She looked in my eyes. I held her gaze for some time, wanting both of us to feel better about everything, but knowing what heartache we felt wasn’t going to miraculously vanish. The sacrifice we’d each made in our brutally honest revelations was a huge step in understanding each other’s pasts.
I reached for her chin, lifted it, and leaned toward her.
Her eyes fell closed.
I kissed her softly, but as passionately as I’d ever kissed anyone.
It wasn’t planned, it simply happened. I wouldn’t change it if I were able, though. Kissing her told me everything I needed to know.
Everything.
Chapter Two Hundred Fifty-Five
Taryn – Day eleven
It was reassuring to know that Marc had experienced infidelity. It was impossible to accurately explain the heartache, the damage to one’s self-esteem, and the incessant desire to fix something that couldn’t be fixed to a person who hadn’t experienced it.
We sat and stared out at the ocean. I had spent the thirty-minute drive to his home dreading what I felt I needed to share with him. Yet. The evening ended up being a memorable and rewarding experience. Whether Marc and I stayed together or ended up drifting apart, this night with him would hold a cherished part in my heart, always.
I glanced at him. At the same exact moment, he looked at me. We locked eyes and seemed to get lost in a moment of admiration. He smiled before he looked away, and then he slipped his arm over my shoulder.
I had no idea if what he was doing was intended to comfort me, or if what I was experiencing with him was an advance our relationship had made. I hoped the latter.
He glanced at his watch and then looked at me. His mouth curled into a boyish grin. “Do you like malts?”
I looked at him in disbelief. It sounded like he asked me if I liked malts. It seemed really random, especially considering where we were and what we’d spent the night talking about. And, really, who doesn’t like malts?
“What?” I asked. “Malts?”
“A chocolate malt. You know, chocolate syrup, milk, ice cream, malted milk. A malt. Do you like them.”
My mouth watered at the thought of it. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a malt. “I haven’t had one in forever. Yeah. They’re pretty awesome, why?”
“Come on.” He stood. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make some.”
The man who two hours earlier had tried to tell me that he wasn’t opening up wanted to make malts. He could believe whatever he wanted to believe. I knew the truth.
I smiled. “A malt sounds great.”
He lifted my chin slightly and leaned toward me.
Oh God. You’re not going to…
His lips pressed against mine. It wasn’t soft, but he certainly didn’t assault me, either. Our mouths became one, and for that instant, I was lost. Completely. He pulled away, and when he did, I opened my eyes.
He looked right at me. He didn’t smile, but his eyes did. Then, he kissed each of my lips individually, encompassing them fully with his as if they mattered to him independently of my mouth.
Our mouths parted.
I opened my eyes.
His gray eyes looked back at me. For the first time, I wasn’t intimidated by them.
What did you just do to me?
It wasn’t my first kiss. But it was the first kiss I’ll never forget.
We sat at the kitchen island sharing a malt out of the metal cup he made it in. I was hesitant to categorize what I was experiencing as part of my love life, but I couldn’t help but make comparisons as if it were. My past had been filled with a cheater, and more one night stands than I could recall.
Yet.
In one evening, my life had somehow transformed into my very own happily ever after. It was quite possible that anyone else would have simply dismissed the night as thought provoking or mildly romantic, but I couldn’t dismiss what I felt as anything other than what it was.
Magnificent.
As unbelievable as it was, at least for that moment while we each sucked liquid ice cream through a straw, I was experiencing it with a man who I had yet to have sex with.
I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
With our eyes locked on each other, we sucked like our lives depended on it. Eventually, the sound of slurping resonated from the bottom of the cup.
I lifted my head and let out a long breath. “I’m going to barf.”
“I can’t believe we did that.” He wiped my mouth on the back of his hand. “That’s it. I’m done. No more.”
I giggled. “What? You’ve never had three malts back to back?”
“No.” He pressed my forearms against his stomach and rolled his eyes dramatically. “I’m going to have to run six miles tomorrow to get rid of this.”
“But we laughed,” I said. “That’s the most important thing. We laughed.”
“We sure did.”
“Do you run every day?”
“I do.”
“Run for real, or on a treadmill?”
“One foot in front of the other, and it propels my body forward. That kind.”
“Treadmills freak me out,” I said. “I feel like I’m being punished or something.”
“I feel the same way. I can’t do it. Do you run?”
“Not as much as I should, but a few times a week, yeah. You?”
“Every day. Three miles.”
“I’m glad. Not that you run three miles. I mean, not really. I’m just glad you’re not one of those guys that looks physically fit and does nothing to maintain it. You know, the people that lay around and eat pizza and drink beer but never gain weight? I’d like to slap them with the hand of reality. If I didn’t eat decent food and exercise, I’d be three times this size.”
“I have no idea what I’d look like if I didn’t exercise. I’ve always done it. Hell, I might be one of those guys.”
“Let’s just say you’re not, okay?”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“If you had to pick your biggest fault, what would it be?” I asked.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I want to know more about you. You snuck in a kiss, so I should be able to sneak in a random question.”
His face transformed to a playful scowl. “I didn’t sneak shit. I announced it.”
“Well, I didn’t get the memo. It shocked the crap out of me.”
“Good shocked or bad shocked?”
I smiled. “The good kind.”
“I thought the same thing,” he said. “It seemed the right thing to do when I did it. Then, when it was over? How could anyone describe it as wrong?”
With each passing day, it was as if he allowed me to see a little more of who he truly was. At that moment, as I gazed back at him, I felt that I was finally seeing the real Marc. A much softer Marc.
I looked him over. His strong jawline was peppered with a day’s growth of stubble. His tee shirt clung to his broad chest, and his biceps left little to the imagination as to what else was hiding beneath the thin layer of cotton. His short dark brown hair was, as always, perfectly situated.
He was handsome, no doubt. He was also kind, considerate, and caring. Although I never would have guessed it, somehow those three qualities edged out handsome and muscular to take the spot as being his most redeeming assets.
The thought of losing him in nineteen days sickened me.
“I don’t think anyone could,” I said. “It was as right as a kiss could be.”
He pushed the stool away from the island and stood. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
“Okay.”
I followed him to the far end of the house, and into a large bedroom. In the center was a king-sized bed. At each side of the head of the bed, a white night stand sat. On the left, a lonely digital clock. On the right, a small speaker.
The white walls were bare.
The wall that faced the ocean was glass, and without any window cove
rings that I could see.
He reached for my hand. “Follow me.”
He slid a door open at the corner of the room and reached inside. The room illuminated. With an opened mouth, I stared. A closet that was larger than my apartment was lined with shelves on one side, and hangar rods on the other.
White, as was the rest of the home, the closet was the most incredible sight I had ever seen. It resembled a work of art, not in structure, but in form.
On each of the shelves were folded clothes. Gray shirts, folded in perfect squares, stacked on top of each other. On the next shelf, blue shirts, stacked in the same manner. Beside them, white shirts.
Below the shirts, carefully situated on the shelves, were jeans. Perfectly folded. Stacked six high, side by side. Each stack was placed on an individual shelf.
Shirts, sweats, boxer shorts, exercise clothes, athletic shirts, jeans. All situated flawlessly with the edges clean and crisp. Each stack was so impeccably positioned that it resembled a fabric box.
I looked at the other side.
Slacks, dress shirts, and jackets lined the first third of the closet. Separated by color there were three of each, side by side.
There were no boxes. There was no clutter. No socks, no dirty clothes, and no hamper.
“Seen enough?” he asked.
“I uhhm. Sure.” I was awestruck, but tried to act indifferent. “What are you showing me?”
“My biggest fault.”
“Which is?”
He turned out the light. “Perfection. I strive to reach it in everything I do.”
“Things could be much worse.”
“Walk a mile in my shoes and then say that.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Ever seen a hoarder’s house?”
His face washed with worry. “You’re not a hoarder, are you?”
“No, but I’ve watched that show on T.V. about them. It’s pretty bad. At least you don’t do that.”
He turned toward the door. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“Speaking of doing things. I’ve never asked. What do you do for a living?”
He paused, and then turned to face me. “I’m a cop.”
A lump shot up my throat like a rocket. I tried to swallow it, but it lodged halfway between my tongue and my heart. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Kind of,” he said. “Actually, I’m a detective.”
“You’re a detective?”
“I am.”
“Like Danny Reagan on Blue Bloods?”
“More like Gibbs on NCIS. I work the gang unit, so my cases aren’t simple. Generally, they’re pretty detailed investigations, and they can get pretty gruesome.”
“Gruesome? Like that one show? The Blacklist?”
“Pretty much. Murder. Torture. Those kinds of things.”
My eyes went wide. “Does that stuff really happen? The stuff on that show?”
“Absolutely. Sometimes worse, why?”
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, they did.
Chapter Two Hundred Fifty-Six
Marc – Day fourteen
I spent as little time in the office as possible. Solving crimes from behind a desk was improbable. The information I gathered in the field, however, was instrumental in making progress in all my investigations.
Nonetheless, I had to go to the office from time to time.
Seated at my desk, I flipped through the files on the unsolved murder of a local heroin dealer. While I scanned through the paperwork looking for the name of a witness, I couldn’t help but notice that Captain Sprague was in a heated telephone conversation with someone.
A former Marine investigator in his mid-fifties, he still looked the part of an active military man. Tall and physically fit with tanned skin and short gray hair, he could easily pass for a local surfer. His short fuse and violent temper kept most of his subordinates out of his office until they were invited, me included.
He paced the floor of his office as he spoke. The phone’s excessively long cord followed him as he walked back and forth, repositioning the items on his desk with each pass. Through the thick glass of his office walls, I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I didn’t need to. The expression on his face was one of disgust and his eyes were filled with anger.
He stopped beside the corner of his desk. With the phone clenched tight in his hand, he gazed down at the floor for a moment. As I started to look away, he leaned over and slammed the phone’s receiver down. The impact caused it to jump out of the cradle and land on his desk. After two more repeated unsuccessful attempts, he swept the entire thing off his desk and onto the floor with a violent brush of his arm.
“Watson!” he shrieked.
There’s my invitation.
I stood.
“Watson! God damn it Watson, get your ass in here!”
I walked to his office and pushed open the door. “Captain?”
He glanced at the phone and then at me. “Close the fucking door.”
I stepped inside and closed the door. “What’s going on, Top?”
“Nine. In the last twenty-four God damned hours. Nine.” He pressed the heels of his palms against his temples. “That’s one every, what? Two hours or so?”
“Two hours and forty minutes. Nine what, Top? What have we got?”
“Girls. Nine missing teenage girls. It looks like your fucking MS-13 gang is at it again. I thought we had this problem solved?”
My heart sank. The description was all too familiar.
Notorious for their use of violence as a means of retribution, the Mara Salvatrucha – or MS-13 – was a thorn in society’s side. Their presence in Southern California had turned portions of the state into a drug infested war zone. Sadly, their vicious acts didn’t begin and end with their members.
There had been eight girls kidnapped a few months prior, and although we made very little progress in solving the investigation, a local motorcycle club somehow stumbled onto the whereabouts of the girls, and saved them.
When their vengeance for the kidnappings was over, ten of MS-13’s most violent gang members were dead.
Although I had evidence to support my case, I didn’t file criminal charges against the MC, nor would I. The club, in my eyes, was a necessary predator. The gang members were their prey.
In the food chain, the grass feeds the grasshopper. The grasshopper is eaten by the snake. The snake is captured and eaten by the hawk. The hawk then deposits his spoils upon the earth, feeding the grass to support the growth of yet another grasshopper. The chain is endless.
The MC was my hawk.
The MS-13 gang was a venomous snake.
The MC, however, didn’t shit their spoils back onto the earth. They were a necessary part my food chain – as long as they didn’t become disruptive to the lives of the sheep I had taken an oath to protect.
And, so far, they hadn’t.
“That problem was solved, Top. Ms-13 is the most notorious gang in the Western Hemisphere. 70,000 members. It’s an ongoing battle, and it will continue to be an ongoing battle. Hell, I arrested that Linda Martinez girl the other night on a felony warrant, and I thought she’d give me something. The same as all the other chicas, she pursed her lips and took jail over talking.”
“Do something different,” he demanded. “I need these pricks off my streets, and I need this case solved now.”
“I’ve got informants on the streets that should be able to get me some answers, but I’ll need leniency.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Don’t ask any questions. And, when I bring these girls home, I’ll need something from you.”
The look on his face was all I needed to see. I had a different way of solving crimes, and it wasn’t always pretty. To get the answers – and the results – I needed, I often stepped outside the boundaries of the law.
When I did, it was best that no one ask anything about my whereabouts or my findings. My results spoke for themselves.
&n
bsp; “Have you got any files on this yet?”
He waved his hand toward his desk. “Chief just sent it to me.”
“Forward me everything you’ve got.”
“I want these girls alive, Watson. Nine of them.”
I pushed his door open. “Makes two of us, Top.”
I walked to my desk and downloaded the documents. After opening them, I began to review the files for any similarities between the girls, where they were abducted, or how they were taken.
May Trayvor. 14. Blonde. Blue eyes. Rancho Del Oro, CA. Last seen at the home of a friend.
Theresa Wilson. 13. Blonde. Blue eyes. Tri-City, CA. Last seen at the 7-Eleven three blocks from her home.
Catelyn Mayberry. 13. Blonde. Blue eyes. Vista, CA. Last seen at the public pool.
My heart shot into my throat. Every one of the girls was in her early teens, blonde, and from the Vista area. Frantically, I flipped through each of the files. Upon reading the last one, I jumped to my feet, ran to the parking garage and dove into my car.
With lights and no siren, I made it to Vista in eight minutes. Just because Charlee’s name wasn’t on the list didn’t mean she was safe. If one hair on her head was out of place, I’d rain a terror down on the men responsible so violently that the world would not soon forget.
I screeched to a stop in front of the diner and peered through the window. At three o’clock in the afternoon, and with the lunch crowd long gone, the diner appeared empty.
Fuck!
I rushed to the front door and pushed it open. The brass bell that dangled from the door’s upper frame jingled as the door swung past it.
My eyes scanned the diner.
No Charlee.
No Jacky.
I hurried toward the kitchen.
“What are you doing here, mister?” a familiar voice asked from the diner’s right side.
I exhaled a long breath and turned to face her. Rubbing her tired eyes with the tips of her fingers, Charlee brushed her curly locks from her face and looked at me in disbelief of my existence.
“I uhhm. I think I lost one of my keys off my key ring this morning,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Is your mother here?”
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