I shouldn’t have told him that. It was none of his business what kind of bad life choices I had made after I’d left Somerset. Just like it was none of mine what had happened that night he’d gotten himself locked up for a bar fight. But when he’d told me about his secret, it had just seemed right to do the same.

Sighing, I eyed him carefully. He stared out the windshield, focused on the road, and it took all my willpower not to stare at him. His jaw was so hard and his stubble begged for my fingers to touch it. To see if it was as crisp as I imagined. My fingers twitched in my lap, but instead of finding out, I picked up the file he’d set between us instead.

As I opened it, he spoke.

“Domestic violence call.”

My heart sank, and my palms started to sweat. Out of all the cases to get…

No. I could do this.

“The husband has a history of abuse, and no one has heard from the wife for three days. No show for work. No phone calls. No emails. Nothing.” Ben flexed his jaw, his grip on the steering wheel tight. “Her mother called it in, concerned he might have hurt her again.”

No one had known what Vinnie had done to me. He’d scared me into silence, and had threatened to take everything away from me if I opened my mouth. I’d believed him for too long.

Pushing my own thoughts aside, I frowned at the file. There were countless reports of abuse, and arrests. I glanced at the family profile, relieved to see there were no children in the home. “We don’t usually make house calls. Why this one?”

He didn’t bother to deny this was a special exception. “Captain is friends with the mother.”

“Ah.” I glanced at the name, recognizing it instantly. “Shit. Liz?”

He nodded, his jaw still tight.

I remembered Liz. She’d always been quiet, shy. Even back then, she’d cowered behind her football playing boyfriend, never speaking out of turn. Guess they’d stayed together, and gotten married. Too bad she hadn’t left town for college, and tried to find a guy who wouldn’t treat her horribly. “She married him?”

He nodded again.

I stared at the reports of abuse, feeling sick to my stomach. “She should’ve left town. Tried to find somewhere else where she wasn’t stuck standing behind him, keeping his shadow company.”

He looked at me slowly, his shades hiding his eyes. “Not everyone can just pack up their shit and go, Sarah. Sometimes, people stay. Sometimes they don’t have a choice. You’re lucky that you were able to leave your situation, but not everyone can.”

Tensing, I stared down at the file. This wasn’t about me. It was about a woman who may or may not be okay, all because of an asshole who didn’t know how to treat a woman right.

We were silent the rest of the ride.

After a few minutes, he pulled up to a one-story, brick home. Someone mowed the lawn recently. Pruned flowers filled the flowerbeds, and the porch held no clutter. Just some wicker furniture, a table, and a wind chime adorned it. Everything had been carefully arranged, pristine. Too pristine.

Ben frowned. “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling.”

I swallowed hard. A shiver went up my spine. “Me too.”

“Approach with caution,” he said, opening his door.

I did the same, my hand on my Glock. “Together, or do you want to go around the back?”

“Together.” He surveyed the house, frowning. “I don’t want one of us being taken off guard.”

I nodded, not speaking, watching his back and surveying the surrounding trees. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. It was quiet. Too quiet. The hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I crept closer to Ben. I might not like it, but he was my partner, and I’d be damned if something happened to him on my watch. As he went up the stairs to the porch, I noticed something I hadn’t seen from the driveway.

A stack of mail on the table beside the door.

Packages, flyers, letters. All untouched.

The hair on the back of my neck rose higher, and I stopped walking. “Ben.”

He glanced back at me, his eyes slightly wide. It wasn’t until his wide eyes registered with mine that I realized I’d used his first name for the first time since we’d been paired up. “Yeah?”

“Hold up.” I stepped closer. “We should call for back up.”

“Why?” he asked, frowning.

“I have a feeling. A bad one.”

I half expected him to make fun of me, or say something about how around here, they didn’t work on feelings, but facts. Instead, he surprised me. “I do, too. Unfortunately, I don’t think we need back up.”

“But…” I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Breathe deeply.”

Frowning, I did as told. Roses. Grass. Trees. And then… Oh, God. And then, I smelled it. “No.”

“Shit,” Ben muttered, walking closer and approaching the door carefully. “Think it’s one of them, or both?”

“I don’t know,” I said, breathing through my mouth, instead of my nose, but it didn’t help. Now that I’d smelled it, there was no unsmelling it. “Should we call for backup just in case?”

He shook his head, his gaze on the front window as he removed his hand from the butt of his pistol. “No need.”

Even though it was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, I approached, looking through the window, also. There they were—two bodies in varying stages of decomposition. There was no mistaking the fact that they were both dead. Very dead. Liz lay to the left of her husband, her shirt covered with dried up blood on her chest. There was a line of blood across the floor, as if she might have tried to crawl away but ultimately failed. While her husband had a clean shot to his left temple, with no signs of having lived long enough to hit the floor.

That wasn’t fair.

He deserved far worse than instant death.

My stomach rebelled, and I gasped a breath, turning around and bending over to breathe slowly, steadily, through my mouth. In. Out. In. Out. As I focused on my breathing, Ben called the station, informing the Captain that they were both D.O.A. It was not the news either one of us had hoped to share, but that was part of the job. Having to share the worst possible news…

At the worst possible time.

I glanced over my shoulder again, breathing heavily, my eyes locked on the couple inside the home. This case hit way too close to home—especially considering what we’d been talking about on the ride here. All I could think, besides the fact that this never, ever should have happened, was…

That could have been me.