Chapter 17
Dean
Once inside the car, I realized what I had done. I told her to leave. I told her to leave, and I didn’t look back, just left her sitting on the bed wrapped in blankets with a look of utter horror on her face. The last I saw of her were her lips turned down at the corners and tears welling in her eyes. What if that was truly the last time I did ever see her? The last thing I said to her was to get away from me as fast as she could.
I deserved to rot in hell.
I started the engine and yanked the heater on. Liv would never forgive me, and honestly, she shouldn’t. I was an asshole. I could have handled it much better, but I didn’t see anything but red. I didn’t want to leave her. And I wanted her to stay here, but I wasn’t right for her. I wasn’t enough for her. What would she be staying for? I didn’t want her to uproot her life in Vermont to come back here where all she’d be doing was waiting for me to come home or watching me leave at all hours of the night. It’s not as if she had a family to turn to, her mother was a lost cause.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed for Katherine Meyers’ office in downtown Brooklyn, my jaw locked tight.
“What did I seriously offer her back there? My dick?” I grumbled, angrily with myself. Where the hell would that have left us?
The streets were packed and traffic was heavy. Sanitation trucks clogged the streets, salting in preparation for an oncoming storm. After twenty minutes of standstill congestion on the Belt Parkway, the skies darkened and snow started fluttering down in soft circular spirals. Outside the windshield, the world looked beautiful, juxtaposing with the violent rage that boiled in my veins. I wanted everything to be less complicated. I wanted Thomas to be here. I wanted Liv to—I didn’t even know. I wanted her to be with me. I wanted her to stay.
But it didn’t matter want I wanted. All that mattered was what was best for Liv. And it wasn’t me.
Finding Katherine Meyers’ office wasn’t a difficult task; my GPS grated out every direction until I was parked in front of a nondescript building surrounded by a small farmers’ market and warehouses. When I climbed out of the car, there was a fine dusting of snow on the ground. I tracked footprints up to the front door and made my way inside. The building was small, a little waiting area with wooden chairs along the wall, and a guard sitting behind a desk next to an extremely wilted potted plant. I showed him my identification, and he pointed me in the right direction.
Five minutes, three floors down, and five hallways later I decided the building was much bigger than I first anticipated. Sergeant Katherine Meyers stood by the door waiting for me. She was dressed in plain clothes, long beautiful red hair pulled back in a tight pony tail and stunningly gorgeous. Young. Sexy. Thomas’ exact type. My stomach dropped.
“Detective Fury?” she asked through tight lips.
“Yes. Sergeant Meyers, I presume?” I took her outstretched hand and shook it. “I really appreciate you meeting with me.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t Detective, but something was brought to my attention this morning that made me think otherwise. Please, follow me into my office,” she said, gesturing for me to walk inside. The office was minuscule, and brightly lit. Plants with long vines that trailed to the floor were suspended haphazardly around the room. A cluttered desk took up most of the space, with half an eaten breakfast topping a stack of folders and papers. A strong dank smile of tuna hung thickly in the air.This woman was a hot mess.
She moved inside after me, tapping an old metal folding chair. “Please have a seat,” she murmured, then climbed around the disaster that was her desk and plopped down nosily on her seat. “So, Detective… before I begin, why don’t you tell me what can I help you with?”
“What kind of relationship did you have with Thomas?” I blurted out, not able to control myself.
“The professional kind, Detective,” she said, glaring at me with a pair of icy blue eyes.
“How did you know him, exactly?”
Her face tightened as she continued on a sigh, “I’m a volunteer for POPPA. Are you familiar with the organization?”
Of course I was. It was thePolice Organization Providing Peer Assistance. I nodded, stunned. It was the equivalent to a suicide hotline.
She blinked slowly, “So you understand that I would not be able to tell you anything about what Thomas and I spoke about.”
“I’m sorry, can you explain? Are you saying that he spoke on the phone with you…through a suicide prevention hotline?”
She dropped her head in her hands and sighed. “The volunteers there help assist officers in coping effectively with the stresses they feel in their lives. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, martial problems, substance abuse, and yes Detective Fury, at various times, suicidal thoughts.”
My head lifted toward the ceiling where I stared at the crack running through the peeling plaster.He’d been talking to her for months. “The…the brass at the job think he was in trouble at work. His wife had his phone and saw all the times he called you—she thought the worst—about their marriage.” I explained.
Her eyes softened, as did all her features. “I’m sure that was hard. Look, Detective Fury. I wish I could help you more, but I can’t. I can’t speak to you about any of our conversations. However,” she said quickly, reaching into a big black bag. “I received this in the mail last night. That’s when I decided to call you this morning.” She stood, and handed me a large yellow envelope. I rose and reached out my hand, clasping the thick pouch. “Before he died, he must have written letters to few chosen people.”
My fist crunched into the package.
“I hope you find the answers you’re looking for inside. Thomas was a good man, a great officer, and complete gentlemen—one who loved his wife immensely.”
I nodded stunned.
She reached across the desk and gave my hand a squeeze; it was still outstretched, gripping hard around the letters.
I walked out of the office slowly, a heavy numbness tingling through my limbs. My lungs tightened and pinched in my chest, making it hard to inhale enough air. Instantly, the inside of the building became a bit too claustrophobic for me, and I jogged up the stairs, desperate for the sunlight I’d remembered from earlier that morning.
