Mitch

I held Stella on the couch until late into the night. She wore an old Red Wings jersey of mine, having forgotten to pack anything to sleep in. It hung to her knees and somehow she managed to make it look sexy. The V-neck hung just low enough I could see the curve of her breasts. It took everything in me not to reach under the hem and cup her perfect, ample ass. As much as I knew I had to reign it in, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it felt like to be inside of her. It was just the one time. That’s all it could be, but it felt so good, so right. It also tore my guts apart. Touching her, being with her like that. I’d violated every code there was. Dead or alive, she belonged to Brian. It didn’t mean she could never be with another man, but that man shouldn’t have been me.

God, just the thought of that. Stella with anyone else. Rage and jealousy rose within me, followed by one simple phrase, over and over again. Mine. She’s mine. I tried to push those thoughts away.

She’d finally fallen asleep in my lap. She’d cried so hard into my shoulder my shirt was still drenched from it. I’d wished there had been a gentler way to tell her the news that would break her heart. The old man was alive and hanging on, but it didn’t look good. He’d been lucky. The shot tore through his shoulder, shattering the bone and shredding most of the muscle. It collapsed his lung but it missed the major arteries. They could rebuild it, piece by piece. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The trauma gave the old man a massive stroke. He was stable, but unconscious. The doctors told his son if he survived the night, they’d know a lot more come morning. Stella pleaded with me to take her to the hospital. But the shooter was still out there somewhere. She was still at risk. She relented only when I told her she might be putting the old man in harm’s way again if they were waiting for her to show up.

So we’d reached a compromise. She’d stay put tonight. Tomorrow morning, I had two uniformed officers coming in to take her to the hospital in a squad car. They had instructions to stick to her like glue. That meant they’d follow her into the restroom if need be. Stella didn’t like it, but she agreed. It killed me not to be able to go with her, but I needed to get to the office and follow through with the investigation. A text from Agent Caulkins came in late last night. He wanted a meeting. As much as I wanted to stay by her side, I could do her more good bringing down the asshole that did this to her.

And there was something else I needed to do first to try and get my head straight.

She was still asleep when the uniformed crew knocked on my door. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw who it was. Officer Lori Walling and Pete Smalls. Both solid. If I could have handpicked anyone to stay with Stella other than myself, it would be these two.

Stella stirred on the couch as I opened the door. She gave me a sheepish smile and yawned as she stood up. God. I realized how this must look. Walling and Smalls betrayed nothing, standing rod straight in the hallway. Lori stepped forward and introduced herself, calling Stella ma’am and shaking her hand.

“I’ll catch up with you in a few hours,” I said over Lori’s head. I tried to make myself sound detached and professional. The tiny twitch at the corner of Stella’s mouth told me my attempt at a stern tone had the opposite effect. Plus, I couldn’t take my eyes off her bare legs. The jersey hung just above her knees and I knew she wore nothing beneath it. I coughed, clearing my throat, then gave her a grim nod. Fuck. This was bad. The last thing I needed was the churn of the Northpointe PD rumor mill. Luckily, I was pretty sure neither Walling or Smalls would gossip. It’s one of the other reasons I liked them so much. I grabbed my suit jacket from the closet and headed out the door.

We had a meeting scheduled with the task force at ten. That gave me an hour to deal with the other business I had on my mind. Going a little faster down the city streets than I should have, I pulled into Ken Bardwell’s office parking lot. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. I pressed my forehead against my fist and got out of the car.

Ken was waiting for me in the lobby, his receptionist gone.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

Ken smiled and waved me into his inner office. “You said it was an emergency. Come on in and have a seat.”

I didn’t know how to do this. Since I left Stella’s side, I was so keyed up I couldn’t stop moving. Ken gestured for me to take the seat facing the door, but I needed to pace. My heartbeat thundered, not knowing how to start.

“Mitch?” Ken said. He gave up waiting for me to sit down and took a seat himself. “You wanna tell me what’s got you jumping out of your skin or should I start guessing?”

“I don’t know.” Now that I was here, this was starting to feel like a bad idea. It’s just, ever since I’d lost control with Stella, I felt, well, out of control. Like I didn’t trust my own thoughts. I needed my head sharp if I was going to protect her and end the threat against her once and for all.

“Mitch!”

I let out a hard breath and turned to him. “I’ve done something I can’t take back. And the thing is … fuck … I don’t know what the thing is. I just know that it’s got me feeling unmoored somehow.”

“Okay. Well, help me out. What did you do?”

“Stella.” I blurted it. On the way over here I’d come up with a thousand ways to tell this story. Ways that might minimize what it was. No big deal. Physical. Except it wasn’t. The earth had shifted on its axis for me and I damn well didn’t know how to deal with it.

“You did Stella?”

He meant it as a joke, I guess. And I’d kind of walked right into it. But when I turned and Ken saw the expression on my face, he knew he’d hit on it. His face fell for an instant, then he quickly recovered.

“What happened?” he asked.

I tried to explain it. My words failed me. There was no way to get through this that didn’t make me sound like I’d taken advantage of her. So I told him about the shooting at her house. Ken whistled low.

“She’s okay?”

I nodded. “Physically. Yeah. Thank God. Her neighbor might not make it. It’s bad, Ken.”

He asked questions about the investigation. The right ones. Things that put me at ease again and grateful that I wasn’t dealing with someone who’d need me to walk him through my shorthand. It occurred to me halfway through that was probably part of his therapist training. He focused my attention away from the emotional bombshell I’d just set off in my life, at least for a few minutes.

“So,” he finally said. “Tell me how you feel, Mitch. About Stella.”

I’d stopped pacing but still couldn’t sit down. I gripped the chair back tight. “What do you want me to say, it’s Stella. She’s …” I had no words for it.

“Everything,” Ken answered for me.

I nodded slowly. That was exactly it. She was everything.

“How bad is this?” I asked.

Ken smiled. “You tell me.”

“It could ruin everything. It’s Stella. Jesus, Ken. She was Brian’s fiancé. This goes against everything I believe in. I swore on my life to him that I’d take care of her if anything ever happened to him. You know how it goes.”

“No. You tell me, Mitch. How does it go?”

“He was like my brother. You don’t fuck your brother’s wife, Ken. No matter what.”

“Well, they weren’t married. He’s not your brother. And Brian’s gone. What does Stella have to say about all of that?”

I started pacing again. “She doesn’t know what to think. And it’s not on her. It’s on me.”

“You mean you forced her?” Ken wasn’t serious, but I froze again. He put a hand up and tried again. “What I mean to say is, she obviously wanted it too.”

“That’s not the point. It was my job to protect her. Not the other way around. I could have stopped it.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

“What? No. Jesus. Stop answering me with questions. You know how much I hate that.”

“Okay. But I’ve got to ask another one. Sorry, I’ve got to fill a quota, remember?” He gave me a smartass grin. I shot him a scowl then finally sat in the chair across from him.

“What?”

“What do you want from me?”

I reared back. “What do you mean, what do I want from you? Advice, man. Tell me what to do.”

“You don’t want advice. You want permission.”

“Fine. Yes. Whatever. Give me permission. Tell me I haven’t made the biggest mistake of my life and fucked everything up for good.”

Ken sighed. “Look, I can’t do any of that and you know it. What I can do is look at this objectively. You’re my patient. Not Stella. And you’re on the brink, man. I say that to you as a professional psychologist, and as a career homicide detective. I’ve seen this before. Hell, I’ve been this before.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, you’re hanging on by a very thin thread and you know it. This is a dangerous time for you. A critical time. And last week you made a breakthrough. You’re on the road to finally forgiving yourself for what you perceive as your role in Brian’s death. Then, the first chance you get, you find another way to start feeling guilty where he’s concerned.”

“You think I fucked Stella to punish myself?”

Ken shook his head. “I wouldn’t put it that way. No. And is that what you did?”

“Come on, man, this is me. Don’t get flowery with me.”

“And you know what I mean. Was it fucking or was it something else? I know the difference. Do you?”

I wanted to toss the damn chair across the room. I suppose that urge was exactly what landed me in Ken’s office in the first place.

“I know I wanted her.” The words flew out of my mouth. A fair amount of rage came with it. I tore my hands through my hair. “I wanted her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand to see her hurting. I couldn’t stand not touching her. And she said … she said something about wishing she’d never come back to town. I don’t know. It made me desperate. I didn’t want to think about her not being here. I don’t think I could live like that again.”

“Live like what?”

I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t breathe. My heart rose into my throat. My palms sweat and my collar felt tight. The lights seemed to fade in and out. Even sitting, I got dizzy and the room started to sway.

“Mitch?”

I put a hand up. I needed air. I needed to punch something.

“Breathe,” he said. Ken went to a small square refrigerator behind his desk and pulled out a water bottle. “Drink this.” He handed it to me. I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling when I took it from him.

I squeezed the thing so hard I’m surprised it didn’t explode in my hand. With shaky fingers I unscrewed the cap and gulped down cool, fresh water. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I nodded. “A little. What the fuck was that?”

Ken sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “I’d say that was the beginnings of a full-blown panic attack, my friend. You get those often?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well, good. That’s something.”

“What do I do? How do I stop myself from feeling like this?”

Ken’s smile infuriated me. “Mitch, you gotta slow down.”

“I can’t afford to. Not with this new task force and what’s going on with Stella. I have to see it through. She needs me.”

“I get that. And I’m not going to sit here and blow smoke up your ass by telling you I wouldn’t do the same thing. If someone I loved were in the crosshairs of something like that, I’d move heaven and earth to protect them.”

I squeezed the cap on the water bottle and rested it on my knee. “Exactly.”

“But you’re at a crossroads. I’ve seen this a million times and have been on the other end of it. There’s no medium button with you, Mitch. You’re either numb to the world or you’re on fire. And right now, you’ve been on fire for weeks. If it doesn’t kill you, it’s going to destroy you. You’re going to make a career-ending mistake like you did with Judge Pierce or worse.”

I curled my fists against my knees and stared straight ahead. “I know the job, Ken. This doesn’t affect the work. This never affects the work.”

He cocked his head. “Everything affects the work.”

“You telling me I’m a liability? Fuck you.”

“No, I’m telling you everyone has a breaking point. And you’re perilously close to yours.”

I shook my head. I ran a hand across my forehead; it came away damp. God, I was soaked.

“This girl,” he said. “Stella. Perfect example. You care about her. She obviously cares about you too. Deeply. It could mean something. It could be something. I don’t know. But you couldn’t even approach that in moderation. You’re with her alone for five minutes, and well …”

I shook my head. He was right. The bastard. I hated him just then. “It was more than five minutes.” I meant it as a joke. It didn’t fly.

“Mitch, you’re asking all the wrong questions. You think you want permission or advice. But that’s not really why you came here. That’s not why you dragged me out of bed on my day off.”

I looked up. A weight settled over my shoulders, dragging me down so that I could barely move.

“What’s the answer, Ken? Huh? Yoga? Xanax? Whatever it is. Tell me and I’ll do it. Just help me.”

“Help you what, Mitch?”

“Help me stop feeling like I’m drowning all the time.”

He put a hand on my knee. His eyes swam with dark knowledge. He knew where I was. He’d told me a thousand times he’d been there himself. I hated him a little for it even though I knew how much it mattered.

“Let go,” he said. “That’s the answer, Mitch. It’s not easy. But it’s the secret. You can’t save Brian. You can’t save the world. You can really only work on one little corner at a time and more often than not even that’s too fucked up. You do the best you can, then you let it go. The rest is up to the prosecutor or the judge or whatever higher power you believe in.”

“How did you do it? How did you learn to let go?”

Ken sighed. “I was on my third divorce before I figured that out and it’s a daily process. There’s no one answer. There’s no easy button.”

I flipped him off. Ken’s deep laughter vibrated through the room.

“Take a minute,” he said. “Take a step back. Work your case, yes. It’s important. But if you keep heading in this direction, it’s going to end badly. You’re not an alcoholic, but you’ve got an addiction that’s just as toxic. You’re addicted to the job, Mitch.”

“That’s horseshit and you of all people should know it.”

He wouldn’t give it up. “Mitch? How much vacation time do you have saved up? When’s the last time you took any?”

I clenched my jaw and looked straight ahead. Ken reached back and grabbed a file off his desk. “That was a rhetorical question, buddy,” he said, flipping open the file.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my ears, dipped in acid.

“You got about sixteen weeks, my friend. That’s got to be a department record. You know, if I wanted to, I could bench you. That’s one of the perks of my job. I can recommend some R & R and you’d have no choice but to take it.”

“Don’t, you son of a bitch. I told you. This thing with Stella …”

He put up a hand. “Save it. I said I could if I wanted to. Believe me, I’d be doing you a favor even if you hated me for it. For now though, let’s step things up to twice a week appointments, okay? And maybe a promise that you take one day off in the next week. Just one. Also, don’t knock yoga. It helps.”

He stood up and took a step toward me. He put a firm hand on my shoulder. It felt paternal. I bristled against it, then took a deep breath.

“You are a son of a bitch, you know that?”

Ken laughed. “I do, Mitch, I really fucking do.”