I would have been fine having the justice system be something I’m glad about existing, while having no personal knowledge of or experience with it. Frankly, I could havegone my entire life without walking into a police station with a thumb drive beating like a tell-tale heart in my purse while, inexplicably, being terrified of them somehow thinking I could be a suspect after I tell them what happened from my perspective.
Sure, come in to give a statement and then stay, but with jewelry.
You know, handcuffs. Not in a fun way.
I have to swallow down the nervous giggle that wants to come out of me as the officer grunts a few times and then hangs up. He points to a few chairs against the wall, his voice suspicious, “If you wouldn’t mind having a seat, it will be just a few minutes.”
“Of course,” I breathe out the words, the weight of it all being almost too much to bear.
How I get my feet to carry me over to the chairs, I’ll never know. But the way my body slumps into one, like I have no more fight in me, is not graceful in the least. I practically curl in on myself, trying to find some sort of comfort in this fucked up situation.
Maybe I should have told Tal and Jensen where I was going. They would have tried to talk me out of it, of course. But now that I’m here, I am second guessing myself. I didn’t expect a red carpet to be rolled out for me or anything, but the longer I wait, the more uncomfortable I feel.
Is it possible they don’t need me since they have the recording? What can I even add? Nothing, that’s what.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have come here at all.
This was about my guilt over not doing more, over not being able to do more. Wishing you could jump through a phone and prevent something horrible from happening is meaningless. A woman is dead and there is no changing it now.
There was no changing it then. It all happened so fast. Cliché but true.
This is what you deserve, bitch.
I jerk slightly and fight the tears welling up in my eyes. I’m tired, so fucking tired. But every time I start to relax, his voice is there whispering through my mind.
Watching you die gives me pleasure.
“Hey, Gibbes,” a man says as he walks in through the door and my entire body goes on high alert. “I just wanted to come by and talk to the detective working my wife’s case.”
There’s a low buzzing sound as everything in me focuses on the voice. I know that voice. I heard that voice.
Just two days ago.
While I was taking a service call at work.
A call from Kendra Wagner.
“I just want to extend my condolences again, Geoff,” the officer at the desk’s voice is about as hangdog as you can get.
But I’m already moving. I don’t look up, my long hair swirling around my face as I turn and take measured steps toward the front door. The killer moves toward the officer at the desk, and I only hope I won’t witness another crime.
Wait. Did he say his wife?
Geoff? As in Geoffrey Wagner. Officer Wagner.
My hands are numb as I reach for the door. Which is when Officer Helpful adds, “The detectives should be on their way down. I called them about a witness who has come forward.”
The temperature of the room drops. I don’t look back, even though everything in me is screaming to see, to witness, to look.
“She’s right,” he pauses and then shouts after me, “hey!”
I hear another man’s shout; I’m sure it is Officer Geoffrey Wagner.
Police officer.
Husband, even if he was going to be an ex.
