Blood Moon

by A. D. Ryan

  “Isn’t really appropriate talk for the breakfast table,” I confessed, my voice dropping to a lower, much sexier, tone.

  Smirking, David took a bite of his eggs. An unexpected silence fell between us as we ate, and when I looked at him again, he seemed lost in thought. When I finally asked what was on his mind, he set his fork down and met my gaze. The look in his eyes was startlingly afraid. “Why did we wait until now to come out with our relationship?”

  “You know why,” I replied quietly, pushing my eggs around my plate.

  “I think I do,” he said. “But it feels like there’s more to it than that. Is it…” A pause. “Is it because of him?”

  “Nick?” I questioned, even though I knew that was exactly who he meant. “A little, yeah.” I shrugged despondently. “It’s been hard for me to open myself up to anyone else after he left…maybe because I was afraid of anyone else seeing me the way he did.” David looked at me, his eyes a combination of curiosity and sympathy, and I took a deep breath before I concluded. “Broken.”

  Sighing, I dropped my eyes to my now-fidgeting hands and continued. “After Bobby died, I never really got over it—how could I? The police couldn’t find anything that would lead us to who killed him, and his case was eventually filed away, unsolved.” While David already knew most of this, he’d never really gotten the full story on Nick and me or how serious our relationship really was. “I withdrew emotionally from everything. Bobby was my brother, and one minute he was there with Nick and me at the club, and the next he was just gone.

  “Nick obviously couldn’t handle having a girlfriend who was in a near-constant state of catatonia. My moods had become…unpredictable, and I guess he just couldn’t deal.” Because I’d already cried for the loss of my first love, I was able to tell David all of this with little to no inflection in my voice, even though talking about it was slowly reopening the hole that Nick left in my heart. “He stopped coming around as much, and when I was lucid enough to ask him what was going on, he just told me that he was going through some changes. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to be with me, really.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said softly, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “I knew he hurt you, but I never realized just how badly.”

  I purposely left out the part where Nick and I were engaged. Not because I thought it would hurt him, but because I didn’t think it was really relevant to the story. It wasn’t like we were actually married and I had a divorce under my belt. We were young and impulsive, and then he broke it off. What’s to tell?

  I laughed dryly because David’s apology seemed a little out of place. “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s not yours either. He should have been sympathetic to what you were going through, and he wasn’t. He was thinking only of himself.” David’s words resonated deep within me, and I felt a little bit better having gotten all of this off my chest. He was right; Nick was being entirely selfish when he decided to leave.

  “Well, his loss was your gain,” I told David, standing up with my plate and taking it to the sink. “And I, for one, couldn’t be happier about that.”

  Flashing me that Colgate smile, David pushed his chair from the table and crossed the room, pulling me into his arms. “Me either,” he declared. He looked at the clock on the stove and sighed. “I suppose I should go hop in the shower so we can hit the road, huh?”

  I groaned when David released me, but agreed to do the dishes while he got ready. It was only fair, after all. I was just putting the last plate away in the cupboard when David’s arms circled my waist and his chin rested upon my shoulder.

  “I’ll meet you at the precinct?” he said, kissing my shoulder softly.

  Smiling, I turned in his arms and looked him in the eye. “Why? That seems like a waste of gas.” He looked confused, which made me strangely giddy. “How about we take my car today?”

  David looked…well, he looked absolutely shocked and delighted, and I promised to make him look like that as often as possible for as long as possible. “Really?” I nodded once. “And if people start asking questions?”

  Bringing my hands up and resting them on his shoulders, I stepped up on my toes and kissed him once. “Then we tell them.” I arched an eyebrow. “Besides, maybe this will get Keaton to stop asking me out.”

  “I don’t know,” David said with a laugh. “I don’t think Keaton is so easily dissuaded.” He leaned in and his lips brushed mine, sending a welcome shiver straight down my spine. “A little PDA might be in order.” Then his lips captured mine tenderly, almost as though he was thanking me, and my fingers curled into the fabric of his dress shirt, tugging him closer.

  “Come on,” I whispered after pulling my head back. “We should go before we’re late. Now that he knows, we can’t let my dad think the reason we’re running behind is anything more than car trouble.”

  Nodding, David released me, and I headed to the bathroom to pull my hair up before grabbing my jacket, keys, gun, and badge. “Ready?” he asked, holding the front door open for me, and I walked through, my stomach flipping with excited butterflies.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter four | attacked

  When we arrived at the District 1 precinct, there were several officers outside who instantly noticed us. They watched as we walked from the lot toward the precinct side by side, but they didn’t say anything other than a quick “good morning” to us both before snuffing out their cigarettes and following us inside.

  The minute we stepped off the elevator and made our way for our desks, Dad noticed too. “Leighton, can I see you in my office, please?”

  I glanced warily at David across our desks before addressing our captain. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

  Once inside his office, Dad sat at his desk, and I closed his door behind me. “Have a seat,” he offered, and I obeyed, sitting directly across from him with perfect posture brought on by a bout of sudden nervousness.

  Now that we were alone, though, he went back to being my dad, and offered me a smile. “How are you today?” he asked, concern lacing his even tone.

  For a brief moment, I considered omitting some of the truth, but he’d always been able to see through me—which was why I shouldn’t have been so surprised to find out that he knew about David and me prior to last night. I took a deep breath and shrugged. “Better, but still a little rattled.”

  “I suspected as much,” he said empathetically, folding his hands atop his desk. “Samuels told me that Nick showed up and confronted you.”

  “I wouldn’t say confronted me…” Wait. Why was I defending him? “Honestly, I don’t know why he was there. Causing trouble… You know, Nick stuff.”

  “What did he say?”

  I allowed the memory of Nick finding me outside of the house last night play through my mind on loop, and I couldn’t believe the balls he had to just approach me as if nothing was wrong between us. What was he thinking? And while I was sure David didn’t enjoy finding me with my ex, I was certainly glad he showed up when he did.

  Dad stared at me, still waiting for a response, so I exhaled a dry, humorless laugh. “Not a whole hell of a lot. Like I said, I think he was just there to stir up trouble.”

  My dad’s eyes moved past me and out the window that connected his office to the main one. I turned to see what caught his attention and found David rifling through some case files, occasionally glancing our way. “How did Samuels react?”

  “Like a saint,” I answered, “even though he should have been pissed when he found us both alone on the patio.”

  “And the two of you…?” His question trailed off, and I assumed it was because, even though he knew, I still had yet to vocally address my relationship status with David.

  Having promised David that I’d no longer skirt the issue, I smiled. “We’re fine. Together and happy.”

  “Good to hear. Thank you for finally feeling like you could tell your mother and me, by the way.”

  My e
yebrows lifted with concern that he’d misread why I’d kept my relationship from him all this time. “Dad, it’s not that I felt I couldn’t come to you or Mom,” I started to tell him. “I just liked having control over this one part of my life, and I was scared that things would start to sour if I let anyone else in. I couldn’t lose more than I already had…and I wouldn’t put you and Mom through that again, either.”

  “Your mother and I are a tad more resilient than you give us credit for, kiddo.” Laughing, I rolled my eyes, and the smile on my dad’s face faded slightly as he nodded his head toward the door. “All right, well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep you from work.”

  “Okay,” I responded, standing up and heading for the door. “Thanks for the pep-talk, old man.”

  “It’s what I’m here for.” I pulled the door open when he stopped me again. “And, Brooke?” I turned to him, and he was all business again. “Be sure you go to HR and inform them of your relationship.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  When I returned to my desk, I found David absorbed in one of the case files. He was so transfixed on what he was reading that I had to clear my throat as I perched myself on the edge of his desk to draw his attention.

  “Hey.” He closed the file in his lap and smiled warmly up at me. “How was your talk?”

  “Good.” I dropped my voice and leaned in close so no one else could hear me. “I didn’t know you told him about Nick showing up.”

  David shrugged, the tips of his ears turning a light shade of pink. “I wanted him to know that someone was trespassing.”

  I smirked, disbelieving, and crossed my arms. I knew jealousy when I saw it. “Mmm hmm,” I challenged. “That’s all it was?”

  It was never hard to coerce a confession out of David. I prided myself on it. “Okay, maybe it was a little more than that,” he said with a wink, tapping the side of my thigh with the file.

  We’d always had a good work rapport, but I had to admit that it was nice being able to banter back and forth like this without worrying that someone would start a vicious—albeit true—rumor about our involvement. Even though we weren’t hanging off of each other or showing massive amounts of PDA, it was also a relief not having to tiptoe around the office. All this time, I thought that everybody knowing would only serve to complicate things for the two of us, but that was quickly proving not to be the case, and it was such a relief.

  David and I went about our day filing the final paperwork for a few recently closed cases I’d assisted with before my promotion. This was the best part of the job, because we were able to help the families of victims find the closure they needed to take the first steps toward healing—something I longed for, but knew I would never obtain after all this time. It was fine, though; I’d come to accept this, and helping others gave me purpose and made the job worth it.

  I remembered with perfect clarity how difficult it was to wait for answers, and how absolutely horrible it was to hear that no arrests had been made. These were just some of the reasons that I made it my mission to try and bring closure to each case. No family should ever have to live in fear that the criminal who hurt or took a loved one from them was still free.

  Unfortunately, not every case was so open and shut, and it was these ones that forced me to lose sleep and relive my past.

  “You ready to go?” David asked, pulling me out of my silent musings.

  One look out the window behind David’s desk, and I could see the sun had already started to set. It painted the sky in warm hues of pink and orange, and it darkened with every passing minute. My view of the sky was interrupted when David stood and pushed his chair in, signaling the end of our shift.

  When our eyes locked, I smiled and nodded. “Yeah.” I replied, shutting my computer down and grabbing my things. As we walked, David took my hand—the first physical sign of our relationship to the public—and we made our way to the car.

  The moon was already high in the sky, and it was a little colder than the night before. It made me yearn to curl up under a blanket with David and a glass of wine while we watched television back at my place. Where that led to…well, it had yet to be determined, but I was hoping we’d pick up where we left off this morning.

  We made our way through the lot, passing a few of the others who were just starting their shifts and told them to have a good night. When we reached the parking lot, David pulled me into his arms, sandwiching my body between him and the hard metal frame of my car, and I shivered for an entirely different reason than the dipping temperature.

  He kissed me softly, his soft blue eyes locked on mine before speaking in a low voice that traveled through my body with a gentle hum. “Even though we haven’t acted any differently when in the presence of our coworkers, it was nice to know we’re not actually hiding anymore.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” I agreed, resting my hands on his hips and pulling him forward by the belt loops on his jeans.

  He hummed, his nose brushing mine as he pushed his pelvis against me. “Not hiding our relationship was extremely liberating. Perhaps we should have done this months ago and saved ourselves the stress.” The heat of his body affected my ability to speak, and he chuckled, brushing his stubbled jaw against my smooth skin. It scratched and tickled at the same time, which sent a tingle through my body that made my toes curl. “Now, why don’t you let me take you home so we can pick up where we left off before breakfast? No distractions.”

  David opened the passenger side door just as I was just about to answer with a resounding “Yes!” when, behind me, static blared over the police scanner before the dispatch officer’s voice filled the air. “All available units to Chaparral Park for a reported one-eight-seven.”

  Turning abruptly, I looked at David before he ran around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. After turning the car on, he flipped the siren, alerted dispatch that we were on our way, and the red and blue lights flashed in my rear window as we peeled out of the parking lot and raced up N Hayden Road for Chaparral.

  When we arrived, there were several other cars already there. We saw O’Malley off near the edge of the park with two young women whose eyes were wide and terrified as they looked at him with their arms wrapped tightly around themselves. It wasn’t hard to see they were in shock, and it was probably pretty safe to assume that they were the ones who reported the homicide.

  David’s hand on the small of my back refocused me as he guided me to where the medical examiner and several of our colleagues hovered over a body that lay approximately fifteen feet off the cement path. As we approached, I noticed the victim was a woman in her mid-to-late twenties. Her skin was pale, and her body seemed twisted disproportionately, almost as if she’d been dumped here by her attacker in a hurry.

  “What do we have here?” David asked the medical examiner.

  “Twenty-three-year-old female named Samantha Turner, according to her license. Nothing seems to be missing from her purse—cash, credit cards—it’s all here,” Detective Keaton announced, handing the woman’s wallet to David. “CSU is walking the grid, but so far they’ve found nothing worth reporting.”

  “Cause of death?” I asked, crouching down next to the body, being careful not to interfere with Dr. Hobbes, the medical examiner.

  Her black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail as she continued to take notes, and when she looked up at me from behind her thick-rimmed glasses, she shrugged her shoulders. Her hazel eyes met mine, and her unease was palpable, affecting me as well. “I won’t know for sure until I examine her further, but she’s been dead at least an hour based on her liver temp.”

  I examined this poor woman from a distance, noticing her designer clothes—from her cashmere sweater, right down to her expensive jeans and the leather shoes that had mostly slipped off except for where the straps held them around her ankles. Upon closer observation, I noticed something that really popped out to me: a spot on her neck mostly covered by her long brown hair.

  Curious—fo
r a reason that niggled at me in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint—I turned to David and held out my hand. “David, can I have a pen?”

  Without question, he reached into his jacket and retrieved a pen to give to me. I took it, keeping the cap on, and slipped it under her hair to lift it. Unfortunately, before I could get a good look at it, I heard something to the right of us rustling in the sparse brush there. Something about this entire situation felt a little…off, and I stood up, my eyes focused on the trees across the park.

  “What is it?” David asked, gently placing his hand on my arm.

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to decipher if the movement I saw was from the wind or a possible suspect. The foliage was thin, but it was dark outside now, making it hard to see.

  “I’m not sure…” I said hesitantly, taking a careful step forward. “I thought I heard something.”

  Through my periphery, I noticed David train his eyes on the trees ahead, but nothing happened. No sound. No movement. Nothing.

  “I’m going to check it out,” I informed him. “If someone’s out there, we have to stop them.”

  David nodded in agreement, drawing his gun and switching the safety off as I did the same, and we started toward the disturbance together slowly. Once there, he silently suggested we split up and walk around the perimeter to see if we can find anything. He mouthed the words “be careful,” which I reciprocated just as quietly before we began to circle.

  I hadn’t made it halfway around before I heard another rustle of leaves, and my body tensed, my index finger slipping onto the trigger and preparing to fire. “Come out with your hands up!” I ordered firmly, taking aim. I waited a minute for a response of some kind, but there was nothing at first. “I said, come out with your hands up!”

  The leaves rustled again, the sound getting closer, but instead of heavy footfalls, I heard the ground being disturbed beneath the sound of a low, threatening growl that chilled me to the bone. I took a step back, horrified that what I’d stumbled on wasn’t our human perpetrator, but some kind of wild animal out looking for its next meal. My concern was confirmed the minute the animal’s glowing yellow eyes locked on me, and I swallowed the lump of fear that formed in my throat.