“Would you rather me not have told you?” he asked.
“There’s not really much of a point to wondering about it, bud.”
“Hey.” He looked at me, his jaw set. “I regret nothing, if that counts for anything. I’d file this away in the ‘something that you need to know’ category, whether or not a woman you’ve never met has your face, name, and address on a piece of paper in her purse the first time you lay eyes on her.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” I tried to reason. “Maybe she got curious, after she met me. Maybe she did a little research.”
“And maybe you’re delusional,” Jack said. “You’ve got to understand, Ace, that there’s nothing good about this. Nothing good that can come of it. And that’s the only reason I knew I had to tell you. I think you’re in danger.”
I huffed a laugh at that. “In danger from Katie? She’s not exactly a femme fatale, bud.”
“You don’t know anything about her except her name, do you?”
“I know her name,” I confirmed, ticking that off on a finger. “I know where she’s staying in town. I know she likes to ride. I know she’s from Albuquerque.”
“So not a whole lot.”
“Enough. More than what I know about a lot of the women I sleep with.”
“That shouldn’t make you feel any better.”
“You’re right.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Nothing about this is good.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t do this to try and ruin your chances with Katie.”
“I know you didn’t, bud.” I slouched in the booth. “I’m in love with her, though, so there’s that.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
Jack tapped his fingers against the table, agitated. “I have this feeling like you’re waiting for me to tell you that I’m sorry that I snooped, sorry that I found that photo, sorry that I told you about it, but I’m not sorry. You needed to know. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
“You’re a good friend, Jack.”
“You’re nice to say that. I don’t feel like a very good friend right now.”
“Stop. You are a good friend.” I just didn’t have the tools to sort this out with Katie. I didn’t even know what I was about to attempt to sort out.
I found myself in the parking lot of the hotel, studying the door to her room, when it opened.
“Oh, you scared me,” she laughed, laying her hand over her chest. “How long have you been standing there? Come in out of the cold. What are you doing?”
I followed her inside hesitantly, let her fold me into her arms, her hands rubbing my back like I was freezing to death or something, and then I knew that I needed to know what was going on. I couldn’t continue without knowing.
“Hey, Katie?” I stepped away from her, my heart squeezing a little at how cute she looked, inquisitive, her head cocked to the side. I was about to sucker punch her with this, because I knew whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. I might’ve been awash in denial at the bar, but Jack was right. There was nothing that could be positive if someone I’d never met had known me before we even met. It might’ve been easier to pretend that wasn’t so, but I couldn’t pretend anymore, couldn’t ignore it. Not with the way I felt about the woman standing in front of me.
“What’s up?” she asked, wrinkling her nose a little. “Don’t tell me you’re out of my favorite beer at the bar.”
“Nope, and I’m developing a new way to keep the beers lukewarm, just the way you like them.”
She smiled at me and I cursed myself. I was letting myself get distracted, straying from what I’d come there to do.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something,” I said.
Her smiled deepened. “That’s funny. I was going to talk to you about something, too.”
I hesitated. “What’s…what is your thing?”
“I was thinking about the other day, when you…well, you know.”
“You’re maybe going to have to be more specific.”
“When you told me that you loved me, and I didn’t say anything back.”
Ah. That was specific. “Katie, you don’t…you didn’t have to say anything if you weren’t ready. I maybe shouldn’t have said it in the first place.”
Her smile drained away from her face, and the sparkle in her eyes followed soon after. Goddammit. This entire thing was getting out of control.
“You wish you didn’t tell me, or you wish you didn’t love me?” she asked carefully.
“All I’m saying is that maybe it was a little too soon to be saying that kind of thing.”
“So you regret it.”
“That’s not what I said.” This had all gotten so off track from what I’d originally intended that I found myself blurting out the truth. “I do love you, Katie. It sucked that you didn’t say anything back, but I understand. I sprung it on you. We haven’t known each other long enough to be professing love, but I did it anyway, maybe in a moment of weakness. And maybe that’s the thing that really makes me panic, is that I feel so weak around you. Every time I’m around you, I feel like I’m coming undone, that everything that usually works for me is lost, and I don’t know what to do. You unmake me, that’s how much I love you. I don’t even care if you don’t love me. I’m perfectly content with loving you, even if it might be one-sided.”
Katie stared at me. “It’s not one-sided.”
“If it’s not there for you, that’s fine. You don’t have to push yourself.”
“I’m not. It’s there. Ace, I love you. I do.”
It was a revelation that should’ve made me happy, but the pit raging in my stomach just seemed grow wider. The part of me that thought I should’ve rejoiced knew that was the real deal. It had been love at first sight for me with Katie. I’d loved her before I even knew her name. But she’d known my name before she’d even ever met me, and that raised a huge red flag.
I could think of several reasons for her having my picture and information hidden away inside her purse, and none of them were positive. Had she meant to fall in love with me? She’d been so mean to me at first, so standoffish that it took four whole encounters before I even learned her name.
“What did you come here to talk to me about?” she asked, smiling. “I’ve more than had my say, I think.”
Goddammit. Goddammit. I couldn’t do this anymore. I’d lie to Jack, tell him I talked to her about it and everything was just fine, only it wasn’t fine. There wasn’t a story I could make up that would explain away my information in Katie’s purse, and it didn’t matter how much I loved her. This was something I needed to address. I knew I needed to.
“It’s not as wonderful as what you wanted to talk to me about,” I warned her. She was getting ready to eat her words, and I wished there was some way I could ease into this issue, but there just wasn’t.
“Should I be worried?” she asked, her face going wary. “Someone else you’re in love with, maybe?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Because I’ve been in town a while. I’ve asked around about you. I know you have something of a reputation.”
I snorted even as my stomach ached even more. She had been canvassing Rio Seco for information about me? That definitely didn’t bode well. “Don’t trust everything you’ve heard.”
“I was no angel before I met you, either,” she assured me. “I’m not worried.”
“What I’d like to discuss is this.” I reached in my pocket and took out the piece of paper, folded into an even smaller shape than it had been before. I held it out to her, waving it a little in the air to get her to take it.
“What is this?” Was it my imagination, or was there a tightness in Katie’s voice that hadn’t been there before? I had a hard time looking at her, and it grew even worse with each time she unfolded the piece of paper, her hands smoothing over the folds I’d made to try and conceal it.
When it was finally
completely unfolded, she made a sharp inhale of recognition that I knew I didn’t imagine. I knew, too, it was something I couldn’t ignore, and that it was going to be bad.
“Where’d you get this?” she asked quietly. “No, don’t answer that, because you’d just be wasting my time. I know where you got it. Of course I know. It was in my purse. You got it from my purse. You went through my purse.”
“Does it matter where it came from?” I asked her, wondering why my voice was so gentle. It was so stupid. I was trying to break the fact that Katie had some kind of hidden agenda to her and I was afraid that I was going to hurt her. It was ludicrous, but true. I cared, even in this moment, more about Katie’s feelings than my own.
“You shouldn’t go through other people’s things,” she said, putting the paper aside. “You might not like what you find.”
“I’m starting to understand that.” I stared at the photo of myself, which gazed upward at the ceiling, on the bed. “Though, for whatever it might be worth, I wasn’t the one who found it.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “When I drunkenly left it at the bar. That’s when it happened, wasn’t it? Who found it? Haley? Brody?”
“Jack.”
“And how long have you known that I had a piece of paper with your face, name, and address on it in my purse from day one?” She shook her head, huffed an exasperated laugh. “Were you waiting until you at least got in my pants before you asked me about it? So you could have yet another notch in your belt?”
“I only”
An almost shrill burst of laughter cut me off. “But, like, what was with all the romancing? Christmas with all your friends? You already had me. The sex was a sure thing. And research showed that you didn’t even like repeat performances. Do you have a cruel streak I haven’t found out about yet? Because that’s the only reason I can think of for you parading me around in front of your friends.”
“Will you please tell me why you had that in your purse?” I asked quietly. “Then, if you still want to, you can drag me through as much shit as you want.”
“I had that because I was looking for you.”
“That much is obvious,” I said. “You’re going to have to narrow it down a little for me, though. Be a little more specific.”
Because it could be several things, and I wasn’t sure which one would be the worst, which reason I would rather it be that made Katie seek me out.
“If you were on the hunt for legendary sex, I could probably find it in myself to understand,” I blurted out, anxiety turning me into an idiot. It was literally the only scenario I could come up with that was positive.
“Just so you know, this is hard for me,” Katie said. “You weren’t supposed to find that piece of paper.”
“You know, it’s hard for me, too,” I said. “Because I love you. I didn’t know who you were, and I laid eyes on you and fell in love with you.”
She took a hard seat on the bed, pushed her face into her hands, then flopped backward, bouncing the mattress. “I’m so fucking stupid,” she forced out, between gritted teeth, pounding the heels of her hands against her forehead. “So stupid. So fucking stupid.”
“Stop.” I didn’t have a clue what was going on, wasn’t sure if anything would ever become clear to me, but I couldn’t just stand there and watch Katie try her best to cave her own skull in. I knelt on the bed beside her and captured her wrists in my hands, pulling them gently away from her face. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Get away from me.” The quietness of her voice startled me more than the strange outburst just moments before.
“Katie…”
“Don’t touch me. Step away. Immediately.” Those words were delivered so flatly that it made me shudder and do what she instructed me, easing up from the bed, stepping away. Something was really, really wrong.
“If you want me to go, just say the word,” I said. “I don’t want to be here if you don’t want me to be. I would never force you to endure me, if that’s not what you want.”
“You have no idea what I want,” she said, sitting up again. “No, that’s not right well, that’s right, but I have no idea what I want, either.”
“The piece of paper. My photo. Name. Address. You need to tell me what that means, you having them.”
“I was looking for you, and I found you. I found a lot of things I didn’t expect, too, but here we are. I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, that’s for sure. Yeah, falling in love with you was a big mistake.”
I didn’t know if she had intended to go for the jugular on that one, but I was bleeding out all the same. There had been so much relief to hear that she loved me. Relief in spite of confusion and fear. Now there was just hopelessness. Everything was out of control and I still didn’t understand what was going on.
“You know what?” I took another few steps backward, away from Katie. I’d loved her so much, loved being around her, that it felt strange to want to put distance between us now. “We can talk about this later. You are obviously upset. Take some time. Think things through. When you’re ready to discuss this again, we can. There’s no need to struggle through this right now.” Even if I was drowning in it.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’ll know right where to find me. Rio Seco’s my home, and you’ve been here a while. I’m pretty sure you’ve got all the nooks and crannies figured out by now. If you can’t find me at my apartment, try the bar. If I’m not at the bar, I’m probably on a ride, and you just have to pick a spot and wait me out. Find me when you’re ready.”
“No.” Katie stood up. “I mean you’re not going anywhere right now.”
“Is…” Why the hell was I so uneasy? For a woman I was in love with, my mind had a funny way of throwing up a lot of red flags right now. “Does that mean that you want to address the situation right now, after all?”
“Yes.” Katie turned to fully face me and extended an arm toward me. It took several painfully extended seconds for me to see the gun clutched in her hand, the barrel of it pointed right at me. “We’re going to talk about the man you killed in Albuquerque.”
And just like that, something slammed shut inside of me, or crumpled, or shattered. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it hurt, and the echo of it reverberated through me. Of all the things she could’ve been hunting me for, this was the last thing I wanted to hear about. It made everything grind to a halt.
You never really got used to someone pointing a gun at you. I hadn’t liked it back when I’d been a cop, and I didn’t like it now, in my retirement.
I let out a breath slowly and forced myself to focus on the face of the woman holding the gun. I liked that face or rather, I had liked that face. Looking at that face was better than staring down the business end of a pistol.
“You really, really don’t want to do that,” I suggested, halfway wondering if it was just a terrible mistake. Maybe it was a water pistol, or one of those gag guns you saw in slapstick cartoons, the ones that unfurled a silly “bang” banner when you pulled the trigger. There probably wasn’t a great way to find out, though. I certainly didn’t want Katie to pull the trigger. I didn’t even want her to be the one holding the gun, her full lips tightened into a resolute line. But she happened to be here about some pretty dire circumstances, and of all the things I’d screwed up in my life, it figured that it was this certain incident that was going to get me killed.
And just when everything had been going so well. I’d lulled myself into a false sense of security, thinking I could ever live a life free from the things I’d seen, the things I’d done.
“You’re right,” Katie said, throwing me off, making me wonder what I’d been right about with all the thoughts rushing through my mind. “I don’t want to do this. But you’re going to have to stay here while I call for backup.”
“This is ludicrous okay, you mean it.” The unmistakable sound of the safety removed, a bullet in the chamber, made me put m
y hands back up into their pose of placation, palms facing outward, toward her. “That is definitely a real gun. I’m assuming the backup is just as real.”
“Of course it’s real,” she said. “It’s my department-issued sidearm, and if I call people, they’ll come for me.”
“Okay, you’re a cop,” I said. “That’s…that’s great. Unexpected, but great. Good for you. You’re from Albuquerque. You on the force, there, or somewhere else? Federal, maybe?” I was babbling, but I felt the need to keep talking, even if all that was coming out of my mouth was nonsense.
“Albuquerque police department,” she confirmed. I wasn’t sure why. She didn’t have to tell me anything. She was the one with the power. She was the one with the gun.
“You’ve been in Rio Seco for an awfully long time,” I said. “They have a pretty good vacation policy on the force, or are you freelancing right now? Working a case, or something?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Am I the case?”
“As it turns out, yes, you are.”
“I would really like it if you pointed the gun elsewhere. Anywhere. There are lots of places for you to point the gun in this room instead of at me.”
“You were going to leave.” Katie’s blue eyes were wider than they should’ve been, like she wasn’t quite convinced herself at this point that this was the right course of action. “There are things to discuss. Reasons why you can’t leave.”
“And at least one of those reasons is because you think I killed a man in Albuquerque.”
“I don’t think you did. I know you did.”
I had a bad taste in my mouth, something like metal, and I wondered if I’d bitten down on my tongue or the inside of one of my cheeks hard enough to draw blood.
“I didn’t kill anyone in Albuquerque.”
She laughed, the sound ringing out harshly, false in the impersonal motel room. “I’d like to beg to differ, seeing as how a man is dead and I followed some breadcrumbs and came up with you.”
“I don’t know what kind of trail you thought you were following, but it was wrong. What is this to you, anyway? Are you doing a formal investigation? Don’t you think if I really had anything to run from, I would’ve hidden myself a little better?”
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