Stone's Mistake

by Adrian J. Smith

  Together they had found a connection, a hope for the future. They balanced each other out. Morgan had implied as much in the reason she gave for wanting to go on a date with Lollie in the first place. Lollie had sensed Morgan’s comfort and willingness from the outset. Together they had a burning desire for the other.

  She had been wrong to try and end the relationship when she did. Morgan may not have wanted to move to Seattle, but Lollie hadn’t really explained to her why they couldn’t go back to Chicago. Perhaps if she had done that, then their relationship would have ended differently.

  She waited two more days before she called Morgan’s cellphone again. She’d spent the time exploring her new home and learning the lay of the land. It was a gorgeous and interesting city, a mesh of the conservative and the liberal. The locals referred to the town as Zoo-town, and it was easily that.

  They were in the full swing of winter, snow covered the Rocky Mountains she could see from her hotel room window, and the valley she was in was barren, which was quite unexpected. The phone rang and rang and rang, and Lollie knew Morgan wouldn’t answer, so when her sweet voice filled the line, she was surprised.

  “Hello?”

  Her heart clenched. This was what she had been waiting for. All the women she’d tried to pick up in the last few days had paled in comparison to Morgan. She’d called, but she hadn’t thought about what to say.

  “Hello?” Morgan repeated.

  “Morgan.” Just her name slipped from her lips. Morgan gasped, sending a shiver running up Lollie’s spine. She licked her lips and closed her eyes, her body warming as pleasure surged. She wanted to touch herself, to remember what it felt like to have Morgan’s body against her own.

  “Lollie?”

  “Yes,” Lollie answered. “I wasn’t going to call you, but…I couldn’t help myself.”

  Morgan’s breathing shifted. It was noticeable even through the line of a phone. Lollie imagined she might be touching herself as well, and so she reached down between her legs and rubbed at herself through the fabric of her jeans.

  “Why are you calling?” Morgan asked, her voice sweet and innocent.

  Lollie had loved that dichotomy. Morgan had seemed in the end so much softer than she’d come off from the beginning, but that raging fire underneath had been obvious when Lollie had looked at her. “I needed to hear your voice.”

  “For what?”

  Lollie let out a breath and moved her hand under her clothes. “I think I love you.”

  Silence rained down on the other end of the line. For a brief moment, Lollie worried she had lost the connection, literally and figuratively, and waited to see if Morgan would answer her at all. When she said nothing, Lollie swallowed.

  “I got to go, but I’ll call soon.” Hanging up, she tossed the phone next to her and continued to brush her fingers rapidly in a back and forth pattern against herself. She closed her eyes and imagined Morgan’s lithe body against hers in the many ways they had fucked in the past week. Morgan’s gentle noises, her writhing, her confidence. Shuddering, Lollie let her body fall over the edge into oblivion.

  With a hand to her head, Lollie bit her lip. She couldn’t do this. Morgan would tell the cops where she was at. She had to get her off her mind. Letting out a sigh, Lollie fixed her pants, grabbed the keys to her rental, and stormed out of her room. She got into her car and went in search of a date. She needed the distraction, needed to know there were women other than Morgan out there for her. She needed to feel alive again, whole again, and the only way to do that was to find a date.

  A mission on her mind, Lollie spun her wheels against the pavement as she sped out of the hotel parking lot and down to the local coffee shop she had come to know and love in the few days she had been there. They had everything she needed; she was sure of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Pax picked her up at the airport. She hadn’t wanted him to, but he had insisted she not take the train with her injuries. It had been near a week since she’d last seen Lollie, and the itching at the back of her head was obnoxious enough that sitting for hours in a flying tube had set every nerve ending on fire.

  He shifted a side glance to her more than once, and by the time they were only three blocks from the airport, Morgan had had enough. “What’s the problem, Pax?”

  “No problem.” He stiffened and turned to the front windshield.

  Morgan rolled her eyes and leaned into the car seat, trying to get as comfortable as she could. “Seriously, what do you keep staring at me for?”

  He looked at her once more and shrugged. “I’ve seen you hurt in the line of duty before, Morgan, but this…this is something else.”

  “Well, this wasn’t the line of duty, to be fair.”

  And that was it. That was what had been bothering Morgan the entire time. This wasn’t the line of duty. This was a relationship gone sour, albeit a relationship with a psychopath, but it had been entirely done on her personal time. She couldn’t blame the job for sticking her in a position where she was at risk. She had willingly taken steps to put herself in that vulnerable state. She’d been naked, without her weapon, totally unaware that she was sleeping with a serial murderer.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What do you mean you guess?” Morgan turned her head and glared at him. She was about fed up with people walking on eggshells around her. She was still on leave, pending her investigation, she was sent home to wait it out and have yet another interview about how everything went down, and to finally meet with the psychologist who would hopefully release her from this hellhole so she could get back to work.

  “I’ve seen you hurt. I’ve seen you working a case until all hours of the night and having to force you to go home and get some sleep, but this is different.”

  “Is it different because you now have final proof and confirmation that I sleep with girls?” Her patience was gone. It had been used up in Seattle, and Pax should have known better than to step into this wide-ass pothole the size of Texas.

  Pax, wisely, chose not to comment, but Morgan knew she’d called him out on his bullshit. He had never wanted to admit she didn’t swing the normal way. He was comfortable enough when she dated men, cis-men or at least trans-men who came off as cis enough he could ignore the fact they were trans. He’d invite them over for double dates with him and Mel. But any other relationship, Morgan had kept it out of his line of sight, including her sham of a marriage, and Pax had never looked any deeper. This had put them squarely in the boat of having to look.

  Sighing, Morgan closed her eyes as he drove her home, her head aching and itching, her hand sore from moving it so much while running through airports. She was exhausted and needed a good night’s sleep, something she knew she would never get in her lonely little apartment.

  “Where are you on the case?” Morgan finally asked, wanting answers to the questions running through her brain.

  Pax shrugged. “You know I can’t talk to you about it.”

  “Jesus, like that ever stopped you before. I’m not going to do stupid and fly off to wherever the hell she is. I just want to know if you’ve even found her.”

  “No.”

  “No as in you haven’t found her or no as in you’re not going to tell me?”

  “The former.”

  Morgan huffed. “Figures. Bitch is good at flying under the radar.”

  Pax let out a breath. “Where did you meet her, anyway?”

  “Coffee shop, just like Samantha and Katie.” Morgan clenched her teeth. That had to be it. They had talked about their obsession with coffee, Morgan beating Lollie out by a mile with how much she drank a day, but it had been a simple point of connection between the two of them. She blinked back her tears and turned to face Pax. “You don’t think differently of me, do you?”

  “No, Morgan, you’re the same bullheaded asshole and brilliant profiler you always were. You just made a mistake.”

  She snorted. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. Sleepi
ng with my suspect—albeit completely unaware she was my suspect—probably takes the cake.”

  “It might. But like you said, you had no idea who she was or what she was capable of.”

  “Neither did all the other women she strangled and stabbed.”

  “You’re lucky, Morgan.” He turned to look at her. “You are really damn lucky.”

  “Bitch shouldn’t have brought a knife to a gun fight.” Grinning, Morgan let out a wry chuckle in the back of her throat. “She was certainly not expecting that one. I wonder if she’s even figured out who I am. If she hasn’t, we could use that to our advantage.”

  “You’re talking about putting yourself back out there for her?”

  Morgan shrugged. “It might be a way to entice her out. If she hasn’t killed me yet, she might still want to.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her before looking back at the road. “What aren’t you telling me, Stone?”

  “Nothing.” Morgan settled into the seat, not ready to spill the last of the information she had gathered about Lollie, not ready to share the phone calls just yet, though she knew as soon as she stepped into the office for her final interview, they may come up. Lollie had called her twice since everything had happened. Their conversation the second time had been short. Morgan hadn’t shared with a soul.

  She’d wanted to trace the number, trace the call, but she couldn’t without alerting someone to the fact Lollie was still contacting her. She hadn’t expected it. Honestly, she had thought after Lollie had failed that she wouldn’t dare get in touch with her again. Pax pulled up outside her apartment and parked. Morgan stared up at it, foreboding. She was going to be alone for the first time since Lollie had tried to kill her.

  At least she was in a different state and in a place she knew very well, her home, a place she felt safe. Still, the idea of being on her own scared her more than the potential of another phone call from Lollie. She cleared her throat and pushed to open the door with her bandaged hand.

  “Thanks, Pax. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Monday?”

  “I have to be interviewed.”

  “Still?”

  “Don’t ask me about it. Taylor is insisting.”

  Pax grunted. He got out of the car as she did, pulled her small suitcase from the trunk, and set it up so she could wheel it in. “You want me to go up with you?”

  “No,” Morgan answered. She absolutely did not want him in her space. With one more look at the high-rise, Morgan headed for the door with determination set in her shoulders and fear pounding in her heart.

  ###

  The apartment was still an utter mess the way she had left it a week and a half ago when she’d followed Lollie to St. Louis. Clothes were strewn everywhere, dirty and clean mixed in, dishes piled in the sink, and the coffee pot with a layer of dried brew in the bottom.

  Morgan let out a breath. At least she could entertain herself with cleaning to distract herself from the bigger issue raging through her mind. If she just knew where Lollie was, she could sleep better. Unless she was in Chicago, which then she probably wouldn’t be sleeping, but Lollie would be stupid to come to Chicago. Between two murder victims and one attempted murder victim, she would be picked up as soon as she entered the border—or at least that was what Morgan kept telling herself.

  She dumped the clothes she’d brought with her into the stackable washer and dryer in the closet on the edge of her kitchen. With the laundry basket shoved into the center of the room, Morgan walked barefoot around her apartment and picked everything up. It had been too long for her to remember what was dirty, so she would just wash it all. A ritual cleaning of sorts.

  The floor cleared, Morgan headed for the sink. She piled dishes onto the counter so the sink itself was free to wash. Turning on the water, she looked down at her right hand and cursed. She still wasn’t supposed to get it went, and frankly, soaking it with soapy water for an hour while she washed didn’t sound ideal in any way, shape, or form.

  She turned the water off and plopped down onto her couch, staring at the turned off television. She didn’t know what to do with herself. At least while she’d been in Seattle, Geraldine and Barbie had been there to distract her and keep her updated. Here she was alone.

  When her phone rang, it startled her. Morgan stared down at it, her heart racing as she flipped it over to see who was calling. She prayed before looking that it wasn’t Lollie. She wasn’t sure if she could handle it or not that night. When she saw Wexford’s name, she let out a breath.

  Picking up the device, Morgan answered and put it to her ear. “Wexford,” she stated simply.

  “Morgan, are you back in Chicago yet?”

  So this was a personal call. Any time Fiona talked to her and called her by her first name, Morgan knew it was personal, but if she called her Special Agent Stone that meant professional. Settling into her couch and letting the large and well-used cushions swallow her up, Morgan closed her eyes. “Got back a couple hours ago.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “I wish people would stop asking me that.”

  Fiona chuckled. “Right, I bet. But really, how are you doing? I want an actual answer.”

  Fiona’s voice was smooth and sweet, but she held an authority in her tone Morgan was remiss to deny. “Not so good. I can’t do my dishes.”

  “You what?”

  “It’s stupid, I know. I was cleaning up my place, and I can’t do dishes because of the stupid stitches in my hand. I need to go buy gloves or something, which means no coffee in the morning.”

  “Uh oh. That could be dangerous in and of itself.”

  “Right?” Morgan found herself smiling as she listened to Fiona. They didn’t know each other well, but anyone who knew anything about Morgan other than her status at the FBI knew she was obsessed with coffee in an unhealthy sort of fashion. “Whatever will I do come morning?”

  “Do you want me to come over and help?”

  Morgan’s heart clenched. “No.”

  “I wouldn’t mind. I just finished my own load of dishes, just call it an extension of what I was already doing.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “I really don’t mind.”

  Morgan rubbed her lips back and forth. Dishes aside, the company would be preferred to being alone. “Okay.”

  “Text me your address. I’ll head over in a minute or two.”

  “Okay.”

  Fiona hung up with another promise of being there soon. Morgan texted her address and waited. She glanced around the apartment wondering what she was supposed to do. Her cleaning spree before the phone call had solved what she would normally do anytime someone invited themselves over, so she was stuck sitting on her couch and waiting.

  She texted an update to Barbie, letting her know she was home safe and sound. The response she got made her smile. She set her phone down on the arm of her couch and closed her eyes as she tried to ignore the itching at the back of her head. Her hair was a greasy mess by that point, and not only was it starting to bother her in a constantly annoying kind of way, but she knew she had at least another three or four days before the doctor would even let her think about washing it.

  The knock on her door startled her out of her reverie. Morgan scuttled up and looked out the peephole to see a freshly and comfortably dressed Fiona Wexford standing on the other side. Morgan pressed her forehead to the metal door briefly before she stepped back and plastered a smile on her face, opening the door.

  “Hey,” Morgan started.

  “Back at you.” Fiona gave her a small smile and stepped into Morgan’s home. “Didn’t think you’d be back so quickly.”

  “Why’s that?” Morgan shut and locked the door firmly.

  “Figured they wouldn’t let you travel or leave or whatever. I don’t really know the inner workings of the FBI.”

  “Ah.” Morgan rubbed her lips together. “I’m still on paid leave pending investigation, if that’s what you’re asking. They
just sent me home to wait out the rest of it.”

  Fiona nodded. She held up her hand with a stout white paper cup in it. “I thought I’d bring you a little something since, you know, you can’t make it here.”

  “Oh thank the Lord. You’re an angel.” Morgan took the coffee and popped the lid off it to let it cool a bit before she sipped. “This is perfect.”

  Fiona reached out and grabbed Morgan’s free hand, her right hand, the one still wrapped with gauze. She brushed her thumb over it and pulled her lip between her teeth. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  Morgan shrugged, pulled her hand away, and sipped at her coffee. “Didn’t think to.”

  Fiona’s look was pity and sympathy mixed in one. She reached back out and circled her fingers around Morgan’s wrist, tugging slightly to get Morgan’s full attention. “It’s okay not to be the strongest person in the room all the time. You know that, right?”

  Tears threatened Morgan’s eyes. She buried her nose in her coffee and took a long whiff of its overpowering scent. She ignored Fiona’s statement, because as much as she was right, Morgan didn’t want her to be. “This is good stuff. Where’d you get it?”

  “My apartment.”

  “No shit, you made it?”

  “Yeah. Come on. You can tell me all about Seattle—if you want—while I do dishes.”

  “I don’t.”

  Fiona stopped short as she’d been about to take a step toward the kitchen. “Don’t what?”

  “Want to talk about Seattle.”

  “Then we’ll talk about something else.” Fiona pressed forward, stepping around Morgan and into the kitchen.

  With the water running in the sink and Fiona clattering dishes, Morgan leaned against the counter and sipped at her coffee. She watched Fiona carefully. Something was different about her, about the way she was acting. Never before had Morgan seen her so relaxed, so in her element, so human and not detective. It seemed Fiona had found the elusive balance Morgan had never really wanted to find.