ID HE DO it? All I knew for certain was the dull weight that sat like a lump of lead in my heart. That and the twist in my stomach when I saw him stumble out of the back door of that house. Peering around, groggy. With the gun in his hand. Even then, when I had no idea what had happened inside, I knew right away there was something wrong with that picture.
The precision sidearm that he carried in his neatly tailored holster was not a blundering about in the dark kind of a weapon no more than Horse was a blundering about in the dark kind of a man. Not a man like Horse. Not a trained and experienced serviceman, who had recently been on active duty in special ops. Something was wrong.
Could that something have been the shock of the crime he just committed? It could have been. It was very unlikely, but not impossible.
As the facts came to light, the killings, the theft, the trail of evidence, I grew sicker and sadder, and I stayed away from the investigation. There wasn’t anything I could usefully add.
‘I know this man and it just doesn’t seem like something he would do,’ was the kind of thing that people said in old cop shows. But if I said it to a colleague, they’d report it and recommend me for a psych evaluation.
But I did stay informed about the crimes, and about the investigation. And I was sure that he didn’t do it. Don’t ask me how, but I knew. That’s all I’ll say about it.
All the time he that was inside, I requested visits. He refused every time.
He would have gotten ten to fifteen at least if the barrel of his gun hadn’t gone missing from the evidence locker. He probably knew that, but I couldn’t ever be sure, obviously.
Just as I’d feared, when Damian Crane, my SAC, caught wind of me taking an interest in Horse’s case, he called me into his office.
He sat on the corner of his desk. For him, that was shockingly informal. The equivalent of Crane ‘relaxing’ would probably involve him undoing a button on his suit coat.
He peered down at me. I felt like I needed somewhere to hide but I tried not to show it.
“Agent Cross, you have no reason to be pursuing that case. You should know that it could look bad on your file. Now, if there’s something you need some clarification on, or if you have unresolved issues that you’re having difficulty in coming to terms with, well, maybe I can offer some help.”
There wasn’t anything I could tell him. Certainly nothing that wouldn’t get me straight into a disciplinary hearing at the very least.
He moved a little closer.
“It isn’t known outside this office, Agent Cross, but I am aware that you had some…” he paused. His face was stone. I couldn’t read anything about what he was turning over in his mind. “I believe it’s possible,” he said, “that you met with the prisoner on the night before his arrest.”
My poker face had to work hard not to react to that. I hadn’t told anyone about that night. Not at the time, or in the months afterwards. Crane hadn’t ever mentioned it before. I wondered where the hell this was leading.
“The case was simple enough, wasn’t it? Robbery double homicide? The stolen goods weren’t recovered but that my not be so surprising.” He reached behind him and lifted a folder from the desk.
“Do you imagine some connection between the felon and our investigation here?” He flicked a look up at me, like he already had his answer, like it didn’t matter.
“The case at hand is likely to be entering a very difficult phase and you’re going to need to give it your full attention, Agent Cross. Your mind will have to be clear and very focussed.” Now he skewered me with a long, hard, searching stare.
“I need to know that you have your mind right, Agent Cross. If you need it, I can arrange for some counseling for you. Privately. Not a Bureau doctor. You can have complete confidentiality. If you need it.” His head tilted as his eyes bored harder into mine.
Crane’s lip tightened. “You only have to say. Whatever this investigation needs, Vesper, I’m going to make sure that it gets it.” He sprang off the desk and bent to put his face in front of mine. I controlled my breathing carefully.
He spoke quietly. “Tell me what you need, Vesper.” And he waited. “If it turns out that you did need something and you neglected to say it,” his eyes narrowed, “That would be on you. If you’re withholding something from me, Agent Cross, now is your best time to say.” He straightened up. “It could be your last chance, too.”
I had my reasons for keeping up my interest in Horse. Some of them were definitely professional. And some were distinctly not.
While he was in jail, I thought that him refusing to see me, however much it made me ache, would help the memory to fade. The press of his hot breath in the darkness. The sudden rise in my scent as my hips lifted to his mouth. The press of his lips against my petals. The point of his tongue as it flicked around my buzzing clit. The flutter of my pussy around his impossibly long tongue.
In bed, alone, every night, I read and read. I read reports, I read history, I read economic theory. Anything that would make my eyelids close. Still when I shut off the light, exhausted, the memory was waiting. The weight of him as he rose onto me. The tender force as he opened me and broke in. The clenching spasms in my thighs as I welcomed him, like a girl, late at night when the house is asleep, letting in a burglar, just to see what would happen.
I don’t think I got a decent night’s sleep in all those five long years.