Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection

by Dakota Willink

  “Rough patch…” she grumbles sarcastically as she focuses on anything but him or me.

  “Your son?” I ask. Even though I know some of the information, the reports only shared public knowledge.

  “She was shot,” Kace fills me in.

  “No, he was shot.” Her voice remains calm, and her hand is on her neck, holding the locket on her chain and sliding it back and forth. “I’m here because I believe someone shot my son.” Without looking at him, she points over at Kace, who smooths the wrinkle in his forehead. “He’s here because he thinks I’m too fucked up to recover on my own, and he’s right.”

  Kace’s shoulders relax but only mid-way, as if he expects another part to her statement.

  She shakes her head free of thoughts and flips her hand in the air, relenting and transferring the conversation over to him, not even bothering to voice her desistance.

  “It’s been particularly difficult for her. She’s alone most of the day, and she’s not working.”

  “Right.” I turn to the page from the captain of her department. “Mandatory, unpaid leave until a psychological evaluation has been performed.” She must have done something particularly foul.

  She forces a smile and uses both hands, palms up, to point at me. “Guess you’re my psychological evaluator or something.”

  Or something… My lips curve to soothe her unease. “I guess I am, and I’m happy to help you, even if that’s just listening to you talk… What exactly got you put on leave? From your impressive resume, you don’t seem like a rule breaker.”

  “People change,” she bites back quickly.

  Kace eyes me curiously, probably assessing me in some sort of alpha-male way. It’s not necessary. Eleanor has symmetrical features, deep-set brown eyes, high cheekbones, and a perfectly curved chin. For all intents in purposes, she’s a beautiful woman, but I’m more concerned with her mind.

  “Fair enough.” I point to one of the details on her file. “I see here you were valedictorian in your Ivy League undergraduate studies and master’s studies. That’s quite impressive, Eleanor.”

  Her sad eyes lift from the floor to mine and hold my gaze for a second. The compliment must feel foreign to her, because a ghost of a smile traverses her lips before she slams them shut, rolling them between her teeth.

  Unfairly, the size of a woman’s hips and her fertile ability, nullify the presence of a brilliant mind. By the information staring back at me, Eleanor is quite brilliant, which intrigues me. It’s not very often a test subject with an above-average IQ comes along.

  “How did you get that?” Kace asks the question that someone of Eleanor’s caliber should be asking.

  “Your captain sent over her file with a note about needing her back and stable.”

  Eleanor scoffs and forces her gaze to the floor again. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “I agree,” I reply before addressing her fiancé. “Kace, would you mind giving me some time with Eleanor? I’d like to talk to her in private before discussing couples therapy. I believe individual sessions would be a good way to start before we proceed with joint sessions.”

  Kace nods and leans toward Eleanor.

  She doesn’t move an inch.

  “I’ll be just outside, okay?”

  She pops a shoulder, and then as if remembering her surroundings, turns to him and places a kiss on his cheek, catching him off guard. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, uh … sure.” Kace looks up at me with a hopeful eye.

  “Don’t worry, Detective Dalton. She’s in good hands.”

  3

  Shrine

  Eleanor Devero

  “How did your first session go with Dr. Mills?” Kace asks as he strums the center console, toying with the dial of the radio, unsure of whether to turn up the volume or lower it.

  “Fine,” I answer, but the presence of a brand-new, black notebook on my lap weighs on my mind. “Nolan gave me homework.”

  The volume remains unchanged as he glances at me hesitantly. Any kind of conversation we have ends in distance. Something Dr. Mills suggests remedying.

  Why I’m doing this escapes me, but I open the damn journal and show him my chicken scratch scribbles.

  “Am I supposed to be able to read that?” He cracks a smile and squints his eyes in an over-exaggerated way as he moves his head back and forth.

  It’s stupid and adorable, which makes me smile.

  And God, it hurts so bad. The curve of my lips sinks my heart deep into my stomach, with a loud thud that reverberates through my whole body and steals the breath from my lungs. I blink rapidly as I glance out the window to hide my water-logged eyes from Kace.

  “A smile log? Your homework is to smile every day? I kind of like it.” He frees one hand and tilts the book to read. “What’s the other one?”

  Feeling way too vulnerable for such a confined space, I turn toward him and close the notebook. “Never thought it would cost me two-hundred bucks to hear a smartass tell me my problem is not smiling.”

  “That all he told you?” The traffic light turns green, forcing him to focus on the road instead of at the girl falling apart in his passenger seat.

  “No.” Thankfully, my clipped tone invites no follow-up question.

  Dr. Mills had asked me about my relationship and how things were with Kace. For some reason, I told him we were fine, which led him to question, in a very detailed way, what would happen if I let Kace go?

  Was I ready to wake up alone every morning? To live alone without the hope of seeing him later on in the day? To never hear his voice again, or compare anyone else g to the man who first stole my heart? And worse, was I willing to have two gaping holes in my chest with no closure to either of them?

  I wasn’t, but how do I tell the person, assessing my stability, that I didn’t think I’d live long, and letting this man go was merciful. He’s the mess left in the aftermath of my wreck, and I’m not done wrecking my life.

  Kace is my only connection to The Bullet Man, and I need to try and hold on to what we had before I break his heart.

  He’s resilient. If losing his son took less than three months to recover from, then losing me will take much less time.

  Without Kace’s constant presence in my life, the magnetic walls of my heart—that attract happy things, like the hundred firsts and a thousand could-have-beens—will repel them.

  I’ll hurt less. It won’t cease my suffering or save me from my fate, but it has to do something.

  Because at the moment, I hate living, and not living up to his standards is killing me. Nolan wanted me to admit I love Kace. I do, but it’s too confusing to sift through and figure out if the love is a remnant of what we had, or if it’s simply blocked by everything else.

  I’m always falling short of good enough. Not good enough to protect my son and find his killer. Not good enough to keep a job, or a guy, or keep my shit together. Not good enough to cut ties between my heart and my brain, or quarantine my emotions. And I’m definitely not good enough to disentangle the complicated knots of my existence and make sense of life.

  At least not yet.

  I release the air, inflating my cheeks, and glance over at Kace. Finding Tyler’s murderer trumps anything, and if that means following Nolan’s stupid homework assignments to make Kace feel better, I will.

  “I think the doctor is using a country music playlist to inspire our therapy sessions.” Reminders. I scoff. “He wants me to put a sticky note on everything that reminds me of the way things used to be.” I reach into my jean jacket and pull out a yellow pad of paper and hold it up.

  Kace quickly glances over at it before turning right on the intersection. “You can use that at the precinct.”

  “Ugh. Why are we going there?” I’m a mess. My hair looks like I stuck my finger in the electrical socket, and it could use some hair dye. My eyebrows need to be plucked, and I’m wearing a pair of black yoga pants that I’m sure has a tiny hole in the crotch area. Not exactly work attire. />
  “I have to drop in and tell Cap about Dr. Mills’s recommendation. When we talked alone, he said it would be okay for you to slowly work yourself back into the swing of things, without officially being part of the investigation.”

  “Nolan didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Dr. Mills,” Kace emphasizes the name, “said it wouldn’t hurt, and I didn’t argue because I like the idea of having you as my partner.”

  My eyebrows bounce up. “You already have a partner.”

  “You’ll always be my first choice, Elle. Frank will understand. Plus, this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I smile softly. It also means Kace and I will be forced to spend time together. After I got kicked out of the precinct, we hadn’t spent a total of ten hours together in the same room, and in one day, we’re close to surpassing that time.

  “Want some coffee before we head over?”

  I perk up to notice he’s already pulling through the drive-thru—the same drive-thru we used to go to every morning before heading over to work. “I always want coffee.”

  “I know.” He comes to a full stop at the drive-thru lane, and I swing open the door and get out.

  Kace rolls down the window with a massive grin on his face. “What are you doing, Eleanor?”

  The irate woman on the intercom harshly says, “One moment, sir!” Then forgets to take her finger off the button and grumbles, “Damn people, always trying to shave a couple seconds off their day by speeding through shit.”

  I laugh and stick one of the notes, just below the speaker holes, on the flat service. Then walk up to Kace, who is glaring at the intercom and holding his tongue, and smack one right on his forehead.

  “What the fuck?” he shouts between chuckles.

  My lips turn inward, stifling my smile.

  In his rounded eyes, I can see his heart swell as he watches me hide the sticky notes behind me. “You could have stuck that on the lady’s forehead.” He points to the intercom. “After all these years, you’d figure she got used to the people being impatient.”

  The minutes spent on this drive-thru used to be annoying when we were itching to get to work, but after Tyler’s death, things that once irked me no longer had the same impact. “She has to deal with a lot of yous, and you only have to deal with one of her. I’d be grumbly too.”

  “Right?” The woman on the intercom intrudes on our conversation, and this time, I don’t hold back the laughter. It doesn’t hurt as bad as the first time, but it still feels wrong.

  Kace waves me inside the car as the woman takes his order. While I rummage through the glove compartment for a pen, he pulls up to the window to get our things and pay. On the way to the precinct, I log down the sticky reminders— as Nolan called them.

  “That’s three,” Kace’s voice cuts through the silence.

  “What?” I ask with a scrunched nose.

  He balances his cup in his hand as he drives. “For your smile log.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Guilt festers in my gut as I write those down in the log. How many smiles did the killer steal from Tyler?

  “I missed your smile, Elle.” There’s more to his statement, but he holds back for some reason.

  Without acknowledging him, I finish logging my homework and check our surroundings. Being in the car with Kace is giving me claustrophobic-vibes. My head is congested with too many clashing thoughts, and there are too many people in the small space. There’s not enough room for me and the things in my head.

  Short of bolting from a moving car, I contain myself. Kace turns onto a familiar street, parallel with Lehigh Ave.; the precinct is only a couple blocks over. By the time we pull up on the sidewalk and head to the precinct’s parking lot, I’m unsure of which I’m more terrified of: the car with Kace or the precinct where I had to face everyone after my meltdown.

  “You ready for this?” he asks as he parks the car. “It’s been a month since you saw most of these people.” He rests his wrists at the top of the steering wheel while staring at one of the cops, smoking over at the other end of the parking lot.

  “I guess.” After my meltdown, which included smashing my favorite mug through Cap’s window and insulting the whole force, most everyone forgave me. Pity does that.

  “Every time I walk inside, I remember the scene and admire you for it.”

  “What?” My head whips in his direction. “If I recall correctly you said to ‘calm down.’” I use air quotes for emphasis.

  “Not my smartest moment, I admit.”

  It had taken my anger and intensified it ten-fold. Kace was supposed to have my back, and he didn’t. “Sometimes, it feels like the job is more important to you than anything.”

  “No!” Kace throws his arm over my headrest, swiveling his body to me in the process. “Why would you think that?”

  I agreed to the Pregnancy Center job for him, because it would make his career, and it did. He went from helping in the drug case with the DEA to leading the homicide investigations, but it’s not worth fighting over, especially when I had just as much blame. “Never mind. I’m just nervous.”

  “See, that’s what I admire about you … even scared, you fight for what you want, Ellie. That’s why I’m terrified you don’t want me anymore.”

  I don’t like this conversation.

  “I know it’s hard to talk about, but you don’t have to love me right now, I just need you to fight for me sometimes.”

  I swallow the saliva in my throat, willing it to turn to acid and corrode the memory of the first time we met and all the other firsts, but it melts my heart instead. I hold the small stack of one-hundred reminders in the space between us. “Want to put a sticky note on the building? I have ninety-eight left.”

  Evasion seems to be my coping mechanism.

  He takes the sticky notes in my hand, touching me—reminding me of how much I loved falling asleep in his arms. No matter what the day had held, or how many horrible deaths we had seen, his arms always wiped the slate clean. They enveloped me in security, turning thoughts off, and allowed peace to lull me to sleep.

  Without my personal refresh button, every morning feels weighted and like a burden. Existing takes everything out of me, leaving me deprived of energy.

  And then this tiny touch, which isn’t even holding my hand, reminds me he must feel the same. How have I not noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the less-defined smile lines around his perfect lips?

  Sorry rolls around my tongue—an apology for being less than he deserves or an attempt to repair the collapsed bridge between our hearts. It takes all I can to hold the words inside until they fade back into my mind.

  But he says them, or a version of them. “One Post-it at a time, Elle.”

  My breath stills, and he clings to my fingers, gripping them and the sticky notes between them as if our love depends on them.

  Maybe it does. I have no idea what he means, but I know he means whatever it is.

  “Come on, we’ve got a killer to find.”

  Right. A killer I need.

  He reluctantly releases my hand and grabs both of our coffees. The three-story building towers over the car, intimidating me and nearly keeping my ass glued to the seat. I get out, shutting the door behind me.

  I used to consider this place home. Now I feel like I don’t belong.

  Here goes nothing… “You still have the yellow thing on your head, Kace.” I take my coffee from him.

  “It doesn’t look good?” he asks as he holds the door open for me. “It’s like highlighter, right? Doesn’t it make my face look all shiny and pretty?”

  Fourth smile of the day. “Yeah, real fuckin’ shiny. It’ll definitely get you noticed.” My eyes linger a smidge too long on that pretty face of his before I pry them off to scan the bottom floor.

  No one lingers inside the hallway leading to the locker rooms, probably because of shift change and debriefing. Kace folds the Post-it and slides it into his pocket. Thankfully. Explaining his s
hiny stamp to Frank and Cap would be super uncomfortable.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t ask for a different color.” He keeps up the conversation, distracting me. He knows me. My nerves flutter just under my skin, and I’m anxious to climb up to the first floor.

  “I requested black ones to fit my morose mood, but Nolan didn’t have any on hand,” I joke back sarcastically. The urge to tell Kace I’ll wait in the car surfaces, but I have to show him I’m ready to be integrated back into society.

  “Be happy they aren’t pink,” he says. “First time I bought you a pink shirt didn’t go well.”

  “Do I look like I wear pink?” I grumble, still bitter about the bright, neon pink hoodie he bought me after I fell through the damn ice. I would’ve chucked the pink paper at Nolan’s nose.”

  Kace swings open the door, and the noise hurts my ears. I wince at the influx of simultaneous sound: crackling radios mixed with the swearing of cuffed criminals and multiple phones ringing.

  “Why is to so damn loud?” Awkwardly, my shoulder rubs against my ear.

  “This is nothing.” Kace points to the second floor where the offices and debriefing rooms are. “Most of them are up there.”

  I like silence. I prefer the sound of my own thoughts, even if they don’t shut up.

  Kace leads me up the stairs to the office he shares with Frank. The pad of notes in my palm gives me a purpose, so I avoid the desk and the couch, and the floor between those two, because they remind me of the long nights we stayed here to work, and spent falling in love instead.

  Tyler was probably conceived here. I shake the thought from my head and stick a note on the picture frame I got Kace for our one-month anniversary. Instead of a picture of us, I framed a picture of Kace’s lips. Because I’d never forget the lies he had to tell me.

  “You remember that?” he asks, keeping his distance.

  I chew on the inside of my cheek and answer with a quick nod before walking over to the signed hockey puck, tagging it with a sticky note.

  “That was, by far, my favorite first.” Kace knew someone who got him into the arena. We liked to find things neither of us had ever done, so we could be each other’s first.