by Elle Gray
“She’s going to be all right, Blake. And once she gets clear of this mess—and she will—she’s going to be back,” I assure her. “If she’s anything like you, I know she’s going to do whatever it takes to come back to you.”
“Am I a terrible person for not caring about the things she’s done?” Blake asks. “Or the things she’ll have to do to get clear of this?”
I sit back and give her a small shrug. “It’s not for me to judge. All I’ll say is I’ve learned that nothing is ever black and white. There are more shades of gray than I ever used to imagine.”
Blake shakes her head. “I’m not naïve. I mean, I know she’s killed people. Murdered them. It’s hard for me to accept that.”
“I know it is. But your sister did what she had to do to survive,” I counter. “She literally did not have a choice—”
“She did, though. She obviously made the choice to run from the Thirteen. Why didn’t she do that sooner? Why wait until my life was in danger to run?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. You don’t know. I mean, it’s possible she knew things were headed in this direction all along and was just waiting for the right time. She could have been trying to protect you all this time. We just don’t know.”
“It’s possible, I guess,” she admits with a shrug.
A silence descends over the table, and I can tell Blake is done talking about this so I’m not going to push her. I know it’s a really sensitive subject for her and I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. I clear my throat.
“So, what’s next for you?” I ask.
She lets out a breath as if relieved to be talking about something else. Blake gives me a shaky, grateful smile for the change in topic.
“My team and I go back to catching bad guys,” she shrugs. “We have a couple of things we’re looking at—a possible serial killer as well as a rip crew. They’ve hit three stash houses in the last month.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
She nods. “It never ends.”
“If it did, you’d be out of a job,” I say with a chuckle.
“That’s very true,” she replies, giving me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Speaking of which…”
“Time to go punch in?”
She nods. “Thanks for lunch.”
“Of course,” I reply. “Let’s get together soon. I’ll take you to that steak house you loved so much.”
Blake’s laugh is slightly more genuine. “I’ll take you up on that.”
“Just name the time and place.”
“I’ll do that.”
I give her a smile. “Seriously, don’t be a stranger. Let’s get together again. Soon.”
“We will. I promise.”
Blake slides out of the booth and turns to go but I stop her, and she turns back to me.
“I’m always here for you, Blake. All you need to do is call,” I say. “Anytime, day or night. I’m always available to you.”
“Thanks, Pax.”
I nod as she turns and silently walks out of the restaurant. She’s doing her best to put on a brave face, but I know how bad she’s hurting. Kit’s disappearance is eating her up inside. I can only wish there was something I could do to alleviate her pain. But I know there’s nothing I can do until she’s ready to let me help her. All I can do is be here for her when she is.
Two
Arrington Residence; Wilton House Condominiums, Downtown Seattle
“So? What did you really think?” I ask.
May smiles. “It wasn’t what I expected. It was… interesting.”
I laugh. “You do know that saying something is interesting is what people say when they’re too polite to say they hated something.”
May throws her head back and laughs wildly. It’s a sound I enjoy and frankly, one I can’t hear often enough. After a nice dinner out, I took her to the Living Art Pageant. It’s kind of a quirky, niche thing—actors and actresses bring famous pieces of art to life on stage—but I’ve always enjoyed it. I first saw it when I was a kid. My parents dragged me to it, and I thought I would be bored out of my skull. But I was hooked and haven’t missed a year since.
“That’s not what I meant,” she protests, still giggling.
I shrug. “I’m just sayin’.”
“You are awful,” she replies. “Just because it wasn’t what I was expecting doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. You’re so jaded.”
May and I are curled up on my sofa in front of a roaring fire. Soft music is playing, and candles provide the only illumination in the room. The whole scene is dripping with romance, and I couldn’t feel more uncomfortable if I tried.
“And what was it you were expecting?” I ask.
“Well, when you said it was a living art show, I expected something like body painting,” she explains. “Or maybe some sort of tattoo convention or something.”
I chuckle. “Because I’m the type to hang out at tattoo conventions.”
She playfully slaps my shoulder and grins at me. “You never know. People sometimes have a dark, mysterious side,” she says. “You most of all, Mr. Mysterious.”
“I’m not all that mysterious.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “Please. You hold more secrets than a church confessional.”
I purse my lips and nod. “All right, I suppose that’s fair.”
May is a waitress down at a bar Brody and I frequent called the Pulpit. It is, hands down, the most sacrilegious place to get a drink in all of Seattle. Built using the structure of a former church, the Pulpit incorporated repurposed items like pews and stained glass into their design. The arched ceilings give the place incredible acoustics for the live music shows they have, and waitresses dressed in skimpy, scandalous nun’s habits serve up drinks with names like the “Bloody Pope” or the “Exorcism”. The Pulpit has been the target of some protests by local religious groups, but all they’ve accomplished is providing more publicity for the place.
May and I got to know each other over time and at the behest of my best friend Brody and the rest of my little tribe, I finally asked her out. We’ve been dating for a couple of months now, and frankly, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. May is the first person I’ve dated since Veronica died. It’s been strange, to say the least. She’s a great girl, and I’ve been trying, but it just hasn’t felt quite right to me.
It's nothing physical, May is a beautiful woman—five-three with dark hair, green eyes, rich, tawny skin, and a curvy yet toned build. She’s exactly my type. She’s extremely intelligent and very well-read—she’s attending grad school part-time for a literature degree—and she always has a fascinating story to tell in just about any topic of discussion. For not being very old, she’s got some incredible life experiences under her belt. I really enjoy spending time with May. But for me, it just feels like I’m trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. No matter how much I enjoy being with her, I’m keenly aware she’s not Veronica.
But I’m trying. All my friends are worried about how isolated I’ve been since Veronica died. They’ve been encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone. I know Veronica would want me to move on. I know for a fact she’d want me to be happy. And I know she’d want me to find love again. I know that because that’s what I would want for her if I’d been the one to die and she was left alone. She had too much to give to keep herself bottled up and I know she’d say the same thing about me.
I’m not sure I agree with the last bit, but I’m trying to live a life Veronica would want me to live. I’m trying to be a man she’d be proud of. I’m trying to find happiness because I know that’s what she’d want me to do. I like May. I like her quite a bit. But there’s something missing. Something that isn’t exactly right. I know that I’m too caught up in my own head and I’m thinking way too much when I should be letting myself feel. But when I do though manage to shut off my brain and feel, none of this feels right.
“I
did have a nice time tonight,” she says. “Don’t think I didn’t.”
“Good. I’m glad you did,” I reply. “Because I did too. I enjoy spending time with you, May. I enjoy it a lot.”
I cringe at my words and wonder if I’m trying to make her believe it or make myself believe it. Thankfully, if she noticed any insincerity in my voice, she’s not giving me any sign of it. She just looks back at me with a wide, warm smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye.
“I like spending time with you too, Pax.”
Before I can utter another syllable, May sits up and leans over, pressing her lips to mine. Her kiss is warm and sensual and as she melts into me, her body is soft and yet firm at the same time. Her passion stirs something deep inside of me and although I’m standing on that precipice, I feel myself pulling back. A moment later, the flames of desire that were smoldering within me are snuffed out again entirely.
“Hey, where’d you go?” she asks.
“I—I’m sorry,” I respond.
I press my forehead to hers and grit my teeth, frustration coursing through my veins when I see the disappointment in her eyes. May draws back so she’s not pressed up against me. I can see a thousand emotions scrolling across her face. I know she doesn’t understand why we haven’t been intimate since we’ve been together. There have been a couple of times she’s tried to initiate but she seemed to sense that I wasn’t comfortable and backed off. She’s been patient and hasn’t tried to push me. But I know even her patience has its limits.
“Is it me? Are you not attracted to me like that?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, it’s definitely not that. Physically, I’m very attracted to you.”
“Then what is it?”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “It’s complicated.”
May bites on her bottom lip and looks at me for a long moment, her eyes filled with hurt. I couldn’t feel like a bigger jerk if I tried.
“Pax, I really like you. You know that,” she says. “But if this isn’t working for you, or you’re too nice to tell me you’re not attracted to me, please just tell me now. Tell me before I invest any more emotion into this, so I don’t get hurt.”
“Hurting you is the last thing I want to do, May. And I like you too. I’m attracted to you and I like spending time with you. I just—I’m not very good when it comes to emotions. Never have been,” I tell her honestly. “But believe me when I say you make me feel things I haven’t felt in a very long time. Things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anymore.”
“Then what is it? Why are you holding yourself back with me?”
“It’s complicated,” I repeat, frowning and looking down at my hands.
“Then uncomplicate it for me.”
I raise my eyes and glance at a picture of Veronica and me that sits on a shelf. May doesn’t miss it and follows my gaze. A moment later, the light of understanding dawns on her face and the emotion I see in her eyes in her pierces me with a lance of guilt.
“Oh,” she says. “I see.”
“May, it’s—”
“No, I understand. I get it, Pax. And it’s all right,” she cuts me off. “I’d never expect you to just forget about her to be with me. She will always be part of your life, and I understand that. But at the same time, I can’t compete with her. I won’t. It’s not fair to me.”
“You’re right, it’s not. And I’m sorry. I never wanted you to feel like you were in competition with her.”
A wan smile crosses her lips. “It’s my fault. I should have known.”
I shake my head and take her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s nobody’s fault, May. It just is,” I tell her. “I thought I was ready to put myself out there again but I’m clearly not. And for that, for leading you on that way, I really am very sorry. That was never my intent.”
“I know,” she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “I know you didn’t.”
A silence descends over us, and I can see her grappling with her emotions. She’s doing her best to keep her feelings in check. I was wrong—apparently, I can feel like an even bigger jerk. May gets to her feet suddenly and looks down at me. She lays a gentle hand against my cheek and offers me a wavering smile.
“You’re a great guy, Pax, and I really like you,” she says. “Whenever you’re ready to put yourself out there again—really ready—I hope you’ll give me a call.”
May turns and walks out of my condo. Out of my life. And just like I felt when Blake walked out of the restaurant the other day, I feel entirely powerless to do anything about it. I just feel powerless as a whole. In Blake’s case, I was powerless to help her with what she’s going through. In this case, I’m powerless to help myself, and it’s costing me something great.
Until I set things right with Veronica and bring her killers to justice, I fear I’m never going to be able to seize that power and control back. If I can do that, then maybe I can start to have something that resembles a healthy and functional relationship again. Maybe.
Three
Arrington Residence; Wilton House Condominiums, Downtown Seattle
“Well, I really screwed that up, didn’t I?”
I sit back in the captain’s chair behind Veronica’s desk and stare through the windows at the lights of downtown Seattle. The sky is dark and overcast; patches of clouds in the distance flash as a storm rolls into the area. The thick, double-paned glass keeps me from hearing the sounds of the city out there, leaving me to sit in silence—which only amplifies the feeling of being utterly alone in this world.
“I probably shouldn’t have started dating her in the first place. It wasn’t fair to her when I know I’m not over you, Veronica. Truth is, I don’t know that I’m ever going to be over you and will probably be alone the rest of my life,” I say to the empty room.
My being alone is my own fault, I know. May gave me every chance to be with her. She was patient and understanding, but everybody has their limits, and she’s clearly reached hers. I don’t blame her, nor am I upset with her. I know I’ve got issues. The fact that I’m sitting in my dead wife’s office—which is still exactly the way she left it the day she died—talking to her bears that out. I can’t really explain it, but talking to her, even knowing I’ll never get a reply, just makes me feel a bit better.
I know some people would say it’s proof that I’ve lost my mind, but talking to Veronica—even though I know she’ll never answer me in return—somehow makes me feel not so alone. Sometimes, it’s like I can feel her here, in this room. In this condo. It’s the biggest reason I haven’t put it up for sale and have left everything exactly as it was. This was our first home together. Our only home, as it turned out. But it was Veronica who found this place. She decorated it. She made this place a home and it’s why I can still feel her here. Veronica’s spirit is bound up in this place.
Maybe it’s not healthy. It’s been a few years now, I know I should be able to move on, intellectually speaking. But there’s nothing logical or intellectual about emotions and grief. I’m doing all I can to combat the depression that threatens to consume me every single day, and being surrounded by her things, steeped in and comforted by her essence, is one of the only ways I’m coping. Or at least, trying to cope.
So I say, screw conventional logic and thinking. I’ve got no use for it. There’s no set timetable for grief. No one way to deal with the death of the love of your life. You’ll heal when you heal. Or maybe you never actually fully heal. There isn’t a right or a wrong way to handle your grief. You just have to do the best you can and get through it. Like the AA folks like to say, you take it one day at a time.
Of course, there’s not going to be any chance of healing at all unless I can close the case. Or at least take it to a conclusion I can live with—not that I even know what that might look like. It’s the fact that I haven’t been able to crack the conspiracy and find Veronica’s killers that’s keeping the wound open and festering. Blake, Brody, and everybody else
around me keeps saying I need to accept the idea that her accident, while tragic, was just that: an accident. They tell me I’m jumping at shadows and seeing conspiracies where none exist. They tell me I need to let this go and accept her accident for what it is. For what the official report says it is.
Frankly, that’s kind of a bitter pill to swallow from Blake, who just had her own years-long conspiracy validated. But absent any hard evidence to prove otherwise, I’m starting to feel like a tinfoil hatter more than an investigator.
I spin around in the chair and prop my elbows up on her desk then cradle my face in my hands. My eyes roam the office, taking it all in as I try to feel her presence here with me. As I try to draw comfort from it.
“I can’t do it, Veronica,” I mutter. “I can’t just accept it. I know what happened to you wasn’t an accident. I know you were murdered. I can feel it in my bones.”
Inconsistencies in the official report have bothered me since the moment I saw it. For instance, the official report says she was driving too fast and hit a patch of black ice that sent her car tumbling and killed her as a result. Not an uncommon cause of accidents up here. I can’t count the number of black ice accidents we get in Seattle, nor the number of deaths it causes.
The problem with the official findings though, is that the night Veronica died, it wasn’t cold enough for black ice to form. I’ve gone back and looked through the weather reports and although it was cold, it wasn’t cold enough to form ice on the road. Plus, there hadn’t been any rain for a couple of days. Furthermore, anybody who knew Veronica knew she did not speed. She was a cautious driver who never took chances behind the wheel. She was so careful about driving, she wouldn’t even let me get behind the wheel if I’d taken cough medicine. That just wasn’t her usual way.
It would be really unusual for her to have been speeding, but I know it would be foolish to say it was impossible. Yes, it’s possible she could have been driving abnormally fast for her. She was working on a huge story, and I know she was going to meet a source the night she was killed. So, sure. She may have driven faster than normal for her that night. But that still doesn’t account for the finding of black ice on the road. There was no ice that night. Period. And the pictures from the accident scene bear that out. There isn’t one single picture of the alleged black ice in the accident reports or the supplementals. Not one.