by Hamel, B. B.
She sat back down on the couch and stared at the stacks of paper, then back up at me.
“I’m not sure where this leaves us,” she said.
“I don’t know either, but I’m not sure I care.”
She looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
I sat next to her and pulled her against me. “Right now, I want to enjoy this. The papers, the proof, whatever, we can deal with that later.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I can deal with that.”
“Stay over tonight, for real this time.”
“I want to, I just—”
“No more excuses.” I looked down at her and kissed her. “Stay over tonight.”
“Okay.” She chewed her lip then smiled. “I’m starving though.”
“Good. We’ll order in.”
I kissed her again then, and hugged her close, and the papers, Maria, my job, the hospital, the mafia, everything went away for a few incredible minutes. I had her in my arms, and I’d have her all night, as much as I wanted. I could get my fill of her—although I didn’t think that was possible.
But this, right here, this was what I needed, this and nothing more.
23
Fiona
I woke up in his bed the next morning and for one crazy moment, I thought I was having a panic attack—until he rolled over, looked at me with dazed, half-asleep eyes, and kissed me.
“Morning,” he said, and the whole night came flooding back.
His lips, his arms, his body. We ate, we slept together again, we drank more wine, and we slept together again—before finally passing out from sheer exhaustion, our bodies tangled together beneath the sheets.
I’d never given myself so fully to someone, so without reservations. I couldn’t think of the last time I spent hours naked in someone else’s presence. He looked at me like I was a painting hanging on the wall of a museum, except I was a painting he could touch, and he was hungry for the feeling of the brush strokes beneath his fingertips. I let him look at me, and reveled in it, felt a strange excitement at every glance and stare. It drove me crazy, and I felt the self-conscious confusion, all that self-loathing, slowly melt away.
“Morning,” I said.
He sat up, stretched, and I marveled at the muscles in his back. He stood and walked into the bathroom, and I stayed there under the covers. I was still naked, really needed a shower—but I knew that as soon as I stood up, he’d stare at me with that look again, and it scared me how badly I wanted that.
I wanted him to look at me like he loved me, even my flaws, all of me.
When he finished brushing his teeth, he came back and kissed me. “Want breakfast?”
“Coffee,” I said.
“You got it.” He pulled on sweats and a shirt. “Want clothes?”
“That’d probably be for the best.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you stayed naked.” He tilted his head. “But I doubt we’d get much done today if you did.”
“I’m sure.” I smiled and stretched, then got out of bed. I felt his eyes on me as I walked to the bathroom, so incredibly aware of every motion—but when I looked back at him, his face was absolutely adoring, and I felt that lack of confidence disappear.
“I’ll get started downstairs,” he said, “unless you need help in the shower?”
“No, I think I’ll manage.” I shut the bathroom door before he could insist.
I stood in front of the mirror, a stupid smile on my face, before taking a shower, using his toothbrush, and putting on a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt. Downstairs smelled like coffee and pancakes, and I smiled as he gave me a mug and gestured at the frying pan.
“If you’re hungry,” he said.
“I think I can indulge a bit.”
“Smart move.” He nodded toward the living room and I followed his gaze. “Looks like we got a little aggressive last night.”
The papers were knocked onto the floor, ruining our two-pile system. I sighed dramatically.
“You’re such a brute,” I said.
“I think that was from you. Couldn’t help yourself.” He grinned at me, waving a black spatula in the air. “You were swept away by the pleasure of my talents.”
“Oh, god. If you ever say that again, I swear there will never be any more pleasure happening here.”
“Duly noted.” He turned back to the stove and flipped the pancake.
I wandered over to the documents and started cleaning them up. As I shuffled them together, I started to notice a strange pattern that I hadn’t seen the night before. I wasn’t totally sure what I was seeing, but it nagged at me as I put them back into some semblance of the order we had the night before. I tapped at my tooth with one fingernail, then pulled a couple papers from the useless pile, and held them up into the air, then placed them in the important pile. I wasn’t sure why, but I thought they’d provide context for certain payments that occurred on a regular monthly schedule, and seemed to disappear from the underlying accounting at the end of the next month—never to be seen again.
“Breakfast is ready,” he said, placing a plate down at the table. He sat and sipped his coffee and dug in, and I joined him a second later, still thinking about those numbers.
“Thanks for this.” I sipped my coffee and let out a breath. “God, I’m so addicted to this stuff.”
“Same. I go to bed each night looking forward to drinking it the next morning.”
“That’s not ideal.”
“I know, but I can’t help it.”
I laughed and we ate in silence for a couple minutes before he finished and leaned back in his chair.
“Can I ask you something?”
I hesitated. I knew that tone. I’d heard it a hundred times. He wanted to have the conversation—he wanted to ask me about the scar, how it happened, the whole thing.
And for the first time ever, I found that I didn’t dread it.
“Yeah sure, go ahead.”
“You said you were in an accident.” He spoke softly, nodding at me. “What happened?”
I closed my eyes and had to ignore the knee-jerk reaction to tell him to go fuck himself. It’d been a long, long time since I told anyone about what happened that night, and a large part of me never wanted to talk about it again. I’d talked about it enough over the years—with police first, then my family, then therapists, so many therapists. The therapy helped get me over that initial hump, and taught me how to manage the trauma, but it didn’t heal my scars. Those would always linger.
“I was dating this guy, an older boy named Jim. He was cute, you know, but a total dumb jock.” I sucked in a breath and opened my eyes again, and the story came pouring out.
I told him the whole thing: drunk driving, accident in the field, the glass that sliced into my uterus, causing scar tissue, a total freak thing. There’d been a lot of blood, and I thought I was dying, but no, I didn’t die, only my future children, my future self as a mother. That died, and I’d never get it back. I gave him as much detail as I could stomach, talked about the way Jim tried to brace me back against the seat, the noise he made, the words he said that I couldn’t remember—then afterward, the police, the pity, the way I shut myself off and refused to talk about it anymore.
He listened quietly, paying close attention, and by the time I finished, he reached out and touched my hand, taking it and squeezing my fingers. That small gesture suddenly made it feel as if it was worth it, and I felt like a burden lifted off my chest, not entirely, but a little bit, enough to make me feel lighter. The full weight of the accident would never go away, I knew that, but losing a little bit helped.
“That must have been hard,” he said. “I can’t even imagine.”
“I got past it.” I looked away, but didn’t let go of his hand. “I can’t have kids now though. I’ve seen a few doctors since and they all say the same thing. Scar tissue in the worst place imaginable, eggs will never attach, that sort of stuff.” I laughed bitterly. “Maybe that’s why I
became a nurse.”
“I think I understand that,” he said. “My father was abusive. He used to beat my mother so bad it’d leave her bleeding and bruised. Nobody said anything, of course, because he was careful and he was smart. But I saw what he did, I grew up watching the things he did, grew up with him turning his anger toward me sometimes. I think that’s why I became a doctor, to help people, to make up for all the hurt my father inflicted.”
I blinked, staring at him. I knew his father was a bastard—but I didn’t realize he’d been physically abusive. I should’ve realized, or at least I should’ve guessed. “God, Dean. I’m so sorry.”
He waved it off. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but it’s the past, and it made me who I am today, I guess.”
“Never helps, hearing someone say sorry.”
“No, but it means they care enough to say it, at least.”
I smiled at him and laughed. “Look at us. Battered and bruised.”
“I don’t think of myself that way, and I don’t think you are, either.” He paused, and pulled my hand toward him. He kissed my fingers and let them linger there. “I think you’re stronger because of what happened to you. Not broken, but better. You can let it destroy you, or you can take control of it.”
“I don’t know if I believe in that.”
“What do you believe in then?”
I shook my head. “Coming to grips with it, maybe. Accepting that it happened. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to control it.”
He nodded. “I think everyone deals with it differently.”
“You’re right about that.” I laughed and chewed on my cheek for a second. “This got really heavy.”
“I know, but I’m glad it did.”
“Yeah? You’re not freaked out?”
“Not at all. I want to know you, Fiona. I want to understand you.”
“Do you think you understand now?”
“I think I have more context, at least, and you do too.”
I nodded and let out a breath. I gently pulled my hand away and suddenly, something clicked for me. I turned halfway back toward the stacks of documents, a frown on my face, sitting on the edge of the chair.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Sorry, there’s just this pattern that’s bugging me. Something you said made me think about it again.”
He leaned back and watched me, and I stared at the papers, trying to make sense of what my brain was telling me. I’d noticed the numbers before, how they fit into this specific framework that didn’t really add up for me, and it still didn’t, but something was telling me an important detail was buried inside of those pages. I shook my head and turned back to him.
“You have a lawyer friend, right?”
“Right, I plan on giving him all this stuff.”
“Make sure you give him everything in that pile.” I pointed to the important documents.
He frowned a little. “I figured.”
“But all of it. And I think you should leave out the other pile.”
“Are you sure? He might be able to sift through it all better than we can. I was hoping we could save him some time, though.”
“Trust me, give him the important pile only. The other stuff’s a distraction.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I saw him think better of it, and nodded. “Okay then, I trust you.”
“Thanks,” I said, and let out a little laugh. “I don’t even know why, honestly, but I have this feeling.”
“Well then, we have a little work to do.” He pushed his chair back and stood up.
“Work? I thought we were done for the night.”
“Nope. Now we get to digitize all those files. Can’t risk giving him the only copies, something might go wrong.”
I groaned. “If I knew you were going to use me for all the grunt work, I never would’ve agreed to this.”
“What can I say? You’re really useful. Now come on, these pages aren’t going to scan themselves.”
I sighed and stood up, and together we started using an app on our phones to take a picture of each page, turn them into PDFs, and collate them.
It would take all night, I knew, but as we chatted about nothing, about TV shows and movies, making stupid jokes about our lives, talking about the hospital, about the future, I realized I didn’t care what we were doing. It didn’t make any difference to me, whether we were scanning documents or breaking into offices.
I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be near him. That was all that mattered to me.
24
Dean
Curt looked haggard as he leaned back in the Panera booth, sipping a coffee, his laptop open in front of him. His shirt was rumpled and his tie was loosened, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“I got your email,” he said.
“What’d you think?”
He gestured at himself. “This is what I think.”
“Did you stay up all night or something?”
He sighed and rubbed his face. “When I first got it, I was like, oh, this crazy shit again. Then I listened to some of the recordings of that insane woman threatening you, and I started going through the documents, and I had to go into the office. Couldn’t help myself.”
“What’d you find?” I felt a strange pulse of excitement.
He closed the laptop and leaned toward me. “Listen ,man, I don’t want to overstate this, okay? When it comes to the law, there’s a lot of shit that can go wrong. The burden of proof tends to be pretty high in cases like this.” He tapped a finger on his laptop lid. “But this shit right here? This is a goddamn goldmine. I’m serious, I want to kiss you on the mouth right now.”
“Easy there, bud.” I grinned, heart racing. “You’re serious?”
“I’m serious. I want to kiss you. Tongue and all. Hell, you can have my baby, I don’t care. I’ll be your sugar daddy.” He drank his coffee. “Sorry, I’m exhausted and wired at the same time and it’s making me all fucked up. But really, Dean. This is incredible.”
“I’m gonna admit something. I’m not completely sure what’s in those files.”
He barked a laugh. “You’re kidding me?”
“I mean, I know it’s important financial statements, but I’m a doctor. I don’t speak accountant.”
“Yeah, well, normally I wouldn’t either, but turns out that a big chunk of being a lawyer involved reading really boring documents and understanding what they mean.” He leaned back and stretched. “You want the detailed version or the summary?”
“Give me the summary.”
“Basically, you have some documents in there that show the hospital taking donations from several different shell companies. The hospital then took those donations and made purchases with other shell companies that don’t actually sell anything, and we know that because we’ve been investigating them for fucking months.”
I tilted my head back and laughed. It felt like triumph, even though I knew this was early days, but still—it felt like a goddamn victory, after everything we’d been through, finally some good news.
Once I calmed down, I beamed at him. “What now then?”
“First, we make out. If you’re not into that, we can move on to step two, which is we send these documents and recordings to a very friendly fed I know who will then forward it on to the investigators that have been all over the Leone family for the past year and a half. Then we wait.”
I felt my elation slowly fizzle. “You’re serious?”
“Like I said, burden of proof’s real high. We can’t just perp walk that bitch out through the hospital, even though I bet you’d love that.”
“Curt, man, she fired me.”
He gaped. “No kidding?”
“No kidding. She fired me, and now you’re telling me I’m going to stay fired, probably forever?”
“Look, I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes. “I can maybe speed things up, but they’re going to want to wrap this all into the
bigger investigation.”
“She can’t get away with this.”
He jabbed a finger at me. “She is not getting away with it.” He hesitated. “She’s just not getting charged in the next few weeks.”
“Give me a timeline.”
“Months. Probably.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“And what do I do in the meantime? I can wait for all this to come out in court then sue the system for wrongful termination, but by then it’ll have been months of being out of work. I can’t have that kind of gap on my resume.”
“This is a shit situation. I truly don’t know what to tell you.”
“I want you to tell me that we can arrest her tomorrow.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck.” I felt deflated, and all the visions of glory I had only seconds ago fizzled away. I stared at the grimy Panera tabletop and wanted to pound my fist through it.
Justice was too slow. It was a grinding bureaucratic machine, a clockwork automaton with too many moving parts and conflicting interests. It lurched along, barely getting one step forward, while the criminals and thieves sprinted along like gazelles, circling around its hulk-like corpse and laughing. I pictured Maria sitting behind her desk, smirking at me, and I wanted to kill her.
“There has to be a better way,” I said.
“I’m sorry. Unless you have proof that there’s imminent danger—”
I leaned forward. “Wait, what?”
“Imminent danger. Threat of bodily harm. The threats you recorded weren’t subtle, but she never said she was going to have you killed or anything. If you could show imminent danger, then I could get the feds to move real fast. That sort of shit always gets them going.”
I leaned back and let out a slow breath then pointed to the stitched-up wound on my forehead. “You see this?”
“I was meaning to ask. You get drunk and fall off the stairs or some shit?”
“I got jumped by two mafia thugs.”
He whistled. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
