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I’ve never felt so helpless and foolish all at once. “It’s been a long day.” Taylor’s comment is meant to be consoling but it only adds to my humiliation.
With one last look at the roses, I let Taylor take my bag and follow him out to an unmarked black sedan, sliding in the back of it. My hands are still shaking, so I hold them tight and shove them between my knees the entire way to Cody’s place. That’s why I wasn’t holding my phone; it’s why I didn’t see I had a new text until I was safely tucked away in Cody’s home.
It’s from a new number, one not in my contacts and I nearly drop the phone when I read the series of messages he sent me.
I didn’t mean to startle you with the roses.
I meant it when I said I’d protect you.
No one will hurt you, my Delilah.
I had to change my number. Don’t give this one away like you did the last.
Cody
I’m a helpless prick. That’s all I could think the entire ride. Sitting in the back of a van, not able to do a damn thing but think.
I offered to drive, to do something rather than sit here being useless, but Bradley wouldn’t let me. Evan hasn’t pried, but I notice how he keeps glancing at me. If I noticed, so did everyone else.
Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking quiet.
Pretending that I’m on my phone only works for so long before the guys pick up on the air around me. Then I pull out some paperwork. Even as the vehicle jostles over potholes, I stare down at the black words on stark white pages and give my best effort to appear that I give a shit about what’s in the files. It doesn’t throw them off, but the message comes across loud and clear: don’t fucking ask.
I can’t think of anything else but her. Delilah.
Her and the man I’ve strategically aligned myself with. It happened so slowly, so carefully that I didn’t realize what I’d done and how deep down the hole I’d gone until it was too late. There’s no going back from the things that I’ve done.
I remember the first time I met the man who calls himself Marcus. Met… isn’t the right word. It was the first time I came into contact with him. That’s a better way of putting it.
Memories of the stench of that back alley behind an old strip joint on the east side come back to me as the van moves over yet another pothole and I’m tempted to cover my nose with the inside of my elbow like I did back then. It hit me hard, the smell of rotten garbage overflowing in the alley where the body was found. The steel cans were missing their lids and the ruined cobblestone streets the city refused to pay to fix were the highlights of that part of the city five years ago. I heard they cleaned it up some now, but back then, it was a hellish place to live.
If you found yourself that far toward the bay, it was best to go any other direction but east as quickly as you could. It was my third year on this job and my patience had worn thin on a series of murders we all knew were hits from a local mafia organization.
Everyone knew, but no one talked. Cuffed and placed in holding, all anyone said was that they wanted their lawyer if they were being charged. And if they weren’t being charged, they didn’t have a damn thing to say and wanted to be released. Being in holding for forty-eight hours didn’t break down a single man. In a city like that, where everyone’s down on their luck and the one place to find a hot meal is funded by a man who runs the streets… well, it was impossible to get anyone to turn on them. They all asked for the same lawyer, the mob’s lawyer.
So when this body showed up, and no one saw anything and no one had anything to say but get off my porch, it wasn’t surprising.
The body had been there for at least three days and when the trash bag that covered it was removed, the stench only got worse. I remember how my partner at the time had heaved, nearly puking right there on the body. That would have been damn awful for evidence.
My partner was much older than me and constantly bitched about wanting to retire and stop living a waking nightmare day in and day out. He was offered retirement last year, but from what I heard, he turned it down. I remember thinking back then, there’s no way out of this. The work will stay with you long after the badge hits the bottom of a drawer.
