye are instead of giving her a chance. Why don’t ye think about her for once-“

  “She’s all I ever think of!”

  “Yer putting her through hell! She loves ye and ye know it! Stop playing these games and grow some balls!”

  “Fuck you!” Tristan roared as he kicked the chair across the room, slamming it into the side of a metal filing cabinet and putting a very noticeable dent into it.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Tristan’s gaze flew to the door. Marty walked in and dropped her purse on the desk. She gave his hot chocolate a dirty look before sitting down at her desk.

  “Tell her!”

  He shook his head.

  "Fine! Have it yer way then, lad," Shayne said before he disappeared.

  “What?” Marty asked.

  “Nothing,” he snapped.

  She shook her head in disgust as she placed her purse in the bottom desk drawer and placed her jacket on the back of her chair before sitting down. Without another word to him, she logged onto her computer.

  With a tired sigh, he pulled his chair back to his desk and sat down. He grabbed the small pile of folders in his inbox that required his attention. These were the arrests made over the weekend. The ones on top were the arrests made the night before and the ones that required his immediate attention.

  He grabbed the top one as he took a sip of his hot cocoa.

  "You're such a bitch!" a woman's shrill voice suddenly announced, making him jump and spill some of the hot chocolate on his leg.

  "Shit," he gasped as the hot liquid seeped through his pants and onto his leg. He quickly placed his drink back on top of his desk. He grabbed a handful of napkins and pressed them against his leg.

  Marty mutt
ered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Serves you right," but otherwise didn't acknowledge him in any way.

  "Me? You're the bitch!" another woman screamed.

  Tristan was just about to get up and see what the hell was going on out in the pit when two young women literally stumbled into his office through the wall. He barely bit back a groan. He did not need this today, especially with Shayne off somewhere pouting.

  He wasn't about to summon Shayne to deal with these two, knowing that it would just invite another lecture about Marty. That subject was closed. Any possibility of him taking a chance with her had been squashed when she’d shoved his naked ass out of his own house.

  "You got us killed, you ho bag!" the peroxide blonde said as she shoved the brunette back. The brunette stumbled back several feet before coming to a stop in the middle of Tristan's desk.

  "I'm the ho? You're the one that slept with that creepy security guy!" the brunette announced with her hands firmly planted on her, torn pink leather covered, hips.

  "I thought he was part of the band!" the blonde shrieked as she threw herself at the brunette. They both went flying through his computer and onto the ground where they proceeded with the saddest and loudest catfight he'd ever witnessed.

  Tristan sat back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

  *-*-*-*

  "At least I didn't die ten pounds overweight!"

  "I may be ten pounds overweight, but at least it's not all in my ass like in some people that I won't mention!"

  A loud outraged gasp was followed by the sounds of another catfight. Tristan didn't bother looking away from his computer screen as he reached into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a value-sized bottle of fast acting aspirin. He popped three pills into his mouth and chased them down with the now cold hot chocolate.

  He returned his attention to the database that he’d made over the weekend for the missing girls from the past twenty-two years. Based on the files he’d been able to dismiss thirty of the missing cases. That left over fifty cases that fell into a pattern that, at first looked like nothing more than coincidences, but after putting them into the database and mapping them they looked anything but coincidental.

  All the women on his list were grabbed within two miles of a restaurant or a restaurant supply company. It wasn't until a month ago that these cases had caught his eye. At first he hadn't thought much about them since all the kidnappings occurred in the busy sections of each town or city where most restaurants were located.

  The fact that not all of the kidnap victims were associated with any of the restaurants either as employees or customers was another problem for his theory as well as the fact that none of the women fit any type of pattern. They were all different ages, body shapes, ethnic backgrounds and came from different financial backgrounds. Any other investigator would have just looked at the cases and said that they had nothing in common. He almost had, as well, if it hadn't been for one little detail.

  The restaurants and supply stores were all high-class establishments. The kidnappings all occurred well away from fast food joints or Mom and Pop establishments. All the kidnappings also occurred on the back roads leading to or away from the restaurants and supply stores.

  He knew that it was a long shot and he could very well be wrong, but he had a nagging feeling about these cases that he couldn't let go. Until he had some kind of physical evidence like a video, prints, witnesses or even a body, he couldn't push for a task force or even issue a warning. All he had right now was a database and a hunch. Hell, there wasn't even a pattern to help him figure out where the kidnapper would strike next.

  What he wouldn't give for a spirit to come harass him at two in the morning over this case. For a month now he'd been waiting for just that, but so far nothing. It wasn't surprising, but it definitely wasn't good news. Since he doubted that all these women had run away like some of the investigators claimed or were being held somewhere still alive, some for several years, he was left with only one conclusion.

  They'd all suffered greatly before they’d died and welcomed the peaceful release from their bodies. On one hand, he was happy that their spirits didn't suffer further torment by wandering the earth. On the other hand, if even one of them had contacted him, he would have been able to end this a long time ago. Then again, for all he knew they could be stuck where they’d died, unable to let go.

  "Bitch!"

  "No, you're the bitch!" the airhead twins argued as his head started to pound. "Ask him. He’ll tell you!" she said, gesturing to him.

  Tristan just barely bit back his groan. They'd been too busy bitch slapping each other to even notice him and he'd hoped it stayed that way.

  "You know if he could see us that he'd totally want me, right?" the brunette said as she fluffed her blood caked hair back. They stood behind Marty, watching him.

  The blonde snorted. "He can see us and he was totally checking out my girls," she said as she made a show of adjusting her breasts and winked at him, making him cringe.

  "Nah ah!" the brunette said.

  "Yeah, because when we were arguing over whether my text messaging and fixing my makeup while I was driving or all those cars going the wrong way on the highway was the reason we crashed, he muttered that we should win the Darwin Award."

  "You mean we're going to win something?" the brunette asked, practically jumping up and down.

  "Totally!"

  As the dead women suddenly rushed him, he promised all kinds of revenge on Shayne, starting with cancelling the porn channel.

  Chapter 16

  "I'm going home," she announced as she stood up and collected her things.

  "Don't care," Tristan said and she just barely stopped herself from throwing her stapler at his head.

  All day she'd been forced to put up with his surly attitude. Now she was more than ready to call it a night. If she’d thought he'd been an asshole before, she'd been dead wrong. Today he'd redefined the term asshole. Today she couldn't wait to get the hell away from him. Today.....

  Today he broke her heart.

  All day she’d waited and hoped to see a glimmer of the Tristan that she loved, but he never showed up. Instead, she had to deal with this jerk that either ignored her or snapped at her. Several times she was forced to leave the office and hide out in the bathroom to calm down before she did something completely stupid like cry.

  She loved him so much and she hated him for it. She didn’t want to feel this way about him, never had, but she couldn’t help it. Being in love with Tristan felt natural, right and the other day when she’d been in his arms she’d felt whole for the first time in her life. She wanted to be with him, needed to be with him, but that was never going to happen.

  At least one thing was clear.

  She couldn't keep doing this. As much as she wanted to work in this department, and with her father before he retired, she just couldn't. She couldn't come in day after day and pretend that seeing him and being near him wasn't killing her. She just couldn't keep doing this and, as soon as she had her degree, she would start sending out her resume and hopefully she'd find something far away so that she could move on with her life and forget about him.

  Who the hell was she trying to kid? She'd never be able to forget about Tristan Black. At least she'd be able to put some space between them and give her broken heart a chance to mend and finally move on.

  She’d just reached the door when someone knocked. Ignoring Tristan's muttered, yet colorful, curse, she opened the door to find Rosemary standing in the doorway wearing what could only be described as a complacent smile on her face.

  "Detective Black, Hank would like a word with you," she said, making everything in Marty go still.

  Oh no........

  Somehow between work and Tristan's attitude she'd forgotten all about her father and the likelihood that he would find out about everything that had transpired over the weekend. Well, not everything, but he sure as hel
l would find out about Tristan being shoved out of his house, aroused and naked as well as Tristan's little announcement at the bar.

  This was bad, very bad. She needed to speak with her father first and calm him down before he spoke to Tristan. Hell, she hadn't been this nervous since she’d crashed her father's truck back in high school. If she was this anxious, she couldn't imagine how nervous Tristan must be. It was his ass on the line after all. Maybe she should talk to him before she spoke to her father, to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. Her father was an intimidating man after all, and had scared off more guys than she could count. She needed to handle this before things got out of hand and-

  "Tell him that I'll be right there," Tristan said, standing up and grabbing a file before heading to the door, looking calm and relaxed.

  "Your father would like to speak with you as well," Rosemary added before she walked away.

  Marty stepped in front of the door, blocking it. "Maybe you should let me talk to my father first."

  "It's not necessary," Tristan said, gesturing for her to go.

  "Not necessary?" she repeated, dumbfounded. "It's very necessary. The man is going to be pissed."

  Tristan merely shrugged as he somehow managed to get her out of the office. He stepped past her and headed towards her father's office. She followed after him, feeling the eyes of everyone in the pit watching her. She really wasn't looking forward to this. In fact, she’d planned on speaking with her father about everything over lunch at his favorite pizza shop. She would have explained everything and, if that failed, she would have begged her father to stay out of it and let her handle things. Unfortunately for Tristan, she'd worked through lunch and obviously missed a golden opportunity, because her father was about to kill him.

  "Have a seat," her father said tightly when they walked into his office.

  With a sense of doom, she did just that. This was so wrong. She was in her twenties and she should be beyond this, but apparently she was a wimp.

  "I need to speak with you, Hank," Tristan said, getting to the point. On behalf of the butterflies in her stomach she could have kissed the man, but she quickly reminded herself that was what got them into this situation in the first place.