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“I didn’t kill her. I don’t fucking hurt women,” he growls.
“Yet your fingers are around my throat.”
He looks down at my neck once again but he doesn’t back away.
“You questioning my innocence pisses me off.”
“No one likes to get caught, and you sure seem to be having an overexaggerated reaction to that fucking video,” I snap regardless of this armed man having me out of view of the street and pinned against a building by my neck. My mom always warned me about doubling down when I’m in impossible situations. Seems I still haven’t learned. “Did the attack outside her car fucking turn you on all over again? How many of your Cerberus friends raped her that ni—”
I squeak, the only noise I can manage when he tightens his fingers. But in the next breath, he loosens it once again. I feel dignified with him reacting that way right after declaring that he doesn’t hurt women.
Actions and words, motherfucker. Actions and words.
“Thirty-four seconds,” he says, his hot breath on my face, the mintiness of it out of place in the current situation. “That’s how long it took before I came back around the side of the bar. In thirty-four seconds, the beginning of the end of that woman’s life started. I was twenty yards away, and completely helpless. Do you have any fucking clue what knowing that does to a man like me? How hard of a fucking pill that is to swallow?”
I lock eyes with him, but he seems broken rather than continuing in an effort to try and convince me of a different truth.
“I should’ve kept my guard up, and I have no clue why I didn’t. Maybe because it’s Farmington and not some hovel in South America. Maybe I got lost in her kiss or the warmth of her body.”
The reminder that he kissed her that night very similarly to the way he kissed me four nights later makes my pulse race even faster, and not in a good way. I refuse to spend a second focused on the jealousy threatening to bubble out.
“I don’t even remember going to the bar that night. I walked around the bar and someone injected me with something. I was drugged, Lennox. I regret needing to piss which is the only fucking reason I’d go around the edge of that bar. I’ve done it a dozen times before and nothing bad ever happened. Why that night? Why her? Why me?”
His grip grows slightly looser, but I know better than to think he’s calmed down enough to let me step away.
For some reason, I’m not as scared as I was the first second he rushed me and pressed me to the side. The feel of his fingers against mine makes it very clear that we’re more holding hands than he is keeping me from reaching for my gun.
“I failed her. That’s why I’m angry. My head wasn’t where it needed to be to keep her safe, and I’ll regret that every second for the rest of my life.”
“Where,” I begin, my voice a whisper. “Where was your head?”
His eyes lock on my lips when I moisten them with the quick swipe of my tongue.
“The same place it was the night we left the gym,” he answers.
He takes a step back and fuck my life if my first instinct isn’t to reach for him. Instead, I lift my hand to my throat, wondering how red it is, but it doesn’t burn like I expect it to.
I want to apologize for accusing him, to explain that I feel responsible as well despite never having met the woman. It makes no sense. I’m no more capable of helping Elizabeth than I was helping Elle when I was nine years old. It makes me feel no less responsible.
I realize I have a bias against my department because they failed my sister. Had they put in the effort all those years ago when the first girl was murdered, maybe Elle would still be alive. Elle’s murderer, Jasper Niers, took his own life in jail before his trial started. It left so many unanswered questions, so much pain behind. There was no justice. This isn’t the first time I’ve blamed Farmington PD, but instead of pointing fingers, I want to make a difference from the inside. I never wanted to be the cop who let the perp get away. Focusing on the man standing in front of me is easier because solving this case means the man can’t hurt anyone else. It’s not pride that makes me keep looking in his direction. It’s fear that the killer will get away and hurt someone else.
The Farmington police detective who worked my sister’s murder killed himself, but the letter of apology after the backlash of him sandbagging the investigation on the first case didn’t help much. I’m not glad the man lost his life. If anything, I wish he’d just done his damn job, and maybe Elle would be alive today.
