by Goode, Ella
Angel’s pretty round face falls. Her lower lip juts out in a way that makes me want to bend forward and bite it. I know how she tastes--sweet and tart.
“Really? An overnight trip? That sucks for you.”
“You should have your sister over.” I don’t like the idea of her staying alone.
“Oh, that’s a good idea. She’s learning to knit, did you know that? Maybe she can teach me and I can make you a hat for winter.”
“Maybe she can teach both of us and I can make you a hat for winter.”
Angel bursts out laughing. “I can’t see it,” she cries.
I wiggle my fingers. “I’m very good with my hands. You’ve said it yourself--that I have sinfully talented fingers.”
Her laughter is replaced with a blush. “I don’t think the skills you use with your knife are the same that you use with knitting.”
“We’ll have to test it out. I’ll finger you tonight until you come and then we’ll both get knitting lessons.”
Her eyes dart around and she mutters, “Lucas, there are other people here in the restaurant.”
“I know. It’s a damn shame. Eat up, darling. I’m hungry for something else and since you are opposed to me publicly fucking you, we’ll have to wait until we get home for me to feed that particular appetite.”
Her cheeks turn even rosier and, more importantly, away from the serial killer husband who is enjoying his freedom. “Promises, promises,” she says.
“And I always deliver.”
Chapter Four
Angel
“Don’t get those. I’ll make them.” I take the premade cookies from my sister's hands, putting them back. She’s spending the night with me since Lucas is away on business. I hate when he has to leave on these trips but know that it’s a part of his job. My husband is one of the best coroners in the state and I know he is needed in some cases to put bad men away where they belong. I get it, so I try to hide my disappointment when he does have to leave. I remind myself that it’s for the good of the world. He is out serving justice. Putting bad people where they belong and giving solace to families that need it.
“You just want to make the cookies so you don’t have to knit.” Okay. That might be what I’m doing.
“Fresh cookies are better,” I try and justify.
“Look. It says here they made them today.” She points at the printed label on the plastic container. “They make them fresh right back there.” She nods toward the bakery section of the store.
“Mine are made with love.” Maybe now they’ll also have a little bit of spite because she called me out.
“Su-re,” she drawls, fighting a smile. I love to cook. Desserts are my favorite. It is one of two things that always puts me in a good mood. The other is too far away to use that mouth of his on me. The one that always leaves me with a smile on my face. Desserts and a loving husband. What more could a girl want?
“Don’t act like you don’t love my homemade treats.” I push our already overloaded cart toward the front of the store. I recall the last time we did a sleepover we said we’d order takeout because this always happens. This cart is way over-packed with things that we’re probably not going to eat tonight and shouldn’t get.
“This is true. If your cookies are extra good I’ll do most of the knitting for you. You could do the last few stitches so then you can say that you made it and it’s not really a lie.” I scrunch my nose at the idea. “Never mind. You can’t even tell a little white lie, can you?”
“I don’t know. Seems silly to lie about something you don’t need to.”
“Sometimes a lie is for the greater good.” She hits me with a hard stare, one that says she’s trying to teach me a lesson. Maybe. It’s not something I want to think about tonight. Tonight is supposed to be about sister time and catching up.
The plan is to veg out while binge watching mindless reruns of reality TV as I try to cook so that I don’t have to knit. I should probably give it a try. I didn’t want to tell Gina whenever I think about knitting that my mind drifts to making little baby socks or mittens.
“Did I tell you I love the color you painted your office?” She posted pictures of it just this morning.
“Hmm. Your voice goes up two octaves when you do try and lie. Maybe it’s best you stick to the truth.” Gina looks down at her shoes. “And what the hell is wrong with my paint? It’s white.” Everything in her office is white. From the walls, to the furniture, to the floor. I’d be scared to breathe in there because I could mess something up.
“Like in an insane asylum?”
“Hardy har har.” For some reason it doesn’t feel as though her office matches her personality.
“My office is a blank canvas. I go there to create things. I want everything to start from scratch.”
I ponder her words. That actually does kind of make sense. Gina really is an artist. She could create something out of nothing. Except for food. It’s her one downfall. She can’t even boil water without burning it. We all have to have a flaw of some sort. She can’t cook to save her life but she can eat like there is no tomorrow. Not that you could tell that from looking at her.
“You’re taking some of this food home with you.” We start unloading all of the groceries onto the checkout belt.
“Angel?” A chill runs up my spine at the sound of my name because I know who it is without having to look. I turn to see Chad standing there with a basket in his hand. For some reason I can’t picture him shopping at a grocery store. His basket only has a few very random items in it.
“Hey, Chad.” I give another fake smile to him.
“What a coincidence running into you here.” It is. Not for me but for him. This is my neighborhood. I know Chad lives on the other side of the city in a penthouse condo that he’s constantly bragging about.
“I come here often.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I regret them.
“Stockpiling because the husband is out of town?” He looks at all my groceries in my cart. How does he know that my husband is out of town? It could be random talk around the courthouse or something. “I still want to talk to you about that job.”
“I’m not looking for a new job.” I turn to help my sister unload more of the groceries. I can see her giving Chad the side-eye.
“I bet I pay double what you’re making now.”
“Dude. See the ring on her finger? I don’t think she’s worried about pay. More about enjoying her job.” My sister is quick to jump in. She makes her dislike for Chad clear in her tone and by the look on her face. She doesn’t have to make nice if she doesn’t want to. That is Gina for you. She gives no fucks and her loyalty might be to me first but my husband is a close second. She loves him like a brother. Chad glares at Gina for a moment, but she only glares back.
“See you around, Angel.” Chad winks at me before he wanders off down one of the aisles. Relief fills me at his departure. There’s something about him that rubs me the wrong way.
“He gives me the creeps.” Gina watches him go.
“Plastic okay, Mrs. Calvery?” Jimmy the cashier asks, pulling my eyes away from where Chad had wandered off.
“I’ve got my bags.” I reach under the cart, pulling them out. I hand them to Gina to hand to him since she’s closer.
“I’m serious, Angel. I don’t get good vibes.” Gina and her vibes. But they are usually right so I really can’t give her a hard time about them. “Offering you a job? Yeah, more like his dick.” The cashier giggles.
“Gina.” I hiss her name.
“Doc Lucas better not find out about that.” Jimmy snickers as he bags the groceries. As if hearing his name, my phone begins to ring.
“Angel,” he says before I can say hello. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” I don’t know how this man can still give me butterflies but he can.
“I wanted to call and tell you that I’ve got a lot to get done tonight but I’ll call you before you go to bed.”
“Oka
y. I love you.”
“I love you too, Angel. Save me some cookies.” I look to my sister Gina. She’s going to steal the extras and take them home with her.
“I can make no promises but I can always make more. Just for you.”
“You’re too good to me.” He is the one that is too good to be true.
“Don’t work too hard.”
“It’s the only way I work if it gets me back home to my wife.”
I really do have the perfect husband. He really would do anything for me.
Chapter Five
Lucas
I tuck my phone away. Angel and her sister will eat, knit, watch television and go to bed around ten. I have only five hours to complete my task. Richard Washington is very precise, as my wife said. His grass is so uniformly cut that I would not be surprised if he did it by hand. He probably killed his wife for not putting the remote in its proper place or something equally petty. He seems the type.
From my position at the end of his property, in the woods where he’s hidden a body of a transient woman that he killed, I can see him readying for his walk. A loud buzzing noise precedes him and his dog. I look up to see a drone flying overhead. The dog bolts forward, chasing the low-flying object. I set off on my path and strategically run into Washington close to a bend in the shoreline where a rock formation creates a small shelter.
“Doc,” Washington says in surprise. He’s not used to seeing people on his route. His eyes dart toward the back of the shelter. Is that where the wife’s body is? This is the perfect place to kill someone. It’s why I picked it. I shove my hands into my rubber trench coat and step forward. He makes an awkward sidestep, like he’s worried about disturbing the sand.
“How does it feel to be a free man?”
“How do you think it feels? Damn good. System was working for once.” Then, as if he remembers he should be sad, he adds, “But I want the real murderer to be found.”
I rub a toe in the ground. “If we had found your wife’s body, maybe the outcome would be different.”
He stiffens and the genial smile falls away. “Yeah, real tragedy about that.”
I brush more dirt away with my toe. He clears his throat and doesn’t speak until I raise my gaze to his. “You digging for something, Doc?”
There’s a light sheen around his neck. He’s starting to sweat over something.
“No. Not really.” I abandon the dirt and give him a direct stare. “Do you believe in balance, Washington?”
“Balance? What the hell are you talking about?”
“My wife said that you liked routines and order in your life. I’d imagine that people who mess things up make you mad.”
“What’s wrong with order? If you can’t remember simple rules and can’t execute simple tasks, you don’t really offer value in this world.”
“I’m in complete agreement with you. I don’t like those people either.” I pull the syringe out of my pocket and stab him in the neck before he has time to respond. “I don’t like them at all,” I murmur as he crumples to the ground.
I fix him up good, using my coroner’s scalpel with a new blade to slice away parts of his body until the silent tears run down the side of his face. I never kill a person the same way twice. Patterns and routines will always catch up with you.
After I extract a few bits of information such as where his wife’s body is and what secrets he knows about his lawyer, Chad, I finish my work.
The tide will come in, carry away his body, and wash it up on shore somewhere else. The salt water will eat away at his skin, making it hard for even a competent corner to determine exactly what tools were used to end this man’s life.
I dig up enough of the dirt to expose the wife’s arm before sending the drone back home. The dog follows, confirming my suspicions that Washington programmed the drone to take his dog for a walk while Washington murdered his wife in this cove.
As I make my way back to the car, I call Angel.
“How is it going?” she asks cheerfully.
“Just another day at the office. I should be home early tomorrow.”
“I miss you.”
I lower my voice even though no one is around. “Are you alone?”
“No, my sister is going to sleep with me tonight. So no phone sex. Don’t get me worked up either, otherwise I won’t be able to go to sleep.”
That’s disappointing. I stop by my car. “You should get a good night’s sleep then because tomorrow I’ll need to work off this extra energy.”
“I can already sense the dangerous turn this conversation could take so I’m hanging up on you now,” she says but I can hear the smile and the anticipation in her voice.
I end up back at the shore earlier than I had anticipated. The wife’s body attracted a couple of wild dogs and Detective Lee called me in.
“This is a mess,” I remark. The dogs have done a number on the body.
“Yeah. The rookie is going to quit at this point. I told him we hardly ever get cases like this. By the way, did you hear we got an ID on the body parts from yesterday?”
“Already?” It’s my turn to be surprised.
“Yeah, it was the gym teacher from two counties over who just got out of the halfway house. He had a gold crown and we were able to track him down that way.”
“That’s impressive.” And a bit alarming. I thought the identity would be hidden for a while. Dental records take a few weeks to process.
“It was dumb luck. Garcia was at the dentist for another case and got to gossiping with the office girls about how the pedo gym coach hadn’t been seen for a couple of days.”
“What was he doing all the way over here?” The gym teacher who had spent ten years spying on little girls, who only got a suspended sentence and six months of probation in a halfway house, lived and hunted in his town and hadn’t ever come here.
“That’s a good question. We don’t have any idea. Forensics is working on it now although I don’t think they’re pushing themselves. There are other cases to spend their time on. Do we really care about who offed the pedo? It was probably one of the dads.”
I don’t say anything, just pop a piece of chewing gum into my mouth. Lee takes one for himself. “I know you don’t believe in treating criminals differently. That all bodies deserve the same respect, but some of these assholes...” Lee trails off.
“Deserve it?”
“Yeah, precisely. Some of them deserve it.”
Chapter Six
Angel
“Tell me you’re going to eat more than those cookies for dinner,” I ask Judge Barns as she opens the lid to the container of cookies I brought in for her. She smells them before closing the lid.
“I have a date so I’ll save these for after.”
“A date. You have a date and you’re just now mentioning this?” We had lunch together earlier. I understand that we were in court all day but she could have mentioned this date during our lunch.
“I thought you were leaving early?” she reminds me. I’ve been excited all day to see Lucas. I know he was only gone one night but I hate when he is away. The only good thing that ever comes out of it is that I get to catch up with my sister. Before Lucas it was always Gina and me. I lived with her before he came along and swept me right off my feet. Lucas is a man that always knows what he wants. Our dating was short and our wedding rather fast. Not that I am complaining. I enjoyed every second of him sweeping me off my feet. He still does it. Our honeymoon stage does not look to be coming to an end anytime soon. “Isn't your doc waiting for you?”
“Expect a full interrogation in the morning.” I grab my bag from off the chair in front of her desk. “At least tell me who it is.”
“You don’t know him.” Mary’s phone buzzes across her desk. She picks it up. Her eyes go wide as her mouth falls open.
“What?” I drop my bag back down.
“They found Richard Washington’s wife’s body.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper in shock.
“Of course, he’s nowhere to be found.” It takes me a minute to process what she’s saying.
“They can’t charge him with murder again.” He was already found not guilty.
“They could dig something else up.” Her brows furrow together and I know she’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking. “Maybe.” It's doubtful though. If they did maybe he’d be charged and they could put him behind bars for the rest of his life like he should've been to begin with.
“They have to find him first anyways.” He’s probably long gone. He has the money. It sickens me to think about him somewhere on some island. His escape plan for if they ever did find his wife’s remains.
“Why run? He already got off on the murder. You think that cocky bastard and Chad would think they could get away with anything else the DA threw at them.” That is a good point.
“If he didn't run?”
“Maybe someone killed him?” Mary offers. “Did you hear that the pedophile gym teacher was found dead? He didn't go quickly either. Someone made him suffer. Took their time from what I’ve heard.”
“He’s out of jail already?” I know who she is talking about. It has been over a year since he was sentenced. The sick bastard only got hit with a few years. A small slap on the wrist compared to the pain and suffering he put those poor kids through.
“He got out early for good behavior.” Mary drops her phone back down onto the desk. “Came out to death.” She quirks a half smile, not feeling one lick bad for the man. I don’t either. “Kinda makes my job easier when the sickos take each other out.”
“But that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” I mutter though I think I agree with her. I feel no guilt or sympathy for the man.
“It’s not my problem until it hits my courtroom. Even then I don’t always have a say. Someone killed a pedophile. Get a jury to convict them. If you can.” That was also true. Because you broke a law doesn’t always mean you have to pay the price. I knew that. I’ve seen it many times, but it always seems to go the wrong way. Maybe the system isn't working like it should be.
