“Thanks,” I said.
She’d been the one who’d helped me figure out what to say about the microcomputer. We’ll keep it simple, she’d told me. That way, if he knows more than you think, you won’t say anything he knows is impossible, and if he doesn’t know much, you’ll keep him focused on the important part.
She slapped me on the shoulder and glanced over where the other officers were leading Lyle away. “You did good.” Then she looked down at Hunt’s prone form. “Although I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a thank-you from him.”
I hid a wince. “Noted.” Connor walked past, following the officers who’d taken Lyle. “Um, I’m going outside to wait for the toxicology specialist to arrive.”
Mendez grinned. “You worried Hunt might wake up?”
Maybe I hadn’t done such a great job of hiding that wince. “Just need some fresh air,” I lied.
She was still grinning as I withdrew to hurry after Connor.
I found him on the front terrace, watching the officers load Lyle into the police cruiser. His shoes were back on his feet. His spine was straight. And his mask was firmly in place.
I approached feeling hopeful. I mean, that had gone well, right? I’d shown him I was capable of rising to the challenge both mentally and physically. Okay, Hunt had been an unfortunate mishap, but from Connor’s point of view, better him than me. It wasn’t my fault self-defense training focused on protecting yourself without accounting for innocent bystanders.
Plus it was a positive sign that Connor had changed his mind at the last minute so he could be here to back me up. He cared enough not to trust my well-being to others. He cared enough to put himself through the high stress of being on the other side of that door, possibly unable to come through in time. He cared.
That suggested he was coming around to the idea that we could work this out.
“Thank you for being here today,” I said.
He didn’t respond. Not even a grunt. That made me feel less hopeful.
“Now that the case is resolved, when would it suit you to have that conversation?”
A white medical van pulled up to the curb—the van Harper had refused to be picked up in—while I waited for Connor to answer.
He let out a slow breath and without so much as looking at me said, “I can’t keep doing this, Izzy. I just can’t.” Then he left me standing by myself on the terrace.
My eyes burned. Matching the stinging sensations on my scalp and elbow. I wasn’t even sure what he was referring to. Having my back when I confronted the bad guys? Talking to me about our relationship? Our relationship full stop?
I swallowed the lump of misery in my throat. Connor was darn well going to talk to me whether he liked it or not. He’d given me his word. And I was sick of the sight of him walking away, avoiding the hard conversations.
For now though, I left my feelings behind as Connor had done me and jogged down to Levi. Someone needed to guide him to the patient.
“That was fast,” I greeted him. It seemed like less than five minutes since Hunt had been shot.
Levi flashed his ready smile. “Nice to see you aren’t the one needing medical attention for a change.”
“Ah, nope. But it’s kind of my fault that Hunt does.”
His smile widened. “I might’ve heard.” He was grabbing his gear as we spoke.
Change of subject time. “How’d your date with Harper go?”
He swung his bag over his shoulder and strode toward the house. “Great! Although she took a lot of pleasure in pointing out her hands were rougher than mine, and I have to admit she looks similar enough to Connor that I thought of him more times than I wanted to during a romantic dinner. But I was sufficiently terrified of her to ask for a second date.”
He winked at me, and I laughed. “Good.”
We entered the Knightley estate, and he lowered his voice. “But how are things with you and Connor?”
I sighed. “I might need to take you up on your offer of backup.”
It was worth a try, right?
He nodded, his expression wholly serious for once. “Consider it done.”
We reached Hunt’s inert form. He looked strangely vulnerable lying on the floor in his socks. Two stern-faced officers were standing by, watching over him.
Levi checked his vitals, opening his eyelids, listening to his heart and lungs, and—after a quick question—rolling up his trouser leg to probe the puncture site. He spoke loud enough to include the officers in his findings. “The commander will have a hell of a bruise, but other than that, he should be back to normal in no time.”
The officers visibly relaxed.
I was relieved too, despite knowing the chances of complications were almost nil.
Levi prepped the antidote. “This will wake him up shortly.” He glanced at me. “Since you’re kind of responsible for getting him shot, maybe you should disappear before that happens.”
“Good point.” I bounced to my feet and hightailed it out of there. The sound of the officers chuckling trailed me down the hallway.
I drove home with a sackful of mixed feelings. I should’ve been feeling triumphant seeing as we’d pulled off the impossible and caught Isaac Anand’s murderer at last. But I felt slimy from how I’d done it—twisting a knife into the wound of a grieving father. A murderer yes, but a grieving father all the same.
I was also acutely aware that Isaac’s stolen tech, the tech I’d enabled to be stolen, was still missing. It seemed a poor way to repay the man who had poured so much of himself into altruistic projects; that the one closest to his heart would never see its legacy. And worse, would possibly be repurposed for killing instead of returning people home to their loved ones.
That unresolved blunder had also placed me on rocky ground with Hunt. And now with this morning’s actions resulting in him being knocked out by a tranquilizer, I was exceedingly nervous about coming face-to-face with him again.
You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard to avoid one person in a city of four million, but with my penchant for getting into trouble and my neighbor dating him, a confrontation was inevitable. Perhaps with some effort and a pinch of luck, I might be able to steer clear of him until it was time to leave for Australia in two days’ time. That would give him weeks to cool off. But that brought me to the thing that weighed heaviest on my mind.
Connor.
For the past two and a bit weeks, I’d been certain he’d come around. That it was only a matter of time and persuasion. But I was starting to lose that confidence. I’d tried almost everything I could think of, and with the trip I’d been so excited about just days away, things between us were looking grimmer than ever. Maybe it was time to examine the facts in front of me rather than what my heart wanted. To admit to the unpleasant possibility he’d been right all along. That maybe he couldn’t overcome the demons of his past.
That maybe we were really finished.
But dammit, I wasn’t going to give up until I’d forced him to talk to me. And there was no point torturing myself about what-ifs until then.
I stomped up the stairs to my apartment, hoping Oliver would be home to distract me with someone else’s problems. But he was out again. It seemed of late that when he wasn’t working at the Fox, he was drinking there.
At least it meant Meow was pleased to see me. I cuddled her for a while. But my mind kept returning to my troubles, so I reluctantly set her down to tackle the household tasks I’d been neglecting.
Even washing, scrubbing, and tidying were better than moping.
When the kitchen, living area, bathroom, floors, and my bedroom were clean, I stepped under the shower to clean myself. The water reignited the stinging on my scalp, so I wrapped a towel around me and gingerly approached the mirror. Time to inspect the damage.
The pain suggested clumps of hair had gone missing, but you couldn’t tell it from the reflection. For the first time in almost thirty years, I was grateful for my unruly locks.
I left
them wet and decided to while away some hours out on the stair landing. Sitting in the relatively fresh air where I could witness life continuing on as usual on the street below was good for the soul. I brought a book, a cup of tea, and three cookies out with me, all of which were also good for the soul. And today was definitely a three-cookie kind of day, so I didn’t even feel guilty about it.
I’d been lounging on Etta’s outdoor sofa for an hour or two, lost in the pages of my book, when Etta came out and sat beside me. The shift of the sofa cushion brought the painful flashback of when Connor had been the one sitting beside me. Just before he’d asked me out a few short but wonderful months ago.
Ugh. I forced myself into the present moment. I hadn’t seen much of Etta lately. Partly on purpose, partly because I’d been so busy.
If Connor wasn’t coming to Australia with me, I should invite her now to give her a chance to prepare. But I wasn’t ready to give up on the trip I’d been looking forward to for over a month yet. Besides, Etta had no problem being spontaneous. Or so I justified it to myself.
I cycled through for a safe topic of conversation. “How’s Adeline?” I asked.
Even that I felt guilty about. No one had called to invite her to the final confrontation with Lyle Knightley—the one part of the case she might’ve found exciting enough. But I was also kind of grateful she hadn’t been there.
“Oh yes, she’s enjoying Los Angeles. Apparently, you and Connor convinced her that the only type of detective she wants to be is the television kind. Thinks the real-life version is boring.”
I wasn’t surprised by the news. “I’m glad she’s happy with her career choice then.”
Etta eyeballed me. “Hmm.”
What did that mean? Did she think we’d been boring on purpose? For goodness’ sake, if Adeline had wanted adventure, she should’ve just hung out with her aunt.
Etta reached for the pocket where she normally kept her cigarettes and then stopped herself. She’d been trying to quit smoking for months now, for Dudley’s health rather than her own. And while she’d managed to cut down a lot, she still snuck the not-so-occasional one when she thought nobody was looking.
It reassured me that the remarkable, adventurous, smart-as-a-whip woman was still human.
“I’ve been thinking about your career choice again,” she told me.
Oh no. Not again. She knew my job was classified and seemed to have adopted it as her mission to uncover the truth behind it.
Her first guess had been a honeytrap working alongside Connor’s private investigation and security business for the rich. The next, an obsessed but clever closet groupie who’d found job roles that would get me close to the stars I so admired without ever letting them know about my all-consuming fixation.
Each time I’d played along in the hopes of encouraging her to stop digging. What would it be this round?
“You’re a journalist,” she said proudly. “One who takes on undercover roles to get close to the story. That’s why you keeping rubbing shoulders with high-profile folk who then go on and get themselves in trouble. I couldn’t figure out why you’d be hanging around the likes of Richard Knightley—pretending to admire him no less—until I saw you typing away on the computer for hours after he died.”
Typing?
She was referring to my agonizing over that letter to Connor. A reminder that produced another painful pang. On the bright side, at least this hypothetical job wasn’t humiliating.
But wait a minute. That must mean she’d never believed I was dating Richard. Did that also mean she’d never given up on me the way I’d feared? Before I could finish processing the implications, she continued.
“Although I don’t see why you need to keep that so secret from your friends.” Was that hurt in her tone? “It’s not like I’d blow your cover, nor is it like I’m about to do anything newsworthy for you to surreptitiously report on.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Of all the people I count among my friends, I would say you’re the most likely to do something worth writing about.”
Her cheeks tinged with a delicate pink. “Oh.” She sounded pleased.
I pressed my advantage while I had her on the back foot, seeking to move the conversation along before I got myself in more hot water. “Hey, you don’t have any idea what’s wrong with Oliver, do you? I’ve never seen him depressed for so long.”
The day Oliver had gone from charming to mopey in a matter of hours, Etta’s visit had directly coincided with the change.
Now she stretched out her toes to touch the stair railing, unconcerned. Maybe even amused. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t worry about that too much. I think he’ll start to feel better very soon.”
What the heck did that mean?
She didn’t give me time to ponder it. “You’ll never believe what Wendell told me this afternoon after he missed our lunch date.”
Oh boy. Wendell was Police Commander Hunt.
I’d learned his first name after he and Etta had gone steady, but I’d never dared to call him by it.
“He said he was shot with a tranquilizer dart and knocked unconscious by someone I might know.”
“It was an accident,” I blurted in an eerie echo of Lyle Knightley’s words. I cleared my throat. “But I’m sorry you missed your lunch date.”
She chuckled and patted me on the knee. “Don’t be. You shot the man and lived. I’ve got respect for that, girl. Now did you want to come for a walk with Dudley and me or not?”
Realizing how much I’d missed Etta’s company, I jumped to my feet. “Absolutely.”
She stood up too. “Then I’d better see if I can persuade that lazy hound to get off the couch.”
Connor
I opened the front door to find Levi Reyes standing behind it. Adrenaline shot through my system.
“Did something happen to Isobel? Is she okay?”
I’d called in a favor and asked Reyes to wait around the block from Knightley’s house today in case she got hurt—asked him not to mention the favor to her either. But she’d been fine when I’d left. What trouble could’ve found her this time?
Reyes gave a tight smile. “Now that’s a complicated question. Can I come in?”
I let him inside before I’d finished interpreting his response and what it suggested he was really here for. Too late. I led him to the small sitting room, Petal dancing around our ankles, then poured us both drinks without bothering to ask if he wanted one.
If he didn’t, I’d drink his too.
Levi helped himself to an armchair. “I know better than to tell another person how they should cope with loss. Anyone who’s gone through hell and come out the other side with their shit mostly intact is doing well. Great even.”
If it was someone else, I would’ve stopped listening and shown them the door. But it was impossible not to respect somebody who’d seen the front line and lost comrade after comrade to the hungry, devouring machine of war. And the ones who didn’t die, he would’ve had to patch up and send out to spin the wheel of life and death again or ship them home to try to work out how to live with their permanent and crippling injuries—emotional as well as physical.
He’d never talked about it, never told me how many. He didn’t have to.
I handed him the drink, and he took it. He’d been giving Petal a rub on her itchy spot under the collar, but as soon as I sat down, she took up her customary position on my feet.
“What I will say is this,” Reyes continued after taking an appreciative sip. “In my experience, while there are a lot of differences in the details, there are really only three ways to deal with loss and trauma. One, you pretend it never happened and try to hide any and all signs to the contrary. Well, I’m not sure if it counts as dealing with it since there’s this big dark hole somewhere in your past that you’re avoiding the pain of processing, but it seems to work okay for some. The second is to take a long, hard look at the pain and decide you’re going to avoid ever going through that aga
in at any cost. So you shut yourself off, sever contacts, and throw your identity into the things you have more control over to make yourself harder to hurt. That works too. I know a few highly successful businesses that have been started that way.”
Levi wasn’t looking at me. Probably knew not to be too direct. He was better at navigating people than me. He took another sip and rested the glass on his knee.
“The third way, the one I’ve chosen for myself, is to see that pain, be damned glad it’s in your past rather than your present, and take away from it how to cherish the things most people take for granted. Kids shrieking with laughter in the backyard, having no concept of that kind of darkness. The fun and frustrations of spending time with family. The ability to brighten someone’s day just by cracking a silly joke. Having a roof over my head and a home I can do whatever I want with. Sitting on my porch with my two overly contented dogs and taking a leaf out of their book in just enjoying the moment. The sun. The birds singing. The taste of a good drink.” He raised his glass in acknowledgment.
“And of course, there’s that whole wonderful mess of finding someone to share all that stuff with. Share life with. Personally, I’m looking forward to that, and when I find it, I’m going to grab it with both hands and not let it go until something pries it out of my cold, dead fingers. But that’s me. And I’m not going to try to dictate what option you choose or judge you for that choice. I’m just suggesting you acknowledge it is a choice, a decision rather than something thrust upon you, and make damn sure you choose what you really want.”
He drained the glass and put it down on the side table.
“The thing I am going to judge you for is letting your wounds dictate how someone else lives their life. Dammit, man, you must see that in telling Izzy what she should do and pushing her away if she doesn’t do it, you’re only escalating the danger to her. If your concern truly is protecting her from harm, then you’d do a much better job of it if you work with her instead of against her. Like you did today.” He stood up. “So if you do choose the third option, and if you do love and want to protect her—then stop being such an autocratic ass about it. Thanks for the drink. I’ll let myself out.”
Duty and the Beast Page 20
