Not My Heart to Break

by W Winters

  “He has to know where she is. It’s only a matter of time before he contacts her.” Jase sounds confident and I’m confident he will as well.

  “Maybe he’s waiting for something,” I suggest and that gets Jase’s gaze pinned to mine, eager to know what I think after reading the diary entries.

  “For what?”

  “For Marcus to be out of the way.” Declan nods in agreement with me.

  It’s quiet for a moment, the room still and the only sound the click of the HVAC system and the low hum of air as the heater’s engaged.

  “We wanted something to barter with. I don’t think information on Delilah is enough. If it was, Walsh would be there already.”

  “We could kidnap her, trade her for it, but I don’t see that ending well. And we don’t know where she is right now. She’s a ghost until she needs help and meds. Should be soon though.”

  “He’d lie, get her back, then put us away with a copy of the recordings he didn’t give us.”

  “Agreed. We have to play it another way.” Jase sits back in his seat, staring past us and at nothing in particular. “If things go wrong, we take her. As an insurance policy. But for now, we play it differently.”

  “At least we know our next move, steps ahead.” Declan is the least tense of the three of us. “I’ll have the team keep eyes on her. Just in case.”

  “Good.” Jase still doesn’t look at either of us. He’s thinking. The wheels spinning, all the possible moves playing out. I can see his thoughts clearly, easily reading him after all the years of getting to know him.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask him when the tapping of his foot stops.

  “We have two things on Marcus.”

  I name the two, completing his thought. “A list of men who work for him that we’ve been following and journals of a woman he seems to have affection for. Although we don’t have her location. She goes off the grid, but always goes back to the Rockford Center eventually.”

  “As well as the knowledge that she’s been seeing Marcus,” Declan adds and Jase nods, the two sharing a look. “The question is, which do we give to Walsh?”

  “If Walsh wants something in exchange for the recordings, I say we don’t let on to the woman. Being in between the two of them is a risky move and she’s our fail-safe.”

  Jase’s gaze drops and his nod is nearly imperceptible.

  I continue, “We don’t want to get deeper into it. We just need the evidence he has on us to vanish.”

  “You think he’ll really hand them over?” Declan asks.

  “If he trusts us.” I explain, “I think trust would be easier to get if we keep the information about the woman and Marcus to us. Keep it business.”

  “We give him a list of Marcus’s men that could lead him to Marcus. In return, he gives us the recordings,” Jase says as if he’s testing how he feels about the deal.

  “It seems like a fair trade to me,” I respond and sit back in the seat, attempting to relax but every muscle in me is tight, knowing Marcus knows about Laura.

  “I don’t trust him,” Declan pipes up.

  “We don’t have a choice but to trust him.” Jase answers before I have to.

  The sky darkens by the minute behind Jase.

  “I’ll give him the list,” Jase decides. “I’ll leave it in his mailbox at the station. We keep the intel on her and eyes on her just in case Walsh wants to fuck us over, but this way he can find Marcus.”

  Gripping the arms of the chair, I nod, letting go of the tension and uncertainty. It’s out of my control. All I can do is hope this is enough for Walsh and that he keeps his end of the deal. And that he finds Marcus. I want him—and everything he knows—out of the picture.

  Just as I’m about to stand and leave, Jase asks, “Any other updates?”

  I eye him questioningly, feeling my expression show my confusion. “On what front?” I ask him.

  He cocks his brow and when I glance down at Declan, he’s smirking, pulling the stack of papers in front of him into his lap. He’s highlighted a few things, but most of them appear to be drawings. Locations where Marcus may be or go to often.

  “Did you ask Laura about her dad?” Jase asks and coldness sweeps along my skin. Any confusion, any ease, vanishing in an instant. Dread is a prickly fucker, crawling along my skin.

  “No. No updates.”

  “We aren’t…” Declan clears his throat, his posture shifting and humor leaving at my response. “We’re not trying to piss you off.”

  His explanation doesn’t mean shit to me. “I told you—”

  “Yes, she’s yours,” Declan says, interrupting me. “Very possessive male of you.” Declan’s joke doesn’t help. All I can think about is what Laura would do if she knew the truth about her father. What she’d think…

  “Just asking if everything on that front is all right?”

  “Just fine,” I answer Jase. Standing, I fasten a single button on my jacket.

  “I’d feel better about you seeing her if it didn’t turn you into a stone wall.”

  Jase and Declan look up at me, both waiting. I debate on telling them something, anything. A protectiveness overwhelms me when it comes to Laura. The less anyone knows, the better.

  Just like Delilah, Marcus and Walsh. Just the fact that we know anything at all about them, creates a weakness that anyone can exploit. I don’t want any more of that for Laura than there already is.

  “Bethany asked me how you’re doing last night,” Jase says and exhales audibly, standing to walk to the bar on the other side of the office. “She’s prying and wants information about what you’re thinking in regard to her friend.”

  “You can tell her you don’t know anything,” I suggest and then hold a hand up to signal no when he offers me whiskey. Declan nods though, so Jase pulls out two glasses and they clink as he shakes his head, his lips forming a thin line.

  “I did and she told me to ask.”

  “You sound pussywhipped.”

  “I’d like to make her happy, Seth. In case Walsh fucks us and I end up having to go away for a while,” Jase admits harshly, his words drenched with the fear of the unknown. He takes a swig of his own drink before handing Declan his and taking a seat once again. All the while I stand and watch the emotions play on his face.

  “You really like her? Is that something I could tell her?” he asks with a defeated tone.

  For a moment, for some fucked-up reason, I see Derrick sitting there instead of him. I see the man I left behind. The friend who defended Laura. My partner who I couldn’t look at anymore because he wanted Laura back just like I did, and he was man enough to admit it. Man enough to keep in contact with her and he had the balls to look me in the eyes and tell me.

  It’s been years since I’ve said a word to him. In this moment I want to tell him. I want to tell him I have her back.

  “I’ve missed her and I don’t plan on letting her go so easily this time.”

  Jase nods, again his focus drifting to nothingness behind us before he asks, “Was that so hard?”

  He has no idea how much it fucking hurts to say that I missed her out loud to anyone. Telling her is brutal, telling anyone else? Agony.

  “We don’t know the history. But if you need to talk,” Declan offers, leaving the suggestion that they’re there for me implied.

  A question nags in the back of my head. “Did Bethany tell you anything about me and Laura I should know?”

  “Nothing apart from her thinking that Laura still loves you but she’s afraid you don’t love her back.”

  His statement hardens me. Love is a word and nothing more to Laura.

  You don’t leave someone if you love them.

  With my jaw clenched I debate on saying just that, but it shows more about me than anything else. Parts of me they don’t need to know about. My phone pings and I’m grateful for the distraction until I read the text.

  My blood turns to ice and I have to read it again.

  “What’s w
rong?” Declan asks.

  “Laura just thanked me for the flowers.” I’m not even cognizant that I answered him until he speaks again.

  “Then why do you look like—”

  I cut off the question and do my damnedest to keep my expression from showing how close to the edge of recklessness I am. “I didn’t send her any flowers.”

  Laura

  I felt eyes on me the moment I got out of my car and walked into the doors of the Rockford Center. It’s a weird prickling sensation that claws at me from behind.

  Even now, as I pick up the tray with the last two cups of pills on it, I swear I can feel someone watching me. It’s an eerie feeling. As I slowly turn, just peeking over my shoulder toward the elevators, I truly expect someone to be there.

  This late at night, most of the patients are settled into their beds. Visiting hours are over. I tell myself no one is here, but I can’t help but feel that I’m wrong. Call it my gut instincts.

  I anticipate someone staring at me, but all I find are the simple silver doors, closed and the night hall quiet.

  Letting go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding, I make my way in my favorite scrubs, a pair of white ones with deep red roses on them, to my last two patients.

  They were supposed to get their pills five minutes ago, but the patient I checked on before them refused to take his. It took me a while to convince him the pills are helping, not hurting. Schizophrenia is a bitch.

  That patient comes and goes as if this place is a revolving door. He never keeps up with his medication when he leaves. His symptoms get worse and he finds himself back here. Self-admitted or because his addiction and lack of employment lead him to a judge ordering him a sentence that includes a term here.

  It kills.

  With the thought settling deep in my gut, and the vision of that man’s face in my head, I have to close my eyes just before the 3F on the door greets me. It’s a calming breath that leaves me. And then another after a deep inhale.

  My eyes slowly open when the prickle at my neck comes back. There’s no one but me at the end of the hall. A door to my right, and across it, a door to my left. No one else is here. Aiden is in the back with the paperwork, Mel is on a smoke break. She’ll be outside for at least another twenty minutes since her patients are all accounted for and sleeping. She’ll do her last round, checking on their breathing, and then switch off, just like I will. We only have forty minutes left until the end of shift at 1:00 a.m.

  Maybe I’m just coming down from the high I was on with Seth. The realization is sobering. That’s what the odd feeling is. It’s the reminder of all that happened and the fact that I was ignoring it.

  The tray takes both of my hands to hold, so I have to balance it before turning the doorknob, and using my hips to bump open the door to E.J.’s room.

  We weren’t given her name, only initials.

  Yet another thing that makes me feel uneasy. We’ve never had a patient whose information was guarded. We only have her medical history. Nothing else. Not a name. Not an address.

  Aiden never should have accepted her in here under those conditions. With that thought resonating inside of me, I set the tray down and then look at her.

  Really look at her.

  Her brunette hair is matted as she lies lifeless on her side on the mattress. Her bed is made neatly, it always is, and she lies on top of it, rather than under the sheets. I know she’s cold because of the goosebumps on her skin; hell, even I’m cold in this place at night.

  A horrid guilt rolls through me; how could I ever think of turning someone away?

  “E.J.,” I say as I swallow the previous thoughts and pick up the small paper cup containing three colorful pills. And then a cup of water. I don’t sit on her bed like I do with some of the other patients. I keep my distance with her, she’s more receptive that way.

  I sit in the chair in front of her nightstand. It hasn’t moved from the last time I was in here. She doesn’t like me to move it though.

  It’s a rare moment when I see someone in here who truly wants to die. This woman’s only thirty-two, and I have no idea why since it’s not in her charts and she hasn’t spoken to anyone, not that she could now anyway, but she doesn’t want to live another day. She has a bandage at her throat from recent surgery. The antifreeze destroyed her esophagus and she nearly died. Death’s door was only a minute away from her and not for the first time either. That attempt was made in this facility and that knowledge will never leave me.

  She blinks slowly and then her deep brown eyes look up at me. Rolling onto her back, she accepts the pills and then the water, downing them without thinking twice.

  When she closes her eyes as I check the bandages, tears fall down her cheeks and land heavily on the bed on either side of her head.

  She only sniffs once and then she swallows thickly, gripping the sheets.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask her and she shakes her head. Even if she wanted to talk, her voice would be hoarse and difficult to hear. Surgery saved her life and with time, she’ll be able to talk again. Not right now though, not while she’s in recovery.

  I wish whatever was hurting her inside would leave. I wish it would go away. The thoughts in her head that make her desperate to die are something no one should have to deal with. I can hardly look at her without feeling her sorrow. It’s palpable. Whatever happened to her, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  “It looks like you’re healing well,” I comment even though I know she doesn’t care. My blue gloves snap as I take them off, depositing them on the tray with the last set of pills. I never leave anything in here for E.J. I’m sure she’d think of a creative way to die with any items that are left behind.

  “If you want anything at all, you know to just hit that button. I’ll get you anything.” Even to my own ears, I sound desperate at the last sentence. “A radio if you want music.” All the rooms have televisions in the upper right corner, but she’s never turned hers on.

  She only shakes her head, licking the tear that had rolled its way to her lip.

  “I hope you sleep well and you have the sweetest dreams,” I tell her sincerely. I don’t always talk to my patients like this. They’re all different.

  Her lips part, as if she’d say something, but she’s quick to shut them. “Should I get you a pen and paper?” I ask her, but she only shakes her head again, falling back to her side and tucking her hands under her head. I leave her there, staring at the empty chair.

  I’m still thinking of her when I enter the last door. Melody’s room. Which is why I nearly scream and throw my tray at the sight of a man at the end of her bed.

  Thump, thump. My chest hurts from the sudden pounding.

  What the hell is he doing here? It takes me more than a second to note his uniform. “Officer,” I greet the man as he holds his hands out in defense.

  “Nurse Roth,” he says and his voice is gruff at first, but his tone and demeanor apologetic. He clears his throat, and it’s only then that Melody looks up at me. She’s in her young twenties and on antipsychotics. She’ll more than likely be on them all her life. When she tilts her head at me as I glance between the two of them, her straight blond hair falls over her shoulder. A lock slips into her loose blouse, so loose I can see straight down and I know she’s not wearing a bra. Knowing Melody, that large gray shirt is probably all she’s wearing, even with this officer in the room.

  It’s then that I see the name tag: Walsh. Holy fuck!

  “Melissa showed me in,” the policeman explains, rising from his chair. The legs drag against the floor as he stands, pushing the chair back. With his hand held out, he introduces himself to me. “Officer Walsh.”

  The cold sweeps along my shoulders and down my back as I take his hand.

  “You can call me Laura.”

  This is the first time we’ve met, although I know all about him from Delilah’s notebook. She drew a picture of him once and I’m shocked to see how much the man in front of me looks like the ske
tch, but older. Years and years older.

  He’s good looking to say the least. Although obviously tired. The darkness under his eyes doesn’t distract in the least from his pale blue eyes. I may remember pieces of what Delilah wrote about him, but I’ve heard other things recently. Whispers from patients who talk about Marcus. They say Walsh is a dead man for coming down here when he should have stayed in New York.

  “It’s nice to meet you, are you visiting?” I ask cautiously and he shakes his head as I thought he would.

  “I have questions to ask Miss Trabott.”

  Setting the tray down on the dresser I explain to him, “I don’t know that Melody is in a condition to answer any questions right now. She’s not well, on heavy psychotics.”

  “I understand that,” the officer says and eyes me, looking me up and down as if he’s sizing me up. It feels like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I hope regardless of whatever he sees, he gets the impression that I’ll kick him out. I have before. Authorities can either take the patients into custody, or they can leave them alone after visiting hours. This place needs to run on a schedule and with strict procedures. Cops don’t get free rein just to visit. “Melody asked me to come in. She has information about a murder.”

  Melody’s sweet when she responds, nodding and gathering her skinny legs to sit cross-legged on the bed.

  “Officer, I don’t know if you’re aware—”

  “A murder case she’s a suspect in… Laura.”

  All of the blood drains from my face as I stand there, stunned. Melody? Murder?

  “It’s not just me. He has other suspects,” Melody explains and her voice drags from the drugs. She talks slowly, but with purpose and there’s always a sweetness behind the words. When she’s alone, she rocks and hums to herself.

  “Accomplices, you mean?” Officer Walsh questions her. He’s kind in the way he looks at her. As if he’s not accusing her of murder.

  “They were good people. Don’t you agree?”

  Walsh’s demeanor changes. “They were, but a priest is dead.”