Forbidden With Me: A With Me In Seattle Universe Novel

by Leigh Lennon

  I’m about to agree with him when Vanessa’s boss commences the meeting. “Detective Shanahan, shut the door.” There’s no please, no thank you, and when he points at the chairs behind us, we’re not given a choice as the two of us sit.

  Glancing at Matt, I wonder what the fuck we could have done from over eight years ago when our partnership split, and he went to one department while my path led me to homicide.

  “Relax, men,” Vanessa orders. “You aren’t in trouble.” Matt visibly leans against the back of the chair, moving his elbows from his knees. I stay in the hunched over position because with Vanessa, there’s always more.

  “The Malia Strickland case from eleven years ago is getting some attention. You two were the first on the scene, so I need you both to go back through your reports and make sure everything is neat and orderly.”

  Matt understands this is the one case I’ve never been able to let go of. My obsession has seen many days of me returning to the scene to look at everything and search for the slightest clue or for my memory to recall something deep in its unconsciousness. It was unhealthy, fuck, it’s still unhealthy, and I’m not sure if it’s because I can’t let go, or I won’t. The deep chocolate browns of the little girl and her tear-soaked cheeks is an image I wake up to several times a week even after all this time.

  “Sir, can I ask after eleven years, what has come to light?” Matt is able to coherently ask the questions I can’t form on my lips.

  “We always thought it was the boyfriend of the eldest daughter. As we know, choking is a sign of a more intimate relationship, almost peaceful for the murderer.” I about choke on his words; no murder is peaceful, and though her death was different, three minors and two parents were viciously murdered. “This is a textbook case crime of passion with the eldest being choked. Consequently, the others were collateral damage as our profilers concluded, especially with the other murders being so much more gruesome. Finally, after all these years, there’s a DNA match we weren’t ever able to test. With a court order, we made a match, and we’ve made an arrest. We’re just giving you the heads-up. Get yourself up to speed and go back through your reports because you’ll be asked to testify.”

  My blood boils. This is my case, and I was left out of the loop on it.

  I’d never thought the ex-boyfriend, Smith Turner, was good for the murders. I’d been simply a beat cop, but I’ve lived and breathed this case, and it has never added up—plus his alibi had been airtight. “I don’t get it?”

  I’m about to ask when Vanessa shuts me up. “You don’t need to get it, Detective Shanahan. Just do what we’ve asked. You’re dismissed.” I’m about to challenge her, especially with it being my case, but my best friend, who knows me too well, almost shoves me out of the room before my mouth writes a check my ass can’t cash.

  My fingers ball into tight fists, sweat breaks out on my forehead, and it’s cold as shit in the precinct, but I’m sweating. Matt claps me on the back. “I see you can still get under her skin.” Matt never thought Vanessa and I were the right match. He’d always tell me I’d know when the right one came along as it had with his wife, Nic.

  “Fuck, she’s a bitch.” I’m about to complain to the one man who had warned me time and time again that Vanessa Shay ate them up and spit them out. It’s the one time I wish I’d listened to my buddy. I’ll even give him the satisfaction and admit this when Vanessa pops her head out. Her frizzy black hair pulled back in a tight bun may be one reason she’s such a tight-ass, too.

  “Oh, and, Detective Shanahan, the only witness to the murders is back in Seattle, so be sure to get with Malia Strickland and interview her. She may have only been nine, but the memory has a funny way of recalling details later on.” Again, how the fuck does she know Malia is back? I can ask her, but I’ll get as much information as I did before with the case.

  She slips back in her office. Malia had gone to live with her mother’s sister in Eugene, Oregon, after the murders. Malia is back. The little girl who had clung to me and called me her police angel instead of policeman is home. I never wanted her back in a city that held so many horrific memories. And when she sees me, will I be one of those bad memories, reminding her of when her life was destroyed?

  Chapter 4

  Malia

  Why return to a city that holds vile and disgusting memories of my past? The answer is in the question. One could call it healing by taking control of my life. Finding a way to tell the world I won’t be ruled by my past.

  College move-in day has been chaotic—the elevator breaks and the toilets back up on every floor, yet I don’t let any of this hinder me. It wasn’t even the entire university that moved in, and it was crazy. They allow those in pre-curricular activities the option to settle in a couple of weeks early. I’m not in this category, but in my case, they agreed to let me, since I had nowhere to go after the farm sold.

  Perspective was shoved in my fucking throat the day my family had been killed, and regardless of the challenges, I would not waste my new start.

  I seldom open up for anyone to become attached. Call it a circumstance of hearing your entire family stabbed and mutilated over and over again. Well, everyone but my eldest sister. The man who murdered her used his bare hands.

  At twenty, I return to the city I loved as a kid. There were so many days we spent down at the Seattle Center, the Space Needle, and the ferries we’d take to the San Juan Islands. My mom often brought old bread, and I made the mistake of feeding the seagulls. Cabe and I were surrounded as the vicious birds had often plucked the bread from our hands. Gracie and Annie sat on the bench, farthest away from the fiasco, doubled over in hysterics. I’d been so mad at them for laughing at us, but it was like that with them. Gracie and Annie were thick as thieves, only two years apart. Cabe was three years older than me and was my ally in the family. But when Cabe was outside shooting hoops with his friends, Gracie and Annie would bring me into their fold, painting my nails or letting me watch them put on makeup.

  Annie was seventeen when she died, Gracie was fifteen, and Cabe was only twelve. The pangs of thunderous agony have me grasping the wall of my dorm. I’m happy my roommate has gone out with her parents for one last goodbye before they make the trek back to their hometown thirty miles north of Seattle.

  Greenlyn Kelly is the typical American sweetheart with platinum blonde hair and bright aqua eyes. She’s not only tall but also thin with beautiful curves, but not too curvy, not like mine.

  As I watch Greenlyn’s family and how her mom takes care in unpacking and showing her the most efficient ways to make a small space work, I know Maria Strickland would have taken all the same steps. And like Greenlyn, I probably would have gotten irritated with my mother just as my new roommate has with hers.

  I have nobody with me today. Even Aunt Mally couldn’t be here for this. I saw her breathe her last breath six months ago as her body succumbed to cancer. I had wanted to yell at Greenlyn, shake her, show her loss is so immediate, so final, so destructive. Losing Aunt Mally, the second mother in my life, is something I had been prepared for, but being orphaned at the age of twenty is not a situation I’d open up to about with virtual strangers.

  “So tell me, Malia, how are your parents adjusting to you moving away?” Mrs. Kelly had asked earlier.

  There are two ways I avoid this. I can tell the truth, and the awkwardness will be thick and dense, and a blanket of pity will surround me anytime Greenlyn is in the room. Or I just avoid it with a little white lie. In that moment, I had chosen the little white lie.

  “Ah, they’re used to it. I’m the baby.”

  It’s the truth, if Martin and Maria Strickland were still alive, they’d probably welcome the peace and quiet of empty nesters until Annie, Gracie, and Cabe brought their families to visit, and then they’d love every moment of chaos. When the subject of my age came up, I simply said I’d taken a couple of gap years. I wouldn’t divulge one year was repeating a grade due to the PTSD, and the other was watching my aunt
die before my very eyes.

  The four small walls of my dormitory are closing in on me. I don’t rely on the tried and true coping mechanisms from my therapist for the past ten years. I pull my keys down from the rack Greenlyn’s mother insists will keep us organized and slam out through my door, sprinting through the hall. I have no place to go, and no one to see. It doesn’t stop me. I take the steps two at a time, darting to my little Nissan, the one thing Aunt Mally left me—to start my life over.

  The university is in the middle of the city, but with all the blaring horns and bumper-to-bumper traffic, I enter the freeway which instinctually takes me to the exit of the one place I’ve not seen since the police angel carried me out of my home. He’d instructed me at the time to bury my impressionable eyes into his shoulders. I’d not understood then, but his insistence about closing my eyes to the carnage was one of the many gifts the strong policeman had given me.

  Keeping in contact with Jules Montgomery throughout the years, I’d often perused her social media for pictures of the man who’d shielded me from my family’s massacre. At the time when the pantry door was opened, my eyes connected with the virtual stranger in front of me—I looked past him at Matt Montgomery, the person I had recognized. I knew right away, Wells was my safe place. Throwing myself into Wells’s arms seemed right, it seemed safe, and when Jules and Mrs. Montgomery ran down the three houses, the faces I’d been the most familiar with, I retained my hold on Wells, not letting go of him.

  The street is as suburban as apple pie and baseball are to the United States. It’s not changed, and in my nine-year-old memories, it seems smaller. The first house on the street is as beautiful as I remember it. I wonder if Ms. Becket still lives here, working in her garden come rain or shine. In Seattle, the rain issue is as often as I remember. The rose bushes are as vibrant as they were when I was young, and the swing is still attached to the side of the porch. Ms. Becket used to call us down for baked cookies. And if she didn’t, we’d sometime sit on her front steps until she brought us out the cookies we loved so much.

  Across from Ms. Becket is the Wayne house. If I remember it right, their kids were the hoodlums of the neighborhood, and one reason we locked our doors at night. The house is in better condition than I remember it being when I lived on the street, and I’d say the Waynes no longer live here.

  I take inventory of every house, comparing all of them to my memory from eleven years ago. It’s funny how my recollection is so vivid, showing me things I would have claimed to have forgotten in such a long time.

  I purposely twist my head away from the left when I pass my childhood home. Mally couldn’t sell it. I’m not sure why she felt it was a good idea to keep. Maybe it was unsellable since an entire family had been slaughtered there, but deep down, knowing my namesake as I had, I think she hoped the house would hold some clue as to who had killed her family.

  She’d often hear from the detective on the scene in the past, and he alluded to Annie’s ex-boyfriend as the main person of interest, though he didn’t believed Smith Turner could have murdered my entire family. I never saw this either, and as I grew older, it only strengthened my intuition. Smith and Annie had been best friends before they dated, and he’d always been so gentle with all of us, plus they had broken up three months prior.

  When the house is out of my immediate view, I rotate my attention to the Montgomery home—the neighborhood house known as the family house. They opened their home to us, to everyone. Annie had the biggest crush on Caleb Montgomery, who’d been on a mission overseas. Gracie’s affection had always been on Matt. Both men were older, much too old for it to ever come of anything, but I assume it was fun to dream—just as I have with my police angel.

  I stop instinctively when I see a blonde at the steps, holding a toddler in her hands. She’s not changed. Jules is beautiful, more beautiful than her social media profile illustrates. Her eyes focus on my car, and she recognizes me, right away. Jules’s husband is handsome with dark hair sitting right above his shoulders. He sidles up next to her as she erratically waves me down. She passes their daughter to him and begins running to the front of my car, blocking my path.

  “Get out,” she demands with a broad grin, but there’s resolve with her hands on her hips, and to the side, her husband angles his head with a shrug. I don’t know the man, but what I remember about Jules Montgomery is when she has her mind set on something, it’s a wasted effort to resist. I’ve been quiet on all my accounts for the past year after Mally had been diagnosed. I’ve had nothing worthwhile to post.

  In the middle of the road, I’m beat as I put the ten-year-old vehicle into park. Pushing out from the car, I stand as the tall blonde attacks me. Her playful tone begins to tease me. “I’m so excited to see you. Matt just called me a couple of minutes ago, telling me you were back in the area.” How did she know? How did Matt know? I haven’t told anyone. She’s squeezing me, and I think I may pop. “And you’ve stopped by at the right time. Several of us are having dinner with Mom and Dad.”

  Sweat begins to form under my arms, and my hands vibrate in a quick quiver as the tears spring to my eyes when Jules pulls back from me. “Give me a second, Mal, honey.” She turns her body from me, but she hasn’t missed my reaction as her hand rubs my back in slow circular motions. “Nate, babe, can you take Stella in for me? I’ll be in shortly.” A woman meets him in the driveway, and I recognize her as Matt’s wife, but I can’t for the life of me remember her name. Jules guides me to the front steps that leads to the Montgomerys’ front door, though I’m positive no one still uses this way to enter the home.

  “My car,” I argue as Jules’s sparkling eyes settle back on her husband. It’s like he has a read on this emotional reunion and runs to my car to parallel park it quickly. He then tosses his wife the keys before I realize what’s going on. But the whole time, her other hand lightly rubs my forearm.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m treating this like a happy homecoming when I know how hard this has to be for you.”

  I can’t look her way, not in the midst of a panic attack I feel coming on. My aching head is between my knees, and I have no choice but to incorporate my therapist’s techniques unless I want every Montgomery to see me lose it.

  “Malia, honey, just breathe, just breathe.” Her voice soothes me. “You’re not alone, Malia, not anymore. We’re here for you.”

  My mind is on Jules and the hours we played Barbies together. She was only around two years older than Annie, my eldest sibling. I didn’t need a babysitter, not with the ages of my sisters, but Mom would let my older sisters go out and hire Jules because I loved her like she was my sister. And that fateful night, Jules had been scheduled to watch me, but Mom canceled because I’d spiked a fever. She would never have left me, sick—even with my sisters. Gracie and Annie were on their way out. They hadn’t left yet because Annie wasn’t quite ready.

  My tears are soaking her hands, the sun is setting, and her arms encase me, something I’ve not felt since Mally hadn’t been able to sit up at the very end. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. But we’ve got you. We’ve got you.”

  In the years since I’ve left Seattle, the Montgomerys have never forgotten my birthday or Christmas. A miscellaneous wire had shown up in my account after Aunt Mally died, and I wondered if that was from them.

  They’d often wanted to come visit me, but with the connection I made between my parents' death and my life in Seattle, my therapist felt it could hinder my healing. Case in point, why I’m crying like a baby on the steps of my old neighbor’s house.

  I want to flee. There’s no doubt I have to find my safe place, a safe place that doesn’t yield the same past. I don’t want the memories anymore. The sobs begin to overtake my ragged breathing.

  There’s a small exchange with a foreign voice so low I can’t place it, and then Jules gives me one more squeeze of her hand. “Honey, we’re taking you inside through the basement, okay?” Her voice barely permeates my brain, but when I stand, I’
m scooped up in strong arms, and a masculine aroma floods my senses.

  “I got you, sweetie.” The voice is familiar. Its tone has been able to lull me to sleep on the worst nights. It’s the same words, the same aroma of mint and orange, and the same touch. When I was young, I called him my police angel, but now, he’s simply my angel—always here when I need him.

  Chapter 5

  Wells

  Somehow, someway, Matt has convinced me to have dinner at his parents' house. Being around Matt’s happy family makes me realize what I don’t have at the age of thirty-three. I dodged a bullet with Vanessa, but being alone still stings.

  “It’s small tonight. Not the whole clan. It’s just my group along with Jules and her little family,” Matt explains.

  I’ve lost track of the number of grandchildren in this growing clan, but a home-cooked meal with some adult interaction is something I won’t turn down. I agree to ride over with him in order to discuss the case and compare our memories from so long ago.

  “You can’t believe it’s Smith Turner?” I ask, but my question is not answered, or I don’t give him enough time before my eyes fall on Jules who happens to be on the front steps of the walkway, which leads to the front door no one uses. “Who’s with Jules?”

  “One question at a time, asshole,” he teases, parking between his sister’s car and another one neither of us recognizes. The license plates are marked Oregon, and Jules is comforting a virtual stranger. Understanding crosses my mind, and I jump from Matt’s BMW, closing the space between the scared little girl who’s never left my thoughts from so long ago.