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Ari placed her hand on Dylan’s chest. “Forgive yourself. The choice you had to make was an impossible one. Even if you’d chosen to save her, you wouldn’t have. Lucy wasn’t even at Adytum or The Silo.”
“You are the strongest person I know. You know that, right?” Dylan pulled her close.
Ari answered her with a gentle kiss. They found strength in each other after Ari’s rescue and the closing of Adytum. They might have found something else at that moment if it hadn’t been for the doorbell. Dylan groaned as she left the bedroom to answer it.
She returned with a manila envelope in her hand. “This is for you. From Detective Davies.”
“Thanks! I’ve been waiting weeks for this. Apparently, there’s a new interim chief taking over since Chief Benson stepped down over corruption charges.”
It wasn’t until after the first three months of therapy that Ari could externalize her emotions and grief about the exposé on Adytum and the Delacroix family corruption. She battled her inner demons as she wrote the piece, which impressed Terry’s bosses. So much so that they handed Ari her own column. “Shadow Boxing with Ariel Delgado” was the newest addition to the CityBeats family. It was a weekly article in which she vocalized her turmoil with society in such a way that it provoked questions. The column was a wooden stick poking the sleeping bear of politics. Ari’s tenacity, attention to detail, and writing skills were a substantial source of pride for Dylan.
Ari opened the report with eager excitement and flipped through the pages. When she reached the last page, a look of exasperation spread across her face. “Isn’t that interesting? The interim chief holding things up is Natalie Anderson-Cove. Seriously?” She threw down the papers on a stack of boxes by the unmade bed. “Will this ever end?”
“Probably not, babe. That’s why people like you are so important. If the police won’t do their job, we need investigative reporters to uncover these things.” Dylan placed a tender kiss on Ari’s forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Ari gulped. The words caught in her throat. “You are my person, Dylan. The one I know will always be here for me.”
She pulled Ari close so she could hide her glistening eyes. “And you’re my person. I would walk through Hell for you, Ari.”
Their moment of closeness landed them on top of the unmade bed, walking a fine line between love and fear. Too fast or too hard, the mood might send Ari spiraling back into the depths of Adytum. Too slow or too gentle, accusations of coddling Ari flung toward her like daggers. There were no depths and daggers remained at bay, though Ari wasn’t in the right mental state to reciprocate.
She leaped from the bed and grabbed her clothes. “Can you bring the rest of the boxes in here? The sooner we get the bedroom sorted, the sooner we can get some dinner.”
“Sure thing.” Dylan buttoned her pants, which hadn’t even dropped to her ankles before Ari ceased their afternoon fling. It was all right. She wouldn’t hold it against Ari. Dylan turned to fulfill her duties. She scooped up the first box and headed back toward the hallway.
Not seeing the split carpet where the living room met the hallway, the toe of Dylan’s boot caught in the gap. Before she could react, the weight of the box shifted and pulled her forward. Her body crushed the box and the contents spilled across the floor.
After hearing the ruckus, Ari came bounding out of the bedroom. Worried, she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just bruised my pride. I’m sorry about your stuff. I hope I didn’t break anything.”
“Don’t worry about that. I should have taped down that carpet earlier. Sorry.” Ari bent down to collect the items scattered like debris throughout the hallway. “Oh, good. It survived.”
Ari held up a photograph in a small frame.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a picture of me and my mom. We were on the beach when I was ten.” Ari continued, “I don’t have many pictures of us together. She was always working.”
When Dylan took the offered frame, a wave of panic and nausea twisted inside her when she looked at the picture. That face haunted Dylan’s restless nights for years. All because of one horrible decision three years ago. Dylan replayed that fateful scene outside The Silo. The lifeless face of the woman she hit on her way out of work. Nothing would ever make up for Dylan driving drunk, nor the guilt that gnawed at her daily. With Maxi’s connections and the help of District Attorney Tanya Cartwright, she received a deferred sentence to stay out of prison. The guilt was her actual punishment, and Dylan knew it would be a life sentence. It never gave her a day’s rest, and knowing the woman was Ari’s mother, the pain was insurmountable.
“What’s wrong?” Ari asked as she glanced up from the photo to Dylan. Their eyes locked in an instant, and she had to have known. Neither of them vocalized their thoughts. Dylan couldn’t say it. She had refused to admit to herself that she was a murderer, but it was Ari’s accusatory glare that seemed to be a mirror into her soul.
“Uh ... nothing,” she lied. “I just can’t help but wonder if I had met you then, would we have been girlfriends? Or even friends?”
They spent the next few hours in relative silence as they made their new house look more like a home. Dylan’s revelation stole her desire for conversation as she tried to work out what to do with this new knowledge. They vowed to never keep secrets from each other. While Dylan wanted to tell Ari, she also didn’t want to hurt her, especially if she didn’t already know.
Just When Dylan finally summoned the courage to speak, her cell phone rang. She dove into her pocket and pulled it out to see the caller ID: Lucy Tyler.
Dylan stared at the screen, paralyzed by the sight of a ghost.
“Who is it?” asked Ari. “Are you going to answer?”
Confusion and worry etched onto Dylan’s face as she pressed the green button and held the phone to her ear. Her voice trembled, “Hello?”
Then she heard Lucy’s anguished voice, “Dylan, I need your help!”
TO BE CONTINUED ...
