This Love Hurts, Book 1

by W Winters

  I don’t have to wonder why Taylor’s here from the look in his eyes. Before I’ve finished opening the door, he’s already started talking.

  “I got a call from Agent Walsh about a relocation?” he questions. The quizzical look is paired with a knowing one. Swallowing a bit of embarrassment, I nod and then look him in the eye before I say, “He insisted.”

  There’s a pause, and for a moment I imagine Taylor is going to question further, but he doesn’t. “All right then. We’re ready when you are.”

  “I just need five minutes,” I tell him. Before he can fully turn his back to me to walk back down my front yard path the way he came, I ask, “Who brought the roses?”

  “What?” he says and a cold chill flows over my neck and down further. Fear threatens to derail my composure. How could he not know about the roses? “What roses?” he asks when I don’t say anything.

  Opening the door wider, I ask him to come inside with me. “Is everything all right?” Taylor questions as he reaches for his gun.

  I don’t know. An awful sickness washes through me. It’s not possible that someone came in here while the men were watching the place. It’s not possible. My imagination goes a step further, questioning if the roses were here all along. They must have been. I was so out of it that I had to have missed them. Right?

  Sensing how off I am, Taylor uses his transmitter to update the men that he’s going inside and to do a sweep of the interior. I’m numb as I watch Taylor search through my apartment and then he checks each lock. Only the sounds of Taylor moving quietly and quickly from room to room accompany this horrible feeling that grips me like a vise. I only break away when he says there’s no one else here. Searching the flowers for the card from earlier, I find nothing. Where did it go?

  Holstering his gun, Taylor questions lowly, calmly but with authority, “Were they here when we got here earlier?”

  “They couldn’t have been,” I answer in a whisper, but my head shakes subconsciously. Maybe it’s disagreeing with me. “I don’t know.”

  I’ve never felt so helpless and foolish all at once. “It’s been a long day.” Taylor’s comment is meant to be consoling but it only adds to my humiliation.

  With one last look at the roses, I let Taylor take my bag and follow him out to an unmarked black sedan, sliding in the back of it. My hands are still shaking, so I hold them tight and shove them between my knees the entire way to Cody’s place. That’s why I wasn’t holding my phone; it’s why I didn’t see I had a new text until I was safely tucked away in Cody’s home.

  It’s from a new number, one not in my contacts and I nearly drop the phone when I read the series of messages he sent me.

  * * *

  I didn’t mean to startle you with the roses.

  I meant it when I said I’d protect you.

  No one will hurt you, my Delilah.

  * * *

  I had to change my number. Don’t give this one away like you did the last.

  Cody

  I’m a helpless prick. That’s all I could think the entire ride. Sitting in the back of a van, not able to do a damn thing but think.

  I offered to drive, to do something rather than sit here being useless, but Bradley wouldn’t let me. Evan hasn’t pried, but I notice how he keeps glancing at me. If I noticed, so did everyone else.

  Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking quiet.

  Pretending that I’m on my phone only works for so long before the guys pick up on the air around me. Then I pull out some paperwork. Even as the vehicle jostles over potholes, I stare down at the black words on stark white pages and give my best effort to appear that I give a shit about what’s in the files. It doesn’t throw them off, but the message comes across loud and clear: don’t fucking ask.

  I can’t think of anything else but her. Delilah.

  Her and the man I’ve strategically aligned myself with. It happened so slowly, so carefully that I didn’t realize what I’d done and how deep down the hole I’d gone until it was too late. There’s no going back from the things that I’ve done.

  I remember the first time I met the man who calls himself Marcus. Met… isn’t the right word. It was the first time I came into contact with him. That’s a better way of putting it.

  Memories of the stench of that back alley behind an old strip joint on the east side come back to me as the van moves over yet another pothole and I’m tempted to cover my nose with the inside of my elbow like I did back then. It hit me hard, the smell of rotten garbage overflowing in the alley where the body was found. The steel cans were missing their lids and the ruined cobblestone streets the city refused to pay to fix were the highlights of that part of the city five years ago. I heard they cleaned it up some now, but back then, it was a hellish place to live.

  If you found yourself that far toward the bay, it was best to go any other direction but east as quickly as you could. It was my third year on this job and my patience had worn thin on a series of murders we all knew were hits from a local mafia organization.

  Everyone knew, but no one talked. Cuffed and placed in holding, all anyone said was that they wanted their lawyer if they were being charged. And if they weren’t being charged, they didn’t have a damn thing to say and wanted to be released. Being in holding for forty-eight hours didn’t break down a single man. In a city like that, where everyone’s down on their luck and the one place to find a hot meal is funded by a man who runs the streets… well, it was impossible to get anyone to turn on them. They all asked for the same lawyer, the mob’s lawyer.

  So when this body showed up, and no one saw anything and no one had anything to say but get off my porch, it wasn’t surprising.

  The body had been there for at least three days and when the trash bag that covered it was removed, the stench only got worse. I remember how my partner at the time had heaved, nearly puking right there on the body. That would have been damn awful for evidence.

  My partner was much older than me and constantly bitched about wanting to retire and stop living a waking nightmare day in and day out. He was offered retirement last year, but from what I heard, he turned it down. I remember thinking back then, there’s no way out of this. The work will stay with you long after the badge hits the bottom of a drawer.

  I sent the old man away when we got to the scene and he gagged; we didn’t need two of us back in the alley while we waited for backup and transport for the body. Sirens were a constant, and one bellowed behind us as he headed toward the street. The sun was setting. I watched it fall for a moment and did my best to avoid making eye contact with an older woman who peeked out of her curtains three stories up in the worn brick apartments across the street. She wouldn’t talk, I knew that much. I also knew everyone fed information to the mob. If a person breathed in that town, they did the dirty work of Romano. Whether out of fear or a need to survive, I didn’t know and I still don’t.

  I had an evidence bag in my hand, ready to pick up a necklace that looked like it’d been ripped from the woman. A thin red gash colored her neck and the silver chain was dull with dried blood as the streetlights flickered on.

  “Shame, isn’t it?” I heard Marcus before I saw him. He’s good at sneaking around and hiding in shadows. Monsters like him all do the same.

  With a hand on my holster, I heard the familiar sound of a bullet being chambered in a Glock. He tsked me as I stood there, painfully still, with my blood rushing in my ears.

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  I could try to pull out my weapon, and probably get shot. I could call out for my partner and probably get us both killed. Instead, I stared down at the woman’s face and held my breath waiting for his next move. I didn’t know where he was. Somewhere above me and to the left judging by how his voice carried. The alley sat between buildings with shops on street level and apartments five stories up. Back then I assumed he was watching from a window in one of those apartments. He had the upper hand and the cold sweat on the back of my neck made me all to
o aware that I knew he was the one in control.

  He told me not to turn around, right before I heard the thud of a man jump and land behind me. The sun may have been setting but there was enough daylight to see him if I dared to disobey.

  “Who are you?” I questioned, although I had an inkling. We’d been keeping tabs on the local mafia for a while; we knew the real names of their members, had files on their whereabouts and aliases. There was one name that was only whispered. A rumor, a ghost. A single name and no other information save a list of bodies the people around here credited to him. We thought he was an assassin but as the truth unfolded over the years, I learned he was more than that. He was an angel of death. A murderer who killed based on his own morals and judgment. The chills flowing down my arms and the way he spoke made the name resonate in my mind before he spoke. When I first started, I thought the man didn’t exist, but years in that town made one thing very clear. Monsters are real and the one named Marcus was the worst of them.

  Marcus, he answered me and I knew the man behind me was a wanted serial killer who caused fear to run down the spines of even the hardest men from the mob that we’d interviewed. They called him the grim reaper, the monster under your bed. They called him a lot of things, but they only ever whispered his name in a single hiss.

  He didn’t stop to ask my name; he didn’t ask me anything at all, merely made a comment about the dead woman followed by a sucking sound of discontent. And how it wasn’t supposed to be her.

  “What do you mean it wasn’t supposed to be her?” I downplayed my interest as best I could, all while trying to conceal the nerves that rattled me and the fear that forced me to stare down the alley the way my partner had gone. I was alone with a man I couldn’t see who held a gun at my back.

  It was quiet for a long moment. Too many seconds passed for my liking. “I don’t know that I can trust you yet.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” I didn’t give myself conscious permission to ask, yet I did. I didn’t want to die. Sure as hell not in some dirty alley with a gunshot to the back of the head.

  “Why would I kill you? You want what I want.”

  I didn’t answer and I didn’t need to. All Marcus did was direct my next steps.

  “Go down this alley and make a left at the corner store. You’ll see it if you’re looking for it.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “For the weapon that ties Romano’s predecessor to the crime scene.”

  Adrenaline spiked in my blood and I nearly turned to face him but the tsk and reminder of the gun he held kept me firmly placed where I was. I didn’t trust him and I can’t say that’s changed much, even with everything I’ve learned.

  I asked the obvious question, my eyes narrowing although they still looked at nothing in particular. “Why are you helping me?”

  “I told you.” As I stared at the crumbling brick wall in front of me, I heard him start to walk away as he spoke to my back. “We both want the same thing. It’s hard to admit, but in this instance… I need you. And you don’t have to admit it, but I know damn well that you need me.”

  Those were his parting words to me.

  My partner strolled back not a minute after, two detectives in tow.

  “You look like shit,” he commented and the other two laughed.

  Coldness surrounded every inch of me. It happened so quickly, I nearly thought I’d lost it. I could have told them what happened, but I didn’t. Instead, when one suggested it was the odor that made me look so pale, I told them I needed a walk. I followed Marcus’s advice and we nailed the son of a bitch who killed that woman and tied four other murders to him. We couldn’t get Romano but Marcus told me later he had a plan and Romano was useful for it. Instead, he offered me a list. Letters came and kept coming. And I kept responding as the bodies piled up at my feet.

  Delilah

  Cody’s coffee maker spews as it spits out the last bit of coffee to fill the plain white cup. It’s this high-pitched sound and I’m all too aware of it as I stare at the sputtering machine flicking droplets of brown liquid against the upper sides of the bistro mug.

  It’s damn good coffee though, strong but not bitter, and even the smell of it helps me to wake up just a bit more.

  As I set the mug against the gray, speckled counter and reach for the sugar, I try to remember if this is my third or fourth cup. My conclusion as I pour far too much sugar into the mug, is that I haven’t got a clue.

  After stirring in a bit of creamer, the spoon clinks against the mug and I leave it on the napkin I put down this morning that’s already stained with a round ring of chestnut coloring.

  With my back to the counter, I blow across the hot cup and take in the expansive kitchen. It’s just like the rest of Cody’s single-floor ranch home: modern, monochromatic with all blacks, grays and whites, and hardly any personalization whatsoever.

  Everything is updated and top of the line. The simple lights that hang down are sleek and look expensive. But there’s not a single item on the counter, except for a toaster that looks brand new, the coffee maker, and now a stained napkin and spoon. This place is barren. It’s too empty to even serve as a model home.

  I breathe in the delicious fragrance and then take a short sip. It’s comforting and tastes like home so I indulge in a longer sip next.

  All night, I thought about every case I ever worked on where Marcus’s name was mentioned. It’s more than a few dozen of them. At least one hundred. A hundred times his name was implicated in some way or another. I used to think of him as the boogeyman. Some made-up horror story that criminals blamed when really, he didn’t exist.

  A number of times last night, my mind drifted to the roses he gifted me, which are now where I left them at home. But the red quickly bled into crime scene photos. Pools of blood and then their eyes, followed by his sharp blue gaze. I didn’t tell anyone. I can’t write it down or speak the reality. He was there in my most private of spaces. And what’s worse is that he saw my reaction. I’ll tell Cody when he’s here, but for now, the confession is stuck with disbelief at the back of my throat.

  There’s one other reason… one I’m ashamed to admit, as to why I didn’t tell a soul he’d messaged. I have a lead. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak; all I knew was I had a lead and sharing it with anyone else would ruin it. How fucking reckless is that? It’s buried at the back of my mind, but the reasoning is very much there. Marcus is a wanted man… and I have a lead.

  A lead and a vase of flowers.

  The sight of roses turning into blood is the image that snapped my eyes open each time I tried to rest. It was like Marcus was watching me. I’ve convinced myself the pale blue of his eyes must be due to contacts. They’re simply far too blue, far too beautiful.

  Ping.

  My phone dings on the counter. Setting my mug down I click on the screen to see it’s another message from my sister. As if fate couldn’t be any bigger of a bitch.

  I’ve gotten three messages already today.

  My mother left my father. She’s an emotional wreck and my sister is in shambles even though for years she’s been saying they aren’t good for each other. Of course they need me now. Of all times, my sister wants me to come home right now.

  She’s practically demanding it and holding the fact that all I do is work over my head.

  Hell… if she only knew.

  The first time my phone went off this morning, I was making my first cup of coffee and I stared at my phone on the other end of the island where I’d decided to work. It couldn’t have been any later than 6:00 a.m. My initial thought when the chime went off was: it’s Marcus.

  There was a hiss in the back of my mind, one provoked by the memory of his fingers against mine in the parking garage. One that taunted me. One that claimed I didn’t tell anyone because it was my secret to keep. No one else was allowed to have it.

  I’m only faintly aware of that voice. It can so easily be blamed on the lack of sleep and the loneliness that
crept up on me in Cody’s large, cold bed covered with black cotton sheets and a white and slate striped comforter.

  The only bit of personality in that room was due to the full shelf of books. They’re classics and their spines worn down. The one that made me smile was The Hound of the Baskervilles. It figures that Cody would like Sherlock Holmes.

  I tossed and turned in that empty bed, doing everything I could to rid the day from the deepest, darkest places of my conscience. I even took four of those sleeping pills I packed, but they didn’t do a damn thing.

  I crawled out of bed and was met with that text from my sister, then one from Claire telling me to work from home today.

  They don’t want me back in the office until they have more information on who is really responsible for the note left at my door, a.k.a. a lead.

  It was easy enough to agree and keep my feet planted in Cody’s place. Not that I can focus enough to actually work. All I can think about is the phone number, each digit burning into my memory.

  I haven’t messaged Marcus; I haven’t told anyone about it. Those four sentences feel like a ticking time bomb, and I don’t know how to find the wires, let alone cut them to prevent inevitable ruin.

  My sister’s constant texts are the cherry on top of this shit sundae. At that very thought, another comes in:

  I mean it, Dee. She won’t stop crying. She’s hysterical.

  My sinking heart drags every cord down as it drops, stretching out the agony of it all.

  Sometimes we see things we shouldn’t. We go through moments that take ahold of us. That’s the only way I can explain how I’ve felt since last night. It’s not detached, it’s overwhelmed. There was a time, when I first started, that I had to watch video evidence of a woman being beaten to death. It was only minutes and in this field, it wasn’t the most gruesome thing I’d ever seen. But there was a child present, and he couldn’t have been more than three years old. He was screaming and crying. He hit the man who was beating the woman. He wasn’t even her son.