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“Captain?” I ask, surprised and wondering why the hell he’s calling me at home. I’m off tomorrow and he sure as hell doesn’t need to call me personally to come in to work to cover for someone.
And that’s when my fucking world comes crashing down. “I didn’t want to tell you like this, Frank. But I honestly don’t really know how to say it and I’m worried that you’re gonna hear it on the news instead of from me.”
I hear a shuddering breath through the phone and then he says, “Frank, there’s been an incident and Becky’s dead.” It feels like my guts turn to ice, my head throbs, my heart stops and the world just stills…not one sound around me. Like it’s all waiting to see what I do.
“No,” I whisper. “How?”
“I’ll give you all the details but I’d rather do that in person. If you can meet me at the station later tonight, I’ll tell you everything I can. But you know you can’t be involved in this investigation, right? I need you to promise to stay out of the way on this, Frank.” His voice is harsh and firm.
“Someone hurt her?” Immediately my slow brain puts the pieces together. “Her husband?” Rage unlike any I’ve ever felt rears its ugly head inside me until it feels like I’m on fire with it. I can’t think…all I can do is picture killing a man that I’ve never met. A man that my partner loved with unwavering conviction. A bastard that deserves to die if I have anything to say about it.
“I need to see Becky. Where is she?”
“No. Go to the station and wait. I’ll tell them to let you in my office and you can wait there for me.”
Like a lightbulb going off it hits me. She’s at home. They’re at her house. I dropped her off and hours later, she died in that house. I hang up the phone and roar out the scream that’s been building inside me since he called.
Then I put my clothes back on and throw my lounge pants on the bed. Gathering up my badge and my holster, I put it on and then slip my gun inside it.
With a last look around to make sure I didn’t leave anything running or something, I step out of the house and lock the door. The night’s silent and warm, still roiling with the heat of the late summer day.
It seems like the drive takes mere seconds and yet feels like an eternity. None of it makes sense. And it makes even less sense when I slip past the guys and into the house, following them to the kitchen.
My eyes widen and I catch my breath, tears hitting my eyes before I turn away, gulping down the need to throw up.
In my line of work I’ve seen a lot of bodies. But when it’s someone you know and care about, it hurts in a new way that I’ve never felt before and that I’m damn sure I never want to feel again.
“Dammit, Frank. I told you to go wait at the station! What the hell are you doing here?” I turn to face him and he draws in a sharp breath. “Oh shit. Come on, don’t throw up in here and contaminate the evidence. I’m not letting this bastard get off on a technicality.”
He steers me out into what suddenly feels like a cold night. Bitterly cold and so damn wrong.
My stomach lurches wildly, like I’m riding an out of control rollercoaster and then I lean over and heave into the bushes. “Settle down, man. Don’t worry. We’re gonna get his ass. But I need you to stay far away from him and this case. No mistakes of any kind. Not even stupid technicality ones.”
I nod my head and limp away. I feel every one of my forty years on this depraved excuse for a planet. If a sweet woman like Becky can die like that how can we even say that we’re human and not just a more evolved animal? In a way we’re worse. An animal generally kills for territory, to protect itself or its young or to survive.
Man is the only thing on this planet that I know of that kills just for the sake of the thrill. I’m sure there may be some animals that have a screw loose that might do it for fun. But most of them it’s a survival issue. Can we say the same? I don’t think so.
We’re all about six steps of separation away from a person who could possibly harm us. And the bastards just won one.
I don’t know how it happens but all of a sudden I’m sitting in my car, my hands clenched so hard on the steering wheel that they’re bloodless and locked tight around it. Growling, I lean my head back and groan. Gutted, I can’t make myself move, can’t make myself leave Becky here alone. Lying there in that room, defenseless and alienated by the circumstances of her life and death.
Tears track down my cheeks and I shake with the force of my anger and guilt. Guilt because I knew there was a possibility, faint though it was. I told her to leave him. Saw the evidence of what he was doing to her. Oh, not the bruises. Just the careful way she talked and the dulled-down way that she smiled at everyone. Like she was an actor on the stage and she had to keep from breaking character. Couldn’t let anyone into her life too far.
Because she had to hide what he was.
Well, she can’t hide it anymore. I lean forward and my shoulders shake as I cry out my grief and horror, losing my mind in the front seat of that car as they haul her sheet-draped body out into the coroner’s wagon.
I jerk awake, the faint trail of tears on my cheeks, my heart racing like a jet engine at takeoff.
I stand up and walk into the bathroom, staring at my face in the mirror. I look about ten years older than I actually am. My blue eyes are dull and tired and my cheeks are gaunt. I’ve lost at least fifteen pounds since Becky died.
Washing my face, I sigh and wipe the towel down it, dragging my mouth down into a horrible grimace.
Then I shut off the light and step out into the hall. I fell asleep with the curtains half-closed and my eyes jerk to the window when I see something move outside.
An animal? No. It’s an animal of the two-legged kind.
I grab my gun that I keep beside my chair in the living room and stalk silently down the steps, closing the door quietly behind me.
