“No.” I point to my lips.
He leans closer and zooms in on my lips.
I repeat it again, but he doesn’t catch it. I swipe my hand over my face and become stoic. “Observe my mouth carefully.”
“Okay.” He grunts, catching me by surprise when he leans in closer.
“Watch the corners, more specifically, and the way my chin moves.” I repeat the tell three or four times.
His eyes land on mine. “If I keep looking at your lips, Elle, the only tell I’ll be concerned with is…” He cups my cheek in his hand, and his thumb softly slides over my bottom lip, parting my mouth a bit.
Breath escapes me before lips land on mine.
No resistance, because all of that fades away. Moving lips silence thoughts, and gravity—the invisible force pulling between our hearts—doesn’t care for resistance. With distance, the pull had weakened, but here, in the confines of his car with only inches between us, what had once pulled us closer to one another, yanks us even closer.
One of his arms curls around my waist and the other threads through my hair at the base of my head, cradling my neck as he drags me closer. Locked in each other’s orbit, words come undone.
I fall apart at his touch. The woman carved out of pain, collapses into the moment, longing to start over—to cling and try to be the perfect girl in his eyes.
But I’m so imperfect it’s considered damaged.
My lips tremble at the realization, and he steadies them between his before he releases them, ever-so-gently, and touches his forehead to mine.
He pauses and risks it. “Let me spell it out for you. Elle—Oh—Vee—E.”
I sniffle and chuckle at one of the first corniest things he’s ever told me, and grudgingly answer, the same way I always had: a roll of my eyes followed by, “Oh—Kay.”
He holds his breath and releases it in a long exhale. “You haven’t called me Kay in three months.”
My response is lost on his lips again, and even breathless, I can breathe again.
7
Coralee
Dr. Nolan Mills
The application on my phone is up, and I’m sitting in my car, watching the courier pick up my package at the third drop. The bellhop of the five-star hotel opens the door for the petite girl with pixie hair, eyeing her super short skirt suspiciously.
High-class escorts always take the five-star hotel gigs because they think it’s for sex, and this hotel, in particular, attracts girls in need of fast cash.
The courier’s instructions are to wait at the bar for someone wearing a pink tie. Orchestrating these relays are kind of fun, considering how easy it is. Most of the people who pick up these sketchier ads think it’s either drugs or prostitution, or something illegal, so they never open the package or try to take it. It’s dangerous to mess with the underworld of this city, but there is a profit to be made if people know where to look.
Four hundred dollars for wearing a pink tie and delivering the package to someone is worth it. Some of the couriers don’t even make that amount in a week. After the app takes its cut, they still get eighty percent. That’s good money. I’ve seen drug postings up to a couple thousand dollars, but they’re for deliveries or pick-up in sketchy parts of the neighborhood, not all people are willing to take that much risk.
Plausible deniability would be put into jeopardy. Treading the border of dangerous and naïve seems to be the sweet spot for getting away with criminal activity.
This morning at the coffee shop, I used the bathroom and left a small package in the trash bin. According to the log hanging on the bathroom door, the janitor usually empties the trashes between eleven and eleven-thirty. I scheduled the pick-up from the trash behind the coffee shop at noon.
For six-hundred bucks, dumpster diving doesn’t sound so bad.
As told, the courier left the package on booth number three in the coffee shop and left. Another courier, Mr. Pink Tie, was to dress up nice, pick up the box, and deliver it to the hotel by precisely one o’clock.
At three minutes to, he shows up in a taxi. His black suit looks new, but it does the trick. The bellhop even smiles as he lets him in. Through the large mirrors in the restaurant area, I watch him weave between the tables, headed in the direction of the bar at the end. There, a girl with short pink hair waits with a drink in her hand, suspiciously eyeing the crowd.
Her face perks up when she spots him, and she elegantly slides off the stool to saunters over to him, swaying her hips in the process. Words are exchanged, as is the small pink package, which belongs to Coralee Mitchell, the rich woman whose daughter was murdered in this very hotel.
Bet a lot of people don’t know the owners paid a lot of money to keep the death out of the papers because of the scandal it would bring. I happen to know for a fact that the lower level of this hotel is a high-society elite club that willingly provides escorts to their more notorious members. Of course, Coralee doesn’t know her twenty-one-year-old daughter was involved, nor does she know the bellhop, who so courteously smiles at the women and lets them in, was the one who penetrated her daughter with the barrel of his gun, and it accidentally went off.
Accidentally. I scoff at the despicable man before me. Maybe I’ll accidentally kill him myself. I’ve seen horrible cases, but this one made my blood boil.
After sustaining massive internal injuries, which did not kill her immediately, he dropped his victim down the laundry shoot and exported her out of the building via a truck, where he then discarded her naked body into the ocean.
The hotel covered it up, never expecting the body to surface. Whoever said crime pays, got it right. The bellhop kept his job with a substantial pay rise. News reports speculated she got picked up into a human trafficking ring.
True-crime-tubers reported on this extensively within the last year. Coralee personally reached out to them and asked for their help in keeping her daughter’s name alive. Coralee and I met at one of the grief sessions I led over a year ago. A friend of hers worked for the university and mentioned my services.
She’s no longer one of my patients, but she occasionally attends a grief session, allowing me some contact.
Three months ago, I got a call from her. A hysterical mother who had just received the news about her daughter turning up in pieces. An arm first, then a decomposing headless torso. She conveyed the autopsy reports with grotesque detail.
This one didn’t have a bullet, which complicated things for me.
But I was determined to find out.
Through criminal connections, more specifically intel from a loopy guy in federal prison, I found out the Mitchell girl had been ‘high-gliding’ in ‘basement number five,’ and her last ‘flight’ was with some guy from ‘baggage claim.’ The intel pointed me in the direction of other ‘passengers’, and it didn’t take long to buy the information I needed.
Today, I give Coralee the closure she deserves.
The pixie-haired girl exits out through the front door, the bellhop eyeing her rear as she descends the stairs. I wait until she gets to the end of the second block before pulling the car out and following her. She is to deliver the box to a floral shop, any flower store, and have flowers sent over as soon as possible. Pink roses, the Mitchell girl’s favorite flower.
I follow the floral van around until they knock on the front door of Coralee Mitchell’s expensive house. The maid answers and signs for the flowers.
Immediately, I send payment to the couriers before deleting my account.
Coralee, I theorize, will kill the son of a bitch who took her baby girl in a short amount of time. In doing so, the Feds will realize the girl was not connected to the trafficking ring and be forced to leave.
Me? I have to go back to work and wait. Because I’m starving, I stop by the drive-thru for a burger and scarf it down before reaching the office. Cara thinks I took my flavor of the week out for a long lunch.
As soon as I step foot inside, Cara shoots up from her chair, shoving the big bite i
nto her mouth with her fingers. She chews quickly, covering her mouth. “You’re back early, Doctor.”
“Please,” I say, checking my schedule. “Feel free to eat. Our next patient is at two.”
She smirks as she rewraps her lunch. “I know.”
“You know you don’t have to stay here for lunch every day, Cara. You’re more than welcome to join me.”
She blushes coyly and plays with the cuff of her sweater. “I’ll take you up on that some time, Doctor.” She sighs, and as if just remembering, asks, “Where did you take your g-g--girlfriend today?”
Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to feel connected to someone on an emotional level. My extra job on the Brain Team doesn’t give me much time to meet people who don’t require my assistance. Neither does my extra-curricular areas of study.
Then again, I don’t have time for such nonsense as love and sex. “To her favorite place,” I lie comfortably and open my office door. “Do I have any calls?”
“The police called about a progress report on Eleanor Devero.”
“It’s too early for results. Call the captain back and tell him I need some more time to evaluate, but I’ll shoot him an email when I make my decision.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
I nod curtly and shut the door behind me. Today was session three with my newest subject, and I admit, I haven’t been this excited to see a patient in a long time.
“So, how was your day today?” I ask, with a ledger and pen in hand.
Eleanor has her legs bent at the knee, back resting against the couch's armrest, a pillow tucked behind it. Her shoes are off, after she insisted on not scuffing my leather. “It was…” She pivots her head in my direction. “… like it used to be.”
“What do you mean by that?” Return to normalcy seems a bit advanced for the few sessions we’ve had. I’m curious about the implications it will have on my theory. Death is not my ultimate goal, but I confess: I feel a whole lot better when blood is spilled, metaphorically speaking, of course. Not all of them spill blood.
“Kace kissed me again.”
“Is that something not usual in your day?”
“It hasn’t been usual in three months. In the beginning, I didn’t have the strength to push him away, but over time, he stopped trying to kiss me.”
“You don’t seem bothered by the fact.”
“Because I didn’t want him to try … then.”
Then. Something has definitively changed between them. “Why is that?”
“Because it makes me softer, and happy.” She doesn’t allow me to follow up. “I don’t want to be happy. It’s only been three months.”
“You’re allowed to continue to live without punishing yourself for surviving.”
She completely evades my comment, and I’m not even sure it registers in her mind. “We returned to the hospital.”
“Have you not been there since you left?”
“I haven’t, but Kace has. Sometimes work leads there, and he’s—it doesn’t affect him as much.” She looks away, no doubt ashamed by whatever thought just surfaced in her head.
“What did you just think?”
She grabs one of the small pillows and tucks it tight against her. “Something stupid.”
“No stupid thoughts here,” I urge her to continue.
She blows the air out of her puffed cheeks. “I love him, but I resent him for being able to keep it together.”
“You’re still standing.” I pause and smile. “Well, sitting at the moment, but I wouldn’t underestimate your own strength.”
“I’m a mess. I’m lost. There are so many emotions; I can’t even breathe without one escaping.” She returns a sad smile with a quick glance in my direction and sighs. “It’s not strength.”
“Oh?”
“It’s determination, and if he finds out what I’m doing, he’s going to hate me forever.” A fact she has voiced multiple times.
“Is ‘what you’re doing’ worth his eternal hate?” Though I don’t believe in unmeasurable times, my patients seem to think once an emotion hits, it lasts forever, so I play along. “Is it so unforgivable?”
She shrugs and lowers her lids to stare at the coffee table, lowering her gaze away from me and hiding the effect of her thoughts. “It depends on the day.”
“For this session, let’s talk about today, at this moment.”
She exhales and softly answers, “Today, it doesn’t feel worth it. Today … I want to love myself, just a little.”
“Love yourself or love your fiancé?”
“It doesn’t matter because love isn’t enough to sway what I’m determined to do. I want to find the person who did this and kill them.”
Again, repeating what she already said. “Kill them in the literal sense?”
She drops the pillow and turns cold eyes on me. “Like put a bullet through their brain and end their fucking life, kind of kill them.” She sits up and readjusts into a fleeing position. Her feet are firmly planted on the ground, toes pointed toward the door, and her legs are slightly spread, ready to take off. “Are you going to put that in your report?”
I drop my pen down on my lap and angle my shoulders toward her. “Do you feel as if I shouldn’t put it on the record? Because it’s evidence?”
“I don’t care if you testify against me after I shoot the fucker, but only after I …”
In my experience, when people often revolve back to the same fragments of thought, it means they are working on coming to terms with their completion. “After what exactly?”
She smashes her lips together and looks out the window.
Okay, she doesn’t want to divulge her plan just yet. I can respect that. I have ways around it. “Tell me about your childhood. What was it like?”
“Again?” She looks startled by my change in subject but willingly refers to her memories for a report. “It was normal. Mom and Dad, family vacations for Christmas and the summer, dinners every night at six, church on Sundays. They were ritual with family things.” She smiles, fondly. “They still are.”
“Do you currently attend church?” I ask, picking up my pen.
“Not since the shooting.”
“Do you think it’s affected your belief in God?”
She leans back on the couch and stretches her legs out, once again making herself comfortable while she works through the question. “I don’t think so. I still believe.”
“Then why haven’t you gone to church?”
“Because I don’t think He’d welcome the thoughts I have.”
Ah, here we go. “Which thoughts?”
“Murder, suicide, revenge. Lying to Kace to try and…” Her hand flies up to her mouth and drops to her necklace as she continues, “I don’t feel comfortable walking into a holy place, knowing I’ve been plotting someone’s death. Not exactly ‘turn the cheek’ material.”
She’s aware of her slip, which means if I press and directly ask what she’s been plotting, she’ll shut down. I gently wade the waters around the topic. “Have you been to confession?”
“No,” she affirms adamantly. “I don’t want someone to talk me out of it.”
“Interesting,” I note a four for conscientious of right and wrong. “Would Kace talk you out of it?”
“More than likely. Sometimes words aren’t even necessary.”
“Did you have a partner when you worked at the precinct? You haven’t mentioned it.”
“No, I worked exclusively in the interrogation room or during investigations. Like I said before, being a behaviorist gave me a good set of skills. Micro-expressions and body language tell a lot about a person.”
“This is true.” I was not an expert, but it was apparent she had not been engaging in it for a while. She barely even looks people in the eye.
“Don’t you want to go back to work?”
She rolls her head to me and flinches the right side of her face. “I don’t know how good I’d be.”
“Why? You�
�ve had six years of training, plus or minus some undergrad work. I would think that would make you pretty good at what you do.”
She shakes her head and purses her lips. “We questioned someone the other day, and I messed up.”
“Messed up how?”
“Because I got the feeling he lied about something, but I didn’t know what. Turns out he was dealing drugs, or delivering them, probably for the same guy who killed my baby.”
“I thought the shooter was never found.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence to be undercover at the Pregnancy Center one hour, and then shot a couple hours later. The distributor, disguised as a medical doctor, has something to do with it. I know it in my gut.”
“Did you ever interview him and use your skills?”
“No. Since the shooting, I’m not focused. Like with this kid from the hotel, I got distracted by his hand movements, and I was looking for truths instead of lies, so I let myself get caught up in the narrative of the story. It was the worst interview I’ve ever conducted.”
“What did Kace say?” I record a one for job function, giving she’s currently on unpaid leave and only working on a case due to courtesy.
“He didn’t even notice.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I glance at the number I had jotted down for social score. Two.
She sighs and shuts her eyes. “I’m already fucking up on everything else. I don’t want to fuck up on doing my job too.”
“Do you think Kace would think less of you, or it would affect your relationship if you were not good at your job?”
“We met with me doing my job. The reason why we talk is because we have something in common now. It’s easier to talk about couriers and dead people, then it is to talk about the real shit between us, but he manages to squeeze it in all the time, catching me off guard.”
And it all comes full circle. I had given Kace his own homework assignment: to keep her talking, but not to push too hard if she shut down. He had been afraid of her self-imposed isolation and how dark it got in her head. He worried for her life while he was at work. “You’re afraid he’ll discover you’re contemplating murder and talk you out of it?”
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 139
