by Alex Pitt
“What did I miss?” she asked, noticing most of the faces in the circle were staring at her.
“Me and you are gonna bang, baby,” Sam grinned. He couldn’t believe his luck.
“That wasn’t part of the game,” Scooter defended her, draining the rest of his bottle and throwing it lightly at Sam.
“You’re right,” Sam nodded, and I relaxed. “But I still get to kiss her, and I’ve never known a girl who didn’t want to take it further with me.” His words were slurred. He was so drunk.
“Daisy,” I muttered, not wanting her to go through with this. Sure, it was just a game. It didn’t mean anything, but I still didn’t want it to happen.
Sam moved across the circle, his menacing smile approaching me, and then he placed both of his hands on Daisy’s cheeks. I could barely watch as he kissed her slowly, passionately, like there was something between them.
The kiss lasted about thirty seconds, but it felt a lot longer than that. Eventually, Sam pulled away, smiled at the girl, and went to sit back down. Daisy was also smiling, a tear in her eye, as if she didn’t quite know what was happening. Either way, she looked like she’d enjoyed the kiss, and that was something I couldn’t live with.
Removing myself from the circle, I stormed towards the stairs.
“Jack, where are you going?” Daisy called to me, but I didn’t respond.
“Yeah, Jack, where you going? Don’t you want my sloppy seconds?” Sam sniggered, gaining a few chuckles for his trouble.
“Shut it, Higgins,” I heard Scooter snap, and I was glad he had my back. I could tell I was going to need him.
There was a sob behind me as I reached the top of the stairs, and I noticed that Daisy had actually managed to act sober for a second and follow me up them. She was crying, but I didn’t know why. It was probably a side effect from all of the alcohol.
“Jack, I’m sorry,” she muttered, flinging her arms around me. “It was just a game. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I just need to be alone,” I told her, prying her arms from around my neck.
“Let’s go in one of these rooms and talk, yeah?” Daisy suggested and I shrugged.
I had taken the right amount of alcohol to make me confident enough to spill all of my deep, dark secrets to Daisy, but she’d also taken enough to potentially not remember any of what we were about to discuss. Besides that, I didn’t want the drinks to influence our speech. It would be for the best if we spoke to each other when we were completely sober.
Just as I’d had this thought, she placed a hand on my bum and pushed me into the bedroom door.
“Get in there, Jack,” she told me, and I obliged.
Swinging open the door, we both fell into the room and collapsed onto the bed. The only problem was, someone else had already occupied the space. Two people in fact, and I could see a lot more bare skin than I wanted to.
“Trisha?” I exclaimed, recognising the girl on the bottom.
“Oh shit,” she said, pushing the guy off her and scrambling to pick up her clothes.
So, Trisha was cheating on Scooter, and it didn’t surprise me at all. I’d known there was something dodgy about her from the start.
As the guy rolled over in bed and tried to cover the bottom half of his body up, recognition for him crossed over my face, just as it had done for Trisha. I couldn’t believe it. Scooter was going to flip.
The fact of the matter was, Trisha was having sex with Morgan. Psycho Morgan.
“Get the hell out of here,” I shouted at her, fuming. I could feel the steam venting from my ears.
“OK, fine,” she mumbled, “just let me put some clothes on first.”
She’d already managed to put her knickers on, but I refused to let her have more, and chased her out of the room, most of her body on show. I’m sure that flaunting her body to everyone was something she was used to. Scooping up all of Trisha’s clothes, along with Morgan’s, I went to the window and threw them all out.
“What the hell?” Morgan exclaimed, forgetting his naked self and storming to his feet.
“Go fetch,” I told him, pointing to the clothes on the grass outside.
“You’ll regret this,” Morgan promised me, placing his hands over his private parts and running out of the room.
I saw him outside a minute later, pulling them onto his body. Trisha was doing the same, and they’d attracted quite the crowd. Some people were cheering, some were booing. The people jeering at them were obviously on Scooter’s side, and I was glad that he had a few supporters. She deserved what she’d got. They both did.
I smiled to myself, turning away from the window. I hated that Trisha had hurt Scooter, but it was nice to see Morgan embarrassed for once.
“Don’t you think that was too harsh?” Daisy asked me, and I shook my head.
“Morgan’s a psycho and Trisha was caught cheating. They both deserved it.”
“But he was naked, Jack. And Trisha was almost naked. That must have been so humiliating.”
“Trisha’s the sort of girl who shows her body to everyone anyway. God knows why she actually got with Scooter in the first place, no offence to him. And Morgan deserved it. Trust me, he deserved it. Now, can we discuss what we came in here for?”
Daisy looked away, nervous. She seemed a lot less confident than she had a few minutes ago, but she sat down on the bed and I sat next to her. It was weird being seated where people had been hooking up just moments before, but they hadn’t left any notable evidence, which was something I was extremely grateful about.
“Daisy…” I started, not sure where I was going with this.
“Jack, what do you want?” she asked, cutting to the chase.
“I want you,” I said simply, and she smiled.
“I want you too, Jack.”
I couldn’t believe it. After all this time, it really was as simple as that.
And then we kissed.
It was a beautiful, long, slow, passionate kiss, that lasted for a full minute. When she pulled away from me, I didn’t want it to end. Placing my hands on her hips, I kissed her again. She accepted it, but a bit more reluctantly this time.
“Jack, if you want to be with me, you have to accept me for who I am.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned, confused by the sudden turn in conversation.
“I have a lot of problems in my life, and shit’s going on at the moment. I will tell you one day, I promise, but you might never look at me the same way again.”
“Can you tell me now?” I pleaded, desperate to know what she’d been hiding from me.
“No.”
“Well why the hell not?” My voice was angry.
“Because I’m not ready,” she said softly, and I had to accept that.
I wanted to be with Daisy, and the truth was out there now. She’d said she wanted to be with me too, and I was pretty confident that it wasn’t just the alcohol talking. I’d seen the desire in her eyes. Whatever was happening in her life, she could talk to me. If she wasn’t ready now, then fine, but I’d be there when she was.
For the first time in several hours, Daisy had stopped trembling. I didn’t know what had made her shake all night, be it the alcohol, her nerves about wanting me, or something else, but her hands were steady now.
She slipped her top off and climbed on top of me, kissing my neck and moving back up to my lips. I brushed my hands on her skin, feeling how smooth it was, enjoying the moment. At long last, it was about to happen.
She paused for a moment and stared at me, and I could see something behind those eyes. For a single second, she wasn’t sure whether she could go through with this. Then her smile returned, and she began undoing my belt.
“I’ve been waiting for this, Jack,” she told me, slipping off my trousers.
Then she stopped again, this time for far more serious reasons than second thoughts.
“Daisy?” I asked. She looked like she was about to faint.
“My chest,” she wheezed.
“Oh Christ, it hurts so bad.”
Daisy clutched her sides, struggling to breathe. I pushed her gently off me and lay her on the bad. She didn’t stay there. Sitting up, she let out the loudest cough I’d ever heard, and blood spouted from her lips, onto the bed.
“Shit!” I screamed, racing for the door. “Someone call an ambulance.”
I’d shouted this down the stairs, hoping that someone would hear the urgency in my voice and respond quickly, but I saw that they had another problem on their hands. Glancing out of the window, I saw a police car parked in the driveway. A neighbour must have complained about the noise.
Hurrying back to Daisy, blood caked to her chin, I searched the bag she’d carried around all night. I had a feeling I knew what was happening to her, but I couldn’t believe it. As it turned out, I should have. My instincts were right.
There was a small packet of cocaine in her bag, a quarter of the powder still remaining, three-quarters snorted up Daisy’s nose.
“You stupid girl,” I shouted, tears streaming down my face.
She had been stupid, but I wasn’t going to leave her. I was going to help her. If the police saw her, they would cart her straight to hospital, and then straight to a jail cell, so going downstairs wasn’t an option. There was only one thing I could think of doing. It was stupid and dangerous, but it had to be done.
Lifting my trousers up and doing my belt back up, I helping Daisy into her top. Reluctantly, she cooperated with me, and then let out a groan. That groan was followed by another spray of blood. Trembling, Daisy collapsed on the bed. I stared at her for a second in a complete shock, as the shaking ceased and she lay still. She wasn’t moving.
Daisy Mulligan was lying on the bed, blood coated to her body, lying completely, deathly, still.
Chapter Eighteen
Becky
The investigation into the murder of Rachel had gone south. We were still technically investigating it, but we had no leads and no development had happened in weeks. I’d told Richard that we’d contact him if anything came up. We still paid him, we had to, but he hadn’t helped us all that much. I’d worked out most of the clues on my own.
In fact, the only thing Richard had done was throw my world into shambles. I didn’t have any feelings for him whatsoever, but he was annoyingly useful when it came to the cases. Most cases, anyway.
The thing was, Richard wasn’t too bad on the eyes and I’d been in desperate need of some action on the night we’d hooked up. I wasn’t one for commitment. I preferred a one-night stand, and I’d had plenty of those in my life. That’s all I wanted from Richard, and I didn’t want that night to affect Rachel’s case, or any other cases in the future.
It seemed that Richard had other ideas. I was surprised about that, to be honest, because of the stories I’d heard him tell. In bed with strippers, in bed with his wife’s sister, in bed with any living female. When the morning after we hooked up came around, he was on about going on a date. I stopped him in his tracks. That was never going to happen.
It wasn’t that I was completely against dating. Like I said, it wasn’t my thing. I preferred casual fun with no strings attached, but going out with a guy might have been a nice change of pace. It wasn’t even the fact that I didn’t trust him not to sleep with my sister, or anyone else that I knew. It was mainly the fact that I thought of him as a colleague. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t. I was a police officer and he was a detective, but we worked together, and I didn’t think a relationship like that would work out.
I hadn’t seen him for a while because of the lack of leads we’d been having, and I was quite glad about that. On the other hand, I wasn’t glad about all of the petty cases I was being assigned to. No disrespect to the woman who’d had her husband threaten her with violence, or to the man with a burned down house, but everything seemed quite lame after the Rachel case. I was itching to get back to it, but we literally didn’t have a single lead to go on. We were waiting for a miracle.
As it turned out, that miracle did happen, but it would be a long and bumpy road until I discovered it. Sometimes, it’s right under your nose, just waiting to be found. In this case, I only wished I’d noticed it sooner. This miracle, as it happens, started with a house party.
“Cooper, I’ve got a call. There aren’t many of us in the office, and I don’t want to wake people up for this. Can you take it?”
I looked sideways at Davies, closing the folder in front of me and placing it on the table. I’d been going over the Rachel case again, just like I’d been doing every night for the past two weeks.
“Sure, boss,” I sighed, standing up and joining Davies at the door.
“Aren’t you gonna ask what it is?” Davies smiled, and it always worried me when he did that.
“What is it?” I rolled my eyes, figuring it couldn’t be that bad.
“A house party,” Davies told me, and that explained it.
House parties weren’t bad, not at all. As police work goes, they were extremely tame. I just hated breaking them up. There were always a bunch of drunkards screaming and taking their clothes off, fighting in the halls, couples in the bedrooms, and all of that pissed me right off.
I’d been to so many house parties back in the day, and I honestly feel sorry for all of the people who lived on the road where these parties were taking place. Until I’d become the one breaking them up, I hadn’t seen the consequences they could have on people.
To be quite honest, we didn’t get a load of house party complaints. I’m sure there were so many happening around the city every week, but most people didn’t feel they could phone the police and complain about noisy neighbours. On average, we probably got about one or two angry complaints a month. More in the summer, more on New Year’s, definitely more on Halloween. Less in the months in between.
“Take Rory with you please. He’s the only other one in the office, and I can’t stand him milling around. Let’s give him something to do.”
“Right you are,” I smiled, but it was a forced smile. There was anger beneath it.
I have already stated that house parties annoy me, but that wasn’t the main reason I was angry. I was so bloody annoyed because Rachel’s killer was still out there, he was still a large, he might even be planning his next victim, and all I could do was stop some stupid teenagers from drinking alcohol and making too much noise. It wasn’t fair.
“Come on, Cooper,” Rory wailed, bouncing to the car and clapping his hands like an over-excited toddler.
“It’s Officer Cooper,” I barked. “And keep your voice down.”
“Sorry, Officer,” he said, opening the passenger door and climbing into the car.
“Why are you so excited?” I asked him.
“I’ve never done a house party before. In fact, I’ve never really done much before. Only joined the force last week, so you might not have seen me around.”
“Oh, I’ve seen you,” I laughed. “Yes, I’ve seen you. I’m usually in the office, going over a case. It was just me and Davies hanging around at night, but then I started seeing you.”
“I like being there,” Rory nodded. “Shows enthusiasm.”
“You’ve already got the job,” I said. “Being there just annoys Davies. I’m allowed because he likes me, plus I’m actually doing something. Davies is probably working when he’s there too, but sitting around in your office all night won’t look impressive. It will look desperate. Just trust me on this, OK? Come in during the daytime, and go home at night, unless you actually have something you’re working on. He’ll start you out with smaller cases, like this party, and then you can work your way up.”
Rory listened while I said all of that, his pearly white teeth reflecting the glow of the street lamps. It seemed that he was thinking it all over, processing it. After a while, he just nodded and settled back into the chair.
Approaching the house, I was greeted with such a lovely sight. There were people passed out in the driveway, loo roll scattered everywhere, empt
y beer cans littered about, and music blaring out into the night.
“Bloody hell, I can see why someone complained,” I said to Rory, and he nodded agreement.
“How can people be that inconsiderate?” Rory queried, as we parked the car and got out.
“Just kids, isn’t it? Surely you went to parties back in the day?”
“I only finished school four years ago. To be honest, I was too busy studying to go to parties.”
“Ah, that explains it,” I smirked, and Rory looked confused.
“Explains what?” he questioned, but I didn’t get the chance to respond.
Someone lying on the grass had seen us approach, his eyes widening, his mouth stretched out. I stood above him, eying the teenager up. His top was shredded, as if he’d tried to rip it off before a fight, and there were dirty marks on his cheek.
“You must think you’re so bloody funny,” I screamed at the boy, making him jump.
This made other people turn towards us and run back towards the house. There was a black kid on the grass next to the garage, and a girl standing next to him. They looked like they’d just finished getting dressed, with their clothes thrown roughly onto their skin. They’d also attracted quite the crowd, and I hoped they hadn’t been having sex on the driveway. It seemed a bit extreme, but it was all I could think of. Another indecent exposure case was the last thing I needed, especially with a couple of kids.
“It’s the police,” the black kid shouted, making people panic.
Running back inside, they slammed the door. I looked sideways at Rory, and he looked a lot less comfortable now.
“Do you think they were…?”
“Having sex? Hard to say. Probably. Come on, let’s get them all out of there.”
Banging on the door, I shouted at them to let us in. I banged again, and a third time, and then someone finally opened the door. I asked to speak to the person who lived in the house, which was when a young man approached me.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. If only his parents knew what was happening. I’m sure they wouldn’t be happy.