by Tijan
on repeat, like someone was leaning on the button. Cole slipped from bed, cursing under his breath. He pulled on some pants and padded barefoot out of the room.
Checking the clock, I saw it was past noon. Good gracious. It was time to get up. I’d showered the night before, but I showered again. I found a pair of shorts in Cole’s closet and grabbed a shirt. I didn’t think he’d care. Then I tried remembering where all of my stuff was from last night.
I’d grabbed everything when I got his keys, wallet, and phone. I’d taken my purse to the stables, and I’d had it slung over me—his car. I’d put in his backseat. Everything would be in there, including my phone. I was hesitant to leave the bedroom. Somehow it had become our private sanctuary, but I had to face the real world.
I was coming around the corner when Cole almost ran into me, coming my way.
His hands caught me, holding me at the waist, and he stopped me from careening into his chest. He winced, but that was it. He’d been able to be with me earlier as if his wound didn’t bother him at all. I saw now that it did.
“Sorry.” My hand rested on his chest. “I should get going. I think my purse is in your car.”
“I was coming to get you.”
“You were?”
He gestured over his shoulder. “Dorian’s here for you.”
“For me? Dorian?”
He nodded.
Time slowed. There was nothing dramatic about this, but I knew it wasn’t good. Dorian wouldn’t have come for a “Hey, how are you?” There was a storm coming. I felt it in my gut.
As I turned the corner and approached him, my gut was right. He was closed-off. I’d thought Dorian liked me initially, but since that morning he’d woken Cole up at my place, things had gone downhill.
“Your friend has been trying to get ahold of you.”
“My friend?”
“Ms. Clarke.”
My alarm spiked. “Sia? What’s wrong?”
“Do you know where your phone is, Mrs. Sailer?” He glanced at Cole as he said my married name.
Cole grunted, leaning back against a kitchen counter. “Stop being catty, Dorian.”
He didn’t reply. His shoulders lifted in one slow motion before relaxing back down. He didn’t even blink as he said to me, “She called me ten minutes ago with the request that I open your doors. She’s concerned something is wrong. You’ve not been answering your phone since last evening.”
“Oh, no.” I stepped back. That wasn’t good. “Sia’s been calling me since last night?” I cursed and turned to Cole. “I need my phone. I have to call her.”
He nodded, straightening from the counter. “I’ll get it for you.” He took his keys and squeezed my shoulder as he passed between Dorian and me.
As soon as the doors closed behind Cole, Dorian spoke again. “She said the police called her. There was a break-in at your home—your other home.”
I grew wary. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t think a small excuse that you felt unwell last night, or forgot your phone at the running track will satisfy your friend. She’s been very insistent that I find you if you’re in the building.”
“Is she at Jake’s?”
“No. She’s at the police station.”
“Shit.” It was worse than I’d imagined. “A break-in? Really?”
His head barely moved in a nod, and after a minute of silence, the elevator broke the tension. Cole had returned. He had my phone in hand, along with my purse.
“Here you go.” As I took it and thumbed in my passcode to call Sia, he said to Dorian, “Was that it?”
“Mrs. Sailer can fill you in with the rest.” Dorian left in all his uptight, stiff-neck-and-back gloriousness. He gave me one more searing look of disapproval before the elevator took him away.
“What’d he say?” Cole asked.
But just then Sia answered, and I turned around.
“Hello?! Addison!” She sounded hysterical.
“Yeah.” I hit speaker, holding the phone out so Cole could hear. “I’m here. I’m so sorry. I lost my phone last night. What happened?”
“Your house was broken into!”
That still made no sense. “What?”
“One of your neighbors called it in, and when the police couldn’t reach you, they called me. They had my information from Liam’s accident. Addison, where have you been? I’ve been calling nonstop since last night.”
“Dorian said you’re at the police station?” I ignored so much there.
“No. I was.”
Oh, no. “Where are you now?”
“I’m at Jake’s. We tried getting into your floor, but it’s impossible. The elevator wouldn’t budge. I finally called and harassed your building manager. Addison…” Her voice calmed, but grew cautious. “The cops were asking me all sorts of questions.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
“When I told them where you were living now, they got weird.”
A different form of alarm rose up. I shared a look with Cole and gripped my phone tighter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, like, at first they were acting like it was some regular kind of break-in, almost like it was no big deal. Then the second I mentioned you were living at The Mauricio, their heads literally jerked up. One of the cops left the room and came back with a detective. Is that normal?” She whispered into the phone, “They asked if you knew Cole Mauricio.”
My throat grew dry. “What did you say?”
“I said yes. I mean, you did meet him at that event.”
“But that was it? That’s all you said?”
“What else would I say? It’s not like you’re bosom buddies with the guy.”
I was a shitty friend.
“Oh, yeah. And Jake.” Her voice rose again in volume. “They talked to him, too. They pulled him into an interrogation room. Of course, they said it wasn’t an interrogation, but it sure felt like it. I could see the whole thing from where I was sitting. Jake told me they were asking how long ago he moved into the building, had he met Cole Mauricio before that, all sorts of questions.”
“Did you tell them about Liam’s parents?”
“No. Why would I? Wait. Should I have?”
“No, no.” My hand loosened its grip on the phone. “Okay. Um, did they give you a number I should call?”
“Yeah. Hold on. I’ll get it.” There was silence, then she spoke again. “Wait. I’ll just come down. They want you to call, and they want to meet you at the house. You need to go through it and let them know if anything’s missing. You still had some things there.”
“Um…” A headache began to form. I was going down a wayward path, and it led to a nasty intersection with Cole’s world.
Cole mouthed to me, “Tell her to wait. You’ll call her back.” He made a motion of holding a phone to his ear and hanging it up, then pointed to my phone.
I nodded. “Give me—I just woke up. Let me dress and shower. I’m kinda in shock. I’ll call you in a bit. Okay?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to just come down?”
“I’m sure. I’ll call you.”
“Okay.”
Cole took the phone and hit the end call button. “They’re going to ask about me.”
“I’m aware.”
My stomach was in knots. It had been twisting, tightening the more Sia told me, but this was inevitable.
“I chose you last night,” I reminded him.
“Things were heated. I saved your life. You helped me. You might’ve said something you regret now. Your friend called you, and you could be remembering how life was without me.” His voice softened. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to walk away. You can. There’s still time.”
“And what? Lie about knowing you?”
He shook his head, his eyes holding mine. “Tell the truth. You knew me. We had a fling, and that was it. It ends now. Everything ends now. You can still get out.”
But I didn’t want out. “I kno
w that’s the right thing to do. And I know what it meant last night when I chose you. I still do. And I know I should leave, but I can’t.” The knot loosened with each word I said. “And even if I do, and we end this—it will take one night of loneliness, and I know you’ll be in my bed. One night. One call. That’s all I have to do. We’ll start this up all over again.”
His eyes grew hard. “Not if I walk away from you.”
Those words stung. They shouldn’t have, but they did. I drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t know if I could handle that.”
His eyes softened again. “I don’t know if I could walk away either.”
“Well.” My head hung. “There you have it.” I started toward the elevator.
“Wait.” Cole grabbed my arm. “I have cops on my payroll. Your friend is going to find out, but I can delay it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re going to ask you questions, but I can get my guys in there. They can separate you from your friend when you’re being interviewed.”
“I—are you sure?”
He nodded. “Let me do that for you, at least. You can tell your friend on your own terms then. You can control that, at least.”
“Thank you.” His hand slipped down my arm to my hand. I squeezed.
I was very aware that if this happened a few months from now, Cole would be at my side. He would walk through my home with me. I wouldn’t have to do it alone, but now it was too soon. Too early. I had to do this without him.
A little while later, I met Sia in the lobby, and we rode together in a car Ken “called” for us.
I didn’t look at the driver. I knew it wasn’t Carl.
Nothing was missing.
I walked through the house with two detectives. One was tall and the other was medium height, maybe an inch taller than me. Each was in his mid-forties, or so I guessed based on how haggard they looked. They had beady eyes and hawk-like focus centered right on me. It was uncomfortable, but I was relieved to find nothing gone.
I had taken everything that had sentimental value with me when I moved, I explained. Nothing left was particularly important to me, but it was still a relief to know I hadn’t been robbed.
And true to Cole’s word, when the detectives began to question me, a police officer came and directed Sia away. I couldn’t hear the reason he gave her, but she threw me a confused look and followed him from the room.
I was ready. The hard questions were coming now.
“You’re sure, Mrs. Sailer, that nothing is missing?”
“You can call me Addison.”
“You don’t go by your married name anymore?” The taller one cocked his head to the side. He had introduced himself as Reyes. I tried to remember the other one…maybe Smythe?
“I go by Addison.”
Smythe, or whatever his name was, asked, “Is there a reason for that? Usually when people change their names, there’s a reason. They’re seeing someone new, or they don’t want to be associated with the old name. Anything like that?”
I knew what he was asking, but I didn’t react, despite the irritation starting to boil inside me. “My husband died over a year ago. I guess I’m slowly getting used to being just Addison right now. What does that have to do with someone breaking into my house?”
“We’re just trying to understand your circumstances, find a connection or motive that might explain this,” Reyes said smoothly.
“So, you think this is my fault?” I countered. Unbelievable.
They ignored me.
Reyes gestured over his shoulder, where Sia had gone. “Your friend said you moved into The Mauricio downtown. That’s a pretty expensive place.”
His partner grunted. “And exclusive. I’d have no idea how to get in there even if I wanted to.”
They grinned at each other, perhaps thinking I didn’t know where they were going with these questions.
I raised my chin and rolled my shoulders back. “Just ask what you want to ask.”
The feigned amusement was gone. Their hawk eyes returned. The taller one narrowed his. “Do you know Cole Mauricio, ma’am?”
Ma’am. They even dropped the first name. A cold feeling crept in. “Yes, I do.”
“Your friend said you met at some hoity-toity event. One of those fundraisers. Is that true?”
“He was there, yes.”
They studied me, and I felt them reassessing.
Smythe asked quietly, “Is that where you met Cole Mauricio?”
“He wasn’t introduced to the group. Alfred Mahler conversed with him and his companion. Then Cole said a few words to the other people standing with us.”
“Other people? Who were they?”
Deep breath, and here we go. “My dead husband’s parents.”
“In-laws?” Both looked at me, long and hard. They hadn’t expected that.
I nodded. “I prefer ex-in-laws. There’s no relationship.”
Reyes wrote something down on a pad of paper. “Is that how you know Cole Mauricio?”
“I know him because I live in his building.”
“Your friend is dating one of the other residents, and she didn’t know him.”
I lifted a shoulder. “There’s a running track inside. We were both running one day. That’s where I met him.” I was willing to tell the truth, but I’d be damned if I just handed it over.
The medium-height one shifted on his feet, peering at me. “Your friend said you and your husband were estranged from his family.”
“That’s true. Yes.”
“Did you ever meet your husband’s grandmother?”
They were going the Bertal route. They weren’t going to ask whether I knew Cole on a personal level. The relief almost overwhelmed me. My knees grew weak, and I moved my head from side to side. “No. I never did. Liam was—he didn’t want me to meet her. That was obvious.”
“And you never questioned him?”
“I loved him. If he didn’t want me to meet her, there was a reason for it. I trusted him.”
Reyes put his pad of paper in his jacket’s inside pocket. “Were you aware Liam’s grandmother was a Bertal?”
“Yes, but not until the night of the event.” I could say this. I knew it had no bearing on me. “Cole Mauricio said that name, and I didn’t understand the implication. I looked up Bea Bertal on the internet that night.”
“The internet?” Reyes’ mouth twitched. “You found out about your deceased husband’s family from the world wide web?”
“Yes.” I frowned. “Why are you surprised by that?”
“You’d never thought to look up his family before?”
“Why would I? We were happy. Liam was a counselor. I wrote freelance. There was no reason to be suspicious.”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
They shared another look before swinging their gazes back to me. “Is there anything else we should know, Addison?” Reyes asked.
“About the break-in?” I shook my head. “No. Can I ask you a question?”
“Go for it.”
