by Dale Mayer
Silently he got up and walked into the kitchen. He understood why the cops were doing what they were doing, but it was hard to watch. He picked up her purse from where it was, still sitting on the kitchen counter, then brought it out and handed it to her. She rifled inside and pulled out her wallet. She opened the wallet, and, with the cops there looking on, she made an exaggerated movement and pulled out two hundred dollars. Ten crisp twenty-dollar bills. She laid them out for the cops to see.
They nodded, acknowledging the point.
She put the money back into her wallet and looked for the receipt, then pulled it out. She handed it over to them. “I always get a receipt when I go to the bank.”
The cops smiled. “Good,” they said. “This has a time and date stamp on it.”
They took a picture of it and returned it to her. She put it back into her wallet. Taylor could see she was calming slightly now that they believed her.
“So, you came up the stairs and down the hallway, and when did you get the phone call?”
“Somewhere around the top of the stairs,” she said, “and I was talking to my boss, and he said he had a really big mess and needed me to turn around and come back.”
“And that’s when you saw Taylor?”
She nodded. “Yes. His door was open. I hadn’t even made it to my place, which, as you know, is still down this hallway a little bit farther. So I just called through Taylor’s open door and told Taylor his door was open and asked if he wanted me to close it. That’s when he came out and talked to me.”
Taylor confirmed exactly what she said. “After we talked, then she turned away to leave. I was out in the hallway, still standing there, staring after her,” he said. “Admittedly I was tired, having just come back from a mission, so I was a little groggy. But that’s when I recognized that her door was open.”
Although the cops were probably relieved, they were also frustrated. Because, if she was in the clear, they had no idea who shot Gary Sims.
“Therefore,” Midge said, her voice hard, “I didn’t have enough time to leave work, come home, shoot Gary Sims and go to the bank. Or go to the bank, come home, shoot Sims and then leave. And, with Taylor’s door open, no way he wouldn’t have heard.”
“True enough,” Taylor said. “I think I must have just missed whoever was in your apartment.”
“And we don’t have an ID,” she said, “on the guy who tried to break into my apartment later, right?”
“Nope. And the security system is busted, so no way to track that down.”
“And yet,” she said, “traffic cameras are all around the base. So there must be a way to track them.”
“We’re on it,” the detective replied.
“How on it can you be?” she cried out in frustration. “It can’t take this long. The same vehicle had to have been at my place and at my work.”
“But it wasn’t,” the officer said, using a sharper tone. “We’ve already searched. Now we’re tracking different vehicles, hoping we’ll come up with a pair working together.”
Midge sat back, fell silent and stared out at the view beyond the railing.
But Taylor didn’t think she saw any of it because it looked as if she had just checked out of the conversation. Standing up, Taylor said, “Gentlemen, if you don’t have any other questions …”
“No, we have a bunch of leads to keep working on,” the detective said. “Now that we’ve confirmed she couldn’t have been home, that backs her off the top of the suspect list.”
Taylor knew that was how they would look at this until the real murderer was caught. “I’m glad you got that,” he said. “We’ll keep looking into relationships to see if we can find anything else.”
“Please share the information,” the cop said. “I get that she’s pretty traumatized by this whole thing. But the only way it’ll ever be over is if we can catch the guy who did this.”
Taylor led them back out to the hallway, then closed the door and locked it behind them. As he stepped back onto the balcony, she hadn’t moved. She still stared at the view. Only now there was a mulish jut to her chin.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, sitting down beside her and reaching for her hand. He was doing a lot of that lately. Locking his fingers with hers, he marveled at how tiny she was.
“I’m thinking they don’t give a damn about finding the guy who actually did this. I look like a good suspect, so they’re focused on me.”
“That is quite possible,” he said, “but can you really blame them?”
“Yes, I can,” she snapped. “They could have been tracking down all kinds of stuff all day long and yesterday. Instead, all they could see was me.”
“Don’t forget it’s hard in cases like this,” he said. “If the street cams and the security cameras are down, there isn’t any way for them to know who was here. They have to wait on forensics, and that’ll take time.”
And, just like that, she sagged in place and waved a hand. “Ignore me,” she said. “Apparently I’m incredibly unstable at the moment. I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I feel like they came here ready to accuse me, and, if I hadn’t gone to the bank and gotten that receipt as proof, they would still be looking at me instead of for the real killer.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the only reason.” He looked around and said, “How about we go for a walk? You could use some exercise and a chance to slow down that mind of yours so you’ll sleep tonight.”
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It’s not as if I have anything else to do.”
Not exactly the response he had hoped for, but he’d take it. They got their shoes back on, and, as they stepped out in the hallway, she looked toward her door and frowned. “Dammit! I should have asked him if I could go in and get some clothes,” she fumed.
“We can text him,” he said, then led the way to the stairs, and, within minutes, they stood outside in the fresh air.
She looked at him and smiled. “I want to go down to the beach.”
He nodded, texting and walking as they moved toward the walkway. With the text sent, he pocketed his phone and reached for her hand. Together they strolled in the evening air.
“How is it that everything can look so normal?” she asked softly. “And yet, you know something so incredibly ugly is going on. And that even now I could be watched.”
“That would imply you were a target. Seems like they’ve had ample opportunity to take you out, and they’ve chosen not to.”
“That is just as confusing,” she said. “I don’t understand any of it.”
“I’m just grateful they haven’t,” he said, squeezing her fingers.
She smiled and looked up at him. “Would you have even noticed me if all this hadn’t happened?”
His eyebrows shot up. “I noticed you a long time ago,” he said.
“And yet, you never asked me out?”
“You never gave me any indication you were open to being asked out,” he said drily.
She laughed. “Good point. I haven’t been into dating lately. Life hasn’t been too much fun.”
“I get that,” he said. “And I’ve been really busy too. I’ve been on steady missions back to back, plus, I had training. Although there’s lots of leisure time, sometimes I just want to come home and collapse.”
“No dating for you?”
“A little tired of the dating scene,” he said, his tone short. And then he laughed. “A lot tired of it actually. All I wanted was a relationship that would last more than a few nights or a few weeks. But it seems like I no sooner got started, when something blew it up, or I found out I couldn’t really tolerate the person I’m with and backed out myself.”
“Dating’s not much fun. Especially in today’s age, when a date seems to be all about the photo for social media, and everybody’s on these bloody dating apps.” She stopped and looked up at him. “I showed the cops the app, didn’t I?”
He nodded. “You did. They’re following
that lead too.”
They walked a little farther, and then she asked, “Any chance my boss was on there?”
“If he was single, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Taylor said. “But I really can’t see that the old couple would have been.”
She chuckled. “No. I think they were very happy just to be together.”
Sharing a sense of the sadness, he squeezed her fingers gently and said, “At least they went together.”
She nodded. “Yes. At least they went together.” As they walked along in comfortable silence, they saw nobody else. “Did you—well—did you ever think maybe we’re being followed?”
“I’ve considered it,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll deal with it if it happens.”
“Where do you get that confidence from?” she asked. “It seems like just so much could go wrong, and yet you are always in control, as if, whatever it is, you’ll just handle it.”
“My confidence comes from my work,” he said succinctly. “Nothing quite like being dumped in the middle of a war-torn country where you’re on a mission to track down some bomb-maker or terrorist leader. You don’t know what’s coming at you, so you end up learning to deal with whatever it is. That attitude has held me in good stead, no matter where I was.”
“Got it,” she said. “Well, I haven’t had a lot of experience with that, working in staff records and all.”
“Are you kidding? Your job seems more exciting than mine this week.”
At that, she laughed. Then she apologized but started laughing again. “It seems so wrong to be laughing, but, God, it feels good.”
“We’re human, and, as such, we have to do whatever we can just to cope sometimes. If that means laughing in order to ease the pressure so we don’t blow our stack, then that’s what we do.”
“You’re a nice man,” she said, squeezing his fingers.
“I don’t think any guy likes to be called a nice man,” he said boldly. “Hot? Yes. Sexy? Absolutely. Dangerous? Always. Bad boy? Yes, ma’am. But nice? Not so much, you know?”
And that started her howling with laughter again.
He grinned, loving to see it. This was exactly what she needed. A chance for a release, a chance to let go. A chance to just relax.
She started giggling. “Nice isn’t such a bad word,” she said. “It’s not like I said you are a good man or dependable, or—you know—the kind you take home to meet your parents.”
“I’ll have you know I am all those things, but somehow they don’t seem like compliments when they come from you.”
Midge stopped walking and turned to look up at him. “That’s too bad,” she said in a soft voice. “Because I meant them exactly that way. You are a great person. And I really want to thank you for looking after me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” In a surprise move, she reached out to kiss him on the cheek, but, at the last moment, he turned, catching her lips with his and gave her a proper kiss.
Chapter 11
The kiss reached inside and shook her to her soul. She didn’t want to let him go. Something about those warm lips coaxing a response from hers had her wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him tight. She hadn’t expected this to happen, but, of course, she should have. She had been watching him for some time. When she had seen his door open just the other day, although it was the neighborly thing to do, she had to admit to wondering if he was home and if it would be a chance to see him again.
She had met him in passing several times, but that had been it. His looks had always attracted her, but she and Taylor hadn’t really had a chance to connect before, beyond smiles in the hallway, but this was different. His arms came around her back, and he hugged her tight. And she let him. God, she couldn’t get enough of him. As if everything that had been going so wrong in her life had suddenly reasserted itself to being right. Nothing felt as good or as correct in this moment as being in his arms and kissing him as she was.
When he finally pulled back, she laid her head against his chest and said simply, “Wow.”
She could hear the rumble under her ear as his laughter rolled up his chest and out through his mouth. She looked up at him and grinned. “Honestly, I didn’t expect that to happen. At least, not like that.”
“Well, you should have,” he said comfortably, showing no signs of letting her go. He held her gently in his arms, and, of course, she nestled herself right up against him.
“Something is so very solid and dependable about you.”
“Ouch. Here you go with more insults,” he murmured. “You could say a lot of other things too, you know?”
She chuckled. “I could,” she said. “But it might go to your head then. I like you the way you are.”
At her words, he opened his eyes wider and said, “Of course. I live to serve.”
She snorted. “Maybe because you’re in the navy and maybe because that’s what you do. Particularly being one of those big badass SEALs.”
“Many of us are, here on base.”
“Sure,” she said. “Also newspapers of all kinds are online as well. I keep up with everything that’s going on around here.”
“Yeah?” he said, looking skeptical.
“Of course I do also work at staff records, so I may have looked you up.”
He stopped and stared.
She shrugged. “Hey, you are interesting.”
“Just what is in my file?”
“Nothing much,” she said. “Like a very detailed résumé.”
“Okay, well, that’s a little unnerving. Have you ever checked out your file?” he asked.
She shook her head. “God, no. That would be the most boring thing ever. Nothing interesting is there. At least not until recently.”
“But, if somebody wanted to, they could go online, get into your file and fix it so something unpleasant was in it, correct?”
She gave him a hard frown. “But why would they?”
“Consider the current circumstances,” he said, “and maybe you should rethink that question.”
“Mmm,” she said. She gently stroked his shoulders and down his arm. “I think I’ve had enough of that thought for today.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said, his tone serious but light too. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Maybe,” she said, “but maybe not. It’s nice out here on the beach.”
“It is getting later.”
“I know,” she said, “but, when I go back, I have to face the reality of seeing my door again. And knowing all that awaits me.”
He squeezed her fingers and nudged her back the way they’d come. They strolled slowly along, listening to the waves crash on the beach. “I don’t come down here enough,” she said. “I go to work and come home, and it seems like I do nothing else.”
“I think everyone gets into a rut,” he said. “We get into a routine, and it’s hard to break it sometimes.”
“I need to,” she said, “because apparently life is shorter than we imagine it, and the last thing I want to do is end up dead without ever having really lived.”
There wasn’t a lot he could say to that. But she clearly meant what she said. Being out here in the not-quite moonlight was like they were on a date, trying to forget about all the nastiness the last two days had exposed her to. It was really nice.
“I needed this, Taylor. Thank you. I didn’t know it, but you did, and, for that, I thank you.”
He chuckled. “You’re more than welcome. I figured we needed to get out and shake away some of this for a while.”
“Too bad we have to go back,” she said with a sigh.
“It won’t be that bad,” he said.
She shrugged and let him lead her toward the apartment. As they walked back inside, she looked up at the stairs and the elevator and said, “I guess there isn’t any elevator camera, is there?”
“I would imagine the cops checked,” he said.
“I wonder,” she replied, “and it’s not that I want to mock the police. But
I think they’re a little on the busy side. They’ve got three separate crime scenes, and three separate murders of four people. It would be easy to miss a detail like that.”
He pulled out his phone and sent a text. “Now they won’t,” he said with a smile. “Do you want to take the elevator?”
She shook her head, “No thanks. Stairs for me.” They headed up, with her a step ahead of him. She didn’t know if he was still keeping an eye on her or if he was watching the way she walked. She wanted to think it was the latter, but she wasn’t that much of a fool.
At the top of the stairs, he opened the double doors and took a look down the hallway. She realized he was still protecting her, which was almost a letdown, since she’d been thinking he might be actually watching her as she walked. He motioned for her to go into the hallway. Together they walked to his place, and she deliberately avoided looking farther down toward her door. He unlocked the door, and the two of them went inside. She yawned as she crossed to the living room, where she sat down on the couch. Then she yawned again.
“Looks like it’s about bedtime for you,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.” She looked at him and whispered, “I don’t suppose you have an extra toothbrush and toothpaste I can borrow, do you?”
“Oh, crap, we should have gone and gotten you a few things that you need.”
She shrugged. “That’s what I was planning to do with the two hundred bucks today. I didn’t want to tell the cops this, since it’s none of their business, but I put myself on a cash budget, so I could figure out how much I’m spending. There was a line at the ATM, so I went into the bank. But, when the cops were asking me all those questions, my brain completely froze, and I felt nothing but panic.”
“They would have understood if you’d explained it.”
“Maybe they would have,” she said, as yet another yawn escaped. She struggled to her feet using the couch, then used the wall to hang on to, as she made her way to the small spare bedroom. “Man, I didn’t think I would make it this far.”
“Hang on. I’ve got a spare toothbrush in here somewhere. He pulled it out and then handed her the package. She unwrapped it and walked into the bathroom, where she washed her face, brushed her teeth and used the facilities. Then, when she stepped out, she said, “I’m too tired for a shower now.”
