by Tracy Sharp
Lucas came toward us, palms held outwards. “They won’t let you in this time.”
I stopped, looked up at him. The expression on his face made my heart sink further into my chest. “Why not?”
“They don’t want any interference, any chance of evidence being disturbed.”
I shook my head a little. “It’s okay. I don’t really need to see her.”
“No,” he said, one hand on my arm. “You don’t.”
“Do they know who it is?” I asked him. But I already knew the answer to that question. It was in his eyes.
“They do. Leah…”
“Goddamn,” I whispered. My chin trembled. I turned, hunching my shoulders and squeezing my eyes shut. “Goddamn.”
He didn’t have to say it. The woman they had pulled out of the icy water was Alexia Clemmons.
I dropped to my knees in the snow, a guttural sound escaping my lips, and I covered my face and cried.
***
“I’ll take you home,” Jack said, leading me to the truck.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not going home.”
Jack stared at me. He didn’t know what I needed. For once in our friendship, he was truly at a loss.
I ran both hands through my hair, scratching my scalp. I needed sensation. I knew what I needed. “Would you go talk to Dr. Clemmons? See if there’s any chance he did this? I can’t look at him right now, Jack. Not if he’s guilty, and not if he isn’t. I just can’t do it.”
“Yeah. Absolutely.” But he didn’t move. “What are you going to do?”
“I want to be somewhere else right now. Anywhere else. But not home.” I knew I wasn’t making much sense but I really didn’t much care.
Lucas placed an arm around me. “I’ll take her.”
Jack’s eyes turned steely as he all but glared at Lucas. “Okay.” He paused, looking at me. “I’ll see you later. Let you know what I find out.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Jack. I’ll be okay. I just need to catch my breath.”
But he had already turned and was heading back to his truck.
***
“Where do you want to go?” Lucas asked me.
Anywhere I can have you inside of me. But I was going to try to hold off. I was having a serious problem, my faith in basic human goodness was completely shaken.
“To a church.”
He paused. “Okay. Which one?”
“I don’t care. I’m not exactly a patron of any of them. They would all gladly toss me out if they knew me. So any church will do, really.”
Lucas led me to his Mercedes and opened the door for me. It was a beautiful car. Leather seats. Impeccably clean. Sitting in it I had the sense that I was somehow dirtying it. That I’d leave marks, or smudges, or somehow stain it.
I saw Lucas glance at me from the corner of my eye as I watched the road ahead of us, and realized that I was sitting slightly forward in the seat. Trying not to touch too much of it. With a concerted effort, I allowed myself to sit back against the seat. They were heated, which was nice, and I let myself find comfort in the warmth coming from them.
“Are you okay?” He asked me. Stealing glances at me.
“I’ll be fine,” I murmured.
The deaths of Alexia and her unborn baby hung heavy all around me. I wouldn’t be able to shake them easily or anytime soon, and I didn’t really want to. Somehow, it seemed right that I was this shaken. This sorrowful over their deaths. I used to think that keeping an emotional distance from the horrible things that happened to the victims was the way to go. But I’ve learned that it isn’t so. If you don’t feel it, all of it, the crushing weight of the tragedy, then maybe you don’t have the empathy and fire to really do the job right.
It’s my theory. And Jack tends to agree with me.
Lucas pulled up to a gorgeous old church, built in Gothic style, grey brick. I didn’t make a move to get out of the truck, but sat watching the church, silent.
“Do you want to go in?”
“Want to? No. Should I? Depends on your perspective.” I was babbling. “Yeah.” I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door, feeling a cold blast winter hitting me in the face. It felt good.
There were no sessions going on, and the parking lot was empty except for one car.
The church was silent and warm. I made my way with Lucas behind me to the first bench on my left, sliding in. Lucas hesitated for a moment, not knowing if I wanted him there or not.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.
“I don’t mind, if you don’t mind me being here.”
“It’s okay.” I leaned forward, clasping my hands on the bench in front of me. “I don’t really know how to do this,” I said.
“I don’t think anyone will be offended,” Lucas said, sliding in beside me.
But I hadn’t been talking to Lucas. I’d been talking to God. By way explanation, my apology, maybe, for not listening to his voice all these years.
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead on my hands. I’ve been pretty angry with you for taking Susie from me. For my family blowing apart. Mostly I blamed myself, and still do, for her abduction. I wondered all these years if it was punishment for something I did or didn’t do.
I took a deep breath. Let it out. This wasn’t easy for me. Look. If you’re really there, I need something to keep me going. I need something to bring back some kind of faith in humanity. A belief that I used to have in basic human goodness. Otherwise, I don’t know if I can keep doing this. And maybe that’s what you’re actually trying to tell me. That I shouldn’t be doing it. Is that it? I know that I’m not supposed to question you. But if you know me at all, that doesn’t really work for me. I question everything. It’s how you made me. So…why? Why do you let these things happen? Why do you let innocent people suffer? Be murdered in such atrocious ways? Why do you do that? Children? Babies? Are you kidding me? Why? I looked up at Jesus hanging on the cross. He wasn’t answering.
I closed my eyes again. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I feel like I’m lost and I don’t know how to find my way back to…to me. I don’t know if you’re really there, listening to me. But if you are, I need something. Okay? Please? Just give me something. A small thing. Something to keep me going.
I waited a moment, to see if God would send me a sign.
He didn’t.
***
I wanted to just ride around for a while. We headed up to Lake George. It was quiet. No tourists. We found a bridge overlooking the ice and parked. Neither of us said anything for a while. Lucas sat with me, just letting me be quiet.
“I’ll be all right, you know,” I said to him, not taking my eyes off the frozen lake.
“I know you will.”
But I needed something. I needed to feel something other than this grief for Alexia and her baby, and the rage for what had happened to her.
I got out of the car and walked over to the concrete barrier of the bridge. Chilled air blew into my face, making my eyes water. I lifted my face to the wind and breathed it in. My lungs hurt, the air was too cold. Too raw. But anything felt better than what I was feeling inside.
An image of the day I met Jack flashed into my mind. My father hadn’t come to see me in Juvie on visitor’s day. I’d hoped he’d bring my brother, but he hadn’t come at all. My eyes had been closed and I was pressing a cigarette to the skin on my inner arm, palm faced toward me.
Don’t do that.
I’d opened my eyes to see what looked like an angel standing in front of me, red hair ablaze with a bright sun shining behind him, his face in shadow.
It had been Jack.
That had been so many years ago. He’d rescued me then. Taught me how to fight. Made me strong.
But something had snapped in me. Broken. I was broken. And I needed something to dull the pain. I didn’t smoke anymore.
I turned and reached up, pulling Lucas’s face toward me. I found his mouth and moved my tongue over his. The warmth of h
is kiss sent a quiver through me, and I trembled against him. I pressed my body against his. He grew hard against me, and I moaned against his mouth. Heat pooled between my legs and I moved against him. He did a slow grind, pushing against me, sending a thrill of pleasure through me.
“I need you,” I breathed against his lips.
He moved his mouth over my jaw, kissing me slowly along my jaw line and over my neck. My legs felt weak.
“Your place?”
“No. Now. Here.”
I fumbled with the button and zipper of his pants, creating enough space to slip my hand into his boxers and enclose my fingers around him. I moved my hand slowly up and down the length of him, and he leaned against me, pushing me against the concrete barrier of the bridge.
“There’s nobody around,” I whispered.
His fingers moved up under my hip length leather jacket and found the button and zipper of my jeans. I helped him, and then pushed my jeans and panties down, stepping out of one leg, the jeans piled around the other. My knee high riding boots were all that covered my otherwise bare legs.
I turned, leaning over the barrier and watching as new snow floated down on the ice of the river. The wind had picked up, so I felt rather than heard Lucas pushing his pants and boxers down just enough to gain entry into me.
Closing my eyes, I waited for him to make me feel better. To chase everything else away. He pressed against me. I was already wet, and he glided in easily. I took a sharp breath in. Ecstasy moved over me, filling me, and I closed my eyes.
His hands gripped my hips and I moved back against him. He moved slowly at first, and my urgency became almost unbearable.
“Lucas, make me forget,” I said, my mind fuzzy with desire.
He drove into me harder and I cried out into the wind, feeling like I had no pain at all. Feeling healed.
When his pumping became faster and I felt him harden further inside of me, I felt my own orgasm beginning, and I screamed out over the river, tears moving over my cheeks, as intensity and fever skipped over me and made me forget everything.
I didn’t hear the police cruiser come up behind us.
***
A car door slammed.
“Damn.” Lucas withdrew from me and I heard the sound of his zipper.
I yanked up my panties and jeans, but was still in the processes of buttoning and zipping them up when I turned and saw the police uniform and the cruiser behind the approaching cop.
My mouth went dry. This wasn’t good. Not even a little bit.
He was in his early forties I’d say, looking pissed off and disgusted. “Are you really having sex right out in the open, on a road that cars carrying kids drive over all the time?”
I hadn’t thought of that. The possibility that kids could have seen us in the act.
Nice.
Lucas and I both were silent.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?”
“Where would I even start?” I muttered.
“What?” He stepped around Lucas to get a better look at me. “Wait a minute. Are you Leah Ryan?”
Oh, perfect. I sighed. “Yes. I am.”
“I’ve seen you at the station. Are you coming from the crime scene on the river?” His face grew grim.
“Yes. We were just there. My partner and I were hired by Alexia’s mother to find her.” I paused. A lump rose in my throat. My eyes welled up. “I guess we found her today.”
The officer said nothing as he stared at me, reading me. “Ms. Ryan, we all lose it a little bit now and then, but you’re really skating on thin ice here. You get me?”
“Yes, officer. I do.” I looked down at the dirty snow on the ground. I felt the heat of shame color my face, even in the frozen air.
“Go on. Go do what you have to do for Alexia. But this is the only free pass you’re getting from me for shit like this. You read me?”
“I do,” I said. “Thank you, officer.”
His gaze flickered back to Lucas and he shook his head, turning back to his cruiser.
The snow was coming down hard now and the wind moved it all around, picking it up off the ground and swirling it around us.
We walked back to Lucas’s car in silence.
***
Lucas dropped me off at my house.
“Are you okay?” He asked me.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later. We need to discuss the other missing pregnant women. They’re still out there, Leah.”
I watched him for a moment. He was all business. Like we hadn’t just almost been put in the back of a police car and hauled off to the cop shop.
At that moment I was experiencing one hell of a moment of clarity.
What was I doing?
“Right.” I opened the car door and stepped out of the car. I turned back to him before closing the door. “Drive safe.”
“I will. Take care, Leah.”
“You too.”
My body ached. I needed a nap, badly. I let Pango out and stood outside with her, watching her jump up and snap at the snowflakes, then roll around on her back like a puppy, making dog snow angels.
We chased each other around the yard for a long time. Then we went back into the house and I fed her before I fell onto my couch.
I was vaguely aware of Pango as she settled on the thick carpet beside me before the world dropped away and I fell into a dead sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
I couldn’t do it anymore. Too risky. He was too dangerous. Not physically, but emotionally. The intensity of our pairing was stripping me. I had no self-control when I got near him. My sense of judgment went completely south. I was engaging in risky acts which would get me arrested if I didn’t stop.
The thing about my…thing, for lack of a better word, with Lucas, was that it felt so addictive. When we were together, for the brief time we’d meet, it was intense and euphoric. It was like a drug. And I rode that high for days, going back to the act that took me away, gave me that rush, over and over again.
But then we’d be formal and cut each other off in an attempt to thwart any chance of real intimacy. It was what I wanted. Yet, the yawning, gaping hole would open up in the center of me when he cut me off, when he became formal again. All about the job. And I’d fall into a depression so black and helpless that I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Then he’d come around again, and I’d feel so grateful. Worthy of his attention. Powerful that he wanted me. I’d have a handle on him. And he’s kiss me and I’d start flying again and ride that rush, and be completely and utterly swept away. And it would start all over again. The rollercoaster ride.
I’d always had what I needed from Callahan. But I’d been too damaged and fearful to accept his love. I was unworthy and undeserving of it. So I shoved him away and he’d finally left me for good. I knew it in my bones. He wasn’t ever coming back to me, and it was a loss I felt now, so profoundly, that I didn’t know if I’d ever get over it.
I stood outside his closed office door. He was on the phone, saw me through the window, and waved me in.
He was having a conversation with somebody about giving a lecture while looking over his calendar.
I busied myself with looking out the window. The snow wasn’t falling, and the sun was moving away, casting long shadows on the snow that had already fallen. Lucas had a view of decorated pine and spruce trees on the north side of the building, which overlooked a large, park-like area that stretched into a wooded section. The wooded area didn’t go very far before a new cluster of large, overpriced, pretty houses with postage stamp lawns resided. Twinkling, multi-colored lights winked up at me as I tried not to hear his conversation.
“Sorry about that,” he said, remaining seated at his desk.
I turned and looked at him. He was leaning forward on his desk, his fingers laced. He didn’t hold my gaze, but became fidgety and began shuffling through papers.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
>
“Oh, I’m already disturbed,” he said, trying to lighten the moment with humor.
“I wanted to touch base with you.”
He nodded, kept his eyes on the papers. “Okay.”
“Lucas,” I said, taking a couple of steps toward the desk.
Something in my tone made him look at me.
I waited for him to tell me something. Anything. I didn’t know where to go from here.
“How are you doing, Leah? With the case? Are you okay?” His face was turned downward as he gave furtive glances up at me.
I said nothing for a long moment. This whole thing felt too strange. Too…lonely. Finally I spoke. “Not as focused on the case as I should be.”
He nodded slowly. “I know what you mean.” A small grin lifted a corner of his mouth. He was a handsome man. Damn him.
“I’m going to try and get my focus back, Lucas. I need to…to get back to the case. Entirely back to it. No more…escaping.”
He didn’t look at me. “Probably a good idea,” there was no hint in his voice that he wanted me to change my mind. He could take me or leave me. I really didn’t matter. What I did for him was nice, but not really all that important. It never would be.
“Right. Well, I’ll talk to you soon, then, Lucas. Let us know when you know more, and we’ll do the same.”
He finally lifted his face and met my eyes. “Sounds good. Thank you, Leah.”
I turned and walked out of his office, nothing more than just another client.
Which was as it should be.
Then why did it suddenly feel like I was dying?
***
I walked away from Lucas’s office, his formality slicing me raw, and made my way to the women’s bathroom, the hallway tilting slightly, the world looking like a fun house, warped and unreal, and frightening.
My trembling hand found the knob and I turned it roughly, pushing against the door, almost falling through it. I found a wall and leaned against it, my arms resting against the cool tile, my forehead against my arm.I took great gasps of air, trying to find my breath, and wept silently against my arm. I closed my eyes against the hot tears.