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I pass the couch, the coffee table, the television, then step into the hall. This place is literally smaller than my office, so it’s easy to find my way; door on the left is the bathroom. Door on the right, partially open, is the sole bedroom.
If she was a good cop, she’d already know I was here. I’d know if someone was in my space while I slept, so the fact I’ve come this far makes me worry for her the way I didn’t worry ten minutes ago when I studied her not-terrible street.
The bedroom window faces the street where my car is parked. The blinds are partially open, the window closed to keep the cold air out. I inch the door open and pray the hinges don’t squeak, but as soon as I make enough room to step inside, I stop and press a fist to my mouth to stop my own involuntary groan.
Libby-fucking-Tate grew the hell up. She sleeps tangled in her covers, one naked leg out of the blankets, one leg in. She’s topless, but sleeps on her stomach, so I see nothing but her bare back and half an ass cheek. She still has dimples, but they’re not on her knees anymore. Snake eyes blink from the small of her back, and muscles in her thighs, tensed even in sleep, make my brows lift high.
I found a gym membership in her accounts. I can now confirm she uses it.
Jesus.
I step into her shadowed bedroom and move closer. Her bed takes up eighty percent of the room. She has a foot of space on the left, a foot on the right. And at the end, just enough room for a chest of drawers, so long as you squeeze to get between it and the bed. She has another, smaller TV perched on top of the drawers, and a utility belt tossed down beside it. I see the cuffs, the keys, the flashlight. I see the gun holster, but no gun.
I also see her hand hidden beneath her pillow, and in my mind, I see it wrapped around the gun for protection.
Adrenaline surges in my blood as my body understands the danger. It’s dark, she lives alone, she’s a cop, and I’m a stranger in her home; I’m a dead man if she wakes.
I’m here to check her space and then leave. Staring at her ass is neither useful nor smart, so I take one last peek, then move through her room in silence. I check the drawers and under the bed. I check behind the clothes neatly stacked in each drawer, under the shirts, amongst her panties. Mostly she owns beige grandma panties, but there’s a thong or two in the back. They’re herspecial occasionpanties, and that bothers me on a strange, primal level. She doesn’t need special occasion panties, and any man that has seen them has somehow landed themselves on my shit list.
I haven’t thought of Libby Tate in, well… I want to say twenty-two years. I want to say I left the chubby little girl standing at the top of those stairs and moved on with my life. But in reality, I’ve thought of her a lot. When you’re at war and you have only one ally, you think of that ally long after the war has ended. It’s a brotherhood of sorts, a camaraderie, despite having onlyservedtogether for a short time.
In truth, I thought of Libby Tate almost every single day of my first year in an alleyway. Many people bought drawings of her; her eyes, her hair, her smile. I have a million sketchpads, and every single page is filled with doodles of that nine-year-old girl.
I thought of her every second day of my second year in that alley, and most days of the year after that. I wondered if she was safe, if she was happy. I’dacquireda radio during my days in hell, a scanner that dialed into police frequencies. For years, I heard Raymond Tate’s voice, I heard him go about his work and act like he was a legitimate servant of society. But best of all, I didnothear of a child being rushed to the hospital because of a drug overdose, nor did I hear of her being beaten half to death by her police officer father.
Tate remained in his position of power for many years after that day in the club, which I guess was good news in a way. It was shitty news for me and the others that he’d hurt. But it was good for Libby; it meant she was alive and safe, and it meant she had food on her table each night.
I’ve created warped coping mechanisms over the years; I wanted him to be taken down, but not immediately, because that would affect Libby’s happiness and safety.
Like all things, I want justice, but on my terms.
I continue to search her room, peek at the windowsill, and try my damnedest not to look at her face as she sleeps. Her long hair isn’t as curly as it used to be. Now it’s more of a loose wave, long enough to touch her shoulders and hang in her face while she sleeps. Her lips are pouty, just like they were when she was a child, her cheeks puffy, though that has more to do with sleep than it does with her weight.
The image I found online today didn’t include puffy cheeks.
Her lashes are long, but not the fake kind. Her nose is pert and the perfect button size for her face. It was too big when she was nine. Now it borders on small and, well, cute.
So much for not looking at her face.
I guess the most surprising feature of all has nothing to do with knee dimples or wavy hair, and everything to do with the muscle I see in her shoulders, her back, her thighs. She’s a gym junkie, and that’s kind of cute in a way, but at the same time, it’s somewhat intimidating, when almost nothing intimidates me.
All of the women I know that go to the gym – and I know many, because how else would they maintain their size zero clothes? – go to spin class or Pilates. What Libby does isn’t a class. It’s not a spa or yoga retreat. Libby lifts, she lifts heavy, and when her hand slides out from beneath her pillow and she turns a little to the side, my mind scrambles with an inability to focus.
Tits.
Or bruised knuckles.
Side tit and creamy flesh.
Or focus on the knuckles, and the proof that she hits too?
Neither!
There’s nothing in her room, and staying now has nothing to do with searching and everything to do with a man’s dependency on a beautiful woman.
Sliding between the bed and the dresser, I grit my teeth when my jeans brush against the wooden frame of her bed. It makes just the barest sound of fabric on wood, but in the middle of the night, in the dark, with a cop in her bed, it sounds like a gunshot to my ears.
She doesn’t wake. In fact, she gives a piggy-like snore and turns back to her stomach.
