by Jared Paul
Louis chuckled. “Classic.” He put a hand underneath the left side of his jaw and he fixed his eyes to Rebecca. Even though she was downright gorgeous, there was already a woman in his life that he was interested in. It wasn’t fair to her that he make puppy eyes at his new partner, just as it would probably cost him his job if Rebecca became a notch on his belt. He pursed his lips.
“Technically I wasn’t hitting on you, just stating a fact. I find you attractive; its not like that’s a sin.” He offered Rebecca a lifted eyebrow and a lopsided smirk.
“I think you’re attractive, too.”
The shot that had been poised to his lips faltered in his hand and nearly fell to the countertop. He hadn’t expected her to counter him with a shot of her own. After he got his shot down, he couldn’t help the fact that he found Rebecca’s talent to rise to the challenge sexy.
“You’re going to get me into trouble, you know.”
Rebecca shrugged her shoulders and winked. “At least you’re not sad anymore.”
Looking directly at Rebecca had its consequences, especially for his moral fortitude. She was right; he was the furthest thing from sadness. Perhaps the solution to Travis’ leaving could be found in the arms of random women. After all, and after hindsight gave him the perspective, he could always claim that the alcohol made him do it.
Louis leaned forward, mostly to make sure he wasn’t going to all off his chair and look like the world’s most graceless ass, and he lifted a hand to Rebecca’s face. At this point, the advance could go fifty fifty; mainly because either a woman allowed him to continue or he got slapped. Three seconds, four seconds, five second and safe. Five seconds was plenty of time for a woman to decide whether or not she wanted to be touched.
“You bastard.”
Louis blinked and the fog of cleared. Rebecca was sitting in front of him, her eyes glittering in his direction, and yet behind him had been where the voice had issued from. He turned, not so carefully this time, and as he slipped off of his barstool, he saw Reyna Casey’s blistering scowl, her face so livid the expression alone could melt steel. The last thought he had before she slapped his face to the opposite side of the bar went something to the fact that Reyna was in the bar. What in the world was she doing here?
********
Louis thanked Rebecca as she was kind enough to drive him home after the “girlfriend thing” at the bar, and luckily enough for both of them, Rebecca left him to his own devices.
It wasn’t the fact that Travis was gone, or that the guy just up and left without so much as a reason. The most the man gave him was that he was taking Abby north to Reston, the Big City, where they were going to take advantage of the hospital there for the baby they were expecting. Until the baby was born, and maybe for a long time after, they were going to try and make a home up there.
That had been five months ago, following the fire that destroyed Travis’ house. Lovely how time could just fly by. Of course, Louis knew what that really meant. It was goodbye, so long and see you later, pal all wrapped up into a nice little bow entitled women and commitment. A word that he never wanted applied to him, and especially never thought would be permanently applied to Travis.
Once inside of his house and after he’d safely secured a locked door between himself and Rebecca and that rest of the world, Louis threw himself on the sofa in his living room and let his pity party continue. Alcohol wasn’t invited; the spinning sensation he felt as his stomach teetered back and forth on whether or not it wanted to throw up made the decision to keep drinking pretty simple.
As he let the cushion of his sofa attempt to absorb his face, Louis let himself think about Reyna. She really was a special woman; she’d been kind enough to console him after Travis left, and even when it seemed like things were going to be okay, he’d stayed with her because strangely enough, Reyna was too interesting an individual to leave alone. It boggled his mind how a woman could be as beautiful as Reyna and yet have no thought of herself.
Louis chuckled. Save for tonight, naturally. The one place he never thought Reyna would be, she was, and now that she believed he was the dog everyone said he was, he was likely never going to see her again. The alcohol prevented him from feeling the impact of that, but he was certain there’d be more than one type of pain in the morning.
********
Reyna Casey sat at her kitchen table in the darkness, letting the tears that formed in her eyes fall where they wanted. She wasn’t a fool. She’d known what kind of man Louis was, hell, anyone with eyes would know the man for what he was.
One little tear, one little frown was all it took for her to think that there had to be something more to Louis; so much more that she had, at all costs, needed to find what else there was to him. Even if it meant that she’d be hurt by him.
Seeing that woman’s lips about to touch Louis’ perfectly formed ones made her feel like she had been about to lose her mind. The image of his light brown hair moving over his stormy grey eyes as he leaned in toward that woman like he was a magnet made her want to scream until she went hoarse. Before she’d lost the ability to control her body, she let him have it with her words. If words could hurt, Louis would have been butchered right where he sat on that bar’s floor, looking up at her as if he couldn’t understand English.
Reyna wiped at her tears, though knew she didn’t have it in her to force herself to go to bed. She hadn’t wanted to realize Louis for the creature he was, least of all witness it for herself. Her heart certainly hadn’t been prepared for it.
For almost five months, literally since her best friend had left town to seek greener pastures with the love of her life, she’d been interested only in filling the hole she’d left behind. She knew that Abigail had to do what she thought was best for her, and her baby and Travis, but to suddenly not have someone around that had been in your life every day; it was like having her legs just cut from underneath her.
Then there was Louis. Grinning as if nothing in the world ever bothered him, solid as a rock and witty enough to induce a smile a mile wide at a single word. Even if she kept the knowledge to herself, she’d fallen for him the moment his eyes lifted to hers the first time. He had so many gifts, so much to give someone, and for a time, because he’d let her, she wanted to bask in the warm glow that was his soul. She’d been fool enough to believe that once she was there, cuddled against him, that there wouldn’t be a time when he’d grow cold and leave her behind to shiver in the darkness.
It didn’t matter now. She was certain that after what she saw at the bar and what she’d said to him, that their relationship was over. She couldn’t blame herself, which is why the pain seemed to feel as if she were being shredded, and yet she did throw the fault in her direction. It had been her decision to allow herself to love him, and the only person she had to look to was herself; the pain in her chest that threatened to destroy her had been her choice to encounter from the very beginning.
CHAPTER 20
………………………………..
“Someone wasn’t very popular.”
Louis let the comment slip as he looked down at the newest person to join the ranks of the dead in Collie. In the near year since Jon Harper reconnected with his ex-wife and since Cory’s little assistant Drew made confetti of some of the town folk, the crime rate in Collie seemed to be spiraling somewhere near the exponential.
The person at his feet was dismembered, his limbs scattered near him haphazardly as if the person who’d done the kindness of removing them for the guy hadn’t cared a bit where they’d landed, save for the man’s ring finger. That little digit, Louis knew, was something special to this passionate murderer. For some reason, they’d felt the need to keep it with them always.
“What do you think?”
Louis scowled at his boss and best friend’s older brother, Jon Harper, the Sheriff of Collie. He wasn’t ready to forgive him for partnering him with Rebecca. He let the expression fade as he looked at the body again.
�
��Whoever did this had the time to do it. It’s a fresh kill; maybe only nine hours or so.”
Jon scoffed, a sound he made whenever he was thinking and the motor in his brain was making smoke to catch up. He replied, “This looks like anger to me. You don’t go hacking someone to pieces like this unless you really have it in for them.”
Louis watched as Jon knelt next to the body. What was left of the face made Jon’s features scrunch.
“I don’t think I recognize him, which is something cause in Collie there isn’t a whole lot of room for strangers.”
Louis shrugged at the comment. Apart from the clothing and the obvious male distinction they’d found on the scene separate from the guy himself (a personal loss he was most sorry for and hoped could be reattached at the funeral home) there wasn’t much to distinguish the man from a bludgeoned pile of mush. Decay hadn’t set in, but it had begun to discolor the skin, and he realized that you’d have to be some kind of magician to get a positive I.D. from the mess at his feet.
Louis said, “It’s a long shot, when you think about how many people in Collie go without health insurance, but maybe we can run his dental records or finger prints.”
Jon rose and dusted himself off. The body had been found in the hills where the grass didn’t grow nearly thick enough to keep the dry dirt from blowing all over you like a windy day at the beach, and even as short a time as he’d spent close to the ground, he had the stuff all over him. The body, naturally, was covered in it like it had been swaddled in a tan blanket.
Jon mused, “If the guy was killed out here, dismembered and all, then where’s the blood? You’d think if I cut off all your arms and legs and some other appendages, that you’d bleed a bit.”
Louis smirked. “If I cut someone up, and I had a bunch of people pieces to get rid of, this is the place I’d put them. No one comes out here and you don’t have to be a local to know it. Everything worth anything is in town.” He tilted his head. “This guy bled like a fountain unless someone knew what they were doing. Where ever our scene is, it’s gotta look like the Chainsaw Massacre.”
“Yeah.” Jon smiled. “You and the new girl get to looking then. Whatever you can find, find it and then get back to me. Let’s get this cleared up before the town gets wind; the least we need is another scare.”
Louis looked away from Jon and the crime scene before he said something he’d regret and noticed that the coroner was here to take the body away to the medical examiner. Cory Harper was the best at the job than any of her predecessors, including the one that died of unnatural causes, and since she was married to the Sheriff, they’d know who their little Humpty Dumpty was in no time and possibly save him from spending too much time with Officer Tabb. And, as he walked away from the scene and joined Rebecca back at his cruiser, he hoped that it would be extremely soon, there was only so much temptation a man could endure.
Rebecca looked as she should, beautiful as a painting. He supposed that someone like her never had a bad hair day even when as they’d gotten a look at a dead guy and turned eight shades of green, that it had been near impossible to keep her from tossing cookies and ruining evidence.
“What’s going on?”
Louis ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes as he stepped up to the driver’s side of the cruiser. Since Travis’ departure and him being promoted to deputy, there wasn’t a soul alive that could get him to ride shotgun again. As he opened his door, he replied, “Out to find some blood.”
*******
“You haven’t said anything about last night at the bar.”
Louis clicked the blinker on his steering wheel so that he could turn left. He’d decided that he was going to ignore the situation with Reyna as long as he could, possibly until it just went away on its own. Therefore, answering questions about the girl in question handing him his anus on a platter didn’t fall into the category of things he planned to get done.
“Drop it, okay? Do me a favor and just keep your head on work. What happened last night doesn’t matter.”
“It does if I’m still interested.”
Louis came to a stop at a red light and had to blink several times. What was it about him and women? When he wanted their attention they slapped his features into next week, when he wanted them to disappear off the planet they wanted to rub against him like cats in heat.
“What are you talking about? You saw what happened, you know I have a girlfriend.”
Rebecca was looking out of her window as she replied, “Not much of one if you can’t take your eyes off of me.” A long pause broke the comment and then she added, “She must not realize what a catch you are if she can let you go over a near kiss.”
“You don’t know a thing about her.” The irritation in his voice, whether or not he meant to put it there made his statement burn his lips. Even if Reyna wasn’t returning his calls the three of them he’d placed to her once he wasn’t inebriated, she didn’t deserve to be talked about behind her back. The woman was a saint; her heart big enough to carry the entire world.
“There I go again, huh? Saying things I have no business saying. It’s difficult to keep my mouth shut when things are obvious.”
“Just keep your mouth shut where it concerns Reyna and we won’t have a problem.” To take the sting off the comment, he stuck his tongue out at her and offered her a wink. He wasn’t a harsh man, especially to women, and whenever possible, he’d apologize faster than argue. Though, Reyna was proving to be the exception.
As soon as the comment was out of him, Louis realized that he was more upset about the whole situation than he thought he was, at least if he got angry over the simplest comments concerning Reyna that there was some emotion for her left behind. Just what it was he didn’t know. Once women left him he didn’t chase after them, that was the rule. What did he care about Reyna now? He was, once again, a free man.
Louis pulled into a parking lot in front of a rather dilapidated gas station. The place hadn’t served actual gas in over a decade and a half, but the old man who owned the place who always sat out front and never moved seemed to know everything about everything. If he wanted to get a lead on a crime scene Barrel was the guy to hit up.
Before he got out of the cruiser, Louis said with a slight smile, “Forget about everything for now. Let’s just find out what we can and do our damn job.”
********
Reyna eyed the mouth of one of her patients, and as the old woman stretched wide, she went into a yawn. If anyone that ever lived deserved to yawn, if would be her. In fact, she envied the old woman for her ability to go to sleep whenever she pleased, since if truth be told, knowing that she’d lost her chance with Louis made for a sever case of insomnia. She kept mulling over what she could have done differently, or what might have gone wrong and she kept arguing with herself that trying to kiss another woman and being unsuccessful at it was such a bad thing.
“But it is a bad thing,” Reyna mumbled as she put her thermometer on a nightstand next to her patient’s bed.
“Pardon?”
Reyna shook her head at Mrs. Buttleby, and offered her a smile. “I was just talking out loud.”
“Oh, well don’t forget to feed Tucker.”
Reyna looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Buttleby’s stuffed orange tabby cat. The poor cat had last been among the living nearly thirty years ago, but because of Mrs. Buttleby’s condition, to her the little tabby was still alive; there were days she’d visit the old woman and see her talking to Tucker, her hand stroking his tired old fur.
Reyna smiled, and as she collected her equipment so that she could move on to the next patient, she gave Mrs. Buttleby a soft hug and whispered, “Sure thing, don’t worry.”
Once she was out in the hall, after first placing a small dish of cat food out for Tucker, Reyna rested her back against a wall out in the hallway. Louis had been the kind of man that would have pretended Tucker was alive just as she had only so Mrs. Buttleby wouldn’t be upset by the news that her beloved
tabby was dead. He had, on several occasions kept conversation with many of the patients first in an effort to win her affection and then out of genuine affection. Her heart hurt thinking of the patients that would look forward to seeing Louis and who would never see him again because of her.
Reyna shook her head. None of this was her fault, and beating herself up over something that she had no control over wasn’t going to improve the situation. She knew that Louis had tried to call her, perhaps try to make light of the situation she’d walked into. Maybe it was time to call him and clear the air. At least, if she settled things between them, one way or the other she would be able to let him go.
“Oh, look what the nice lady gave you, Tucker! Next time we see her we’ll have to thank her, won’t we? I think we will, yes we will. Oh, you’re so precious Tucker.”
Reyna smiled as she heard Mrs. Buttleby through the door to her room. Even though the woman was mad as hatter most of the time, in her soul she was a kind person who deserved everything she could be given. Just as she moved to head down the hall, Reyna decided that the feelings still lurking in her heart were worth keeping, that she couldn’t give up on Louis just because he’d made a mistake, or like Mrs. Buttleby, had been temporarily out of touch with his brain, at least she hoped it was a mistake. If Louis really wanted someone else, she wasn’t going to stop him. Probably.
CHAPTER 21
………………………………..
I don’t know nuthin ‘bout no guy getting’ chopped up.”
Louis stared at Barrel’s grizzled visage, noting that his beard was longer than the last time he’d seen it and that as normal it had flecks of whatever the man had eaten for breakfast resting in it. They were his ‘snacks’ for later as he called them.
Louis ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m not asking about our dead body, Barrel, I’m talking about what you might have heard in town. Was there anything strange that went on last night? Did anyone new come by the gas station?”
