The very next morning my new life lessons begin: I’m no longer alone. There is no privacy in a building filled with the Walker clan. The slayer is no more. And I’m falling in love with Jacob.
Jacob and I are barely out of bed when the doorbell rings, and keeps ringing. Soon we have a living room filled with Adam, Blake, Kara, Asher and Sierra, all around the living room television watching the news with us, and talking about the billionaire baby killer as well as, the slayer, Rodriquez. At some point, I am aware that my hair is standing on end, I have on no makeup, well at least not on the parts of my face that it should be, and not one of them seems to notice. I forget makeup when my phone becomes community property and begins being passed around the room, as each person adds their favorite list of Walker numbers. I receive it back just in time to accept my father’s incoming call.
“Hey Dad,” I say, walking up the stairs to grab some privacy. “How’s the merger?”
“Hell, I tell you, honey, but that Blake Walker is a real asset. He’s going to get us to the other side of what looks like a hack but that isn’t important. You are. I talked to Royce. He said you guys found the note writer and all threats are neutralized.”
“Yes,” I say, not about to express any doubt about the threats, not to him, at least. “The note writer is neutralized. All is well. When will you be home?”
“Two weeks, at least. I’m going to stay and just get this merger done from here. I’m actually looking at a villa I might buy here in Italy. I’m thinking I might just buy it for you.”
“Don’t buy it for me.”
“It gives you a getaway from the badge for a while. I’ll buy it. You think about it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I agree, when we both know I’m not going to Italy. I have a job to do. And I have Jacob, but I’m not ready to tell him that the man he hired to protect me is now the man I’m falling in love with. That thought sideswipes me and stays with me until the moment I hang up, and find Jacob standing in the doorway, looking as big and addictively handsome as ever.
Looking like the man I really am falling in love with.
“Maybe we should move to your apartment,” he says, walking to the bed to sit down next to me. “The Walker clan won’t follow us there. Most likely. They might. Fuck. They probably will.”.
I laugh and the next thing I know he’s carrying me to the shower. “What about all the people downstairs?” I ask, as he strips away my shirt and then his.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll take a hint and leave.” He kisses me and it’s not long before we’re in the shower. It’s a long time though when I’m finally dressed, and so is he, and we head downstairs to find everyone gone but Adam, who’s asleep on the couch. We leave him there and head to the DA’s office.
By that evening, the same crowd joins us to curse at the TV as the rich billionaire CEO Bruce Norton and his scumbag attorney Davis York hold a press conference, vowing to find the monster that killed his wife and child. It appears the victims’ family will have to endure a trial.
Over the course of the next few days, I move many of my things to Jacob’s place, and despite leaving my furniture behind, an army of the Walker clan help with the haul. It’s on moving day, that I meet Luke Walker, the middle Walker brother and his wife Julie, as well as Royce’s very pregnant, very sweet wife, Lauren.
Two weeks pass quickly. Two weeks that change my life. Two weeks in which Jacob and I create routines. We run together. We hit the gym together. Jacob even cooks healthy food for me while I shove cookies at him. At one point, over drinks that become more drinks, he tells me about his sister. About her dying in a car accident, while her abusive boyfriend was driving. This only two weeks after she’d left him a desperate message for help, that he didn’t even get until after she was dead.
The next day, despite too much drinking, we start working a cold case together and in a matter of days, we solve a murder. Our success has my boss declaring me off rotation for good, calling me a part of a “special task force” that is me and the Walker clan. Two weeks and I am no longer falling in love with Jacob. I’m in love. And I have almost forgotten the slayer ever existed. Until the nightmare. One morning I wake up shouting at the man in the trench coat, but the adrenaline of waking up that way fades into Jacob’s kiss, and his warm body.
But it still doesn’t feel like we’ve had the right ending. I know Jacob feels it. Sometimes I see it in his eyes. I always feel it in his touch. Rodriquez won. We’re mind fucked.
It’s day fourteen since the bodies were found when my father decides that he’s staying in Italy for another week. It’s also day fourteen when I get the news that the lab results are damning for the CEO billionaire Bruce Norton. He’s going down for murder and the Walkers pop champagne with me. It’s day fifteen when Norton agrees to a plea deal. And on day sixteen, Jacob joins me in court for the plea deal to be made final. I leave my jeans on the hanger and wear a black pantsuit and heels, while Jacob chooses black dress pants and a Walker Security T-shirt. We arrive at the courthouse to the chaos of press and picketers everywhere. “Holy mother,” Jacob murmurs, leading me through the crowd, and earning my laughter. More and more, he isn’t a robot, or the Tin Man. He’s human and all hot, hard man.
Once we’re inside the courtroom, we sit behind the DA’s table and Evelyn is back in her lead spot as the woman who will take down Bruce Norton, and looking like a brunette babe as she does it. I love it and when Norton enters the courtroom, followed by Davis York, she turns around and uses sign language to say “I love you” to me. I return the love, all so readily and with that “I love you” still formed on my hand, Jacob closes his around mine, and looks at me. In the midst of the crazy courtroom, we have a moment, when no one else is there, when there is just two people, falling into each other, that only ends when the judge enters the room.
The proceedings are quick. Norton will do life, with a chance for parole in twenty years, which we all know he won’t get. The family cries. The bystanders cheer. The crowd starts to disperse when Evelyn motions me forward. “The family wants a word with you,” she says. “They just want to thank you. I have a private room.”
“Of course,” I say, quickly giving Jacob an update, before kissing him and following Evelyn toward the back room.
“My God,” Evelyn whispers as we exit through the side of the courtroom into a private hallway. “Who’s the hot guy you just kissed? And can I have him next?”
“No,” I say. “You may not have him. I’m keeping him.”
“Really?” she says, casting me an interested look. “Well now, there is a story I want to hear. We need to have drinks and celebrate your hot man and our victory.” We stop at a doorway, and she sobers. “Be ready to cry.”
I inhale and enter the room, and it’s not long before a family of four—a mother and father as well as two siblings—take me on an emotional journey that feels so very personal. I know what they are living. I know what they feel. It’s almost an hour later when I leave them with Evelyn. I hurry down a hallway and suddenly someone runs right into me. I jolt and pull back to find Davis York standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Detective Carpenter. You okay there?”
“I’m fine,” I say, stepping back from him, forcing his hands away.
“Good to hear it,” he says, shoving his jacket back to rest his hands on his hips. “But then it’s not a surprise. You must be very happy right now.”
“Happy isn’t a word I use when murder is involved.”
“Pleased then with the outcome.”
“I am,” I say, and I can’t help myself. I add, “You must be defeated.”
His lips quirk. “Defeated. You enjoyed that word in that sentence, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “You defended a monster.”
“With good reason. Have coffee with me and I’ll explain.”
“No. I don’t want to have coffee with you.”
“Okay then. No coffee.” His lips quirk again, amusement in his eyes. “Have a good day.” He starts to step around me and stops. “By the way. I don’t lose. Whatever the outcome, I always know it’s coming and why. Consider this one a gift.” This time, he steps around me and exits a side door. I swallow hard with the unease rushing through me. A gift. That’s what the note from Rodriquez had said giving me the location of the bodies. A gift. He just used those words. He knows this case. He thinks he’s so above the law, that he can taunt me and I can’t prove anything.
I pant out a breath and start walking, pushing through a door and entering the hallway. I dial Jacob. “Where are you?”
“Coffee shop by the door, what’s wrong?”
“Meet me at the hotdog stand at the bottom of the front steps.” I hang up and I swear I feel him now. I feel Davis York watching me.
I exit the courthouse and quickly travel down the stairs, and the minute I spy Jacob, I calm a degree. The minute I stand in front of him, his hands are on my arms, in the exact spots Davis York’s had been. “What happened?” Jacob asks. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I was right. Rodriquez wasn’t the slayer. That wasn’t the right ending. Davis York is the slayer.”