Chapter 1
The headquarters of the Portland Police Bureau were dark and silent. The only light came from Natalie Watson’s office as she leaned against her desk, her mind wandering as she fixed her gaze on the caution tape covering the broken window.
She'd pulled off a convincing performance tonight, but at what cost?
When Turner suggested the plan to catch the killer hiding in plain sight, she was hesitant at best. Her rage at being manipulated by her psychiatrist made her ready to do anything to make that bastard pay.
It disturbed her that she'd been used by someone hired by her own department. Fresh with anger, she agreed to the plan.
Now as she recalled everything that happened since then, including the things she'd admitted while presumably "breaking down", she couldn't help but wonder if maybe she was too convincing, because she was nearing that state herself.
Watson closed her eyes for a second, hoping for some relief, but all she saw behind closed lids were images from the past. Suppressed memories were fighting their way out of her subconscious ever since she realized that she could have killed and not even known it.
The actual act of killing the demented psychopath didn't bother her one bit. If anything, it gave her a bit of satisfaction. What terrified her was that she couldn't remember it, just like her father couldn't remember every single time he'd landed one of his sons in the hospital.
She'd been lucky to be a girl. For reasons she never knew, or maybe the fact that she reminded him of his dead wife, Watson's father never did any physical harm to her. Her brothers weren't as fortunate.
As each of her brothers' faces flashed before her eyes in various states of cuts and bruises, the memory proved to be too much. She opened her eyes, only to be met with the half-amused, half-concerned stare of Eric Turner.
"Thinking about something?" He asked with eyes trained on her from across the room. She blinked, startled by his appearance, but strangely not alarmed. His head of red curls couldted slightly and his blue eyes glinted with interest.
She didn't know what it meant, but despite how annoying, overbearing, and intruding he could be, Turner never made her uncomfortable. If anything, he made her feel safe, which set off warning bells in her head, because feeling safe had been a foreign feeling to her since she was 12 years old...since her mom died.
Even still, he had saved her life not three months ago...
"Natalie?"
She blinked again, raising an eyebrow this time, "Did you just call me Natalie?"
"You weren't responding to Watson," Turner explained, smiling softly as he stepped into the room and leaned against the desk besides her. She had seen so much of him lately, let him hypnotize her, let him into her apartment, into her personal sanctuary.
Yet when his shoulder brushed against hers, a shiver ran down her spine, followed by goosebumps,
Watson looked away, making sure the advisor didn't see the blush that spread over her cheeks otherwise she'd never hear the end of it. "What were you thinking about?"
She heard him this time, loud and clear. The cadence of his tone intimate and shiver inducing. When she looked at him again, his blue eyes the brightest spot in the dark office, the intensity of his gaze made her step back a little.
She wasn't sure how they could go from being playful and sarcastic around each other, to being silent and serious, but yet here they were. He waited for a response with a patient smile on his handsome face and Watson felt a stirring that she had not felt in years.
"Nothing," Watson said too quickly and Turner smiled to himself, observing her, and she felt scrutinized but oddly normal. She was used to his looks; it was the concern in his eyes, his closeness, and him calling her by her first name that she wasn't used to.
"Liar.”
"What are you going to do? Arrest me?" Watson smirked, walking to her chair to grab her jacket.
"I don't have handcuffs."
Watson let out a chuckle, "Did you leave them at home?"
Turner turned around, crossing his thick arms over his dark blue vest, "You've got a dirty mind, Natalie."
The detective rolled her eyes while putting on her jacket, "I have a dirty mind? I wasn't even thinking about what you're thinking I thought."
"How would you know what I thought you were thinking?"
Watson opened her mouth to respond, but then shut it, figuring it would be a lot easier to admit defeat than try to beat him, "Nevermind. Come on..." she motioned toward the door of her office as she shut off the table lamp.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere to celebrate. Somewhere that isn’t the office."
She wasn't sure why she was being so brave, but she was and she didn't question it.
"What makes you think I don't have any plans?" Turner deadpanned, but Natalie didn't even flinch.
"Well, let's see, it's ten on a Friday night and you were lurking around the office. It's safe to say whatever plans you had, mine are better."
"My, my, aren't you insightful?" He murmured, but his voice had a facetious tone to it and he was already following her to the door.
"Yeah, maybe I could be your apprentice?" She quipped as they stepped out of her office. He playfully nudged her on the way to the elevator and they were back to banter again.
The night was warm and quiet as they sat on her porch, working through a bottle of rye. Every time Turner took a sip, his lip curved a bit down and Natalie couldn't help but smile.
"You don't usually drink, huh?" she asked, breaking the silence.
"Am I that obvious?" He grimaced more openly, handing the bottle back to her.
"Kind of, but then again, it's whiskey." Watson pointed out, taking a lengthy pull herself, "It's supposed to taste like shit." she added and Turner sent her a bemused look.
"Tsk, tsk, Watson, trucker mouth." He teased good-naturedly as the brunette detective smirked, "You already said I had a dirty mind, I'm just fulfilling expectations."
"The two go together?" Turner queried and Natalie just shoved him lightly, "You know what I mean."
They elapsed into another round of silence, but this time the blonde advisor broke it, "So which one of your brothers played soccer?"
"Daniel, the oldest one." Natalie replied without thinking, but then backtracked, "Why'd you ask?"
"The jersey you were wearing, number 99 huh?" He recalled and saw the faint blush appear on his colleague's cheeks.
She looked away for a moment, but he smiled anyway.
He'd never tell her, but when he arrived at her house, she had opened the door in nothing but that jersey. Seeing her outside of work in nothing but that flimsy top that had barely grazed her smooth, tanned thighs had caused an unexpected physical stirring him that had been absent for years.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, his wedding band caught the porch light, glimmering, and he paused mid-sip, watching the ring almost taunt him with its prominence on his finger. He frowned as guilt washed over him. This was why he didn't interact with people outside of work, especially those he couldn't get out of his mind later on.
This is why he should not have overstepped professional boundaries and allowed himself to have drinks with the kind-hearted and beautiful woman beside him. Natalie Watson was dangerous. With just one peak into her life outside of the PPB he was already intrigued, not only intrigued but also concerned for her and he couldn't let these emotions blind him to his ultimate goal.
His main reason for even taking the advisor job was to catch the Red River Killer, avenge his family's murder and he couldn't veer off course. Natalie was about to reply, when Turner abruptly stood. Something had changed in the last minutes of silence, but she wasn't sure what it was.
She didn't possess psychic abilities, but she could read him perfectly at the moment, and her heart constricted unexpectedly when she realized he was trying to keep whatever was bothering him at bay.
"I have to go," He said without an explanation and she didn't push.
"Okay," Watson stood up as well, brushing off her jeans.
''Thank you for the drink," Turner motioned as he started to walk away.
"No problem." she nodded, watching him as he stood ambivalently on the last step of the porch.
He looked lost, but devastatingly handsome. His ginger curls and slightly too-formal attire made him look almost ethereal against the undisturbed dark of the night. On an impulse, she skipped a few steps and grabbed his hand.
"Thank you for helping clear my name today, if you ever need to talk, I'm here." She said, and before either of them realized what was happening, Natalie leaned in and pressed a soft, chadte kiss to his stubbled cheek.
The action spread unexpected warmth through his entire body and he tried his best not to flinch, knowing it would be misinterpreted by his guarded but sensitive colleague. "You’re welcome, I have to go now." He said softly, his lips a hairs breadth away from her face.
Their eyes met in the dark and Natalie nodded with a small smile, but Turner could see she was disappointed. He squeezed her hand before breaking apart, because anything more would have had him pulling her inside the house and never leaving. He couldn't do that...not yet anyway.
"Have a good night, Natalie." He murmured, before walking towards his car.
She leaned against the porch, taking a lengthy sip from the whiskey bottle as she watched him walk away, knowing that he'd be the death of her someday.
It was only when Eric was inside his car that he let the day's events sink in. As he braced his hands on the wheel, his wedding ring caught his eye again. He remembered his ultimate purpose. Looking up at Watson looking forlornly at his car from her porch. A familiar ache spread through his body, and he knew right then, that if he wasn't more careful around the agent, something would happen and he wasn't sure if he would survive the guilt.