Lauren

October 2015

 

 

I hadn’t known what to think when I woke up alone in Mike’s bed. I’d been more than a little disoriented and convinced that I was late for work.

The confusion hadn’t lessened once I remembered that I’d quit in spectacular fashion either. Mike should’ve been here, and if he’d gone somewhere, he should’ve left a note.

Right?

I’d wandered from room to room, searching for a scrap piece of paper that would give me some clue as to his whereabouts. When his phone rang once before clicking over to voicemail, I began to suspect that I’d made a huge mistake.

I’d trusted him. Just willingly handed it over. It left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Morning turned to afternoon and after several more unanswered phone calls, I made the decision to drive my busted-up BMW back to Torch’s.

“Mijita, it’s the little mice. Your favorite.” Abuelita patted my foot through the blanket and pointed at the screen before telling Torch, “LoLo loved this movie so much when she was a little girl.”

I frowned and stared at the television screen. It was Cinderella and for the life of me, I couldn’t recall why we were watching it. “Um, Abuelita? You met me when I was seventeen.”

Torch took another handful of popcorn from the bowl and watched our exchange with an amused expression.

She huffed, “You let me have this, LoLo. You are my only granddaughter—if I want to imagine that you loved Cinderella as a niña, humor me. I am nothing but an old woman now.”

Torch began chuckling, but stopped once she looked at him. “Her guilt trips are some of the best I’ve seen.”

I snuggled further into the couch, with the blanket up to my neck. “Can we watch something else? Like a grown-up show?”

Torch flipped it to one of the local channels where a baseball game was being aired. Abuelita immediately began questioning everything about the sport, so he was forced to explain. She bickered with him over why a strike meant someone was out.

“A strike is an action, Dave. If he gets the strike, it should mean he hits the ball far away.”

I dozed off to the sound of his laughter. My dreams were disjointed; filled with farmers, handcuffs, and roosters that could play baseball. I woke with a start when my phone vibrated against my thigh. Seeing that it was just a news alert, I almost dismissed it until the name caught my eye.

“Torch, find me a news channel.” Abuelita narrowed her eyes and put her crocheting down on her lap, so I amended, “Please.”

“Terrifying news coming out of Colorado tonight. Just one day after police identified the body found in Cherry Creek as that of model, Christine Stevens, another model was held at gunpoint in her own home.

“Katya Egorichev is safe after alleged stalker, Lee Watkins broke into her home. She escaped with a broken wrist and concussion and is recovering at an undisclosed location tonight.”

They went on to cover Katya’s kidnapping and stalking before going live to Colorado. Mike filled the screen and it was like a knife twisting in my gut.

Why are you there?

Why didn’t you tell me?

Torch reached over and squeezed my thigh. “It’s okay, kid.”

I nodded as Abuelita looked up in awe. “LoLo, that looks like your man. Sí?”

I pointed to the caption at the bottom of the screen with a forced smile. “See that, Abuelita? Detective Michael Sullivan, Lubbock PD. It looks like him because it is him.”

She nodded and went back to crocheting, while I stared desperately at the screen, needing answers. He hadn’t faked things with me; he said that. So, why was he in Colorado, refusing to take my calls?

“I can confirm that the decedent was in possession of some jewelry belonging to Christine Miller, along with a wallet and college ring belonging to Landon Scott,” Mike said as he looked directly into the camera and my blood ran cold.

He’d killed again.

His eyes looked the same way they did after I confronted him about Landon.

“I’m pretty tired. I think I’m just going to turn in.” Neither of them said anything other than “goodnight” as I stood up and stretched before heading back to my bedroom.

I stripped out of my jeans and found a pair of sweats, suddenly chilled to the bone. Then I buried myself under the comforter and considered what it meant that he hadn’t told me about this as I drifted into a restless sleep.

Sometime after midnight, a warm body slid into bed behind me. I recognized the smell of him immediately and my chest tightened. He pulled my back to his front and laced his fingers through mine.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“How did you get in?”

He shifted closer to me and yawned. “Gloria. Apparently, the woman never sleeps. I took the last flight out of Denver—I had to see you.”

I turned my head to look up at him. “Did—did that man kill the other girl?”

He nodded and ran his thumb across my knuckles. “Yeah, he also sent Katya the letters. I guess he wanted her to think that Landon was back—never realizing that it would’ve been impossible.”

I squeezed his fingers. “Then you did the right thing.”

He sighed, his breath warm against my cheek. “Red, as far as the world is concerned, he was dead when I got there.”

I rolled over until I was facing him. “I saw your eyes, Michael Sullivan. You can lie to them, but not to me.”

He stiffened. “How can you even look at me?”

I frowned. “You did what had to be done. I’m not going to lie; I thought that you’d had second thoughts when I couldn’t get ahold of you, but then I saw the news. You kept Katya safe, Mike.”

He shook his head and clenched his jaw. “I didn’t go up there to kill Lee, Lauren. And I ignored your calls so that you didn’t go down with me.”

“Who did you go up there to kill?” I felt like I knew the answer, but it didn’t make sense.

His heart beat against my shoulder and knew that he was bracing himself for me to run. “When I woke up yesterday morning, all I could think about was how perfect it was between us. Then I got word that TMZ was running a story on Katya, where she admitted that Landon had been dead all along—”

I interrupted. “So, you thought that killing her would fix that?” My voice had gotten higher and I worked to lower it again before Abuelita burst in, needing details.

He sat up and moved away from me. “Lauren, the department had launched an investigation. All of a sudden, no one believed that I didn’t know what happened to Landon that night. Everything I’d worked for was going up in flames and I thought if she was gone, then maybe it would balance everything back out.”

I closed my eyes. It didn’t fit—Mike wasn’t a coldblooded killer. It wasn’t him. Then again, I’d thought that his father seemed like someone with a lot of heart. Maybe that was the thing with Sullivan men; they were very skilled at hiding their true selves.

Mike continued, “Even after I found out Lee was responsible, I’d planned on neutralizing the threat.”

“Neutralizing the threat? Does saying it like that make you sleep better at night?” I thought of Katya and all that she’d endured and it left me sick, knowing that Mike had come close to ending her life.

His hands rested on top of his head. “No! Jesus, Lauren. I—I couldn’t do it. Do you want to know why?”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure that I did.

“Because when I was a kid, I swore that I was going to be one of the good guys, and I realized that I was the furthest thing from it. Katya’s boyfriend risked his life tonight to keep her safe and then there was me—so scared of the truth coming out, that I’d been ready to end an innocent person’s life. A fucking coward with a gun.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to my chest. “Mike, you’re not a coward. You’re a good man.”

He shook his head and I wasn’t sure whether he was disagreeing or burrowing into the space between my breasts. “I’m not,” he said in a muffled voice. “Not yet. But I want to be that for you and, more importantly, for myself.”

I rubbed his back. “Why didn’t you answer my calls? I would’ve helped you.”

Mike moved back and looked up at me. “Why didn’t I answer your calls? Because, Red, I didn’t want you going down with me if it all fell apart. Let’s face it, I’ve dragged you into enough of my shit.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “Dragged me into it? I’m pretty sure I found most of it all on my own. Apparently, asking the biker camped out in your work parking lot who the fuck he thinks he is a bad idea. As is barging into a biker bar and demanding to speak to people too.”

This time it was Mike who pulled me into his arms. “A biker was watching you at work? When? Who was he?”

I inhaled deeply. He smelled like aftershave and firewood. It was nice. I realized by the way his hands dug into my skin that he was worked up and needed me to calm him down before he snapped. “I don’t know who he was. He had the leather vest like the guys, but they said he wasn’t with them. Maybe he’s with the other biker gang. I don’t know—it doesn’t even matter, to be honest. You’re not responsible for my choices though, Tex. You trying to keep me out of it further proves what I’ve known was true—that you are a good man, Mike. Even if you can’t see it yourself.”

He gripped my hip tightly in his hand. “Move in with me.”

“What?” I whispered back, certain that I’d misheard.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I asked you to move in with me.”

He’d given me his secrets; the parts of him that no one else had. Now, he was offering me the one thing I’d yearned for—a safe place to call my own. His arms to fall into every night.

He was my home.

I bit down on the corner of my lip, even as it turned up into a small smile. “Okay.”

“Good lord, Lauren. How many more of these is he gonna have us do?” Elizabeth panted from the mat beside me.

I ever so slightly turned my head toward her. “What? It’s good for your core.”

She dropped out of planking position and onto the mat with a thud. “I just had a baby ten months ago. I’m not sure I should be doing all this to my core yet. That C-section was hard on me.”

I exhaled a short burst of laughter before rolling onto my side to face her. “Nice try, Greene. Jimmy isn’t going to let you get out of this now.”

She picked her face up off the mat and glared at me. “I hate you. You know I walked out the same day you did. Solidarity and all, and this is how you repay me?”

She had. I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d only dropped to part-time to appease me. Her heart was with Kaden so, once I was gone, she was gone.

“I know you did and I swear that I am not trying to kill you,” I replied with a grin.

“Are we ready for the next thing?” Jimmy asked, cheerily, as he walked back over to us. I found myself wondering if he had his gun on him right now. Ever since the car incident, he’d insisted that I not work out alone.

Elizabeth gave a fake cry of protest. “Jimmy, is it supposed to feel like my abdominal muscles are going to fall out of my belly button?”

His eyebrows knitted together. “When did you have your son?”

“December, but I had to have an emergency cesarean because—” she paused. “Um, because he came early.”

She still couldn’t talk about it. Even after months of therapy. I couldn’t say that I blamed her.

Jimmy was quiet for a few seconds before responding with, “You know, you could have some abdominal wall separation, so let’s try some less invasive ab exercises for now.”

“Jimmy,” I stage whispered. “If you’re not careful, they’re going to try and offer you a job here.”

He laughed it off, but I still wasn’t sure what it was he did for a living. It was nine-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, but he didn’t act like he had anywhere else to be. I’d asked him once and he’d just given me a strange look before asking why I was trying to get out of my workout.

While they worked on modified core exercises, I took the opportunity to fill my water bottle at the drinking fountain.

“Lauren?”

I turned around, just as Jimmy leaned in. We ended up doing some awkward moves that made it appear as if we were debating whether or not to kiss each other.

“Jesus, Jimmy. What are you doing?”

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just wondering why I know that you’re moving in with Mike, but your best friend over there thinks that I’m dating you and wants to know when the four of us can all go out together.”

I inhaled sharply, sucking the water that was in my mouth into my lungs. My eyes began streaming as I coughed and sputtered. “What?”

He pounded my back several times. “Yeah, Elizabeth thinks we look so good together. I know why you haven’t told Mike about us—and I get it. But, she’s your best friend. Why doesn’t she know?”

I was going to tell her, just as soon as things settled down. Once we’d moved in together and gotten into a routine, then I’d invite them over for dinner and jokingly admit that Mike and I couldn’t stay away from each other.

Moving in together was a big step and I didn’t want to invite anyone into our relationship until I was sure that we were on solid ground.

Soon though.

Soon, I would shout it out to the entire world.