Reckless Touch

by Veronica Larsen

  "Looks like someone's in a good mood. Is it because you ran Kathleen off the road?"

  I startle at the voice, looking up to find Caleb standing in front of my desk. The mention of Kathleen sinks my mood.

  "Jesus, Caleb. Do you ever do any actual work? Or do you just creep around the office like a meerkat?"

  "Simmer down. Why are you always so moody?"

  "What do you want? And what did you mean about Kathleen?"

  He slides his hands into his pockets. "I'm on my way to tell Duncan now. She called from the emergency room. Crashed her truck."

  Damn.

  I think of all the mental hatred I spewed her way this morning.

  At my expression, Caleb adds, "Thought you'd know since you were supposed to be coming in with her today."

  Did Kathleen tell him? I guess that explains Caleb knowing to leave me coffee this morning.

  "Is she okay?" I ask.

  "She's not dead, if that's what you're hoping. It's a good thing, too. She's my best staff writer right now and there's too much going on in the sports world."

  "Jesus, Caleb."

  I pick up the cup of coffee and take a sip. His attention shifts to something beside me. His mouth puckers in disgust.

  "What the hell is that?"

  I follow his gaze and see it for the first time. I'm so used to ignoring it that I filtered out its existence. The rose. Except, it's not like every other rose I've gotten over the past few weeks. It's withered. The bud is bowed, petals shriveled up, bruised and blackened.

  Staring at it, my first thought is the rose must have been sitting on my desk since yesterday. But, no, it can't be. The coffee is still warm. I take the note, which I've also ignored until now, and open it. Five words are scribbled in messy handwriting.

  Even bruised roses are beautiful.

  A cold shiver rushes through me and I drop the note onto the desk as though it burns my fingers.

  "What's it say?" Caleb asks, watching me closely. I'm still reeling from the words. I don't even try to stop him as he reaches for the note to read it for himself. "Well, this is awkward." His amusement dies instantly when I shoot him a cold stare. "Sorry," he says, expression going slack.

  "This isn't funny," I snap. "Why the hell would you do this?"

  The final traces of humor fall from his face like a boulder. "Me? I didn't do this."

  "Bullshit. This is from you. You've been leaving me these for weeks…" My fingertips growing cold as Caleb shakes his head slowly.

  "I swear, I've never left anything on your desk. I thought those were from Sabrina. Thought you two had a thing going."

  My gaze must be murderous because his confusion slips into defensiveness. He puts up his hands, frowning. "Seriously. I don't know who leaves those there, but it's not me."

  The coffee turns to acid on my tongue and bile rises in the back of my throat.

  "Was there anything on my desk yesterday? Coffee? Flower?"

  He shakes his head. "I came by to borrow your wireless mouse. I didn't see anything."

  I think I'm going to be sick.

  The coffee. The roses. The notes. Were they ever from Caleb? With him dropping by every morning to make small talk, asking about the coffee, flirting, I just…assumed.

  What if they are from someone else altogether?

  What if they mean something else?

  The shiver turns into a blade of ice that cuts through me as I get to my feet, shooting up so fast my chair spins backward and hits the other end of my L-shaped desk. The question bellows from me without my conscious consent, loud and demanding.

  "Who put these on my desk?"

  Eyes snap in my direction and the room's chatter abruptly dies down. People look from each other to me to Caleb, who has put considerable distance between us over the last several seconds.

  "Who left these here? Did anyone see?" I hold out the coffee cup and rose like they are dead animals. Everyone just stares at me, the room growing quieter and quieter by the second until every pair of eyes fixes on me. "Answer me!"

  "Hey…" Caleb's voice is hesitant, but gentle, like he's talking me off a ledge. "Just calm down."

  I throw the cup into the trash so hard the lid bursts open and coffee splatters against the side of my desk. Caleb jumps backward to avoid the splash. I push past him and rush between the rows of desks, my heart pounding so fast my eardrums hurt. I need to get out of the newsroom before the walls close in on me.

  My coworkers erupt into a chorus of confused murmurs, sights on me like a beaming spotlight all the way to the restroom.

  Rushing into the nearest stall, I heave over the toilet, disgusted.

  Even bruised roses are beautiful.

  A truth rises from the pit of my stomach. My attack wasn't a random event. My attacker has been courting me for weeks. And I've been accepting his gifts.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Reed

  THE CALL COMES IN to my partner's cell. O'Brien hesitates at the unlisted number lighting up the screen.

  "Detective O'Brien," she answers, as we head down the busy hall toward the back of the station. There's a pause, and she shoots me a sideways glance. "Ms. Woods, I—"

  A muffled rush of speech cuts O'Brien off.

  "Take a breath," she says. "Tell me again. You said, a note?"

  I come to a stop beside O'Brien, who holds the phone tightly against her ear, watching me with apprehension as she speaks.

  "Ms. Woods, we were getting ready to contact you to let you know a suspect was picked up last night—"

  An audible "what?" blares from the other end of the phone.

  "He's in custody. We're on our way to question him now."

  I don't have to hear Amelia's response to know what she asks.

  How do you know it's him?

  "We'll fill you in on the details when we can. No…Ms. Woods, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Those gifts could be completely unrelated. We'll be in touch."

  O'Brien hangs up, shaking her head in a telltale expression. I fall in step beside her as she resumes her walk down the hall, explaining as we go.

  "She's been getting gifts for about two weeks. Notes, roses, coffee. All left on her desk. Latest set was left this morning, coffee still warm. She thinks they're from the perp."

  "Perp's been in custody all night."

  "Exactly. She's all shaken up, though."

  "I'll look into it."

  "Good," she says, coming to a stop in front of the interrogation room. She checks her watch then takes hold of the door handle. "This might take a while. You'll have to leave early to make your meeting. You ready?"

  O'Brien pulls open the door and I follow her inside.

  The suspect sits behind a plain, wooden table, his beady eyes trained on my partner and me as we wordlessly invade the small, windowless room.

  I assess him in one quick sweep. Lanky build. Nothing to suggest aggression or even strength. He's in his thirties, bare ring finger, dressed in the type of clothes you'd expect a frat boy to wear. He was turned in by his aunt, who thought she recognized him in the gas station surveillance video we released to the press.

  I take one of the three chairs in the room, closest to the suspect, and catch my straight-faced reflection in the mirrored pane running along the wall. O'Brien, on the other hand, smiles at him as she sits in the other chair, directly behind the table.

  The guy's response is a nervous twitch of the lips. He scratches his eyebrows and sets his hands in front of him, like he's trying to keep from fidgeting.

  This is the reaction we want. The interrogation begins the moment the suspect is made to wait in this grim, soundproof room. With no sense of how much time is passing, a minute can feel like an hour. We play on this, heightening the perception of being trapped, and driving up their instinct to escape at any cost.

  O'Brien takes the lead, while I sit quietly, staring at him, He actively avoids my gaze, but fifteen minutes in and a bead of sweat appears at his temple. O'Brien nudges details fro
m the guy, urging him to to clarify his statements as though repetition will only serve to help him. Half an hour later, his story of where he was the nights of the attacks begin to fray. And that's when I step in. My questions come at rapid speed as I pick apart the inconsistencies in his statement and demand his immediate responses. Flustered, he stutters and fidgets and trips over his words. A mere hour into questioning, he breaks. Begins to sob, admitting that yes, it was him on the footage. And that, yes, he's behind the assaults. The admission comes with a flood of other confessions, going deeper into his long history of silently stalking women from the shadows, fantasizing. After starting a new job as a lab technician, he finally acquired access to a way to subdue his victims. He just wasn't physically strong enough to pull it off.

  O'Brien and I share a look.

  Jesus, that was fucking easy.

  We get him to write out and sign a confession, and read him his rights. Back in our office, I call Amelia Woods. She answers on the second ring.

  "Ms. Woods. Just wanted to let you know we've got him. Picked him up last night and he's confessed."

  I fill her in on the details I can and wait for her sigh of relief, somehow looking forward to it as a cap on the entire situation.

  Instead, I hear her voice grow low and worried.

  "But if he was picked up last night…" she starts, a crackling silence filling the phone line, "then you're wrong. That man can't be the same man behind my attack. My attacker's still out there."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Amelia

  SOMETIMES, IN PURSUIT OF a story, I unearth more than I ever want to know, more than I would ever need or could use. I become buried under irrelevant or misleading information. The trick is to drown out the noise. It's as simple and as hard as that. The problem is, I've never had so much noise. These recent events are all being transmitted slightly out of tune. If only I could tune the radio, figure out which way to turn the knob, I would get a crystal-clear message.

  I'm not crazy, and I'm sure as hell not stupid. I am aware that there is a chance the gifts, the note, the mayor's exposé, aren't even connected. But that's not what my gut tells me. The part of me that relies solely on sensory information, that processes things I cannot consciously make sense of, tells me all of these things are related.

  Eyes follow my movements as I head back through the newsroom and down to the front doors. No one asks me where I'm going or if I'm all right. Even Dale, who gets clumsily to his feet when I fly past the front desk, doesn't say a thing to me. I avoid his eyes and burst through the front doors. The burn of embarrassment tinges my tongue at the scene I've caused.

  He might have heard it from down the hall.

  And whoever is behind it all may have heard it, too. I hate that I'm behaving exactly the way my coworkers would expect from someone who shouldn't have returned to work less than forty-eight hours after an attack.

  Clutching an invisible compass, I take a cab and follow my instincts straight to the police station. Amidst the sounds of phones ringing and countless voices speaking at once, I approach the reception desk.

  The woman behind the desk is a uniformed police officer, with her hair slicked back in a tight black bun. Her thin eyebrows don't make her face any friendlier than her slightly downturned lips.

  In the time I've stood here, she's barely glanced at me once. Instead busying herself answering three phone calls back to back, flipping through papers on her desk, jotting things down. Once or twice, she turns to give messages to some of the officers behind her, who sit at open desks along the room, some on the phone, others speaking to plain-clothed people sitting in the chairs beside them. The room has a chaotic energy to it, despite the relatively low volume level and the overall demeanor of the officers.

  "Excuse me," I say again, more forcefully.

  "One minute, ma'am," the woman responds, her tone flat as she reaches for the ringing phone yet again.

  I snatch it from her hand before she can bring it to her ear. The woman's demeanor flips in an instant, from bored to alert. From dismissive to threatened.

  I'm not sure what I was thinking. I hand her the receiver before she can demand for its return, but she doesn't go on to ignore me this time. She tells the person on the other end to hold on and slams the phone down, turning her disbelieving gaze on me as though demanding I explain myself.

  "I need to speak to Detective O'Brien or Detective Reed. It's important."

  "Okay, ma'am," she says, with the stern but steady tone of someone defusing a situation. "Sit down. I'll call them up in a minute."

  The second she says this, the woman picks up the phone call she put on hold and speaks to the person on the other line.

  There is no frustration like feeling desperate for something and having to pull teeth to get it. If I didn't know firsthand how awful it felt to be strangled, I'd be tempted to fantasize about strangling this woman.

  I turn from the desk with the intention of sitting back down, but a familiar voice in mid-conversation reaches me. I falter, nearly bumping right into the source of the sound.

  "…I'm heading there now—"

  Detective Reed comes to an abrupt stop in front of me. He'd been walking in the direction of the front entrance, his phone pressed to his ear. He ends his call.

  "Ms. Woods…"

  "Detective, I—" The words die in my throat. I didn't realize he was so tall. He towers over me, his shoulders somehow wider and more commanding than I remembered. His eyes are fixed on mine, as he waits for me to talk. "I…I need to speak with you."

  There's a moment's hesitation and I'm sure he's going to tell me he is on his way out.

  Instead, he says, "Let's go down to my office," and leads me past the front desk and down a wide hallway.

  Large windows run along each side of the hall, allowing me to sneak glances into some of the rooms we pass. Offices, interrogation rooms, meeting rooms with dozens of chairs gathered around presentation boards. Other rooms have the blinds pulled closed, but one of the blinds isn't shut well enough. A thin man sits in an interrogation room, staring at his hands.

  "This way," Reed says, opening up a door at the end of the hall.

  The space is small and crammed, with two desks on opposite ends of the room, facing each other, both littered with papers and stacks of documents. A board hangs on one of the walls, papers haphazardly pinned to it, but other than that, the walls are blank and uninviting. No windows, no decor.

  "Detective O'Brien isn't available right now, but please—" he motions to one of the chairs in front of the second desk "—have a seat."

  I do, but as I sit down, I catch a glimpse of a folder on his desk. My name is clearly printed on its tab in bold typeface. Just as my eyes focus on it, Reed moves it out of the way, clearing the stretch of desk between us as though to facilitate conversation.

  I'm sure I heard him tell whoever was on the phone he was heading out yet when he settles into his chair, he fixes me with a perfectly patient look, as though he has all the time in the world for me.

  "How can I help you?"

  I look back down at the desk to gather my thoughts. They think they have their suspect and I have to convince them they are wrong. They won't take me seriously unless I push them to. I'm no stranger to advocating for myself. I've had plenty of practice.

  Abrasive. Be abrasive.

  "I want an update on my investigation," I say. "Now that I've got you here and you can't brush me off like on the phone."

  He doesn't even blink at my tone.

  "For the record, my partner brushed you off. But she had good reason, we were heading into an interrogation. She's with the suspect now, in fact."

  "How are you so sure this is the same man who attacked me?"

  "Ms. Woods—"

  "Amelia."

  "Amelia, the suspect can be placed in or near the crime scenes on the nights of the attacks. He has a history of petty crimes. He has access to the chloroform. He confessed. In detail. He's our guy."


  "You're wrong."

  "Why are you so certain it isn't him? Is it the gifts you mentioned to Detective O'Brien?" Once again, I bite my tongue at a question where the answer points to an intangible source. "Is it possible," he starts again, "these gifts were left by a friend? An admirer?"

  My gaze swings up to meet his at the last word, just in time to catch a flash of something. As though he could easily understand why someone would want to court me.

  I reach into my purse, pull out the note I received this morning, and set it down on the desk in front of us, face up.

  Even bruised roses are beautiful.

  "Are these the types of notes you'd leave someone you admire, Detective?"

  He stares at the note, then looks back at me, clearly surprised. There's absolutely no denying the note was meant to creep under my skin and live there.

  "Exactly," I say in response to his silence.

  He sits back in his chair.

  "These anonymous gifts, how long have you been getting them?"

  "Somewhere around two weeks."

  "This person has been patiently leaving these gifts, day after day, with no reciprocation on your end."

  It's a statement, not a question. So I stare, wondering where he's going with this.

  "If it's the same person and they've had access to you for weeks, why Monday night?" he finally asks. "What was different about that night to incite the attack?"

  I think about this, taking the time to inhale a long breath and run my hand through my hair.

  "It was…it was my first time walking to my car alone in weeks. My friend Sabrina and I always left together. We'd chat in the parking lot for a few minutes then head off to our cars. But she left the office for good Monday morning."

  I hadn't thought about that before.

  He shakes his head, clearly not sold. There's more to the way he looks at me, questions in his eyes he isn't asking. I get the distinct feeling of something being held over my head, dangled there in the silence. And the way he scans my face makes me fear he can read my thoughts.