by Nicole Casey
“Jordan,” I gasped. “What are you—” She whispered something below her breath that I couldn’t hear at all. “What?”
Suddenly, she was like a bull and I was a bright red muleta. She shoved me in my chest with all of the force in her body, and I stumbled backwards, only because it caught me more off guard, than it was forceful beyond what I could handle. She attempted to push me again, but I steeled myself in my position and her shove was bereft of any effect. I gripped her wrists and pulled her close enough that I could attempt to wrap my arms around her, but she failed her body and yanked herself free of me.
“How could you do this?” she screamed at me.
“What?” I replied. “What are you talking about? Just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, you monster!” She shoved the paper in her hand into my chest, and I grabbed it. “How could you do that?”
I pulled the picture up so I could look at it and all at once I felt like a game of Jenna tumbling down after someone pulled the one piece still holding everything together. In my hands was a photo of Eva, in the position in which she’d died, with me standing, plain as day, in the picture with Eva’s blood on my hands. How had she gotten ahold of the photo? What did she know? Who had managed to find me? Why were they targeting Jordan?
“I can explain,” I started as softly as I could; I didn’t want Trey to overhear. “Please just give me a minute.”
“A minute,” Jordan exclaimed. “I’m disgusted with the time I’ve given you already. I can’t believe I was such an idiot. Is this your game? You find stupid, caring, blond-haired, blue eyed women and lure them into a false sense of security and then kill them? You were always the most quiet and observant. I thought it was because you were just the mature and relaxed one, but it’s because you didn’t want me to catch on to your plan!”
“I would never, ever hurt you,” I started, taking a step towards Jordan, but the instant I did, she pulled out a taser and set it straight for me. I held up my hands and backed a few feet away. “Jordan.”
“Stay away from me.” Jordan started to sob once again. “I can’t believe I actually started to fall in love with you.”
“Jordan please,” I begged.
I could feel frustration building in my body. My mind went careening back to when I was still in Florida. No one there believed me either. I fought for myself, I proved that Eva was depressed and wanted to end her own life. I supplied the suicide note she’d left for Trey and had it verified as her handwriting. I showed the prescription medication that she got from the doctor without my knowing, and proved using the toxic screening that it was that she had ingested en masse and overdosed. The blood on my hands was from a nosebleed that had been caused by the OD, I had solid, viable explanations for everything they threw at me. But all people saw was that I had the clout to cover up a murder, and that Eva’s brother Nathan was on a war path to have me convicted, and believed that I’d killed her. I never would have hurt her. I loved her with all my heart.
The same way I love Jordan.
“I promise you, I can explain everything. Please, you have to believe me, I never would have done—”
“Shut up!” Jordan screeched. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you, you murderer.”
All of the anger and frustration in my body boiled over. I turned and threw my fist at the wall. It pressed through the drywall, leaving a huge hole in its way, and making it look like I put more force into the punch than I really did. I whipped my head back towards Jordan, prepared to continue to defend myself, but Jordan’s face was no longer angry, but sheet white with fear. I realized in a flash how my outburst didn’t help my case, and it broke my heart to see someone I cared about so much look at me with so much terror in her eyes.
I tried to make my body as least menacing as I could make it. “I’m sorry, I was upset, but I would never hurt you.”
“You’re a liar. That was supposed to be me.” Jordan held out the taser towards me with an aggressive shake in her hand. “Stay away from me. I have copies of that picture and others. If you come after me, I’ll call the police.” She didn’t wait for me to say anything else. She backed away from me as quickly as she could, and once she was through the door frame, she turned and raced to her car where she got in and sped off.
I backed against the wall next to the hole I made and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I dropped my face to my hands and could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. It felt like I couldn’t get breath to my lungs, and my chest was starting to burn. My eyes were watering and my head was spinning. How had my past followed me? I’d taken every precaution to start a new life; to ensure I wouldn’t hurt anyone else that I loved. How? My vision started to wane as I continued taking in the short shallow breaths. I started to shake and knew that I’d be passing out any second.
“Daddy?” The tiny voice snapped me to reality like a rubber band against my skin. I looked up and Trey was standing in the hallway with tears in his eyes. “I’m scared. I heard yelling.”
“I’m sorry,” I responded to him, holding out my arms. “Everything is okay.”
Trey didn’t hesitate. He walked towards me and threw the weight of his body into my embrace. Everything that had happened washed away and I was left with a simple reminder of why I made every choice I’d made. My son. He held on tight and rubbed my back, somehow a stronger person than I ever was.
“It’s okay, daddy. Don’t be sad,” he said.
“Thank you, buddy,” I responded. “I’ll be okay.”
I said the words, but the sentiment was totally vapid. I was putting everything I had into consoling my son, when I had no idea at all how to console myself. Rubbing Trey’s back, he fell asleep and I stood up from the floor, taking him with me. I carried him to his bedroom and put him back to bed, and then called the guys and asked them to meet me at my home. I’d spent too many years running away from my past, and now that this had happened, it was finally time to face it head on and fix it.
19
Oliver
Working the midnight shift was my least favorite thing in the world. For some reason, in Dallas, criminals preferred the day time hours. Where I was at in my career, I wasn’t chasing around the petty thief or train gropers anymore. When I worked the late shift, I was supposed to research any cases I had open, listen for any huge emergencies, and most boring of all, get caught up on paperwork. I’d much rather be with Tyler or Jordan. I had better things (and people) I could be doing.
My phone rang in my pocket and I sighed, feeling like I may get a modicum of entertainment during my shift, and pulled it out. I noticed that it was Harrison, and became immediately suspicious. Why would he be calling me so late?
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey,” Harrison greeted, “I’ve got bad news.” His voice was shaky and low; he sounded like he was panicking.
“Okay?” I responded. “What’s wrong?”
Harrison was always a bit of a wild card. Unbeknownst to any of the other guys in the group, Harrison and I had a floss-thin thread tying us together. One day, not long after Ethan conceptualized putting together a club, of sorts, for he, Lowe, Rogan, and I to bond together as single fathers, the captain of my department showed up with Harrison in tow. He brought him to me and introduced us, telling us that we had being single parents in common, and he was hoping I could look after Harrison as a personal favor to him. It seemed very odd to me, and despite the fact that everyone assumed I was your run-of-the-mill meathead, I was quite observant and intelligent. My boss wouldn’t delineate any additional information about Harrison to me, not even tell me where he was from. Harrison had only personally told us that he was from the midwest and had lived in the south as well. We knew nothing of his recent past and only got details about his childhood when really pressed, and even those details were vague. He’d mentioned in passing that Trey’s mother was no longer in the picture, but never if it was a divorce, or separation, or one-night-stand gone
wrong. We knew very little about him.
“Can you come to my place? I have the other guys on the way over, apart from Ethan who is going to watch the kids,” Harrison explained. “You know how you always thought there was something I wasn’t telling you? You were right.”
“I fucking knew it!” I barked, and the other few cops hanging around the squad room stopped what they were doing and looked at me. “What is it?” I asked, quieter.
“I’ll explain everything when you get here. It’s an emergency, so please find any excuse you can think of and come now.” The resonance in Harrison’s voice was frightening. “We may have lost Jordan.”
My heart thudded. What the hell did that mean? What happened to Jordan?
“I’m on my way.” If it was about Jordan, there wasn’t a moment to waste. I hung up my phone and looked over at my captain attempting to slurp a cup of coffee for energy, but mostly failing and dozing off. I grabbed my phone, keys, and wallet and approached him. “Captain.”
He sat up, snorted, and rubbed his eyes. “Hunt. What’s up?”
I decided to roll the dice and play on the odd circumstance with Harrison and the fact that my captain knew more than he let me know. “You remember Harrison.”
He sat up a little straighter. “Yes. How are you two getting on?”
“Great. We’re pretty close these days; one of the five guys I hang out with, and we all support each other as single fathers,” I explained.
The captain sat back a little bit. “Oh, good. So everything’s okay?”
I tilted my head. “Well, he just called me and told me that he’s pretty sick and needs someone to take care of his kid. None of the other guys are available because it’s so late, and he’s hoping I can go and help out.” I raised an eyebrow. “He’s never been sick since we met. I don’t really know much about him at all still, do you?”
The captain was quiet for a really long time, and then he looked up at me. “If he’s sick and his kid needs you, you should go help.” He waved his hand off, not answering the latter of my questions. “Go. It’s not like there’s much going on here anyway.”
I didn’t mind that he didn’t give me an answer to my curiosity. It was mostly a diversion tactic anyway. “Thanks, Cap. I’ll see you later.”
“See ya,” he said.
I quickly left the department and made my way to Harrison’s house where I could see most of the other guys’ vehicles were parked out front, excluding Ethan’s. I let myself inside, and everyone was sitting in the den, each working on their own drink of choice. I noticed, to the right of the door, there was a huge, gaping hole in the drywall. I entered the den and everyone had a tension hanging about them.
“Hey, what the hell happened here?” I said.
Harrison walked over to me, and shoved a glass of scotch into my hands. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Please find a spot to sit and I’ll explain now that we’re all here.”
I did as I was told, picking a spot on one of the couches next to Cade, and knocked back my entire glass. Harrison stood in the entryway to the den where we could all see him.
“Well, I guess I’ll just start,” Harrison said. “First of all, I must apologize. I haven’t been totally honest with you all, and I feel horrible, because you’ve all been open books to me. You’ve shared parts of your lives with me that were very personal and intimate, and I fear that most of what I’ve told you about myself and my son has been vague at best.”
“What’s going on, Harrison?” Lowe asked.
“Well, that’s the first, and probably most important thing.” He took a deep breath. “My name is not Harrison.”
The room became eerily still and silent. No one moved, no one drank, no one breathed.
“Uh,” I said, raising my hand. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Harrison, or at least the man I would continue to know as Harrison despite new information, bowed his head. “My name is Adam Rowland. I was born in Denver, Massachusetts, and lived most recently in Florida before I came here. My son’s name is Trey, though Trey Rowland, not Trey Rowe, and he is six, but his birthday is in August, not May as we have previously celebrated.”
“Why are you just now telling us this?” Rogan asked. “And what does it have to do with losing Jordan?”
“My ex-wife was a beautiful woman by the name of Eva,” Harrison continued. “I was a navy seal and an F.B.I. agent and spent many hours away from home. As a result, she developed severe depression and social anxiety and took her own life by way of drug overdose. I came home to find her dead on our bed, and before I could call the police and report it, her brother, a man who always hated me, found me and began to make claims that I had killed her.”
“Good god,” Cade commented.
“I hired the best lawyers I could, presented all the evidence that was insurmountable and proved beyond a doubt that her death was self-inflicted. I was found innocent of her death by a jury of my peers, and I believed that would be it, but Eva’s brother continued to accuse me of the crime. The community leaned more towards him and made my life a living hell, claiming I’d gotten away with murder, and things started to get really awful for Trey and I. Eventually, I had to travel a route akin to the witness protection program, taking on a new persona and moving to a new city, just to keep us safe. Your boss was designated to see to it that I was merged into the community safely,” he said, looking at me.
He took a deep breath and I noticed his eyes glance towards the hole in the wall outside the den. “But, it would seem I didn’t escape my past as much as I believed I had. We’ve been here five years successfully, but today someone delivered an anonymous package to Jordan containing pictures of me standing over Eva’s dead body. She believes I committed that murder as well. She left and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her since.”
I sat staring at Harrison, or Adam. It was a lot of information that I felt like should have been communicated to us much sooner, but I could tell he was telling the truth. A man can lie about his name, age, childhood, and past, but he cannot truly hide who he is. I’d spent enough time with Harrison to know exactly what the man was about; we’d been naked in the same room for god’s sake. He wasn’t the kind of man that would hurt anyone, and looking at the pain in his face, I could see that he had been haunted by the notion that anyone would think he would, most of all Jordan.
He looked at me. “I need you to go to her place and check on her. She wasn’t in a good place when she left, and I’m concerned for her. She won’t answer my calls, and given the circumstances, I can’t blame her.”
“And that?” Cade interjected, motioning towards the wall.
“She kept calling me all the same, horrible things the people back in Florida would call me, and I lost my cool a little bit. I honestly think it was a bout of PTSD. I punched the wall to just let some of my frustration out, but it freaked Jordan out, and she ran,” Harrison said. “I hate myself for it. That I caused her any fear.” He dropped his head. “I doubt I’ll ever forgive myself.”
I stood up. “Just, relax. I’ll go to her apartment, I’m sure she’s there, and I will explain everything.” I put a hand on Harrison’s shoulder. “We believe you, right?”
The guys all nodded and agreed immediately.
“He couldn’t hurt a fly,” Lowe said.
“Well, maybe just a fly,” Rogan added.
“He’s bad in bed,” Cade said in a high-pitched voice, under his breath as though it wasn’t him.
Harrison cracked the first smile he had since we all arrived. He set a hand on top of mine. “Thank you.”
“I’ll check Jordan’s place and then call Ethan and get him up to speed,” I said. “You need to go back to sleep, you look dead,” I told Harrison. “You three, go home. We’ll reconvene tomorrow, and I’m sure everything will be fine.”
I wasn’t as certain as I sounded, but there was a need for leadership for the moment, and with Ethan not there and Harrison a wreck, it seemed the task had fall
en to me. We dispersed and I immediately made my way to Jordan’s apartment. I used my copy of her apartment key and let myself in.
“Jordan?” I walked through her apartment, making a mental note to immediately start trying to upgrade her hodge-podge furniture any chance a birthday or holiday would allow. Christmas was on the horizon and seeing her place made me want to just get her a whole new apartment. “Jordan?”
It wasn’t a large place, and it became evident fairly quickly that she wasn’t there. Between the travel to Harrison’s, having a conversation with him, and remobilizing, the sun was peeking out into the sky, and morning was upon me. I could see that some of the items in the apartment had been rather hastily handled, and I came across the pictures of Harrison that had been sent to Jordan anonymously. I took out a pair of latex gloves I always had on me just in case, and I pocketed the envelope that had Jordan’s address written on the front, and the pictures. Whether from the sample of the handwriting or fingerprints on the pictures, there had to be a way to determine who sent her the items. I took one final glance around the apartment and then made my way out. She clearly wasn’t there, and we were probably going to have to dip into our bag of resources to find out where she was.
“Are you a friend of Jordan’s?” I looked over my shoulder, and there was a young woman with a backpack locking the door to her own apartment.
“Yeah,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
“I heard her fumbling around really early this morning, and when I came to check on her, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. I asked if everything was okay, and she said she was just really stressed out and had to get out of town. She packed a bag in about three minutes while I was standing there, asked me to keep an eye on her place, and left,” the woman explained. “It was really weird. Is everything okay?”
