by Cade Brogan
As she neared the top of the stairs, she noticed that their bedroom door was ajar, their bathroom nightlight glimmering in the hallway. She slipped in, finding Kenzie asleep, her breathing, slow and steady. She smiled, loving her more than anything, unable to imagine a life without her. Lucky the young guy was single, she thought, wondering how many were mourning the others. She had to get Kenzie to take Abby and leave town, just for a while, at least until the virus was contained, she just had to. But she wouldn’t go, not without her, not less than a month before their wedding, she just wouldn’t. And neither would her grandparents. They’d sit right there in their home, a home much like the one she lived in, resolved to hold their ground. Her grandma could be persuaded to hear the voice of reason, but not her grandpa. Not gonna let some virus scare me off, he’d say, turning up the volume on his oldies channel. And if he didn’t go, her grandma wouldn’t budge. She sighed, shaking her head slowly. And then there was her mom. God knows where she was. Probably under some bridge, or in some alley, or at some homeless shelter. What if she was there and just not on the list? It wouldn’t have surprised her if she’d checked in using a name other than her own, not if she was in the midst of a breakdown, because when she was off her meds, as was often the case, she trusted no one. Her stomach cartwheeled, afraid that maybe she’d been exposed. You should check on her, drive by her regular haunts, you know you should. But even if she managed to find her, she’d never get her to get into her vehicle, not unless the voices in her head told her to. She raked through her hair, pressing it back to her scalp. So many to protect from a monster that she barely understood.
Kenzie stirred, stretching, and making waking sounds. She yawned, looking at the bedside clock. “Did you just get home?”
“Yeah, not too long ago,” Rylee responded, unbuckling her holster, and securing her 9 mm semi-automatic. “Sorry I woke you. I was trying to be quiet.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Kenzie said. “I was sleeping lightly, always do until you get home.”
“Sorry about that too,” Rylee said, stepping out of her trousers.
“No need to be,” Kenzie responded, a thin smile gracing her mouth. “Like I’ve told you before, I’ve made my peace with you being a police officer, come to terms with that being what you love to do, with it being who you are.” She reached out, brushing Rylee’s boxers with her fingertips. “That, and I know the city needs more just like you.”
Rylee smiled, unbuttoning her shirt. “I love you, sweetheart.” She crawled into bed, pushing up, and hovering above her. “God, I love you,” she breathed, her voice cracking. “I love you so much.” She lowered down, pressing onto her, and kissing her with unrestrained passion. She was exhausted, due back in a few hours, but she needed her, needed all of her, tonight.
“Something’s wrong,” Kenzie said softly.
“Just the new case. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“If you’re worried, I’m worried,” Kenzie said, propping onto her elbow. “Please, talk to me.”
“I will,” Rylee promised, swallowing, “I will later.” Hopefully, by the time the brass lifted the gag order, she’d figure out what she was going to tell her, to tell Abby, without scaring them to death.
“If something’s bothering you,” Kenzie continued, “you’ll feel better if you talk to me.” She smiled thinly. “You know I’m a good sounding board.”
Rylee brushed her cheek, smiling back. “Yeah, you are, always have been.” Since they’d been in college, she’d always been the best listener, always helped her to think things through, and in the end, to work them out. “But it’ll wait,” she murmured, easing the strap of Kenzie’s nightgown aside, exposing the satin skin of her breast, planting soft kisses, teasing, and tasting her nipple.
Kenzie caught her breath, arousal dancing in her eyes. “Mmm, feels nice.” She squirmed, raising her nightgown, and opening.
“You’re beautiful,” Rylee murmured, kissing and caressing, aching to be inside her, to join with her, to have her fingers tremble in her sweet pool of liquid fire. It was the place, the one place where the world could spin off its axis without her, the one place where the killers could lay quietly in their file jackets, where her mind was at peace. She closed her eyes, pushing in, slowly and gently. “I love you.” She pulled out and pushed in again. “I love you so much.”
Kenzie moaned. “I love you too.”
*
Piper lifted her index finger, meeting Abby’s eye. “Shhh…”
Abby nodded, lifting one leg and then the other, crawling over the windowsill. She stood to the side waiting for Piper to join her and closed the window.
Holding hands, they tiptoed to the door.
“See. I told ya,” Piper said, winking. The scotch tape was secure—top, bottom, and sides.
Abby smiled. “Yes, you did.” They peeled it off, throwing the tiny wads into the trash can.
When the job was finished, Piper sat down on the edge of her bed. “Come here.”
Abby smiled, sitting beside her.
“So, what’d you think?” Piper asked. “Was it what you expected?”
“Not sure what we did exactly,” Abby answered, “what you did exactly, but I guess. I know I had fun anyway, going with you.” The truth was, most of what she’d thought about while they were out was that her mom was going to catch her doing what she shouldn’t be doing, that she’d figure out that they hadn’t gone bowling, that they’d gone somewhere else instead—and that she’d guess they’d had sex.
“Sorry, we couldn’t take you in,” Piper said, stroking her cheek with the back of her hand. She’d gone into the building with an older girl, the one in charge, leaving Abby to wait in the bushes.
Abby laid back, her arms above her head, inviting Piper to take the next step. “That’s okay,” she said flirtatiously. “You didn’t hear me complain, did you?”
“No, come to think of it, I didn’t,” Piper answered, playfully lifting her shirt to expose skin at the waistline. “I might be able to fix it, so you could join if you wanted to.” She played with Abby’s belt loop and zipper. “Unless you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Abby murmured, making strong eye contact. “I’m not scared of anything.”
*
Elizabeth had resisted the urge to go out, to seize the opportunity, having promised God that impulsivity would no longer be a problem. It had been her downfall before but wouldn’t be again. She’d paid her penance, paid it ten-fold, and had learned her lesson. She took a breath, remembering the exquisite pain of the whip, slicing her flesh. She exhaled, glancing at the nightstand—Three-thirty. She curled her lip. This late and she’ll think she needs to sleep. You may as well forget about finishing. She’d stayed awake, sleeping lightly off and on, waiting. When she was just about ready to give up, to roll over and fall soundly asleep, the soft click of the door closing captured her attention. “You’re late,” she said quietly.
“Sorry,” Claire responded, placing her holster on the dresser. She sighed, sitting down on the bed. “This case, I think it’s really bad, Liz.”
“It’s Elizabeth,” Elizabeth corrected.
“Yeah, whatever,” Claire said, yawning.
Elizabeth curled around her torso, allowing the moment of attitude to slip by unchecked. No one had ever gotten away with as much as she did. “Maybe you need to finish what you started,” she suggested, moving seductively under the sheet. “You know you always sleep like a baby afterward.”
Claire yawned. “I know, but I’m gonna be face-down in a couple of minutes. Pretty sure my performance would be disappointing.” She yawned again, massaging her neck. “Can I have a raincheck?”
“I don’t know, maybe you can, and maybe you can’t,” Elizabeth snapped, flipping over with enough force to shake the bed. “I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we?”
Claire sucked in a reviving breath, dropped her pants, and collected her handcuffs. “Better make your decision pretty damn fast bec
ause I don’t think you’re gonna want what I’ve got to give you. Don’t make me use cuffs.”
Elizabeth looked away. “I’m not in the mood, sorry.”
“You’ll think sorry,” Claire shot back, snapping one cuff on her wrist, and the other on the bedpost.
“What are you doing, Officer?” Elizabeth panted, her orgasm primed, and rising like lava from the belly of a volcano. “Stop! You’re hurting me. Please, oh please no, I beg you.”
Claire jerked, the cuffs pinching flesh. “Shut up and take it.”
Elizabeth squeezed her knees together, allowing them to be pried open.
“You take what I’ve got to give you,” Claire growled, pushing inside her, “and you take it without crying. You hear me?”
“I hear you… Ohhh…Ohhh…Ohhh, Officer Robbins…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kenzie glanced over her shoulder, turning a sizzling slice of bacon with a fork. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Rylee responded, padding in with a bewildered look on her face and Buckshot on her heel. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
“Nope,” Kenzie said, cracking four eggs into a skillet. “That’s because I shut it off.”
“I should’ve known,” Rylee responded, her slight smile transforming into a yawn. She kissed the back of her neck, her arms tightening around her in a loving hug. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” Kenzie responded. “Someone has to make sure that job of yours leaves a drop or two of blood.” She could say, even believe, that she’d come to terms with her being a police officer, but she hadn’t, and probably never would.
Rylee took a breath, releasing it without a sound. “What a breakfast,” she exclaimed, “eggs…hash browns…crispy bacon.” She leaned in, capturing the savory aroma. “Mmm, it smells wonderful. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to eat what I can on the run.”
“You can take time to sit down,” Kenzie responded in her no-nonsense tone. “That case, those cases, they’ll wait for you to chew and swallow.” She nodded toward their kitchen table, complete with two place settings, a copy of the Chicago Tribune, and a freshly picked bouquet of violets. “Sit. It’ll be ready in a minute or two.”
Rylee smiled, stirring sugar into her coffee. “Okay, okay, whatever you say, boss.” She glanced up the stairway. “As much as the kid loves bacon, I’m surprised that her nose doesn’t have her up and down here.”
“It would if she were home,” Kenzie responded, her lips flattening as she unintentionally broke a yolk. “But she’s not. Because I let her spend the night with Piper.”
Rylee looked up from the sports section, lifting an eyebrow. “Now that’s an unexpected development.”
“Don’t ask,” Kenzie responded, poking her tongue lightly into her cheek. “Because I have no idea how I let her talk me into it.”
“Teenage girls,” Rylee said, “they’re a force to contend with, aren’t they?”
Kenzie flipped one hash brown patty and then the other. “Yes, they are.”
“Hormones pumping,” Rylee continued, “experiencing first love, it’s bound to make ‘em a handful. But you raised Abby to be a good person, raised her to know right from wrong, and she’ll come through for you.”
Kenzie nodded, her facial muscles relaxing.
“You just watch,” Rylee added with a gentle smile, “she’ll come through and make you proud.”
“I’m already proud,” Kenzie responded, her tone softening, “I just wish she’d hang around with good girls, not girls like Piper.”
“I know,” Rylee said, “but a person can’t help who they fall for.”
“No, they can’t,” Kenzie said, her words dragging out. “I should be more patient with her.” She took a breath, smiling softly. “For so long,” she continued, “I did my best to parent her alone, knowing that I was falling short.” Abby’s dad hadn’t had much contact since she’d divorced him. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to have a partner, how much it helps to think things through with another person, one who loves your kid, and wants what’s best for them.”
“And you can’t imagine how good it feels to have the two of you in my life,” Rylee responded, kissing her tenderly. When Buckshot nosed her ankle, she surrendered her last bite of bacon and finished her coffee. Before she could get out the door, as was often the case, her phone rang out from her pocket. She answered, stepping away from the table. And the ground shifted. And the doomsday clock ticked. When the patrols had located the veteran’s car in the hospital parking garage, she and others had assumed that he’d driven both ways. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d taken a cab; a cab whose driver had brought him back to the hospital when he’d become ill; a cab whose driver was at some unknown location in the city, by now, most likely dead. Finding him would be like finding a needle in a haystack. And God knows how many people he’d come in contact with. She sucked in a breath, the familiar tape playing in her head—Two hours, that’s all it takes for a single contaminated hotspot to infect an entire office building. Touch a doorknob. Pour a cup of coffee. Break a five-dollar bill. Touch a public restroom push plate. Touch anything. It doesn’t matter what you touch; if you’re infected, you’ll expose people; who will, in turn, expose people; who will, in turn, expose more people. She stood, pulling herself together, before returning to the kitchen. “I need to get going,” she said, forcing a smile, and kissing Kenzie’s forehead. “Breakfast was great, baby.”
Kenzie’s eyes narrowed, studying her. “Is everything okay?” she asked, her tone soft like a light rain in the early morning.
“Yeah…Yeah, it’s fine.”
Kenzie walked her to the door, resting her cheek against her chest, and kissing her—knowing that it wasn’t. She knew her, knew her so damn well.
And driving toward the precinct, Rylee did what she knew would please her, what she’d promised to do more often, she prayed to God.
*
Rylee pulled her file on Joanna Grey, fear pinching the pit of her belly as she thumbed through it. The bitch was back, her battery all recharged, and ready for her next kill. She had nothing to base it on but nevertheless knew it. She’d checked the databases, over and over. She’d reexamined the evidence, searching for something new. She’d interviewed and re-interviewed witnesses, listening for added detail. She’d sought expert opinion upon expert opinion, wanting to understand her, to know her as well as she knew herself, desperately needing to predict her next move. She’d armed their home with a state-of-the-art security system, a system that took weeks to get used to. She’d paid off-duty officers to tail Kenzie until she’d put an end to it. What more could she do? She took a long breath, willing a brainstorm to whisk her to a breakthrough, knowing that she’d have little to no time to devote to Joanna Grey until the new monster was apprehended, or better yet, killed.
“Here you go,” Claire said, handing her a strong cup of joe. “Sugar’s in it.”
“Thanks,” Rylee answered, closing one file jacket, and opening another.
“Autopsy reports, not sure how much they’re gonna give us,” Claire commented, stepping around to look over her shoulder. “I mean, other than to confirm what we already know, that all the deceased died of the virus.”
“Even if that’s all we get,” Rylee responded, “we’ll know all there is to know about the doer’s weapon.” Wet behind the ears. So much I’m gonna have to teach you. She leaned back, steam rising as she sipped hot coffee. “That’s a lot, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Claire answered. “Never thought of it like that before.”
“You never want to rule anything out this early in a case,” Rylee continued, “because you can’t know in the beginning how all the pieces are gonna fit together. Once you dismiss one as useless, you’ll close your mind to it. And then later, after you’ve sifted through all there is to sift through, you won’t bother to revisit it.”
“And if there was something there,” Claire said, “
something that could’ve led you to the killer, you’d have missed it.”
Rylee nodded, smiling. “Yep, that’s it exactly.” She wondered if she’d done that with any evidence on the Grey case. She didn’t think so but decided to re-check the evidence locker when she had a spare moment.
“So, it didn’t make the news,” Claire said, her tone suggesting disappointment. “Thought maybe it would.” With experience, she’d learn that having a reporter sniffing her ass was not something that she should look forward to.
“It will. Give it time,” Rylee responded. “With as many as we interviewed and as many surveillance tapes as we watched, the chance that no one tips off a reporter is slim to none. It’s just a matter of which network gets the story.” She checked her phone. “Nothing yet, but I’ll bet before lunch.” She returned her attention to the file. “Hmmm, wonder if three means something.”
Clair furrowed her brow. “Three?”
“Yeah, the number targeted,” Rylee responded. “More died both times, but the doer couldn’t bank on that number, all he or she could know for sure was that three were gonna be exposed to the virus.” She couldn’t help but think of Rich when Claire opened her notebook to write it down. He’d always been the best note taker. Maybe she would be too. “Maybe an anniversary of some sort?” she supposed. “Maybe the doer lost someone or something. Or maybe the facilities were connected somehow.”
“Maybe it has to do with the Trinity,” Claire said, jotting that down as well. “Maybe the doer thinks that if he kills in threes, it’ll give him divine protection or something.”
“Could be,” Rylee said, nodding. She just might have potential.
