by W Winters
Claire only agreed because I promised I had no intention of doing anything but paperwork.
There’s always plenty of that to do, was her answer.
It wasn’t a yes and it wasn’t a no. So here I stand, in my office staring between the piles of cases that need to be sorted and filed electronically and my empty cup of coffee. Aaron is technically in charge of these tasks, but I’m grateful to simply be doing something and he’s grateful for the help.
If I told a younger version of myself who thrived on working in the field that I’d be hiding behind files in a silent office for days on end because of PR pressure … I would have snorted the most disbelieving laugh followed by a quick, “Fucking hell I will.”
Reality is a bitter pill to swallow sometimes.
The rap of a quick knock at the door is a pleasant distraction. “It’s open.”
Claire’s gaze moves from me to the stack of folders over a foot high and the open cardboard filing box. “You busy?” As she asks, her smile quirks up and her left brow raises comically.
“I think I need another coffee before I dive into the next stack,” I comment offhandedly. “You have something for me?”
At my question, she makes her way into my office, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
“Just checking on you.”
With my head down, moving several folders from one pile to the next, I peek up at her and her dark gray skirt suit before answering. “I don’t need checking on.”
“Of course you do.” My motion pauses in the air, a manila folder in my clutches before she adds, “We all do.”
I’ve been an honor roll student, salutatorian, and been given every kind of overachiever trophy a person can be awarded. I don’t like the idea of being someone who needs to be “checked up on.”
“I’m good. Almost through with this stack and then it’ll be ready for Aaron to put in the system and be digital.” My statement is practically robotic if not for the dismissive tone.
Crossing her arms, Claire leans back, one heel up and braced against the closed door. “Shaw is clumsy and Tanner struggles to read the jury.”
The huff that comes from my lips brings a smirk with it when she adds, “They’re too green and I want a string of cases to go our way. I might’ve managed an article with the Journal but it’s on hold until we have a series of verdicts go our way.”
“Running defense?” I question her, hating that she spent any time at all to combat the article that ran last week.
“I’m doing what has to be done. We need you in there.”
Silence weighs heavy on my shoulders. I can’t remember the last time I went this long without preparing to go before a judge. I haven’t even gone to Bar 44 or seen anyone other than Aaron and Claire since the article hit.
“Everyone goes through it,” Claire speaks up as if reading my mind. “Shake it off and meet me in the boardroom. I’m not giving this case to one of them to fuck up. Nail it and we’ll ring it out for all it’s worth. As far as I’m concerned, the investigation has been conducted and we found nothing.”
“What are we looking at? Case wise?”
“Double homicide,” she says. Her answer is spoken easily enough and with the glimmer of a challenge in her eyes, a fire lights inside of me.
This is why I do what I do. I put the bad men behind bars. Some people claim we’re only here to show the evidence. That there’s no desire or intention to punish.
Fuck that.
“You need this,” Claire claims and I nod.
“I need it more than you know.” I let the truth slip out firmer than I would have liked.
“How’s your mother?” Her question comes with an assumption that I need the case as a distraction. She’s not wrong.
“She’ll be all right. Just tumbled down the stairs and hurt herself pretty bad.” Even to my own ears, the statement is spoken without any emotion. Inside, turmoil spreads, disgust even because I don’t tell her what I really think. Sucking in a breath and letting it out in one go, I stare down at my boss in her typical professional attire and tell her I’ll be there, abruptly ending the conversation.
I’m busy making sure I put the files back in the correct boxes and email Sarah an update when Cody messages me.
I need you tonight.
That’s when I see the message I never sent him, still waiting: I need to see you.
I change it to: I want to see you too, but I have a lot of work and probably won’t go to Bar 44.
Even though the three moving bubbles make me aware that he’s writing something in response, I quickly add: But I need you too. There’s a vulnerability I don’t like in my words, so I lighten it by adding a joke: Come to my place? Make it a quickie?
I can’t explain why I feel sick to my stomach over it. Or why unease spreads through me until he responds, It’s a date.
Delilah
“I heard you might be leaving town for a while.” My voice carries a purr to it as the bottle of beer hits the high-top table. It’s nearly 2:00 a.m. and the bar’s clearing out.
A week of normalcy does wonders. No one’s brought up the article and as far as I’m concerned, it never existed.
“Bad news travels fast, doesn’t it?” Cody’s formerly charming expression dims under the bar lights. Office, trial, Bar 44, and bed with Cody. Every day on repeat.
“I thought you were going home?”
“I am,” he answers, tipping back his drink.
“Going home is bad for you?” The disbelief in my voice makes me feel like a hypocrite and Cody’s amused expression displays the sentiment.
“I don’t really have a home anymore. And I never liked that town to begin with.”
There’s something sobering I didn’t know about Cody. It’s easy to get along with the man, easier to get in bed with him. But getting information out of him is something far more difficult. I consult my wineglass, giving him a moment before questioning more. “Your parents?”
“They passed when I was younger. I went to live with my uncle who never wanted kids and he has dementia now.” He shrugs, but nothing he said is casual in the least.
“Sorry to hear that,” I respond apologetically and brush my thigh against his, leaning closer to him even though I know the bar is hardly packed.
“I hate his dementia. Hate going to see him even if I love the man. He was more like a friend than a father. And now…”
“He doesn’t remember you?” The question tumbles out of me with pain and it’s relieved when he shakes his head and answers, “He remembers me. He knows who I am most of the time.
“It’s just … he asks about things that happened before. He forgets about my parents passing. He thinks I’m my father sometimes. And then others he remembers. It’s hard to tell what reality he’s in and what I’m going to get when I visit him.”
It’s quiet for a moment and I want to tell him I’m sorry again but it seems not good enough. They’re just words and I struggle to find something more than just an apology.
“He used to ask about cases. I liked that better.”
“Yeah it’s easy to talk about work,” I’m quick to agree with him, nodding my head even and offering a gentle smile. “If you need to vent about anything, I’m always here.”
His mood shifts back to easy when he smiles and tells me, “I’m not leaving for a week, though.”
The way he raises his brow makes me huff a short laugh and say, “I guess I’ll just have to put up with you for a little while more then.”
As I joke with him, he brushes the back of his knuckles against mine and the heat unfolds inside of me.
There’s not a lot that makes me melt, but I swear he does.
“It’s easy to hide in work. Even easier to hide under the sheets and get lost, forgetting who we are and what we do,” Cody admits, speaking lowly, like it’s a secret.
“Why do we do this?” I don’t know why the question leaves me. It’s not with conscious consent. I suppose it�
�s the thought that neither of us likes to go home. We don’t like to talk about anything but work. Why do we put ourselves through this? Why do we prefer to meddle in lives that are long gone and stay buried there when there’s so much more to life than this?
Walsh’s gaze slips lower than it should, landing between my breasts as he questions, “Do what?” The edge of the bottle rests against his bottom lip for a moment too long, forcing me to pay too much attention to his expert lips.
“Do this job,” I answer firmly and holding an edge that doesn’t last. With my teeth sinking into my bottom lip, I return his hungry eyes with a heat in my own.
We should stop this conversation in public. I should stop leaning so close to him.
We’ve gotten too comfortable and even when I glance around the place, noting that no one’s watching and no one cares, I know damn well we shouldn’t be reckless. Especially after that article and the insinuation made. Even if I’ve nailed four trials in a row, I don’t need the judgment affecting my job.
“Why do we do what we do…” Cody’s intonation lowers, becoming more serious as he stares at my nearly empty glass of white.
“That’s what I was wondering?” My question doesn’t bring his gaze back; he’s lost in something reflected in the glass.
“I know I do this because of my brother.” Every muscle in my body tenses. Carefully, feigning a casualness that I’m all too aware is absent from this conversation, I pick up the glass and sip the white wine after commenting, “The one who passed?”
We spent over a year working together before anyone mentioned the fact that Cody Walsh had a brother. It’s one of the very few things I knew about him.
“Yeah, he’s the only brother I had. He was just a kid.”
“You were too, weren’t you?” I question, my memory betraying me. I’m almost certain his brother was seven or eight and Cody was only ten.
“Maybe I should stop. It’s been a long day and I’ve had too much.”
I shrug nonchalantly and say, “Whatever works for you. I do love getting to know you, though.”
I always knew Cody had demons. Something dark and twisted that kept him quiet and guarded whenever his personal information was in question.
The second his guard would start to crumble when I first met him, another would go up behind it, thicker and even more impenetrable. There’s not much about the man’s past that I know.
He’s a workaholic like me. He cusses under his breath when he’s pissed and likes beer on easy days. Jack and Coke when he wants to think about something that’s bothering him. He always says it’s a case. He lives for his job with the FBI and I get it.
My first real job was with the FBI, although not as an agent. I was only a lawyer working the cases with them. Cody was the knight in shining armor, willing to do whatever it took. Last one to call it a night and the first one to gather us in the morning.
Brutal tasks require brutal men. To this day I don’t know what makes Cody the man he is, only that I want to know his secrets. I want him to trust me enough to do so.
“You don’t have to stop. I want to know.” Laying my forearms on the table and leaning forward so I’m closer to him, I add, “You can tell me.” I’m vaguely aware of a couple nearby gathering their things and leaving. The sound of clinking from glasses being collected fades as I fall into Cody’s light blue gaze.
It swirls with an intensity, but deep inside the shades of silver and cobalt are secrets locked away, rattling behind the bars where he holds them hostage.
“What happened to him? You never did tell me the story. All I know is that you two were split up and he passed a little while later.”
“It was years, not a little while. I went with my uncle; he went to my aunt when our parents died.” When he told me the two of them were split up, I assumed his mother and father had split. I didn’t know they split after.
“That’s rough,” I barely speak, feeling a tingle of unease run through me. “It must be difficult to be separated like that… especially after losing your parents,” I offer even though my voice is tight.
“We were never close.” Cody’s response isn’t spoken coldly, but it strikes me still. “He was years younger than me. He was only a kid,” he repeats the last statement in a whisper, finding refuge in his beer and I get the impression that the conversation has come to a halt until he speaks again, surprising me.
“It was a group of three men. They kidnapped and murdered those kids. Fed their remains to the dogs. The one who lived told the cops they had to watch it all. They saw everything happen to the kid before them. One at a time as they huddled together in the cell and were forced to watch.”
“That’s sadistic,” I respond and I don’t know how I’m able to even speak.
“They got off on scaring them,” he responds and his tone is harsh.
“They got them though, right?” Please tell me they got the bastards.
“You could say that. They’re all dead. It never went to a trial.”
How did they die? The question is right there, but that’s not the one I ask. “You were how old?”
“I was twelve. My brother was eight. We were split three years before.”
“I’m sorry.”
“One of the kids they abducted when they took my brother survived. The one who lived said my brother died only hours before the police got there.”
My heart pounds in agony. “So that’s why you do this?”
“Yeah,” he says and pretends like he’s tired, and that’s why he rubs his face down with one masculine hand before looking away.
“You want to tell me your sob story now?” Cody asks and he makes fun of himself, trying to downplay it all, but I see right through him and I love what I see there.
I answer his question with one of my own, “You want to get out of here?”
Marcus
I was correct in my assumption that Delilah would call the front desk and then call the local floral shop when she received the roses. Both of which would give her nothing. I was right about her not telling Walsh as well, beyond asking if they came from him.
With the pad of my thumb running down the stubble along my jaw, I wonder if she would have told him had she not been in the position she was in. If the stress of that article and her family dynamic didn’t make her so tense and she was more clearheaded.
I can practically hear her laugh as the waitress gives her another glass of white wine. I’m not sure what Sandy told my Delilah, but it brings a glimmer to her gaze that’s been missing for days.
It still surprises me how easily she hides so much pain behind that gorgeous smile. I lean my head back against the leather headrest, listening to the police scanner and diverting my gaze to the front of the bar as opposed to the window I can so easily see her through. For a moment I wonder if I should have sent her wine instead of roses. The smile slips across my face, the feeling unusual as I imagine her uncorking it just to dump the bottle down the drain, not knowing who it’d come from.
She would have enjoyed the smell of it, though. I’ve seen her inhale deeply so many times when that cork is popped from her go-to bottle of Valley Pines Pinot.
The leather seat groans under me as a familiar operator announces a disturbance four blocks from here. Nodding, I recognize the address and continue to hear the flow of conversations, but I’m not listening as intently as I should. Instead, my gaze moves back to Delilah as she talks to her coworker, Aaron Curtis. She doesn’t know how he watches her.
She doesn’t see but I do. As does Walsh.
At least the young man knows she’s out of his league. He doesn’t have the balls to admit he wants her. There’s a small bit of gratitude I offer him from a distance. It’s one thing to know Walsh takes care of that need for her. It’d be different if the man fucking her was … so inferior.
As if it’s his cue, Cody comes into view, sidling up beside her at the bar-height table. She stiffens, becoming far more serious than she’s been all ni
ght. A voice alerts me that the scanner is still on, the shrill white noise of it filling the cabin of the car before I lean forward to turn it off, silencing it to keep any more interruptions from disturbing this moment. The days have turned to weeks of this. Him approaching her, the two of them pretending there’s nothing between them.
The act may have fooled most of them, but Aaron knows just like I do. He saw it months ago, when they started to drift together.
Unlike Aaron, it only makes me watch more closely. I want to know what Cody says that convinces her to leave when he does, to let him meet her at her house and let him through the door.
I want to know what she whispers in his ear when he enters her late at night when they think they’ve gotten away with it all. When they think that no one knows that he comforts her at night.
He must know that I know. How could he not? We had a deal. Maybe I hadn’t made myself clear enough.
Rage simmers inside of me, but it’s easily subdued.
Cody Walsh had to know what he was doing by bringing her into this mess. The article was his warning. I know he read it and received the message loud and clear. Perhaps he doesn’t care and he’s going for her, giving in to the temptation regardless.
I’ll bring up the past, then I’ll bury him in the present. Even worse, I’ll start the chase all over again and lure little Miss Delilah back to me.
I was so close to having her before. I wonder if she remembers.
She’s still the same, even if years have passed. Still the same vivacious woman with a heat in her eyes and yet there’s an innocence about her.
The vision of her is only obscured for a moment by Cody walking around her to speak to someone else. I watch her watch him.
Her lips part slightly before she forces herself to look away.
The ache is indescribable. She could look at me that way. If things had been different, she could look at me the way she does him.