by Leigh Lennon
“Nope, I don’t like it, I love it. Hell, it’s in my soul. I think I bleed alternative music.”
She’s more perfect by the second. “Also, Mudhoney has a song named “Deception Pass.””
“Wait, you know Mudhoney? A lot of people who claim to love alternative music have never heard of Mudhoney or…”
“Green River.” She finishes my sentence for me. “Don’t get me started on want to be grunge lovers who claim to know everything about the alternative movement, and doesn’t know who Green River is.” I’ve somehow sidled up next to her, and a cinnamon coconut blend blowing off her body invades my senses. Fuck, she smells good and I love her attitude, the way she gets worked up over something she’s passionate about.
“So, onto other trivia about this park and just not how it relates to pop culture, it was established in 1923 and has over two million visitors a year,” she recites as we continue to walk a trail.
“What are you? A walking Encyclopedia Britannica?” I ask.
“Why, yes! Yes, I am.” Her reply is so funny, so much like her.
She stops in my path, and I bump into her but pull her closer to me as I steady her. Malia’s face is centimeters from me, yet when she tilts her head up, I pull away. I can’t do this. As much as I want her, we can’t be together.
It’s nearly eleven p.m. by the time I pull into the visitors’ parking at the university, and she’s asleep. She has been since Marysville, and I’ve enjoyed listening to the slight snores.
I sit and watch her like the sick fuck I am, and she begins to stir. “Hey, are we back?” she asks.
“Yeah, sweetheart, we’re back.” I continue to watch her as she stretches and snuggles into a sweatshirt of mine I keep in the trunk. Once the sun had set, she’d gotten so cold, but I love seeing my clothes on her small body.
“Here.” She begins to take it off, but I stop her.
“No, it’s still a little chilly out. Let’s get you back in your dorm.”
“Wells…” She’s about to argue with me, and I place my index finger in front of her lips. “Are you putting your finger in front of my mouth so I can bite it off because that’s about to happen.”
What a saucy little vixen. “No, and if you bite me, I’ll spank you, you little brat.”
She gives me a wink as a challenge. “So, that may not be a punishment for you, but you’re not fucking walking up to your dorm room by yourself. Plus, I got a text from Stewart, asking me to check in on Greenlyn for him.”
We both roll our eyes at the same time. “He’s not her type. I hope he knows this. I believe she goes for bad boys.”
“I think the young detective likes a challenge,” I reply. “Come on, brat, let me make sure you get tucked in for the night. I’ll sleep better knowing you're safe.” What I want to say is I’ll sleep better if you’re with me, but I don’t. Though it’s the truth.
Chapter 12
Malia
I’ve been back in Washington for a week, and during this time, I’ve seen Wells every day. After our visit at Deception Pass, and that kiss that was so fucking close to happening, I show up at his house with another breakfast ready to cook for him.
“You’re going to fatten me up, sweetheart.” He pulls the door back, and a preseason football game is on.
“Ah, I’m right on time,” I explain, placing the groceries on the counter and making myself at home in front of the television.
“You like football, Mal?” he asks from the kitchen, bringing us both a cup of coffee.
“Yeah, I love it. They’re my team,” I begin, looking at the television, watching Will Montgomery in his tight uniform. “And he’s a bonus, too.” I point at the quarterback’s tight body.
“Yeah, for someone who is like a brother to me, like Will is, I’m going to ignore your statement,” he counters.
I give him a little slug, popping from the couch. “Let me get breakfast started, and we can enjoy the game together.”
I hear a growl emerge from his stomach when he turns to follow me into the kitchen. “What are you making me today? I hope you know you’re going to spoil me.”
That’s the point, is what I want to say, but I don’t. “I’m making homemade biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs and fried potatoes.” I’m pulling out the eggs, Bisquick, russet potatoes, sausage, flour, and buttermilk.
“You’re doing it all from scratch. Look at you.” He hands me my coffee, I add a little cream, and I continue to pull more groceries from my bag.
“Yeah, Aunt Mally taught me to cook.” I instantly sigh at my words. With the thoughts of my aunt and the vacancy of her in my life, I can’t hide my loss, nor do I want to.
“I can’t imagine, Mal,” he counters, sensing the grief in my lament. I give him a weak smile because I don’t have the strength to talk about Mally, not today, not when I want to revel in his company. He senses my hesitation, and his tone changes. It’s just that simple with Wells, knowing I need something lighthearted.
“I swear, that’s a bottomless bag,” he teases, pointing to my groceries.
I switch the topic right away because I’ve been wanting to ask him for so long, but I’ve not had the heart. “Were you able to get any evidence from the doll?” I ask.
He scrubs his face. “Mal.” It’s his answer, and he doesn’t have to say anything else. I stand at the sink and begin to cry. I hate this side of me, but the one that still lives in fear can’t help it. Strong arms wrap around me from behind, and he holds me tight. I can feel his breath on my neck.
He twists me around, tipping my face to his. “I have a great idea,” he leads with, wiping every tear from my face. “Why don’t we have breakfast for dinner, and I’ll take you out to the best brunch in town, besides your own, of course?”
I like this idea, and though I’m still a mess because they are no closer to finding the man who murdered my family than they were eleven years ago, it means I can spend the whole day with Wells. “Okay, you have yourself a date.” He doesn’t blanch at my words because to me, the longer Wells Shanahan is around me, the more his intense emotions toward me will be harder to deny.
We’re back at his house by the beginning of the second quarter, and like earlier, I make myself at home. “Want a pop, Mal?” he calls out to me.
“Yeah, Coke or Dr. Pepper if you have it. Anything as long as it’s not that diet shit.”
He has two Mountain Dews in his hand. “Do I look like a man who drinks diet?” he asks. “Is this okay? I’ll run up to the store at halftime to get you something else,” he offers, and it’s so sweet.
“No, this will do, and thanks. No need to go to the store. However, I may be a little hyped by the end of the game.”
“You hyper? Tell me it’s not so.” He sits in the overstuffed chair kitty-corner from the couch, and I want him closer to me. My mind is not on the hot football team in front of us. No, it’s on the man in the room. I end up taking a blanket from the back of the couch, cuddling with it as I sit opposite him in order to see this man.
Every once in a while, our eyes meet, and he looks away as quickly as he can. I know I’m younger than him by quite a bit, but I’m also a woman and no longer a kid. But my only fear is that I’ll always be a kid in his eyes.
He continues to watch more football as other teams fill his big-screen TV. It’s comfortable being in his space and making myself at home. We don’t need constant conversation because his presence is more than enough for me. As we sit down to enjoy our breakfast for dinner, we talk about my days with Mally, school, and of course, my love for art. He presses me for more information, and I realize he wants to discover so much about my life. It fills me with hope, and when I stand to do the dishes, he takes them from my hands. “Let me clean up. I want you to get back to the dorm before it gets too late.”
I don’t let him take the plates from me, and I make my way to the sink to rinse them off. “What? Are you kicking me out?”
I begin to chuckle, and as I turn to grab th
e ketchup he insisted he had to have with his fried potatoes, his lips turn down, and he can’t meet my gaze.
“Oh,” I reply, “I was kidding, but I guess there’s truth in it.”
I drop the ketchup and turn around to the chair I’d laid my purse and keys on earlier when I’d gotten here.
He blocks my way to the door. “No, Mal, let me explain,” he pleads.
“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” I try to sidestep him, but it’s no use as his imposing body blocks the entire door.
“Fuck, I don’t want you to go, you have to know this, but I can’t have you here. It’s too tempting,” he begins.
“You’re tempted by me?” I ask.
He closes his eyes, leaning his head back as it gently hits the door. “You know this. But it’s not right.”
“What’s not right? The fact you saved me, the age gap, or you working my family's case?” I try to clarify.
“All of it. It’s too much.”
I push onto my tippy toes and get as close to him as I can get with the great height difference between us. “You know what’s too much? Having your family taken from you. So when I find someone who feels the same about me as I do him, and he wants to use legalistic shit on me, that’s what fucking pisses me off, and that’s too fucking much?!”
I won’t wait for him to move. There’s a door to the backyard off the side of his kitchen, and I exit through it since he won’t let me go through the one he’d been blocking. I walk through the fence door, separating the backyard from the front.
He’s made his way through the door he had blocked, standing on his front steps. He calls for me to stop as I cross through the lawn to get to my car. I don’t answer him as I open the door and climb in, starting the engine and burning rubber on his street. I hold back the tears until I’m at the university because he’s just broken my heart.
Chapter 13
Wells
I text her all night long and am going out of my ever-loving mind when I try one last time.
Me: If you don’t let me know you at least got back to school, I’m coming to find you, and I don’t think you want that because I’ll force you to talk.
Maybe I should have stopped her by standing in front of her car. However, as mad as she was with me, she very well may have run me over. I have my keys in my hand when a return text has me stopping in my tracks.
Mal: I’m back and safe in my dorm. I don’t want to see you.
Me: Tough shit. Meet me for lunch tomorrow at Ivar’s.
Mal: I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Just let me be, Wells.
Me: If you aren’t there tomorrow at one p.m., I’ll come to get you.
She responds with the middle finger emoji, but I’ve made my point.
My thoughts of Malia lull me to sleep, and I drift off on the couch. I hadn’t realized I’d slept as long as I had when something interrupts my dreams.
What is that noise, and why can’t I stop it, stop it from waking me up? My eyes flicker, and the lights are still on in the living room where I crashed a couple of hours ago. I’d been snoozing so deep, I thought my cell phone was something in my dream. But I can’t remember, and not that this matters, when I groan, picking up the phone to the one person I don’t like on a normal day, let alone waking me up from a deep slumber.
“Shanahan.” It’s business, a case. It’s the only reason she’d be calling me. “Fuck, Detective. Where have you been? Higgins has been calling you for the past hour. We caught a case, and believe me when I say, you have to see it to believe it. Check your phone for the address.” There’s a click on the other end, and Vanessa is done. I sit up, and at this hour, I need coffee. I don’t even know what time it is when I flip my phone over. 2:00 a.m.—fuck, this is not how I want to wake.
Hopping over to my room, I change my clothes instantly, brush my teeth, and grab my coffee, attempting to get to the case the Wicked Witch of the West says I just have to see to believe.
The uniforms already have set up the crime tape when I arrive as flashing lights illuminate the night sky. The neighborhood is middle class, somewhere between middle-middle class and upper-middle class. Similar to the neighborhood Gail and Stephen Montgomery live in.
I flash my badge to the uniform in charge of crowd control and slip under the tape. Vanessa, with her deep black hair tied back tight on her head without a piece out of place, and flawless as normal in a black suit, different from yesterday, flags me over. Higgins and her are in a serious conversation.
“Morning,” I begin, and both whip their attention to me. “What do we have?”
“Fuck, it’s not pretty. Not in the least.” This strikes me as odd. He may be a rookie detective, but he was a patrolman for years and saw shit you only see out on the streets day by day. I should know.
“I’m not even going to fill you in, Detective,” Vanessa starts. “I’ll let you walk the scene, and then we’ll talk.” In her demeanor, she’s physically rattled, her fingers shaking, and her face flushed from all color.
“Um, okay.” I reach for my gloves, putting them on, and enter the house. Something’s freaky familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it, not until I turn my attention to the left and see a dining room table with a woman and teenage male, their throats slit, heads lying down, but with the pool of blood, it’s obvious, the cuts are from end to end.
What I’m not expecting is the body on the floor, but it’s not a body, it’s a dummy, a mannequin, that has blood on the neck as if this lifeless doll was taking the place for someone. I continue into the kitchen where the crime lab is taking pictures and gathering samples from the male body on the floor with stab wounds throughout him. I continue to walk, almost fearful of the next corpse, but this time, leaned up next to the refrigerator, is another mannequin. It’s the size of a child. I twist my body away, then continue toward the back of the house, and another body, this one is real, has had the life choked out of her and is lying near the back door.
This is exactly like the murders from Malia’s family, except for the two dummy bodies brought in to represent Malia and her sister, Gracie. Sweat pools at the base of my neck and under my arms, and the room begins to spin. I’ve never gotten over the Strickland crime scene, nor will I get over this scene. Someone has something to prove, and four more innocent people have died because of it.
On the kitchen counter is a note already in an evidence bag. It’s clear, and I can read it, and my heart stops at the words in front of me.
If there would have been a little girl, I would have spared her life, just to make things fair. But it wasn’t my intention to spare Malia Strickland that night. She was crying. I was on my way to find her when I heard footsteps on the front porch. It was you, Detective Shanahan, who caused me to abandon my plans. But now, Malia has become a part of me because of it. And I’ll do anything and everything to keep her safe and keep her as mine. I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Police Angel.
I run through the front doors, Higgins and Matt Montgomery looping their arms around me. “Malia, I’ve got to get to Malia.”
I speed to the Montgomery house—and to steady my heart, I need to set eyes on Malia. The images of the family are eerily familiar to the scene of the Strickland murders. How do I tell her? How do I tell the young girl whose family was viciously murdered that someone used her pain to re-stage yet another massacre?
The uniformed officers were instructed to pick up Malia and take her directly to the Montgomery residence where she’d be most comfortable until I could get to her.
I’m at the front door and Stephen pulls it back to just not Malia but Greenlyn, too. It’s not a bad call. The uniforms who went to the university to get her, brought both Malia and her roommate back to the safety of Stephen and Gail’s home. If someone is targeting Malia, Greenlyn could be a mark, too. “What’s going on?” Malia’s Converses scuff the wood floor as she pushes off to reach me, and my arms envelop her. Gail has Greenlyn embraced in her body.
“Honey, let me show yo
u to your room for the night.”
Leading her away, Stephen catches my attention, following his wife down the hall. “Come get me if you need me.” He stops his advance. “I assume you’re staying, son?” I nod. “The boys’ room is all ready for you.”
I give him a curt nod, taking Malia’s hand into mine. “Come sit with me, sweetheart?” I ask, but I don’t give her a chance to answer.
“What’s going on?” My mind works on the correct words of what I should say, how I could say this to make any of this more acceptable in her small little world.
“Shit, sweetheart, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but…”
“But what?” Her raven hair is matted to her cheeks as I remembered from the night she was so young. The beautiful dark chocolates of her eyes tear up. My hand hovers over her cheeks, again a reminder she’s not mine to hold, to comfort, to keep.
“There’s been another murder.” I watch the color drain from her face and the fear flicker in her dark chocolates. I’ve seen her varying states of emotions since being back, but with one touch of my hand on hers, she relaxes into my embrace, throwing her arms around me.
“And it’s related to me? How?”
I close my eyes. I can’t bear to see this woman hurt, this woman torn to her central core. “I…um… fuck, Malia. The crime was staged the same way as your family’s had been. Down to the number of people and the way they were killed.”
Her hand reaches her trembling lip. “What? I don’t understand.” She closes her eyes when I don’t answer. “Are you telling me five more people were killed to make it look like my family?”
“The house was set up very similar to your old home,” I begin and she opens her mouth to talk, but nothing comes out when I continue. “And, actually, the family was smaller, and they used mannequins to make it look like it was the same size as your family.”
