I don’t remember walking out. One second I’m standing in that office, the words still echoing in the air. The next I’m back in the bullpen, the noise crashing into me like a wave.
Stay away from her.
It loops in my head, steady and relentless. Because he’s right. And that’s the problem.
But there’s Liv, still bouncing around in my head too. When I stood in her doorway the first time I’d worried that my presence would put ill-intending eyes on her, so I told her this was a bad idea. And then she was there on that dance floor, looking like she didn’t belong but was holding herself together anyway. And her running toward a wreck on the side of the highway without hesitation.
She doesn’t belong in this. And I keep pulling her into it. The realization settles heavy, like something locking into place whether I want it to or not.
“Everything good?” Mason asks, quieter this time.
I look at him, and for a second I consider telling him the truth. But I don’t; I can’t. “Yeah.”
It’s a lie and he knows it but doesn’t call me on it.
“ME’s pushing for a full tox panel,” he says instead, letting us change the topic. “If it comes back confirmed, we’re looking at someone with access. That changes things.”
I nod. “Then we adjust.”
Because that’s what I do, I adjust. I refocus. I cut out anything that compromises the objective.
That night, as much as I want to, I don’t go to her apartment. I don’t text or call either.
Instead, I sit on the edge of my bed, my phone in my hand, her name on the screen, and I stare at it long enough for the screen to dim.
All it would take is one message. One.
You okay?
Simple and harmless. But that’s a lie because nothing about this is harmless anymore.
I can still feel her in my arms, the memory of it too vivid. The way she’d looked at me when she said this was a bad idea.
She was right. I should have listened. We both knew it but kept trying to ignore that truth.
My grip tightens around my phone. Stay away from her, not because I want to. Because I have to. Because the alternative-
The image hits before I can stop it. A body on a table, covered. A face that looks too much like hers. Still, empty, and gone.
I shut the thought down hard, forcing it out before it can take root.
No, that won’t happen. Not if I can help it. And the only way to make sure of that is distance. Even if it feels like I’m carving something out of my own chest to do it.
I set the phone down, and don’t pick it back up. And for the first time since I met her, I choose the case over her. Not because she matters less, but because she already matters too much.
Chapter 17
Liv
I don’t know how it got lost in the rig but it did. I also don’t know where the hell it came from. But it’s a receipt from a pharmacy that neither Scott nor I use. I’m worried it was dropped during the commotion while transporting one of the victims of the apartment fire.
And if that’s the case, then I need to make sure it gets to Alex. I could just text him… or I could drop by the precinct and hand deliver it myself in a paper evidence bag.
And since only one of those involves me getting to see him for the first time since the gala nearly a week ago.
The precinct smells different than I expected. More shitty coffee, less paper. A tinge of something metallic floats through the air that I can’t quite nail down but that I expect has something to do with guns and bullets.
The automatic doors slide shut behind me with a heavy clinching sound, and for a second, I just stand there like I’ve forgotten why I came here. Officers move through the space with purpose, some in uniform and some in plain clothes, all carrying that same tight energy I’ve learned to recognize from every time my job has intersected with theirs.
